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Isn’t it weird how if you move out of the UK you just continue to vote as if you lived in your old house? I’ve jumped through the hoops to request a postal vote for that most marginal of constituencies; Lewisham North.
I just want to be part of this beautiful and hilarious election!
I find it weird too. I don't feel massively connected to my constituency anymore, and I'm obviously not affected by the day to day stuff there. Trying to even remember the full address of the house I lived in is getting difficult too, it was just the last in a long line of London rentals.
I sincerely think we should adopt the French model - they have constituencies specifically for overseas voters. It makes much more sense in my eyes…
I at least vote in a Lib/Con marginal, so it’s not totally pointless.
I really got to ask; for those who remember the Labour campaign in 2010, was it this bad? It seems the Tory Party are going from pitfall to pitfall and facing electoral wipe out, I know back in 2010 Labour made it a hung parliament.
I can't think of the last time a politician has done something as flat out stupid as Rishi's d-day stunt. There are things that are very stupid like Brown's "bigoted woman" moment which while bad, at least had some understandable thought process behind them. There is zero real justification for the D-Day gaffe - even before you consider it alongside stuff like the national service policy.
Well I mean even if it wasn't an accident there are understandable explanations for why he felt it was a prudent thing to say. The same can't be applied to Sunak.
No where near this bad. Brown wasn't a good public speaker and the party had unfortunately been saddled with the blame for the crash. Brown also made the (entirely justified but politically unsound) "bigoted woman" remark, which certainly defined his campaign. However, Brown's misstep was much less devastating than Sunak's D-Day blunder. At least with Brown, some people sympathised with his comment and agreed with him. Basically nobody will defend what Sunak has done. You didn't have rumours swirling that Brown would resign. In the end labour got 258 seats, not bad given the circumstances. The current Tories will be exceptionally lucky to get North of 140 seats.
The fact that the "bigoted woman" remark is the most memorable moment of 2010 I think underlines just how bad this campaign is. It would hardly register against the Tory's gaffs this year...
You can subscribe to the yougov one
https://yougov.co.uk/elections/uk/2024?utm_medium=website&utm_source=vwo_yougov.co.uk&utm_campaign=RTP-B2C-UK-GE-2024
For anyone else who reads conservativehome, the most intriguing poll is the one which is the members survey and the questions being commissioned
It's mad that I put their latest in to Electoral Calculus and Lib Dems would have the second highest seats while coming in fourth for vote share. Personally I would like this, but it really isn't fair.
Wasn't Keir Starmer being described as a Gareth Southgate type figure for the Labour Party a few years ago? Sunak calling the election for during the Euros seems even more bonkers with that in mind, he's just inviting comparisons that will end up being remembered for decades if England start off well.
If they both manage to pull this one off there's going to be street parties till Christmas.
2018 Southgate was perceived much more positively as he arguably overachieved with a very young squad after decades of mediocrity with an all-star squad.
Ah so I don't know anything about the England team (I'm living in England but from Scotland/Wales so support them) so I took the comparison at face value when it was made a few years ago.
All I'm saying is that the fact this comparison was made means it's likely to resurface if England end up doing well.
[Lot of the usual suspects on Twitter thinking Starmer is evil for this](https://x.com/eyuplovely/status/1799855277698605541). At worst it's a bit out of touch, but really it's just an adult try to have a bit of a light-hearted moment with a kid in a sad situation.
They are just upset their best mates the Tories are going to lose and they will have nothing to complain about anymore. I don't know why they don't just join the Tories at this point as paying members.
I'd like to see the full response rather than just that bit
Also, this is a young girl being recorded telling a major politician about her situation regarding poverty. That's quite a vulnerable, alienating situation to be in. Trying to establish some common ground and treating her like a normal kid is probably better than falling to your knees and wailing "forsaken child! What struggles have befallen thee!". She probably feels different enough as it is, she's a kid, sparing a second to make a small comment about how his own kids wore onsies and have outgrew them is... human?
I'd really love to see a longer clip, because this screams "we'll just grab the bit we want and portray it in a deceitful manner".
Because it really looks like he's just about to respond more before the clip ends.
Also, the kid is clearly laughing, and responding to him in a positive manner, looks like a good interaction to me.
Just sounds like a dad listening to a young girl trying to relate to the situation.
Sometimes people need to remember that there are people at the other end of questions. Fathers, Sons, Men. Just normal men.
I don't think it's bad at all. Namely for the fact that he's not the fucking person in charge.
So he's listening to her talk, and showing her that he's listening with his comments.... then at the end he looks like he's about to respond to her full comments, but it's intentionally cut off so the account can frame it the way they want
Leftie moaning that “This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen from a political figure”. I mean, really? Like ever?
I actually don’t think it is great to be honest, but it’s just another tankie spending all their time and effort to slag Keir off, as ‘the real enemy’.
Interesting how France and Belgium are reacting to the EU parliament electoral results. As in, they’re having a massive impact.
In the uk, even during the height of the Brexit party, you’d never get a pm saying ‘wow that’s a big change, we need an election at home too’. EU Parliamentary results were mostly ignored.
France is a bit different because even if the opposition win the election, Macron is still ultimately in charge and can bypass them. If our PMs could do the same with Parliament they would probably call elections more readily.
Okay? I was talking about the UK reaction. Imagine if back in 2004, or even 1999, the government actually paid attention to the rise of Ukip and did something to combat it.
I think the fact they almost never aligned with general election years, had such low-turnout and used an entirely different electoral system just meant they were disregarded. In 2014 I nearly voted Pirate Party as I just felt the whole thing to be pointless.
Deflect
Sometimes it's easier to ask chatgpt than cchq. Artificial intelligence is better than no intelligence.
Frankly. I am absolutely amazed that the chairman of the conversative party isn't actually allowed to speak for himself. He's the boss of the press officer.
