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[Politics] General Election 2024 - 4th July



Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
56,122
Faversham
Had to look up what HGTTG stood for!😁👍
The first two books are (in part, they are the many things that constitute English whimsy) a brilliant parody of small-mindedness and its effects.
 




Audax

Boing boing boing...
Aug 3, 2015
3,263
Uckfield
I am working on a project that also includes enginners based in Scotland who normally work on oil and gas projects. The new project is a Hydrogen generation facility. So they havent lost their jobs and and are the clever ones working towards net zero.
Genuinely interested here ... last I heard, hydrogen generation was still quite a "dirty" and expensive process and one of the reasons why it's lost out to electric when it comes to cars. Has that moved on at all? I believe "green" hydrogen (produced using excess green electricity generation) is still a) very expensive, and b) not common as a result. Blue hydrogen is "ok" (depending on how the carbon produced while making the hydrogen gas is captured and then used), but also not that common. Grey hydrogen still by far the most common, and it's a problem because of the carbon emissions it produces.
 


golddene

Well-known member
Jul 28, 2012
2,019
Bull S**t.
Two parties are to blame. Poor leadership and poor opposition.
And there can be no argument about that.
I call Bull Shit to that, how can an effective opposition operate when the Govening party are elected with a ‘landslide’ victory wiping out even the ‘Redwall’ constituencies giving the winning party the ability to pass whatever bills they want backed by a far right wing media blowing smoke up their arseholes leaving the opposition parties effectively silenced, unable to have any input in the legislation process ?
 


pb21

Well-known member
Apr 23, 2010
6,688
Genuinely interested here ... last I heard, hydrogen generation was still quite a "dirty" and expensive process and one of the reasons why it's lost out to electric when it comes to cars. Has that moved on at all? I believe "green" hydrogen (produced using excess green electricity generation) is still a) very expensive, and b) not common as a result. Blue hydrogen is "ok" (depending on how the carbon produced while making the hydrogen gas is captured and then used), but also not that common. Grey hydrogen still by far the most common, and it's a problem because of the carbon emissions it produces.
Can’t comment on it too much in detail because I'm only a consultant working on some of the technical input, but it’s as green hydrogen facility that is part funded by the UK Government.


Look to be quite a number that are part/fully funded

 


Audax

Boing boing boing...
Aug 3, 2015
3,263
Uckfield
Bull S**t.
Two parties are to blame. Poor leadership and poor opposition.
And there can be no argument about that.

I think Starmer's Labour have actually been a reasonable effective opposition, given the massive Tory majority. For an opposition party so far behind on numbers to still manage to force the government to take on some of their policies (eg windfall tax) or make deliberate policy choices that kill off opposition policies (eg their recent use of a funding source Labour identified to do something Labour will find very difficult to reverse, and thus killing the Labour policy) suggests to me that the opposition has not been poor. I'd actually say they've done pretty well after the state Corbyn left them in.
 




HillBarnTillIDie

Active member
Jul 2, 2011
103
I call Bull Shit to that, how can an effective opposition operate when the Govening party are elected with a ‘landslide’ victory wiping out even the ‘Redwall’ constituencies giving the winning party the ability to pass whatever bills they want backed by a far right wing media blowing smoke up their arseholes leaving the opposition parties effectively silenced, unable to have any input in the legislation process ?
You have sort of answered your own point !

Had the opposition been better, then the election wouldn’t have resulted in a landslide.
 


HillBarnTillIDie

Active member
Jul 2, 2011
103
Hmmm.... Corbyn-Labour were too poor to win a general election but that doesn't exonerates the bastards who won. Blair beat someone whose name I can no longer remember (and some other bugger after that, and one more time for an encore) but he wasn't a 3 term winner because the opposition were blindingly brilliant.

