UK Politics Thread X: Upcoming Local Elections in May

[Forsher]

Dominic Raab to stand down at the next election. No great loss there.

Ah, the new BBC chairman.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Dominic Raab to stand down at the next election. No great loss there.

Ah, the new BBC chairman.

Oh no please dont

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

Ah, the new BBC chairman.

Oh no please dont

Probably better than it being Nadine Dorries.

[Hirota]

Well this thread took a turn for the utterly, utterly deranged.

Anyway, despite the IMF warning that UK economy would contract by 0.3% this year, Mr Hunt claims that the economy is back. Back to what I wonder? Recession?

Assuming we take the IMF as gospel, It appears Jeremy Hunt was right, and the IMF has acted accordingly.

Britain is no longer expected to suffer a recession this year, nor will it have the weakest economic growth in the group of seven leading industrialised economies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said today.

Unveiling a dramatic upgrade to its outlook for Britain, the Fund, which previously predicted Britain would face the worst 2023 of any G7 nation, said that in fact the UK would grow by 0.4% this year.

While this remains weak, it is nonetheless stronger than the 0.7% contraction previously forecast and stronger than the "near zero" growth rate the IMF has pencilled in for Germany.

The news, contained in the IMF's latest individual assessment of the UK economy, its so-called Article IV report, will likely be welcomed by the chancellor, following a stream of negative forecasts from major institutions.

However, the Fund said that the impact of the cost of living crisis will continue to cause pain across the economy.

And the IMF has recommended that the UK economy gets rid of the triple lock on pensions after all.

Ministers will have to “grasp the nettle” on bringing forward the rise in the state pension age to 68 in the first couple of years of the next parliament, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has suggested.

Apologies, this is late, I went looking for triple lock and found this. But if you read the article you are quoting, you would read the second paragraph and see that isn't exactly what was said.

Given the next general election is scheduled for January 2025, and the Minister said that people should still have 10 years notice, the earliest it could take effect would be 2035.

Nice of the Tories to leave the next Labour government some things to do I suppose.

[The Nihilistic view]

Well this thread took a turn for the utterly, utterly deranged.

Anyway, despite the IMF warning that UK economy would contract by 0.3% this year, Mr Hunt claims that the economy is back. Back to what I wonder? Recession?

Assuming we take the IMF as gospel, It appears Jeremy Hunt was right, and the IMF has acted accordingly.

Britain is no longer expected to suffer a recession this year, nor will it have the weakest economic growth in the group of seven leading industrialised economies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said today.

Unveiling a dramatic upgrade to its outlook for Britain, the Fund, which previously predicted Britain would face the worst 2023 of any G7 nation, said that in fact the UK would grow by 0.4% this year.

While this remains weak, it is nonetheless stronger than the 0.7% contraction previously forecast and stronger than the "near zero" growth rate the IMF has pencilled in for Germany.

The news, contained in the IMF's latest individual assessment of the UK economy, its so-called Article IV report, will likely be welcomed by the chancellor, following a stream of negative forecasts from major institutions.

However, the Fund said that the impact of the cost of living crisis will continue to cause pain across the economy.

And the IMF has recommended that the UK economy gets rid of the triple lock on pensions after all.

Apologies, this is late, I went looking for triple lock and found this. But if you read the article you are quoting, you would read the second paragraph and see that isn't exactly what was said.

Given the next general election is scheduled for January 2025, and the Minister said that people should still have 10 years notice, the earliest it could take effect would be 2035.

Nice of the Tories to leave the next Labour government some things to do I suppose.

Nobody should ever listen to the International Monetary Fuckwits.

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

Lots of coverage about Boris Johnson being referred to the police again about Covid rule breaches.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-65691626

The Express in particular getting a bit rabid about it being 'a stitch up'.

Though a current minister is defending civil servants who passed on information.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65693716

I really don't think it is a stitch up, if you did it. I hope we don't become like some Americans with Trump, surely even the most ardent Johnson supporters realise he played fast and loose with his own covid rules?

[Vassenor]

Lots of coverage about Boris Johnson being referred to the police again about Covid rule breaches.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-65691626

The Express in particular getting a bit rabid about it being 'a stitch up'.

Though a current minister is defending civil servants who passed on information.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65693716

I really don't think it is a stitch up, if you did it. I hope we don't become like some Americans with Trump, surely even the most ardent Johnson supporters realise he played fast and loose with his own covid rules?

