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This change of management is a good result for Britain. Out goes a Tory government that had turned chaos into an art form. In comes a party that has focused ruthlessly on improving its electoral appeal. A country that was one of the first in the West to succumb to populist radicalism, by voting for Brexit in 2016, has opted decisively for a serious-minded centrist who pledges stability. North of the border, too, a collapse in the vote for the Scottish National Party marks a welcome turn away from the ideological pursuit of independence and towards a more pragmatic form of government.


With a huge majority, continued discipline and a mandate to pursue growth, all these things are possible. If Sir Keir can improve Britain’s chronic low productivity and raise the efficiency of the British state, then he may offer a lesson to centrists elsewhere: not just how to win power, but how to use it. It starts by him seizing the moment.
 

This change of management is a good result for Britain. Out goes a Tory government that had turned chaos into an art form. In comes a party that has focused ruthlessly on improving its electoral appeal. A country that was one of the first in the West to succumb to populist radicalism, by voting for Brexit in 2016, has opted decisively for a serious-minded centrist who pledges stability. North of the border, too, a collapse in the vote for the Scottish National Party marks a welcome turn away from the ideological pursuit of independence and towards a more pragmatic form of government.


With a huge majority, continued discipline and a mandate to pursue growth, all these things are possible. If Sir Keir can improve Britain’s chronic low productivity and raise the efficiency of the British state, then he may offer a lesson to centrists elsewhere: not just how to win power, but how to use it. It starts by him seizing the moment.
Yes it's been 19 years since Labour were last in office, so a change was well overdue.
 
I often wonder what it would be like in OZ if voting were not compulsory.
Perhaps a quick look at the latest UK voting patterns might give us a clue.
In the latest election, the turnout for electors was a tad below 60%.
Voter turnout remained above 75% at every post-war general election until 1970 (hey, theres that year again!) , when it dipped to 72.0%.
It then stayed above 70% at every election until plunging to 59.4% in 2001 – since when it has never been above 70%.
As can be seen from the chart below, the did not vote numbers were higher than any of the votes for a party.
The labor Part gained a whopping 171 majority with just 20% of the voting public voting for them.
The issue was that the Tories went even worse.
Nigel Farage group were big vote increases, along with the greens who had a small increase.
Every other party went backwards.
Its hardly a ringing endorsement for any of them.
Mick


1720213632906.png
 
Another take on the election.
Excluding the non voters and looking at those who did vote, is still hardly a ringing endorsement of the Labor party.
Reform UK which counts Nigel Farage's as one of its highest profile candidates, got 14 % of the vote but managed just 4 seats.
Liberal Democrats got 12 % of the vote but picked up 71 seats.
Democracy, its a wonderful thing.
Mick

1720216385570.png
 
A bit of navel gazing from The Moggster (who just lost his seat). Pretty on point IMO, however would strongly disagree on Boris, who is not a true conservative.

 
A bit of navel gazing from The Moggster (who just lost his seat). Pretty on point IMO, however would strongly disagree on Boris, who is not a true conservative.
I don't think the voting public give a rats about true conservative, or true Labour anymore, the voting public just see whether their life is turning to $hit or not and vote accordingly. :2twocents
 
UK is a mess

How many people are in poverty?​

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data shows that around one in six people in the UK were in relative low income (relative poverty) before housing costs in 2022/23. This rises to just over one in five people once housing costs are accounted for.

dee19615-f6fa-4157-a2eb-089267a59e4a.png


14% of people in the UK were in absolute low income before housing costs in 2022/23, and 18% were in absolute low income (absolute poverty) after housing costs.

8642e054-9eeb-41da-b9c0-d022a852f447.png


 
UK is a mess

How many people are in poverty?​

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data shows that around one in six people in the UK were in relative low income (relative poverty) before housing costs in 2022/23. This rises to just over one in five people once housing costs are accounted for.

dee19615-f6fa-4157-a2eb-089267a59e4a.png


14% of people in the UK were in absolute low income before housing costs in 2022/23, and 18% were in absolute low income (absolute poverty) after housing costs.

8642e054-9eeb-41da-b9c0-d022a852f447.png


And voted accordingly.


From Statista:

Screenshot 2024-07-07 090956.jpg



Screenshot 2024-07-07 091039.jpg
 
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Well from the left leaning SMH, meanwhile we bag everyone else. :rolleyes:

We're becoming that sort of a place IMO.


Australia has some of the worst real wage growth of the OECD’s 38 member nations, lagging behind the United Kingdom, United States and Canada, exposing the federal government’s struggle to deliver on its election commitment to get real wages moving as inflation remains high.

The latest employment outlook from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found real wages in Australia remained 4.8 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.

Australia was one of 16 member countries whose real incomes have gone backwards since the end of 2019. It fell well below the OECD average of 3.5 per cent real wage growth over the same period.
“This is one of the largest drops in real wages among OECD countries,” the organisation said.

“Real wages grew in 2024 for the first time in nearly three years, but households are still facing pressure under the cost-of-living crisis.”
Ahead of the 2022 federal election, Treasurer Jim Chalmers promised that “only Labor has a plan to get wages moving again”, but it took nearly two years for wage growth to start outpacing inflation at the end of 2023.
 
Immigrants had just been travelling across the EU ending up in France. Then leaving the EU in boats for the UK. Increasingly they are moving across the UK back into the EU in Ireland. Now what?

Ireland and Britain are on a collision course over asylum seekers, with Dublin vowing to send arrivals to Ireland back to the UK and London insisting it will not accept any.

Asylum seekers is starting to become a hot topic in Dublin.


Tensions erupted as protesters hurled 'missiles' at riot police at a Dublin factory slated to house asylum seekers.
 
Irranca-Davies was on Radio 4’s the World at One. Describing Gething as a friend, he said this was a sad day. Gething had spent 30 years in public service, he said. And what happened to him showed “if we want people to stand for top office, or for any part of public service, we need to think about the way that we conduct debates”.

Irranca-Davies said “a wide range of things” had led up to this. Asked if Gething was to blame for the mistakes he made, Irranca-Davies said no. He said Gething was going because he realised he no longer had enough support in the party.
 
hopefully a remedy can be found for the decline in Western countries.
Easy.

Bring back productive industry and redirect "free trade" to become "fair trade".

Fair trade - well if a country has wages a third of a Western country, simply applying a 200% tariff to all goods from that country wouldn't be unreasonable to even it up. Plus some basic non-negotiable demands about human rights, the right of all workers to join a union, legitimate democratic elections, etc.

So long as that's not addressed, the decline will continue simply because in order to compete with those having low standards, ultimately we're forced to adopt those standards ourselves.

The present arrangements are simply race to the bottom and as with overspending, failing to exercise or being lazy it's fun at first but becomes nothing but misery once the inevitable effects start to show up. That's what we're now seeing and if we don't change then it's all downhill from here. :2twocents
 
Brilliant statement on the state of the UK and the current troubles

 
UK looking like Iran back in the day.
Interesting the lockstep MSM disinformation campaign also.

Especially calling working class folk who likely vote Labor "far right thugs" while Muslim gangs roam the streets with machetes with impunity.

The various levels of government, police, bureaucracy has certainly been captured by Islam (as has long been predicted).
 
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