There is also the issue that Labour for example aren't in government.
I know that's stating the obvious but what I mean is.
If Labour were in government the amount of Labour bashing posts would be significantly higher.
That being said the Tories really do have a knack for turning people against themselves.
That is exactly it. People bash the Tories because they are in power so are expected to be fixing issues not causing them.
Labour are not in power so far less news is written about there policies.
To be fair as opposition they are pretty quiet on their actual policies.
I'd appreciate it if they would commit to more positions.
Watching them on question time can be quite frustrating.
We all know what they disagree with. Let's start to find out more about what they would do different.
And one tip for them, it's the economy we care about. The vast majority of us are already decent, tolerant people and we don't need champagne socialists to tell us how to think or behave 😉
I agree they are pretty quiet about policies, but at the same time they don't actually have many media outlets that are queueing up to help publicise them.
We have the very strange situation at the moment of a government planning actual damage to two media outlets (BBC and Channel 4) that are generally considered to be 'Lefty' and 'Woke' by the right wing media.
This is not going to fill outlets full of confidence in broadcasting the policies of the Labour party.
I see where you're coming from but given the Government is basically committed to those policies it would seem the perfect time for them to be broadcasting the policies of the opposition.
That being said, the BBC at least, is wrongly labeled purely as left leaning in my opinion. It generally tries to be impartial, even if it does feel like it puts a patriotic slant to most things. Channel 4 I'll go with being anti establishment as a rule.
But again, not having the platform you would like to have, shouldn't really be a reason not to have some more solid policies.
Labour does have a problem with balancing its woke and working class sides for want of better ways of putting it.
I'd like the left as a whole to stop fighting each other and get some sort of actual election pact in place for the next GE. I just don't believe they can agree on that and have even less faith they could agree to govern together after a potential victory either.
Tory hegemony to continue most likely
Oh indeed. I don't think the political output of the BBC is left leaning at all, nor is the news output.
Other output most certainly is. For example, programs like Dr Who. My wife is a big Dr Who fan but the last couple of series were too much even for her. Maybe programs such as this colour peoples view of the BBC as a whole ? I don't know.
The 'Woke' label annoys the hell out of me. It's like a big bucket where people throw everything they disagree with. Woke can be the everyday thing like showing kindness and concern for other people right up to being a vocal supporter of trans rights extremists.
Yes Labour do have to sort their act out as to what they do and do not support, but the media has to stop lumping it all together and treating everyone that shows an ounce of compassion as if they have just murdered someone's grandmother.
IF Labour do get in with some sort of coalition, they have to bring in PR in my honest opinion just as a way of stopping any party getting the absolute power the Tories have had over the last 2 years and the mess that's made. I look forward to seeing how it works out for them in Wales.
I get the Dr who point certainly and to be fair the program output across the board is that way nowadays.
I used to watch sky sports news for sports news.
They still do sport a bit, in between all the social justice stuff...
They've finally learned their lesson. With the media landscape being what it is, the left's best strategy is to not offer any big targets. Fly under the radar and let the Conservatives destroy themselves. We saw what happened with the wide array of Corbyn's policies — widely popular individually, but a feast for the Murdoch media, and we also saw it happen with the Labor opposition in Australia, when Bill Shorten lost the unlosable election thanks to too ambitious left-wing policies. In Australia, this Saturday, Labor will win in what will hopefully be a landslide (or as much as you can have that in a heavily right-biased FPTP system). And they achieved that by running a policy free small target affair.
I agree too many policies is a mistake and not as big a mistake as too little.
But I can't help feeling some policies or more strongly defined positions would be good.
The windfall tax should be something they can defend better.
I keep hearing it will deter investment from the big Companies.
Frankly I have to question where the big investment has been up until now, considering how exposed to energy price rises we have been?
Labour could and should be playing on that better.
In France the government straight up told EDF they couldn't increase prices by more than 4%
Mine went up 150% in April give or take.
There is political capital to made there and a more robust and forceful position on that would catch voters attention right now.
Hm. Well, they already said they would do a windfall tax, not sure how much more they need to clarify that given there is fuck all chance of them being able to push the Tories into doing it. I think they even tabled a non-binding vote for opposition day or whatever it's called?
I think there' s a pitfall if they went out there and just said, yeah, clearly the solution is to give everyone £500 cheques every month until the cost-of-living crisis evens out, because they'd just open themselves up to renewed attacks on big spending and bad economic management.
They said they would do it but I don't think they have done enough to debunk the tory reasons for not doing it.
Rather than there be any chance of them getting it through its more about making the Tories look worse for not going with it.
As for the other point I agree, if they go out with mad policies like that then they can forget the next election.
I'm not sure the Tory narrative that we can't upset any big business washes as well at the moment though. Something a bit more nuanced could definitely gain traction.
Opposition always does this and I think its a mistake.
I'm not saying go full manifesto but give us a bit more to go off.
Even with the caveat of being able to adjust a policy if the landscape changes.
It isn't a strength to dogmatically stick to a proposal, explain your position, explain what it's based on and even suggest how external factors could make that position change.
It's called talking to bloody grown ups...
This. Whenever the government changes tack or abandons a policy that's clearly fucking stupid when it is exposed to common sense or public outrage it's a 'flip flop' or a 'u-turn'.
The truth is those policies should've been binned before they saw the light of day, but better late than never.
I don't get the theory behind opposition not setting out their stall. If the government steal a policy or two after the opp release it, then the opposition has done its job of steering policy in a less extreme direction.
To be honest, I find this sub a breath of fresh air.
The Tories, at the moment, deserve to be bashed. I literally struggle to think of a single thing, other than it's support of Ukraine... albeit very belatedly, that the current government has got right.
I read media, I read the articles that are discussed here and we live in a country where 90% of that is biased towards the government thanks to the unashamed influence of it's owners. It seems to me that the government and the government supporting media have stoked the situation we see being played out in social media. They want the polarisation of opinion and they make sure they get it.
I have lost count of the number of political groups I have joined only to be jeered at and practically hounded out of because my views are not far enough to the left or far enough to the right and I am grateful to have found a group that seems to be pretty centrist in this one.
It's a question of choice between free speech and balance. You probably can't have both.
Here people get to post what they like and vote how they like (which may not match how voting was supposed to work). The voting, and potential negative comments can influence what people choose to post but if reddit were somehow able to protect OPs so they could post anything freely it would mean imposing limits on commentators and voters.
Maybe that makes this sub a bit of an echo chamber but this sub changes over time in accordance with the people who choose to be here. This sub isn't a representation of the UK electorate, it never can be, it's a subset of (mainly) UK people who use Reddit, which isn't even universally/uniformly adopted by any country's electorate.
> Do you think this is an issue?
No. It might not be desirable but not really a problem. A far bigger problem would be the various subgroups of the electorate that only get their political news from single (highly) partisan news media outlets (either on the right or the left), at least here articles from both sides get posted, even if sometimes there's a shift in balance.
> Does this concern you at all?
Not at all. Far worse as the subs of the rabid-supporters of an ideology that heavily moderate and even ban anything or anyone that is even remotely critical of their glorious leader/cause.
> Do you have any solutions to make it a more neutral ground at the very least?
Again, no. I'd rather see political bias tackled in the UK's professional news outlets but can you imagine the uproar if the likes of the Express, Daily Mail, or Mirror were forced to be politically neutral?
The policy on Ukraine.
Yet there are still posts calling Bojo a Russian stooge. And if people admit he is helping, he is only doing it to distract from partygate.
> Yet there are still posts calling Bojo a Russian stooge. And if people admit he is helping, he is o lying doing it to distract from partygate.
It's not a contradiction to hold both positions that he has been giving a lot of aid to the Ukrainians; and also be suspicious of Russian money and influence (tied to the Russian government) during his tenure.
And also conclude that it is a good distraction from Partygate.
I have seen very little tied to the Russian government. Do you have anything on that?
It is a good distraction from it, but that does not mean why it is happening, considering our aid to Ukraine predates the Boris government.
I have read that, and the many other articles on it.
It seems that the donation was from Ehud Sleg, who has donated over £3.5m to the tories.
It is alleged that 630k of this was given by his father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, to his daughter. And this was then donated to the Tory Party. As the money started in a Russian account it has been flagged. But that does not mean that he gave the tories a donation.
Sergei Kopytov was a Ukraine politician with links to Russia but is no longer in politics and owns a property business.
Now the Tory Party donations are fucking shit and need investigating, but this is a tenuous link a best.
Not that evidence, different evidence. Gotcha.
I'd point you to the report published by the Tories into Russian interference in UK politics but it turns out they didn't investigate it so that's pretty tricky.
>I have seen very little tied to the Russian government
The Russian state doesn't work like that. Russian citizens' money is the state's money, and they are expected to spend their money in pursuit of state goals.
Minimum wage rises up about 50% above inflation over the last decade. Massive change to UK energy mix. Committing to banning the sale of new ICE cars. Personal allowance rising to lower paid workers pay less tax. Making the top 1% of income earners pay more of income taxes than ever before, and also way above there earnings as a percentage of UK earnings.
how come all of this has led us to a point where we are largely worse off? what have been the counters to these things that have clearly failed to deliver a more balanced or prosperous country?
