I don’t think Cameron was that bad a PM. But brits would know better.
He was terrible.
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Ok , brexit aside.
Even when not taking into account Brexit he was terrible.
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I appreciate your viewpoint, I am unconvinced point 1, they know exactly what they are doing and they don’t have the guts to be bold like Tony Blair was when he was running for PM.
I agree with your point 2 
Fair enough.
I thought he was OK but he had some complete tools to deal with (or S H 1 T S as he called them).
The Conservative MPs and ministers I came across personally were OK. You may not have agreed with them but you had the idea that they genuinely cared about the country.
I think my perspective there is that I would tend to come into contact with them through work, so the ones I had contact with were the ones doing a proper job.
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My limited understanding and interest in national politics is that we have a shower of self preserving wankers running the country right now. If Labour get in we’ll just have a different shower of self preserving wankers running the country
I’ll be voting Lib Dems, same as in the last election, purely to keep SNP out of power in my constituency.
That may be the wrong outlook in the eyes of many, but we live in a democracy, and that’s my choice.
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You are going to have to wait until the manifestos and see who you want running the country.
I’m going to defend Starmer though. To say you think he’s two faced, while at the same time professing a liking for David Milliband is a bit dissonant.
I first came across Keir Starmer years ago, while researching my dissertation. He was the lawyer who stepped in pro bono to help the McLibel defendants who were being sued for suggesting McDonald’s food is unhealthy and environmentally damaging. He has been a Labour Party member his whole life. The idea he is a Red Tory needs to be fucked right off. Seriously, it’s embarrassing.
This is what Starmer has to deal with. He is trying to get the Labour into Government, in a country where the Overton Window has shifted so much Jacob Rees Mogg can go on TV and describe the Labour Party as ‘hard socialism’ to absolutely no censure or comment. He has to navigate a media landscape dominated by right wing shills, billionaire opinion formers, and Conservative party donors. The normal Labour heartlands would vote for Brexit again in a heartbeat, and the last time a Labour leader went to the people with a programme of social democratic policies, it resulted in a an 80 seat Tory Majority, and a smearing so savage half the country now believe he is a rabid antisemite.
What this comes down to, for me - and I suspect for Keir Starmer - is what do you think the Labour Party is for? Do you think you the Labour Party should be providing socialist opposition, nowhere near power but at remaining ideologically pure. Leaders who say the right things to us, but the wrong things to people who actually get to decide elections. Or do you want the Labour Party in power making differences to people’s lives, even if those differences are less than we would ideally like.
We can’t live in alternative universes, but I suspect if Labour had have chosen David Milliband as leader after Brown, he would have said and done whatever was necessary to get Labour into power and ended up as hated by the left as Starmer is.
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To answer your point, where I live, we have to main roads which link to A4 and Uxbridge Rd links to the main North Circular, also we also have small side roads where people sometimes use to avoid traffic on the main road. LTNS were displacing traffic on to neighbouring roads worsening the congestion.
It may work in some areas of London, but not other places where there are many small side roads and one main road, especially in the locality i live in.
LTNS were causing problems for ambulances, Doctors, community nurses on home visits and Fire engines, because all the side roads were getting blocked with a one way system. Residents with mobility problems couldn’t get out.
My Aunt’s carer doesn’t live down the road to my aunt, she sees other patients in the borough, she would have to take 3 buses to get to my aunt, alot longer to get to her, where the car reduce the time considerably. Her other patient lives on the other side of Ealing borough which is a big borough, she has no choice but to use a car. Also, she takes my Aunt out for Hospital appointments, my aunt goes out in wheelchair, she is unable to use public transport.
There are many elderly where I live, who are on their own and they need someone daily to help them. Many carers don’t live next door to their patients, they no choice but to use a care and they have to be at the patient’s home at a certain time to give breakfast, lunch, dinner, medication on time and they do alot more for housebound disabled people especially shopping and taking them to other places they need to go to.
I live 7 minutes walk from my Aunt, she lives on quiet residential road.
With regards to transport is I don’t see a great improvement. There is always works on the lines on the weekends, buses are slow, in one week, when i was going to work, trains were always getting cancelled during rush hour, information on the board about incoming trains doesn’t relate to what is actually happening. Suddenly the train you are on, terminates at the next station without prior warning.
Beyond the initial few weeks, studies of LTNs in general have shown that there is no net increase in traffic on neighbouring roads. Their effect is to decrease traffic in general.
That’s precisely where LTNs have been implemented, and have the most effect, precisely because so many drivers bypass the congestion on the main road by using the small side roads as a rat-run.
The emergency services get consulted during the process of designing the LTNs and have the opportunity to object to them. They generally don’t, depending on design, as it often means that they paradoxically have easier access since smaller roads are not clogged up as much.
A one-way system does not block roads. Too many cars blocks roads.
How many of them drive? If I recall correctly, people with mobility problems in general are less likely to get around by private car.
I do sympathise with your particular situation, but in general, cases like your aunt’s carer are edge cases. Few people need to get around the way your aunt’s carer does.
What kind of public transport doesn’t have accessibility built-in? Genuinely curious, as I’ don’t think I’ve ever seen a bus that doesn’t have a wheelchair ramp.
