Vote wisely.

[tamada]

At the risk of upsetting the perpetual forum malcontent by quoting a link to the BBC, it appears that British expats now have their voting rights restored.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67993306

The way I see it, exercise your voting rights and don't gurn too much about the job the Commies are doing. Dealing with afterbirths is always a bit messy, large Tory ones especially.

[rick]

Pretty useless here in Thailand. i did ask for a postal ballot once - it arrived 5 days after the election......
Only any good if you can use a proxy vote - but it has to be for the constituency you last voted in. Good luck with finding someone you trust.

[tamada]

Pretty useless here in Thailand. i did ask for a postal ballot once - it arrived 5 days after the election......
Only any good if you can use a proxy vote - but it has to be for the constituency you last voted in. Good luck with finding someone you trust.

Since any UK government-issued mail, national or local, will automatically be sent by metered mail regardless of what the destination address is, one does need to use either a relative, friend or otherwise arrange a mail-forwarding service. Same for bank, tax, proof of life stuff from HMRC. However, in my experience, depending on how in-touch some local council office staff are, getting them to use air-mail for vote-related stuff is possible.

Have you had issues of trust being abused by friends or family back in the UK?

[rick]

Just the ex-wife..

But no longer have anyone in that constituency.

[tamada]

When I registered to vote some time between the SNP referendum and Brexit, I had never voted in Scotland where I came of voting age and my last-known UK address so I registered where my sister was living in England. All initiated online and confirmed with follow-up via email. I have recently changed address in England, done online, via email with regular mail confirmation. Changing my doctor was more of a ball ache, walk-in, hand-filled forms for signing off and signing on.

[tamada]

[rick]

Tam, I loved it. George has meanwhile given both Tories and Labour a good hiding in Rochdale. That is what happens when you ignore the public.

[tamada]

Galloway, the thinking man's Corbyn.

...or Farage.

Certainly a coup for the increasing amount of Brits that consider "none of the above" when faced with yet another ballot.

By saying, "Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are two cheeks of the same backside and they both got well and truly spanked tonight", Galloway invoked a saying that my father frequently used to describe the ritual choice between Conservative or Labour at election time in Scotland.

Reform UK got their arses handed to them as well but what on earth were they thinking when they chose Danczuk as their candidate? Galloway may have cynically hijacked blowback from the Israel-Hamas conflict to get his "win" but nobody wants an MP who thinks that it's OK to chat inappropriately with your underage daughter either, do they?

https://news.sky.com/story/rochdale-by- ... s-13084132

[tamada]

Good grief! Reform UK haver got themselves an MP without a vote being cast. Well done!

Pity it's Lee Anderson but.

Meanwhile,..

[glalt]

And I thought that US politics was bad. LOL!

[tamada]

Game on then!

Rishi has called a 4th July general election.

Labour has around a 22-point lead in the opinion polls and 78 Tory MP's have pulled the pin SINCE the election was called.

Nigel Farage has declined to throw his hat in the ring, preferring to campaign for Trump in the US, i e., too much like hard work here and US talk shows pay better.

Vote smart, vote often.

[tamada]

[Drunk Monkey]

VOTE REFORM

LETS GET FARAGE INTO No 10 ..............

[jackspratt]

Stood 7 times ..... lost 7 times.

Plastic Ponce won't even make it to Westminster ..... let alone Downing St.

Is he a Scunny supporter by any chance?

[tamada]

VOTE REFORM

LETS GET FARAGE INTO No 10 ..............

Let's not but say we did?

Actually, in his post-milkshake opening campaign speech outside Wetherspoons, he told any who were still listening that this election will result in a Labour government. He actually said that twice in quick succession to emphasize the reality of the UK's post-4 July political landscape.

I predict 8 not in.

[Drunk Monkey]

Stood 7 times ..... lost 7 times.

Plastic Ponce won't even make it to Westminster ..... let alone Downing St.

Is he a Scunny supporter by any chance?

To clarify Jack..

Farage neck n neck with the Labour candidate in Clacton .. the Tory rep has lost 41points since there was a vote there.