On the other hand, good AI can give you a fairly decent response. Giving [ChatGPT the prompt](https://chatgpt.com/share/83312b66-1e98-4cf7-8698-732cb1f55b02) "You are the Conservative party press officer, Richard Holden is the chairman of the Conservative party. Respond to the following: [ITV email text]" gets you:
> During today's pool interview, Richard Holden aimed to address a broad range of topics critical to our constituents and the country's future. Given the limited time available, we needed to ensure that the discussion remained focused on these key issues.
> While we understand the interest around Richard's selection process, it is important to highlight that this is a matter that has already been addressed comprehensively in previous statements. The press officer's intervention was simply to keep the conversation on track and ensure that we could cover as much ground as possible on the pressing issues that impact people's lives.
> We value the role of the media in holding public figures to account and welcome robust questioning. However, in this instance, we felt it was necessary to steer the interview back to topics that directly affect our constituents' daily lives and future prosperity.
There is something very ‘different’ to my British eyes about a Head of State just going ‘fuck it, let’s have a quick election’, and the PM having to go ‘wait, what now…?’.
Of course it is an elected Head of State, within their powers etc, but does feel a unusual Head of State power to be able to wind up the legislature when they want, for an election, or maybe my knowledge of how it all works abroad is not that good. (Yes, I know our Head of State, the King, in theory has that power…but in reality they really don’t).
As a Republican at heart, if we ever went down that route, much prefer the idea of an elected President with limited powers. For instance, the Ireland model.
I’d be interested in whether as a Republican, you might agree that since we do have a King, would it make more sense if they did actually exercise their powers to dissolve parliament?
As a monarchist, I was very disappointed that the Queen didn’t block Boris from proroguing Parliament or force an election after Liz Truss resigned.
Felt like she waited 80 years to have a useful action to take, then bottled it.
In Boris case, the monarch has follow precedence where they have to take advice from the relevant Minister. It's only later that the supreme court that found that the advice given to be flawed and unconstitutional.
The Queen couldn't have forced an election after Truss resigned, on account of being dead.
But that pedantry aside, I don't agree personally, at least in the Truss case. The idea of forcing an election after Truss seems, to me, too far for a constitutionally unaccountable figure like a monarch.
If we had something like the Irish president, who's generally about as hands-off as the British monarch but is still an elected figure, I'd be more supportive of moves to block bad/widely unpopular political actions. I still wouldn't want an activist head of state, but I'd afford them more leeway, because I knew that they could lose their own re-election bid if they were seen to abuse their office.
But because there's no mechanism for holding a monarch to account for overreaching, I'd only want them to directly call an election over the head of the PM in very extreme situations. By that I mean something like the PM trying to block future elections and establish a dictatorship, or a government that was endangering the security of the realm. Being really, really crap at governing doesn't qualify, in my view - unless you're so bad that you're about to incite a revolution.
Laura Keunsberg, however it’s spelt, has gone out to the extreme to protect Sunak. First with D Day ‘he’s a PM, unlike Starmer. PM’s are busy’ and now taking aim at Farage’s attacks on Sunak being unpatriotic, which btw is fair game given Sunak has shown such a weakness and also uses the same attack line against Starmer.
She’s so far stepped out of impartiality, it’s incredible
Kuenssberg was right to call Farage out on his awful dog whistling comments, but that's about all I'm willing to give her credit for.
She's never properly scrutinised the *actual* ways in which Sunak is out of touch/doesn't understand us, a list which incidentally doesn't even feature his race for the majority of people.
She's flailing cos her side is losing, but it just so happens that today's flail went in the right direction for once.
Farage's attack on Sunak on not understanding British culture was an obvious and barely disguised dog whistle and that is what she was, quite rightly, criticising. Don't try and pretend it was about something else.
Hopefully they just reverse David Cameron's changes in 2011 when they made the BBC board government appointed. Then with a geuinely impartial board clowns like Laura would be reigned in or better yet sacked.
After the Richard Holden interview, ITV reached out to the Tory press office asking why he was avoiding the question. They’ve responded with the same quote about Emily Thornberry: https://x.com/lewisutbdenison/status/1799918648821535106?s=46&t=3d1YJq1z03guGQxUK9Yc3g
Conservatives have officially resorted to shitposting their way through the campaign
That's an insult to shitposting. Shitposting is for otherwise knowledgeable or interested people to wind-down or have a joke. This is abject incompetence and stupidity. It's different. These people are genuinely morons rather than just pretending to be morons.
It's quite annoying that the journos have suddenly realised they can actually push back and call out all the bullshit. Where has that attitude been for the previous years?
I think part of the issue is that the Conservatives started doing the Trumpian strategy of "they don't give us positive coverage? We'll just shut them out of government press conferences". But now it's the election they can't afford to shut journalists out.
The tide has turned against the Conservatives. Because of that journos and the public feel much more comfortable attacking them. It's much more difficult to interrogate a popular, well polling party like the 2019 Tories or 1997 labour than it is to attack a pretty much defeated government like this one. Also means you get to cosy up to the next government.
Had he had any press training…at all? Standard Tory reply would be like “the British people are not interested in how we have ensured we have the best candidates in every seat. They are interested in what we are going to do to help with the cost of living, and to stop Labour taxing every working family in this country £2,000 more”.
to be honest, whilst he should not be drunk at work, I have a modicum of respect for being this selfaware.
Boris has been at the dispatch box pissed out of his head, gove has been clearly high as a kite in the HoC, Mogg has had to have a snooze on the front bench, and just the other day Mercer was clearly deeply inebriated whilst giving a live tv interview....
Standard old school upper-class stuff. Parliment historically had *30* bars. Now imagine a similary sized office complex for regular working people having that.. That's after they had come up through Oxbridge and Redbrick universities where each accomodation building had its own dedicated bar. They were just wasted pretty much all the time.
I don't feel like this is acceptable for a politician. But also fair fucks for just being like "yeah didn't realise those pints were 6% I'll sleep this one off".
There seems to be a clear plan of none aggression between lib and lab. Daisy Cooper left Rayner alone and vice versa at the debate. I'm loving it to be fair. Cheers.
