This is probably the "high" point as far as Reform candidates are concerned, and if the press actually cares there is going to be plenty of material to trip them up:
This is probably the "high" point as far as Reform candidates are concerned, and if the press actually cares there is going to be plenty of material to trip them up:
Miriam Cates said basically the exact same thing and the press didn't care all that much.
I commented on this elsebook - you can't keep right wingers happy. One day they're moaning about people claiming benefits for having children they "can't afford to keep", free school meals, breakfast clubs, you know, anything to stop kids being hungry, then now they're accusing people of causing the downfall of Western civilisation by - erm - not having kids until they're financially secure.
There's also a combination of racism, eugenics and misogyny at work. One thing modern social security did was make it more possible for women to leave or avoid abusive relationships by giving them and their children alternative means of subsistence. Modern education also affects women's ability to live and choose independently. So it makes sense that a reactionary pro-patriarchy movement would attack both.
Similarly eugenicists who see people in poverty as inferior to them or more likely to be from
(hidden texting description of racist ideology)
what they see as 'inferior races' don't want them to 'breed' - they want what they see as the 'right' people to 'breed' - they want white women dependent financially on men and under the thumbs of those men to have lots of babies for the empire and the health of the white race as they used to put it in its hey-day in the later 19th/ early 20th century
Remember Farage is very highly influenced by the original full-strength 1930s/40s version of that (not using the four letter term for it in case of legal issues) and his international allies are similar.
In depth discussion of that would belong in Epiphanies but it's worth mentioning in passing here.
So I keep seeing the title of this and avoiding reading it or commenting. But the simple answer from me is that any party who is as morally bankrupt as they are, as ideologically driven as they are, and with failures and grifters in charge - yes they are a threat.
Whatever their policies, the disintegration of ethical standards in politics is a threat.
The fact that their politics are vile, and that they are popular with people who are (reasonably) dissatisfied with the current political cesspit is just adding to their unpleaseantness
I think they may have screwed themselves in three different ways.
Tories who shifted to them reluctantly as new party of the right after the Tories crashed the economy will not want to vote for the exact same MPs who crashed the economy.
Racists who moved to them from fringe parties on the right won’t wear the level of ethnic diversity.
The forgotten poor who were hoping protectionist policies would get them better jobs and services won’t vote for a libertarian slash and burn of job protections and services when they see that’s what is on offer.
There support will splinter in different directions, disaffected Tories may go back to the new slightly detoxed Tories or not vote, racist will go further to the right and the forgotten poor may go to the Greens if they see policies that will benefit their standard of living.
Possibly I am being over optimistic.
I’d be happy to see a Green Labour coalition to be honest, or Labour minority government with confidence and supply from the Greens
I’d be happy to see a Green Labour coalition to be honest, or Labour minority government with confidence and supply from the Greens
Well, that's unlikely because the current faction in charge of Labour self-define as the hammer of the left, and have spent the last few years expelling a good chunk of the new Green membership from the Labour party.
I feel that either by design or default in the absence of a clear external project, Reform under Farage are drifting ever further to the right - they've just announced James Orr as their head of policy, and among the many things he believes is that abortion is always wrong, even in cases of rape:
I think Farage will do quite well in the newly re-instated local elections in May, but not as well as he hopes. The fact that the councils now under Reform control seem to be splintering into different factions with multiple resignations when Reform don't actually deliver on what people who signed up to be councillors thought they were going to do, should be fertile ground for flyers from the opposition parties.
For those who Fartbook, the responses to a post on Bedford Borough Council's Ash Wednesday post noting the start of Lent, complaining that the council mentioned Ramadan first aNd tHiS iS A CHriStIaN CuNtry!, are well worth a read. Their Social Meeja person is right up there with Asda's.
I mean, it would be great if the wheels came off before they actually got into power, but after the events of the last decade I don't believe we can be that lucky. Look at the damage they've done - aided and abetted by the right-wing media - before any of them even got elected to Westminster.
Does the Green win in Denton and Gorton suggest that Reform has reached their ceiling, and is losing momentum? I hope so, and also hope it means Labour has to rethink their strategy, stop trying to ape Reform's anti-immigrant rhetoric and get back to their roots.
