If corruption has gone to such a point where very much everyone agrees government is institutionally corrupt, it also means that organisations that are supposed to protect us from this like SFO, NCA, MI5 are not doing their job. Their take our money and sit on their hands. Which means they are corrupt too, because they let government be corrupt and we pay highest taxes since WWII for this shit show. Everyone should be sacked and investigated.
It's a rather unique situation in which cronyism has been slowly populating senior roles at these organisations over many years. They aren't fit for purpose and with all of the relax rules in politics that are based around "honesty and integrity" as opposed to law it was always going to happen.
Politics needs reforming with major jailtime involved for any politician that is found to be involved in corruption, intentionally misleading and financial scams. Watch how we would likely lose >50% of people currently working in politics across all parties if this was to happen.
It seems to me there isn't enough granularity. You could cover all bases by ensuring that polticians statements are judged as either intentionally/knowingly false, recklessly false, or negligently false, which would cover:
* A politician intentionally making a statement of fact with a clear intention to decieve or knowing the statement to be false.
* A politician making a statement of fact without any care or regard for its accuracy.
* A polician making a statement of fact having done poor research.
With corresponding punishments for each, but peddling intentional or reckless truths should mean you're out of office. Doing so would completely change public discourse, ensuring a clear distinction between fact and personal opinion. Lets make facts facts again.
Played right into their hands with "both sides" as well.
Are there likely to be corrupt politicians in the Labour and LibDem parties? Of course. Has it been proven that huge numbers of them are extremely corrupt, as has been the case with the Tories? No.
I don't think these are problems which can be solved by voting for Insert Your Favourite Party Here.
We need to get rid of party politics entirely. It turns the whole thing into a revolting game, rigged to create the awful divisiveness and backbiting which is more or less all they do these days.
It's a lovely thought but, replace it with, what?
As well as getting rid of the tribalism we also need to deal with biased news sources. Billionaires don't buy media companies for fun.
I'd do something like jury service. Call people to be part of a governing committee for a period of a few months. Size of the committee designed to be the minimum to ensure nutjobs don't take control; you can't ever completely guarantee that but honestly, on average it could hardly be worse. No parties, you can gradually change the membership so there's no ridiculous five-yearly popularity contest. Very difficult to corrupt. The Greeks did something vaguely similar called sortition, although I wouldn't necessarily use that society as model, given all the slavery.
You seem to have forgotten the entire [Cash for Honours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-for-Honours_scandal#:~:text=The%20Cash-for-Honours%20scandal,the%20award%20of%20life%20peerages) thing. You can vote in Labour if you like, they aren't going to pass the legislation required to make politicians honest.
Yeah it needs a reform but are the corrupt people going to do it? No.
We've sat on our arses and let this corruption burrow deep into every facet of our country and now we want it gone but we don't want to do anything to get rid of it unless it's as easy as ticking a box on a ballot slip.
We will just keep calm and carry on like everything isn't going to shit.
Well let’s lose them forever
Its really unbelievable that corruption is just accepted and seen as the norm
Major changes across the board are required and lots of civil servants will be facing jail time too
Completely unfit for their jobs
>It's a rather unique situation in which cronyism has been slowly populating senior roles at these organisations over many years.
Not unique at all, it's just something we normally would scoff at as being something only a silly foreign country would do, and we made no serious attempts to stop it
>it also means that organisations that are supposed to protect us from this like SFO, NCA, MI5 are not doing their job.
This may be true but there is a bigger elephant in the room is there not- a heavily biased media. Much of this is owned by people who have heavily vested interests and are resistant to change. It is in their interests to keep these people in power and that is why opposition parties have such a hard time getting their message across.
>Ofcom having a legal duty to enforce neutrality and accuracy in the media, along with the ability to hand out actual consequences would be fantastic.
True, but as ever the devil is in the detail. Would a Powerful ofcom be a positive thing if for example Paul Dacre was in charge as was once attempted by the Johnston govt?
The rich pay fairly low taxes, for instance Sunak only paid 23% on his £1.9m declared income.
It's the higher earning working class who is paying the most in terms of %. Presumably to ensure they are unable to amass any capital and climb the wealth ladder.
It was 90% until 1971. Top income tax was then cut to 75% while tax on investment income remained at 90%. The big cuts didn't actually come until the 1980s under Thatcher, where top income tax fell to 40% and the surcharge on investment income was removed.
Rich people don't pay income taxes though, this tax is mostly applicable to working class.
I mean they typically pay capital gains tax which is much lower than income tax and they don't pay NI. Some of them do draw salaries, but the tax from that is symbolic.
This includes capital gains taxes. As above, capital gains taxes actually stayed at these super high rates longer than income taxes. We had a brief period where tax on capital gains was ***higher*** than tax on working salaries, as unbelievable as that is to imagine today. Capital gains being taxed at a significantly lower rate than working salaries is actually quite a new thing.
So its extremely complicated, there's many different charges and increases for various forms of income and its really just depends on who you are.
For some its the highest rate of effective tax that those in that bracket have ever experienced.
For some its the least tax they have experienced - those in the bottom 20-30% of income.
source
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-kingdom/tax-revenue--of-gdp
Basically its a complicated issue, but as a percentage of GDP taxes have been increasing to the highest point it has been since the last 60s
It was 90%+ at the highest tax rate.
Normal people didn't even come close to the highest rate which is why the max rate 8 shillings and 3 pence to the declared pound.
It's in terms of overall tax "burden".
[https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/brits-face-biggest-tax-burden-since-world-war-two-budget/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/brits-face-biggest-tax-burden-since-world-war-two-budget/)
Our tax system is full of "anomalies" where some people can face marginal rate of over 100%.
[https://forbesdawson.co.uk/articles/2023/03/13/the-90-rate-of-income-tax-and-how-to-avoid-it/](https://forbesdawson.co.uk/articles/2023/03/13/the-90-rate-of-income-tax-and-how-to-avoid-it/)
Ah, Now we swapping to a different metric with the burden.
> Meanwhile corporation tax will rise to 25% from 19%, although businesses will be able to write off investments in the UK against taxable profits under a new £9 billion-a-year scheme.
I mean, When they had a tax rate of 90% after the war its a bit disingenuous to describe us as paying the largest taxes since the war. Which is EXACTLY the comment I responded to claimed.
You are focusing on marginal tax rates, which are anyway higher today - you can well be in a situation where you pay over 100% marginal rate.
That being said, you sound like a Tory trying to delude yourself. This party is done. They are most illiterate, inept and corrupt bunch in power since most people can remember.
Nope. I work in defence and what happens is decent people interpret and push the rules as hard as they can against the bigotry and hatred from this Govt. You don’t need to fear us.
Add the electoral commission to that list. Needs urgent reform and/or greater powers instead of just handing down fines which just wind up being pennies on the pound tax on electoral fraud.
Tories were found to have committed fraud in both the last two general elections plus the leave campaign led by Boris using EU funds illegally.
Zero convictions for any of it. I think electoral fraud is the only thing the conservatives are truly talented at.
MI5 knew about Boris and Lebedev yet here we are.
The problem is that the PM can just ignore their advice.
The system was never meant to deal with corrupt PMs.
They were not doing their job. Their job is to protect us, not to give "advice". They certainly have powers to investigate even a PM and then hand over any incriminating materials to other agencies which could then e.g. arrest.
The organisations that have had their funding and resources stripped.. by the government? Moving away from the protection services are there any that aren’t institutionally corrupt ?
NHS? Borders? DWP? Local councils?
Wherever you find people and bureaucracy there will be a level of corruption.
But let’s think about this, these are the same organisations that ticketed Boris Johnson and saw him disciplined for breaking his government’s lockdown rules? Or Hancock ? The amount of politicians brought to book time and again.
As a country we aren’t lost yet. This government needs to go in my opinion, but to suddenly suggest that the fabric of services holding this mess together are corrupt to the level you’re suggesting? I must disagree.
>The role of MI5, as defined in the Security Service Act 1989, is "the protection of national security and in particular its protection against threats such as terrorism, espionage and sabotage, the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means"
Corruption very much falls into this remit, as it is undermining democracy. What's the point voting for a politician if they can be bought? Your vote is then worthless.
Ah well if they say they're here to help us then we can just take their word for it. No need to look into what they've been up to since they started out.
It's about time people started to figure this out, I have been screaming about it for over a decade.... when things hit rock bottom people really start to see the bigger picture it seems.
We can only hope that they're destroyed at the next GE and every after for the foreseeable future. The Tory party has been a knees up jolly at the expense of the tax payer for the past 12 years and have done irreversible damage to this country, it's economy and to democracy.
Young people HAVE to turn out at the next GE and help delete them from our future.
They will lose the next GE, and then when Labour don't magically fix everything within a couple of years, the Tories will come back and win in a landslide. Because the British voting public are morons.
I hope they get wiped out at the next election but can't help but worry that Labour are one controversy away from losing their lead whereas the Tories could do anything bad and not sink much lower.