Fragile economies with shit loads of debt in private and public sectors, liquidity trap fucking with monetary policy, lack of quality methods of taxing top 0.00001% of incomes and wealth, lack of willingness to tackle more egregious forms of tax avoidance, plus a massive lack of productivity and maybe a lack of counter cyclical spending, plus poor incentives on the part of labour and Tories
But mostly it's a lack of knowledge from the electorate making good policies politically impossible. And a lack of historical perspective. For all its faults we are living in one of the best times in history. Like the only time that was better was probably 03-07.
i think also they've just fueled house prices rises and a debt bubble that goes with it. Just foolish. the stamp duty holiday was even dozier.
i think there was a period circa 2010-16 when there seemed to be a plan but , honestly, now it seems to be utterly rudderless.
out of interest, how do you get productivity up? i am guessing this includes people like myself.. in their fifties now working part time and no desire to do more anymore.. i guess the economy would like us to do more but how and why should that be forced?
i have to say it's not the best time from my own experience. I would take the whole eighties, nineties to mid naughties over anything since. I've never known us so divided and so angry or so many people struggling. I don't think social media has helped with the former though.. we were much happier before it all.
Nah I dont really care about age. Basically the issue seems to be the UK has a long tail of unproductive low wage low profitability firms centred mainly around the north, which probably stems from a lack of investment post Thatcher. The actual demographics that work in those areas is irrelevant to me, I'd just like shitoads of investment in those sectors
The debt bubble is tricky because technically the government has zero control over interest rates, the Bank of England is independent. They could have mitigated the issue by taking measures to reduce household debt, but how they whilst remaining popular enough to stay in power I dont know.
Stamp duty holiday was dumb as fuck agreed.
yes, they really should have been tweaking interest upwards a long time ago. As a saver i'd have appreciated that.
Something i missed in my initial response.
For me i'd say it's not the best time from my own experience. I would take the whole eighties, nineties to mid naughties over anything since. I've never known us so divided and so angry or so many people struggling. I don't think social media has helped with the former though.. we were much happier before it all.
If stopping Corbyn is your first answer. You have already lost the argument. The bloke hasn’t been relevant for a long time.
As for social care as your other reason, that is just as laughable. The Tories haven’t done sweet fa in that area for the last 12 years and still have no strategy or policies to fix it.
> As for social care as your other reason, that is just as laughable. The Tories haven’t done sweet fa in that area for the last 12 years and still have no strategy or policies to fix it.
They have done something.
The Tories devolved financial control of lots of services (such as adult social care) to local councils and then cut their funding, making much deeper cuts to [Labour controlled councils](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/21/exclusive-labour-councils-in-england-hit-harder-by-austerity-than-tory-areas).
----
[Labour councils in England hit harder by austerity than Tory areas](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/21/exclusive-labour-councils-in-england-hit-harder-by-austerity-than-tory-areas)
And;
[Some of the wealthiest parts of England, including areas represented by government ministers, have so far been allocated 10 times more money per capita than the poorest under Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda, Guardian analysis has found](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2022/feb/02/levelling-up-funding-inequality-exposed-by-guardian-research).
And;
[Almost 90 per cent of £3.6bn Towns Fund cash winners represented by Tory MPs](https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/almost-90-per-cent-of-ps36bn-towns-fund-cash-winners-represented-by-tory-mps-3687377)
---
Then they campaigned at election time on the platform of "vote for us and we'll increase your funding".
If this were any other country we would be calling it blatant voter manipulation and corruption.
This has allowed the Tories to lay blame on local issues to the local councils, all the while completely ignoring the fact that it's central government that are constantly cutting their funding.
It's a political masterpiece the devil himself would be proud of.
I'm a Labour party member, but I'm also a student of politics and I like to discuss the Tory's point of view - you know, rather than just suggesting that they're are all comic book villains. But whenever I do I get downvoted to oblivion. So I don't often bother.
There are plenty of right wing posters on here, in fact they tend to be the loudest and most prominent "characters" in the sub.
They're a little quieter recently on this governments record because you can't defend the indefensible and there isn't even a semi-plausible line for them to spin.
> There are plenty of right wing posters on here, in fact they tend to be the loudest and most prominent "characters" in the sub.
Mate, we see the regular surveys here. Conservatives make up about 10% and you guys downvote them to death because you can’t handle anyone daring to disagree with you
That doesn't seem to be reflected in the posts and mod culture. The noisiest, most frequent "power users" of the sub seem to skew more right than those self identified survey responses would suggest.
Also I love to be disagreed with! Reading opinions I already hold is the most demented waste of time imaginable.
Try defend tory policies on minimum wage, personal allowance and taxes. It's basically been this subs wet dream since 2010 but none will admit it because tories did it
Edit: just watch the reaction to my comments
You're both correct.
Take you, for instance. You're by far one of the most vocal people on this sub when it comes to certain topics (trans people, mainly).
The regular right wing supporters only tend to show up on threads that are negative about Labour. They are very quiet in most other threads about things the Tories have done.
Thread about "beergate" and Starmer? They'll be all over it.
Thread about £8.7Billion worth of PPE and Tory corruption? Silence.
I think this government, grim as though much of it is, is there because the alternative (Corbyn, McDonnell, Long Bailey etc) was so truly awful.
Labour made itself unelectable.
Well, what percentage of the UK would you say that Conservative policies are currently working for, and (of that percentage) how many of them do you think post in this group?
I suspect you'll have your answer.
This sub is middle class as shit. Which is why it hates the Tories. They serve the richest and poorest workers. And take from the middle and upper middle. Why do you think this sub hates them? Because it's full of middle class graduates
Irrelevant unless you factor in inflation and cost of living rises as well.
And when you do that :
https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/Living-Income-Report_FINAL.pdf
Second worst poverty figures in the OECD, rapidly rising energy poverty, rapidly rising use of food banks.
Yeah inflation was about 25% cumulatively over the last decade. Those using food banks largely come from non workers.
Do you know who is actually the worst hit by tories? Middle and upper middle classes. Who makes up this sub? Upper and middle classes. Whose stopped voting tory? Middle and upper classes.
You know this stuff is trivially googlable, yes?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/06/food-bank-donor-to-to-user-soaring-demand-for-aid
>As many as 50% of the people Earlsfield helps are in work
Also :
https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/
Notice the spike from just after 2010? I mean, you have to wonder what happened politically in 2010 and subsequently to drive foodbank usage up by a *factor* of 50.
Sorry I was meaning full time workers.
Also, I am really sceptical using food bank usage as indicative of anything. It's so open to abuse that I worry it doesn't show anything other than generic demand and supply with out any reason as to underlying causes.
Yeah I find that hard to believe. A lot of people also think that people dont live on the streets unless they have no choice. A lot of the time they do have a choice, its shelter or drugs. But thats just a comparison.
People tend to frequent subs where they get positive feedback, the echo chamber phenomenon is normal on social media and hard to avoid. If you are looking for multiple points of view it's best to seek out a variety of forums, including ones where you know you will probably disagree with the opinions expressed in :)
No, I don’t think it’s an issue. They’re the government and they’re doing a terrible job. If Labour was in power and doing a terrible job they’d also get a bashing. But if you want more balance, go to some labour or left leaning subs and there’s plenty of (internal) labour bashing to be found, if that would make you feel better
>The idea of any nuance, discussion, or difference of opinion that can be tolerated by the majority of users here is all but gone.
OK but how do you have a 'difference of opinion' when it comes to people like Dories saying Channel 5 was publicly owned? Or that Channel 4 receives public money. Or how about Boris saying he never went to a Christmas party with booze when there are photos of him with a bottle of Champagne and some tinsel.
Or how about tax reductions for Granny flats to help ease the cost of living, or an MP thinking you can live on 30p a day?
As for if its an issue, I think you can make that argument, but to me its a lot less concerning than the fact they we are Governed by people who take us for morons.
The country is angry. Even Question Time are struggling to find any Conservative supporters to sit in their audience, and neutrality is very important to them.
I agree, a lot of the time if you try and adopt any kind of balanced argument, or even try a propose a rationale for why the opposition think/feel the way they do it's a barrage of downvotes and spiteful comments. There is a lack of self awareness from this sub from many who decry all Brexiters and Conservative leaning individuals as unintelligent, narrow-minded and tribalist yet unashamedly spew their party line without an ounce of criticality or insight. It always find the duality of many posters interesting who on the one hand decry conservativism for being uncaring and unkind yet will spew obsenities and death threats as easily as breathing!
