I was recently in my favourite Bath pub, The Raven, which is the pub Keir Starmer was thrown out of (not why it's my favourite, loved it for years before that, but that didn't harm my affection for it!), and on one of the bars there was a 'Refugees Welcome' collection tin. Surprising! Given that the pub's Starmer-chucking owner is a fan of Restore and Rupert Lowe (as he told the Telegraph). I'll try and post my photo of it at some point.
I know it well.Dadly I have to disagree with you about Reform.I wouldn't touch that money grubbing Nigel Garbage with a barge pole.As fat as I'm concerned he's a security services stooge who is like pressure cooker,he lets the British sheep let off steam and like steam it simply evaporates.I don't trust him or his Muslim lite party.He took great delight in destroying the BNP.Msy I suggest you read Michael Crick's excellent biography of him,the subline being."The party life of Nigel Farage",and so many parties .
Cards on table. I am a pensioner and my only income is the state pension.
While it is true that the triple lock will become unsustainable, I think we should look beyond why that situation has arisen.
The state pension was founded on the principle that you paid in to it. At retirement if you didn’t have enough stamps (contributions for the younger readers) you didn’t qualify and you didn’t get it, or you got a pro-rata lower amount.
(It is worth noting that the government never ring fenced NI contributions and created a sovereign wealth fund, but relied on current workers NI contributions to pay for current pensioners)
So what happened next?
Tony -forever to be cursed- Blair arrived.
He invited in millions of people. People who often arrived potless and in mid life.
Quote “ we will rub the noses of the right in diversity “
“We went out looking for them”
So these new people who had never paid a penny into our social welfare system became entitled to our benefits, and when they got old enough, to á state pension.
Whoops! They didn’t qualify for a state pension because they didn’t have enough contributions. So what do we do now?
We change the rules. The state pension becomes a benefit that everyone gets.
Oddly, the ONLY benefit that is taxable.
So we now have the situation where millions, and yes really millions, of people are now drawing a state pension which they really are not entitled to, and overloading the system. Á system that was flawed from the start because it relied on today’s workers, as no investment of contributions was ever made.
Then along came Gordon Brown. The UK had the best private pension system in the world. It took contributions from its clients and invested them, the money worked for everyone, pensions companies invested in British Industries, made a profit and the returns paid the pensions of the members.
Mr Brown didn’t like that, so he taxed the gains the pension companies made from their investments, to the tune of £6 Bn per year.
He almost killed the industry.
So ask yourself this when discussing the triple lock.
The UK Pension is less than the government considers necessary for a decent life as defined by the minimum wage.
The Labour government of Blair made millions of people entitled to a pension who had never contributed.
The Labour government of Brown ripped the heart out of the private pension system- this includes final salary schemes which are now unheard of but used to be common.
Civil servants, public sector employees etc still get gold plated pensions.
So poor old Joe Bloggs who did the right thing, left school at 15 and paid their contributions for 50 years, is left with the heat or eat challenge.
Spot on. Rupert's role should not be winning seats (that's a mugs game) but winning hearts and minds for his policies. He should be running a national pressure group, moving opinions and driving Reform policy by getting thousands of people shouting at Reform to have the balls to carry out bold actions.
Exactly.How can a party be trusted that lets in a corrupt individual like Zahawi and is a private company.I believe people will vote Reform.I won't and if there is no alternative to vote for ,I simply shan't vote .As the Dowager Lady Birdwood said,Democracy is simply a choice between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.
Putting Restore Britain aside, as most people will, have you thought about how incompetent Reform UK are at translating votes into seats? In the last election it took nearly a million votes to elect one Reform MP but only 24,000 to elect a Labour MP.
All the parties have to deal with the electoral. system, but Reform looked clueless. If they can’t solve this problem, then a left-wing government next time is likely.
To be fair, what could they have done about it? Maybe - just maybe - if they grow and if they get into government they can do something. Although there's no such thing as a perfect voting system. I'm not sure PR is the answer.
Well they came second in nearly 100 seats. So they could have allocated resources from, say 50 seats, and applied them to one seat. Better first in one seat than second in 50. All parties do this, notably Labour.
The difference between Labour’s votes per seat and Reform’s is so large, that you have ask whether Reform are able to seriously organise to win a election. It’s not the voting system, it’s that they performed so badly as an organisation compared to other parties.
Farage will do anything to get voted in including the Triple Lock. Outside of immigration he has little appeal to ordinary men and his gang of clowns may well be a huge liability. That said now is his opportunity with the opposition in a mess. But still I think the public has learnt from Brexit and would still be surprised if he can achieve more than being a noisy coalition partner.
For what it's worth, I think most people, pensioners included, know an unaffordable policy when they see it, but will vote for it anyway, and expect the system to work it out somehow.
I agree. We have to unite the Right around your summary of: 'deporting illegal migrants, leaving the ECHR, scrapping Indefinite Leave to Remain, scrapping Net Zero, cutting foreign aid, supporting farmers and slimming down the civil service'.