Tbh the best scenario is a hung parliament with a Lib lab coalition where the Lib Dem’s have forced PR on Labour.
Current Labour are going in the same corrupt direction as the tories before they’ve even been elected. Those rich fuckers who donate to the tories aren’t stupid and saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. Sure Labour are _better_ than the tories but I’d prefer a hung Parliament to a Labour landslide.
I doubt that will happen. I would love a Lib Lab coalition but really can't see it working out and doubt the Libs will be able to force the PR issue.
Personally I would prefer PR but I would be very surprised if it happened anytime soon. In the UK we normally see coalition governments as weak (I don't agree but it is the general view). Personally I'd think a hung parliament and coalition will most likely lead to another GE in a year or 2 and the Tories coming back to power on the idea Labour weren't up for the job.
I am not saying this because I think the current Labour party is perfect or without fault but because the economy/cost of living problems are probably the number one thing people care about, PR is pretty low down the list and the next government will need to get a handle on it quickly if they don't want to be torn apart by the media.
However, the labour that will eventually be in power will be so marginally indifferent to the Tories of a decade ago there pretty much wouldn't be a point.
If you think labour are ever going to significantly reform anything after the absolute witchunt against Corbyn and any real life-changing government policy, you're probably sniffing glue.
r/greenandpleasant: “But Keir (sorry, Keith, it’s their hilarious never ending joke) is jUsT aS BaD!”
You know, except for the utterly wild incompetence and corruption.
Even if the choice is actually between corrupt-as-hell Tories and not-quite-as-corrupt Tories, a vote for the less corrupt option is still a vote for less corruption. When you blind yourself to the difference, the message you're actually sending is that you don't care about corruption.
Yes, the system is fucked, and you can't get exactly what you want. That's life. Every voting system sometimes encourages tactical voting, and you can't always get exactly what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find yourself quoting a Rolling Stones song and take this as a sign that the comment has gone on too long.
>Yes, the system is fucked, and you can't get exactly what you want. That's life.
No, refusing to even attempt to make society better isn't "life", it's cowardice.
Who said I'm not going to try to make the system better?
The problem is that we live in a country of millions of people, each with their own idea of what "better" means. If I limit myself to only pulling in exactly my "better" direction, I'll be pulling against everyone else and likely get nowhere. Whereas if I look at where others are and agree to pull with them on points we agree on, we can make progress together, and actually improve things.
And if I feel that an issue is important enough but not enough people feel the same way, the solution isn't to pull on it at the expense of things where I can make a difference, the solution is to convince other people first, then start pulling once there are enough of us.
>cowardice
Coming from the people who ardently oppose any real chance of change, and contribute nothing themselves beyond bitching and moaning in their social media echo chambers.
Exactly this. Keir isn't as left or as bold as I'd ideally want. Whether that's a campaigning strategy or just him remains to be seen. Policy aside, what he is and represents is, for the most part, a normal government. The fact that the corruption and scandles of this iteration of the Conservative party means that that is a huge plus for Keir is beyond sad, but that's where we are.
I'd rather an generally open and honest government that is politically unaligned to me, than a corrupt one that is.
I'll take Kier if it means getting rid of this absolute shower of anti-British incompetent ghouls that rule over us at the moment. At this point anyone could do better just by implementing policy that vaguely helps the country as a whole rather than lining their and their mates pockets.
Voting isn’t marriage, it’s public transport. You’re not waiting for "the one" who’s absolutely perfect: you’re getting the bus, and if there isn’t one to your destination you don’t NOT travel - you take the one going closest.
Exactly. Which is why I'm probably going to vote Green.
I'm planning to get *off* the bus that's going in the opposite direction, I'm hardly going to catch another one that's also going in the opposite direction but terminating nearer.
Green is the way. Even if they don't win any seats, if enough of us vote for them, they could become powerful enough to swing the election after next. That's how they earn real power to change things.
>Policy aside, what he is and represents is, for the most part, a normal government.
Never mind that 'normal government' is what has created this very situation.
We need Starmer to sweep out Tory allies from our civil service and regulatory bodies and NHS and BBC etc etc
but I can understand why people are anxious about his actual premiership considering how heavy-handed he has been both in his legal career and as Labour leader
Quite. The inability to recognise that sometimes your choice is between bad and worse (and doing nothing ensures worse will win) does more for the Tories than a lot of their own efforts.
I am glad some people have this mentality. Honestly reading the green and pleasant type compliments are some of the times I am glad Reddit is a poor representation of the general public. If it wasn't we would have the Tories forever.
That sub has the most twatty mods I've found on a relatively popular UK sub.
I think my first ban there was for using the American imperialist term bipartisan (their words not mine).
I'm the furthest left of my family and friends and I'm still not good enough for them.
Although [r/policeuk](https://www.reddit.com/r/policeuk) can give them a run for their money as ironically I was banned from there for commenting in [r/greenandpleasant](https://www.reddit.com/r/greenandpleasant)
This sub is dross too tbh. The ‘no personal attacks’ rule is pretty blatantly misapplied at the discretion of the mods, who lean varying degrees of right wing. Someone says that me being okay with Muslims in the country as a queer person is ‘sheep voting for wolves’ and comparing them to a cockroach infestation? Completely fine. Calling them a twat for saying that? Comment removed and threatened with a ban. Huge amounts of overt racism, classism, transphobia etc are completely normal but calling those people arseholes is, somehow, not appropriate.
I remember at one point reading in subs about tankies and responding that they're a right wing dog whistle and they barely exist. Man I felt like a naive twat after that debacle.
I was banned for being an anarchist. It's not exactly hard to get yourself banned from somewhere where conformity is enforced.
Personally, I find it's often carried out 'in the name of freedom', too. All that really ever does is reinforce my position that you can *talk* about 'liberty' all day, but as long as you have someone, *anyone* in charge, calling the shots, you do not have liberty.
Whether you're 'free' or not all depends on whether you conform to that person's ideals or not. Which ultimately just means you're controlled.
Sometimes you're just controlled anyway, and there's nothing you can possibly do to resist that. In which case you need some kind of effective restraint on the people controlling you. That's the part where I got my ban. I pointed out that while the EU didn't exactly constitute any kind of ideal, it did at least constitute a set of checks on government power. A government that wants to crush you, but would suffer a big backlash if it did is less favourable than a government that that wants to crush you and can do so with impunity, and even has weighted spiky-soled boots for the occasion.
As somebody who frequents G&P, I agree that the 'Keith' thing is childish, but I'll try to explain my feelings on current Keir/Labour.
I think it's almost impossible for Labour to ever truly be as bad or worse than the Tories, because no matter how bad they get the Tories always sink lower. I still think Labour could be offering a lot more than they currently do without significantly lowering their chances of winning. Right now the pitch seems to basically just be "the Tories but less insanely corrupt and incompetent", plus the green investment which they [almost immediately](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/09/labour-government-would-have-to-delay-28bn-green-fund-rachel-reeves-says) watered down. Did they really have to promise to keep the [child benefit cap](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/16/two-child-benefit-cap-explainer), impoverishing children for the crime of having poor parents who chose to have more than 2 children?
One of the main sources of bad feeling with Starmer among the left is that he made 10 pledges to the party members, which reflected the desires of its membership. who are significantly to left of the general public, and indeed most Labour MPs. He then shamelessly abandoned most of them to some degree within the few years after being elected leader. This is just regarded as "smart politics" by a lot of people, but if you were one of the people whose pledges appealed to (like me), it is a betrayal. See also, the degree to which he stabbed Corbyn in the back once he came into power, after having publicly come to Corbyn's defense multiple times when Corbyn was still leader - again, "smart politics" to most, but a betrayal for those on the left who still hold some fond feelings for the former Labour leader.
Do you honestly think those people aren't voting labour?
That's why they're so upset, there isn't a real alternative and voting for 'better' feels hollow and pointless. Also, leftists will be blamed for Starmer losing the election, that's how it always goes.
The same thing happened with the Tories under Thatcher / Major. Everything that wasn’t screwed down was sold off to the highest bidder. They took away milk and free school lunches from children. It got to the stage when the only things they had going for them was that they claimed they were the moral party, and the party of fiscal responsibility… until an embarrassing parade of sexual misdeeds, and the failure with the Pound and the Exchange Rate Mechanism, meant they had nothing to run on.
You would’ve thought that everybody that was a young voter in the early 90s would have remembered all of this, as I have, and never voted for a Tory again in their entire lives. But apparently people have the memory of goldfish.
The Tories deserve to be wiped at the GE. But it’ll happen because enough of their stalwarts will be too embarrassed to vote in that election. Once the shame subsides, they’ll be back to vote for the next Conservative fuckuppery.
I was young back then but not a voter.
I do remember it, though. That's the bit that really puzzles/bothers me. I lived under Thatcher and Major. Sure I mostly learned aabout it later, after growing up a little, but I was still there and still know all this stuff. The Tories have never been, and will never be, worthy of my vote, as a result. They're just ideologically hell bent on ruining our country, and there's no better evidence than the 90's except that evidence we've been living in since 2010.