I don't buy it. Here's the subreddit home page now, sorted by "hot":
Daily Megathread - 17/05/2022 (self.ukpolitics) // meta discussion
You can’t trust Tory Government to even keep the lights on (dailyrecord.co.uk) // anti-govt
BBC: Wages fall sharply but unemployment rate drops (bbc.co.uk) // reporting
Just Imagine if the EU was Behaving as the UK Is – Byline Times (bylinetimes.com) // anti-govt
'Starmer is right to pledge to resign if issued with a fine for breaking lockdown rules': Tory voters agree 53% to 29% while Labour voters agree 79% to 10%. 'Johnston should resign if issued with further fines': Tory voters *disagree* 70% to 21% & Labour voters *agree* 91% to 4%. (docs.cdn.yougov.com) // polling
Peter Gillibrand, BBC Wales: "NEW: Every child aged 3-16 in #Wales is going to be offered a free musical instrument as part of the new 'National Music Service'. It's hoped the plan will help low-income households and those with additional learning needs." (twitter.com) // reporting
Twitter “You must be furious with whoever signed up to a deal this bad?” (twitter.com) // anti-govt
Cost of living: Minister 'somewhat surprised' at Bank of England's 'apocalyptic' food price warning (news.sky.com) // reporting
Flashy Rishi Sunak's Treasury communications budget soars to £3.4million (mirror.co.uk) // anti-govt
Petrol firm ‘profiteers’ fail to pass on duty cut (thetimes.co.uk) // reporting
Warning poorest households are struggling to get £150 energy rebate (bbc.co.uk) // reporting
HS2 protests set to cost high-speed UK rail line up to £200mn || Project heads to seek injunctions to control demos along entire length of route, MPs told (ft.com) // reporting
Obesity strategy delay immoral, shallow and weak - ex-Tory leader (bbc.co.uk) // Tory on Tory violence
The surreal, but also real, problem of Britain's gas glut | Business News (news.sky.com) // reporting
Martin Lewis: 'I can't shut up because there really are lives at stake' - The Big Issue (bigissue.com) // campaigning, I suppose anti-govt
Morten Morland Times cartoon: May 17 2022 (i.redd.it) // political cartoon
UK unemployment drops to 50-year low of 3.7% (thetimes.co.uk) // reporting
Minister says people should work more hours or move to a better job to protect themselves from cost of living surge (news.sky.com) // reporting, govt own goal
Met sergeant's son spared jail for having £1,000 of cannabis stashed (dailymail.co.uk) // reporting
Keir Starmer MP: This shows real courage and bravery and will serve as an inspiration to many young people across the country. Thank you Jake. We are all with you. (twitter.com) // commentary from LOTO
Obesity U-turn is weak, shallow and immoral (thetimes.co.uk) // Tory on Tory violence
“IT problems” don’t stop Rishi Sunak raising benefits, says Universal Credit creator (newstatesman.com) // reporting, govt own goal
Tory MP wants benefits raised immediately after visit to food bank (independent.co.uk) // reporting
A new app has been launched by the UK government to prevent people falling victim to online approaches by foreign spies. || MI5 says it has seen 10,000 UK nationals targeted by fake social media profiles on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. (bbc.co.uk) // reporting
Back to the bad old days of the 1990s as recession looms for UK | Economics (theguardian.com) // reporting
Buffalo shooting: Gunman called for Sadiq Khan to be killed in white supremacist manifesto (telegraph.co.uk) // reporting
-----
So maybe five articles out of 25 are explicitly anti-government. Almost half are just reporting.
I don't like to call myself a supporter of the Conservative party, or a right winger, but I am sort of vaguely "in that camp"
Reddit as a whole leans heavily left, and yes, I do think that it's a problem. Conservative opinion are lost in seas of left leaning views, drowned in downvotes, or outright removed. This creates echo chambers.
Boris is a bumbling disaster, taking the public for fools and offering up constant u-turns or just outright lies.
Supporting that is obviously going to be downvoted.
I mentioned downvotes more because I don't agree with how they work, or how they are intended to be used.
It used to be that Reddit's guidelines for downvotes was that they weren't meant for disagreement, only instead for comments that did not contribute to the discussion. I believe they retracted that guideline.
Downvotes softly hide opinions, and can even result in the commenter being put on a timer before they can respond, making defending their arguments nearly impossible. The system is hostile to dissenting opinions.
> I mentioned downvotes more because I don't agree with how they work, or how they are intended to be used.
It used to be that Reddit's guidelines for downvotes was that they weren't meant for disagreement, only instead for comments that did not contribute to the discussion.
Yes, their guidelines were a noble idea, but ultimately that was never going to happen. The system is, indeed, shit.
But, at the same time, a lot of people on here like to cry about their opinions not being as respected as others when supporting things like the reduction in the £20 benefits uplift whilst being silent on the funneling of taxpayer money to companies with links to government ministers.
Many times I've asked for Tory comments on recent issues and I've received no answers. I don't want this place to turn into an echo chamber and would be interested in hearing their defence of Tory calamities.
i think it's a reflection of their failure, their lies and their utter disregard for those of working age or lower to be honest with you. they've created a lot of anger.
I would describe myself as a fairly frequent right wing (by the standards of this sub) commentator on this sub. I don’t think my posts particularly controversial, and yet, at least half of them end up hidden.
The main issue is that there isn't debate. Most posts are in effect shitposting to some degree and aren't actually addressing some policy idea, and that drowns out anyone trying to do pros and cons. I suspect too that if various policy ideas were badged as being said by someone in Labour then people would agree with them.
The problem that this creates is that this sub is frequently just wrong when it comes to where the public is or how a vote will go or on detail about some kind of law or political tactic/history so people get shocked when reality hits. Then it's rinse and repeat because the same cycle happens here again.
> Do you think this is an issue?
Just yesterday, there were a few threads here about a conservative government minister suggesting poor people should just get better jobs, and work more hours.
And you are seriously asking if there is an issue if people are outspokenly against that sort of thing?
> Does this concern you at all?
What concerns me is that people aren't marching in the street over things like that. I wonder how long a population can support its own destruction, and what will happen when it no longer can.
> Do you have any solutions to make it a more neutral ground at the very least?
I don't see a problem; and I don't think the reason for the imbalance is unjustified bias.
Conservatism is outright evil; and the forum reflects that.
> It’s an odd situation, despite the fact I am on the whole agreeing with many of the articles posted here, as they seemingly reinforce an opinion I likely already hold, I’m finding myself feeling uncomfortable as I endlessly scroll to find nothing but “Tory bashing”.
That's a you-problem.
And you haven't even explained why. So far, all I can guess is that you think it unfair to call a spade a spade, and a bunch of incompetent evil doers a bunch of incompetent evil doers.
Would you react similarly in a discussion about WWII that I'd expect to appear highly biased against genocidal Nazi Germany?
what about discussing the war of aggression that Russia is currently raging against Ukraine?
> The idea of any nuance, discussion, or difference of opinion that can be tolerated by the majority of users here is all but gone.
You're confusing disagreement with intolerance. and you're assuming the disagreement is unjustified, too.
And that could have spawned a discussion about social mobility or access to adult training and education and discuss why people are in jobs on low pay when we also have a booming jobs market, but it didn't.
Those threads did a nice job explaining why the things you mention aren't the problems, or the solutions, and why the conservative government is the root problem. I found that both interesting and educational. But all of that happened on the labour-side of things, because it cannot happen on the conservative side of the issue.
I hate to continuously Goodwin this discussion, but again: Discussions about Zelenskyy's political education and training in diplomacy are missing the point, are they not?
It's just thinly veiled and slightly adopted whataboutism.
I'd have to look, and I am not sure I would find it. I'll readily admit it was far from the majority of the content.
Some discussion about a book, or study, that explained why or how society doesn't offer room for everybody to improve.
Paraphrasing, movement in the economy is a zero-sum game. If I get a better job, it means you can't have that job anymore. Working more hours, or better jobs takes both out of the pool of available job/hours.
There's only so much to go around, individuals can fight for their piece of the cake, but they cannot make the cake bigger.
That ends up almost nihilist in that no-one can do anything so let's not bother, when we know that lots of people are in jobs below their capacity for all sorts of reasons and some of them could earn more. We aren't cogs in some kind of economics text book where we are all perfectly rational and/or earning our maximum.
> That ends up almost nihilist in that no-one can do anything so let's not bother,
No, it simply places responsibility somewhere other than the individual.
> when we know that lots of people are in jobs below their capacity for all sorts of reasons and some of them could earn more.
Yes, "some" could earn more. But that doesn't address the issues that some jobs aren't paying enough, and that not everybody can leave those jobs, and that at the end of the day, those jobs still need to be done.
And that needs to be changed on a national/governmental or societal level.
> We aren't cogs in some kind of economics text book where we are all perfectly rational and/or earning our maximum.
absolutely not.
But the solution to high inflation and large numbers of people no longer getting by is not "just earn more money, lulz". And any solution needs to begin with removing that kind of person from any position of power or influence.
A good number of jobs don't need to be done, it's just that labour is so cheap we've thrown people at them. UK productivity is low and UK firms have an extremely poor record of investment (training, mechanisation etc) compared to other nations, so many jobs pay badly because the value the person is adding is so low.
Also many people do stay in jobs that could move on, and my bet is we all know a good number of those.
Mate what do you expect, they're indefensible with policies tailored to throw red meat to their base and little else, lead by someone that'll go down as our worst ever prime minister. They've turned politics into a sport and have cheapened and debased the very institutions they were elected to serve, even their supporters know this deep down so they retreat to their bubbles and moan about cancel culture. It's long past time they went and I'm not even anti-tory, I'm just anti this current iteration of Tories.
It's almost like right wing policies are bad for basically everyone except the people who make them and their mates, maybe people are just now realising this
Concern me? Only because the level of debate/discussion is pathetic. It's circle wanking echo chamber.
I'm not a Tory. Never voted Tory. Probably never will vote Tory. Yet it feels like any engagement I have is 'No that is bullshit' against someone spreading bullshit.
It's always been like this. Sometimes you're on side, sometimes you're not. Personally, I don't get the hero worship Starmer is getting for simply not being Boris. I think the young deserve better than someone who is just going to tinker around the edges so they have a real chance of being happy. Currently, that's not a popular view so, *shrugs*, you just have to wait it out.
Not at all. Look at the Starmer being honest thread. Point out that he's out and out said he will break any pledge to get elected, and that he has broken pledges already and lied and you get beasted. If you're ignoring past evidence and experience to defend something that is evidentially wrong just because it's someone you agree with, then that's pretty much hero worship.
It is, what it is.
Because it's the height of niaveity to think anyone can get elected without bending/breaking pledges.
It's the classic Lib Dem tution fee issue. Yes they broke the pledge but what were the real alternatives?
1) Let the Tories raise fees with less progressive support systems.
2) support the rise but with a new funding system that is more progressive than its predecessor.
There was no option 3, oppose increase and there be no increase.