No, the recent tories have been shit because....they are shit and have blagged their way into a power they had no idea how to exercise. That's all there is to it.
Agreed, it doesn’t exonerate the conservative party one bit… but on the same note it doesn’t exonerate labour either. They failed to do the only job an opposition party needs to do, and thats be an effective opposition.

And thats just the facts
 


pb21

Well-known member
Apr 23, 2010
6,688
A Reform UK candidate claimed the country would be "far better" if it had "taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality" instead of fighting the Nazis in World War Two.

Ian Gribbin, the party's candidate in Bexhill and Battle, also wrote online that women were the "sponging gender" and should be "deprived of health care".



Where do they find these people?
 




Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
56,122
Faversham
Agreed, it doesn’t exonerate the conservative party one bit… but on the same note it doesn’t exonerate labour either. They failed to do the only job an opposition party needs to do, and thats be an effective opposition.

And thats just the facts
I am happy to criticise Corbyn labour for being a poor opposition. The proof of that poorness is they stayed in opposition. But the people who make the decisions are the government. Any 'holding to account' is relevant only when it comes to the outcome of the subsequent election and the government are held to account by being booted out. (See July 4)

The policies and decisions that have f***ed so many things up over the last 14 years have been perpetrated by one party, the party of government. I exonerate labour entirely, except for one thing - failing to defeat the Tories in a general election (which is a failing of every party that enters into opposition).

If you want to blame anyone in addition to the Tories for 14 years of misrule, then blame the people who voted for them. I don't accept that call me Dave was elected due to a protest vote against Milliband, or that Johnson was elected due to a protest vote against Corbyn. Cameron was elected because people liked him more than the 'weird' Milliband, and Johnson was elected because people liked him believed him and trusted him over Brexit in particular. And they both f***ed important things up. That's all there is to it.
 


deletebeepbeepbeep

Well-known member
May 12, 2009
21,798
A Reform UK candidate claimed the country would be "far better" if it had "taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality" instead of fighting the Nazis in World War Two.

Ian Gribbin, the party's candidate in Bexhill and Battle, also wrote online that women were the "sponging gender" and should be "deprived of health care".



Where do they find these people?

Maybe the Reform party aren't such a threat to Tories who will just need to sit back and wait until all these characters are outed.
 
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Pinkie Brown

Wir Sind das Volk
Sep 5, 2007
3,637
Neues Zeitalter DDR 🇩🇪
The good citizens of Bexhill and Battle have some interesting individuals on the list for the upcoming GE. Amongst the choices are:

- An Independant who is currently on bail for repeated harassment of his neighbours and due to answer charges in September. Representing his constituents from a cell might prove challenging if it goes belly up for him in court.

- A careerist Tory who took the chicken run from his Crewe and Nantwich seat to a neighboring safer seat. His apparent awful reputation from Crewe preceded him and he failed the selection interview in Chester. Undeterred he took chicken run part two to Bexhill - after he'd found it on the map. No connection to the area. Here he got lucky and bagged the conservative nomination for the departing Huw Merriman. Although his social media makes no mention of him being a tory. Strange that.

Then there is the Reform UK Ltd candidate, one Ian Gribbon. As is often the case with UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform candidates, an unsavoury and racist past often comes to light with these oddballs. Often late night racist tweets when oiled up on the whisky which often involves Farage doing damage limitation. This one was an interview with a magazine called 'Unheard.' The name itself sounds sketchy. In the interview in 2022 Mr Gribbon stated:

- The country would be far better if it had "taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality".
- Women were the "sponging gender" and should be "deprived of health care" "Men pay 80% of tax – women spend 80% of tax revenue. On aggregate as a group you only take from society. (No idea if he is married)
- Winston Churchill was "abysmal" and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Seems a nice level headed chap. When Reform HQ were challenged about the comments at Farage Towers, they responded:
"The comments were not endorsements but written with an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths," while his remarks about women were "tongue in cheek".