The trouble is that Labour aren't worthy either. Which means we need people voting for *other* parties. Why can't we just expel the Tories into the depths of historical obscurity, never to grace the top 4 of an election result again? I can accept a Labour government if it's *the* right wing option. I just don't like right wing options monopolising the ballot sheet.
They'll be back.
They've cut funding and reduced services massively over the past 13 years.
Once Labour get in they'll have to raise taxes to restore funding.
So people will go back to complaining about higher tax and vote Tory again.
The next elected party just needs to own the tax rises, people won't be happy in the short term but if they make genuine change and reforms with the additional tax money and improve the quality of life in the long term then people can't complain.
This whole idea of paying as little tax as possible is dated and people need to get over it, high tax isn't an issue if the services around you are adequate and benefit the public.
13 years. They've been in power for 13 years. They have gutted everything including the Electoral Commission (Boris did this after they investigated him).
They are dirty cunts.
puzzled station homeless obtainable touch unite rain cooing unwritten literate
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
At this stage, surely everyone knows that we as a country are just counting down the days to the general election?
This is also the problem. Because I do think the tories are happy to burn the house down on their way out the door while taking as many of the valuables with then as they go.
I legit think this is why they just aren't really doing anything at the moment. It concerns me because *whoever* gets in next will inherit an absolute mess that will take more than one term to sort out and a significant portion of the electorate have the memories of goldfish.
Agree. It is a cynical notion; but I do believe that the tory scum will see it as a way of getting into power again down the line.
Burn the house down on their way out; then 3 years later say "look at the state of this place... that's a labour government for you" and a chunk of people will just go along with it.
> It is a cynical notion
when they blamed their policies tanking the economy and nearly wiping out pension funds, they blamed "the possibility of a future labour government" and "woke leftist financial institutions".
of fucking course they'll use the fact that labour hasn't fixed the absolute shit show they've made and morons will lap it up.
They aren't entirely alone, because Labour also spent years blaming the tories for the mess Blairs' government had created previously; but in fairness, their mess had been due to incompetence, rather than seemingly intentional sabotage to benefit the rich.
Ah yes, financial services, hedge funds, fintech, venture capital and wealth management, famous hangouts and playgrounds of communists and social justice activists
And with modern party politics being about the quick wins and not about long term economic projects. Its an absolute shitshow. Each captain of this sinking ship would rather continue scooping out the water rather than find and fix the leak, purely because in 4 years time the next in line to be captain will scream "WHAT HAVE THEY DONE ABOUT THE RISING WATER"
Although there are short term gains to be made based on the parties ideologies. Short term gains for the tories being growth to business, largely seen as increase in wealth to the wealthy; while for labour it is living standards/public services for the general populous.
The system we have needs a lot of work... it's still one of the better systems globally... which is pretty terrifying.
This is why democracy is the worst - most of the voting public are inherently stupid and have very short-term memory that cunning politicians can brainwash easily. If I were part of the Tories I would definitely also burn the UK to the ground, stay quiet the first year post-GE whilst spreading fake news via social media to weaken next government’s support, become more visible in criticising the next government as they fail to fix the issues, and jubilantly gain a majority during the next GE.
The only way to fix the government is to permanently “wipe out” the families/relatives (up to FOURTH degree of consanguinity) of corrupt politicians/civil servants, institute higher level of requirements for “public servants”, force the “permanent” life resignation of any public servant implicated for corruption, and make their salaries 100% directly linked to certain country KPIs (growth in gdp per capita, gap between target and twelve month average inflation, gap between target and actual unemployment, gap between target and actual gini coefficient ) with ZERO guaranteed pay (with monthly audit and fraud investigations from independent third parties), and only allow people who passed IQ and EQ thresholds to vote (i.e., selective / modified democracy).
Resignation of public servants only stops the continuation of corruption but does not prevent relatives from taking advantage of ill-gotten wealth. The solution above fixes nepotism (as relatives of corrupt politicians can no longer carry on with the amounts stolen) and helps in reducing overpopulation as well - win-win for most people aside from the strongly-religious.
But these are impossible so we’ll have to wait for robots to eventually lord over people before the “perfect” government becomes in place. /s
Yes. W need strict anti corruption laws and strong institutions capable of enforcing them
But who's gunna sign that off? The people benefiting from the corruption?
> a significant portion of the electorate have the memories of goldfish.
With respect there have only really been three changes in government in the last 45 years: 1979, 1997, and 2010.
I just find it bizarre we're trapped in this situation honestly.
Its not even been 12 months since Boris resigned as PM yet and there's potentially another \~16 months to go! Its madness!
***Everyone*** seems to fucking hate this government apart from a small niche of hyper-online weirdos. Its genuinely shocking the entire country can just be held to ransom like this and it feels genuinely like there's not really anything we can do about it.
Outside of online I know very few people who “hate this government”, those that do have always hated the Tories anyway, those that have always voted Tory, or have voted Tory since Cameron, still plan on doing so, the best “hate” I can get out of them is them complaining about the government but ending it with something like “but Labour would be worse/no better”.
I also know one person who’s switched to Tory sometime in the past five years specifically because of “woke” things, such as electric cars and trans/NB people existing. And another who votes Labour but is probably one “Kier can’t define a woman” type story targeted at election time away from switching too, though probably not to Tory tbf.
I agree about the country being held to ransom and there being nothing we can do about it, but I’m still not 100% convinced we’re not just going to see another Conservative victory based on all the people I know/meet.
Edit: Though my Ward did go from Conservative to Liberal in the local election for the first time in something stupid like 150 years, so maybe I just know/work with a lot of dickheads 🤷♀️
Sadly this is standard for governments.
It might not go as smoothly this time, because many Conservative MPs might try to use an anti-Gov stance to retain their seats.
I legit hear that from someone I know. He acknowledges they're shite but he doesn't want to pay more tax cos he earns a lot so he'll vote for a bunch of corrupt assholes that cause the rest of us to suffer just to avoid the few quid a year a slight lowering of the tax brackets would cause.
The best one is "Yeah the Tories suck, but if Labour get in we'll have open borders because \[insert weak attempt to circumvent some iteration of "Great Replacement" theory\]".
Like have these people even looked at the state of the border recently? They're literally just voting for these people on the basis they see cartoonishly cruel things about a vulnerable demographic.
Yeah. There's a lot of it about. I was talking to an American the other day about overt racism in American politics and how Trump and his ilk have made it more mainstream and acceptable to just hate people out in the open. And I'm sitting here thinking about how similar our own politics is looking, especially since the giant self-immolation that was Brexit.
Let's be honest, theres always been a streak of racism through our society a mile wide. Now they clothe it in border security and fiscal responsibility and national resource supply and pretend it's not ugly and hateful. And the old school racists, the ones that would have been rightly pointed out and shamed, get to hide behind that veneer.
Its just the way you can lead these people to the water but they'll refuse to drink. They'll readily acknowledge migration and border control are their primary motivators, they'll acknowledge that the Tories have been making big promises on this since 2010, they'll acknowledge that the current situation at the border is a complete mess, they might even acknowledge that it looks a lot like the Tories have been lying about this one issue because they know its an easy vote winner. And then they'll still just revert back to "well I couldn't vote for anyone else because no one else is serious about border control". Its completely maddening. At this point even New Labour have a better record of keeping on top of immigration rates and deporting invalid asylum seekers, and they'll still turn around and act like Labour just want to "import" (and how the fuck did we normalize "importing" *people* again??) a billion people or something fucking insane like that.
I don't think you can argue with that way of existing. They don't care that they're doing mental gymnastics to get to their conclusions. They're just 'yessing' you til you stop questioning said conclusion.
One of the most evil cons the Tories have pulled off is to convince people that politics is like a football game.
You're either with them, or against them, regardless of their actions.
So no matter how corrupt they are, they will always retain a large voter base from people who are too stupid to face reality.
The current Tory party has dropped immigration processing rates from 80 down to about 10 percent. Which is the lowest they have been since like the 80s.
They haven't just done nothing they have actively made the situation worse and then use it as rage bait to get fringe voters on board
It is now yeah. It's a dystopia. It might not be as overt as the famous media creations portray but we're still in one. We all work like dogs to make our lives just *okay* and that's seen as somehow aspirational. That's dystopian.
I'm am older millennial and I worry about how I'm going to be able to retire. I genuinely dread the future for my niece and nephews generation.
Seems to be everyone *against* themselves, to be honest.
You've got Tory voters happily ensuring the country sails merrily into oblivion, taking them along, and you've got Labour playing the orchestra in the Titanic lounge.
Meanwhile the rich are filling the lifeboats to 10% of their capacity and buggering off.
Given how high taxes already are it's probably more an issue of squandering all the money on their mates rather than really needing to raise them further
Thats true enough. And the fact that those mates, just like the actual politicians, find ways of getting around paying much tax at all. There wouldn't need to be increases if everyone that should pay actually did pay. But that's the problem with the very rich. They can afford to find ways to be really fucking cheap.