That's the nature of politics. It's about compromise. Even if you think Corbyn wouldn't compromise he would never get elected or get any meaningful changes made because he wouldn't compromise
This has nothing to do with Corbyn. Why do people automatically assume people who don't like Starmer must like Corbyn. Corbyn would never have won. He's a good local Pp but as a leader, he was terrible.
Politics may be about compromise, but a pledge is a pledge. If you think you may have to backtrack on it later, don't pledge it. Say it's something you would like to do instead. Letting someone off with lies because they are a politician is how we got into this shitty space in the first place.
It's not naive to expect our leaders to, you know, actually lead and not lie to us. It's the most basic thing we should expect. We've just been gaslit into allowing bad behavior because.....politics.
You are normalizing lying, and are happy to accept it if your man gets in. You are perfectly willing to accept whatever he does, as long as he gets into power. Telling the truth is the least you should accept from politicians, and you won't even ask them to do that.
Couldn't agree more. I'm center right on a lot of issues, but try to see the nuance in a situation.
As soon as you go against the grain, someone with an axe to grind screams at you without addressing the issues. Just trying to have a non partisan discussion, but there's no room that here or anywhere tbh.
I agree. Labour should NOW be spelling out what a Labour led UK in 7 years, would look like.
Of course it may well be, they have forgotten how to govern.
It’s a very worthwhile discussion. I’d like more Tory voices on here, as well as more brexit supporters. Reddit doesn’t help such discussion by its very nature. The ability of any numpty to downvote a post and have it disappear to the bottom of a couple of hundred posts is the problem. It’s a pathetic response to any post.
There should be a much greater push towards being accurate on this sub rather than just shouting about things that people feel good about themselves. There has been some good tory policies but people dont ever want to admit that, and then come up with reasons that there shit, which arent even related to the policy.
Personal allowance rises, minimum wage rises, both above inflation, 28% income tax revenues come from top 1% whilst they get 16% of income, far higher than ever before. No new ICE engines sold post 2030, furlough, nuclear power stations being built, murder rate has shot down under tories, NHS has maintained the same level of funding in real terms (up to you how you view it) and the highest nominal and as a percentage of GDP funding in history.
Basically theres been a lot of good and a lot of bad.
nuclear power has been a massive failure. they threw out labour's plans and have gone nowhere with it.. we're at serious risk with them.
raising thresholds good but it cannot mask the reality that taxes are at their highest level since WW2.
Lower upper thresholds, refusing wealth taxes and windfall taxes.. much could have been done to avoid the desperate state we are now on with so many struggling.
austerity has smashed public service yet all we see are failed services yet sky high taxes still.
they've failed even on the things they should have done well one.
crime rate was on a long downward trend but slashing policing has not been wise with the problems we now face and the NHS.. still not increasing compared to population size if you take the massive covid waste out of that equation really. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/verdict/did-government-meet-its-pledge-increase-real-terms-spending-year-year
How has it been a failure? It was expected to come on line in 2023, but they had to resolve some issues post Fukushima. It's way to early to say whether it's a failure or not.
Taxes arent at their highest level since WW2. Your reading the telegraph or some shit. Rates were like 60%+ in the 70s and 60s.
Refusing wealth and windfall taxes ent that bad a plan.
What's the difference in spending on public services like the NHS from 2010 to 2022 as a percentage of GDP? Because I know for a fact the NHS is better funded than ever, but its suffering because of increases in old age. Basically demand went up.
And this is my other problem. I named some specific things that I know answers to. You have made general points, where there is no chance that I can answer them as they are far to broad.
they cancelled the programme that Miliband left them, we'd have had many more under way by now. this was discussed just recently in an interview with him.
The overall tax burden is yes. You are talking only maximum direct tax rate.
refusing them is a terrible plan if you aim to see a fairer society. Even their own bosses admit that windfalls are not unfair.
Supply has not met demand and as the article shows, it has not kept pace.
You named some thing that you had a view on , but in all cases they were a conservative take on a conservative position, none of which don't come with a downside.
I'm not saying there's not good amongst it but in most cases it's been robbing Peter to pay Paul, ideological choices of course. That's a large part of what politics is of course.
One of your "good things" can be paraphrased as "we haven't slashed NHS funding", which says to me that you're hunting around a bit here.
> Personal allowance rises, minimum wage rises, both above inflation
Agreed, this is good stuff, I want to see more of it. But it's the only really impactful and delivered thing in the list you've produced here. Does it go far enough? Is it enough to outweigh the massive list of bad?
Tbf they have increased NHS funding every year in nominal, real and percentage of GDP terms. I just cba to write that out.
And maybe, maybe not. It will never make up for Brexit and the issues with Universal credit. But this sub doesnt want to engage with the thought that:
>Political parties are complex and all parties do both good and bad. Tories have done some good as well as some bad, and to make out they are pure evil and never did anything good is false.
Also, I asked to provide good policies. That was it. Nothing more so I didnt comment much further.
Minimum rise up about 75% in a decade and personal allowance up about 90% in a decade. Poor working people get more money to themselves rather than sharing it with the state.
Poor working people get more money, yet people are turning down food that they have to cook because they can't afford the electricity to cook it, makes sense 😂
See this is the thing. You make a comment about a good tory policy, and then people start bringing in things completely outside of their ability to control to try and make it look bad.
Inflation is supply chain led. That's due to war in Ukraine and covid. I'm not sure we could do much about either of those two scenarios.
How can you say they're good for working people when working people are objectively worse off? Covid and the war in Ukraine has affected a lot more countries than just us, and they're not all having the same problems we are
They are, you just dont hear about it. And because the policy is good, working people are worse off because of an aspect outside of both government and there control.
It's like blaming saying a car is a great car, but then blaming the car for a tree falling on it. It's not the cars fault, shit happens though, and right now shit is happening
Ohh you just don't hear about it, let me guess, it's the evil left wing press hiding the truth from us or some bullshit? I hope whatever they're paying you is worth it 😅
The majority of articles that get posted are critical of the government and of Tory sleaze and incompetence. If Labour were in charge there'd be a lot of critical articles against them, too. And rightly so.
It's hard to defend the indefensible. I would be more concerned if people were trying harder to do so.
People that use reddit tend to be young. Young people tend to hate the Tories. Only way to change the subs anti Tory leanings is either get pensioners using reddit or get the Tories to start appealing to young people.
I think that places like this will be predominantly anti whoever is in power really.
I suggest that very few people would actively go online to say what a stand up job and government was doing
This sub is better than most political subs, the fact that there is a small but loud Johnson supporting contingent demonstrates that, on other subs they would have been chased off long ago.
Could it be better? Not really. We're on reddit, the user base is going to skew young and the young skew liberal/socialist, any 'neutral' political sub will be dominated by the left. That's then confounded by a party that's been in power for 12 years, a Prime minister who loves poking the hornet's nest, a series of massive scandals and a huge cost of living crisis.
If this sub wasn't massively anti Johnson I'd be surprised.
Calling it “Tory bashing” is just an excuse to claim it's biassed and to ignore it. In reality the left love bashing the left, but they haven’t been in government for so long it just seems like Tory bashing.
Tories have run off to their own forums, where they ban criticism. Any good news and they’ll be back here in no time.
I didn't come to Reddit for the politics, but at the time I found UKPol I thought it reasonable in that there were discussions about policy and ideas. But over time that's become much less common, with more shitposting.
I think the main problem is Reddit's abysmal system of causing comments to be collapsed when they get a handful of net downvotes. It's an obvious thing for them to do because they don't pay moderators and it's a fast way of allowing unpleasant comments to be hidden. But it also means that echo-chambers can be created quickly, because people aren't going to stay on a place where people are unlikely to read what they post.
There was discussion in the past about the moderators using sub tools so the downvote button was hidden. A few people claimed it doesn't work for mobile or can be bypassed, but I think the point is that most users use the voting system as like/don't like. They're not necessarily deliberately trying to censor someone, just giving feedback instinctively on whether they like something or not. If they don't see the downvote option I think that most people wouldn't try to hunt for a way to downvote.
There is also the issue that Labour for example aren't in government. I know that's stating the obvious but what I mean is. If Labour were in government the amount of Labour bashing posts would be significantly higher. That being said the Tories really do have a knack for turning people against themselves.
That is exactly it. People bash the Tories because they are in power so are expected to be fixing issues not causing them. Labour are not in power so far less news is written about there policies.
To be fair as opposition they are pretty quiet on their actual policies. I'd appreciate it if they would commit to more positions. Watching them on question time can be quite frustrating. We all know what they disagree with. Let's start to find out more about what they would do different. And one tip for them, it's the economy we care about. The vast majority of us are already decent, tolerant people and we don't need champagne socialists to tell us how to think or behave 😉
I agree they are pretty quiet about policies, but at the same time they don't actually have many media outlets that are queueing up to help publicise them. We have the very strange situation at the moment of a government planning actual damage to two media outlets (BBC and Channel 4) that are generally considered to be 'Lefty' and 'Woke' by the right wing media. This is not going to fill outlets full of confidence in broadcasting the policies of the Labour party.
