Tories Face Landslide Defeat!
After 14 years it's time for a great leap forwards.
Late Thursday night, around midday Friday here in New Zealand, we should finally, after fourteen years and five dismal Prime Ministers, see the Tories booted out of government in the UK.
The Conservatives have produced a master class in what not to do in government. Be it strangling the economy with austerity. Covid rules that appeared made up on the spot and tended towards saving the economy rather than lives. Brexit! Or underfunding public services and borrowing for tax cuts for the wealthy. A debt to be repaid via the austerity of future generations. Hurrah.
Sadly for us down here in Aotearoa NZ our own, newly elected, Tory bastards, the National party, have decided to follow the example of their UK counterparts. While most of us looked at what happened in the UK under Tory rule and winced, their response was, “hold my beer”.
Unnecessary cruelty, making life worse for those at the bottom while preaching the miracle of trickle down economics as the wealth trickles ever upwards. These guys were there way before our lot.
All through our years of kindness with Jacinda Ardern they’ve been suffering under the sort of ghouls who thrill in cutting benefit payments to those they deem fit for work. Even when that’s clearly not the case to anyone with a modicum of human decency.
Jonathan Pie’s latest video covers those fourteen years of Tory rule. If you’re not familiar with Mr Pie’s work he does swear quite a lot, but with very good reason.
Exit polls have compressed the announcement of election night results. With their release we pretty much know right away which way things have gone. Unless it’s really close what we find out after the polls close tends to be a pretty good indication of how the evening’s going to go.
Which takes a wee bit of the fun out of it for those of us who love elections, but I imagine it suits most people. They can get on with celebrating, or drowning their sorrows, without having to watch the ebb and flow for hours until the picture emerges. For me it’s like someone telling you on the way into a movie what probably happens at the end. Leaving you hoping for a resurrection, as of a currently dead soap opera character. Seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened, right?
There should be few surprises in this week’s result, other than the size of the Tory defeat. Yes there have been false dawns before, with the parade of such loathsome and inept leaders there have been times when you thought - surely they must go, who in their right mind is voting for these pricks? Other than other pricks, presumably.
But this time, despite some finding the alternative a tad bland, it looks like the Tories will finally go. If you’d like to check out how Labour plans to change things you can check that out here.
Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak. Good lord, surely no one’s going to be queuing up at the polling booth on Thursday thinking - let’s have some more of that then shall we?
The UK votes once every five years, compared to our three year term. Like ourselves voters seldom give a government a single term, you have to go back 50 years to Harold Wilson’s second time in power for the last time that happened. So Thursday’s election may well define the sort of society there will be in the UK for the next decade.
To Kiwis the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system will seem outdated and undemocratic. Bringing back nightmares to those on the left who sometimes lost under such a system, despite having more votes. Or anyone who endeavoured to establish third parties, in what becomes largely a choice between two major parties.
Had the UK’s last election been fought under a proportional system, like MMP, the Tories would’ve struggled to form a coalition and a grouping on the left could’ve formed a government. Not only does the FPTP system mean that the UK is typically ruled by governments who received fewer than half the votes, but it can also amplify the winning margin.
Under a proportional system a few percentage points, when you’ve already lost, doesn’t make a lot of difference to the composition of parliament. But under an FPTP system it can rapidly turn a narrow loss into an absolute landslide of defeat.
Speculation around Thursday’s election has shifted from who will win to how badly the Tories will lose. Recent polls show support for Labour at around 40%, with the Conservatives at half that, hovering around 20%.
This graphic from the Guardian indicates how that those number would change the composition of the UK parliament, into a sea of red.
The vote on the right is spilt with Reform, who are polling roughly 16%. These are the remaining leavers, still clinging to the delusion that Brexit was the right thing to do, and with an extra spoonful of racism on top. Fortunately most people are sufficiently in touch with reality to realise that the split was a mistake, as is listening to Nigel Farage in general.
Your fellow kōrero reader, Caroline West, has been over in the UK visiting her Mum. Caroline’s a NZ Labour member and secretary for her local branch, but Putney is where she grew up so she’s helping out while she’s there. Fleur Anderson, the local MP, won the seat at the last election after years of there being a Tory MP. One of the few Labour gains at that election.
Caroline mentioned that the flats in the photo below were all social housing when she grew up and now, thanks to Thatcher, are mostly privately owned, a large percentage by landlords. As you can see in the photo below she’s has been out delivering letters around the motu! Such a lovely thing to do.
