So the Final 2 - Liz and Rishi

Which was unfair. The LibDems reined in a lot of the worst Tory policies. They will never form a coalition with them again and have always worked well with Labour in the past.

MayBee70

Which was unfair. The LibDems reined in a lot of the worst Tory policies. They will never form a coalition with them again and have always worked well with Labour in the past.

I don't think we'll ever really know the truth on this. At best though I think Clegg was (and probably still is - see defences of Facebook) naive.

He could have insisted on referendum on PR and that the Conservative government campaigned for it (and put forward a real PR system).

He also accepted the role of Deputy PM which, to borrow the American phrase about the VP, isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. If he'd insisted on Chancellor he would have had real power.

Remember the position that Cameron was in - without Clegg it would have been Lib-Lab - I think he would have accepted almost anything.

Petera

MayBee70

Which was unfair. The LibDems reined in a lot of the worst Tory policies. They will never form a coalition with them again and have always worked well with Labour in the past.

I don't think we'll ever really know the truth on this. At best though I think Clegg was (and probably still is - see defences of Facebook) naive.

He could have insisted on referendum on PR and that the Conservative government campaigned for it (and put forward a real PR system).

He also accepted the role of Deputy PM which, to borrow the American phrase about the VP, isn't worth a bucket of warm spit. If he'd insisted on Chancellor he would have had real power.

Remember the position that Cameron was in - without Clegg it would have been Lib-Lab - I think he would have accepted almost anything.

...and my DP is less forgiving, quote: Clegg looked at Cameron and saw someone like him.

rosie1959

MayBee70

Why is there this attitude in the country of ‘well, there’s no alternative’. We have a very sensible, intelligent, caring shadow cabinet that are quite capable of helping the people of this country through the many problems it’s facing but people seem to have been gaslighted into thinking they don’t exist. I know it will mean a coalition of some kind and will need the backing of the SNP but when they get elected I, for one, will be getting behind them and doing everything in my power to make this country a better place for my children and grandchildren. Something I never thought I would have to be doing at my age.

As Starmee has said he will never join forces with the SNP this would be very unlikely.
We are unlikely to have an election in the near future so maybe Labour could get their act together and win on their own merits. Starmer is going to to do a little less sitting on the fence for this to happen

Starmer is unlikely to need the backing of the SNP, although they may choose to work in a pact with him and the other smaller parties. His plans do not seem to include a coalition. He would, in my opinion - and it seems quite possibly his - be far better working towards a pact than a coalition. That could bring in PR and the other bills needed to give Labour, Lib Dems, Green Party, etc., time to unearth just what the Conservatives have done over the last 12 years.

Those in the pact may want to have a quick election once we have PR, although it would be very rare for political parties to give up any power once they have it.

volver

I've been laughing ever since the "just ignore her" comment. Nothing else to do, is there?

When me and my partner ran a consultancy agency (no more - thanks Brexit!) we had lots of conversations with our Scandi colleagues and customers - they were people we'd known for years and with whom we'd socialised.

Interestingly, NS was highly regarded among them - most had visited Scotland for the oil exhibitions, conferences, etc. Norway and Scotland share historic links, too.

Just sayin' (as they say)...

... and my Swedish colleagues thought Johnson "buffel som"... which means he has the charm and manner of a buffalo...

MayBee70

Which was unfair. The LibDems reined in a lot of the worst Tory policies. They will never form a coalition with them again and have always worked well with Labour in the past.

Yes, they did but they caved in on some of their own policies in order to gain some power.

I hear Nick Clegg is on his way back to the UK (or so DH told me a little while ago).

..and my DP is less forgiving, quote: Clegg looked at Cameron and saw someone like him

I was never keen on Clegg as LibDem leader.
But then I liked Jeremy Thorpe and the old Liberals so what do I know?

My favourite was Charles Kennedy, who sadly died at 55 due to his alcoholism. Very sad. I didn’t like Nick Clegg at all.

I disliked Clegg when I saw him in that first leadership debate, when Cameron and Brown said they agreed with Nick. I saw Brown and Cameron as streets ahead of Clegg. I despise him for voting with the tories on the bedroom tax until our of coalition, when he realised how bad the policy is.

Clegg went right down in my estimation when the state pension was being discussed and he was asked if he actually knew how much it was.

"Oh, ummm, about £30 a week isn't it?". This was in 2010.

Seriously underestimated - but it means he didn't have a clue.

Surely politicians of any stripe should know these things?

Oh my Lord, how the other half live. That tells us so much doesn’t it?

Dickens

Clegg went right down in my estimation when the state pension was being discussed and he was asked if he actually knew how much it was.

"Oh, ummm, about £30 a week isn't it?". This was in 2010.

Seriously underestimated - but it means he didn't have a clue.

Surely politicians of any stripe should know these things?