Hoping Nige wins Clacton and gets in Parliament thus to form a base for a future Reform Government and him in No 10

As for him being a Scunny fan ...ISNT EVERYONE !!??

DM

[tamada]

Clacton is one of the safest Tory seats, holding an almost 25k majority.

Yes, the Conservatives will shed a boatload of them to Labour.

Reform won't even manage to split the vote.

Only Farage's tilt in 2015 got him anywhere close to being elected. His six other outings have been abysmal failures with vote shares between 1% and 5%. He's ended up third behind the Lib Dems and has even been beaten by an independent. After 30 years, his MEP trophy cabinet can be likened to Harry Kane's medal collection. The only commendable thing he achieved while in Brussels was getting right up the equally obnoxious Guy Verhofstadt's nose. He may as well stand for Glasgow Pollockshields for all the good he'll do Reform.

8 not in

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Yes, vote wisely. Which way will Labour turn on gender reform? Will they be able to avoid the mess created in Scotland and have a sane policy for women or not? Is self-identity the answer and what about the Cass Report?

JANICE TURNER
Starmer is still woolly over gender reform
Labour leader says he would implement the Cass report in full if elected but his priorities are likely to lie elsewhere
Janice Turner
Friday June 14 2024, 9.00pm BST, The Times

It was Andrew Marr’s final question in his LBC interview with Sir Keir Starmer. Could the Labour leader clarify whether his government would implement the Cass report in full, given that his party manifesto “doesn’t quite say that”? There was an aching silence before Starmer replied: “Yes, and that’s what our manifesto says.”

Except it doesn’t. Labour promises to “ensure that young people presenting to the NHS with gender dysphoria are receiving appropriate and high-quality care”. But elsewhere Labour pledges a “full trans-inclusive ban” on conversion therapy, which Dr Hilary Cass specifically warns against.

This circle cannot be squared. Cass writes that therapists delivering holistic therapy, in which young people can explore everything that may cause them to question their gender, from homophobic bullying to online forums, could face “potential accusations of conversion practice”. In interviews she has noted a “fearfulness among colleagues” and the impossibility of framing anti-conversion law that won’t have a “chilling effect” on their work.

• JK Rowling attacks Labour’s ‘indifference to women’ in trans row

So how will Labour navigate this complex legal terrain where private members’ bills have tried and failed? The manifesto does not say. On this most toxic policy area, Starmer has kept promises deliberately vague. The goal is to neutralise opposition from warring camps without committing the party to anything.


So it throws LGBT Labour a promise to “reform the intrusive and outdated gender recognition law in a new process” (whatever “new” may mean), while gender-critical feminists are told Labour will continue to implement the Equality Act’s single-sex exceptions.

These campaigners are also relieved that plans have been dropped to abolish the “spousal veto” (giving a wife the right to divorce before her husband becomes legally female, thus radically changing their marriage contract).

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow equalities minister, was touting abolition only last month but was cut out of policy drafting. Starmer confined this to his inner circle, which includes Wes Streeting (health), Bridget Phillipson (education) and Shabana Mahmood (justice), who are all gender-critical.

Labour policy, though hazy and contradictory, has evolved greatly since its 2019 manifesto offered self-ID. This was dropped last year following the fiasco in Scotland, when the SNP pushed through the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) bill and Nicola Sturgeon unravelled when asked whether a trans-identified male rapist was a woman.

Yet Labour also owes a debt to Tory women, especially the former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, for their political heavy lifting that has enabled Starmer to take a saner stance. Badenoch says, rightly, that a Labour government could never have commissioned the Cass review, an academic work of global significance.

Nor would Labour have blocked Scotland’s GRR, thus ushering in de facto UK-wide self-ID, nor stopped male prisoners being housed in English women’s jails or ensured the Equality and Human Rights Commission upholds equality law as it stands rather than as Stonewall wishes it to be. Nor would they have reversed countless other examples of trans activist overreach.

Badenoch faced mild internal opposition, whereas LGBT Labour has the Chris Smith List offering campaign funds to gay MPs who will further its aims, including self-ID. Unions and other party affiliates are bastions of trans activism.