Caroline suggested I take a look at this article in the Guardian, covering the result of these fourteen years of Tory rule. Including the fact that the NHS waiting list has almost tripled since 2010.
I remember when I lived in the UK in the late 90s and early 00s, being struck by how good the NHS was, how affordable dentistry was, and I was amazed by free doctor visits. Sure the buildings were run down, as they very much were here, but there seemed a much greater expectation that the state should provide good, universal healthcare to it’s citizens, and by and large it seemed to be working.
That probably sounds like a bad joke to those who’ve experienced the years since and I regularly see people writing about the danger of losing the NHS to a for-profit, American style, model. An unthinkable and unforgivable step backwards. Another reason to vote these buggers out before they do more damage.
I wrote about the Tory government, the PMs they’ve had, and the prospect that things could only get better, at the time of the election announcement by Rishi Sunak. That newsletter was previously paywalled but I’ve made it public now:
Rishi calls an Election.
Today the British PM, Rishi Sunak, called a general election for the 4th of July. He spoke of the challenging times and of strong leadership and achievements. It was as if he was talking about someone else, a real leader, rather than he himself or the woeful list of Tory leaders who have preceded him.
Despite the First Past the Post system this election is not simply a two horse race. Approximately 40% of voters will opt for third parties, unless people act differently in the voting booth than recent political polls suggest.
Still the main story, barring last minute Tory scare tactics working, or some calamitous faux pas from Starmer, should be about Labour sweeping to power and the decimation of the Tory party.
As someone from outside the UK I’ve never really understood the Liberal Democrats. It seems like it’s a party for middle class lefty liberals who dislike the Tories, but don’t support Labour either. Which seems an odd tradition in an FPTP system to me, although I assume it makes sense if you’re a native.
The SNP have had a scandalous few years and I’ll watch with interest to see how Scotland votes this time, whether Labour do better, surely it will remain very slim pickings for the Tories. I was sorry to read about Mairi Black standing down at the election, even from the other side of the world she seemed like the sort of person you’d want in your parliament to me.
As a Green supporter in NZ I very much hope that party does well. But like the Lib Dems it will have to come through strategic voting. The last thing those who want to see the back of the Tories need is to see the vote split. It’s very much a case of hold your nose and vote for the candidate most likely to beat your local Tory.
C’mon UK, you don’t just want these buggers out, you want to see them decimated. Leave vote splitting to the right, with a large number of people set to cast votes for Reform, who will end up with very few seats in return. Such a shame.
All going to plan Thursday should see the Tories lose hundreds of seats, so what to do with all those ex MPs?
It’s hard to imagine they’d be useful for much. Perhaps a one way ticket to Rwanda might be an appropriate solution? I mean, we don’t want them being a burden on the state, or taking jobs that could go to honest, hardworking, British people.
Across Europe, around the globe, it seems the world is moving towards the right. On Thursday the UK have an opportunity to swim against that tide. The voters in that fair land, a place that’s given so much to the world in every field of human endeavour, can take their country back and choose a government that puts their needs first and not the interests of the wealthy few.
They can finally kick the Tories out of government. It’s long over due and it will be wonderful to witness - I can hardly wait!
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Below there’s a track from your old mate Billy, imagine how happy he’ll be to see the Tories take an absolute flogging. If you’re eligible to vote in the UK do it for yourself, for your neighbours, your kids, co-workers, your nan, or even do it for your Uncle Billy.
Take the great leap forward and send those Tories packing.
Cracking comedy from Matt Green on the latest attack from the Tories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AgutgpTHCk
As a former Englisher, now a 30+ year kiwi, I still follow British politics fairly closely in a schadenfreude kind of way. Watching our current government using that Tory playbook is deeply depressing. They’re fast tracking what the Tories had to develop. - the ever increasing demonisation of the sick, the disabled, the poor, the ‘others’. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The Tories have literally broken Britain and it’s gonna take a lot less than 14 years for NACT to do the same here.
Whilst getting the Tories out on the UK will be fantastic, fixing the wreckage they are leaving behind may well be beyond Labour or anyone else. It’s not just the financial damage they’ve inflicted but the emotional toll those policies have taken on the population, many of whom are so damaged and angry they will never recover. Look around AONZ and it’s happening here. Now.