Nice to hear from you, Andy. Thanks for the by election. We live for such things.
I’m in no doubt life is tough for lots of folk in Makerfield. But it’s hardly a poster child for urban squalor/deprivation.
Thatcher left power in 1990. She was followed by seven years of unThatcher Major and 13 years of Labour government, of which you were a part. So it’s quite a stretch to blame her for any continuing woes. Unless we blame Labour for failing to put anything right.
On the other hand the houses you were walking past were bought by the tenants under Thatcher’s right to buy scheme, which has given them some pride in place and some wealth they once could only have dreamt of accumulating.
I assume your pledge to ‘renationalise housing’ does not include taking these homes back into public ownership ... even if that would constitute a proper, radical reversal of the Thatcherism you’re (some what bizarrely) campaigning against.
It was performative nonsense. We don’t want to hear about his sister, he is incredibly rich, he could help change her circumstances. We don’t want to hear about his family at all.
All this talk of threats and dangers is once again divisive, it was that same attitude in Summer ‘24 that set the path of decline. He called one side far right, he gave huge amounts to a religious ideology, who he then calls “the future face of Britain”, who then go on to openly attack this country’s Jewish community.
This is not a man set on unifying this country, this is a man set on tearing it apart so it can’t be rebuilt.
OK, I know I'm not exactly Starmer's biggest fan. But that was bad. Really bad. Not just bad in the context of the moment. But bad on any objective level.
THIS desperate prime minister has just publicly ditched Brexit. Sticking two fingers up to 17.4m people. And he talks about not wanting to cause division?? 😮
Starmer reading off a autocue again trying to sound sincere…. He just sounds ridiculous and completely inauthentic. Same old, same old. He doesn’t have a clue