General Election - 4th July 2024

My priorities would be

1. Sort the NHS out including free prescriptions for England the same as the other UK countries
2. Ensure every homeless British person has the offer of a roof over their head
3. Scrap the TV licence fee that would be an extra £170 approx to hard up families.

The Diane Abbott saga is a bit of fun but it won't affect Sir Kier becoming PM. Her hand did look very shaky when she was holding the mic whilst speaking yesterday so I hope it isn't a health issue.

If there is an "issue" with her health then those wishing her to step down may well have briefed journalists about it or drawn attention to it. But if her mind is still sound then she has every right to stand.

No matter if she stands or not , the constituency will go Labour. If she is in less than good health what is going on? Some kind of ‘let’s get Starmer ‘ statement? Who is using who? The media love a personality to stick it all to and this is playing right into the media’s lowest level. As said in one of our faves, ‘Big mistake, huge.’

I wish I could vote, but unfortunately my British Citizenship application is still being processed. Mind you, I submitted it on 01/05 and UKVI said it usually takes 3-6 months

So, not in any way biased then... 

I don't trust absolutely anything to do with a Tory, they have proven time and time again they cannot be trusted.

At risk of sounding like a broken record, most FPTP elections are like that as far as the voting public are concerned. Whether it's the national or local party, most of us have no choice of candidate if we have a firm view on which party we support. And in many constituencies we've no real choice of party either. If it's a safe seat - prepare to be ignored.

I do think the Tories are heading for a heavy defeat, and while I think the polls are legit, I don't think they can accurately model the current situation, especially when you factor in boundary changes and so on. There's also a risk of complacency. Older voters are more likely to vote, and a lot of them will vote the same way they've done for all of their voting life. Meanwhile younger voters, often with more left-wing sensibilities have lower turn-out. I don't think the model accurately reflects the Scottish situation where just as many people will be voting anti-SNP as anti-Conservative. That's good news for the SNP and Conservatives in seats where they can both convince voters they are mutual rivals.

The LibDems are being open about only targeting seats where they think they've got a decent chance of winning, and trying to resist the temptation to spread themselves too thin, and I think most serious activists are on board after 2019 where they increased vote share, but lost MPs. Albeit that's what put them in the position to have a big increase this year. The Labour leadership have made similar noises, and candidates in unwinnable seats have been instructed to allocate time to campaigning in actual target seats, but it's clear some activists would rather lose valiantly to the Tories than let a LibDem or Green candidate win. 

It will be interesting to see the effect of so many big beasts standing down. Normally there is an advantage to being the incumbent, and any replacement has to build a profile, but I'm pretty sure 'vote for us to beat Michael Gove' was an effective motivation for tactical voting.

The big change between Labour in '97 and now is the social penetration of all things internet - data, sentiment, social media, etc. All in real time. Blair was surprised by the scale of the landslide.

I always wonder if Kinnock at that big Rally in 1992 when he started doing oggy oggy oggy did cost Labour votes and showed floating voters that Neil Kinnock wasn't Pm material. I've heard stories that the late John Smith along with other senior party members were stood on the side of the stage with their heads in their hands.,

... but all stories that came out with the benefit of hindsight.

Kinnock always had an uphill task because of the scale of the press onslaught. Blair and Starmer, in contrast, are in deference to the press barons.

The NHS has had above inflation spending increases every single year the Conservatives have been in power both in absolute and over the whole period in per capita terms too and yet it has got worse in terms of waiting lists and patient outcomes compared to EU mixed public/private insurance based systems like the Netherlands. Do Labour voters not worry that simply spending even more on it simply won’t work ? For example if you give junior doctors a 35% pay increase as they want how will that improve matters ?