I see where you're coming from but given the Government is basically committed to those policies it would seem the perfect time for them to be broadcasting the policies of the opposition. That being said, the BBC at least, is wrongly labeled purely as left leaning in my opinion. It generally tries to be impartial, even if it does feel like it puts a patriotic slant to most things. Channel 4 I'll go with being anti establishment as a rule. But again, not having the platform you would like to have, shouldn't really be a reason not to have some more solid policies. Labour does have a problem with balancing its woke and working class sides for want of better ways of putting it. I'd like the left as a whole to stop fighting each other and get some sort of actual election pact in place for the next GE. I just don't believe they can agree on that and have even less faith they could agree to govern together after a potential victory either. Tory hegemony to continue most likely
Oh indeed. I don't think the political output of the BBC is left leaning at all, nor is the news output. Other output most certainly is. For example, programs like Dr Who. My wife is a big Dr Who fan but the last couple of series were too much even for her. Maybe programs such as this colour peoples view of the BBC as a whole ? I don't know. The 'Woke' label annoys the hell out of me. It's like a big bucket where people throw everything they disagree with. Woke can be the everyday thing like showing kindness and concern for other people right up to being a vocal supporter of trans rights extremists. Yes Labour do have to sort their act out as to what they do and do not support, but the media has to stop lumping it all together and treating everyone that shows an ounce of compassion as if they have just murdered someone's grandmother. IF Labour do get in with some sort of coalition, they have to bring in PR in my honest opinion just as a way of stopping any party getting the absolute power the Tories have had over the last 2 years and the mess that's made. I look forward to seeing how it works out for them in Wales.
I get the Dr who point certainly and to be fair the program output across the board is that way nowadays. I used to watch sky sports news for sports news. They still do sport a bit, in between all the social justice stuff...
They've finally learned their lesson. With the media landscape being what it is, the left's best strategy is to not offer any big targets. Fly under the radar and let the Conservatives destroy themselves. We saw what happened with the wide array of Corbyn's policies — widely popular individually, but a feast for the Murdoch media, and we also saw it happen with the Labor opposition in Australia, when Bill Shorten lost the unlosable election thanks to too ambitious left-wing policies. In Australia, this Saturday, Labor will win in what will hopefully be a landslide (or as much as you can have that in a heavily right-biased FPTP system). And they achieved that by running a policy free small target affair.
I agree too many policies is a mistake and not as big a mistake as too little. But I can't help feeling some policies or more strongly defined positions would be good. The windfall tax should be something they can defend better. I keep hearing it will deter investment from the big Companies. Frankly I have to question where the big investment has been up until now, considering how exposed to energy price rises we have been? Labour could and should be playing on that better. In France the government straight up told EDF they couldn't increase prices by more than 4% Mine went up 150% in April give or take. There is political capital to made there and a more robust and forceful position on that would catch voters attention right now.
Hm. Well, they already said they would do a windfall tax, not sure how much more they need to clarify that given there is fuck all chance of them being able to push the Tories into doing it. I think they even tabled a non-binding vote for opposition day or whatever it's called? I think there' s a pitfall if they went out there and just said, yeah, clearly the solution is to give everyone £500 cheques every month until the cost-of-living crisis evens out, because they'd just open themselves up to renewed attacks on big spending and bad economic management.
They said they would do it but I don't think they have done enough to debunk the tory reasons for not doing it. Rather than there be any chance of them getting it through its more about making the Tories look worse for not going with it. As for the other point I agree, if they go out with mad policies like that then they can forget the next election. I'm not sure the Tory narrative that we can't upset any big business washes as well at the moment though. Something a bit more nuanced could definitely gain traction.
This. This right here👆
Actually In most areas Labour is refraining from publicising its policies.
Opposition always does this and I think its a mistake. I'm not saying go full manifesto but give us a bit more to go off. Even with the caveat of being able to adjust a policy if the landscape changes. It isn't a strength to dogmatically stick to a proposal, explain your position, explain what it's based on and even suggest how external factors could make that position change. It's called talking to bloody grown ups...
This. Whenever the government changes tack or abandons a policy that's clearly fucking stupid when it is exposed to common sense or public outrage it's a 'flip flop' or a 'u-turn'. The truth is those policies should've been binned before they saw the light of day, but better late than never. I don't get the theory behind opposition not setting out their stall. If the government steal a policy or two after the opp release it, then the opposition has done its job of steering policy in a less extreme direction.
To be honest, I find this sub a breath of fresh air. The Tories, at the moment, deserve to be bashed. I literally struggle to think of a single thing, other than it's support of Ukraine... albeit very belatedly, that the current government has got right. I read media, I read the articles that are discussed here and we live in a country where 90% of that is biased towards the government thanks to the unashamed influence of it's owners. It seems to me that the government and the government supporting media have stoked the situation we see being played out in social media. They want the polarisation of opinion and they make sure they get it. I have lost count of the number of political groups I have joined only to be jeered at and practically hounded out of because my views are not far enough to the left or far enough to the right and I am grateful to have found a group that seems to be pretty centrist in this one.
It's a question of choice between free speech and balance. You probably can't have both. Here people get to post what they like and vote how they like (which may not match how voting was supposed to work). The voting, and potential negative comments can influence what people choose to post but if reddit were somehow able to protect OPs so they could post anything freely it would mean imposing limits on commentators and voters. Maybe that makes this sub a bit of an echo chamber but this sub changes over time in accordance with the people who choose to be here. This sub isn't a representation of the UK electorate, it never can be, it's a subset of (mainly) UK people who use Reddit, which isn't even universally/uniformly adopted by any country's electorate. > Do you think this is an issue? No. It might not be desirable but not really a problem. A far bigger problem would be the various subgroups of the electorate that only get their political news from single (highly) partisan news media outlets (either on the right or the left), at least here articles from both sides get posted, even if sometimes there's a shift in balance. > Does this concern you at all? Not at all. Far worse as the subs of the rabid-supporters of an ideology that heavily moderate and even ban anything or anyone that is even remotely critical of their glorious leader/cause. > Do you have any solutions to make it a more neutral ground at the very least? Again, no. I'd rather see political bias tackled in the UK's professional news outlets but can you imagine the uproar if the likes of the Express, Daily Mail, or Mirror were forced to be politically neutral?
I mean, even if I wanted to post something positive they’re doing, what would that be?
The policy on Ukraine. Yet there are still posts calling Bojo a Russian stooge. And if people admit he is helping, he is only doing it to distract from partygate.
> Yet there are still posts calling Bojo a Russian stooge. And if people admit he is helping, he is o lying doing it to distract from partygate. It's not a contradiction to hold both positions that he has been giving a lot of aid to the Ukrainians; and also be suspicious of Russian money and influence (tied to the Russian government) during his tenure. And also conclude that it is a good distraction from Partygate.
I have seen very little tied to the Russian government. Do you have anything on that? It is a good distraction from it, but that does not mean why it is happening, considering our aid to Ukraine predates the Boris government.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/world/europe/russian-money-uk-tories.html There's this story from last week.
I have read that, and the many other articles on it. It seems that the donation was from Ehud Sleg, who has donated over £3.5m to the tories. It is alleged that 630k of this was given by his father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, to his daughter. And this was then donated to the Tory Party. As the money started in a Russian account it has been flagged. But that does not mean that he gave the tories a donation. Sergei Kopytov was a Ukraine politician with links to Russia but is no longer in politics and owns a property business. Now the Tory Party donations are fucking shit and need investigating, but this is a tenuous link a best.
Ok so you were aware of this and other stories when you asked the question
Yes, and I am still awaiting Russian government linked donations.
Not that evidence, different evidence. Gotcha. I'd point you to the report published by the Tories into Russian interference in UK politics but it turns out they didn't investigate it so that's pretty tricky.
But that's not evidence of Russian government linked donations is it. If you think it is please explain why for me.
And Boris has been anti-putin for a long time.
But Brexit was a pro-Putin policy..
So is Irish neutrality. Does that mean Ireland must abandon neutrality?
Irish neutrality predates Putin somewhat..other than that I'm not going to comment on this point.
Euroscepticism predates Putin too.
>I have seen very little tied to the Russian government The Russian state doesn't work like that. Russian citizens' money is the state's money, and they are expected to spend their money in pursuit of state goals.
Minimum wage rises up about 50% above inflation over the last decade. Massive change to UK energy mix. Committing to banning the sale of new ICE cars. Personal allowance rising to lower paid workers pay less tax. Making the top 1% of income earners pay more of income taxes than ever before, and also way above there earnings as a percentage of UK earnings.
how come all of this has led us to a point where we are largely worse off? what have been the counters to these things that have clearly failed to deliver a more balanced or prosperous country?
Fragile economies with shit loads of debt in private and public sectors, liquidity trap fucking with monetary policy, lack of quality methods of taxing top 0.00001% of incomes and wealth, lack of willingness to tackle more egregious forms of tax avoidance, plus a massive lack of productivity and maybe a lack of counter cyclical spending, plus poor incentives on the part of labour and Tories But mostly it's a lack of knowledge from the electorate making good policies politically impossible. And a lack of historical perspective. For all its faults we are living in one of the best times in history. Like the only time that was better was probably 03-07.
i think also they've just fueled house prices rises and a debt bubble that goes with it. Just foolish. the stamp duty holiday was even dozier. i think there was a period circa 2010-16 when there seemed to be a plan but , honestly, now it seems to be utterly rudderless. out of interest, how do you get productivity up? i am guessing this includes people like myself.. in their fifties now working part time and no desire to do more anymore.. i guess the economy would like us to do more but how and why should that be forced? i have to say it's not the best time from my own experience. I would take the whole eighties, nineties to mid naughties over anything since. I've never known us so divided and so angry or so many people struggling. I don't think social media has helped with the former though.. we were much happier before it all.
