Dame
You regard yourself as a political savant but you have been all at sea regarding the surge in support for Reform UK.
Your lack of interest in Reform UK shows how limited your knowledge of politics is.
I count Ben Habib as a close friend. He is also a K& C resident.
At the recent Wellingborough by-election, Ben knocked the Lib Dems into 4th place!
I have known him since his early 20's. At that time he was the youngest FD of a quoted company.
He is now a highly successful business leader with a no-nonsense approach to getting things done.
If Reform UK can attract those of the calibre of Ben then both Labour and Conservatives face a serious threat.
Stop being so partisan and give oxygen to a party that is gaining massive traction.
Regards
A reader
Reform UK’s basic pitch seems to be as popularise as possible, pretending there are easy answers to complex problems.
ReplyDeleteIf you don’t believe me, take a look at the current leader, Richard Tice (Mr Isabelle Oakeshott):
* He has promoted the White Rose (anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory stuff) when it comes to Covid.
* He denies climate change so no need to deal with this very serious problem.
* He does go on about things being "woke". Never explains where this army of invisible boogie people (with their hard core manifesto to make nothing work) actually came from.
* Not seeing any contradiction, he says he believes in free speech but, then on the other hand, calls for the BBC to ban EU flags at the Proms.
"Reform UK is the party of the working class," says the multi-millionaire, privately educated, asset management executive, Richard Tice.
DeleteThat is a very silly and trite analysis of a party that is an existential threat to the Conservative Party. What has his girlfriend got to do with it. The 'complex problems' have been created by a series of third rate governments. Without being rude, your comment smacks of having been produced by someone without much sense or gravitas. And why on earth would it seem appropriate to have EU flags at what is a very traditional British event?
DeleteWhat a truly pathetic and puerile comment. Grow up and stop flailing around
Delete19:26 so, that presumably bars a former highly paid lawyer and knight of the realm from claiming to be for the working classes....scraping the barrel politics
DeleteIn actual fact, despite Tice's background, I come across a lot of working class people supporting Reform UK. They are fed up with out of control immigration and inability to get a home because of that. They also resent having to bear too high a tax burden.
DeleteReform will win zero seats but attract sufficient useful idiots to split the rightwing vote, ensuring the current crop of grotesque Tories are consigned to deserved electoral oblivion.
DeleteReform will win zero seats but attract sufficient useful idiots to split the rightwing vote, ensuring the current crop of grotesque Tories are consigned to deserved electoral oblivion.
Delete19:49: Tice when most vocal about EU flags at the Proms took great pains to insist he is a proponent of free speech and freedom of expression. It’s clearly arrant nonsense his tirade demonstrated. What he means is he wants the freedom to use bigoted language against migrants, to deny well-established science and spread Covid misinformation, to indulge in unevidenced conspiracy theories, to attack net zero, and blame everything on some enigmatically unidentifiable force, like ‘the blob’ or the ‘wokerati’.
DeleteTo the flag N*zi (at 19:49), other people having feelings and opinions you don’t like is not an excuse for trying to curtail people’s freedoms. It’s just a flag!
DeleteA flag Nazi? Weird fellow aren't you?
DeleteSir Henry Wood the early conductor of the Proms famously opened the original concert with Wagner’s Rienzi Overture – a German composer! 2023’s conductor Marin Alsop was an American-born Austrian composer! So, Richard Tice stop being so utterly ridiculous. We still live in a democracy & waving an EU flag at the Last Night of the Proms is still allowed. It’s called freedom of expression.
DeleteWhat pathetic and irrelevant raison d' etre for allowing EU flags
Delete22:23 not half as weird as you for using flags to attack a growing political party
DeleteRather than the BS posted below
Delete... Reform Party hopes of snatching working class vote at general election doomed, says Sir John Curtice | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-reform-richard-tice-working-class-vote-pollsters-b2496168.html
Woke has not emerged out of thin air as some sort of new social fad. It has been regulated into place, initially by Section 172 of the Companies Act, introducing social responsibility as a directorial obligation. The Equalities Act was the next step with progressive discrimination. Diversity, Equality and Inclusion is now a regulatory obligation promoted by the LSE, FCA, FRC etc. These regulations have foisted massive cost on UK business and discriminated against meritocracy. All of this is the institutionalising of racism against white people. It affects every single institution in the country: private enterprise, govt, education, armed forces, police, NHS etc. It is hollowing out the UK. It must be ditched.
DeleteI doubt Reform UK could win any parliamentary seat in the coming election.
ReplyDeleteReform UK are talking up their performances and Kingswood was decent for them. At Wellingborough given the effort they put in and the collapse of the Con vote their return was an under-performance. Peterborough is next door and against a flaccid Con Govt and an unconvincing Lab party the Brexit Party came second there with 28%. 13% isn't breaking the mould of British politics any time soon. On these BE results Reform support seems to be over-stated by most polls.