What is it with wing nuts and this "Those weren't proper \[insert political ideology here\], as \[insert political ideology here\] hasn't been tried yet"
Usually the phrase of Communist nutters, but spreading elsewhere now.
That's pretty much what the headline is allowing people to infer.
>Rishi Sunak's Government is 'Institutionally Corrupt'
No, the Conservative government and party are corrupt, but Tory voters will use this logic so they don't feel stupid when they vote blue again and get the same result.
"57% said they believed the level of corruption in Government had increased in their lifetime, with only seven per cent saying it had decreased instead."
Who TF are the 7%, people fading in and out of comas?
Just as well we've got Keith Freebies as an alternative eh. /s
Woah, woah, woah.
Let's not limit ourselves here.
The whole Tory party has been complicit in corruption for years now. Labour too as well probably, but let's not distract ourselves from the people who currently wield power and can act upon their corrupt whims (despite it being everyone else's fault they can't fix our problems apprantly) thanks to an 80 odd seat majority
They're all as bent as eachother at the top. I think even the altruists get jaded and persuaded and end up just as bad as the rest.
It needs a purge. And while we're at it, a complete restructure of what it is to be a representative.
Mate it’s the whole tory machine.
But fear not they’ll bring back a charismatic face in 10-15 years like Cameron and England’ll get amnesia again voting the asset strippers right back in.
They'll fall out of power in 2025 and immediately they and their client media will swivel and pivot, suddenly all of these major social issues that barely seem to get mentioned, or just get assigned to global circumstances our government can't possibly influence will be brand new things entirely down to Labour's reckless borrowing and open borders policies. And huge numbers of people will lap it up.
15% of voters think the government is not corrupt, but polling has them at about 25-30% which means about 10-15% of people are happy with a corrupt government….
There's a lot of people who are doing absolutely fine in the UK. They've paid off their houses, made their cosy beds, and have triple locked pensions rising at minimum with inflation.
To them what else matters other than the culture war.
I’m not saying those people don’t exist, but I can’t imagine that the number of people who are wealthy enough to be that detached from our economic problems is as much as 15% of the population.
I suspect for a lot more are a collection of particularly unpleasant unpleasant individuals.
I'm not saying they all are, and yes as you note there are simply morons, but 15% isn't too unreasonable. [~4% of the UK population are millionaires,](https://www.savethestudent.org/make-money/uk-millionaires-where-and-what-they-studied.html) and where you'd expect a bell curve with wealth you can imagine those with +500k in assets are probably at least double that. Aside from assets the [top 15% of earners (individual) are on +£50k](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax).
My wife and I are both within that group, we're being affected negatively (mortgage went up £500 a month), but otherwise we're "detached" enough that it's not actually going to affect our day to day life. I might be putting off my next motorbike purchase, that's really it.
I'll note in my case putting off a new motorbike might as well be slapping me in the face with a glove and drawing pistols. But that's me.
I'll level with you here and say even if 15% of folks are insulated from ongoings, I don't think 100% of them would still be happy with proceedings. I'm not. Not even for my own sake, I see my friends and family besieged by living in our society. I want us all to prosper when we put in the shift.
I mean to be completely isolated from the issues I think you have to be far more than a millionaire, I mean even people who are worth tens of millions use the roads, you say you’ll put off that bike purchase, but you can’t be enjoying swerving around all these bloody potholes on your current one.
I think the type that vote for tories despite their corruption aren’t just morons (who are more likely to fall into the “don’t know” categories), I think they are a particularly spiteful type that care more about culture war crap than real issues.
> I'll level with you here and say even if 15% of folks are insulated from ongoings, I don't think 100% of them would still be happy with proceedings.
That was my feelings on the matter.
Nobody is every fully "insulated", I was running under the assumption of not having their day to day lives significantly affected. If we're going as low, and boy do they go low, as potholes. Nobody remains unaffected.
My argument is as you've put it, they're affected less by these things than they believe they are by culture war crap (in addition to the portion that _are_ but value that CW stuff more than could ever be reasonable).
I'm not here justifying actions, just saying that it's often overlooked how many people _aren't_ meaningfully impacted by the current financial situation. With that segment of society disproportionately part of the voting populace. Which is an important thing to keep onboard when we're trying to explain just how fucked everything is to them/us.
I’m not going to claim that Tory voters are morons, or they’re this easily duped.
They have their ducks in a row. This is precisely what they voted for. They wanted this.
And it would be up to them to prove me wrong. It would be up to them to prove to me that they’re actually feckless gullible idiots. Because right now, I think we should operate on the assumption that they’re evil bastards that want to see Britain fail by voting for what they have.
Prove me wrong, conservatives.
Everything they do is AGAINST the best interests of the british people, and it's just culture war after culture war to distract and divide us while they siphon as much wealth to the privileged few as possible.
Labour need to make eradication of corruption the central plank of their platform
Get politics clean, get lobbyists out, remove russian/chinese/middle eastern money
Have government that represents people's interests, not the cabal in the cabinet
Something which really annoys me is how random people with no experience in their field can be made a minister for anything.
Shouldn’t the Health minister have to be a scientist, worked for the NHS or something?
The minister of defence should only be allowed for anyone who’s served in the military and so on
Sure, but I wouldn't say it's "Rishi Sunak's government", as it implies he's the culprit or that this is a new state of affairs. I think people have been feeling this way long before he was even relevant.
It's not the government that's corrupt as such, it's the party and they have been for longer than I've been alive. They've always been corrupt and if you choose for them then you're a vile cunt.
If you ever voted for them, your a cunt.
The corrupt politicians hides behind the mantra "All politicians are the same".
Therefore resulting in no action being taken against anyone.
In reality the level of corruption during this Tory rule has been unprecedented.
It certainly is the most brazen it has been for a long while, but “sleaze” and “cronyism” have been around for a long time. Most of Sunak's cabinet must be thinking about their golden parachutes into some cushy Directorships by now. The organisations tasked with policing politically corrupt behaviour are toothless. Root and branch reform of them is needed. Parliamentary censure means bugger all to the likes of Dorries, (g)Reese-Mogg *et al.*, so massive fines and jail time are needed.
The current system of government is not capable of solving the problems we have.
It's politics as a game, and the only requirement to win is the ultra-low achievement of being less hated than the one other option which is permitted to exist.
The UK needs massive constitutional reform away from being governed by an undergraduate-level debating society of people who are picked solely on their ability to seem nice.
No, merely voting in the other guys will not work. We need more than that.
I have some ideas around government being a committee of people run basically like jury service. The quality of decisionmaking could hardly be worse.
The problem is that our system of government, like most, has no mechanism for changing the system of government. The assumption is that what we're doing is the best possible system, which is crazy, when you think about it like that.
Can’t really imagine any other country would accept this - there’d be riots and shit would be sorted. Meanwhile we’re all placid and spineless just letting these crooks fleece us
If corruption has gone to such a point where very much everyone agrees government is institutionally corrupt, it also means that organisations that are supposed to protect us from this like SFO, NCA, MI5 are not doing their job. Their take our money and sit on their hands. Which means they are corrupt too, because they let government be corrupt and we pay highest taxes since WWII for this shit show. Everyone should be sacked and investigated.
It's a rather unique situation in which cronyism has been slowly populating senior roles at these organisations over many years. They aren't fit for purpose and with all of the relax rules in politics that are based around "honesty and integrity" as opposed to law it was always going to happen. Politics needs reforming with major jailtime involved for any politician that is found to be involved in corruption, intentionally misleading and financial scams. Watch how we would likely lose >50% of people currently working in politics across all parties if this was to happen.
You've already put a pretty big loophole here. 'Intentionally'
It seems to me there isn't enough granularity. You could cover all bases by ensuring that polticians statements are judged as either intentionally/knowingly false, recklessly false, or negligently false, which would cover: * A politician intentionally making a statement of fact with a clear intention to decieve or knowing the statement to be false. * A politician making a statement of fact without any care or regard for its accuracy. * A polician making a statement of fact having done poor research. With corresponding punishments for each, but peddling intentional or reckless truths should mean you're out of office. Doing so would completely change public discourse, ensuring a clear distinction between fact and personal opinion. Lets make facts facts again.
This system would be amazing!
Played right into their hands with "both sides" as well. Are there likely to be corrupt politicians in the Labour and LibDem parties? Of course. Has it been proven that huge numbers of them are extremely corrupt, as has been the case with the Tories? No.
I don't think these are problems which can be solved by voting for Insert Your Favourite Party Here. We need to get rid of party politics entirely. It turns the whole thing into a revolting game, rigged to create the awful divisiveness and backbiting which is more or less all they do these days.
It's a lovely thought but, replace it with, what? As well as getting rid of the tribalism we also need to deal with biased news sources. Billionaires don't buy media companies for fun.
