Who Will You Vote For?

[Taipan]

Pre Thatcher is often referred to as the dark ages. Labours paymasters, the trade unions, turned the working man into his own worst enemy! Pretty much caused the collapse of our manufacturing industries as the unions strongholds held everything to ransom. Thatcher broke them but then outsourced everything compounding the collapse. But Labours antics gave Thatcher an easy shoo-in for sure.

Nige has said he wants to be PM next time and he could well do it too. It'll be a long while before people forget these times and the financial hardships a lot of people have endured under the Tories. If Labour mess things up I expect Nige to walk in on large majority next time round.

Starmers campaign so far has been so pitifully lack lustre that Nige has found it easy to shine and I wouldn't be surprised if its a lot closer than people expect this time, or even if he gets in! I think the silent majority is an angry one and everyone underestimated the brexit vote from them...

[porter_jamie]

Yes everyone was certain that Brexit wouldn't happen in a similar fashion to trump wasn't going to win. I do worry what labour will get up to in 5 years, Kier has promised no tax rises but he is a politician so we shall see. I can't see him getting in and making everyone better off. Seems all this election and post election leadership fighting and all the rest of it is a distraction to what's really going on in the country.

[Count Steer]

Yes everyone was certain that Brexit wouldn't happen in a similar fashion to trump wasn't going to win. I do worry what labour will get up to in 5 years, Kier has promised no tax rises but he is a politician so we shall see. I can't see him getting in and making everyone better off.

I'll be happy with not worse off + the potholes fixed.

[DefTrap]

Current betting has Labour & Starmer as a shoe-in and Reform with MPs in single figures. You can get low 20s on Farage as next PM, which doesn't really stack up considering the likely number of MPs, but then they're also taking bets on Boris and Priti Patel.

[porter_jamie]

You mean this time round or 2029?

[Cousin Jack]

I'll be happy with not worse off + the potholes fixed.

Most of us would agree, but there is not a cat in hell's chance of anything as good as that happening .

[DefTrap]

This time around obviously. Slightly wishful thinking that Labour will make such a massive hash of it that a Party with single figures of MPs this time round will turn that into 100s. The conservatives will have had to rehabilitate themselves pretty effing quickly if they get thumped in two weeks, so I imagine the following election will be a totally different outlook.

[Count Steer]

I'll be happy with not worse off + the potholes fixed.

Most of us would agree, but there is not a cat in hell's chance of anything as good as that happening .

They'll have to be pretty disastrous if they cost me what Liz Truss did (in a matter of days).

[Taipan]

I'd expect the initial years of Labours tenure to be happy days for us all, as the cheque book will be out, but, lest we forget these sage words...

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

[Horse]

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

Hmmm ... privatisation of utilities, railways, etc. selling off council hosing? Whose property was that? And how well has it worked out?

[Taipan]

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

Hmmm ... privatisation of utilities, railways, etc. selling off council hosing? Whose property was that? And how well has it worked out?

They sure as shit weren't working well when nationalised! The council house selling sparked off a massive industry of everything from double glazing to DIY chains and launched the whole home ownership demand with a massive growth in private house building!. The lack of available social housing now has been down to subsequent Govts failing on the house building programs. So yes i'd say its worked out very, very well!

[Horse]

Go on, with a straight face, tell us that privately owned water companies are working well.

[Taipan]

Go on, with a straight face, tell us that privately owned water companies are working well.

That doesn't change the fact that change was needed were things were wrong. This is a long time after Thatcher and its ridiculous to try and blame her for todays problems. That said, yes change is needed (yet) again...

[Pirahna]

This is a long time after Thatcher and its ridiculous to try and blame her for todays problems.

Thatcher seems to be regarded as a god among Conservatives, it's her privatisation policies that you still live with today. Tories won't do anything to change her legacy, so absolutely no blame on her 40 years later.

Did she envisage the profit at any cost, greed above everything world of today, who knows.

[Count Steer]

Go on, with a straight face, tell us that privately owned water companies are working well.

Just read this...

'The current system of private monopolies dates back to 1989 when Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher sold off the publicly-owned water and sewage industry in England and Wales for £7.6bn. She vowed it would lead to a new era of investment, improve water quality and help bring down bills'.

Most other sell-offs were about competition and choice but water was rather different. It would have been better if they'd only been sold as publicly quoted companies (Now it looks like Royal Mail is going to be hived off as a privately owned cash generator too. ).

The whole concept of private monopolies seems a bit bizarre from either side of the political spectrum. (So selling off the gas and electricity transmission networks , given the strategic nature of them seems a bit dim too).

[DefTrap]

It'll probably be Labours fault for not immediately fixing 15 years of austerity and shit Brexit.

[Saga Lout]

Go on, with a straight face, tell us that privately owned water companies are working well.

The sub text is: the private company is shit therefore it should be nationalised. Nationalised industries were/are shit so changing it from a shit privately owned company to a shit government owned company is a shit idea. It's as if people have forgotten how bad nationalised companies were.Do we really want to repeat the same mistakes of previous generations? Or are we stupid enough to think we're much smarter than they were and it'll work this time?

[irie]

Go on, with a straight face, tell us that privately owned water companies are working well.

The sub text is: the private company is shit therefore it should be nationalised. Nationalised industries were/are shit so changing it from a shit privately owned company to a shit government owned company is a shit idea. It's as if people have forgotten how bad nationalised companies were.Do we really want to repeat the same mistakes of previous generations? Or are we stupid enough to think we're much smarter than they were and it'll work this time?

There are generations who have either forgotten how shit nationalised industries were, or look at the past through rose tinted glasses, or are too young to have experienced them. Give it time.

[mangocrazy]

Go on, with a straight face, tell us that privately owned water companies are working well.

The sub text is: the private company is shit therefore it should be nationalised. Nationalised industries were/are shit so changing it from a shit privately owned company to a shit government owned company is a shit idea. It's as if people have forgotten how bad nationalised companies were.Do we really want to repeat the same mistakes of previous generations? Or are we stupid enough to think we're much smarter than they were and it'll work this time?

There are generations who have either forgotten how shit nationalised industries were, or look at the past through rose tinted glasses, or are too young to have experienced them. Give it time.

There are also generations that can clearly remember when water was a national asset, not the privatised mess it is now. Raw sewage wasn't released into waterways under public ownership, certain parts of the water grid didn't mysteriously go broke and prices for consumers were much, much lower than they are now. My memory of publicly-owned water companies were that they just worked. They certainly weren't allowed to pay chief execs football style salaries, nor did they pay shareholders fat dividends. Water privatisation, as so many of the others, were simply a con to make a few people very rich at the expense of the poor huddled masses, and when anyone points this out we get the inevitable 'things were so much worse when xxx service was in public hands'.

It's bollocks. When services were in public hands, yes there was inefficiency - there always is in any large organisation - it's endemic. But it's nothing like the profligacy and corruption you see when the same services are privately owned and run.

[Yambo]

It's my recollection of when water was under public ownership that hardly any money was put into improving the infrastructure or building more reservoirs. That is simply down to bad management.