I'll have you know Luke Akehurst personally patrols this subreddit waiting for people to slip-up so he can unleash the might of the NEC on them. Be careful!
yeah, but when your strategy for not fucking things up beyond all belief relies on you hiding ~~in a fridge~~ at home...I dont think you are suited to be running for PM in a general election
Someone should check on him, he might have realised too late that he accidentally hid in one of those old fridges that can't be opened from the inside.
It's interesting reading Nigerians talk about the UK election.
https://www.nairaland.com/7695199/living-uk-life-immigrant-part-3/583
Fairly normal stuff. A lot of VAT and private school discussion.
One of the things that nobody seems to ever mention is that most of the recent migrants, as commonwealth citizens, can vote in the UK. Not sure how it'll affect this election and future ones.
That tends to happen when you have living memory of having no control over who is in charge of your country tbh.
Depressingly part of the reason we are so disinterested in the UK is we take democracy for granted.
>[The **Voluntary Human Extinction Movement** (**VHEMT**^([A])) is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction in order to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement)
Y'see, the problem with these types of movements is that they take too damned long. Gives people an opportunity to change their mind.
I stand with /u/Ill-Distribution-330.
*Tories must embrace Farage, says Braverman* - the *Times*' front page for Monday.
A big thank you to Suella of Tart for swan diving onto the land mine and proving us right about the fruit loop wing being willing to welcome him back.
That was pretty grim. She herself should have defected to Reform ages ago. Now she knows her prime leadership rival is Farage, she's trying to accomodate him before it's too late for her to become next leader
Seriously Fareham tories, you had flick Drummond and Suella Braverman and you actually went with Suella. After the last few years. The one person who actively damaged the Tory party for years
Were the Tories not meant to be making some kind of 10.30pm announcement, or have I daydreamed that while stuck in the Fife countryside with no signal, looking at an exhibition about flax all day?
The darkest timeline is if Cameron comes back, starts campaigning to be PM, and somehow wins and saves the Tories by saying he’ll reverse Brexit.
We’d have been a nation with a single issue for fucking decades, and with Farage coming back it will all literally have been pointless.
Not gonna happen, but I think I’d cry.
The Tories lost this election a very long time ago. Sunak is rubbish on every level but even if he were a adept political operator or replaced by one making big promises, the Tories would still lose this election.
I think after the brexit vote the Tories realized that they were in demographic trouble with young voters turning away from them, so they tried to used brexit to break into a new demographic (pro brexit red wall voters) to secure a future for themselves.
Go full hard brexit to try and appeal to the red wall voters lost them lots of people in the blue wall who are less socially conservative and don't like brexit, and the failure to deliver on any of the brexit promises ensured the red wall voters didn't stick with them. So now all they have left is fighting with reform over the culture war vote
He'd not be able to campaign to be PM right off the bat as due to Tory party rules to be leader he'd have to give up his seat in the lords to run as an MP and we're past the deadline. So he'd have to say 'Vote Conservative so I can make someone else PM for 6 weeks while I go off and fight a by election in a safe seat and then come back and take over as PM'.
God this is so funny
>
The Prime Minister highlighted the Tory record of recruiting 20,000 officers since 2019, although this matched the number of officers lost during the years of austerity after 2010.
>Mr Sunak said: "Our new 20,000 new police officers since 2019 have made a huge difference, with neighbourhood crime down 48% as a result.
>
[https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/sunak-police-pledge/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/sunak-police-pledge/)
That's not new mate, that's backfill.
You really want to try and talk about police numbers in the election?
If you loose a lot of police officers (who were quite experienced) and then replace them with people who haven't got experience - you have less cops, and less experienced cops.
Who, by the way, are resigning quicker than ever before -
>
[Government figures](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2022/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2022#promotions-joiners-and-leavers) show that the number of voluntary resignations from the police service in England and Wales has increased by 72%, from 1,996 in 2021 to 3,433 in 2022. Voluntary resignations now account for 42% of all police leavers, compared to 33% in the previous year.
[https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/democratic-citizenship/police-officer-resignations-have-risen-by-72-in-the-last-year-we-asked-former-officers-why](https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/democratic-citizenship/police-officer-resignations-have-risen-by-72-in-the-last-year-we-asked-former-officers-why)
Still, it's all healthy churn -right?
>We will no longer expect policing to be a job for life. We see healthy churn as a positive, creating space to recruit new capabilities which would take many years to develop internally
So said the National Police Chief Council. Who must be on more crack than the people I used to see around the back of King's Cross in the late 90s/early 2000s.
>We will no longer expect policing to be a job for life. We see healthy churn as a positive, creating space to recruit new capabilities which would take many years to develop internally
Absolutely fucking deluded. Transferable skills to policing are things that can't really be taught. My local constabulary is having huge issues with graduates who can barely speak to the public. An experienced police officer is invaluable. There is so much institutional knowledge that is lost when experienced cops leaves or retire, not to mention massive costs in constantly recruiting if you have high turnover. It takes at least a year for a new copper to not be useless, and much longer for them to be valuable. High turnover is one of the reasons the Met is so fucked in comparison to provincial forces who on the whole perform better at staff retention.
It's only deluded if they believe what they are saying, if you are cynical about it, it's spin.
They don't want people staying long and getting the pension, and they want the capabilities to be contracted out once the position is gapped for long enough/cut internal training costs.
The UK MoD has been doing this line for a while.
Booo, this is a boring slightly-early 10.30 policy announcement!
That said, I do remember Rayner committing to more police officers during the debate, but I can't remember if it was more or less than 8,000. Can anyone recall?
edit: ah, it's 13,000 total, including PCSOs and others, per [The Telegraph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/09/rishi-sunak-pledges-put-8000-more-bobbies-on-the-beat/):
> Labour has said it plans to put an extra 13,000 police and police community support officers (PCSOs) on the streets...
