Comment by ben_w

6 hours ago

> But the Greens have chosen to embrace their own form of populist lunacy.

Well, populist lunacy is how Reform got so popular, so I can see why it would be tempting for the Green party.

Main thing that's weird right now with the UK is that because it's first-past-the-post and the current polling is Reform:~29%, Lib/Lab/Con/Green:~16%, I would not be surprised by any of these parties forming a minority government nor any one of them getting a massive parliamentary majority.

That said I will find it very very funny if the Conservative party ends up last from that list.

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ben_w

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cbeach  5 hours ago

Out of curiosity, which of Reform's policies are "lunacy"?

Removing the 2 child benefit cap? Increasing NHS spending? Returning to New Labour levels of net immigration, being a country with borders?

> That said I will find it very very funny if the Conservative party ends up last from that list.

At least we agree on that. The Tories deserve to be confined to the dustbin of history.

  • ben_w  4 hours ago

    The numbers don't add up. I think "Removing the 2 child benefit cap" and "Increasing NHS spending" are good things, but they're not free, and the supposed cost-saving measures they're talking about mostly serve to demonstrate they don't know what the government is paying for anyway.

    Immigration is always a funny one for the UK especially, given how people tend to look at gross numbers instead of which sectors the immigrants work in, and the discourse about why locals demonstrably do not fill those roles is mostly just insisting that locals can no matter what current unemployment levels actually are. Before I left the UK, the stereotype was all the Poles moving to the UK and building houses: UK should have invited over more builders, then there wouldn't be a shortage of houses.

    Immigration is a shared bit of populist lunacy Reform have in common with the Conservatives and Labour: promises to be tough on immigration, then they get power and look at what the consequences would be of doing that, and put all the blame on asylum seekers* that are banned from working and therefore safe to kick out no matter how at risk they are in their countries of origin.

    * https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/working-whilst-an...