Soooo, The Unitary authority is arriving, in my case West Surrey, and its the vote for the makeup of such. So I decided to vote.
I voted for the two Tory candidates, despite the fact I despise the party after the debacles of Bojo and Liz Thrust. Why? the two are very localy active, running clinics, visiting local events and groups, punching above their weight with the authorities over local issues, very active social media presence, Live locally, generally focussed on the people in the ward.
Turned up at the polling station - a large and well used old peeps day centre, to overhear the reform candidate outside say to someone "It's nice here isnt it, never been in this area before"
So I found the two names of the reform candadiates, did an internet search and I can find nothing about them other than a link to the reform party.
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Glad you are sticking to the notion of voting for the (local) proven candidate, not the party. Not a lot of voters do that any more.
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Heard at ten-to-seven: The polling stations open in ten minutes. Tower Hamlets have declared their results!
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No elections here.
I have no notion of whether to expect Reform to do better than their polling, or worse. Presumably there will be some 'shy' Garage fans, equally perhaps a lot of intending protest voters will choke on actually voting for them.
I almost want them to do well, to help ensure voters are heartily sick of them by the GE. I will will despair should Mr Nasty ever be PM. I wish I had an Irish grandparent so I wouldn't have to own him should the worst happen.
I keep seeing people implying they don't like Reform but "they should have a chance". How thick can they be?
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I unenthusiastically voted Conservative. The Labour devolved government in Wales have been a disaster, running the worst performing health service in the UK despite having more to spend per head on health than any of the other regions. Reform are full of right wing nutters and the Greens have all the left wing nutters and laughable economic policies. Plaid Cymru - who campaigned to stay in the EU because bigger is stronger - want Wales to be independent, failing to explain how a country where 50% of the workforce are employed in the public sector could pay their way.
The Lib Dems? Who are they?
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>> I unenthusiastically voted Conservative.
Miss B, in the diametrically opposite corner of Wales, was scratching her head over how to minimise the chances of Refuk getting people in her constituency.
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>> I unenthusiastically voted Conservative. The Labour devolved government in Wales have been a disaster, running
>> the worst performing health service in the UK despite having more to spend per head
>> on health than any of the other regions.
I presume you mean 'ruining, not running?
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In Scotland we have the Scottish parliament election and no overnight counting so will filter though today.
Currently having a whatsapp chat with family on Reform - its easy to say they are full of nutters and god forbid they ever get in. Reality is they are winning all across England and they will definitely have a substantial presence in Scotland due to our voting system.
Other parties need to understand why people vote for reform and counteract that message. I no longer think its all about stopping the boats. But as I say in my family chat, we are all in a position that none of us have asylum seeker hotels on our doorstep and dealing with the realities of what that may bring.
But reform are also anti woke / anti gender stuff - I can get on board with that and I think there is a lot of society that simply wants to have established definitions of what a man and a woman is.
They want to purge civil servants - to many in society who are not civil servants, thats an easy win , without then having to explain what would you do to replace these jobs.
A lot of Reform message is what they want to change but not so much meat on the bones about how they will do it. But reality is, as it stands, at the next election I think we will be looking at PM Farage unless the other parties can do something about it.
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>> A lot of Reform message is what they want to change but not so much
>> meat on the bones about how they will do it.
Its pure trumpism. Pick a handful of messages from stuff that people grumble about, stuff that outrages and looks offensive on TV, and have a dramatic answer. Alas government and power is more than that, far more joined up, - lots of stuff like a jigsaw - and all farage is interested in, indeed has experience of, is corners of said jig saw and making a noise. Farage is Trump mk2.
As for anti woke/ gender stuff, problem is in Scotland is that Sturgeon and hence the SNP went big into gender freedom, far too far too fast - unworkable in many cases, and offended her core vote
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agree with all that - but how do other parties counteract it?
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How do you convince the electorate that it will be unwise to vote for Reform?
The thought of Farage as PM frightens me. The man has absolutely no experience.
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Farage has said: please Keir, don't quit, you're my best asset.
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>> How do you convince the electorate that it will be unwise to vote for Reform?
>>
>>
>>
Take notice of their concerns and do something about them. Something that should have been learned after seeing Trump elected in the USA.
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I make no apologies - my natural political home is trad Tory. No surprise they failed due to the Johnson/Truss debacle. Labour won an overwhelming majority due to the Tory/Reform split - a function of a FPTP system which works best with two main parties.
Greens have morphed from legitimate environmental to far left lead by the completely odious. Labour policies are not all bad. However any hope of honest, transparent, growth, change etc have been completely misplaced. They are a failure.
The UK needs radical change the traditional political establishment have proven entirely incapable of delivering Needs clear and unambiguous leadership, an intent to make changes not excuses. If the Tories are no longer a credible political force, there are really only two options.
LibDem are very nice people but no more real experience of government than Reform a recipe for the anodyne
Reform are B/S merchants with simplistic populist soundbites, but differentiated from the rest of the political establishment by the way they communicate and may (hopefully) act. They would not be my first choice, but are clearly the default option. Labour and Greens don't even get to the starting gate, LibDems may be a tactical vote.
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>> How do you convince the electorate that it will be unwise to vote for Reform? >>
The general problem is that voters are fed up with amateur politicians, in particular Tories and Labour. Their dilemma is who might prove a better alternative. Luckily we have no elections here, so I don't have to choose.
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>> >> How do you convince the electorate that it will be unwise to vote for
>> Reform? >>
>>
>> The general problem is that voters are fed up with amateur politicians,
Well that have got that in spades now. Reform is the very definition of amateur
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>> I voted for the two Tory candidates, despite the fact I despise the party after
>> the debacles of Bojo and Liz Thrust. Why? the two are very localy active, running
>> clinics, visiting local events and groups, punching above their weight with the authorities over local
>> issues, very active social media presence, Live locally, generally focussed on the people in the
>> ward.
And pleased to say my choices got elected.
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Apparently the electorate in Clacton have a new name for Nigel Farage - The Clacton Clitoris (because no-one can find him)
He wont do local surgeries, because he claims he doesent get security.
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>>
>> He wont do local surgeries, because he claims he doesent get security.
>>
Well, I can certainly believe one might need more than £5M-worth of security in Clacton. ;-)
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Had traditional parties done an even half competent job, Farage and Polanski would still be minority interests.
Having very strong views about the competence, plans, feasibility etc of any party (in this case Reform) is understandable. Similar extreme doubts about the alternatives would probably have more substance given their performance over the last few decades.
Persuading people not to vote Reform or Green (by far the less pleasant of the two) is wrong - far better to give them a reason to vote for the mostly decent Tory, Labour, LibDem. They need to massively raise their game.
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>> And pleased to say my choices got elected.
>>
However, Lib Dems have overall control in West Surrey.
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>> >> And pleased to say my choices got elected.
>> >>
>>
>> However, Lib Dems have overall control in West Surrey.
And you east enders it seems
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>> So how long has starmer got left, weeks or a couple of months?
Who would replace him? The others don't bear thinking about. I wonder if it's like the tories, nobody wanted the PM's job when it was given to Rishi.
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They'll be plenty that want the job.
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>> So how long has Starmer got left, weeks or a couple of months? <<
He was claiming last night that he wanted to be there for the decade ! ?
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Todays Voting. - Andrew-T