No but you see there's a war on so as the Mail insisted last year that means we can't enforce the rules against Boris because reasons.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Scotland MRP Seat Projection:

SNP: 27 (-21)
LAB: 24 (+23)
CON: 4 (-2)
LDM: 4 (=)

Via @YouGov, 10 Apr - 21 May. Changes w/ GE2019.

[Saor Alba]

Scotland MRP Seat Projection:

SNP: 27 (-21)
LAB: 24 (+23)
CON: 4 (-2)
LDM: 4 (=)

Via @YouGov, 10 Apr - 21 May. Changes w/ GE2019.

Oh dear. I hope that Yousaf's sycophants will have an explanation.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Scotland MRP Seat Projection:

SNP: 27 (-21)
LAB: 24 (+23)
CON: 4 (-2)
LDM: 4 (=)

Via @YouGov, 10 Apr - 21 May. Changes w/ GE2019.

I wonder what Tory poll numbers looked like before this whole 2016 business...

[Saor Alba]

Scotland MRP Seat Projection:

SNP: 27 (-21)
LAB: 24 (+23)
CON: 4 (-2)
LDM: 4 (=)

Via @YouGov, 10 Apr - 21 May. Changes w/ GE2019.

I wonder what Tory poll numbers looked like before this whole 2016 business...

In Scotland? They consistently went up in the polls between 2015 and the election in 2017.

[Tinhampton]

The government will run a comprehensive ad campaign to warn families about Facebook's plan to encrypt private messages

[Celritannia]

Scotland MRP Seat Projection:

SNP: 27 (-21)
LAB: 24 (+23)
CON: 4 (-2)
LDM: 4 (=)

Via @YouGov, 10 Apr - 21 May. Changes w/ GE2019.

Glorious.

[Shamhnan Insir]

If there was any doubt remaining, Sunak has confirmed his promises of accountability and trust are bullshit and he is a weak as rotten carboard.

I'm astounded by the level to which the conservative government is doing its utmost to ruin themselves, whilst dragging the country through literal shit on the way down. Were the local council elections a myth to them? Or are they conscious of the fact they are buggered and want to make it worse anyway, thereby pissing on a lot of local institutions and conservative party members in their sheer spite?

[El Lazaro]

Scotland MRP Seat Projection:

SNP: 27 (-21)
LAB: 24 (+23)
CON: 4 (-2)
LDM: 4 (=)

Via @YouGov, 10 Apr - 21 May. Changes w/ GE2019.

Oh dear. I hope that Yousaf's sycophants will have an explanation.

Explain how the SNP would lose less voters to Labour if their leader was a bigoted neoliberal. By all means, speed up the decline of your own party, but I don’t see what you think you’ll gain from it.

[Tinhampton]

Am I the only one who's noticed that JD Wetherspoon has gone from serving "100% British Beef" to "100% UK & Irish Beef" these past few months?

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

Am I the only one who's noticed that JD Wetherspoon has gone from serving "100% British Beef" to "100% UK & Irish Beef" these past few months?

A complete betrayal of the true Brexit.

[The Huskar Social Union]

There was a comment made by the leader of the SDLP during the election, Mr Colum Eastwood, where he said that there were no better option than him for Party Leader. Now, ive voted SDLP in almost every election ive taken part in, but ive been growing frustrated with the party over the last two-ish years and comments like this really turn me against the party and highlight in my opinion part of why people see them as out of touch and why the party is doing badly. I mean lets look at their election results since Eastwood has taken over as Leader in 2015:

2023 Local Elections: 39 Councillors (-20) 8.7% vote share (-3.3%) 64,996 votes (-16,423). Fifth Largest Party.
2019 Local Elections: 59 Councillors (-7) 12.01% vote share (-1.6%) 81,419 (-3,818). Fourth Largest Party.

2022 Assembly Election: 8 MLA's (-4) 9.1% vote share (-2.9%) 78,237 votes. (-17,721) Fifth Largest Party.
2017 Assembly Election: 12 MLA's (-/-) 11.9% vote share (-0.01%) 95,958 (+12234) Third Largest Party.
2016 Assembly Election: 12 MLA's (-2) 12.0% vote share (-2.2%) 83,364 (-10918) Fourth Largest Party.