Unfortunately, Reform did increase their vote share yesterday. Which suggests that they may still have momentum. What it does show is that they can be beaten, and that Greens have shown that (at least in some locations) they are the party that anti-Reform tactical voters can get behind to keep the far right scum out.
Zack Polanski, Green party leader was asked about nigel farage complaining about cheating. He said "farage is a sore loser and needs to get over himself."
farage isn't the only 'straight talker' around - I'd like to see the two of them in a debate.
There's suggestions of family voting from independent observers. Not enough to affect the result however.
Reform's other complaint is "sectarianism". Well, I thought, if a central plank of your offering is making a hostile environment for a particular part of the population, you can't exactly complain when they don't vote for you.
I'd be surprised if Farage would agree to a debate with Polanski (or, rather he'd agree then pull out on some pretext that it wouldn't be fair, blaming others for his non-appearance). Reform generally avoid straight debates, you'll virtually never find them at election hustings for example. The last thing they want is to have their policies put under scrutiny in an environment which they can't really control.
There's suggestions of family voting from independent observers. Not enough to affect the result however.
Reform's other complaint is "sectarianism". Well, I thought, if a central plank of your offering is making a hostile environment for a particular part of the population, you can't exactly complain when they don't vote for you.
I like that Reform are claiming that they lost because of cheating. No, it was just counting.
There's suggestions of family voting from independent observers. Not enough to affect the result however.
Reform's other complaint is "sectarianism". Well, I thought, if a central plank of your offering is making a hostile environment for a particular part of the population, you can't exactly complain when they don't vote for you.
I like that Reform are claiming that they lost because of cheating. No, it was just counting.
The other thing is - yes, family voting is bad - people absolutely should be voting freely and confidentially. *but* its effect on overall results is not huge - family members within a household tend towards voting the same way anyway.
I am concerned that people are going to use this to push banning postal and proxy votes, which would disenfranchised the people dependent on them. Rumblings have been heard.
There's suggestions of family voting from independent observers. Not enough to affect the result however.
Reform's other complaint is "sectarianism". Well, I thought, if a central plank of your offering is making a hostile environment for a particular part of the population, you can't exactly complain when they don't vote for you.
I like that Reform are claiming that they lost because of cheating. No, it was just counting.
The other thing is - yes, family voting is bad - people absolutely should be voting freely and confidentially. *but* its effect on overall results is not huge - family members within a household tend towards voting the same way anyway.
I am concerned that people are going to use this to push banning postal and proxy votes, which would disenfranchised the people dependent on them. Rumblings have been heard.
I think the whole country can see how desperate Reform are. I just hope they put up terrible candidates around the country which can then be shot down with their own horrible words.
I suspect this anonymous group who are currently complaining are talking about large family groups of people who come together to vote, which is obviously not illegal at all.
If there was widespread fraud, the council workers in polling stations are trained to identify it.
I doubt Reform have reached a plateau, because it looks like Labour could yet go down further, Reform garner yet more support from Tory voters and I don’t think the Greens have enough power of every kind to mount a serious challenge across more about 100 seats, which would be potential Lib-Dem targets.
Labour have to oppose Reform and not appease them.
I suspect this anonymous group who are currently complaining are talking about large family groups of people who come together to vote, which is obviously not illegal at all.
If there was widespread fraud, the council workers in polling stations are trained to identify it.
Not quite.
They're not anonymous - as far as I know they're a valid group. They specifically look for people going into voting booths in pairs rather than singly.
There does appear to be some disagreement, inasmuch as they're saying "we saw this" and the Council are saying "well our staff didn't and they're trained to, so did it really?"
They're essentially a blame party. Standard far Right playbook - find a minority group, blame all our woes on them. Lowe, their well-named leader, has been drumming up support on social media with rants against Muslims, asylum seekers and transgender people. Oh, and loud music on tube trains, with a racist suggestion that his mass deportation plans would reduce that problem.
He's pretty nasty and totally transparent. Wants to ban ritual slaughter to get at the Muslims and is quite happy to throw the Jewish community under the bus to do so (you can't construct an argument against Halal without also catching Kosher) on supposed animal welfare grounds while supporting hunting with hounds.
