Ed Davey has just responded to the Prime Minister’s speech:
The British people will take no lessons from a Prime Minister and Conservative party who have sowed the seeds of division for years.
This is the same Prime Minister who made Suella Braverman his Home Secretary and Lee Anderson his party’s Deputy Chairman.
If the Prime Minister is serious about bringing people together, he would call a General Election now, so that the British public can decide the future of our country.
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11 Comments
But Ed – if he called an election you and Jo S would be questioned about the Post Office Horizon scandal and you would be back to 9 MPs !
We should be asking why Sunak has made this somewhat unusual, at least for him. impromptu speech outside number10.
Could he be preparing the ground for an early election on the theme of “Who governs Britain? Parliamentary Government or the Leftist/Islamic mob?”
It would be taking full advantage of the split in the Labour Party over Gaza and put Starmer in the difficult position of either having to side with the Government or shift away from his pro Israeli position.
If he waits much longer the war could be over.
The Post Office scandal has moved on. It’s now a he said/she said argument between Badenoch and Staunton, and why so little compensation has so far been paid out.
And Jo Swinson has left frontline politics for the time being. She is not a public figure anymore.
The response by Ed Davey is one I totally agree with. The television broadcast by the Prime Minister must be seen in the context of our present situation. There is a need to stress the divisions in the Conservative party, and the need to stress the use by the government of rhetoric aimed at dividing our country.
It’s a certain fact that a General Election is needed before Sunak and his band of ne’re do wells succeed in completely wrecking our democracy and tip the country into a downward spiral that any successor government is going to find very hard to reverse.
Even if there is a General Election sooner rather than later, it will be fought over a single issue in much the same way as all elections since 2015. This time it will be the issues surrounding Netanyahu’s war with Hamas in Gaza rather than Brexit, equaly divisive but the result will change very little here in the UK.
Our antiquated 1st past the post voting system has turned GE’s into glorified Referendums. Yes Ed, call for a GE now, but hammer out the need for change in the voting system and the way in which we are governed.
Ian Shires, do you really think the military action in Gaza is the leading issue for most of the electorate. Is it not rather the case that most are not partisan one way or the other, but have more concerns that impinge more directly on their daily lives? Moreover most of those who have a bit of understanding, also understand that the UK influence is very, very limited.
From where do you get the idea that an election would centre on the issue of Gaza?
Below is a rational analysis of the unstated attacks on our democratic traditions and our “freedoms to”, continuing to be made by the leaderships of both Conservative and Labour parties.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/03/02/what-is-really-happening-right-now/
It also points out the the current Speaker of the House of Commons is not objective and neutral but manageable and supine.
Might the submerged connected purposes of both parties in the current avoidable political duopoly and the effective Labour party management of the Speaker present serious dangers to our traditions of the right to protest and to have genuine political choice?
A big well done! to Layla Moran and Ed Dave for showing genuine, untainted political leadership.
Might the current restricting, unpatriotic and unrepresentative comments and actions of the leaderships of the gruesome twosome of the parliamentary duopoly, present us with a golden opportunity to present our party as assertively democratic and tolerant?
Ed hit the Tory nail on the head – excellent !
For those feeling down about our prospects – I used the prediction facility at Electoral Calculus. I assumed that The Tories would recover to 31% ( currently they are Averaging 24%) & that we would be stuck on 10% – The Result gave us 40 MPs, more than tripling our score in 2019.
Martin is correct – the middle east will not be on the minds of most voters come the GE , neither will Ukraine..Apart from the usual diplomatic faux outrage, there’s only one country Israel listens to and that’s the US..Voters concerns will be economy , NHS , immigration, schools , crime etc etc …Foreign conflicts come some way down in my experience..
Professional moaner here. For once, Ed Davey has rightly and robustly condemned Sunak’s embrace of racial dog-whistle politics together with his hypocrisy about the dangers of “extremism”, whereas Starmer has merely echoed Sunak’s fear-mongering about “extremism”. Quite the contrast. Quite unusual. Well, credit where credit’s due. It’s a good start. Let’s see more.