Anew government

Thanks Former MemberI found this an interesting read. ️

In his first speech the new PM said they'll rebuild Britain-I guess we'll have to see how it all goes. Fixing the country is a huge challenge and isn't going to be an overnight fix. There's a lot of fixing to do but hopefully he can make Britain Great again-or at least improve the mess from the last people in charge.

Another view Martin is that the smoth transition is really no transition at all.

To quote The Who; "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"....

Martin said:

'Fascist-lite'

I'm filing that away for future use

yes, scotland is actually key as labour only collapsed and gave way to tory rule years back in the first place as that was when the snp came from nowhere and rake up all the votes. i remember that well. labour always hinged on the scottish vote.

I'm slightly ashamed of the proportion of our countrymen and women who voted Reform, presumably a mix of the gullible, the disgruntled, the stupid and the fascistic.

An oddly bleak and unrealistic projection. In contrast to the US, I think the smooth transition between governing parties shows that the British political system is robust and responsive (to a reasonable extent) to the wishes of the people - not an unstable banana republic yet!

Probably better than going to the gas chamber in a van with 'REFORM' on its side. An exaggeration, but I do loathe Farrage and his type of 'Fascist-lite' goon.

Boris Johnson’s main priority was always Boris Johnson. 
I don’t believe you have anything to fear from a Starmer government - he’s cautious, pragmatic, sensible and not particularly passionate in his political beliefs. I think he’ll just try to ‘run things efficiently’ rather than make any dramatic changes. 

I feel confident that he’ll run a tight ship, and that they’ll at least be competent. 

Good to read it might be ok. I don't really like seeing the way so many long term Labour ministers lost their seats. People like Diane Abbott who we all know was a bit of character was pretty much left begging for a seat. She had served Labour for decades and seemed quite vulnerable. There were several more like Coryn. It sits a bit uncomfortably with me with the ease it was all done. There was a number I saw on the TV, I couldn't keep up with all in the end.  I preferred the way Boris used to stand by his ministers.

I know that for many autistic people change is scary, but it's not always bad, I find Starmer a bit of a stuffed shirt, but I never liked Blair, he was too smarmy for my taste and after the sexed up Iraq dossier and dragging us into an illegal war in Iraq I felt my feelings about him justified. I think Starmer may just be a bit boring, but is that such a bad thing? I think someone a bit boring who just gets his head down and gets on with it preferable to Sunak and Co fighting like rats in a sack and not doing the job they're there to do.

I was glad to see our MP lost her seat although only narrowly, many saw her as a good MP, someone who did a lot for the island, which she did, all the wrong things in my opinion. I can't say I'm delighted with the new one, previous head of the council.

What I do find surprising is the increase in LibDem seats, I think they will be ones to watch in the future, especially if/when the Tory party tears itself apart over thier direction of travel and who will lead them. I could see a situation where the Tory votes gets more split between LibDem and Reform.

Another thing to think about was how low the turnout was around 40% of people didn't vote, me included, as I couldn't find anyone worth endorsing. I think it will be different next time around though, whether Labour do well or not over the coming years, I could well see a situation where things become more polarised or Labour take a larger vote share.

This morning I saw who won and found it difficult to take and a felt bit out of depth with the world. I had to rest for a while to try and take it in. It was kind of easy for me to go with who we had because of familiarity I guess, whether we needed a change or not. I liked the Blair government, a few things Starmar has done and said hasn't warmed me to him as much. I am unsure what changes to expect and coming up and that I find a bit worrying. We can't do anything about it though.  I was glad to see my local MP kept his seat though.

Kate Kestrel said:

because he’s a decent man who’s been treated so badly by Starmer/Labour. 

So 'decent' that he's never condemned the atrocious behaviour of some of his most ardent supporters. He's never kept his ego in check enough to do more than just 'talk the talk'. It was his fault alone how things went for him with Labour. He deliberately chose not to do what was needed to remain as a Labour MP.

So we will go to the abbatoir in a RED van! 

Woo HOO!! (/S)

Why on earth would we end up with a military dictatorship? I don't think we'll have civil unrest, ever since the Civil War and the Restoration of the monarchy the estabilishment have been very good at giving people just enough to have something to lose, I think if the Tories had won we might have seen a summer of rioting.

It is a big job to turn things around again, but I think many people seem to accept that they have to pay more tax if they want public services like the NHS, one of the problems with this country is that we've been told ever since Thatcher that we can have champagne services on a beer budget.

I agree that the rise of Reform is worrying, but they didn't do nearly as well as exit polls suggested, Farage says he's coming for Labour, but with only 3 MP's he will be hard pressed to do so as he will have to abide by parliamentary rules. I don't think Labour will try and take us back into the EU, we wouldn't get anywhere near as good a deal as we had when we left. But I think he might bring us closer over a few things where it will make a big difference, like a vetinary agreement, which would take away a huge amount of red tape. As well as things like co-operation on security, so as we and the EU can share more information on threats, especially as he want to go after people smuggling gangs. Of course we don't know what the EU will look like over the next few weeks, it could swing to the far right and break up or at least curtail EU powers?

One thing I really do think will make a big difference is business investment, chaos and instability in government has been a big issue in stopping business to invest here, whether they're already based here or are wanting to come here. If we do end up with a closer trading arrangement with the EU then more businesses will come here as we will a platform into Europe.

Whichever way you wish to interpret it Labour has succeeded in it's primary objective. How many of us after the disaster of 2019 would've expected that? It certainly wouldn't have happened if Corbyn was still leader. Starmer was excellent at showing how bad the Tories have been, and not so good at selling what Labour had to offer to voters.Am I confident Starmer and Labour will make good use of the win? Not totally.60%? But I've always been more of a pessimist than an optimist.

that's a different meaning and why I asked for the clarification above

I'll rephrase then - Labour grew their vote from 32% to 34% of those who voted in the election.

By a jump of 2% they went from a minority party to having a supermajority.

Labour got 34% of the vote in this election according to your link.

Voter turnout was 60% of those qualified to vote (registered voters are 48.8 million according to https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/december2021  )

The UK population is 68 million according to
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/united-kingdom-population

Therefore there were 34% x 60% x 48.8m labour voters = 10 million.

10 million is 14.7% of the UK population

So Labour now have a supermajority based on less than 15% of the population.

An interesting (at least to me) bio of our new PM:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4y9evzzppo

Given all of the problems already caused by the Tories in the U.K. I am very fearful about what will next happen under Labour - they will find themselves out of their depth, facing serious social unrest, possibly an all-out race war and civil war - at which point they will find that they will have no other option but to hand over power to the milltary and allow a provisional milltary government to take charge - the tipping point could come when they try to reverse Brexit or if there are any more economic problems, this could drive people over the edge, there could be large scale rioting and looting on the streets 

Iain said:

The article says:

Labour's vote share is up by less than two points from 32% to 34%,

Yes, that's a different meaning and why I asked for the clarification above.