If he's planning to ban antisocial behaviour on tube trains he should ban manspreading as well.
I don't see how anyone can police 'family' voting, if all you have to go on is their behaviour in the polling station. It seems a strange thing to complain about. I mean, my husband and I (and the dog) usually go to the polling station together, does that make us guilty of family voting? Or does he have to loudly remind me who to vote for when we hand in our polling cards?
If he's planning to ban antisocial behaviour on tube trains he should ban manspreading as well.
I don't see how anyone can police 'family' voting, if all you have to go on is their behaviour in the polling station. It seems a strange thing to complain about. I mean, my husband and I (and the dog) usually go to the polling station together, does that make us guilty of family voting? Or does he have to loudly remind me who to vote for when we hand in our polling cards?
I gather it's about going into the actual polling booth itself together.
No it is about influencing another person's ballot in the polling booth. I have voted many times over the decades and there isn't room for more than one person in the booth at once.
What can happen is that someone can lean over and tell someone else what they should be doing, but the design of the booths means that's pretty obvious when it happens.
No it is about influencing another person's ballot in the polling booth. I have voted many times over the decades and there isn't room for more than one person in the booth at once.
What can happen is that someone can lean over and tell someone else what they should be doing, but the design of the booths means that's pretty obvious when it happens.
I think that's the sort of thing they're claiming to have observed.
I've been an election agent for several elections, and one of the things we're allowed to do (along with polling agents and independent observers) is to go into polling stations for reasons other than to vote. There are strict rules (no party colours, emblems etc; no asking how people voted, in fact about the only interaction with voters that is allowed is to thank them for coming out to vote), but one of the reasons to be there is to oversee processes to try and ensure as fair a vote as possible. It would be entirely appropriate for an agent or observer to speak to the staff if there was a concern about something - indeed, we're actually encouraged to do so (when I get home I might even dig out some of the old literature from old elections including information on how to report issues at the time they occur, which includes a specific phone number to talk to the police if that's necessary). I've never been to a polling place where the voting booths are not visible to the staff there, so that they can see who is in a particular booth (though, obviously, not what marks they put on the ballot paper). It seems implausible to me that the level of fraud reported after the fact was going on and missed by the staff present.
Of course, even if there was a significant amount of family voting fraud, there's no way to know whether one member of the family was instructing others to vote for Green, Labour, Reform or to spoil their ballots.
They're essentially a blame party. Standard far Right playbook - find a minority group, blame all our woes on them. Lowe, their well-named leader, has been drumming up support on social media with rants against Muslims, asylum seekers and transgender people. Oh, and loud music on tube trains, with a racist suggestion that his mass deportation plans would reduce that problem.
He's pretty nasty and totally transparent. Wants to ban ritual slaughter to get at the Muslims and is quite happy to throw the Jewish community under the bus to do so (you can't construct an argument against Halal without also catching Kosher) on supposed animal welfare grounds while supporting hunting with hounds.
Not forgetting trumpeting loudly about how shit London is, when his constituency is in Lincolnshire - an area famous for its Tube trains. Oh, and calling the Coastguard when long-distance rowers were spotted from the coast because he "thought it was migrants crossing". Yeah, if you genuinely thought that, you are thick as mince.
I was about to refer to him with my preferred form of address, then remembered we were in Purg.
Reform are not going to make this stick.
They are polling downwards. Yes this was a goodish result for them. They were ticked to win in several polls but came second.
Farage would not meet anyone in a debate who could stand up to him. He folds like card table when pushed by journalists. Anyone with any nous could beat him.
No it is about influencing another person's ballot in the polling booth. I have voted many times over the decades and there isn't room for more than one person in the booth at once.
What can happen is that someone can lean over and tell someone else what they should be doing, but the design of the booths means that's pretty obvious when it happens.
I think that's the sort of thing they're claiming to have observed.
Yes, unless they've made a complaint to the police and the returning officer, that is exactly what it is. An unverified and now unverifiable claim.
Given that none of this has happened according to the police or the returning officer, we will never know.
Reform are not going to make this stick.
They are polling downwards. Yes this was a goodish result for them. They were ticked to win in several polls but came second.