So just bantz then. Cool. No comment from Mr Gribbon so far. Who makes Lee Anderson look positively woke.
 




beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
36,015
Seems a nice level headed chap. When Reform HQ were challenged about the comments at Farage Towers, they responded:
expect this largely because they aren't a proper strucutured party, anyone willing to stump up a deposit can stand under the banner.
 


Harry Wilson's tackle

Harry Wilson's Tackle
NSC Patron
Oct 8, 2003
56,122
Faversham
You have sort of answered your own point !

Had the opposition been better, then the election wouldn’t have resulted in a landslide.
You keep arguing that better oppositions can make more of a difference if they become elected as HMG, and if they don't get elected and remain in opposition they are partly to blame for the mistakes made by HMG. That a bit like blaming an unused substitute for a defeat on the grounds that had they been selected the defeat could have been avoided.

To repeat myself, yes a party that is not elected into government can be blamed for not being elected, but they can't be blamed for what the other party, who is elected, do in government.
 


nwgull

Well-known member
Jul 25, 2003
14,533
Manchester
I see the Lib Dems have been the first party in this to actually mention that it might be a good idea to re-enter the European single market and pledging it in their manifesto. I know Starmer is trying to win back the red wall and is trying to avoid this becoming a single-issue election again, but bloody hell, Brexit and our future relationship with the EU really has been an elephant in the room, hasn't it?
 




BLOCK F

Well-known member
Feb 26, 2009
6,723
I am happy to criticise Corbyn labour for being a poor opposition. The proof of that poorness is they stayed in opposition. But the people who make the decisions are the government. Any 'holding to account' is relevant only when it comes to the outcome of the subsequent election and the government are held to account by being booted out. (See July 4)

The policies and decisions that have f***ed so many things up over the last 14 years have been perpetrated by one party, the party of government. I exonerate labour entirely, except for one thing - failing to defeat the Tories in a general election (which is a failing of every party that enters into opposition).

If you want to blame anyone in addition to the Tories for 14 years of misrule, then blame the people who voted for them. I don't accept that call me Dave was elected due to a protest vote against Milliband, or that Johnson was elected due to a protest vote against Corbyn. Cameron was elected because people liked him more than the 'weird' Milliband, and Johnson was elected because people liked him believed him and trusted him over Brexit in particular. And they both f***ed important things up. That's all there is to it.
Can’t entirely agree with all that.
I voted Remain and for me, the fact that Johnson backed Leave was a huge black mark against him. I didn’t particularly like him, but hoped that he would ‘grow/mature into the PM role. Well, I got that seriously wrong. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the fact that Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party and was up for PM scared the fu…ng pants of a hell of a lot of people in the country, including sensible Labour voters. That was a contributory factor in the landslide defeat. If Labour had had a half sensible bloke/blokess in charge, then I think the result would have been rather less catastrophic for the party.
Yes, that is my personal take on things, but I don’t imagine I was the only one with those thoughts.
 
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aolstudios

Well-known member
Nov 30, 2011
5,279
brighton
Agreed, it doesn’t exonerate the conservative party one bit… but on the same note it doesn’t exonerate labour either. They failed to do the only job an opposition party needs to do, and thats be an effective opposition.

And thats just the facts
They've been extraordinarily effective since 2019, opposing a govt with an 80 seat majority
 








Kalimantan Gull

Well-known member
Aug 13, 2003
13,439
Central Borneo / the Lizard
I see the Lib Dems have been the first party in this to actually mention that it might be a good idea to re-enter the European single market and pledging it in their manifesto. I know Starmer is trying to win back the red wall and is trying to avoid this becoming a single-issue election again, but bloody hell, Brexit and our future relationship with the EU really has been an elephant in the room, hasn't it?
If - IF - the LibDems become the opposition, then rejoining the EU is going to be featured a lot at the despatch box in the next parliament. And if they don't, then it is unlikely to. Nevertheless I expect us to be rejoining the single market in some form by the end of the next government or early in the one after.
 


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