General Discussion
Labour
Last week. We're going to fix everything, time for change, they promised everything.
This week. The UK economy is in a terrible state, we won't do anything.
The actual result will be higher taxes, lot more regulation, economy dead and buried.
@Paul but what options did the elctorate have in a system dominated by two parties which are fundamentally the same?
Re-elect the Conservatives who broke everything that needs fixing?
or
Elect Labour? Which is just a Tory-lite party - nothing was ever going to change in any meaningful way, hence the low turn-out and reduced vote share for Labour compared to 2019.
Reform UK and the Lib Dems were never going to win the election and form a government and nor would they do anything very different from the other two parties.
When the outcomes are predetermined no matter which party you vote for there's little point in holding elections, especially when first past the post delivers such misrepresentative and undemocratic results each time.
I agree.
I couldn't vote tory (which I usually do) because I couldn't say, you're doing great, carry on. I voted reform, with the idea that if reform get a big number of votes then hopefully labour and the tories would think, that's a lot of people not happy with the normal parties and change, so they don't say one thing but do something else.
I really hope labour do a good job, maybe they will make some things better.
But yes, it would be nice to be able to vote and make a difference, which currently is impossible.
@Paul I think a lot of people who would usually vote Tory did the same as you, and some usual Tory votes who wouldn't vote Refom just stayed at home and didn't vote at all. I don't think the low voter turn-out is solely down to photo ID coming in.
The Labour party knows that their victory isn't as convincing as the landslide 412 seats suggests, it's all down to first-past-the-post, with the parties in 2nd place marginally behind in many cases. Therefore they'll have to improve things if they seriously want to be re-elected in 2029.
Labour and the Lib Dems focused on key battlegrounds, using resources wisely and used tactical voting to their advantage and it appears these two parties or their local memberships did have an unofficial electoral pact, which simply misleads voters who unwittingly waste their votes. They're unlikely to advocate for Proportional Representation now they've got a majority and their largest number of seats for a hundred years, respectively. This time the Tories and Reform have come off worst from first-past-the-post voting system. But it swings back and forth, everyone raises their hopes but nothing significant changes.
In 5 years time Labour could easily lose the Scottish votes and their marginal advantage in england and Wales and if the Tories and Reform apply the same tactical approach and form some sort of elctoral alliance we could see it swing back; Labour could be out in 5 years, it depends how they play it and what happens to the Tories and Reform. Not that it really matters or makes any difference because these parties are just versions of the same political ideology.