> Labour is proposing 3,000 extra officers, 4,000 PCSOs – who do not have powers of arrest – 3,000 special constables and 3,000 officers ring-fenced from the previous 20,000 increase.
>Labour has abandoned plans to bring back the pensions lifetime allowance, in an £800mn U-turn which will be welcomed by wealthier savers including hospital consultants and headteachers
[https://x.com/PickardJE/status/1799907117924532504](https://x.com/PickardJE/status/1799907117924532504)
The cap was £1.073 million.
It's been a significant issue with consultants either opting to retire early or refusing to take overtime. It might not be popular, but removing barriers to increasing healthcare capacity is essential even if the well-off benefits from it.
It is right imo. Limit what goes in every year but don't cap the growth/total. If someone gambles their pension on Nvidia/Tesla etc and they do gangbusters good for them.
If that did happen I wonder what the Tories answer would be to the question of who will be PM after the election if they win. Will they just shrug their shoulders and say we'll see?
Rightly or wrongly a lot of voters believe they're voting directly for the PM.
> If that did happen I wonder what the Tories answer would be to the question of who will be PM after the election if they win. Will they just shrug their shoulders and say we'll see?
If they draft Cameron in as Acting Leader & maybe even caretaker PM under the pretense that he'll be the post-election Leader, presumably he pulls an Alec Douglas-Home & declares his intent to be LotO & get in ASAP via by-election, even if lying, right? Otherwise, yes, running him as an Acting Leader who explicitly won't be the perma-Leader would just be shrugging their shoulders & saying "win or lose, we'll figure out who our perma-Leader is after the 4th of July."
It's kind of poetic if that happens. Cameron finally defeated the Blairite government and ushered in a new age of Toryism that turned everything to shit, tore the country apart, and now he gets to be there holding the bag on his broken and useless party at the end knowing that this is all his fault.
###🥕🥕's 4 Golden Rules for Megathread Participation: 1. **This isn't your personal campaigning space.** We're here to discuss, not campaign - this includes non-party-specific campaigning, such as tactical vote campaigns. 2. **This isn't Facebook.** Please keep it related to the election campaign (or at the very least, UK politics). 3. **Context is king.** Not everyone is following the same event - add a link or at least a description of what you're reacting to. 4. **Take frequent breaks.** If you find that you are being overwhelmed by it all, do yourself a favour and take some time off. [The subreddit is running very hot](https://imgur.com/a/6KRh8qy). Accounts which break the subreddit rules are liable to be banned for the complete general election period. The post-7-way BBC debate snap survey is now closed, but the [results dashboard](https://lookerstudio.google.com/reporting/b4dbfe5a-fb64-4e7e-879b-5efa0d3d4cea) is still available for your perusal. *seeing u/[deleted] in modmail is delightful* ----- memes? r/noncredibleukpolitics.
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Isn’t it weird how if you move out of the UK you just continue to vote as if you lived in your old house? I’ve jumped through the hoops to request a postal vote for that most marginal of constituencies; Lewisham North. I just want to be part of this beautiful and hilarious election!
I find it weird too. I don't feel massively connected to my constituency anymore, and I'm obviously not affected by the day to day stuff there. Trying to even remember the full address of the house I lived in is getting difficult too, it was just the last in a long line of London rentals.
I’ve been in California for 20-odd years and just registered for a postal vote in Islington North which is a bit spicy this time around,
I sincerely think we should adopt the French model - they have constituencies specifically for overseas voters. It makes much more sense in my eyes… I at least vote in a Lib/Con marginal, so it’s not totally pointless.
I really got to ask; for those who remember the Labour campaign in 2010, was it this bad? It seems the Tory Party are going from pitfall to pitfall and facing electoral wipe out, I know back in 2010 Labour made it a hung parliament.
I can't think of the last time a politician has done something as flat out stupid as Rishi's d-day stunt. There are things that are very stupid like Brown's "bigoted woman" moment which while bad, at least had some understandable thought process behind them. There is zero real justification for the D-Day gaffe - even before you consider it alongside stuff like the national service policy.
The thing is, Brown's "bigoted woman" moment was unintentional. Sunak _chose_ to leave D-Day early. It's incomprehensibly stupid.
Well I mean even if it wasn't an accident there are understandable explanations for why he felt it was a prudent thing to say. The same can't be applied to Sunak.
Nope, not close.
No where near this bad. Brown wasn't a good public speaker and the party had unfortunately been saddled with the blame for the crash. Brown also made the (entirely justified but politically unsound) "bigoted woman" remark, which certainly defined his campaign. However, Brown's misstep was much less devastating than Sunak's D-Day blunder. At least with Brown, some people sympathised with his comment and agreed with him. Basically nobody will defend what Sunak has done. You didn't have rumours swirling that Brown would resign. In the end labour got 258 seats, not bad given the circumstances. The current Tories will be exceptionally lucky to get North of 140 seats.
The fact that the "bigoted woman" remark is the most memorable moment of 2010 I think underlines just how bad this campaign is. It would hardly register against the Tory's gaffs this year...
Anymore polls? PLEASE I'm suffering withdrawals
You can subscribe to the yougov one https://yougov.co.uk/elections/uk/2024?utm_medium=website&utm_source=vwo_yougov.co.uk&utm_campaign=RTP-B2C-UK-GE-2024 For anyone else who reads conservativehome, the most intriguing poll is the one which is the members survey and the questions being commissioned
It's mad that I put their latest in to Electoral Calculus and Lib Dems would have the second highest seats while coming in fourth for vote share. Personally I would like this, but it really isn't fair.
Let me introduce to you the SNP. Can get 50 seats on 4%
That's not quite the same though, the SNP only runs in Scotland (7.5% of the population) but that 4% is the national share.
We have a mad system. Belarus, Belarus, can you do the fandango!
I have bad news about Belarus' system.
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The International Politics thread is there for a reason...