Labour Women’s Declaration, a tireless group of gender-critical members and MPs who endured physical intimidation and disciplinary action, must look on the rational and balanced Tory manifesto gender policy with some envy.

Conservatives promise to clarify the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act to ensure it means the biological trait, not a legal category. This would allow rape crisis centres and women’s refuges to exclude all males, even those who’ve acquired a female birth certificate via a gender recognition certificate (GRC).

Badenoch claims she had no time to implement this in office. Others believe she held it back as a juicy election carrot. Either way, it is too arcane a policy to win much support and, as Badenoch showed in a tricky interview with the BBC’s Mishal Husain, it is hard to convey.

That does not mean it isn’t vital. Labour claims the law doesn’t need rewriting, that it’s enough to issue statutory guidance to sports bodies and hospitals saying single-sex exemptions are lawful. But in the autumn the Supreme Court will consider an appeal against the Scottish judge Lady Haldane, who stated that legal ambiguities mean a man with a GRC is female in all circumstances. If Haldane’s ruling is upheld, the case for primary legislation is strong, especially given that Labour wants to simplify the GRC process, making it much easier for men to be legally female.

Will the next government roll back all the painful unpicking of gender ideology from state institutions achieved in the past five years? If it was up to the Lib Dems and Greens, certainly. Both their manifestos support self-ID plus the right of those under the delusion that they are neither male nor female to put “X” in their passports instead.

As for Labour, feminists in the party point out that Dodds — whose obdurate policy chief Scott Gilfillan is known as “the mansplainer” — will not, as her job stands, be in the cabinet, while Streeting, Phillipson and Mahmood will. Health provides the most immediate challenge.

When the government’s ban on private clinics prescribing puberty blockers expires in September, will Streeting make it permanent? As he pilots major NHS reforms, will he ensure the child services that replace the Gids clinic at the Tavistock Centre are what Cass recommends?

With Labour likely to focus on a new race equality act, gender reform will not be a first-term priority. Anyway, support for self-ID has tumbled to 24 per cent, from 58 per cent in 2016, according to British Social Attitudes research. To align with public opinion, a Starmer government may need to do nothing at all.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/column ... -p5h0sv5rz

Yes, that's the approach. Follow Lord Palmerston and promise to do nothing if elected by explaining that there is too much legislation on the books already.

[Laan Yaa Mo]

Wise words from a wise man, but I can't see this changing the X on anyone's ballot from Labour to Conservative. If Starmer rules like Blair or does nothing radical and keeps the cancel culture nitwits at bay, his government should do okay.

Mr. Hague:

A tiny opposition is a danger to democracy
Having led the smallest Tory rump since the war, I know well how a Labour supermajority would govern unchecked

Monday June 17 2024, 5.00pm BST, The Times

Among the many attributes of the Grand Hotel at Eastbourne is that it has 152 rooms. It was therefore the perfect size for a new leader of a semi-destroyed Conservative Party in 1997 — that was me — to take his party of 165 MPs, anticipating that around a dozen would on no account want to spend two whole days with their colleagues.

Although the late Alan Clark sparked a rumour that senior MPs might have to share a room with Ann Widdecombe, causing such consternation that I had to speak to several to put their minds at rest, most of them joined me there to work out how the smallest opposition since the Second World War could do its job.

It is a virtue of the British political system that the largest opposition party has a formal role — I was leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, not just of the Tory party — charged with the task of ensuring scrutiny of the government of the day, as well as providing a future alternative to it. With a party of 165, this was just about possible. At prime minister’s questions I could still make myself heard, given a very loud voice, over the 400 government MPs trying to shout me down. I limited the front bench to about 70 MPs, just sufficient to shadow Whitehall departments but no more than that. In any case, once I had excluded all those who were too new, too old, too mad or too opposed to the leadership, there weren’t many more from whom to choose.

Yet with such a small opposition, it is hard to argue that parliament excelled itself in that period. The majority of select committees, where the detailed work of questioning ministers and officials is done, were chaired by Labour MPs loyal to the government and reluctant to embarrass it.

