[News] Nigel Farage and Reform

[Berty23]

It wasn't JUST the threshold, the lack of taper was a big, if not even bigger mistake...

The lack of taper was similar to when the Tories first capped child benefit at 50k income. 49999 income a family gets full allowance so about 200 quid for 3 kids. Get a one pound pay rise and you lose 2400 quid a year which after tax and NI you would need to earn close to 55k to have the same money. At least they backtracked and you lost 10% for every 1k over 50 so didn’t stop people taking promotion/pay rise etc.

My dad getting WFA is a shambles. He has two houses and drives around in a Morgan and goes on as many holidays a year as I have hot dinners.

 

[Peteinblack]

They remind me of Corbyn’s Labour, very popular but only in a small number of seats where they pileup the votes

Also, like Corbyn, a cult leader; for every sycophantic worshipper, at least 3 more who despise(d) him.

 

[darkwolf666]

I recall many dire predictions at the time, did anyone actually produce any stats as to whether and how many actually did find themselves hospitalised (or worse) as a result of the policy?

I haven't seen any stats on this, and if they had been produced I am sure they would have been front page and centre in the Mail, Express and Telegraph.

Something else the government failed to clearly explain, that with the drop in fuel prices from the previous winter prices, costs were predicted to be down by as much as what they were taking away! Consequently many were no worse off, but it was about perception and being "given" something and having it taken away!

 

[darkwolf666]

The lack of taper was similar to when the Tories first capped child benefit at 50k income. 49999 income a family gets full allowance so about 200 quid for 3 kids. Get a one pound pay rise and you lose 2400 quid a year which after tax and NI you would need to earn close to 55k to have the same money. At least they backtracked and you lost 10% for every 1k over 50 so didn’t stop people taking promotion/pay rise etc.

My dad getting WFA is a shambles. He has two houses and drives around in a Morgan and goes on as many holidays a year as I have hot dinners.

It's almost like governments of ALL colours don't REALLY know what they're doing, isn't it?

 

[Motogull]

*almost* impossible.

I don’t believe their support is strong enough across the whole country. They’ll get huge majorities in a few seats but won’t have the broad support needed to win the necessary FPTP majority.

I fear it may be closer than you think unless Reform hang themselves in the meantime. I am now in what has been a safe blue seat. Out of nowhere Reform came second last time out. The Tories are in a right state and seemingly going to stay that way. In my seat they could easily lose enough to become runners up themselves. Hence my deeply unpalatable fear of having to vote Tory next time out.

 

[Brian Munich]

@Harry Wilson's tackle and @Guinness Boy I'm not trying to create an argument just raise awareness. Just to show I'm not making stuff up or panicking, this link below is to EC's latest prediction on the average of current polling, which shows Reform getting a 74 seat majority with 30.4% of the vote:

General Election Prediction

Not good, eh?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

As I stated at the time, my Mother was living in a one bedroom council property on the basic state pension and was insistent she didn't need it and "it should go to some of these young struggling families instead", and she was very near the cut off. I would have been getting it in under a couple of years and I don't need it.

I also stated at the time, that there was a relatively small group around that cut off, (people who didn't claim benefits that they were entitled to, people close to the limit who had very low incomes) that should be addressed by raising the cut off in some way. It appears that this is what they are now going to do.

I have no absolutely idea of my neighbours financial situations and my in-laws are long dead, so no it isn't

I haven't been following this recently. So are labour going to raise the cut off? That's good.

So what about all the wankers who just wanted to go back to no means testing?

I am still unsure whether millions of pensioners were about to be plunged into freezing homes and death, as Labour's opponents on the left and right insist, or whether this was simply something needing a tweak.

It has been made into a 'not good look' and I even invoked incompetence on a post above, but maybe I'm over-reacting.

This has been a year of Labour's opponents grasping at any weapon to beat them with:
Rachel 'from accounts'
Rachel's CV
Winter fuel granny attack
Farmer Giles
The rise of Nigel.