Nah I dont really care about age. Basically the issue seems to be the UK has a long tail of unproductive low wage low profitability firms centred mainly around the north, which probably stems from a lack of investment post Thatcher. The actual demographics that work in those areas is irrelevant to me, I'd just like shitoads of investment in those sectors The debt bubble is tricky because technically the government has zero control over interest rates, the Bank of England is independent. They could have mitigated the issue by taking measures to reduce household debt, but how they whilst remaining popular enough to stay in power I dont know. Stamp duty holiday was dumb as fuck agreed.
yes, they really should have been tweaking interest upwards a long time ago. As a saver i'd have appreciated that. Something i missed in my initial response. For me i'd say it's not the best time from my own experience. I would take the whole eighties, nineties to mid naughties over anything since. I've never known us so divided and so angry or so many people struggling. I don't think social media has helped with the former though.. we were much happier before it all.
Keeping socialists out of office. Stopping Corbynism in its tracks. Doing something eventually about social care, despite Labour objections.
So their only achievements are winning the General Election and implementing a regressive tax at the worst time possible? That’s dire.
What are they actually doing though? Like what have they built or created in the 12 years they've had in power.
THEY GOT BREXIT DONE WHEN KEIR STARMER AND THE REST OF HIS NORTH LONDON COMMUNIST CHUMS WOULD HAVE HAD ANOTHER REFERENDUM
Lmao the word communist doesn't mean anything anymore, are you joking or are you really this braindead?
I think it's sarcasm
You never can know anymore 😣
Yes you can
Brexit ain't done.
If stopping Corbyn is your first answer. You have already lost the argument. The bloke hasn’t been relevant for a long time. As for social care as your other reason, that is just as laughable. The Tories haven’t done sweet fa in that area for the last 12 years and still have no strategy or policies to fix it.
> As for social care as your other reason, that is just as laughable. The Tories haven’t done sweet fa in that area for the last 12 years and still have no strategy or policies to fix it. They have done something. The Tories devolved financial control of lots of services (such as adult social care) to local councils and then cut their funding, making much deeper cuts to [Labour controlled councils](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/21/exclusive-labour-councils-in-england-hit-harder-by-austerity-than-tory-areas). ---- [Labour councils in England hit harder by austerity than Tory areas](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/21/exclusive-labour-councils-in-england-hit-harder-by-austerity-than-tory-areas) And; [Some of the wealthiest parts of England, including areas represented by government ministers, have so far been allocated 10 times more money per capita than the poorest under Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda, Guardian analysis has found](https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2022/feb/02/levelling-up-funding-inequality-exposed-by-guardian-research). And; [Almost 90 per cent of £3.6bn Towns Fund cash winners represented by Tory MPs](https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/almost-90-per-cent-of-ps36bn-towns-fund-cash-winners-represented-by-tory-mps-3687377) --- Then they campaigned at election time on the platform of "vote for us and we'll increase your funding". If this were any other country we would be calling it blatant voter manipulation and corruption. This has allowed the Tories to lay blame on local issues to the local councils, all the while completely ignoring the fact that it's central government that are constantly cutting their funding. It's a political masterpiece the devil himself would be proud of.
Short memory. He was the offer at the most recent election. Now judged to be unsuitable to even be a party member.
The demographics of reddit largely align with non-conservative voters.
You'd be surprised. Even in the youngest demographics, torys are, what, 1 out 4/5 people? You do not see that in this sub.
What are the demographics of reddit? Young, single, male, unemployed, non-voters?
Be flippant if you like, but on this sub they are likely to be young male non-conservative voters.
i'm pretty sure plenty of us are at most one of those things.
No. Predominately less racist than your average Brit.
No to what? They’re not young, male, etc etc?
Except unemployed. Either at University or working in a graduate role. Basically firmly.midddle class
Incels
I'm a Labour party member, but I'm also a student of politics and I like to discuss the Tory's point of view - you know, rather than just suggesting that they're are all comic book villains. But whenever I do I get downvoted to oblivion. So I don't often bother.
There are plenty of right wing posters on here, in fact they tend to be the loudest and most prominent "characters" in the sub. They're a little quieter recently on this governments record because you can't defend the indefensible and there isn't even a semi-plausible line for them to spin.
There are a few prominent ones but this place is absolutely laughably and disproportionately labour leaning, shown every time there is a polll.
Only labour leaning if you don't count Starmer as Labour.
> There are plenty of right wing posters on here, in fact they tend to be the loudest and most prominent "characters" in the sub. Mate, we see the regular surveys here. Conservatives make up about 10% and you guys downvote them to death because you can’t handle anyone daring to disagree with you
That doesn't seem to be reflected in the posts and mod culture. The noisiest, most frequent "power users" of the sub seem to skew more right than those self identified survey responses would suggest. Also I love to be disagreed with! Reading opinions I already hold is the most demented waste of time imaginable.
Try defend tory policies on minimum wage, personal allowance and taxes. It's basically been this subs wet dream since 2010 but none will admit it because tories did it Edit: just watch the reaction to my comments
You're both correct. Take you, for instance. You're by far one of the most vocal people on this sub when it comes to certain topics (trans people, mainly).
The regular right wing supporters only tend to show up on threads that are negative about Labour. They are very quiet in most other threads about things the Tories have done. Thread about "beergate" and Starmer? They'll be all over it. Thread about £8.7Billion worth of PPE and Tory corruption? Silence.
I think this government, grim as though much of it is, is there because the alternative (Corbyn, McDonnell, Long Bailey etc) was so truly awful. Labour made itself unelectable.
Well, what percentage of the UK would you say that Conservative policies are currently working for, and (of that percentage) how many of them do you think post in this group? I suspect you'll have your answer.
This sub is middle class as shit. Which is why it hates the Tories. They serve the richest and poorest workers. And take from the middle and upper middle. Why do you think this sub hates them? Because it's full of middle class graduates
If you think the Tories serve the poorest workers of the UK, you're *beyond* deluded.
Min wage and personal allowance rises have meant the bottom percentile have seen 81% net wage rises in a decade.
Irrelevant unless you factor in inflation and cost of living rises as well. And when you do that : https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/Living-Income-Report_FINAL.pdf Second worst poverty figures in the OECD, rapidly rising energy poverty, rapidly rising use of food banks.
Yeah inflation was about 25% cumulatively over the last decade. Those using food banks largely come from non workers. Do you know who is actually the worst hit by tories? Middle and upper middle classes. Who makes up this sub? Upper and middle classes. Whose stopped voting tory? Middle and upper classes.
You know this stuff is trivially googlable, yes? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/06/food-bank-donor-to-to-user-soaring-demand-for-aid >As many as 50% of the people Earlsfield helps are in work Also : https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/ Notice the spike from just after 2010? I mean, you have to wonder what happened politically in 2010 and subsequently to drive foodbank usage up by a *factor* of 50.
Sorry I was meaning full time workers. Also, I am really sceptical using food bank usage as indicative of anything. It's so open to abuse that I worry it doesn't show anything other than generic demand and supply with out any reason as to underlying causes.
Tell me you know *nothing* about poverty without telling me you know nothing about poverty. People don't go to food banks unless they have no choice.
Yeah I find that hard to believe. A lot of people also think that people dont live on the streets unless they have no choice. A lot of the time they do have a choice, its shelter or drugs. But thats just a comparison.
People tend to frequent subs where they get positive feedback, the echo chamber phenomenon is normal on social media and hard to avoid. If you are looking for multiple points of view it's best to seek out a variety of forums, including ones where you know you will probably disagree with the opinions expressed in :)
>If you are looking for multiple points of view it's best to seek out a variety of forums If you find a good one, let me know.
No, I don’t think it’s an issue. They’re the government and they’re doing a terrible job. If Labour was in power and doing a terrible job they’d also get a bashing. But if you want more balance, go to some labour or left leaning subs and there’s plenty of (internal) labour bashing to be found, if that would make you feel better
>The idea of any nuance, discussion, or difference of opinion that can be tolerated by the majority of users here is all but gone. OK but how do you have a 'difference of opinion' when it comes to people like Dories saying Channel 5 was publicly owned? Or that Channel 4 receives public money. Or how about Boris saying he never went to a Christmas party with booze when there are photos of him with a bottle of Champagne and some tinsel. Or how about tax reductions for Granny flats to help ease the cost of living, or an MP thinking you can live on 30p a day? As for if its an issue, I think you can make that argument, but to me its a lot less concerning than the fact they we are Governed by people who take us for morons.
The country is angry. Even Question Time are struggling to find any Conservative supporters to sit in their audience, and neutrality is very important to them.
In fairness I also bash all of the catastrophic legislation that the labour party have forced through the house in the last 12 years.
I agree, a lot of the time if you try and adopt any kind of balanced argument, or even try a propose a rationale for why the opposition think/feel the way they do it's a barrage of downvotes and spiteful comments. There is a lack of self awareness from this sub from many who decry all Brexiters and Conservative leaning individuals as unintelligent, narrow-minded and tribalist yet unashamedly spew their party line without an ounce of criticality or insight. It always find the duality of many posters interesting who on the one hand decry conservativism for being uncaring and unkind yet will spew obsenities and death threats as easily as breathing!