Reform and Restore are advocating the above (Restore is harder on deportations, but you won't get a plurality on that). Even Badenoch is close to the above, although I don't trust the 'Prosperity UK' faction of that party.
So, hopefully, there will be an arrangement and/or a great deal of tactical voting. My first choice is Reform, but I will vote for a Tory (or Restore) if they are more likely to win in my constituency.
Personally I can't vote Tory again after the debacle of their 14 years in power, so I will vote Reform. I can't imagine Restore will stand in my constituency.
After years of being betrayed by political parties I'm not convinced that Reform will be the answer to my prayers - but they look like the least worst option.
I mostly agree with that. Although I think there are elements attached to Restore who are extreme. Those who advocate ethnonationalism, wholescale mass deportations and are anti-Gay for instance. A lot of Gay men like me have joined Reform and are well aware of this.
Some of the ethno-nationalist stuff makes me a tad uncomfortable but the party does have some intelligent and decent operatives - like Downes and Pitt, whom I mention in the article.
Also interesting that Tommy Robinson, who supports them, is a huge friend of Israel nowadays.
Charlie Downes is an ethnonationalist who thinks that a white, Anglo-saxon, Catholic, native English speaker like me should be stripped of my British citizenship and preferably deported. For the crime of having been born in Australia. Eighteen months ago I was a member of a Rupert Lowe supporters group on another platform. I was hounded off twelve months ago after regularly being called "foreign scum". My English born husband was called a traitor for having married a foreigner. Official Restore social media posts have said things like "A British passport doesn't make you British". Their policy of denying benefits to dual citizens would mean I wouldn't get the pension I paid into for 20 years. Reform isn't racist or xenophobic. Restore apparently is.
I was recently in my favourite Bath pub, The Raven, which is the pub Keir Starmer was thrown out of (not why it's my favourite, loved it for years before that, but that didn't harm my affection for it!), and on one of the bars there was a 'Refugees Welcome' collection tin. Surprising! Given that the pub's Starmer-chucking owner is a fan of Restore and Rupert Lowe (as he told the Telegraph). I'll try and post my photo of it at some point.
I know it well.Dadly I have to disagree with you about Reform.I wouldn't touch that money grubbing Nigel Garbage with a barge pole.As fat as I'm concerned he's a security services stooge who is like pressure cooker,he lets the British sheep let off steam and like steam it simply evaporates.I don't trust him or his Muslim lite party.He took great delight in destroying the BNP.Msy I suggest you read Michael Crick's excellent biography of him,the subline being."The party life of Nigel Farage",and so many parties .
Cards on table. I am a pensioner and my only income is the state pension.
While it is true that the triple lock will become unsustainable, I think we should look beyond why that situation has arisen.
The state pension was founded on the principle that you paid in to it. At retirement if you didn’t have enough stamps (contributions for the younger readers) you didn’t qualify and you didn’t get it, or you got a pro-rata lower amount.
(It is worth noting that the government never ring fenced NI contributions and created a sovereign wealth fund, but relied on current workers NI contributions to pay for current pensioners)
So what happened next?
Tony -forever to be cursed- Blair arrived.
He invited in millions of people. People who often arrived potless and in mid life.
Quote “ we will rub the noses of the right in diversity “
“We went out looking for them”
So these new people who had never paid a penny into our social welfare system became entitled to our benefits, and when they got old enough, to á state pension.
Whoops! They didn’t qualify for a state pension because they didn’t have enough contributions. So what do we do now?
We change the rules. The state pension becomes a benefit that everyone gets.
Oddly, the ONLY benefit that is taxable.
So we now have the situation where millions, and yes really millions, of people are now drawing a state pension which they really are not entitled to, and overloading the system. Á system that was flawed from the start because it relied on today’s workers, as no investment of contributions was ever made.
Then along came Gordon Brown. The UK had the best private pension system in the world. It took contributions from its clients and invested them, the money worked for everyone, pensions companies invested in British Industries, made a profit and the returns paid the pensions of the members.
Mr Brown didn’t like that, so he taxed the gains the pension companies made from their investments, to the tune of £6 Bn per year.
He almost killed the industry.
So ask yourself this when discussing the triple lock.
The UK Pension is less than the government considers necessary for a decent life as defined by the minimum wage.
The Labour government of Blair made millions of people entitled to a pension who had never contributed.
The Labour government of Brown ripped the heart out of the private pension system- this includes final salary schemes which are now unheard of but used to be common.
Civil servants, public sector employees etc still get gold plated pensions.
So poor old Joe Bloggs who did the right thing, left school at 15 and paid their contributions for 50 years, is left with the heat or eat challenge.
The underlying reason?
Labour.
Party of the working class, my arse.
Excellent assessment of Labour's pension vandalism.
Reform should concentrate on making it as good as it used to be, rather than maintain the triple lock, imho.
Spot on. Rupert's role should not be winning seats (that's a mugs game) but winning hearts and minds for his policies. He should be running a national pressure group, moving opinions and driving Reform policy by getting thousands of people shouting at Reform to have the balls to carry out bold actions.