2019 General Election: * 2 MP's (+2) 14.9% vote share (+3.2%) 118,737 (+23318) Third Largest Party
2017 General Election:* 0 MP's (-3) 11.7% vote share (-2.2%) 95,419 (-4,390).

2019 European Parliament Election: 0 MEP's (-/-) 13.7% vote share (+0.7%) 78,(-3,005).

*NI Results only

In the time Eastwood has led the SDLP, they have had one election where they had a net gain of seats. One, the 2019 General election where they won two MP's at Westminster and had a decent increase to their vote share, moving into third place. Every other election the SDLP have either taken hits (lately: Massive hits) or stagnated and failed to make any gains.

The SDLP is now the weakest it has ever been in its history, having the lowest number of councillors and MLA's ever in the party's history and its lowest number of MP's since 1983 (Bar their complete wipe out in 2017). If he is the only person capable of leading the SDLP after this horrendous record, in particular two brutal elections back to back in less than year, then the party is doomed. Just dissolve it already.

I voted for my local SDLP candidate because the man is active in the community, he helps lead a foodbank and regularly assists people all over my area with school uniform procurements, food, fuel etc and he won a seat this year because he earned it. Heck he even helped get a truck of food and medicine to the Polish-Ukrainian border when the war kicked off last year. He is the only reason i am still voting for this party, other than that i think im done with them. They are out of touch (Especially their leadership) they spend too much time sniping at Sinn Fein rather than presenting themselves as an actual alternative, they dont put the work in locally, they are not an all Ireland party, their only real attempt at it was a partnership with bloody Fianna Fail which... led to absolutely nothing.

I was genuinely tempted to vote Sinn Fein this year and next election (Barring a general election where ill give my sole vote to Alliance) they will probably get transfers from me. I dont know if ill vote SDLP again.

[The Nihilistic view]

Am I the only one who's noticed that JD Wetherspoon has gone from serving "100% British Beef" to "100% UK & Irish Beef" these past few months?

They just decided to recognise that not all of Ireland is part of the UK anymore.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Am I the only one who's noticed that JD Wetherspoon has gone from serving "100% British Beef" to "100% UK & Irish Beef" these past few months?

They just decided to recognise that not all of Ireland is part of the UK anymore.

"Alright fine! Ireland is Independent! What next? The Austro Hungarian Empire doesnt exist? Haha!"
"..."
"What?"

[Dumb Ideologies]

it's time to change their name to wokeblobberspoon

[The Huskar Social Union]

it's time to change their name to wokeblobberspoon

They clearly dont believe in Britain.

[El Lazaro]

it's time to change their name to wokeblobberspoon

No! That’s a perfectly English name! They aren’t worthy of Wopeblobberdobbleston.

[Ostroeuropa]

There are wetherspoons in the republic. Probably easier for them to just say "British and Irish" than specify for both locales. And the "100% British" thing was probably becoming a more optically oofy thing of late, so they've decided to buy a single hamburger from Ireland every year or some bollocks. Or maybe Brexit forced a change in suppliers within the Irish wetherspoons, and the aforementioned "Fuck it, just slap Britsh and Irish on everything" applied.

[Saor Alba]

Oh dear. I hope that Yousaf's sycophants will have an explanation.

Explain how the SNP would lose less voters to Labour if their leader was a bigoted neoliberal. By all means, speed up the decline of your own party, but I don’t see what you think you’ll gain from it.

Because unlike Humza Yousaf, Forbes does not have a record of being completely incompetent and failing at every job she has to do. Been speaking with my local Labour councillor and they are not expecting to pick up either our Holyrood or Westminster seats but they have reported a lot of criticism from NHS and care staff about Yousaf, which is unsurprising given how much of a failure he was in that position. The SNP cannot run on a campaign criticising the Tories for a poor NHS anymore, which will cost them.

As far as "neoliberal" goes, I do not think this is a very fair description. As someone of a more liberal economic bent, I would be very grateful if Kate was a neoliberal but she is not. She is a progressive, her voting record testifies to this, her vision is just more pragmatic than that of the party's young membership. And as far as "bigoted" goes, well, I should not even give you the time of day. Her private moral views were well-known before the leadership contest, but the criticism of her for holding them waited until she ran for leadership. Seems she wasn't bigoted enough to warrant a disavowal beforehand.