There was no possibility of ministers losing a vote on any legislation, however controversial or badly drafted. This was despite backbench Labour members being more rebellious, on average, than in more finely balanced parliaments. So great was the number of government MPs that even a big revolt on its own benches could never defeat it. The only obstacle to deficient laws was in the House of Lords but that was soon emasculated.

On one evening I ordered all my MPs to pretend they had gone home, while house parties were thrown for them in three locations close to the Commons. Then, when Labour whips had relaxed and sent many of their own members away for the night, we poured back into the voting lobbies — most were still able to walk in a straight line — shocked Labour and almost defeated them. Almost. And only on a minor matter. It was fun at times, but it was not effective opposition. We were like the Home Guard in 1940, able to practise marching up and down but in no way able to disrupt the German war effort.

Now we have to face the possibility of an even more lopsided parliament. Opinion polls currently predict that the Conservatives will again become the official opposition, with seats numbering about 180 at the top end of estimates or less than half that at the bottom end.

The latest Survation seat-by-seat analysis, admittedly one of the most advantageous to Labour, suggests that there could be 72 Tory MPs, 56 Liberal Democrats, and 37 Scottish nationalists, facing 462 Labour MPs. If this happened, it would be the most overwhelming majority in an election for 200 years apart from the triumph of the National Government coalition in 1931, when the Labour opposition only managed 52 seats. That did not make for a parliament known for scrutiny of ministers. As one historian wrote of it, “The government had nothing to fear behind it or in front”.

This might not happen, of course. Voting intentions can change in the next two weeks. The many undecided voters can plump one way or another. The MRP (multiple regression) surveys that produce such forecasts might not work well in a complex election with seven parties fighting for seats in England, Scotland and Wales. Yet the danger of a Commons utterly dominated by one party is clear, and if we are going to have elections in which polls — as opposed to the actual issues — play such a big role, we might as well learn from what they are saying.

You might think, well, tough: this would be the product of an electoral system that can produce a wildly disproportionate outcome in some circumstances. Or it’s the result of the Tories apparently losing so much support; it’s their own fault. Or we need a political realignment and one rotten parliament won’t make much difference along the way. And what is an individual voter, who generally just wants to vote for their preferred party, meant to do about this anyway?

All the above are legitimate points of view, although I wouldn’t agree with them all. But it is worth bearing in mind that we are about to elect a parliament, not just the government that will be derived from it.

The famous dictum of Disraeli that “No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition” is not literally true, since such a government is exceptionally secure, at least for five years. What he meant though, is very true: that a thin opposition can lead to ministers being complacent, arrogant and heedless of objections to their actions even within their own party. That can happen in any government, but with a vast majority it becomes very likely.

If Labour really does win 462 seats on July 4, it would translate into them having the chairmanship of 19 of the 27 select committees, and 8 of the 11 seats on a typical such committee — essentially marking their own homework. About two thirds of all private members’ bills would come from Labour MPs, in addition to all the government legislation. No department of state could be monitored in depth by an opposition frontbench team. No clause of any bill introduced by a minister would ever come close to being defeated. It would be parliamentary democracy in its weakest form since the 1930s.

You might see in this argument a ruse by a former Tory leader to get you to vote Conservative at the last minute, and yes, there’s a bit of that — you’ve spotted it. But as someone who led what was regarded as a particularly small opposition, and sat in the Commons for 26 years, I would be genuinely concerned about a truly massive majority for any one party, now or in the future. It is not a bad rule of thumb that parliament will be in trouble if a future leader of the opposition regards the Grand Hotel at Eastbourne as way too big.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/column ... -c00bzr65z

[AlexO]

If Starmer rules like Blair or does nothing radical and keeps the cancel culture nitwits at bay,

So if he kowtows to the USA, takes the UK into an illegal war and walks away after ensuring his financial future he will be an acceptable PM.
Hindsight Starmer
"My father was a toolmaker", no he wasn't he owned a company that employed toolmakers.
Hindsight has defended terrorists as a lawyer, ignored Asian rape gangs as the top doggy in the CPS and now claims to have only supported Corbyn and the rest of the Arab terrorist organisations supporters who are still running Liebour because he did not think he would win?
Hindsight and Clair (the sneer) will never be anything but political opportunists. God help the UK.