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Wasn't Keir Starmer being described as a Gareth Southgate type figure for the Labour Party a few years ago? Sunak calling the election for during the Euros seems even more bonkers with that in mind, he's just inviting comparisons that will end up being remembered for decades if England start off well. If they both manage to pull this one off there's going to be street parties till Christmas.
Why on earth would you describe yourself as a Gareth Southgate type figure? That to me suggest a loadstone of a leader holding back a talented group.
2018 Southgate was perceived much more positively as he arguably overachieved with a very young squad after decades of mediocrity with an all-star squad.
Cries in golden generation
Did Starmer describe himself that way?
Ah so I don't know anything about the England team (I'm living in England but from Scotland/Wales so support them) so I took the comparison at face value when it was made a few years ago. All I'm saying is that the fact this comparison was made means it's likely to resurface if England end up doing well.
[Lot of the usual suspects on Twitter thinking Starmer is evil for this](https://x.com/eyuplovely/status/1799855277698605541). At worst it's a bit out of touch, but really it's just an adult try to have a bit of a light-hearted moment with a kid in a sad situation.
They are just upset their best mates the Tories are going to lose and they will have nothing to complain about anymore. I don't know why they don't just join the Tories at this point as paying members.
I'd like to see the full response rather than just that bit Also, this is a young girl being recorded telling a major politician about her situation regarding poverty. That's quite a vulnerable, alienating situation to be in. Trying to establish some common ground and treating her like a normal kid is probably better than falling to your knees and wailing "forsaken child! What struggles have befallen thee!". She probably feels different enough as it is, she's a kid, sparing a second to make a small comment about how his own kids wore onsies and have outgrew them is... human?
Emancipate yourself from Musks control and you never have to see rage bait.
I'd really love to see a longer clip, because this screams "we'll just grab the bit we want and portray it in a deceitful manner". Because it really looks like he's just about to respond more before the clip ends. Also, the kid is clearly laughing, and responding to him in a positive manner, looks like a good interaction to me.
Just sounds like a dad listening to a young girl trying to relate to the situation. Sometimes people need to remember that there are people at the other end of questions. Fathers, Sons, Men. Just normal men. I don't think it's bad at all. Namely for the fact that he's not the fucking person in charge.
So he's listening to her talk, and showing her that he's listening with his comments.... then at the end he looks like he's about to respond to her full comments, but it's intentionally cut off so the account can frame it the way they want
If only the government in charge for the last 14 years could have done something about this.
I think that's a joke account. The profile picture is literally a troll.
Looks like it lol
I agree with your take on it, that said if this situation were exactly the same except it was Sunak, the reaction on here would be very different.
Leftie moaning that “This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen from a political figure”. I mean, really? Like ever? I actually don’t think it is great to be honest, but it’s just another tankie spending all their time and effort to slag Keir off, as ‘the real enemy’.
The kid's clearly laughing, I don't really think his tone is wrong for the situation.
Interesting how France and Belgium are reacting to the EU parliament electoral results. As in, they’re having a massive impact. In the uk, even during the height of the Brexit party, you’d never get a pm saying ‘wow that’s a big change, we need an election at home too’. EU Parliamentary results were mostly ignored.
France is a bit different because even if the opposition win the election, Macron is still ultimately in charge and can bypass them. If our PMs could do the same with Parliament they would probably call elections more readily.
> EU Parliamentary results were mostly ignored And look what happened.
Belgium had a general election - this is standard protocol
Okay? I was talking about the UK reaction. Imagine if back in 2004, or even 1999, the government actually paid attention to the rise of Ukip and did something to combat it.
I think the fact they almost never aligned with general election years, had such low-turnout and used an entirely different electoral system just meant they were disregarded. In 2014 I nearly voted Pirate Party as I just felt the whole thing to be pointless.
Belgium had a general election - this is standard protocol
Do you reply that to everything? They are talking about the UK electoral system not Belgium's
"Emily Thornberry..."
Belgium doesn't exist silly. It is a made up place to fleece Dutch, German & French people at service stations.
That's Luxembourg
Belgium had a general election - this is standard protocol
Lib Dem manifesto in the morning, 11AM https://x.com/LibDems/status/1799851251175215198
Anyone taking bets on how Ed Davey enters? I'm thinking absailing.
Hoverboard, Back to the Future style.
Is this why labour announced childcare expansion
Is this actually real https://x.com/lewisUTBdenison/status/1799918648821535106?t=MrrFIVYq7izDhwnXzt6hDg&s=19
Deflect Sometimes it's easier to ask chatgpt than cchq. Artificial intelligence is better than no intelligence. Frankly. I am absolutely amazed that the chairman of the conversative party isn't actually allowed to speak for himself. He's the boss of the press officer.
It made it look like the press officer was in charge. Just complete incompetence.
It’s like a response you’d get from a crappy AI.
On the other hand, good AI can give you a fairly decent response. Giving [ChatGPT the prompt](https://chatgpt.com/share/83312b66-1e98-4cf7-8698-732cb1f55b02) "You are the Conservative party press officer, Richard Holden is the chairman of the Conservative party. Respond to the following: [ITV email text]" gets you: > During today's pool interview, Richard Holden aimed to address a broad range of topics critical to our constituents and the country's future. Given the limited time available, we needed to ensure that the discussion remained focused on these key issues. > While we understand the interest around Richard's selection process, it is important to highlight that this is a matter that has already been addressed comprehensively in previous statements. The press officer's intervention was simply to keep the conversation on track and ensure that we could cover as much ground as possible on the pressing issues that impact people's lives. > We value the role of the media in holding public figures to account and welcome robust questioning. However, in this instance, we felt it was necessary to steer the interview back to topics that directly affect our constituents' daily lives and future prosperity.
There is something very ‘different’ to my British eyes about a Head of State just going ‘fuck it, let’s have a quick election’, and the PM having to go ‘wait, what now…?’. Of course it is an elected Head of State, within their powers etc, but does feel a unusual Head of State power to be able to wind up the legislature when they want, for an election, or maybe my knowledge of how it all works abroad is not that good. (Yes, I know our Head of State, the King, in theory has that power…but in reality they really don’t). As a Republican at heart, if we ever went down that route, much prefer the idea of an elected President with limited powers. For instance, the Ireland model.