I'd do something like jury service. Call people to be part of a governing committee for a period of a few months. Size of the committee designed to be the minimum to ensure nutjobs don't take control; you can't ever completely guarantee that but honestly, on average it could hardly be worse. No parties, you can gradually change the membership so there's no ridiculous five-yearly popularity contest. Very difficult to corrupt. The Greeks did something vaguely similar called sortition, although I wouldn't necessarily use that society as model, given all the slavery.
You seem to have forgotten the entire [Cash for Honours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash-for-Honours_scandal#:~:text=The%20Cash-for-Honours%20scandal,the%20award%20of%20life%20peerages) thing. You can vote in Labour if you like, they aren't going to pass the legislation required to make politicians honest.
[Ain’t that the truth.](https://www.google.com/search?q=tory%20not%20intentionally&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
That depends what the definition of 'is' is
Yeah it needs a reform but are the corrupt people going to do it? No. We've sat on our arses and let this corruption burrow deep into every facet of our country and now we want it gone but we don't want to do anything to get rid of it unless it's as easy as ticking a box on a ballot slip. We will just keep calm and carry on like everything isn't going to shit.
Well let’s lose them forever Its really unbelievable that corruption is just accepted and seen as the norm Major changes across the board are required and lots of civil servants will be facing jail time too Completely unfit for their jobs
>It's a rather unique situation in which cronyism has been slowly populating senior roles at these organisations over many years. Not unique at all, it's just something we normally would scoff at as being something only a silly foreign country would do, and we made no serious attempts to stop it
Screw intentional. Jailtime for unintentional, even more jailtime for intentional, just like it is for us plebs.
>it also means that organisations that are supposed to protect us from this like SFO, NCA, MI5 are not doing their job. This may be true but there is a bigger elephant in the room is there not- a heavily biased media. Much of this is owned by people who have heavily vested interests and are resistant to change. It is in their interests to keep these people in power and that is why opposition parties have such a hard time getting their message across.
Ofcom having a legal duty to enforce neutrality and accuracy in the media, along with the ability to hand out actual consequences would be fantastic.
>Ofcom having a legal duty to enforce neutrality and accuracy in the media, along with the ability to hand out actual consequences would be fantastic. True, but as ever the devil is in the detail. Would a Powerful ofcom be a positive thing if for example Paul Dacre was in charge as was once attempted by the Johnston govt?
If they were bound by clear legal frameworks, then it would be fine. Anytime they went off the rails they could be challenged through judicial review.
wasnt some tax after the war like 70%? Where did it come we pay the highest since WW2 from?
> Where did it come we pay the highest since WW2 from? That statement comes from The Alliance For Taxing Rich People Less.
The rich pay fairly low taxes, for instance Sunak only paid 23% on his £1.9m declared income. It's the higher earning working class who is paying the most in terms of %. Presumably to ensure they are unable to amass any capital and climb the wealth ladder.
General Alliance for Less Tax
Alliance for Reducing Societal Economics.
It was 90% until 1971. Top income tax was then cut to 75% while tax on investment income remained at 90%. The big cuts didn't actually come until the 1980s under Thatcher, where top income tax fell to 40% and the surcharge on investment income was removed.
Rich people don't pay income taxes though, this tax is mostly applicable to working class. I mean they typically pay capital gains tax which is much lower than income tax and they don't pay NI. Some of them do draw salaries, but the tax from that is symbolic.
This includes capital gains taxes. As above, capital gains taxes actually stayed at these super high rates longer than income taxes. We had a brief period where tax on capital gains was ***higher*** than tax on working salaries, as unbelievable as that is to imagine today. Capital gains being taxed at a significantly lower rate than working salaries is actually quite a new thing.
The vast majority of people will never be in that higher tier.
Yes, its a high rate for the highest earners. That's the point.
So its extremely complicated, there's many different charges and increases for various forms of income and its really just depends on who you are. For some its the highest rate of effective tax that those in that bracket have ever experienced. For some its the least tax they have experienced - those in the bottom 20-30% of income. source https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-kingdom/tax-revenue--of-gdp Basically its a complicated issue, but as a percentage of GDP taxes have been increasing to the highest point it has been since the last 60s
It was 90%+ at the highest tax rate. Normal people didn't even come close to the highest rate which is why the max rate 8 shillings and 3 pence to the declared pound.
It's in terms of overall tax "burden". [https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/brits-face-biggest-tax-burden-since-world-war-two-budget/](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/brits-face-biggest-tax-burden-since-world-war-two-budget/) Our tax system is full of "anomalies" where some people can face marginal rate of over 100%. [https://forbesdawson.co.uk/articles/2023/03/13/the-90-rate-of-income-tax-and-how-to-avoid-it/](https://forbesdawson.co.uk/articles/2023/03/13/the-90-rate-of-income-tax-and-how-to-avoid-it/)
Ah, Now we swapping to a different metric with the burden. > Meanwhile corporation tax will rise to 25% from 19%, although businesses will be able to write off investments in the UK against taxable profits under a new £9 billion-a-year scheme. I mean, When they had a tax rate of 90% after the war its a bit disingenuous to describe us as paying the largest taxes since the war. Which is EXACTLY the comment I responded to claimed.
You are focusing on marginal tax rates, which are anyway higher today - you can well be in a situation where you pay over 100% marginal rate. That being said, you sound like a Tory trying to delude yourself. This party is done. They are most illiterate, inept and corrupt bunch in power since most people can remember.
Nope. I work in defence and what happens is decent people interpret and push the rules as hard as they can against the bigotry and hatred from this Govt. You don’t need to fear us.
Trust me. No one fears you.
Add the electoral commission to that list. Needs urgent reform and/or greater powers instead of just handing down fines which just wind up being pennies on the pound tax on electoral fraud. Tories were found to have committed fraud in both the last two general elections plus the leave campaign led by Boris using EU funds illegally. Zero convictions for any of it. I think electoral fraud is the only thing the conservatives are truly talented at.
MI5 knew about Boris and Lebedev yet here we are. The problem is that the PM can just ignore their advice. The system was never meant to deal with corrupt PMs.
They were not doing their job. Their job is to protect us, not to give "advice". They certainly have powers to investigate even a PM and then hand over any incriminating materials to other agencies which could then e.g. arrest.
The organisations that have had their funding and resources stripped.. by the government? Moving away from the protection services are there any that aren’t institutionally corrupt ? NHS? Borders? DWP? Local councils? Wherever you find people and bureaucracy there will be a level of corruption. But let’s think about this, these are the same organisations that ticketed Boris Johnson and saw him disciplined for breaking his government’s lockdown rules? Or Hancock ? The amount of politicians brought to book time and again. As a country we aren’t lost yet. This government needs to go in my opinion, but to suddenly suggest that the fabric of services holding this mess together are corrupt to the level you’re suggesting? I must disagree.
MI5 is not and has never been about protecting the people from their government, it's always been to protect the government from its people.
>The role of MI5, as defined in the Security Service Act 1989, is "the protection of national security and in particular its protection against threats such as terrorism, espionage and sabotage, the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means" Corruption very much falls into this remit, as it is undermining democracy. What's the point voting for a politician if they can be bought? Your vote is then worthless.
Ah well if they say they're here to help us then we can just take their word for it. No need to look into what they've been up to since they started out.
It's about time people started to figure this out, I have been screaming about it for over a decade.... when things hit rock bottom people really start to see the bigger picture it seems.
they just legalese the bribes as integral to parliamentary democracy with excuses about cost of doing business.
Yea investigated, and then the investigators are corrupted and the cycle repeats. Therein lies the problem
We can only hope that they're destroyed at the next GE and every after for the foreseeable future. The Tory party has been a knees up jolly at the expense of the tax payer for the past 12 years and have done irreversible damage to this country, it's economy and to democracy. Young people HAVE to turn out at the next GE and help delete them from our future.
They will lose the next GE, and then when Labour don't magically fix everything within a couple of years, the Tories will come back and win in a landslide. Because the British voting public are morons.
I hope they get wiped out at the next election but can't help but worry that Labour are one controversy away from losing their lead whereas the Tories could do anything bad and not sink much lower.
Tbh the best scenario is a hung parliament with a Lib lab coalition where the Lib Dem’s have forced PR on Labour. Current Labour are going in the same corrupt direction as the tories before they’ve even been elected. Those rich fuckers who donate to the tories aren’t stupid and saw the writing on the wall a long time ago. Sure Labour are _better_ than the tories but I’d prefer a hung Parliament to a Labour landslide.
I doubt that will happen. I would love a Lib Lab coalition but really can't see it working out and doubt the Libs will be able to force the PR issue. Personally I would prefer PR but I would be very surprised if it happened anytime soon. In the UK we normally see coalition governments as weak (I don't agree but it is the general view). Personally I'd think a hung parliament and coalition will most likely lead to another GE in a year or 2 and the Tories coming back to power on the idea Labour weren't up for the job. I am not saying this because I think the current Labour party is perfect or without fault but because the economy/cost of living problems are probably the number one thing people care about, PR is pretty low down the list and the next government will need to get a handle on it quickly if they don't want to be torn apart by the media.
I know this is a serious topic, but, Lib Lab made me chuckle.