Hmmmm......thinking about it....what a load of old bollocks.

It's hardly:
Closing the mines
Flogging British steel
Ending social housing by flogging council houses off cheap
Failing to recognise Argentina as a maverick hostile dictatorship and allowing a war
Offering a referendum on EU membership with no plan if the public voted leave
Failing to deliver a workable Brexit despite trying to do so for years
Allowing 'the boats' to go from a few hundred to tens of thousands a year
while bleating on about illegal immigrants and doing nothing, absolutely nothing about it,
as if it was someone else's fault.
Allowing billions of tax payers' money to be diverted to friends of the party during Covid
Lying to the public and lying again while prime minister.

Mmmmm.....no, as you were Starmer.
All's looking well. We can cope with the occasional misjudgment.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

@Harry Wilson's tackle and @Guinness Boy I'm not trying to create an argument just raise awareness. Just to show I'm not making stuff up or panicking, this link below is to EC's latest prediction on the average of current polling, which shows Reform getting a 74 seat majority with 30.4% of the vote:

General Election Prediction

Not good, eh?

Yes but they have applied the same equation to Nigel's % support as they have to the other major parties. Nigel's support is evenly distributed across the country. This means he will just fall short in most constituencies.

 

[Brian Munich]

Yes but they have applied the same equation to Nigel's % support as they have to the other major parties. Nigel's support is evenly distributed across the country. This means he will just fall short in most constituencies.

No they haven't. Their methodology is far more sophisticated than that.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I fear it may be closer than you think unless Reform hang themselves in the meantime. I am now in what has been a safe blue seat. Out of nowhere Reform came second last time out. The Tories are in a right state and seemingly going to stay that way. In my seat they could easily lose enough to become runners up themselves. Hence my deeply unpalatable fear of having to vote Tory next time out.

It will vary across the piece. You may well feel inclined to vote blue. I think I am in the same constituency and may well decide to do the same. I am still hopeful that the even spread of support for Farage across the nation will work against him.

Anyway.....it is what it is. Interesting times and all that.

 

[darkwolf666]

@Harry Wilson's tackle and @Guinness Boy I'm not trying to create an argument just raise awareness. Just to show I'm not making stuff up or panicking, this link below is to EC's latest prediction on the average of current polling, which shows Reform getting a 74 seat majority with 30.4% of the vote:

General Election Prediction

Not good, eh?

But Electoral Calculus themselves say "if there was an election TODAY, which there isn't"...

A week is a long time in politics, so clearly anything could happen in 4 years!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

No they haven't. Their methodology is far more sophisticated than that.

OK, well regardless, I shall do what I can to work against Farage and his bollocks.
Tactical voting? Maybe.

Actually, Brian, I think your perspective and imperative may be useful.
If people fear a Farage government this may lift voters out of their apathy and propel them to the ballot box.
If you don't vote against Reform you are effectively voting for reform.

 

[darkwolf666]

This was Electoral Calculus seat predictions one month before the 2024 GE...

MRP Poll June 2024

 

[Brian Munich]

But Electoral Calculus themselves say "if there was an election TODAY, which there isn't"...

A week is a long time in politics, so clearly anything could happen in 4 years!

Absolutely. I'm just countering the incorrect belief that Reform would not benefit from the FPTP system in the event that they maintain this support for another 4 years.

FPTP disadvantages parties until they hit a threshold of around 20% of the popular vote. Once they get beyond that, they start winning a greater percentage of seats.

 

[Guinness Boy]

@Harry Wilson's tackle and @Guinness Boy I'm not trying to create an argument just raise awareness. Just to show I'm not making stuff up or panicking, this link below is to EC's latest prediction on the average of current polling, which shows Reform getting a 74 seat majority with 30.4% of the vote:

General Election Prediction

Not good, eh?

I get that and I agree it’s not good but they have to maintain that for 4 years. Then there’s the majority sizes. Labour have some tiny ones but Reform’s hold on Runcorn is six votes. She probably lost those with her first question in the house.

