Odd response. I've added informative context and it appears several people have liked my posts and engaged with them. You seem a tad defensive as if you just wanted people to say Reform are great and will win lots of seats.OK well let's never discuss an article being posted on here again without 50 other articles setting out a slightly different position.
Reform ⬆️ Conservatives ⬇️
- Thread starter JJpool
- Start date
seasideone
Well-known member
Errrr…..
You said they didn’t have a manifesto - WRONG
You said they had no policies - WRONG
You said it was not costed - WRONG
Not quite sure how else to explain this
Labour will produce a manifesto when the campaign starts and they ask for your vote. I guarantee you it will have a lot more detail.
No it isn't costed.
JJpool
Well-known member
'Several people have liked my posts'...
Wow, on a OT forum populated by lefties that's not hard.
If someone writes 'the Tories are shit' it'll get about 20 likes from the usual crowd, not a great measure.
The poll of polls is one thing ans i havent denied that, but you keep making the same point over and over, which is what you seem to do.
It's interesting how yougov have got their data. What are they seeing that others aren't.
seasideone
Well-known member
I know labours isn’t so far - or at least publicly anyway….and labour recently went majorly back on a policy that they must have costed so well - as they realised it was unaffordable.
Reforms is as they quote them - the fact you (and I) think it’s a load of BS is irrelevant to the point.
I was wrong that they don't have a manifesto, I missed that they launched one literally 3 days ago. They are lucky nobody noticed and bothered to pick it apart.Errrr…..
You said they didn’t have a manifesto - WRONG
You said they had no policies - WRONG
You said it was not costed - WRONG
Not quite sure how else to explain this
I am obviously speaking with an element of casualness when I say they have no policies. They have a few. They have more slogans than real policies however. I have already given more explanation about their lack of info on housing, transport, the justice system backlog, pollution, and I could go on
It's not costed. They have provided no evidence for their numbers. Therefore, I, as a voter, can have no confidence in their funding.
I'm merely pointing out that I've added to this discussion and other people seem to have appreciated that. If you want to talk only to people who agree with you, perhaps the comments section in GB News may suit you better.
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
It is important, when analysing polling data, to understand the key influencers, one of which is geographic spread. For instance, the SNP show as having 2-4% support in the polls, whereas we know that it is all concentrated in Scotland. As a cross-Britain statistic it is meaningless. Now, I don't know what the Reform geographical spread looks like but as it is the successor party to UKIP I might has a guess (very likely) that they do not have a presence in Scotland. I might also guess (less confidently) that their support is concentrated in the former UKIP strongholds: coastal towns and red wall seats. If I am right about my Scotland guess then that would actually lift their polling stat in England & Wales - although, not by much due to the relative sizes of the electorate in each country. If my guess about their strongholds matching former UKIP territory is correct then their chances of winning a small number of seats goes up. All that being said, if the Tories look done for on the eve of polling day I would suggest that there will be more Tory stay-aways than there will be transfers to Reform.
seasideone
Well-known member
That document may have been released a few days ago, but they had it all as text on their website at least a week or two ago - as I read it.
It is costed as they have published numbers - that surely cannot be hard to get - which I am sure in time they will have to defend - what you don’t like, is the costings or how they have done it - which is fine and I respect - and as a voter you have the choice to vote for whoever you want to and for whatever reason.
ElBurroSinNombre
Well-known member
Poll of polls has hardly changed over recent months apart from Reform, Labour mid 40's, Cons low to mid 20's, Libs around 10%. Reform have grown from around 6% to around 12% in that time. One thing about that that struck me was that the SNP have an awful lot of MPs for their 2%. As we have discussed, Reform will probably get none despite having 6 times the support. Another interesting finding is that progressive parties combined consistently get more than 60% (Lab, LD, Green, SNP), what some people on here may term as 'lefties' etc are actually in a large majority. It's time the electoral system was changed to represent these interests.
Watching PMQs yesterday was very depressing, it's far too adversarial and childlike. Too many frothers on both sides making small party political points. We need a system that promotes cooperation and the national interest.
JJpool
Well-known member
Yet I posted it on here, as it was an interesting article and another article about the north. Certainly good news for reform even if just one poll.
You denied things existed, based on your bias or ignorance and have now backtracked.