Farage would not meet anyone in a debate who could stand up to him. He folds like card table when pushed by journalists. Anyone with any nous could beat him.
But they have the power of racism propelling them. I don't know how far or how deeply this will penetrate the electorate.
So Reform are saying that Muslim men persuaded their wives to vote for a white working woman standing for a party led by a gay Jewish man instead of their candidate?
And that's why they didn't win?
So Reform are saying that Muslim men persuaded their wives to vote for a white working woman standing for a party led by a gay Jewish man instead of their candidate?
And that's why they didn't win?
So Reform are saying that Muslim men persuaded their wives to vote for a white working woman standing for a party led by a gay Jewish man instead of their candidate?
And that's why they didn't win?
So Reform are saying that Muslim men persuaded their wives to vote for a white working woman standing for a party led by a gay Jewish man instead of their candidate?
And that's why they didn't win?
I wondered when racism was going to rear its ugly head, and here it is with a side order of misogyny. 🙄🤬 Because no woman would think of not voting for Reform by herself. Why wouldn't we want to vote for the party that's planning to tax childless women extra and reinstate the two-child benefit cap?
Round here I think Reform have a pretty obvious issue to campaign on, and that is the state of the roads. All of them, around the town, between towns and n the motorways, you try in vain to drive between the potholes, and we’ve just acquired a flat tyre! Naturally the mobile tyre fitters are worked off their feet.
Even if Reform do pick this, they will balls it up like everything else they do.
The problem with pot holes is that everyone wants to get them fixed. But, when someone (of any party) gets into the council chamber and says "let's fix pot holes" they get told that they need £x million per year just to stop things getting worse, and there isn't the money for that without cutting into other services that are equally important. We all know there isn't the money, because if there was money in council budgets then councils would be spending it on fixing more pot holes (every councillor knows that if they're seen to be fixing pot holes it's going to make their re-election almost certain).
Reform took over Kent council claiming there was a load of wasted money, fat that could be cut. Only to find what everyone who knows anything about council funded knew, that after a decade or more of funding cuts everything that could be cut had already been cut, and there were things that had been cut to make ends meet that shouldn't have cut. There's no room for councils to save anything by cuts.
And many things that councils spend money on are legally required of them. Naturally they will cut back on spending elsewhere in order to meet their legal obligations - there isn't any more left that can be cut.
Comments
As I said 'if' - obviously a large portion of them are fully on board with moving politics further to the right.
I commented on this elsebook - you can't keep right wingers happy. One day they're moaning about people claiming benefits for having children they "can't afford to keep", free school meals, breakfast clubs, you know, anything to stop kids being hungry, then now they're accusing people of causing the downfall of Western civilisation by - erm - not having kids until they're financially secure.
Similarly eugenicists who see people in poverty as inferior to them or more likely to be from
(hidden texting description of racist ideology)
Remember Farage is very highly influenced by the original full-strength 1930s/40s version of that (not using the four letter term for it in case of legal issues) and his international allies are similar.
In depth discussion of that would belong in Epiphanies but it's worth mentioning in passing here.
Whatever their policies, the disintegration of ethical standards in politics is a threat.
The fact that their politics are vile, and that they are popular with people who are (reasonably) dissatisfied with the current political cesspit is just adding to their unpleaseantness
Tories who shifted to them reluctantly as new party of the right after the Tories crashed the economy will not want to vote for the exact same MPs who crashed the economy.
Racists who moved to them from fringe parties on the right won’t wear the level of ethnic diversity.
The forgotten poor who were hoping protectionist policies would get them better jobs and services won’t vote for a libertarian slash and burn of job protections and services when they see that’s what is on offer.
There support will splinter in different directions, disaffected Tories may go back to the new slightly detoxed Tories or not vote, racist will go further to the right and the forgotten poor may go to the Greens if they see policies that will benefit their standard of living.
Possibly I am being over optimistic.
I’d be happy to see a Green Labour coalition to be honest, or Labour minority government with confidence and supply from the Greens
Well, that's unlikely because the current faction in charge of Labour self-define as the hammer of the left, and have spent the last few years expelling a good chunk of the new Green membership from the Labour party.
