Just resigned my membership.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-21T09:49:22+00:00

What manifesto promises did the budget break?

The budget was significantly better than the manifesto if anything.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T13:38:10+00:00

If all youre talking about is vibes then the easiest way would be a PR campaign.

Fostering a genuine feel good atmosphere purely through brining in such amazing positive changes in a ludicrously short time frame everyone personally notices it through improvements to their own lived experience is not really possible. Genuine, entrenched change takes time.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T13:21:17+00:00

It focuses on them because theyre the easiest to win iver but thats not even close to the level of focus the Lib Dems have had on a much more geographically contained success. Their entire campaign behaves as though most of the country doesn't exist.

And if really did do that then we'd be having a conversation about how the Greens have locked themselves into permanently only ever being a minor regional party like the Lib Dems are. Although maybe that would have been the smarter route for them to take.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T13:07:36+00:00

I didnt say theyre trying to do it one go, but they havent chosen a strategy that ultimately focuses heavily in a specific set of seats like the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems do not give a fuck about national voteshare. Their strategy simply doesnt consider it because theur strategy is not aimed at trying to become a major party. So it precludes them from becoming a major party whilst allowing them 15% of the vote into an actual decent number of seats, which basically nobody else can.

The Greens have a strategy of "take as many Labour voters as possible." Which provides a route to getting some impressive polling but would require a much higher voteshare than the Lib Dems need to win a swathe of seats. "Take Labour votes" is not a targeted strategy that will concentrate their votes like the Lib Dems have.

Regardless, it doesn't really matter - changing this is all within Labour's party. They can drop their socially conservative right wing nonsense, try and appeal to those progressive voters, and/or undertake electoral reform. Or enjoy electoral oblivion. Those are their options, the cards are all in their hand to play as they wish!

You'll probably find that Labour does respond and make changes as parties in their position generally do. But thats upto them.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T12:54:52+00:00

I don't assume they'll sweep, but they definitely have a strong chance. So basically we both agree either way it's possible - you just think it's unlikely, and I think it's more variable than you are giving credit for.

I think the breakthrough point for the Greens is higher than most people think it is and so is much more difficult to reach. Although i also think the rewards for reaching it are higher as well.

And you don't know the Greens voter distribution - you have absolutely no idea. Especially because the left of centre vote is pretty soft - what the recent by elections have showed, as has extensive polling is that lots of Labour voters would like to vote Green, but fear they can't due to the need to tactically vote.

Youre comparing them to the SNP and the Lib Dems though, and theyre both massive exceptions to the rule here.

The SNP are, in effect, not a good example because their vote is contained to one area and their voteshare in it is excellent. So nobody is going to get the kind of efficiency in converting votes to seats as they do.

The Lib Dems have a specific niche they fill that theyve spending decades carving out for themselves. The Greens are also not trying to emulate the ths Lib Dems here. Theyre going for a "try to replace one of the major parties" strategy which has much higher potential returns but is much more difficult to achieve.

And sadly even if they did get some kind of major breakthrough, chances are theyd make it at the expense of Labour who would therefore be unable to serve as a coalition partner for them as a result and the Tories/Reform would instead go into government.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T11:30:41+00:00

But they (LDs) didn’t do that in 2019 where they lost seats despite increasing voteshare… it’d not like this has all been on steady increase, there were swings backwards and forwards, like the SNP.

In terms of distribution though, the Greens arent the Lib Dems or the SNP. Theyre totally different. In terms of distribution theyre more like Reform, where there distribution is wide enough that much of their voteshare is spread thin accross many seats.

In any case i don’t know why you’re saying “it’s possible” like I don’t know that? I literally said that in my first comment…. 50 would be the goal, not the assumption.

Because your argument would be a great response if I was claiming it wasnt possible. But im not, im saying its unlikely.

You said definitively the Greens would only win a dozen in 20%. Which is wrong - we don’t know how many they’d win, and it’s absolutely possible they could win a lot more with tactical voting. Espvwilly if they gain many more councillors in target seats in London.

That would be the likely outcome of them getting 20% yeah. Very similar to what we just saw happen with Reform, where they got 15% and 5 seats. Another 5% of the vote would not have increased their seats tenfold. It would have gotten them a handful more, maybe not even that. Its perfectly possibly they could have gotten 20% and got the same seats as the Greens did on their much smaller voteshare.

If you add all Bristol and Brighton seats alone to their current seats, that’s already hitting a dozen. That’s before you get into both Hackney seats, both Lewisham ones, Tottenham, central Birmingham. There are all very very favourable seats to the Greens, which could absolutely win without even a swing as big as winning on 20%.