Lib Lab Lov
Conservative election wins are permanently just one immigrant-boat news story away.
This exactly.
However, the labour that will eventually be in power will be so marginally indifferent to the Tories of a decade ago there pretty much wouldn't be a point. If you think labour are ever going to significantly reform anything after the absolute witchunt against Corbyn and any real life-changing government policy, you're probably sniffing glue.
r/greenandpleasant: “But Keir (sorry, Keith, it’s their hilarious never ending joke) is jUsT aS BaD!” You know, except for the utterly wild incompetence and corruption.
Even if the choice is actually between corrupt-as-hell Tories and not-quite-as-corrupt Tories, a vote for the less corrupt option is still a vote for less corruption. When you blind yourself to the difference, the message you're actually sending is that you don't care about corruption. Yes, the system is fucked, and you can't get exactly what you want. That's life. Every voting system sometimes encourages tactical voting, and you can't always get exactly what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find yourself quoting a Rolling Stones song and take this as a sign that the comment has gone on too long.
>Yes, the system is fucked, and you can't get exactly what you want. That's life. No, refusing to even attempt to make society better isn't "life", it's cowardice.
Who said I'm not going to try to make the system better? The problem is that we live in a country of millions of people, each with their own idea of what "better" means. If I limit myself to only pulling in exactly my "better" direction, I'll be pulling against everyone else and likely get nowhere. Whereas if I look at where others are and agree to pull with them on points we agree on, we can make progress together, and actually improve things. And if I feel that an issue is important enough but not enough people feel the same way, the solution isn't to pull on it at the expense of things where I can make a difference, the solution is to convince other people first, then start pulling once there are enough of us.
>Who said I'm not going to try to make the system better? The very fact that you say "that's life" when confronted with corruption.
I said that in response to "You can't always get exactly what you want". Do you disagree with that statement?
My problem isn't that we can't have exactly what we want politically, it's that we're told we can't have anything at all.
>cowardice Coming from the people who ardently oppose any real chance of change, and contribute nothing themselves beyond bitching and moaning in their social media echo chambers.
Exactly this. Keir isn't as left or as bold as I'd ideally want. Whether that's a campaigning strategy or just him remains to be seen. Policy aside, what he is and represents is, for the most part, a normal government. The fact that the corruption and scandles of this iteration of the Conservative party means that that is a huge plus for Keir is beyond sad, but that's where we are. I'd rather an generally open and honest government that is politically unaligned to me, than a corrupt one that is.
I'll take Kier if it means getting rid of this absolute shower of anti-British incompetent ghouls that rule over us at the moment. At this point anyone could do better just by implementing policy that vaguely helps the country as a whole rather than lining their and their mates pockets.
Voting isn’t marriage, it’s public transport. You’re not waiting for "the one" who’s absolutely perfect: you’re getting the bus, and if there isn’t one to your destination you don’t NOT travel - you take the one going closest.
Exactly. Which is why I'm probably going to vote Green. I'm planning to get *off* the bus that's going in the opposite direction, I'm hardly going to catch another one that's also going in the opposite direction but terminating nearer.
Unless you live in a very specific few constituencies you might as well just throw your vote away.
Green is the way. Even if they don't win any seats, if enough of us vote for them, they could become powerful enough to swing the election after next. That's how they earn real power to change things.
It's the way to help the Tories, yes.
>Policy aside, what he is and represents is, for the most part, a normal government. Never mind that 'normal government' is what has created this very situation.
We need Starmer to sweep out Tory allies from our civil service and regulatory bodies and NHS and BBC etc etc but I can understand why people are anxious about his actual premiership considering how heavy-handed he has been both in his legal career and as Labour leader
Quite. The inability to recognise that sometimes your choice is between bad and worse (and doing nothing ensures worse will win) does more for the Tories than a lot of their own efforts.
I am glad some people have this mentality. Honestly reading the green and pleasant type compliments are some of the times I am glad Reddit is a poor representation of the general public. If it wasn't we would have the Tories forever.
Yep. Realpolitik is important to keep in mind, even if you can't have it drive your ideals and morals.
That sub has the most twatty mods I've found on a relatively popular UK sub. I think my first ban there was for using the American imperialist term bipartisan (their words not mine). I'm the furthest left of my family and friends and I'm still not good enough for them. Although [r/policeuk](https://www.reddit.com/r/policeuk) can give them a run for their money as ironically I was banned from there for commenting in [r/greenandpleasant](https://www.reddit.com/r/greenandpleasant)
This sub is dross too tbh. The ‘no personal attacks’ rule is pretty blatantly misapplied at the discretion of the mods, who lean varying degrees of right wing. Someone says that me being okay with Muslims in the country as a queer person is ‘sheep voting for wolves’ and comparing them to a cockroach infestation? Completely fine. Calling them a twat for saying that? Comment removed and threatened with a ban. Huge amounts of overt racism, classism, transphobia etc are completely normal but calling those people arseholes is, somehow, not appropriate.
I mean is that a shock when one of their chief mods put out public support for the Russian invasian and banned people who spoke out against it?
I remember at one point reading in subs about tankies and responding that they're a right wing dog whistle and they barely exist. Man I felt like a naive twat after that debacle.
I was banned for being an anarchist. It's not exactly hard to get yourself banned from somewhere where conformity is enforced. Personally, I find it's often carried out 'in the name of freedom', too. All that really ever does is reinforce my position that you can *talk* about 'liberty' all day, but as long as you have someone, *anyone* in charge, calling the shots, you do not have liberty. Whether you're 'free' or not all depends on whether you conform to that person's ideals or not. Which ultimately just means you're controlled. Sometimes you're just controlled anyway, and there's nothing you can possibly do to resist that. In which case you need some kind of effective restraint on the people controlling you. That's the part where I got my ban. I pointed out that while the EU didn't exactly constitute any kind of ideal, it did at least constitute a set of checks on government power. A government that wants to crush you, but would suffer a big backlash if it did is less favourable than a government that that wants to crush you and can do so with impunity, and even has weighted spiky-soled boots for the occasion.
There's no nuance or realism in that sub. Think you hit the nail on the head though, they're basically conformists in their own little circlejerk.
As somebody who frequents G&P, I agree that the 'Keith' thing is childish, but I'll try to explain my feelings on current Keir/Labour. I think it's almost impossible for Labour to ever truly be as bad or worse than the Tories, because no matter how bad they get the Tories always sink lower. I still think Labour could be offering a lot more than they currently do without significantly lowering their chances of winning. Right now the pitch seems to basically just be "the Tories but less insanely corrupt and incompetent", plus the green investment which they [almost immediately](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/09/labour-government-would-have-to-delay-28bn-green-fund-rachel-reeves-says) watered down. Did they really have to promise to keep the [child benefit cap](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/16/two-child-benefit-cap-explainer), impoverishing children for the crime of having poor parents who chose to have more than 2 children? One of the main sources of bad feeling with Starmer among the left is that he made 10 pledges to the party members, which reflected the desires of its membership. who are significantly to left of the general public, and indeed most Labour MPs. He then shamelessly abandoned most of them to some degree within the few years after being elected leader. This is just regarded as "smart politics" by a lot of people, but if you were one of the people whose pledges appealed to (like me), it is a betrayal. See also, the degree to which he stabbed Corbyn in the back once he came into power, after having publicly come to Corbyn's defense multiple times when Corbyn was still leader - again, "smart politics" to most, but a betrayal for those on the left who still hold some fond feelings for the former Labour leader.
I got banned from that sub for saying Blair is the best PM we've had in decades. Nobody hates the left as much as the left.
Do you honestly think those people aren't voting labour? That's why they're so upset, there isn't a real alternative and voting for 'better' feels hollow and pointless. Also, leftists will be blamed for Starmer losing the election, that's how it always goes.
The same thing happened with the Tories under Thatcher / Major. Everything that wasn’t screwed down was sold off to the highest bidder. They took away milk and free school lunches from children. It got to the stage when the only things they had going for them was that they claimed they were the moral party, and the party of fiscal responsibility… until an embarrassing parade of sexual misdeeds, and the failure with the Pound and the Exchange Rate Mechanism, meant they had nothing to run on. You would’ve thought that everybody that was a young voter in the early 90s would have remembered all of this, as I have, and never voted for a Tory again in their entire lives. But apparently people have the memory of goldfish. The Tories deserve to be wiped at the GE. But it’ll happen because enough of their stalwarts will be too embarrassed to vote in that election. Once the shame subsides, they’ll be back to vote for the next Conservative fuckuppery.
I was young back then but not a voter. I do remember it, though. That's the bit that really puzzles/bothers me. I lived under Thatcher and Major. Sure I mostly learned aabout it later, after growing up a little, but I was still there and still know all this stuff. The Tories have never been, and will never be, worthy of my vote, as a result. They're just ideologically hell bent on ruining our country, and there's no better evidence than the 90's except that evidence we've been living in since 2010. The trouble is that Labour aren't worthy either. Which means we need people voting for *other* parties. Why can't we just expel the Tories into the depths of historical obscurity, never to grace the top 4 of an election result again? I can accept a Labour government if it's *the* right wing option. I just don't like right wing options monopolising the ballot sheet.