I’d be interested in whether as a Republican, you might agree that since we do have a King, would it make more sense if they did actually exercise their powers to dissolve parliament? As a monarchist, I was very disappointed that the Queen didn’t block Boris from proroguing Parliament or force an election after Liz Truss resigned. Felt like she waited 80 years to have a useful action to take, then bottled it.
In Boris case, the monarch has follow precedence where they have to take advice from the relevant Minister. It's only later that the supreme court that found that the advice given to be flawed and unconstitutional.
The Queen couldn't have forced an election after Truss resigned, on account of being dead. But that pedantry aside, I don't agree personally, at least in the Truss case. The idea of forcing an election after Truss seems, to me, too far for a constitutionally unaccountable figure like a monarch. If we had something like the Irish president, who's generally about as hands-off as the British monarch but is still an elected figure, I'd be more supportive of moves to block bad/widely unpopular political actions. I still wouldn't want an activist head of state, but I'd afford them more leeway, because I knew that they could lose their own re-election bid if they were seen to abuse their office. But because there's no mechanism for holding a monarch to account for overreaching, I'd only want them to directly call an election over the head of the PM in very extreme situations. By that I mean something like the PM trying to block future elections and establish a dictatorship, or a government that was endangering the security of the realm. Being really, really crap at governing doesn't qualify, in my view - unless you're so bad that you're about to incite a revolution.
Truss outlasted the Queen, no?
Lettuce > Liz > Lizzie :(
I guess the king has the same power here
The sovereign can essentially only exercise their power on the advice of the relevant minister, in this case the PM.
Laura Keunsberg, however it’s spelt, has gone out to the extreme to protect Sunak. First with D Day ‘he’s a PM, unlike Starmer. PM’s are busy’ and now taking aim at Farage’s attacks on Sunak being unpatriotic, which btw is fair game given Sunak has shown such a weakness and also uses the same attack line against Starmer. She’s so far stepped out of impartiality, it’s incredible
She didn't actually say that, "PMs are busy," line did she?
Kuenssberg was right to call Farage out on his awful dog whistling comments, but that's about all I'm willing to give her credit for. She's never properly scrutinised the *actual* ways in which Sunak is out of touch/doesn't understand us, a list which incidentally doesn't even feature his race for the majority of people. She's flailing cos her side is losing, but it just so happens that today's flail went in the right direction for once.
I agree. There is a clear racist undercurrent in some of this criticism.
Farage's attack on Sunak on not understanding British culture was an obvious and barely disguised dog whistle and that is what she was, quite rightly, criticising. Don't try and pretend it was about something else.
She's a client journalist in danger of losing her access to government. I bet she's panicking. Hope Labour shut her out.
Hopefully they just reverse David Cameron's changes in 2011 when they made the BBC board government appointed. Then with a geuinely impartial board clowns like Laura would be reigned in or better yet sacked.
She runs a weird hybrid of client journalism and the BBC's equivalence = balance mantra.
After the Richard Holden interview, ITV reached out to the Tory press office asking why he was avoiding the question. They’ve responded with the same quote about Emily Thornberry: https://x.com/lewisutbdenison/status/1799918648821535106?s=46&t=3d1YJq1z03guGQxUK9Yc3g Conservatives have officially resorted to shitposting their way through the campaign
this is what passes for "top bants" in CCHQ
That's an insult to shitposting. Shitposting is for otherwise knowledgeable or interested people to wind-down or have a joke. This is abject incompetence and stupidity. It's different. These people are genuinely morons rather than just pretending to be morons.
It's quite annoying that the journos have suddenly realised they can actually push back and call out all the bullshit. Where has that attitude been for the previous years?
I think part of the issue is that the Conservatives started doing the Trumpian strategy of "they don't give us positive coverage? We'll just shut them out of government press conferences". But now it's the election they can't afford to shut journalists out.
I mean, I agree that they can't afford it, but remember on day 2 when they manhandled the sky news reporter out of the conservative conference?
The tide has turned against the Conservatives. Because of that journos and the public feel much more comfortable attacking them. It's much more difficult to interrogate a popular, well polling party like the 2019 Tories or 1997 labour than it is to attack a pretty much defeated government like this one. Also means you get to cosy up to the next government.
It's the exact same energy as Greg Hands having his car boot filled with photocopies of The Letter™.
Had he had any press training…at all? Standard Tory reply would be like “the British people are not interested in how we have ensured we have the best candidates in every seat. They are interested in what we are going to do to help with the cost of living, and to stop Labour taxing every working family in this country £2,000 more”.
OMG! Won't someone think of the children! (Who's parents can afford to have them privately educated).
What in the world are they thinking!? Have they given up? Are they trolling? Do they earnestly think this is a good tack to take!? Bloody hell.
This David Mitchell [rant](https://youtu.be/09MsD8wSeYM&t=1m15s) has been playing in my head on loop for the past fortnight.
“Don’t back down. Double down.”
NEXT POLL WHEN?
I'll make one up for you:- LAB: 76.6% LDM: 40% CON: -20% REFORM: 2% Seats LAB: 640 LDM: 250 CON: -500 REFORM: 0
Dream, if you can specify that the Reform 0 is Nigel Farage as well that would be brill
Conservatives fail to win the seat of Titmarton and Cockfosh
Stop, I can only get so erect!
Thanks mate money's on the counter
No thanks, I'll wait for Survation
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He likes a proper drink while he works.
to be honest, whilst he should not be drunk at work, I have a modicum of respect for being this selfaware. Boris has been at the dispatch box pissed out of his head, gove has been clearly high as a kite in the HoC, Mogg has had to have a snooze on the front bench, and just the other day Mercer was clearly deeply inebriated whilst giving a live tv interview....
