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Well, Atlee is frequently voted the best PM of the 20th century and he was completely charisma free ("A modest man, with much to be modest about"). I think we've had enough strutting popinjays.

And he was at school with our very own Fatboy Slim, another well known fact

I keep seeing this and yet there is no evidence for such a claim.I actually think the reverse, that the defeat would have been much heavier. Labour were hammered in Scotland and took a hit in the north of England, because Labour was seen as both too metropolitan, too pro-Europea and (in...

No, it's not. The idea of UBI is that everyone gets it, not just the people on welfare. It's true that some trials have been for welfare recipients but classic UBI is that everyone gets it

You're looking at this all wrong. The idea is that it will increase the workforce not reduce it. For example, at the moment if you're on UC, there's no incentive to work a few extra hours as it comes of your UC (and creates a whole lot of more bureaucracy). If you introduce people would be free...

I've no idea. I'm not an economist/civil servant. The £1600 mentioned in a trial sounds slightly too high to me but it may be viable. It's certainly not a lot for someone bringing up four or five kids. There'd need to be other adjustments made too: rents would need to be reduced somehow. I...

No, I don't. The whole point of UBI is that there are no conditions: there's no means-testing, there are no obligations to do anything; it's a sum that's given to everyone. One of the reasons for implementing UBI is to cut down on bureaucracy, once you start putting in conditions, the whole...

Because if they didn't, it wouldn't be universal :facepalm:

This is absolute bollocks. I was at Bradford in 1980 and there were no weirdo student politicians in the late 70s/early 80s. Conservatives occasionally were elected (in fact, one year, the FCS swept the board and won every single position). And although most politicians were of the left, they...

Incredibly, the last time that a government got a majority of the votes cast was in 1935. Time for the Tories to unveil its Baldwinite strategy

Being dull is under-rated, the PM most commonly held to be one of the best in the UK's history was Attlee - probably the most charisma-free politician of them all. Asquith wasn't a barrel of laughs either. Yet, between them, those two transformed the country more radically than any other before...

Absolutely. Who could have predicted Covid? Although the problems from Brexit and the Ukraine issue were easier to foresee. I was looking back at the defeats suffered by the Callaghan government (34 in three years). That was a minority government, so he did well in keeping it going for that...

I think that question depends on a variety of factors - this will be a long answer. First of all, how do you define hard left? The Socialist Campaign Group? Momentum? Or what? It's a very fluid definition. I've seen Lloyd Russell Moyle, one of our local MPs, described as far left. He's a...

Starmer has repeatedly said that there are no plans to rejoin the EU. Have you been asleep for the past two years? 😂 As for Finance Bills, there won't be any common cause with Tories. He'd have been voting for more taxation/higher public spending, not something that the Tories will be...

Yes, that's true. But he's also had the whip removed - an indication of the much tougher policy under Starmer. Of course, it's true that an MP who has had the whip removed can still cause problems. And if you look at his votes against, they are nearly all on terrorism and/or security issues...

But how? What common cause will they have with a Tory party that's moved increasingly right? What issue will unite the likes of Burgon and Abbott with Braverman and Truss?

You're now changing the situation. All governments that try to govern without a majority are going to have some sort of difficulty, that was the case with the Callaghan government as well as May's. But you were talking about a Labour majority not a minority - they're not remotely comparable...

What utter nonsense. 30 MPs will have absolutely no effect. In fact, I'd doubt whether 130 would have any effect (and certainly wouldn't with the majority that's being mooted). As i pointed out earlier, there's been a huge difference in the way the two major parties have treated MPs out of...

There are a couple of big differences though. Firstly, there's no-one who could be called far left in the ranks of the shadow cabinet, so they're a long way from the sphere of influence. That's in sharp contrast to the Tories, who have promoted the likes of Braverman to the front bench and where...

Not at all; it's been a deliberate policy by the Tory government to close down safe routes and be slow in processing asylum applications. Why? Because it suits their policy of claiming that refugees (particularly those arriving on small boats are a major issue). The next government will have a...