 

[Chicken Run]

A week is a long time in politics, so clearly anything could happen in 4 years!

Exactly, the reform Chairman resigned earlier in the week to a fanfare of cheering for differing reasons from Reform supporters and everyone else and now he’s back

 

[darkwolf666]

Exactly, the reform Chairman resigned earlier in the week to a fanfare of cheering for differing reasons from Reform supporters and everyone else and now he’s back

A very good example, of which I am sure there will be many over the next 48 months!

The problem for Reform is they are nothing but a protest vote. They get sizeable returns at the moment because of the disarray that the Conservatives are in. I haven't seen any real evidence as to mass Labout voters heading over to Reform.

Reform have no policies of substance and just dog-whistle soundbites, many of which have been copied from across the pond from Nigel's orange mate.

Unfortunately though, many, if not a fairly large percentage of the British public are politically illiterate, and can often be swayed by those very dog-whistle sound bites so roundly used by Reform!

It's going to be an interesting 4 years, that's for certain... the good news though, by the time Nigel gets in I will be a pensioner, so can look forward to getting my winter fuel allowance (even though I don't need it).

 

[Peteinblack]

Sadly:

Farage is like a tribune for the working class, says former Bank of England economist

Exclusive: Andy Haldane says Labour ‘sloganeering’ will not empower regions where Reform is making headway

www.theguardian.com

So many of Reform's supporters are only lured by the anti-immigrant stance, just as their forefathers idolised Enoch Powell 50 years ago- they don't look beyond, to Reform's/Farage's other views and policies, which are basically a return to Thatcherism with bells on. Farage and Reform have voted against every policy that the Starmer government has introduced to improve workers' and tenants' rights over the last 10 months. Farage is absolutely no friend of the working-class, but he'll both fuel, and exploit, their resentment against asylum seekers and immigrants.

The very ideology and policies which destroyed the jobs, decent wages, affordable housing and public services that ordinary working people rely upon, and which have bequeathed us record levels of inequality, along with food banks and top-up benefits for many working people on low-wages, but £ millions for bosses, CEOs, and shareholders.

Farage and Reform will do absolutely nothing to address these issues - and it is the natural anger and resentment about these very real problems which lead so many people to lash-out against immigrants, rather than profiteering employers, greedy landlords, and the uncontrolled free-market.

One of my favourite political quotes is from the Italian political writer, Antonio Gramsci: "The old is dying, but the new cannot yet be born. In the interregnum, a variety of morbid symptoms appear."

Reform and Farage are one of those morbid symptoms, but certainly not the cure.

 

[Weststander]

He’s quite possibly going to get the same result. With our rediculous FPTP system, Reform would get a parliamentary majority if they carried their current polling figures through to the 2029 GE.

No.

 

[Hugo Rune]

No they haven't. Their methodology is far more sophisticated than that.

Is it?

It just looks like they are extrapolating a percentage vote (30.4%) into parliamentary seats mapping out regular voter behaviour from previous elections (Tory and Labour voters) on to new reform voters. I can't see any subtlety at all. Reform will never appeal to educated voters and there are many parts of the country that contain way too many educated voters for them to have an affect. FPTP is just too powerful at blocking minority parties.

Let's be realistic. Reform will never get an MP in Scotland and will struggle to get an MP in any metropolitan area with high education levels. They'll never win an election. Unfortunately, organisations such as the BBC are looking at these sorts of predictions and then giving Refrom more and more airtime, hugely more than they would to say the Green Party or the Lib Dem's. This in turn feeds the theory that reform are on a massive rise. They are not. An opinion poll and an election are different. A lot of people may register disapproval to an incumbent government by flagging a possible protest vote but when it comes to it, they won't vote for a bunch of amateur con-men who simply have no coherent solutions or basic understanding of governance.

Finally, the direction of travel of a government intent on getting all the difficult and controversial decisions out of the way in the first couple of years of office is almost impossible to map out in 2029. At some point, Labour will concentrate on wooing the media and public instead of worrying about actual governance.