Yes, he should be there to keep Reform honest. However, hopefully he can retain his Great Yarmouth seat.
All very good points, most of all the comment that Britain is probably beyond saving unfortuantely!
I will vote Reform if required tactically. But Farage refusing to tackle Islam and deportations is a refusal to face our two WORST problems.
Maybe he will do long-term, gradually? (Although I do accept that it's an urgent problem.)
May be Realpolitik (don't upset the Muslims!!), but...
Exactly.How can a party be trusted that lets in a corrupt individual like Zahawi and is a private company.I believe people will vote Reform.I won't and if there is no alternative to vote for ,I simply shan't vote .As the Dowager Lady Birdwood said,Democracy is simply a choice between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.
Zahawi's appointment was a real low for Reform, possibly their lowest moment.
Putting Restore Britain aside, as most people will, have you thought about how incompetent Reform UK are at translating votes into seats? In the last election it took nearly a million votes to elect one Reform MP but only 24,000 to elect a Labour MP.
All the parties have to deal with the electoral. system, but Reform looked clueless. If they can’t solve this problem, then a left-wing government next time is likely.
To be fair, what could they have done about it? Maybe - just maybe - if they grow and if they get into government they can do something. Although there's no such thing as a perfect voting system. I'm not sure PR is the answer.
Well they came second in nearly 100 seats. So they could have allocated resources from, say 50 seats, and applied them to one seat. Better first in one seat than second in 50. All parties do this, notably Labour.
The difference between Labour’s votes per seat and Reform’s is so large, that you have ask whether Reform are able to seriously organise to win a election. It’s not the voting system, it’s that they performed so badly as an organisation compared to other parties.
Reform is beyond hope. They are full of Boris wave Tories and have set their face as a matter of principle against deportations.
Farage will do anything to get voted in including the Triple Lock. Outside of immigration he has little appeal to ordinary men and his gang of clowns may well be a huge liability. That said now is his opportunity with the opposition in a mess. But still I think the public has learnt from Brexit and would still be surprised if he can achieve more than being a noisy coalition partner.
For what it's worth, I think most people, pensioners included, know an unaffordable policy when they see it, but will vote for it anyway, and expect the system to work it out somehow.
I agree. We have to unite the Right around your summary of: 'deporting illegal migrants, leaving the ECHR, scrapping Indefinite Leave to Remain, scrapping Net Zero, cutting foreign aid, supporting farmers and slimming down the civil service'.
Reform and Restore are advocating the above (Restore is harder on deportations, but you won't get a plurality on that). Even Badenoch is close to the above, although I don't trust the 'Prosperity UK' faction of that party.
So, hopefully, there will be an arrangement and/or a great deal of tactical voting. My first choice is Reform, but I will vote for a Tory (or Restore) if they are more likely to win in my constituency.
Personally I can't vote Tory again after the debacle of their 14 years in power, so I will vote Reform. I can't imagine Restore will stand in my constituency.
After years of being betrayed by political parties I'm not convinced that Reform will be the answer to my prayers - but they look like the least worst option.
This is true and this is what will happen
A vote for either is one less for the "mainstream"..
I mostly agree with that. Although I think there are elements attached to Restore who are extreme. Those who advocate ethnonationalism, wholescale mass deportations and are anti-Gay for instance. A lot of Gay men like me have joined Reform and are well aware of this.
Yes, some Restore members do appear to be in a purity spiral. Personally I'm not bothered about their Christian side either (same goes for Advance).
Yes, unfortunately I think there are a few that way inclined.
Some of the ethno-nationalist stuff makes me a tad uncomfortable but the party does have some intelligent and decent operatives - like Downes and Pitt, whom I mention in the article.
Also interesting that Tommy Robinson, who supports them, is a huge friend of Israel nowadays.
Charlie Downes is an ethnonationalist who thinks that a white, Anglo-saxon, Catholic, native English speaker like me should be stripped of my British citizenship and preferably deported. For the crime of having been born in Australia. Eighteen months ago I was a member of a Rupert Lowe supporters group on another platform. I was hounded off twelve months ago after regularly being called "foreign scum". My English born husband was called a traitor for having married a foreigner. Official Restore social media posts have said things like "A British passport doesn't make you British". Their policy of denying benefits to dual citizens would mean I wouldn't get the pension I paid into for 20 years. Reform isn't racist or xenophobic. Restore apparently is.
It's sad to hear of your treatment. Hopefully not representative of the wider party.
Well. I'm a restore person.
I do not hate Jews.
I don't bad mouth reform voters. That was me last voting day.
I look at my country. We are in a mess. It needs fixing.
Farage doesn't do enough. He is not too concerned about the amount of immigrants.
I am.
Rupert is the only one who could reverse this ridiculous mess.
IF Restore got the chance. I just don't think they will. Therefore I'm going with Farage, imperfect as he is.
It's such a shame the Right has got so fractured. I wonder whether it would have happened before social media?