Post by manchesterman on Jan 26, 2021 16:23:23 GMT
I share the general concern/befuddlement in the polls! One thing that concerned me greatly though and which may partly account for this was a show on Times Radio I heard about a week ago. They got together 8 "undecided" voters from 4 key/red wall seats [i think it was a Bolton seat, a West Brom seat, Sedgefield and an other, possibly Stoke) and prompted for their opinions mainly on 3 topics (1) covid (2) brexit (3) economy in general.
The responses were disturbing from an anti-Tory perspective. For Covid, the previaling opinion was that "Boris is doing his best. Its a new thing so its not his fault" And on Starmer that "he keeps sniping and complaining instead of getting behind Boris" !!
On brexit, the consensus was it was either "too soon to judge but I expect everything will be fine because...it will(!)" or "it would have been great but its all the EUs fault for not giving us everything we want" !
On the economy the consensus was "Sunak is doing a great job and Labour should shut up and agree with the government".
Whilst the level of discussion/responses was scarily low and there was a regular trotting out of various 3-line slogans etc as an answer to complex issues; but we live in the car crash of a society that we are in right now and there isnt much the left/centre-left can do about that!
I leave you to pick the bones out of some of those mindbending opinions...
However this raises massive concerns for the non-Tories among us. If the floating voters are going to give the Tories a free pass on the highest per capita death rate in the world, plus the imevitable consequences of Brexit [which could easily have been delayed til things are more normal in 6-9 months time] to the ever widening division in society between rich and poor [foodbanks galore, kids on free meals, whilst the rich go on piling up mage fortunes]. If they are going to wave all that through, then what happens when - eventually things start picking up a bit? Vaccination rollouts mean many more people get back to work/normality - for which the govt will get the credit; a couple of years down the line businesses are more prepared to cope with the mountain of red tape that Brexit created, so that diminishes the economic damage somewhat. Businesses (some) saved by the financial support offered by Sunak etc etc.
If floating voters will give the Tories a free pass on all the fuckups they've made but then give them credit for the relative recovery from them; then our democracy is indeeed in a parlous state!
The responses were disturbing from an anti-Tory perspective. For Covid, the previaling opinion was that "Boris is doing his best. Its a new thing so its not his fault" And on Starmer that "he keeps sniping and complaining instead of getting behind Boris" !!
On brexit, the consensus was it was either "too soon to judge but I expect everything will be fine because...it will(!)" or "it would have been great but its all the EUs fault for not giving us everything we want" !
On the economy the consensus was "Sunak is doing a great job and Labour should shut up and agree with the government".
Whilst the level of discussion/responses was scarily low and there was a regular trotting out of various 3-line slogans etc as an answer to complex issues; but we live in the car crash of a society that we are in right now and there isnt much the left/centre-left can do about that!
I leave you to pick the bones out of some of those mindbending opinions...
However this raises massive concerns for the non-Tories among us. If the floating voters are going to give the Tories a free pass on the highest per capita death rate in the world, plus the imevitable consequences of Brexit [which could easily have been delayed til things are more normal in 6-9 months time] to the ever widening division in society between rich and poor [foodbanks galore, kids on free meals, whilst the rich go on piling up mage fortunes]. If they are going to wave all that through, then what happens when - eventually things start picking up a bit? Vaccination rollouts mean many more people get back to work/normality - for which the govt will get the credit; a couple of years down the line businesses are more prepared to cope with the mountain of red tape that Brexit created, so that diminishes the economic damage somewhat. Businesses (some) saved by the financial support offered by Sunak etc etc.
If floating voters will give the Tories a free pass on all the fuckups they've made but then give them credit for the relative recovery from them; then our democracy is indeeed in a parlous state!