gdp's Comments

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Andrew Gimson's Commons sketch: Never glad confident morning again!

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:54:24 +0000

It really is the only possible outcome isn't it? No deal can't happen. May's deal is dead in the water. May won't change her red lines so the EU can amend the deal. EU will only extend A50 with a GE or leadership change and the leadership change is now 100% out of the picture. Second referendum widely ruled out. With a GE, if she wins there's a chance to discard the DUP/ get rid of certain troublemakers within the party, make sure yes-men are the candidates in all marginals. If she loses the result will be Labour/ SNP and SNP will force them to 2nd ref & Remain. Then ride the "labour stopped brexit" backlash to victory in 2024, or before then if Labour's minority government can be forced out. It does require a gamble that a Labour majority won't happen, but there's never a completely safe option with these things.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Andrew Gimson's Commons sketch: Never glad confident morning again!

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:43:01 +0000

If no deal happens, we're not looking at something trivial like 20 points behind. Probably more like riots to be honest. No fresh produce in the supermarket, alcohol and cigarettes spike in price, people in the country are on the brink as it is, it takes a lot more hardship to push the UK public into action, but they go further once they do.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Andrew Gimson's Commons sketch: Never glad confident morning again!

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:25:38 +0000

I took notice of the letter of what she said as well. She has quite possibly played them all for fools in a tactical masterstroke. The exact phrasing was indeed that she would not stand in the *2022* general election. She said nothing about elections before 2022.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Andrew Gimson's Commons sketch: Never glad confident morning again!

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:17:27 +0000

The problem is, by voting for a party that you agree with, you often have to vote for an MP you disagree with who isn't fit for the job. Too many new-labour-esque yes-men parachuted into safe seats via nepotism. Only so far it can go before the rot sets in.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: North Korean ovation from Conservative MPs as Brady announces that May has won

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 12:08:11 +0000

EU doesn't need to do anything, they have us on a leash now. The confidence vote was the last chance for sanity to prevail. Now we're headed straight for no deal, economic ruin and Corbyn picks up the pieces in 2022.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : A cry of rage against the BBC

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 13:04:59 +0000

Well, maybe that's the real bias, in favour of neoliberal centrism (EU, Blair, Lib Dem etc.). The centrist groupthink mentality allows everything to be neatly wrapped up in consensus without offending anyone and maintaining lip service to impartiality while actually being wedded to a political position that no-one on the right or left wants anymore. I'm not sure what their agenda is, but it's probably the one that suits them personally, the idea of them being impartial and working in the interests of the country is definitely false.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Iain Dale: Why is May making her case to 35 million people won't vote on her deal? And not to the 65

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:21:50 +0000

The Express exists solely to make pensioners scared of the weather, health conditions and immigrants. Garbage rag in the same category as the Mirror, just on the right instead of the left. If you want real news, look online and take a large bowl of salt and an open-yet-critical mind with you.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Iain Dale: Why is May making her case to 35 million people won't vote on her deal? And not to the 65

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:18:45 +0000

When your enemies are fighting, you stay back, you don't throw yourself in the middle. Corbyn has nothing to gain from getting involved in the May vs. ERG/ DUP spat, and a lot to gain from sitting back and watching it reach its inevitable messy conclusion next week. There is nothing positive at this point, disaster is inevitable, we're too far into the quicksand to get out.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Iain Dale: Why is May making her case to 35 million people won't vote on her deal? And not to the 65

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 10:01:18 +0000

The answer is easy - to invoke the Corbyn boogeyman and remind the MPs on her side of her "my deal or Corbyn government" statement. It's an appeal to party loyalty which is doomed to fail considering she's already talking about a 2nd vote on it if the first doesn't go her way. As John Major was 100% right about, only people on the losing side ask for a TV debate in the first place, people on the winning side don't. In 2017 with Labour 24 points behind, Corbyn was keen for the TV debate, and its easy to see why, if it had happened we'd probably be looking at a Lab/SNP coalition right now. And right now, Corbyn is looking very relaxed and smiling a lot in interviews whereas May looks defensive and ready to bite some heads off. The body language alone shows who has the upper hand in this. She isn't media polished in the way that Cameron was, it has always been a major flaw with her time as PM, even if things are awful, you have to look like you're keeping it together.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Andrew Green: Immigration. Voters will spurn the end of free movement if it brings no reduction in n

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 09:54:28 +0000

Brexit will simply result in more immigration from Africa and the Carribean, instead of the EU. If we really want to tackle immigration, we need to increase UK native birth rates (currently in steep decline), and that isn't going to happen unless we build a lot of homes and massively reduce house prices. No-one has kids in rentals where you can be kicked out with 2 months notice, people who expect to have grandkids might want to have a think about that. All countries need a pool of young labour for the workforce, it has to come from somewhere.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : A cry of rage against the BBC

Sat, 1 Dec 2018 09:39:21 +0000

I would say the BBC is left-wing on social movements and right-wing in terms of politics, since we do get a very easy ride on question time compared to other parties. Same applies to Marr interviewing conservative vs. labour politicians, ours don't get interrupted as much, Corbyn always gets grilled and there's little things like when they set him up to have the burnt-out pier in the background of the shot for a whole major interview with him, it's the subtle things you notice. In general, both TV and print media is right-wing by consensus, even the Guardian spends most of its time writing anti-Corbyn articles (while also writing anti-tory articles and giving Blair column space). It's largely preaching to the converted though (and actually counterproductive, UKIP was created by the UK media lurching way too far to the right and causing us a lot of problems), what Labour has that we don't is a literal army of people going door-to-door, their efforts in marginals outnumber ours 5:1 and there's little that can go up against the momentum machine once it gets going, they haven't stopped since 2017 in the marginal seat I live in, every month they're out there and trying to speak to a swing voter after they've already had a redshirt at the door three times is an uphill battle. I think the bias comes down more to the individual parts of the organization and the culture that's present there, with the politics they're mostly older and right wing (farage got all the screen time right after the 2017 election, just to illustrate exactly how far to the right some segments are), but general programming will be pro-immigration and diversity, social movements etc. Vegan cookery show coming next month, which I'm looking forward to.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : David Scullion and George Jackson: Voting down the Withdrawal Agreement won’t lead to a Corbyn Gov

