Call A General Election Petition

Spot on. Things are fairly slow to decline, little things that go wrong in the short-term get forgotten, underinvestment gets papered over, NHS issues don't matter to many people at any particular time. People, sadly, dont join the dots and think historically or long-term. Too many people have the 'it is what it is' mantra and not enough have the 'it doesn't need to be like this' mantra. There's a selfishness, a lack of concern for society, an ambivalence and an apathy with too many people in my view. There's also big swathes of opinion easily influenced by right -wing, populist, easy-answer crap. Just my view.

 

Spot on. I thought I was one of them. Except when I strip things back I realised I do actually care about people. I've fell for the right wing crap and also felt ambivalence and apathy in equal measure. However, you have to realise that ambivalence and apathy are emotions. So you need to care in the first place to feel them.

 

They are definitely reactions and states of mind. I'm a left wing snowflake mate so I always try and approach things from a 'whats best for people who are struggling' perspective. I think about myself of course but I try to think long-term and what's happening overall to the country. I dont like to see the NHS on its knees for example. Dont like to see more and more food banks, kids who go hungry at school etc etc. There's too much of it for me and too many people really struggling. That's fundamentally why I'm left-wing and don't buy into right wing stuff. It divides us on purpose. Again it's my view. Many will disagree with me but that's where I am. We should look after one another, basically, and the Tories dont believe in that principle.

 

Nothing wrong with believing in fairies .

 

Good to hear that mate, was it tactical or are you now a fellow Green?
I voted tactically for Labour this time and the previous elections going back to 2015, I voted LibDem tactically in 2010. Never been able to vote Green except in council elections.

 

Wouldn't argue with you. But I would add that the vast majority of people only really think about politics when there's a general election. Also people remember the bad things; 5-hour waits in A&E, 6-month waiting lists and forget that those things didn't actually happen in 2010.

 

Sounds like a decent position to take up and is also mine. Just a shame the majority only seem to look after no 1.

 

I voted Libdem in 2010 too.

 

For the last 10-15 years I've increasingly become engaged with our environment and nature and even in that short time frame seen significant decline.

But I'd say its more complicated than just tagging a colour. There are positive and negative in all party priorities and also the backdrop of your own constituency. My constituency massively changed this time so I looked at the last election results for my new MPs old ward to look at who came second to Labour and was pleasantly surprised it was the Greens. I can't vote Labour because of their ridiculous stance of not at least joining the single market and customs union. They want growth, but won't join the things that will generate it in bucket loads!

Fair play to the Labour MP though, I'd actually messaged her during the campaign explaining why I was voting Green but wished her well and hoped we'd see the end of the tories. We've had pretty regular dialogue since and she's made some headway on issues I'd been flagging with councillors for the last 4 years.

But the single biggest issue the world has isn't being fixed and parties are lobbying harder to prevent the change we need. So Green will always be a strong option when I come to tick a box.

 

Out of interest how do they decide what constituency she sits in?

 

I used to be a Labour member but Blair's sucking up to Bush over Iraq put an end to that. Like you I've been looking at the world around me and seeing the decline in diversity and have grown more and more alarmed at the climate changes we are seeing so I joined the Greens. I don't really do any activism but have volunteered to do leafleting and exit polls a couple of times but hope that my membership and occasional additional donations might make a difference.

I'm also frustrated by Labour's hesitancy towards Europe but I think they are scared of losing votes to Reform. If I were them, I'd look at the other side of it and see how many voters would come to them from other parties if they had a more positive attitude to Europe. I think it will change but maybe in a year or two...

 

She's assigned to the constituency where she was last resident. Some other countries have 1 or more positions (depending on the number of registered non-resident voters) specifically representing the interests of citizens resident abroad, which seems to me to be a much better system.

 

If the Tories just took a line for Trump and pledged unrealistic immigration controls they would absorb Reform and likely smash the next election.

 

That's not true. Most tories stayed at home or defected to Lib Dems because of the tory pitch to the populist right. Badenoch looks unlikely to appeal to that group from her initial weeks.

 

The votes that reform took showed a clear shift to the right. As we are seeing in many countries.

 

If you look at 2019, Johnson did a deal with Farage to not stand against him. Incredibly the lordship for Farage didn't materialise. But the effect was the right wing vote stacked on the tories.

This year it unravelled and split. The centre right to left voted to get rid of the tories. Hence the huge gains by the Lib Dems and Labour and even a decent turn out for the greens.

The far right have been around for a long time and under Farage, that ilk can pretend they aren't what they are. There may be people who vote for that through ignorance, but theres a very sizeable number who will abandon any shift further to the right and not vote tory.

 

Reform UK are basically appealing to xenophobes and racists and these exist amongst supporter of both Labour and the Tories, hence why Reform were targeting seats like Barnsley South which is historically one of the safest Labour seats. Kemi's latest overtures to Reform to stand down at the next general election won't actually benefit the Tories that much. Based on the last GE, even the most optimistic outcome for the Tories was Labour being the biggest party but no overall majority. In reality Labour would still have won a majority.

Sorry if this makes little sense, I've been supping beer, cava and lastly gin so it's probably all rowlocks. G'night all.....

 

"If ignorance is bliss, then wipe the smile off my face"

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgmndllpz9o

 

If you think that proves your biased argument, inflation is usually targeted by activities two years prior. So let me know how inflation is doing in 2026/7.

By the way, you seem to have forgotten to outline who you voted for at the last GE despite being asked several times, Maybe you can take this opportunity to share.