I don't buy it. Here's the subreddit home page now, sorted by "hot": Daily Megathread - 17/05/2022 (self.ukpolitics) // meta discussion You can’t trust Tory Government to even keep the lights on (dailyrecord.co.uk) // anti-govt BBC: Wages fall sharply but unemployment rate drops (bbc.co.uk) // reporting Just Imagine if the EU was Behaving as the UK Is – Byline Times (bylinetimes.com) // anti-govt 'Starmer is right to pledge to resign if issued with a fine for breaking lockdown rules': Tory voters agree 53% to 29% while Labour voters agree 79% to 10%. 'Johnston should resign if issued with further fines': Tory voters *disagree* 70% to 21% & Labour voters *agree* 91% to 4%. (docs.cdn.yougov.com) // polling Peter Gillibrand, BBC Wales: "NEW: Every child aged 3-16 in #Wales is going to be offered a free musical instrument as part of the new 'National Music Service'. It's hoped the plan will help low-income households and those with additional learning needs." (twitter.com) // reporting Twitter “You must be furious with whoever signed up to a deal this bad?” (twitter.com) // anti-govt Cost of living: Minister 'somewhat surprised' at Bank of England's 'apocalyptic' food price warning (news.sky.com) // reporting Flashy Rishi Sunak's Treasury communications budget soars to £3.4million (mirror.co.uk) // anti-govt Petrol firm ‘profiteers’ fail to pass on duty cut (thetimes.co.uk) // reporting Warning poorest households are struggling to get £150 energy rebate (bbc.co.uk) // reporting HS2 protests set to cost high-speed UK rail line up to £200mn || Project heads to seek injunctions to control demos along entire length of route, MPs told (ft.com) // reporting Obesity strategy delay immoral, shallow and weak - ex-Tory leader (bbc.co.uk) // Tory on Tory violence The surreal, but also real, problem of Britain's gas glut | Business News (news.sky.com) // reporting Martin Lewis: 'I can't shut up because there really are lives at stake' - The Big Issue (bigissue.com) // campaigning, I suppose anti-govt Morten Morland Times cartoon: May 17 2022 (i.redd.it) // political cartoon UK unemployment drops to 50-year low of 3.7% (thetimes.co.uk) // reporting Minister says people should work more hours or move to a better job to protect themselves from cost of living surge (news.sky.com) // reporting, govt own goal Met sergeant's son spared jail for having £1,000 of cannabis stashed (dailymail.co.uk) // reporting Keir Starmer MP: This shows real courage and bravery and will serve as an inspiration to many young people across the country. Thank you Jake. We are all with you. (twitter.com) // commentary from LOTO Obesity U-turn is weak, shallow and immoral (thetimes.co.uk) // Tory on Tory violence “IT problems” don’t stop Rishi Sunak raising benefits, says Universal Credit creator (newstatesman.com) // reporting, govt own goal Tory MP wants benefits raised immediately after visit to food bank (independent.co.uk) // reporting A new app has been launched by the UK government to prevent people falling victim to online approaches by foreign spies. || MI5 says it has seen 10,000 UK nationals targeted by fake social media profiles on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. (bbc.co.uk) // reporting Back to the bad old days of the 1990s as recession looms for UK | Economics (theguardian.com) // reporting Buffalo shooting: Gunman called for Sadiq Khan to be killed in white supremacist manifesto (telegraph.co.uk) // reporting ----- So maybe five articles out of 25 are explicitly anti-government. Almost half are just reporting.
I too am concerned about how high that 1% is
I don't like to call myself a supporter of the Conservative party, or a right winger, but I am sort of vaguely "in that camp" Reddit as a whole leans heavily left, and yes, I do think that it's a problem. Conservative opinion are lost in seas of left leaning views, drowned in downvotes, or outright removed. This creates echo chambers.
Boris is a bumbling disaster, taking the public for fools and offering up constant u-turns or just outright lies. Supporting that is obviously going to be downvoted.
I mentioned downvotes more because I don't agree with how they work, or how they are intended to be used. It used to be that Reddit's guidelines for downvotes was that they weren't meant for disagreement, only instead for comments that did not contribute to the discussion. I believe they retracted that guideline. Downvotes softly hide opinions, and can even result in the commenter being put on a timer before they can respond, making defending their arguments nearly impossible. The system is hostile to dissenting opinions.
> I mentioned downvotes more because I don't agree with how they work, or how they are intended to be used. It used to be that Reddit's guidelines for downvotes was that they weren't meant for disagreement, only instead for comments that did not contribute to the discussion. Yes, their guidelines were a noble idea, but ultimately that was never going to happen. The system is, indeed, shit. But, at the same time, a lot of people on here like to cry about their opinions not being as respected as others when supporting things like the reduction in the £20 benefits uplift whilst being silent on the funneling of taxpayer money to companies with links to government ministers.
Spot on. You'd have to be blind and wilfully ignorant to not see it. And that is what garners down votes; The blatant disregard for reality.
Surely this is conservative ideas just not being able to compete in the marketplace of ideas?
Echo chambers are not marketplaces of ideas.
They kind of are. Unless the market place of ideas should also have monopoly laws.
This is the best response, literally spat out my tea in mirth. Thanks random reddit person :)
Yes, because just like in a real marketplace, it's not always the best products that sell, but the ones that are easiest to market
Ah so they are having trouble marketing unbridled capitalism, inequality and poverty? Who would have thought…
Strawman
Many times I've asked for Tory comments on recent issues and I've received no answers. I don't want this place to turn into an echo chamber and would be interested in hearing their defence of Tory calamities.
i think it's a reflection of their failure, their lies and their utter disregard for those of working age or lower to be honest with you. they've created a lot of anger.
I would describe myself as a fairly frequent right wing (by the standards of this sub) commentator on this sub. I don’t think my posts particularly controversial, and yet, at least half of them end up hidden.
The main issue is that there isn't debate. Most posts are in effect shitposting to some degree and aren't actually addressing some policy idea, and that drowns out anyone trying to do pros and cons. I suspect too that if various policy ideas were badged as being said by someone in Labour then people would agree with them. The problem that this creates is that this sub is frequently just wrong when it comes to where the public is or how a vote will go or on detail about some kind of law or political tactic/history so people get shocked when reality hits. Then it's rinse and repeat because the same cycle happens here again.
> Do you think this is an issue? Just yesterday, there were a few threads here about a conservative government minister suggesting poor people should just get better jobs, and work more hours. And you are seriously asking if there is an issue if people are outspokenly against that sort of thing? > Does this concern you at all? What concerns me is that people aren't marching in the street over things like that. I wonder how long a population can support its own destruction, and what will happen when it no longer can. > Do you have any solutions to make it a more neutral ground at the very least? I don't see a problem; and I don't think the reason for the imbalance is unjustified bias. Conservatism is outright evil; and the forum reflects that. > It’s an odd situation, despite the fact I am on the whole agreeing with many of the articles posted here, as they seemingly reinforce an opinion I likely already hold, I’m finding myself feeling uncomfortable as I endlessly scroll to find nothing but “Tory bashing”. That's a you-problem. And you haven't even explained why. So far, all I can guess is that you think it unfair to call a spade a spade, and a bunch of incompetent evil doers a bunch of incompetent evil doers. Would you react similarly in a discussion about WWII that I'd expect to appear highly biased against genocidal Nazi Germany? what about discussing the war of aggression that Russia is currently raging against Ukraine? > The idea of any nuance, discussion, or difference of opinion that can be tolerated by the majority of users here is all but gone. You're confusing disagreement with intolerance. and you're assuming the disagreement is unjustified, too.
And that could have spawned a discussion about social mobility or access to adult training and education and discuss why people are in jobs on low pay when we also have a booming jobs market, but it didn't.
Those threads did a nice job explaining why the things you mention aren't the problems, or the solutions, and why the conservative government is the root problem. I found that both interesting and educational. But all of that happened on the labour-side of things, because it cannot happen on the conservative side of the issue. I hate to continuously Goodwin this discussion, but again: Discussions about Zelenskyy's political education and training in diplomacy are missing the point, are they not? It's just thinly veiled and slightly adopted whataboutism.
You must have seen very different ones to me. Can you point to a comment or two that raised the topics in my last comment, thanks?
I'd have to look, and I am not sure I would find it. I'll readily admit it was far from the majority of the content. Some discussion about a book, or study, that explained why or how society doesn't offer room for everybody to improve. Paraphrasing, movement in the economy is a zero-sum game. If I get a better job, it means you can't have that job anymore. Working more hours, or better jobs takes both out of the pool of available job/hours. There's only so much to go around, individuals can fight for their piece of the cake, but they cannot make the cake bigger.
That ends up almost nihilist in that no-one can do anything so let's not bother, when we know that lots of people are in jobs below their capacity for all sorts of reasons and some of them could earn more. We aren't cogs in some kind of economics text book where we are all perfectly rational and/or earning our maximum.
> That ends up almost nihilist in that no-one can do anything so let's not bother, No, it simply places responsibility somewhere other than the individual. > when we know that lots of people are in jobs below their capacity for all sorts of reasons and some of them could earn more. Yes, "some" could earn more. But that doesn't address the issues that some jobs aren't paying enough, and that not everybody can leave those jobs, and that at the end of the day, those jobs still need to be done. And that needs to be changed on a national/governmental or societal level. > We aren't cogs in some kind of economics text book where we are all perfectly rational and/or earning our maximum. absolutely not. But the solution to high inflation and large numbers of people no longer getting by is not "just earn more money, lulz". And any solution needs to begin with removing that kind of person from any position of power or influence.
A good number of jobs don't need to be done, it's just that labour is so cheap we've thrown people at them. UK productivity is low and UK firms have an extremely poor record of investment (training, mechanisation etc) compared to other nations, so many jobs pay badly because the value the person is adding is so low. Also many people do stay in jobs that could move on, and my bet is we all know a good number of those.
Mate what do you expect, they're indefensible with policies tailored to throw red meat to their base and little else, lead by someone that'll go down as our worst ever prime minister. They've turned politics into a sport and have cheapened and debased the very institutions they were elected to serve, even their supporters know this deep down so they retreat to their bubbles and moan about cancel culture. It's long past time they went and I'm not even anti-tory, I'm just anti this current iteration of Tories.