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 12:47:22 +0000

Open it up for members to vote. Corbyn was voted in twice by his party membership and is completely and utterly backed by them, until we can say the same and have a bit of faith restored in the leadership, we're going nowhere. It has to come from the grassroots. If we had the same free vote after Cameron stepped down, we'd have a pragmatic brexiteer in charge and we'd have left with a Canada style deal a year ago. And no DUP to please either since the snap election disaster wouldn't have happened. Common sense goes out of the window when someone is allowed to walk into the top job with no contest or scrutiny from the party or its membership.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Tom Hunt: Ipswich needs a northern relief road - here is how we can win the campaign

Fri, 16 Nov 2018 07:29:58 +0000

We had one built in Norwich recently (Norfolk county council - tory and relevant to the topic), has done nothing to reduce traffic and went £100m over-budget. Meanwhile the other roads surrounding it still have potholes and the children walk back from the local school on a dirt path next to a busy main road because there's no demand for safe pedestrian access until someone gets killed. It would cost 50k tops to put a bit of pavement down, but no money for basic essentials like that, only "pie in sky" excessive tax and spend projects are focused on at the expense of everything else. If you get elected, please actually go out on foot and try walking around the outskirts to see how things are for people living in the countryside near to cities, often the last thing they want is a whacking great road going right through the middle of their communities and woodlands. I have personally walked north of Ipswich myself, to attend a wedding in one of the villages (got the bus as far north as it would go, then walked), it's actually very possible and pleasant to do so, minimal traffic, beautiful countryside. Will that still be possible after the lot gets concreted over? Probably not...

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : May's choice today. The possibility of her Government collapsing soon...or the probability of it doi

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 15:24:52 +0000

Won't be any fish left in the ocean by 2050 anyway, she's probably right that it's an industry that can be ignored. EU does love their fish for some reason, they even take most of Africa's fish, they get very obsessed with grabbing everything they can from wherever they can. And don't get me started on the dairy...

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : May's choice today. The possibility of her Government collapsing soon...or the probability of it doi

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 15:23:09 +0000

Best not to presume what the DUP thinks. They are very focused, mean what they say, and a Corbyn government doesn't really change much for them in the way that no-deal Brexit with hard borders does. Having the entire UK remain in the customs union is good for them, but they are keen to avoid the blame for it, that's where May comes in, the entire EU deal has been based around her being able to keep her DUP alliance and parliamentary majority intact, she has prioritized that over anything that would be good for the country.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : It was odious to burn an effigy of the Grenfell Tower - but those responsible should not have been a

Thu, 8 Nov 2018 01:50:33 +0000

Everyone in the video is a conservative party member, I expect the party to take action and remove them, we have enough negative association with the far right EDL nutter brigade as it is: https://evolvepolitics.com/exclusive-grenfell-tow... It seems there's no room for moderates in the party these days, after Brexit we decided that the UKIP crowd were worth pandering to. What is to be gained by defending these neanderthals?

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Andrew Jones: We are the party of business – and actions always speak louder than words

Wed, 7 Nov 2018 19:16:00 +0000

Pro big business, perhaps, but lack of support for the self-employed small business owner is a problem. We're primarily service based, 1 in 10 people run their own, sole trader or small ltd company. Not much support for them unless they have a physical store presence, UC changes hammer those on low income and the NI changes that have been batted around aren't good.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : Tyler Thomas: The Conservatives and social media. If we don't adapt, we will die.

Sat, 27 Oct 2018 18:24:18 +0000

One thing that should be ditched is the people paid to use fake profiles to constantly comment on labour pages with scripted copy/paste about Venezuela and diane abbott. Doesn't work, the accounts used get called out as fake and it makes us look desperate.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Duncan Smith. Universal Credit must be funded properly to be transformative

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 13:52:33 +0000

These are people who are currently working, though. Unemployment is at an absolute all-time low, the bulk of people are in work and also on benefits because the work doesn't pay, or is irregular/ zero hours/ gig economy. If they're doing their best, they deserve some help, that's exactly what the party is supposed to be about. We've done very well at getting people into work, it's about time we started supporting those people. People who are unemployed are largely unaffected by UC, it's the workers who are losing out and that isn't right. There's a lot of people who do work on the side and don't declare it, the people who do declare it shouldn't be heavily penalized for following the rules.

http://www.conservativehome.com/ : WATCH: Duncan Smith. Universal Credit must be funded properly to be transformative

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 13:20:23 +0000

Not quite as much as you might think, out of the overall benefits bill, the vast majority is pensions, disability payments and admin. Remove people who are unemployed from the equation as well (since the issue is people who are working, but on a low income) and you're left with a very small percentage of the overall bill that needs some extra treasury support. I would be more in favour of disregarded income as a method of incentivising work (something like "the first £200 you earn is yours, we won't touch that"), but at this point any change for the better would be welcome and a flat reduction down to the 40p level originally intended would be very possible without breaking the bank. It is unfortunate that the brexit obsession is leading to matters like this not getting the attention they deserve, especially after all the rhetoric from the top level of government about "helping the just-about-managings", "helping the strivers", and then the policies are the exact opposite of that rhetoric, it leads to feelings of betrayal amongst working-class conservative voters when white van man suddenly loses most of his tax credits and has to keep going to the jobcentre instead of working.