A balanced post might have approached the thread with a "interesting poll, as a one off, it won't be as high on the poll of polls but still interesting nonetheless"
Instead you approached it with your agenda driven nonesense against reform.
I doubt they will have to defend it to be honest, because if Labour produced a document with no evidence, with all their spending and savings listed in a table that would fit into one page, I'm pretty sure that would be big news. They'd be slaughtered, and rightly so. I'm keenly engaged with politics, and I didn't even know Reform published a manifesto. Not that I'm on top of absolutely everything of course, but I'm one of hte 99.9% of people in this country who doesn't have a Telegraph subscription. It has been vastly overshadowed in the news. I have barely heard of it. It's not exactly being held up to scrutiny. Perhaps it will be later down the line.
My definition of a 'costed manifesto' is one that has detail. That has supportive evidence, that shows where it gets its numbers from, which doesn't leave out huge parts of our country such as transport, housing and water treatment. It actually references external, independent data and shows you the working out. If your definition of costed is they put some round numbers on a table with no extra information, no breakdown, just topline numbers with no supportive data or evidence, then yes, the manifesto reaches your definition of costed. But for me, and I'm sure pretty much everyone else, that is not enough. Because that does nothing. It is completely meaningless. It could be any number pulled out of a hat. That's not fully costed in my book. We can quibble over semantics if you want, or we can discuss the real meaning behind my post, which was 'just give them a go' is not a good idea in my opinion, considering their current lack of infrastructure and policy detail.
Your post said the Tories should stand down and let Reform have a go. I was replying to that idea which I find completely ridiculous, not the poll. I have said several times on this thread I expect their polling to go up, and that I only suspect their polling is overstated because of a lack of supportive evidence regarding by-elections in places they should have done better in. What have I said about polling that is agenda driven nonsense?
seasideone
Well-known member
The fact is I agree with you on how they have costed leaves plenty to the imagination.
…but you cannot go round saying they have no manifesto, no policies and no costings when they have.
For what’s it worth - in my opinion Labours will probably be made up numbers as will the Tories - obviously with people saying they are not and providing evidence - as reality is, none are capable of running a bath!!!
…and there is the real problem with UK Politics!
The other reality in life is that economists only exist to make weather forecasters look good.
I would be interested to know how often the ONS or BoE have ever forecast anything right.
JJpool
Well-known member
Reform ⬆️ Conservatives ⬇️
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/21/tories-now-only-four-points-ahead-of-reform-uk/ Reform on 15% Conservatives on 19% Surely the Tories should now stand down and let Reform have a go, who would actually give Labour a far better battle...
avftt.co.uk
Discussed that here.
JOHNMAJORTOM
Well-known member
penny mortuary will die along with the right wing nut jobs. pretty awful more like. kemikal badenough. clueless tory gob s...tew
I find online discussions that get bogged down into semantics even though it changes nothing of the overall point quite frustrating. But since you are holding my post on a football forum to a higher standard than a party manifesto, let me rephrase without changing any of my overall message.
They have produced what they call a manifesto, but it has scant few policies, relies on slogans without any detail, gives no indication of what they stand for on massive issues in our country, and spends more time spouting conspiracy theories about climate change denial than they do detailing how they will fix things such as our crumbling schools, NHS and transport. They don't have a properly functioning infrastructure, with only 9 councillors and 1 MP, and even with the best will in the world will mightily struggle to vet their candidates for the GE, meaning all sorts of oddballs will get through. Their 'manifesto' is not in any reasonable sense of the word costed. They have not shown their workings out, given no sourcing for how they arrived at these conveniently round numbers, striking off hundreds of millions here and there to get a nice clean bold number. They have given no transparency in what research has been conducted. Whereas other parties will supply dozens of pages of funding notes with dozens more external sources, they can fit all their's onto one page without a single footnote. They have no history of governance and therefore cannot provide any evidence that they can run a department, never mind a country or a local authority. I suspect the vast majority of people couldn't pick Richard Tice out of a lineup. As of right now, I think they are little more than a box to tick for a protest or 'fed up' vote. They will get votes by default. Not because of real substance.
seasideone
Well-known member
It’s not semantics though - saying they don’t have something when they do - is just wrong.
JJpool
Well-known member
Proportional representation would be better.
As for majority being progressive that may be so of who votes currently, many RW may be fed up, also harder to get to vote but as seen with brexit, what can happen when you do harness it.