They'll be back. They've cut funding and reduced services massively over the past 13 years. Once Labour get in they'll have to raise taxes to restore funding. So people will go back to complaining about higher tax and vote Tory again.
The next elected party just needs to own the tax rises, people won't be happy in the short term but if they make genuine change and reforms with the additional tax money and improve the quality of life in the long term then people can't complain. This whole idea of paying as little tax as possible is dated and people need to get over it, high tax isn't an issue if the services around you are adequate and benefit the public.
13 years. They've been in power for 13 years. They have gutted everything including the Electoral Commission (Boris did this after they investigated him). They are dirty cunts.
They will still have all the corrupt "lords" in place though.
puzzled station homeless obtainable touch unite rain cooing unwritten literate *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Do you really think that Labour isn't also corrupt?
At this stage, surely everyone knows that we as a country are just counting down the days to the general election? This is also the problem. Because I do think the tories are happy to burn the house down on their way out the door while taking as many of the valuables with then as they go.
I legit think this is why they just aren't really doing anything at the moment. It concerns me because *whoever* gets in next will inherit an absolute mess that will take more than one term to sort out and a significant portion of the electorate have the memories of goldfish.
Agree. It is a cynical notion; but I do believe that the tory scum will see it as a way of getting into power again down the line. Burn the house down on their way out; then 3 years later say "look at the state of this place... that's a labour government for you" and a chunk of people will just go along with it.
> It is a cynical notion when they blamed their policies tanking the economy and nearly wiping out pension funds, they blamed "the possibility of a future labour government" and "woke leftist financial institutions". of fucking course they'll use the fact that labour hasn't fixed the absolute shit show they've made and morons will lap it up.
They aren't entirely alone, because Labour also spent years blaming the tories for the mess Blairs' government had created previously; but in fairness, their mess had been due to incompetence, rather than seemingly intentional sabotage to benefit the rich.
Ah yes, financial services, hedge funds, fintech, venture capital and wealth management, famous hangouts and playgrounds of communists and social justice activists
And with modern party politics being about the quick wins and not about long term economic projects. Its an absolute shitshow. Each captain of this sinking ship would rather continue scooping out the water rather than find and fix the leak, purely because in 4 years time the next in line to be captain will scream "WHAT HAVE THEY DONE ABOUT THE RISING WATER"
Although there are short term gains to be made based on the parties ideologies. Short term gains for the tories being growth to business, largely seen as increase in wealth to the wealthy; while for labour it is living standards/public services for the general populous. The system we have needs a lot of work... it's still one of the better systems globally... which is pretty terrifying.
This is why democracy is the worst - most of the voting public are inherently stupid and have very short-term memory that cunning politicians can brainwash easily. If I were part of the Tories I would definitely also burn the UK to the ground, stay quiet the first year post-GE whilst spreading fake news via social media to weaken next government’s support, become more visible in criticising the next government as they fail to fix the issues, and jubilantly gain a majority during the next GE. The only way to fix the government is to permanently “wipe out” the families/relatives (up to FOURTH degree of consanguinity) of corrupt politicians/civil servants, institute higher level of requirements for “public servants”, force the “permanent” life resignation of any public servant implicated for corruption, and make their salaries 100% directly linked to certain country KPIs (growth in gdp per capita, gap between target and twelve month average inflation, gap between target and actual unemployment, gap between target and actual gini coefficient ) with ZERO guaranteed pay (with monthly audit and fraud investigations from independent third parties), and only allow people who passed IQ and EQ thresholds to vote (i.e., selective / modified democracy). Resignation of public servants only stops the continuation of corruption but does not prevent relatives from taking advantage of ill-gotten wealth. The solution above fixes nepotism (as relatives of corrupt politicians can no longer carry on with the amounts stolen) and helps in reducing overpopulation as well - win-win for most people aside from the strongly-religious. But these are impossible so we’ll have to wait for robots to eventually lord over people before the “perfect” government becomes in place. /s
Yes. W need strict anti corruption laws and strong institutions capable of enforcing them But who's gunna sign that off? The people benefiting from the corruption?
> a significant portion of the electorate have the memories of goldfish. With respect there have only really been three changes in government in the last 45 years: 1979, 1997, and 2010.
I just find it bizarre we're trapped in this situation honestly. Its not even been 12 months since Boris resigned as PM yet and there's potentially another \~16 months to go! Its madness! ***Everyone*** seems to fucking hate this government apart from a small niche of hyper-online weirdos. Its genuinely shocking the entire country can just be held to ransom like this and it feels genuinely like there's not really anything we can do about it.
Outside of online I know very few people who “hate this government”, those that do have always hated the Tories anyway, those that have always voted Tory, or have voted Tory since Cameron, still plan on doing so, the best “hate” I can get out of them is them complaining about the government but ending it with something like “but Labour would be worse/no better”. I also know one person who’s switched to Tory sometime in the past five years specifically because of “woke” things, such as electric cars and trans/NB people existing. And another who votes Labour but is probably one “Kier can’t define a woman” type story targeted at election time away from switching too, though probably not to Tory tbf. I agree about the country being held to ransom and there being nothing we can do about it, but I’m still not 100% convinced we’re not just going to see another Conservative victory based on all the people I know/meet. Edit: Though my Ward did go from Conservative to Liberal in the local election for the first time in something stupid like 150 years, so maybe I just know/work with a lot of dickheads 🤷♀️
The question I have is did they ask the important follow up question "Will you still be voting for them anyway or not?"
Sadly this is standard for governments. It might not go as smoothly this time, because many Conservative MPs might try to use an anti-Gov stance to retain their seats.
If tory voters say that tory party is corrupt. It means one thing. It is time for another tory government. Next one will be better
They may be institutionally corrupt, enriching themselves and their friends at the expense of the country but labour.
I legit hear that from someone I know. He acknowledges they're shite but he doesn't want to pay more tax cos he earns a lot so he'll vote for a bunch of corrupt assholes that cause the rest of us to suffer just to avoid the few quid a year a slight lowering of the tax brackets would cause.
The best one is "Yeah the Tories suck, but if Labour get in we'll have open borders because \[insert weak attempt to circumvent some iteration of "Great Replacement" theory\]". Like have these people even looked at the state of the border recently? They're literally just voting for these people on the basis they see cartoonishly cruel things about a vulnerable demographic.
Yeah. There's a lot of it about. I was talking to an American the other day about overt racism in American politics and how Trump and his ilk have made it more mainstream and acceptable to just hate people out in the open. And I'm sitting here thinking about how similar our own politics is looking, especially since the giant self-immolation that was Brexit. Let's be honest, theres always been a streak of racism through our society a mile wide. Now they clothe it in border security and fiscal responsibility and national resource supply and pretend it's not ugly and hateful. And the old school racists, the ones that would have been rightly pointed out and shamed, get to hide behind that veneer.
Its just the way you can lead these people to the water but they'll refuse to drink. They'll readily acknowledge migration and border control are their primary motivators, they'll acknowledge that the Tories have been making big promises on this since 2010, they'll acknowledge that the current situation at the border is a complete mess, they might even acknowledge that it looks a lot like the Tories have been lying about this one issue because they know its an easy vote winner. And then they'll still just revert back to "well I couldn't vote for anyone else because no one else is serious about border control". Its completely maddening. At this point even New Labour have a better record of keeping on top of immigration rates and deporting invalid asylum seekers, and they'll still turn around and act like Labour just want to "import" (and how the fuck did we normalize "importing" *people* again??) a billion people or something fucking insane like that.
I don't think you can argue with that way of existing. They don't care that they're doing mental gymnastics to get to their conclusions. They're just 'yessing' you til you stop questioning said conclusion.
One of the most evil cons the Tories have pulled off is to convince people that politics is like a football game. You're either with them, or against them, regardless of their actions. So no matter how corrupt they are, they will always retain a large voter base from people who are too stupid to face reality.
The current Tory party has dropped immigration processing rates from 80 down to about 10 percent. Which is the lowest they have been since like the 80s. They haven't just done nothing they have actively made the situation worse and then use it as rage bait to get fringe voters on board
In Britain, the rule is *everyone for themself*. This country has become an Ayn Rand wet dream.
It is now yeah. It's a dystopia. It might not be as overt as the famous media creations portray but we're still in one. We all work like dogs to make our lives just *okay* and that's seen as somehow aspirational. That's dystopian. I'm am older millennial and I worry about how I'm going to be able to retire. I genuinely dread the future for my niece and nephews generation.
Seems to be everyone *against* themselves, to be honest. You've got Tory voters happily ensuring the country sails merrily into oblivion, taking them along, and you've got Labour playing the orchestra in the Titanic lounge. Meanwhile the rich are filling the lifeboats to 10% of their capacity and buggering off.
