I'm an Australian immigrant to the UK, and we have a similar political system — parliamentary democracy, two main (centre-left and centre-right) parties with other smaller parties, same toxic Murdoch press and social media disinformation. There are some quirks of the system — compulsory voting, alternative vote rather than first past the post, smaller number of parliamentary seats — plus sociocultural factors that make it a bit different to the UK, but essentially it's broadly similar. In 2019, we had a general election in very similar circumstances to now: unpopular conservative government which had been in power for a long time, lots of toxic infighting which had led them to change their leader/the Prime Minister multiple times without an election, a Labor government which was assumed to be a foregone conclusion based on opinion polls. The then-Labor (in Australia it's spelt without the U when it's the political party, although the verb/noun is spelt the UK way) leader took his party to the election with a fully costed, detailed set of policies that they intended to implement. And then the conservative government, their cheerleaders in the Murdoch tabloids, and anonymous social media accounts seized on one policy in this manifesto, and fearmongered their way through the whole election campaign in such a way that Labor lost the unloseable election.
The lesson that Labo(u)r parties around the world have learnt from that is to be as vague as possible in opposition when contesting election campaign — no bold, detailed policy proposals, nothing that could paint a target on your back. Just talk vaguely about change, point to the chaos, constant lies, and lack of integrity of the government, and step gingerly towards an election victory. That's what Labor did the next time around in Australia (in 2022) and won, and it's obviously what Starmer did here. It's infuriating for their voting base who want a bit more social democracy, but I'd rather have them play that game (and even be a bit more centrist than I am) and win office than be ideologically pure social democrats and spend every election campaign as the punching bag of the Murdoch tabloids, and lose.
I was arguing with myself all the way to the polling station to talk myself into voting tactically — which would mean voting with my head and not my heart — and what swung it for me was the prospect of waking up on Friday and finding out that our incumbent Tory MP had retained her seat by a handful of votes. There was something I could do to stop that, and so I did. As you say, I'm feeling quite good about that too, and I have a long letter planned as the first of many I hope to send to our new MP!
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I'm an Australian immigrant to the UK, and we have a similar political system — parliamentary democracy, two main (centre-left and centre-right) parties with other smaller parties, same toxic Murdoch press and social media disinformation. There are some quirks of the system — compulsory voting, alternative vote rather than first past the post, smaller number of parliamentary seats — plus sociocultural factors that make it a bit different to the UK, but essentially it's broadly similar. In 2019, we had a general election in very similar circumstances to now: unpopular conservative government which had been in power for a long time, lots of toxic infighting which had led them to change their leader/the Prime Minister multiple times without an election, a Labor government which was assumed to be a foregone conclusion based on opinion polls. The then-Labor (in Australia it's spelt without the U when it's the political party, although the verb/noun is spelt the UK way) leader took his party to the election with a fully costed, detailed set of policies that they intended to implement. And then the conservative government, their cheerleaders in the Murdoch tabloids, and anonymous social media accounts seized on one policy in this manifesto, and fearmongered their way through the whole election campaign in such a way that Labor lost the unloseable election.
The lesson that Labo(u)r parties around the world have learnt from that is to be as vague as possible in opposition when contesting election campaign — no bold, detailed policy proposals, nothing that could paint a target on your back. Just talk vaguely about change, point to the chaos, constant lies, and lack of integrity of the government, and step gingerly towards an election victory. That's what Labor did the next time around in Australia (in 2022) and won, and it's obviously what Starmer did here. It's infuriating for their voting base who want a bit more social democracy, but I'd rather have them play that game (and even be a bit more centrist than I am) and win office than be ideologically pure social democrats and spend every election campaign as the punching bag of the Murdoch tabloids, and lose.
I was arguing with myself all the way to the polling station to talk myself into voting tactically — which would mean voting with my head and not my heart — and what swung it for me was the prospect of waking up on Friday and finding out that our incumbent Tory MP had retained her seat by a handful of votes. There was something I could do to stop that, and so I did. As you say, I'm feeling quite good about that too, and I have a long letter planned as the first of many I hope to send to our new MP!
Sorry you lost your glasses, though!