Starmer's vision quest

[C R]

And lots of voters who might vote for a far enough right Labour Party ...

Do those really exist, though?

 

[Dorset Boy]

Saw this today on the beeb:
Mandelson should never have been ambassador, says Epstein victim's family

I was taken by this hot take from Laura Trott (who she?)


I'm getting the impression that a lot of people don't seem to know what the job of an ambassador entails.

Surely the answer to this question is that the reason for appointing the "best pal" of a convicted paedophile to be US ambassador is because the the US President is also a best pal of the same convicted paedophile. The point of appointing someone as oleaginous as Mandy is that the ambassador needs to be able to lick Trump's arse whilst keeping a straight face to get the best trade deals out of the US.

Mandelson wasn't appointed because he was an all round nice bloke with no skeletons in the closet. Quite the reverse. And the principle benefit of using him is that he wasn't shagging underaged girls due to being gay.

How do we know he wasn't shagging underage boys instead?

 

[Dorset Boy]

Do those really exist, though?

Given a large number of Reform supporters are former Labour voters....

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Given a large number of Reform supporters are former Labour voters....

Are they though? I have tried finding hard evidence on this and have had no luck (if you have something do link it, I would be interested to see).

It is tricky, unless you surveyed huge numbers of current Reform voters and confirmed with them they voted Labour, it is hard to have a robust evidence base. A lot of it seems to be anecdotal or assumption based. I would assume far more former Tory voters voted Reform than Labour, but it is purely a guess.

 

[Bromptonaut]

How do we know he wasn't shagging underage boys instead?

Struck me at the outset that if Epstein could source young women he could probably do the same with young men.

 

[Dorset Boy]

Are they though? I have tried finding hard evidence on this and have had no luck (if you have something do link it, I would be interested to see).

It is tricky, unless you surveyed huge numbers of current Reform voters and confirmed with them they voted Labour, it is hard to have a robust evidence base. A lot of it seems to be anecdotal or assumption based. I would assume far more former Tory voters voted Reform than Labour, but it is purely a guess.

All those former red wall voters for starters. you may have to go back to the elections before Boris winning those seats though.
Reform's support isn't just former Tories.

 

[Stevo 666]

Weasel words like "apparently" are often used give a false impression of fact while allowing the opportunity to weasel out of the intent behind it and is nothing at all to do with right or left...except obviously in your rather peculiar obsession with the ill-defined pejorative "lefties".

Nope. Simple point is I couldn't recall where I heard it or the source, hence the word. Good try though.

 

[Stevo 666]

Too many facts in there = leftiebollox

At least he had a go at explaining rather than being a smartarse.

 

[Stevo 666]

As you mention, I live in HK and have done for 12 years.

Yes, money talks here but there is a massive difference. Energy prices, communication, food, transport are all way cheaper than they are in the UK. The HK Gov has a large degree of control over energy prices as an example. In fact, due to the worldwide drop in energy prices, HK will see a drop of 7% in energy bills starting this month. I can't see that happening in the UK. I pay in about 3 months what many people in the UK pay in one month. OK, we don't have central heating but we have air conditioners and they're just as expensive.

When I get back to tropical Speyside (where I grew up), I'm shocked at what you guys are paying for things. Housing is expensive but there are bargains to be had, if you know where to look and, in my case, Mr Cookiemonster's parents knew a few people as well. I live in a 3 bedroom apartment in Tin Shui Wai, a few miles from the Chinese border and is not considered to be a desirable location (it's a nice part of HK with good biking routes and not as built up as some parts of HK), and I pay the equivalent of £1200 a month for it. Easily £1000-£2000 a month less if I lived the other side of the Tai Lam Tunnel. Which leads me on to another point. The HK Gov took all the tunnels back under their control and halved the tunnel fees. They just let the contracts expire and took them back in house. HK has quite a few of them, especially between Kowloon and HK Island. Can you imagine the UK Gov doing that? The privateers would have a fit.

Of course, HK is not perfect. There is a high profile campaign to deal with the poverty here in HK, especially with the elderly population (and I have to say, egged on by Beijing) as we have one of the most unequal societies on earth but there's action being taken, led by the younger generation, to deal with that. There's no VAT here in HK but there are signs that there may be 2.5% sales tax added to some items to pay for infrastructure projects but that does seem to be a few years away.

Another issue about your picture, Havana (Cuba) has been under US sanctions for about 70 or so years as the USA are still pissed that the previous leader, Batista, was overthrown and Cuba stopped being a Mafia state. So that's an unfair comparison.

Socialism gave the UK the NHS and the welfare state (despite massive opposition from the Tories) as well as education and plentiful (and affordable) housing. Capitalism has ripped that apart. You can have a capitalist society but with some restraints, as we have here in HK.

What you seems to be doing here is promoting the benefits of a low regulation (economically at least), low tax state. If there are subsidised things in HK then it presumably is being funded from the tax take which is pretty healthy due to business thriving, at least in part for the above reasons. And that is a difference between HK and the UK.

As for your statement about capitalism ripping apart the NHS, well it could be looked another way - i.e. capitalism funds it.

 

[BoldonLad]

All those former red wall voters for starters. you may have to go back to the elections before Boris winning those seats though.
Reform's support isn't just former Tories.

This would be my gut feeling too, although, I have not seen/found any figures to support it. At MP level, given they won so few seats, it is difficult to tell, however, the area in which I live has always been solid Labour. Looking at Local Council(s) it is quite plain that:

1. there has been a move to "independent" candidates winning, few of these appear to be left leaning

2. The local Labour "activists" appear to be scared stiff of Reform, (IMHO) giving them far more attention than they deserve

However, since there were historically so few Conservative voters in the are (local MPs had majorities of 20,000+, and, local Council was 100% Labour, now almost 50/50 Labour / Independent + Greens) it does not seem unreasonable to assume that the votes have come from former Labour supporters.