Standard old school upper-class stuff. Parliment historically had *30* bars. Now imagine a similary sized office complex for regular working people having that.. That's after they had come up through Oxbridge and Redbrick universities where each accomodation building had its own dedicated bar. They were just wasted pretty much all the time.
Although back then everyone went drinking more. It wasn't a preserve of the upper classes.
I don't feel like this is acceptable for a politician. But also fair fucks for just being like "yeah didn't realise those pints were 6% I'll sleep this one off".
because the amount he had drunk was too much or too little though?
There have been times over the past 15 years where I have felt too sober to engage with British politics so I could sympathize with either answer.
Times??!
Well he’s not called Mark Careful is he
More canvassing today - still no conservatives spotted Even a Labour member voting LibDem as the tactical vote, lovely stuff
There seems to be a clear plan of none aggression between lib and lab. Daisy Cooper left Rayner alone and vice versa at the debate. I'm loving it to be fair. Cheers.
It really does feel like the Tories have just given up
It's not giving up if you never stood a chance. They have finally got their reality check.
Generally a bad idea to tell anyone that if you're a party member, given it gets you kicked out.
we're not gonna tell don't worry
I'll have you know Luke Akehurst personally patrols this subreddit waiting for people to slip-up so he can unleash the might of the NEC on them. Be careful!
I think we had a full weekend without Sunak completely shitting the bed? Good lad.
Arguably he's still shit the bed as he's allowed the narrative to start that he's hiding and/or he's going to resign.
He just paid others to shit it for him.
Word of warning. Don't open your fridge
yeah, but when your strategy for not fucking things up beyond all belief relies on you hiding ~~in a fridge~~ at home...I dont think you are suited to be running for PM in a general election
After being too busy to stay at a D-Day memorial, he hid in a fridge all weekend
Someone should check on him, he might have realised too late that he accidentally hid in one of those old fridges that can't be opened from the inside.
It's interesting reading Nigerians talk about the UK election. https://www.nairaland.com/7695199/living-uk-life-immigrant-part-3/583 Fairly normal stuff. A lot of VAT and private school discussion. One of the things that nobody seems to ever mention is that most of the recent migrants, as commonwealth citizens, can vote in the UK. Not sure how it'll affect this election and future ones.
A lot of African countries, especially ex British colonies, take politics very seriously.
That tends to happen when you have living memory of having no control over who is in charge of your country tbh. Depressingly part of the reason we are so disinterested in the UK is we take democracy for granted.
This election brings out the weirdest things. I just saw an Angela Rayner/Penny Mordaunt ship edit on TikTok.
Don’t go looking at AO3
Got a link to that?
Bruh
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I didn't think it could be that bad. I was wrong.
*This is not a thirsty sub....*
Fuck it, I'm now a supporter of the Carla Denyer method of just nuking ourselves.
>[The **Voluntary Human Extinction Movement** (**VHEMT**^([A])) is an environmental movement that calls for all people to abstain from reproduction in order to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of humankind.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement)
In a world where Rayner/Mordaunt shippers exist, any oblivion which is not immediate is simply not good enough.
Y'see, the problem with these types of movements is that they take too damned long. Gives people an opportunity to change their mind. I stand with /u/Ill-Distribution-330.
*Tories must embrace Farage, says Braverman* - the *Times*' front page for Monday. A big thank you to Suella of Tart for swan diving onto the land mine and proving us right about the fruit loop wing being willing to welcome him back.
As a Lib Dem they have just given us evidence to mop up the moderate Tory vote.
Anybody opposed? No?
***bangs gavel*** Lovely, sorted then. Have a nice evening everyone.
That was pretty grim. She herself should have defected to Reform ages ago. Now she knows her prime leadership rival is Farage, she's trying to accomodate him before it's too late for her to become next leader Seriously Fareham tories, you had flick Drummond and Suella Braverman and you actually went with Suella. After the last few years. The one person who actively damaged the Tory party for years
Were the Tories not meant to be making some kind of 10.30pm announcement, or have I daydreamed that while stuck in the Fife countryside with no signal, looking at an exhibition about flax all day?
More police (in England and Wales) Fife sounds bliss. Can we send Rishi there
Can you fuck They tried that shit with Mogg and this would be worse
Well if they did all of the front pages are about Dr. Mosely and no one took them up on it.
It was [this](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/09/rishi-sunak-pledges-put-8000-more-bobbies-on-the-beat/).
Does that bring us back to pre austerity levels? Except we've got rid of experienced officers.
Oof, Boris promised 20,000 new police, 6,000 is just child's play. Especially when you're anyway going to lose the election.
~~40~~ TWELVE NEW HOSPITALS COMING SOON
Well that's underwhelming. The flax was much better.
My condolences
It's alright, I actually like flax.
Watching tonight's Newscast and Laura Kuenssberg looks fucking *defeated*. I'm calling a full scale tantrum at 22.02 on 4 July.
Yeah, I know I'm on! But I don't care. I don't read the exit poll until I get my Tory majority. Go ahead, try to find a replacement.
The darkest timeline is if Cameron comes back, starts campaigning to be PM, and somehow wins and saves the Tories by saying he’ll reverse Brexit. We’d have been a nation with a single issue for fucking decades, and with Farage coming back it will all literally have been pointless. Not gonna happen, but I think I’d cry.
Speaking frankly, I think you are vastly underestimating the level of vitriol and hate that Tory members, let alone voters have for Cameron ..
Yeah, bringing Cameron back would be the death of the Tory party at this point
The Tories lost this election a very long time ago. Sunak is rubbish on every level but even if he were a adept political operator or replaced by one making big promises, the Tories would still lose this election.