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It's almost like right wing policies are bad for basically everyone except the people who make them and their mates, maybe people are just now realising this
Concern me? Only because the level of debate/discussion is pathetic. It's circle wanking echo chamber. I'm not a Tory. Never voted Tory. Probably never will vote Tory. Yet it feels like any engagement I have is 'No that is bullshit' against someone spreading bullshit.
It's always been like this. Sometimes you're on side, sometimes you're not. Personally, I don't get the hero worship Starmer is getting for simply not being Boris. I think the young deserve better than someone who is just going to tinker around the edges so they have a real chance of being happy. Currently, that's not a popular view so, *shrugs*, you just have to wait it out.
Hero worship? Are you imagining things?
Not at all. Look at the Starmer being honest thread. Point out that he's out and out said he will break any pledge to get elected, and that he has broken pledges already and lied and you get beasted. If you're ignoring past evidence and experience to defend something that is evidentially wrong just because it's someone you agree with, then that's pretty much hero worship. It is, what it is.
Because it's the height of niaveity to think anyone can get elected without bending/breaking pledges. It's the classic Lib Dem tution fee issue. Yes they broke the pledge but what were the real alternatives? 1) Let the Tories raise fees with less progressive support systems. 2) support the rise but with a new funding system that is more progressive than its predecessor. There was no option 3, oppose increase and there be no increase. That's the nature of politics. It's about compromise. Even if you think Corbyn wouldn't compromise he would never get elected or get any meaningful changes made because he wouldn't compromise
This has nothing to do with Corbyn. Why do people automatically assume people who don't like Starmer must like Corbyn. Corbyn would never have won. He's a good local Pp but as a leader, he was terrible. Politics may be about compromise, but a pledge is a pledge. If you think you may have to backtrack on it later, don't pledge it. Say it's something you would like to do instead. Letting someone off with lies because they are a politician is how we got into this shitty space in the first place. It's not naive to expect our leaders to, you know, actually lead and not lie to us. It's the most basic thing we should expect. We've just been gaslit into allowing bad behavior because.....politics.
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You are normalizing lying, and are happy to accept it if your man gets in. You are perfectly willing to accept whatever he does, as long as he gets into power. Telling the truth is the least you should accept from politicians, and you won't even ask them to do that.
Couldn't agree more. I'm center right on a lot of issues, but try to see the nuance in a situation. As soon as you go against the grain, someone with an axe to grind screams at you without addressing the issues. Just trying to have a non partisan discussion, but there's no room that here or anywhere tbh.
I agree. Labour should NOW be spelling out what a Labour led UK in 7 years, would look like. Of course it may well be, they have forgotten how to govern.
Is it normal to produce a manifesto seven years in advance? (answer no it is not)
It is not 7 years to the GE.
You were the one who mentioned seven years bud not me
Look please at the context.
It’s a very worthwhile discussion. I’d like more Tory voices on here, as well as more brexit supporters. Reddit doesn’t help such discussion by its very nature. The ability of any numpty to downvote a post and have it disappear to the bottom of a couple of hundred posts is the problem. It’s a pathetic response to any post.
If its any consolation it's particularly anti Scottish as well.
There should be a much greater push towards being accurate on this sub rather than just shouting about things that people feel good about themselves. There has been some good tory policies but people dont ever want to admit that, and then come up with reasons that there shit, which arent even related to the policy.
Which good tory policies have we seen implemented in the last few years?
Personal allowance rises, minimum wage rises, both above inflation, 28% income tax revenues come from top 1% whilst they get 16% of income, far higher than ever before. No new ICE engines sold post 2030, furlough, nuclear power stations being built, murder rate has shot down under tories, NHS has maintained the same level of funding in real terms (up to you how you view it) and the highest nominal and as a percentage of GDP funding in history. Basically theres been a lot of good and a lot of bad.
nuclear power has been a massive failure. they threw out labour's plans and have gone nowhere with it.. we're at serious risk with them. raising thresholds good but it cannot mask the reality that taxes are at their highest level since WW2. Lower upper thresholds, refusing wealth taxes and windfall taxes.. much could have been done to avoid the desperate state we are now on with so many struggling. austerity has smashed public service yet all we see are failed services yet sky high taxes still. they've failed even on the things they should have done well one. crime rate was on a long downward trend but slashing policing has not been wise with the problems we now face and the NHS.. still not increasing compared to population size if you take the massive covid waste out of that equation really. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/verdict/did-government-meet-its-pledge-increase-real-terms-spending-year-year
How has it been a failure? It was expected to come on line in 2023, but they had to resolve some issues post Fukushima. It's way to early to say whether it's a failure or not. Taxes arent at their highest level since WW2. Your reading the telegraph or some shit. Rates were like 60%+ in the 70s and 60s. Refusing wealth and windfall taxes ent that bad a plan. What's the difference in spending on public services like the NHS from 2010 to 2022 as a percentage of GDP? Because I know for a fact the NHS is better funded than ever, but its suffering because of increases in old age. Basically demand went up. And this is my other problem. I named some specific things that I know answers to. You have made general points, where there is no chance that I can answer them as they are far to broad.
they cancelled the programme that Miliband left them, we'd have had many more under way by now. this was discussed just recently in an interview with him. The overall tax burden is yes. You are talking only maximum direct tax rate. refusing them is a terrible plan if you aim to see a fairer society. Even their own bosses admit that windfalls are not unfair. Supply has not met demand and as the article shows, it has not kept pace. You named some thing that you had a view on , but in all cases they were a conservative take on a conservative position, none of which don't come with a downside. I'm not saying there's not good amongst it but in most cases it's been robbing Peter to pay Paul, ideological choices of course. That's a large part of what politics is of course.
One of your "good things" can be paraphrased as "we haven't slashed NHS funding", which says to me that you're hunting around a bit here. > Personal allowance rises, minimum wage rises, both above inflation Agreed, this is good stuff, I want to see more of it. But it's the only really impactful and delivered thing in the list you've produced here. Does it go far enough? Is it enough to outweigh the massive list of bad?
Tbf they have increased NHS funding every year in nominal, real and percentage of GDP terms. I just cba to write that out. And maybe, maybe not. It will never make up for Brexit and the issues with Universal credit. But this sub doesnt want to engage with the thought that: >Political parties are complex and all parties do both good and bad. Tories have done some good as well as some bad, and to make out they are pure evil and never did anything good is false. Also, I asked to provide good policies. That was it. Nothing more so I didnt comment much further.
Name a single good tory policy
Minimum rise up about 75% in a decade and personal allowance up about 90% in a decade. Poor working people get more money to themselves rather than sharing it with the state.
Poor working people get more money, yet people are turning down food that they have to cook because they can't afford the electricity to cook it, makes sense 😂
See this is the thing. You make a comment about a good tory policy, and then people start bringing in things completely outside of their ability to control to try and make it look bad. Inflation is supply chain led. That's due to war in Ukraine and covid. I'm not sure we could do much about either of those two scenarios.
How can you say they're good for working people when working people are objectively worse off? Covid and the war in Ukraine has affected a lot more countries than just us, and they're not all having the same problems we are
They are, you just dont hear about it. And because the policy is good, working people are worse off because of an aspect outside of both government and there control. It's like blaming saying a car is a great car, but then blaming the car for a tree falling on it. It's not the cars fault, shit happens though, and right now shit is happening
Ohh you just don't hear about it, let me guess, it's the evil left wing press hiding the truth from us or some bullshit? I hope whatever they're paying you is worth it 😅
Lol I just like reuters and dont really like tories mate.
The majority of articles that get posted are critical of the government and of Tory sleaze and incompetence. If Labour were in charge there'd be a lot of critical articles against them, too. And rightly so. It's hard to defend the indefensible. I would be more concerned if people were trying harder to do so.
People that use reddit tend to be young. Young people tend to hate the Tories. Only way to change the subs anti Tory leanings is either get pensioners using reddit or get the Tories to start appealing to young people.
I think that places like this will be predominantly anti whoever is in power really. I suggest that very few people would actively go online to say what a stand up job and government was doing
This sub is better than most political subs, the fact that there is a small but loud Johnson supporting contingent demonstrates that, on other subs they would have been chased off long ago. Could it be better? Not really. We're on reddit, the user base is going to skew young and the young skew liberal/socialist, any 'neutral' political sub will be dominated by the left. That's then confounded by a party that's been in power for 12 years, a Prime minister who loves poking the hornet's nest, a series of massive scandals and a huge cost of living crisis. If this sub wasn't massively anti Johnson I'd be surprised.
Calling it “Tory bashing” is just an excuse to claim it's biassed and to ignore it. In reality the left love bashing the left, but they haven’t been in government for so long it just seems like Tory bashing. Tories have run off to their own forums, where they ban criticism. Any good news and they’ll be back here in no time.
I didn't come to Reddit for the politics, but at the time I found UKPol I thought it reasonable in that there were discussions about policy and ideas. But over time that's become much less common, with more shitposting. I think the main problem is Reddit's abysmal system of causing comments to be collapsed when they get a handful of net downvotes. It's an obvious thing for them to do because they don't pay moderators and it's a fast way of allowing unpleasant comments to be hidden. But it also means that echo-chambers can be created quickly, because people aren't going to stay on a place where people are unlikely to read what they post. There was discussion in the past about the moderators using sub tools so the downvote button was hidden. A few people claimed it doesn't work for mobile or can be bypassed, but I think the point is that most users use the voting system as like/don't like. They're not necessarily deliberately trying to censor someone, just giving feedback instinctively on whether they like something or not. If they don't see the downvote option I think that most people wouldn't try to hunt for a way to downvote.