The left control a lot of the narratives, have huge influence in many areas like universities and are using in some cases the usual tactics to shut down debates, labelling etc.
I've no idea the actual split of left vs right. It depends who's been in government too, people get sick of whoever has been in for ages. The landscape has changed somewhat anyway as people who voted Labour originally might not feel they stand for them anymore etc.
Yes I was wrong about them not having a manifesto, I wasn't aware they had produced one, and have already corrected my mistake. Everything else I stand by, and I would still argue it isn't a 'real' manifesto. Lacks detail, costing and sourcing.
JJpool
Well-known member
Yes, clearly bit of what they said back at them... as that's what the Tories said last time.
They said brexit party would split the vote so stand down, which they did.
Clearly they aren't going to, but the Tories are done in this election and the only party on the up is reform.
So Tice has been saying its them who should stand aside.
Go back and look at your original post, it was clearly agenda driven and contained multiple untruths.
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
I differ from you here. Electing a Government should be about approving a vision for the future of the country. It is not the same as choosing a Board of Directors. If government were just about management efficiency then we might as well just have a civil service without politicians. No, the politicians have to have vision, principles...a philosophy of 'the good life.' That's why it annoys me when politicians go on current affairs programmes (esp. BBC Radio 4's Today), and they are expected to justify the minutiae of current and capital spending plans. That's what the civil servants are there for; to work out the sums. I want senior politicians to say that we must support the NHS with sufficient funding to keep everybody well with a top class service. If that means that taxes go up then so be it. But, I'm not going to change my mind because some jobsworth interviewer wants to know where every penny piece is going to come from. If you want to mark manifestos out of 10 for how well they add up the costs then I feel sorry for you in a way. When Lloyd George went into the 1918 general Election with the slogan, "Homes fit for heroes," he didn't qualify it with a mealy-mouthed assessment of the state of Government borrowing - which, btw, had been massive in order to fund the War. Big principles and big ideas do not spring out from the pages of an economics textbook. Good leaders announce them, then take them by the throat and implement them. That's why we should turn out to vote! - not because Rachel Reeves just might be better at doing sums in the Treasury.
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My original post about why I think it would be bad to just 'let them have a go' was obviously my own opinion. But that was not in response to polling, it was in response to your own suggestion. Mine was also based on fact. Their lack of councillors, MPs, infrastructure, policy detail, transparency and detailed costing are fact.
Reform are on the up in terms of polling. You don't like it when I point this out, but they will almost certainly get 0-1 seats in the next election, and I think when it comes to power and who should 'stand aside' and any sort of negotiation regarding party talks, that is a more relevant data point.
Also relevant to this Reform/Tory discussion and I think interesting wider context, is the evidence that not every Reform voter is a lapsed Tory. There's an idea that there is huge overlap between them, and that if they somehow combined, it would be far greater force. The voting intention data says this isn't quite true. When Reform voters are asked for their second choice if they couldn't exist, far more say 'I wouldn't vote' than say 'Conservative'. Some say they will vote Labour, others Lib Dem, others even Green, weirdly. We don't get as much data on this type of question as topline voting intention, but a recent poll, and yes it is just one, although I've seen others with similar results, say that just 26% of Reform voters would pick the Tories next.
seasideone
Well-known member
So you still stand by they have no policies and no costings?
(I am not talking about costings to your standards - but costings in general!)
Sooty59
Well-known member
Get some work done.
Labour should win & let’s see how they perform over the next 10 years. It’d be good if people would actually work together for the country rather than line the pockets of their cronies. Reform should be sent to Rwanda along with the rest of the RWNJ’s.I've already changed my wording in the post above if you want to quibble over completely accurate wording. If Sheffield United play Man City this week and I say they have no chance, it doesn't mean they literally have a 0.0% chance to win. It's a colloquialism. I said Reform have no policies. OK, if you want to be a pedant, they do have some policies. But in reality, the general jist of what I mean I standby. They have barely any. In the same way Sheff United barely have a chance to beat Man City. Huge sections of policy are ignored, and plenty of the ones they have listed are just slogans without detail. I'm comfortable with my wording for the purposes of this.
And I completely stand by the fact they aren't costed. There isn't some infallible set definition of what a costed manifesto means, to my knowledge, so reaching back to my law days, I guess I will go to what most reasonable minded people would reasonably assume it to mean, which I think is 'actual real costings which do what they intend to do, which is show how they are funding things' not 'one page of numbers with no source or meaning'.