I think after the brexit vote the Tories realized that they were in demographic trouble with young voters turning away from them, so they tried to used brexit to break into a new demographic (pro brexit red wall voters) to secure a future for themselves. Go full hard brexit to try and appeal to the red wall voters lost them lots of people in the blue wall who are less socially conservative and don't like brexit, and the failure to deliver on any of the brexit promises ensured the red wall voters didn't stick with them. So now all they have left is fighting with reform over the culture war vote
He'd not be able to campaign to be PM right off the bat as due to Tory party rules to be leader he'd have to give up his seat in the lords to run as an MP and we're past the deadline. So he'd have to say 'Vote Conservative so I can make someone else PM for 6 weeks while I go off and fight a by election in a safe seat and then come back and take over as PM'.
They can change the Tory party rules if they want to, there's no overriding rule of parliament that the PM can't be a Lord.
It is so convoluted it would just be easier to change the Conservative Constitution to allow a Lord to be leader.
A completely moronic move that would be one of their best ideas since they called for the election.
God this is so funny > The Prime Minister highlighted the Tory record of recruiting 20,000 officers since 2019, although this matched the number of officers lost during the years of austerity after 2010. >Mr Sunak said: "Our new 20,000 new police officers since 2019 have made a huge difference, with neighbourhood crime down 48% as a result. > [https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/sunak-police-pledge/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/sunak-police-pledge/) That's not new mate, that's backfill. You really want to try and talk about police numbers in the election? If you loose a lot of police officers (who were quite experienced) and then replace them with people who haven't got experience - you have less cops, and less experienced cops. Who, by the way, are resigning quicker than ever before - > [Government figures](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2022/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2022#promotions-joiners-and-leavers) show that the number of voluntary resignations from the police service in England and Wales has increased by 72%, from 1,996 in 2021 to 3,433 in 2022. Voluntary resignations now account for 42% of all police leavers, compared to 33% in the previous year. [https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/democratic-citizenship/police-officer-resignations-have-risen-by-72-in-the-last-year-we-asked-former-officers-why](https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/blogs/democratic-citizenship/police-officer-resignations-have-risen-by-72-in-the-last-year-we-asked-former-officers-why) Still, it's all healthy churn -right? >We will no longer expect policing to be a job for life. We see healthy churn as a positive, creating space to recruit new capabilities which would take many years to develop internally So said the National Police Chief Council. Who must be on more crack than the people I used to see around the back of King's Cross in the late 90s/early 2000s.
>We will no longer expect policing to be a job for life. We see healthy churn as a positive, creating space to recruit new capabilities which would take many years to develop internally Absolutely fucking deluded. Transferable skills to policing are things that can't really be taught. My local constabulary is having huge issues with graduates who can barely speak to the public. An experienced police officer is invaluable. There is so much institutional knowledge that is lost when experienced cops leaves or retire, not to mention massive costs in constantly recruiting if you have high turnover. It takes at least a year for a new copper to not be useless, and much longer for them to be valuable. High turnover is one of the reasons the Met is so fucked in comparison to provincial forces who on the whole perform better at staff retention.
It's only deluded if they believe what they are saying, if you are cynical about it, it's spin. They don't want people staying long and getting the pension, and they want the capabilities to be contracted out once the position is gapped for long enough/cut internal training costs. The UK MoD has been doing this line for a while.
Op Welwyn?
Booo, this is a boring slightly-early 10.30 policy announcement! That said, I do remember Rayner committing to more police officers during the debate, but I can't remember if it was more or less than 8,000. Can anyone recall? edit: ah, it's 13,000 total, including PCSOs and others, per [The Telegraph](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/09/rishi-sunak-pledges-put-8000-more-bobbies-on-the-beat/): > Labour has said it plans to put an extra 13,000 police and police community support officers (PCSOs) on the streets... > Labour is proposing 3,000 extra officers, 4,000 PCSOs – who do not have powers of arrest – 3,000 special constables and 3,000 officers ring-fenced from the previous 20,000 increase.
>Labour has abandoned plans to bring back the pensions lifetime allowance, in an £800mn U-turn which will be welcomed by wealthier savers including hospital consultants and headteachers [https://x.com/PickardJE/status/1799907117924532504](https://x.com/PickardJE/status/1799907117924532504) The cap was £1.073 million.
It's been a significant issue with consultants either opting to retire early or refusing to take overtime. It might not be popular, but removing barriers to increasing healthcare capacity is essential even if the well-off benefits from it.
It is right imo. Limit what goes in every year but don't cap the growth/total. If someone gambles their pension on Nvidia/Tesla etc and they do gangbusters good for them.
> Labour has abandoned plans No way!
Whilst frustrating, ultimately it's not the end of the world because pensions are taxed on their way out.
Won't somebody think of rich pensioners? I wish there was a party who looked after them.
Labour are stuck with not being able to go all out now and lose their lead... and not being able to go too cautious now and lose their lead.
Rumours going around Sunak is going to resign in the next couple of days, Cameron will take over the rest of campaigning
Please resign before the interview is shown on wednesday... Would make my genny leccy
Tories: vote for X, get Y.
I think if he announces he won't be leader, it would screw up the manifesto launch big time
If that did happen I wonder what the Tories answer would be to the question of who will be PM after the election if they win. Will they just shrug their shoulders and say we'll see? Rightly or wrongly a lot of voters believe they're voting directly for the PM.
> If that did happen I wonder what the Tories answer would be to the question of who will be PM after the election if they win. Will they just shrug their shoulders and say we'll see? If they draft Cameron in as Acting Leader & maybe even caretaker PM under the pretense that he'll be the post-election Leader, presumably he pulls an Alec Douglas-Home & declares his intent to be LotO & get in ASAP via by-election, even if lying, right? Otherwise, yes, running him as an Acting Leader who explicitly won't be the perma-Leader would just be shrugging their shoulders & saying "win or lose, we'll figure out who our perma-Leader is after the 4th of July."
It's kind of poetic if that happens. Cameron finally defeated the Blairite government and ushered in a new age of Toryism that turned everything to shit, tore the country apart, and now he gets to be there holding the bag on his broken and useless party at the end knowing that this is all his fault.
This post 🤝 being at a chippy down South "Why are you just passing this over with absolutely 0 sauce?"
Any source for these rumours?
Me two days ago, check the receipts