Ludopol: UK General Election
A Labour Government Awaits
When Rishi Sunak called his general election in a week that the Tories were polling awfully, and as I understand, the worst polling ever ahead of a GE, we all started hearing about a “Changed Labour Party,” from Labour.
The problem is, as an undecided voter who won’t be voting for Reform, is that when I hear Starmer tell us that his party is a ‘changed one,” I am not exactly sure what they have changed from.
What Labour has changed to however, is more clear.
Labour has shifted to the right. Starmer’s Labour Party is probably the most right wing I have ever seen from a Labour Party. They have jumped on the anti immigration bandwagon in talking about bringing immigration down, and their purge of lefty Labourites like Faiza Shaheen show that they have no appetite for being “Labour nice.” Then there is Diane Abbot, who they have treated awfully, who wasn’t allowed to stand as an MP and then was.
Meanwhile I see no ethnic diversity in the Labour leadership. Sure, Labour have brown MPs, but very few black ones and only David Lammy in a senior position. Yes they are leading with a working class rooted team, but they really are making the Tories look like a Benetton advert what with the Tories having Braverman, Patel, Badenoch to name a few.
Ok, we do have Vaughan Gething, the First Minister in Wales, Europe’s first black leader, but this is not enough from Labour.
On the ITV Leaders’ debate if last week, both Starmer and Sunak looked very bland with one outlet branding them “nerdy.” On social media meanwhile, it seems that many think both Starmer and Sunak are unvoteable for. Neither have Cameron’s appeal nor Blair’s allure. Whilst Rishi seems the nicer of the two, that won’t make him any more voteable for.
Meanwhile, Starmer seems easily irritated and I can’t help but not believe what he says.
Labour are still polling well. At the time of writing according to the Independent they had dropped only a few points and still have a strong lead over the Tories. Speaking of polling, Reform were only one point behind the Tories on the same day that the Tories released their manifesto. This is not good. And another thing I am seeing on social media is that those voting Reform are protest voters, in addition to those ”who want their country back.”
The election is actually looking slow paced. We were right to get excited and upset about Rishi’s D-Day blunder and the odd Tory MP shutting down interviews, but it's been so banal it has been a ripe set of circumstances for Nigel Farage to mix things up.
I have no appetite for Farage as Leader of Reform, but I thoroughly disagree with him having things thrown at him on the trail.
In terms of blunders, Labour are looking squeaky clean-ish, because sadly not enough people care about how they treat their women of colour MPs, but we did have Emily Thornberry admitting that slapping VAT back on private school fees will put pressure on state schools.
(This was a funny one. One of the comments was “As in the whole company.”)
One can only hope Labour u-turn on the VAT plans on private school fees. My children are at private school and, its particularly nice to be back in the UK where many private schools are about solely raising the academics of children as opposed to my experience in Auckland where it was very much about making connections for your children and ensuring your children are invited to the right holiday houses of the right Kiwis.
This is changing what with ethnic minorities also in the private system in NZ (who will never be let in to the holiday home sets anyway), but the world is a big place, and I think it's limiting to pay for your child to pass their life in one small group but, that said, if people want to pay for private education, they should, no matter what their reason.
It would be a shame if Labour followed through on their hike and I think that by adding 20% to school fees, we will see an even greater divide between private and state schools.
So what about the other parties? The Greens do not seem to have made much of a mark I am afraid and in one debate on the radio I could not understand what the candidate actually stood for. Meanwhile, Ed Davey of the Lib Dems seems to be using the election to have fun in the water.
He has fallen in the water twice on his campaign trail, once off a paddleboard and another on a water assault course. The SNP, newly led by John Swinney seem to be equal to Labour in the polls in Scotland, and as someone from Wales, I have been quite impressed by Plaid Cymru. Their leader Rhun ap Iorwerth is a decisive speaker and has spoken up for nuclear disarmament and their House of Commons Leader, Liz Saville Roberts is also compelling and was very clear on BBC Wales this morning calling for more attention to Welsh people and talked of progressive voters frustrated with both Labour and Tory.
Have I mentioned everyone? Oh there is George Galloway and I can confirm that I know someone who has joined his party and ran in the local elections and he got about 20% of the vote and many decent people voted for him.
And in all of this, not one substantive mention of Brexit in the election.
Oh goodness the EU elections. Another vote for the right what with Macron’s popularity dwindling and Marie Le Penn growing in popularity. After the EU elections friends were texting me about Europe going right wing.
It is sad, but this is democracy and we must respect the will of the people.
Speaking of which, I have no idea who to advocate voting for but I do think you should prepare for a Labour win with a Leader who may have a political mandate but certainly not a personality one.
I hope this Substack informs your outlook.