My wider point is I have to have some reason to believe you when you tell me what you will do. I give more leeway to a party that has infrastructure, a history of governance, qualified people etc. If you have none of those things, like Reform, you're starting from behind. This is an intrinsic problem not easily solved for any new party of course, but it doesn't change the facts.
I don't expect politicians to be able to have instant recall of all numbers and policy funding in a TV studio and I agree those interviews are mostly done poorly. However, I dont think it is much to ask for some detail. Where do you get yours ideas from? What studies and analysis has been performed? Has such a thing been tried in another country, or in local areas etc etc. I don't see these things as clashing with also having a wider more vague sellable vision. I also think the best leaders can handle that, and delegate the detail to others.
Ultimately, for Labour specifically, the detail they provided with regards to finances is about closing off attack avenues. You may not like it, but I'm sure you are as aware as I am about how effective attacks on apparent gaps in their funding have been. You may have your view on the matter, and it's one I probably am pretty close to, but other voters do want to know, even if they don't read it themselves, that it is fully costed. But I've been arguing for years to anyone who will listen about the need for a dramatic change in how we discuss this sort of thing
seasideone
Well-known member
Backtracking again....
Reform have policies in 21 areas of government - and I cannot see any major areas missing.
seasideone
Well-known member
Words start revolutions!
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
I'm full of a cold so soz if I was a bit harsh. In the context of Reform I do see your point about wanting more than slogans. I also understand your point about attack routes. That also gets my goat..."your policy lacks validity because you can't prove where the £28bn is coming from."
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
They do indeed. They can be inspiring for good and for bad.
Not backtracking at all. I stand by what I said I stand by. You've for some reason decided to take a pretty relaxed view of a party manifesto whereas you want to pedantically quibble over every little thing I say. You have your gotcha that it is wrong to say literally they don't have a single policy, but I wasn't being literal. If you want to actually discuss the meaning of my post now, please do, because this is tiresome.
They literally have a 'policy' that they pretend will save 50 billion a year, which is 'save £5 in every £100'. This is a slogan. This is 'cutting government waste'. Considering pretty much every department is underfunded, the justice system overcrowded, NHS buildings and schools crumbling, councils going bankrupt, the national grid needs modernising, transport networks are creaking loudly. This, to be clear, is embarrassing. This is an embarrassing 'pledge'. My first question to Richard Tice in any interview would be how the hell do you think you can cut 5% of government spending "without touching front line services" considering the massive under investment these public services have had over a decade. We have a broken country and you think you can magically cut 5% of our budget.
How are they going to prevent more councils going bust? What is their policy on adult and social care? On child care? What will they do about energy security once they scrap all renewable subsidies overnight? What will they do about food prices once they mandate certain food chains need to artificially increase British bought products massively, overnight? How will this affect farmers supplying and consumers being able to afford this more expensive produce? They've said they want to build more reservoirs. Ok great. We haven't build any new ones in decades I believe. What are their policies on land usage and local opposition? How much will it cost? This goes under transport and utilities, why doesn't this section have any costs? It isn't even included in their made up numbers they stuck on half a page at the end. Do they think we can build giant infrastructure projects for free? What is their policy on devolution? How will they achieve growth when immigration is a major factor in propping it up? The population decline among the British born population will prove disastrous for our economy without immigration, how can they achieve the large tax cuts they want without it? How are they arriving at their figures that tax cuts will pay for themselves, why didn't that work for Liz Truss? How are they going to increase the numbers of prisoners with the unaccounted for money that they will pour into police and harsher sentences, when our prisons are already full? They say they will reform social housing so that foreign people go to the back of the line, but 90% of new lets go to UK nationals, the waiting list is because there is a shortage, did they not know this? What are their housing targets? What are their NHS waiting list targets? How are they going to limit immigration when every single government which has attempted it, to my knowledge, has failed? They have a policy which is "start to motivate 2 million people to go back to work" but there is little explanation as to what this means or how they will do it, what the challenges are? What are they going to do about transport, they just say they will accelerate current existing plans, but plenty of plans are shelved. The Leeds tram has technically been in planning for 20 years. What will they do about buses? Will they allow more local authorities to bring them under control? Will rail be nationalised? Under "ban critical race theory" they say no teacher should be allowed to teach a child to be ashamed of their country? What does this mean? What exactly will the law be here? If a teacher explains to a student, for example, about the Bengal famine, that student would likely be ashamed of our country for it, is that now illegal?