I feel that either by design or default in the absence of a clear external project, Reform under Farage are drifting ever further to the right - they've just announced James Orr as their head of policy, and among the many things he believes is that abortion is always wrong, even in cases of rape:
https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-uk-gives-us-jd-vance-ally-top-policy-role/
farage isn't the only 'straight talker' around - I'd like to see the two of them in a debate.
Reform's other complaint is "sectarianism". Well, I thought, if a central plank of your offering is making a hostile environment for a particular part of the population, you can't exactly complain when they don't vote for you.
I like that Reform are claiming that they lost because of cheating. No, it was just counting.
The other thing is - yes, family voting is bad - people absolutely should be voting freely and confidentially. *but* its effect on overall results is not huge - family members within a household tend towards voting the same way anyway.
I am concerned that people are going to use this to push banning postal and proxy votes, which would disenfranchised the people dependent on them. Rumblings have been heard.
I think the whole country can see how desperate Reform are. I just hope they put up terrible candidates around the country which can then be shot down with their own horrible words.
If there was widespread fraud, the council workers in polling stations are trained to identify it.
Labour have to oppose Reform and not appease them.
Not quite.
They're not anonymous - as far as I know they're a valid group. They specifically look for people going into voting booths in pairs rather than singly.
There does appear to be some disagreement, inasmuch as they're saying "we saw this" and the Council are saying "well our staff didn't and they're trained to, so did it really?"
How does their actions help anything?
They are the ones who decided Reform were a bit too soft and not close enough to the policies of Genghis Khan.
Useful though. Split the vote.
They're worse.
He's pretty nasty and totally transparent. Wants to ban ritual slaughter to get at the Muslims and is quite happy to throw the Jewish community under the bus to do so (you can't construct an argument against Halal without also catching Kosher) on supposed animal welfare grounds while supporting hunting with hounds.
I don't see how anyone can police 'family' voting, if all you have to go on is their behaviour in the polling station. It seems a strange thing to complain about. I mean, my husband and I (and the dog) usually go to the polling station together, does that make us guilty of family voting? Or does he have to loudly remind me who to vote for when we hand in our polling cards?
I gather it's about going into the actual polling booth itself together.
What can happen is that someone can lean over and tell someone else what they should be doing, but the design of the booths means that's pretty obvious when it happens.
I think that's the sort of thing they're claiming to have observed.
Of course, even if there was a significant amount of family voting fraud, there's no way to know whether one member of the family was instructing others to vote for Green, Labour, Reform or to spoil their ballots.
Not forgetting trumpeting loudly about how shit London is, when his constituency is in Lincolnshire - an area famous for its Tube trains. Oh, and calling the Coastguard when long-distance rowers were spotted from the coast because he "thought it was migrants crossing". Yeah, if you genuinely thought that, you are thick as mince.
I was about to refer to him with my preferred form of address, then remembered we were in Purg.
They are polling downwards. Yes this was a goodish result for them. They were ticked to win in several polls but came second.
Farage would not meet anyone in a debate who could stand up to him. He folds like card table when pushed by journalists. Anyone with any nous could beat him.
Yes, unless they've made a complaint to the police and the returning officer, that is exactly what it is. An unverified and now unverifiable claim.
Given that none of this has happened according to the police or the returning officer, we will never know.
But they have the power of racism propelling them. I don't know how far or how deeply this will penetrate the electorate.
And that's why they didn't win?
I'm going to nick that, @Alan29 !
Thats what I did!
🤣🤣🤣
Even if Reform do pick this, they will balls it up like everything else they do.
Reform took over Kent council claiming there was a load of wasted money, fat that could be cut. Only to find what everyone who knows anything about council funded knew, that after a decade or more of funding cuts everything that could be cut had already been cut, and there were things that had been cut to make ends meet that shouldn't have cut. There's no room for councils to save anything by cuts.
Trouble is, most people don't know how local councils work and Reform exploit that.
It becomes harder for them to do that though, once they get candidates elected.
That doesn't seem to bother their supporters though.
@Sandemaniac, I thought Lowe's constituency was Great Yarmouth not somewhere in Lincolnshire.
But they gotta know how many it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I think you are correct. I'm confusing him with friends who have the misfortune to be under a Reform council.