There’s always a choice. The honest truth is that this entire case highlights how car-dependent our society has become, that we don’t devote enough resources into developing the far more efficient modes of transportation.
Guess why all this is happening? Lack of investment into transport infrastructure!
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And over-reliance on legacy systems. A lot of first world countries would have that problem where their current transportation/communication (which were built probably 60+ years ago and outdated) systems cannot be improved substantially without having huge elements of “rip it off and lay an entirely new track mentality”. This will continue to happen more and more as the systems get older and older. I doubt that any government in power (whether Tory or Labour) has the funds or the will power to make those drastic changes which would be required.
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Not in my area, LTN caused more problems and when they were removed, the traffic flow was much better,. It did not suit the area and they were dismantled.
With regards to emergency, we heard so many ambulances were stuck in the side roads due to the LTNS trying to get to patients. on the side roads. Many paramedics had to walk 10 minutes to reach their patients, Ealing Council put LTNS on the wrong roads which made it worse.
With regards to people with mobility issues, many of them do not use public transport, because, alot of the time, there are too many passengers on the bus and not enough room for a wheelchair users, so they end up missing the bus and having to wait 20 minutes in the cold for another one. Most wheelchair users are always with a carer/chaperone and they find it hard waiting for a bus for half an hour.
The buses usually do have ramps, but only enough for 1x wheelchair, then, you also have young mothers with prams and pushchairs taking up space as well, you can’t have both pushchairs and wheelchairs on the buses where I live.
Most disabled people or elderly people do not drive or have given up driving for health reasons, they much prefer a private car and they feel more comfortable and safe and many cannot sit for long on bus if it is an hour’s journey, also, they also need park near the place they are visiting, they are not in the cold for too long. Also, if they want to go home earlier than normal, they don’t have to wait for public transport. Elderly people get very tired, even if they are out for an hour, so they do need a car.
With regards to carers I have seen, nearly all of them need a car for their jobs, in the social care jobs, some job descriptions it is required to have a driving licence. My friend in Bournemouth was a carer, she couldn’t do her job without a car as the bus system there was not good.
I think the malaise you are feeling is a function of the country, not Labour.
Whisper it quietly, but the country that the Tory’s handed over in 1997 was in decent nick, even if the Party itself wasn’t, and it gave Blair a lot of scope to go to the country with optimism and positivity. Blair could make big promises because he knew the bedrock was there to deliver.
Labour are going to inherit a country that is in a desperate, desperate state. They can’t borrow, they can’t raise taxes, and it isn’t easy to go after wealth.
Starmer does not have a lot of room to do anything, unlike Blair in 1997.
Put it this way. If there was a party at this election offering the public massive, visionary policies for huge sweeping changes, then they are either lying about their capacity to deliver them, or they would be in for the shock of their lives once in power.
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I see what you’re saying in hindsight Mascot, i just have prepare myself that I hope I do the right thing come putting my vote to help the country and world in general.
Default politics, regardless of party
I don’t think the situation has ever been bleaker, Maria. We find ourselves in a dreadful state, and a succession of economic shocks have just knocked the wind out of everything. Cameron’s Austerity programme, Brexit, Covid, Liz Truss, Ukraine. It’s been one thing after another. I think from that list there isn’t one thing hasn’t been the Tory’s fault or they haven’t made much worse.
So this is where I am. I think we have to be sensible about what Keir Starmer is going to be able to do. The easiest thing in the world is to shrug and say ‘they are all the same as each other’, but we have to make the effort to understand what is going on. There are a lot of things that, as a left wing progressive, I would love the Labour Party to do, but the majority of it is just off the table for a variety of reasons.
So I think you have to focus on what you get from Labour as opposed to the Tory’s
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You get a sense of stability and competence back to Government. You get ministers who will read their briefs, won’t be at war with the civil service and isn’t full of self serving arseholes (despite what Dane says, which is bollocks). A Government that isn’t continually lurching from self inflicted crisis to crisis will be much better.
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You get an economic separation from the hard right Tory fanatics who have done so much to damage trust in the country’s economy, which will hopefully calm everything down a bit and allow normality to resume.
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You get much, much less corruption and naked profiteering. You won’t get situations like Richard Hester giving them £15m quid, and receiving £200m in public money in return.
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You get perhaps the basis of a new relationship with Europe, as Labour are able to be much more grown up than the Tory’s on the issue, and aren’t weighed down by their own lunatic fringe on the issue or the legacy of being the ones who caused all the issues.
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You will get a Government that is still committed to creating an industrial strategy, which we haven’t had for decades.
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OK. So what is your solution? Nihilism?
You think I have a solution?
What’s so difficult about it? Close loopholes, tax rich people more. Corbyn’s Labour proposed-
increase tax to 45% for income over £80,000 and 50% over £123,000. Companies pay a levy for staff earning over £330,000. CGT will increase at least to 18% basic rate and 28% higher rate.
Even if they ignored the 45%, the rest of this would only affect a small proportion of already rich people and benefit the vast majority through better services.
We’ve just been pummelled by years of neoliberalism into disbelieving that there are better and fairer ways
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