I've never been convinced about MPs knowing the price of milk, bread, etc. I would guess that many people who aren't on a pension or involved with the amount on behalf of a relative have very little knowledge about what the basic is.

Let's face it, there are some getting the new pension on here who don't appreciate that their base amount is the old pension amount + the pension credit amount + plus and increasing amount on top because of compound interest. All new pensioners get it whether, under the old rules, they need it or not. They don't seem to understand that their "not enough" is much more than older pensioners' "not enough".

Obviously, neither basic pension is enough. We should be beating MPs (metaphorically) over the head with the amount we expect people to live on, not expecting them to understand. Although we all must sometimes ask ourselves if we are actually in the asylum, madness lies in expecting those making our laws to know every detail of people's incomes and how they manage to live on them.

Liz and her integrity .. Sky'Showcase -The Battle for No.10...so defensive about Boris and his mistakes...think she has a job lined up for him if she becomes PM Ugh hate when she keeps answering a question with the line " I'm somebody that....."

I've never been convinced about MPs knowing the price of milk, bread, etc

Come to think of it, DaisyAnne, I'm not sure I could state the price of bread or milk!

I do know that dairy farmers are not being paid enough and, if we're not careful, too many of them will go out of business and we will be at the mercy of imports.

I agree that most of them are out of touch with RL.

I’ve been thinking about Sunaks idea about criminalising people who criticise the country and have just listened to last weeks You’re Dead to Me which was about Julius Caesars Rome and discussed something similar which was called proscription. Does Sunak want people to report anyone who criticise the country and the government?

DaisyAnne I've never been convinced about MPs knowing the price of milk, bread, etc

I agree with this, but I think there is s broader point in this case that showed he believed the you could get by on £30/week

(Incidentally, today:

Farmfoods: 4L of s/s milk £1.69 - roughly 24p/pint
Dayelsefords: 1L of s/s milk £1.49 - roughly 85p/pint

So how much is a pint of milk?)

Regarding the £30 a week, I still don't expect an MP to be able to know such things. It was naïve of him to attempt to answer but that doesn't make him a bad person. I think he should know, as Callistemon knows about the farmers, the general issues that people have to cope with.

Being at the lower end of income brings such a variety of different issues for different people. The complexities of lower incomes are enough to drive you mad.

Our nearest supermarket sell 2L SS milk at £1.55. 1L of SS Lactose free milk is £1.89. You can get the Lactose free cheaper from another supermarket. That is a little over the distance to the nearest one but in the other direction. However, I doubt anyone could get all they need there; it's quite a small shop.

What if you don't have a car? What if you don't have the time? What if you have, as in my example, special dietary needs? Life's complexities are different for each person but they do exist. That is the thing I mind MPs not knowing.

Callistemon21

^..and my DP is less forgiving, quote: Clegg looked at Cameron and saw someone like him^

I was never keen on Clegg as LibDem leader.
But then I liked Jeremy Thorpe and the old Liberals so what do I know?

Joe Grimond was the Lib leader that seemed to have his finger on the pulse to my mind, very much of the same grade of Harold Wilson.

How have we come to this sad state where the current leaders (all parties) do not give much hope for the future.

I don't expect most people to know the price of food items, or for anyone below pension age to know how much the pension is - they don't need to - but if it is your job to make decisions about pensions, benefits and similar things that affect people's lives, then you absolutely should know.

How can you approve or disapprove of a policy to increase pensions by x% or to understand how hard it is to feed children in the holidays if you have no idea how little people have to live on, or how much of that has to go on the basics of staying alive? It's not really fair to expect them to know retail prices of individual items off the tops of their heads, but they should have at least a rough idea about how much average food bills (and average fuel bills and housing costs) are as a percentage of a pension, of a benefit claimant's income, and of a single person and a household on an average wage or salary. It is not possible to make sensible policies unless you know those things.

A survey of adults across the UK found that Rishi Sunak edged slightly ahead of Liz Truss – with a negative overall “favourability” rating of minus 30 compared to minus 32.
In Scotland, their popularity plunges further, according to the YouGov survey carried out between July 10 to 24.

In Scotland, it's Sunak minus 48 and Truss minus 47.

www.thenational.scot/news/20606151.liz-truss-rishi-sunak-popularity-much-lower-scotland/

Well the country’s heading into a recession and whoever becomes PM it seems probable, taking into account their proposed respective policies, that they have very little to offer in mitigation for those who will suffer most.
Their “popularity” will then sink without trace.
It’s sad that we must suffer for the next couple of years.

It has been estimated by Loughborough University that the effects of poverty cost the government billions more in the long term that giving people support and fair benefits, or “handouts” as Truss would say.

Bring back Gordon Brown!

Absolutely varian.

varian

Bring back Gordon Brown!

Yes, wasn’t he impressive when interviewed today