I could go on...
Bend it like Suddick
Well-known member
with some...and incredibly popular with the rest.
seasideone
Well-known member
The point was simple, they had a manifesto, they have many policies and they have costed it.
You may not like any of it, or agree with how they have done it and think it’s wrong, or more details is needed - that’s fine - but the above are facts and indisputable and you said they had none.
For someone published and someone who claims to follow politics - it wasn’t great.
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
I think you're being a bit unfair foggy. They can't fit all of that on the back of their fag packet.
Yeah you clearly aren't very interested in actually discussing this and just want to cling on to weird gotchas about semantics. I don't know what my having written a book has to do with anything. That was a book about some of the most litigious men in Britain, it might not surprise you to know I was a bit more careful with my writing when spending a year of my life researching and writing on that, than I did to a reply about politics on a football forum off my phone while on the bus, which you seem to be taking far more literally than a political party manifesto you are for some reason happy to be completely vague and opaque. I don't think Reform are a viable choice for governance based on where they stand now, based on everything I have said and further explained over my last few posts. If you have anything to discuss on that, great. I've happily offered an alternative wording since you've decided to be pedantic about it, to be more accurate. Shall we attempt to move on?
He has a -40 net favourability rating. 24% of people have an overall favourable opinion of him. 64% have an unfavourable opinion. (YouGov)
Only 8% of people have a "very favourable" view of him.
Lytham_fy8
Well-known member
It's not someone else though, it's the same incompetent, thick as mince, populist failures from the right.
Tangerinemoss
Well-known member
I certainly agree about PR, but I have to disagree with the rest . The whole political agenda in the UK is driven by a right wing media owned by non resident, non UK billionaires who don't make any tax contribution to the UK. Add in the Russian and US Libertarian funded Tufton Street clones doing everything from "Think Tanks" (ooh, the irony) to trying to dismantle the National Trust, and thank goodness there are any progressive organisations left.
Bend it like Suddick
Well-known member
(YouGov) says it all
JJpool
Well-known member
F@*# @*# #* #£* miserable old #*£#Get some work done.
As for RWNJ's I agree, I think the parents have a lot to answer for.
Remainder of post removed by Rishi Sunak at 14:52
JJpool
Well-known member
Can you use the poll of polls please.
seasideone
Well-known member
You are right, I am not interested in discussing the Reform party as I think they are - being polite - better people around.
I can’t see me voting for Labour, although I have previously - and this shower in power are an embarrassment to how I believe a country should be run.
JJpool
Well-known member
Why don't I like it when you say about not getting many MP's? It's something I've said myself many times and cited the broken dodgy voting system as the main reason.
But if the cons did stand aside what would they get then, again It'll never happen but suddenly then you have an actual option on that side that hasn't just been in government for years.
I think people are getting a little to excited over the opening line.
Oh? What is wrong with YouGov? They are a member of the BPC, called the last election remarkably accurately, are fully transparent with their methodology and cross tabs, and favourability ratings are far easier to gauge than voting intention (a simple do you like this person or not is less messy than 'will you actually vote for this party when push comes to shove'). Any evidence supporting your assertion? Because it can't be the 7 times he stood for Parliament and lost. Or the fact his parties never reaching higher than low 20s in the polls, even at the peak of Brexit fever.
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bill40
Well-known member
Reform will go the same way as all the upstarts whether left or right. More people have voted for left wing parties than conservative at every post war election yet the Tories kept winning because that's how the system is designed. I confidently Reform will have zero MP's after the next election because populists aren't as popular as they think they are, especially the RWNJ's.
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
What are your foundation values? Mine are fairness of opportunity, equality of medical treatment, access to good education and strong welfare to support the poor the disabled, the weak and the elderly. None of my foundation values are about how to advance the individual at the expense of the whole.
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seasideone
Well-known member
Collaborative, Innovative and Ambitious
1966_and_all_that
Well-known member
For the individual at the expense of the group? For society as a whole? For both?
Bend it like Suddick
Well-known member
Wasn't aware I said anything wrong ?