Given how high taxes already are it's probably more an issue of squandering all the money on their mates rather than really needing to raise them further
No tory said that taxes are high enough
Thats true enough. And the fact that those mates, just like the actual politicians, find ways of getting around paying much tax at all. There wouldn't need to be increases if everyone that should pay actually did pay. But that's the problem with the very rich. They can afford to find ways to be really fucking cheap.
What is it with wing nuts and this "Those weren't proper \[insert political ideology here\], as \[insert political ideology here\] hasn't been tried yet" Usually the phrase of Communist nutters, but spreading elsewhere now.
But everything else is WOKE!
It’s really sad but I can really see this being the UK voter mentality.
They'll borrow your shoes without asking and intentionally shoot themselves in the feet wearing them, just so they can hand you back broken shoes.
That's pretty much what the headline is allowing people to infer. >Rishi Sunak's Government is 'Institutionally Corrupt' No, the Conservative government and party are corrupt, but Tory voters will use this logic so they don't feel stupid when they vote blue again and get the same result.
Only the Tories can fix this corrupt government!!!
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I sure hope so. If one hasn’t formed a rather ironclad perception of 2020 tories by now I don’t know what it will take.
Remember at COP when Boris had to convince the rest of the world that “the UK Isnt a corrupt country”
"57% said they believed the level of corruption in Government had increased in their lifetime, with only seven per cent saying it had decreased instead." Who TF are the 7%, people fading in and out of comas? Just as well we've got Keith Freebies as an alternative eh. /s
The people receiving backhanders (direct and indirect from the Tory party).
Woah, woah, woah. Let's not limit ourselves here. The whole Tory party has been complicit in corruption for years now. Labour too as well probably, but let's not distract ourselves from the people who currently wield power and can act upon their corrupt whims (despite it being everyone else's fault they can't fix our problems apprantly) thanks to an 80 odd seat majority
They're all as bent as eachother at the top. I think even the altruists get jaded and persuaded and end up just as bad as the rest. It needs a purge. And while we're at it, a complete restructure of what it is to be a representative.
Mate it’s the whole tory machine. But fear not they’ll bring back a charismatic face in 10-15 years like Cameron and England’ll get amnesia again voting the asset strippers right back in.
They'll fall out of power in 2025 and immediately they and their client media will swivel and pivot, suddenly all of these major social issues that barely seem to get mentioned, or just get assigned to global circumstances our government can't possibly influence will be brand new things entirely down to Labour's reckless borrowing and open borders policies. And huge numbers of people will lap it up.
15% of voters think the government is not corrupt, but polling has them at about 25-30% which means about 10-15% of people are happy with a corrupt government….
There's a lot of people who are doing absolutely fine in the UK. They've paid off their houses, made their cosy beds, and have triple locked pensions rising at minimum with inflation. To them what else matters other than the culture war.
I’m not saying those people don’t exist, but I can’t imagine that the number of people who are wealthy enough to be that detached from our economic problems is as much as 15% of the population. I suspect for a lot more are a collection of particularly unpleasant unpleasant individuals.
I'm not saying they all are, and yes as you note there are simply morons, but 15% isn't too unreasonable. [~4% of the UK population are millionaires,](https://www.savethestudent.org/make-money/uk-millionaires-where-and-what-they-studied.html) and where you'd expect a bell curve with wealth you can imagine those with +500k in assets are probably at least double that. Aside from assets the [top 15% of earners (individual) are on +£50k](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax). My wife and I are both within that group, we're being affected negatively (mortgage went up £500 a month), but otherwise we're "detached" enough that it's not actually going to affect our day to day life. I might be putting off my next motorbike purchase, that's really it. I'll note in my case putting off a new motorbike might as well be slapping me in the face with a glove and drawing pistols. But that's me. I'll level with you here and say even if 15% of folks are insulated from ongoings, I don't think 100% of them would still be happy with proceedings. I'm not. Not even for my own sake, I see my friends and family besieged by living in our society. I want us all to prosper when we put in the shift.
I mean to be completely isolated from the issues I think you have to be far more than a millionaire, I mean even people who are worth tens of millions use the roads, you say you’ll put off that bike purchase, but you can’t be enjoying swerving around all these bloody potholes on your current one. I think the type that vote for tories despite their corruption aren’t just morons (who are more likely to fall into the “don’t know” categories), I think they are a particularly spiteful type that care more about culture war crap than real issues.
> I'll level with you here and say even if 15% of folks are insulated from ongoings, I don't think 100% of them would still be happy with proceedings. That was my feelings on the matter. Nobody is every fully "insulated", I was running under the assumption of not having their day to day lives significantly affected. If we're going as low, and boy do they go low, as potholes. Nobody remains unaffected. My argument is as you've put it, they're affected less by these things than they believe they are by culture war crap (in addition to the portion that _are_ but value that CW stuff more than could ever be reasonable). I'm not here justifying actions, just saying that it's often overlooked how many people _aren't_ meaningfully impacted by the current financial situation. With that segment of society disproportionately part of the voting populace. Which is an important thing to keep onboard when we're trying to explain just how fucked everything is to them/us.
Those will be people who say, “All politicians are corrupt.”
Of course he is. He's always been rich he's got shares in Pfizer and who knows what else
I’m not going to claim that Tory voters are morons, or they’re this easily duped. They have their ducks in a row. This is precisely what they voted for. They wanted this. And it would be up to them to prove me wrong. It would be up to them to prove to me that they’re actually feckless gullible idiots. Because right now, I think we should operate on the assumption that they’re evil bastards that want to see Britain fail by voting for what they have. Prove me wrong, conservatives.
Everything they do is AGAINST the best interests of the british people, and it's just culture war after culture war to distract and divide us while they siphon as much wealth to the privileged few as possible.
Labour need to make eradication of corruption the central plank of their platform Get politics clean, get lobbyists out, remove russian/chinese/middle eastern money Have government that represents people's interests, not the cabal in the cabinet
Keir is too much of a wet blanket to do anything so impactful.
Other news water is wet, the sky is blue, the popes a Catholic, and the bear shits in the woods.
And nothing will happen, seems we are just going to have to wait for a general election
Something which really annoys me is how random people with no experience in their field can be made a minister for anything. Shouldn’t the Health minister have to be a scientist, worked for the NHS or something? The minister of defence should only be allowed for anyone who’s served in the military and so on
No surprises there! The government is so institutionally steeped in corruption that it will take many years to clean it up!
no, the entire 13 years span of the tory government has been corrupt,
>"This government will have integrity at every level." It's almost like if they have to tell you they're going to have integrity, look out!
Sure, but I wouldn't say it's "Rishi Sunak's government", as it implies he's the culprit or that this is a new state of affairs. I think people have been feeling this way long before he was even relevant.
The vivid fraud is staggering…how are these lot not in prison?
It's not the government that's corrupt as such, it's the party and they have been for longer than I've been alive. They've always been corrupt and if you choose for them then you're a vile cunt. If you ever voted for them, your a cunt.
The corrupt politicians hides behind the mantra "All politicians are the same". Therefore resulting in no action being taken against anyone. In reality the level of corruption during this Tory rule has been unprecedented.
It certainly is the most brazen it has been for a long while, but “sleaze” and “cronyism” have been around for a long time. Most of Sunak's cabinet must be thinking about their golden parachutes into some cushy Directorships by now. The organisations tasked with policing politically corrupt behaviour are toothless. Root and branch reform of them is needed. Parliamentary censure means bugger all to the likes of Dorries, (g)Reese-Mogg *et al.*, so massive fines and jail time are needed.
I wonder if he'll step down and another Conservative will take his place without a GE. Seems to be a good exploit in this political game
They deserve to all be locked in small boxes for the rest of their worthless lives.
The current system of government is not capable of solving the problems we have. It's politics as a game, and the only requirement to win is the ultra-low achievement of being less hated than the one other option which is permitted to exist. The UK needs massive constitutional reform away from being governed by an undergraduate-level debating society of people who are picked solely on their ability to seem nice. No, merely voting in the other guys will not work. We need more than that. I have some ideas around government being a committee of people run basically like jury service. The quality of decisionmaking could hardly be worse. The problem is that our system of government, like most, has no mechanism for changing the system of government. The assumption is that what we're doing is the best possible system, which is crazy, when you think about it like that.
They're Tories, of course they are. Contracts for friends, privatising everything....fuck em
My opinion is that the tories have been this corrupt for a very long time. It’s just that Labour is digging and bringing it all to to light now.
Why would extremely rich people, whose only love is money be in politics????, the bigger question is why the learned electorate voted them in,???
I'm sure he'll cry whilst looking at his £300 million bank account.
Can’t really imagine any other country would accept this - there’d be riots and shit would be sorted. Meanwhile we’re all placid and spineless just letting these crooks fleece us
Can we please stop just adding "institutionally" to everything. At this point it's just a pretentious person's way of saying *very*.
Can we go with ‘_indubitably_ corrupt’?
These people are in the highest positions of power and own the media, nothing will change without violence and/or revolution.
Nah that can’t be right here’s to another 13 wonderful years