The Guardian has an article asking “Can Sunak’s rightwing war on ‘woke’, migrants and the environment save the Tories?” with contributions from a panel including our own President, Mark Pack:
It is, after all, the Liberal Democrats – not the rightwing populists of Reform – who have taken four seats off the government with record-breaking swings in byelections this parliament. The message from voters to Lib-Dem canvassers in those contests was very consistent. It was about the NHS and the cost of living, about sewage and failing public services. It was about being fed up with the Conservatives, their lockdown parties and their failures on the mainstream issues.
That’s borne out by pollsters too. The cost of living and the NHS are consistently the top-rated issues. Even Conservative voters want the most polluting vehicles to pay higher taxes and Conservatives are more supportive of the 2050 net zero target than voters in general.
A government punching down on vulnerable people or trashing green policies isn’t what voters in those four by-election wins were looking for. That is a political route to failure.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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2 Comments
Might Mr. Sunak and co be looking to please big donors who oppose what would benefit our nation as a whole, and be looking to the biased main stream media to persuade the citizenry to vote for his party and against their better interests?
Successful politiicans are able to enact policies that do not generally benefit themselves or their close friends. They are by definition not the average person as much as they aspire to be. They are helped by civil servants, advisors, opinion polls and the occasional ordinary person. To be more interested in the common good than your own personal fortunes is a rare gift and one that should be rewarded.