DeleteThat's just your opinion. As opinions go it's fairly boring
DeleteThe joy of being a fringe party is that it is at liberty to advocate preposterous things without any expectation of having to make them work. Reform UKs stated agenda is a mishmash of nationalist and libertarian demands – reckless tax and spending cuts; rejection of any effort to battle climate change; reducing net immigration to zero. No responsible government could implement such a programme.
DeleteClacton-on-Sea – the seat that Mr Farage has been rumoured to be considering should he run as a Reform candidate – is only polling at 18 per cent, inviting even more scepticism about the party’s prospects in Westminster.
DeleteProf Curtice disagrees with you but of course you know more than him!
DeleteThe joy of being a fringe party is that you can be policy creative and inspire voters that change is possible
Delete10.02 please provide your Sir John Curtice evidence. Having read all his comments on Reform UK, you seem to be BS-ing.
DeleteDo your research. Read his interview in the D.Tel today
DeleteYes i have now read the full telegraph interview https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/18/sir-john-curtice-election-polls-conservatives-labour-reform/ there is zero mention of Clacton.
DeleteConfirming, you are full of BS!
A D.Tel reader!
DeleteReform UK is a registered company rather than a more conventional membership organisation. Nigel Farage is the majority shareholder.
ReplyDeleteso?
DeleteReform company documents reveal a unique structure for a UK political Party which gives almost total control to its leader. The structure has been criticised for not providing the party’s more than 115,000 paying registered supporters with any voting power to influence policy.
DeleteAnd the Tory Party allowed voters to choose PM's?
DeleteLet's be honest. The majority of comments attacking Reform UK are from metro lefties who have no clue about the feelings of provincial voters. They will go on whining about Reform as it continues to grow. What Reform has achieved is to give voice to voters. Like it or not that is what is happening so suck it up!
ReplyDeleteWe cannot be certain what the impact of Reform UK or the Green Party will be at the next election. Perhaps we can agree the appeal of Reform UK and the Greens will be well worth monitoring in the months ahead.
DeleteThe most sensible comment so far
Delete10.07 Surprise, surprise! There are "metro" people on the K&C FYHN!
DeleteThe FTHN comments are also choc-a-bloc full “Urbanites”!
DeleteThe public is being horribly led astray by our political parties. We have three left-wing parties, Labour, Lib Dem and the Greens. We have a centre party which calls itself the Conservative Party. We have two conservative parties called UKIP and Reform UK.
ReplyDeleteTo end the confusion, the Conservative party should rebrand itself the Centre or Moderate or Social Democrat party, or something else which more accurately describes its nature, and should sell the Conservative brand to UKIP or Reform UK.
May I be permitted to join the debate as to whether Reform UK will start to gnaw away at the working class vote? Curtice needs to consider this. Working class voters employed by the state will continue to vote Labour. However, there is a working class segment that is employed in the private sector and those were the ones in the Red Wall areas who defected to the Tories. This is the segment who will begin to consider Reform UK as a more natural home. But the big consideration is what happens if Farage decides to go with Reform. If he does all bets are off. Like him or not he connects with the working and upper working classes in a dynamic way. It is pointless going back and pointing out Farage's lack of historic success. We are entering uncharted waters. Tice is proving to be quite a good leader...like him or not
ReplyDeleteBen Habib (Reform UK) Says A Labour Government Is Worth It For ‘Obliterating Tories’
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politicshome.com/news/article/labour-government-price-paying-reform-ben-habib
The Tories just don't get it. A Lady McAlpine commissioned a poll amongst Tory activists. The result is that a GE could be won with Johnson back as PM. She is backed up by Lord Moylan who owes his peerage to the filthy old philanderer. They both think a deal could be done with Reform UK in getting back Johnson. Habib and Tice have made it clear they want nothing to do with the Tories apart from destroying them.
ReplyDeleteYou need to remember that it was the Conservative party in Parliament who threw out Johnson. Even if only a rump of them remain after the next election why would they welcome him back? Once it was shown that 'The Emperor has no clothes ' it becomes impossible to overlook or forget his ( hideous) nakedness
ReplyDeleteBen Habib suggests Lee Anderson isn’t of sufficient calibre to be a Reform candidate.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone watch the political debate on Newsnight?
ReplyDeleteThe Reform Party representative was beyond comical. He said straight out that Reform would totally eliminate NHS waiting lists within 2 years.
Victoria Derbyshire asked what would that cost. Reform man didn't know. Derbyshire then said that per the Reform website the cost is £30 billion.
I mean, seriously, given all the other pressures the country is facing it is beyond fantastical to pretend we are going to eliminate NHS waiting lists and also beyond fantastical that we are going to spend £30 billion even attempting to do so.
This kind of Alice in Wonderland nonsense is of no help to anyone and can only do much more damage to the country - encouraging the public to think that such things are possible and then when they can't be delivered people get even more disappointed leading to even more reactionary views.
Based on this debate, as a Conservative supporter I have no hesitation at all in saying my second choice for Government would be Labour. Reform would be a complete disaster.