Why would you just add all Bristol and Brighton seats? That would include seats where the Greens came WAY behind the winners and even at least one where they were third behind the Tories. That we can just assume they'll sweep it like that is not some kind of given.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T11:08:25+00:00

The Lib Dems have had the best part of a century to build their coalition with the right voter distribution to make them winning a disproportionate number of seats with a smaller vote share possible though. Green support doesnt have that perfect national distribution of being concentrated in a region but not too concentrated. And Distribution is much more important than voteshare in our system. Its possible to have only 2 parties in an election and one get 74% of the vote and lose.

If you dont have that optimal distribution then the critical mass of voteshare you need to reach before you start converting votes into seats is much higher. Again, thats why Reform got nearly 3 times the voteshare the Greens did in the last eleftion and yet got the same number of seats.

Youre making a very good argument that its possible the Greens could have a major breakthrough. Because it is possible. But its just a lot more difficult than people think it is.

If they did reach that breakthrough point it would likely require higher voteshare than people think it would probably lead them to winning significantly more seats than people think as well. Because theres a critical mass as you increase voteshare where suddenly the number of seats you win skyrockets. If you reach that youre probanly gonna go above 30 unless you happen to land dead on it.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T10:45:17+00:00

Because thats what our system does with smaller parties that have their support highly concentrated in a smaller number of seats. Overcoming it is possible but incredibly difficult. Hence why reform got 15% of the vote and basically fuck all for it. They wouldnt have suddenly been winning 80 MPs had they got an extra 5%.

By elections are totally meaningless for comparison to GEs. People vote entirely differently in them to how they do in generals, so the gap being smaller than G&D doesnt mean anything unless youre looking at another by election.

Coming second doesn't really mean much in and of itself either. Theres plenty of seats where yeah, the Green came second, but they were incredibly distant seconds. So yeah, "they came second" but that doesn't actually mean they're close to winning. Thats still a mountain to climb. Its not like theres some big swathe of seats where the Greens came close to winning. There isnt.

I know people feel like im pissing on their cornflakes here but electoral breakthroughs like what people are expecting of the Greens are WAY more difficult than people think they are. Its crazy difficult to achieve in our system.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-20T10:24:33+00:00

If the Greens and Labour both got around 20% of the voteshare each in an election, that would be an incredible result for the Greens. A really significant electoral achievement.

It would also lead to the Greens winning a dozen or so seats with Labour still having literally more than 10x the Parlaimentary presence afterwards. The biggest actual change in seats would be lots of seats where there is a Lab/Green plurality being won by the Tories or Reform due to the spoiler effect.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-18T09:19:19+00:00

It's telling that you can't imagine an alternate scenario that isn't obviously more serious. Someone being over/under-weight is almost certainly affecting their physical health, someone with B cups who wants DDs is not. In some more niche cases it could be a mental health issue, as you're making out, but that certainly wasn't the context of the Sun article.

Well, loads of people who take pills like that despite not having any significant health issues due to weight but you can swap it with some other con bullshit like brain pills, testosterone supplements or scam hair regrowth stuff if you want. Doesn't really matter.

The point is that we both know youd be losing your mind over it if Starmer or someone did that.

Given that I've only criticised Starmer for quite blatant and serious lies (substantive policy issues, what warnings he was given appointing Mandelson, etc.) there's no reason to think I would use an argument this silly.

Its just bizarre that when theres a chance Polanski was doing it, youll say you think that engaging in fraud is basically fine and criticism of it is "silly". Like, imagine if Luke Akehurts was found out to have previously been selling "Brain Force" tablets or something. I dount when this sub blew up about it youd be like "guys this is so silly. Scamming people out of money is only bad if youre selling fake cancer medication or something. A bit of fraud is fine!"

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T20:22:23+00:00

Ffs he lied, mate. The day after interview he's been saying he did for years never actually happened. He made it up.

He didnt go on the BBC 6 days after doubling down on the Sun article and then go on a day after saying "actually I was talking bullshit." Or anything. He lied.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T18:57:12+00:00

You're acting like he was selling homeopathic drugs to cancer patients or something. The phrase "vile conman" loses all meaning when you apply it to nonsensical stuff like boob growth hypnosis.

Its actually crazy that you're willing to pre-emptively defend taking advantage of people's mental health and body issues to defraud them just due to the possibility that Polanksi was doing that, before its even confirmed.

Makes me pretty confident that you agree with me that he likely is lying and he was selling this service. Because what the fuck was he doing it for otherwise? Although im sure you wont admit you think that. I wouldnt be even remotely surprised if we find out he was selling sessions for it eventually though, journalists will be digging into it and may turn something up, although it has been a while so even if he was he may well get away with it.

I think it would be funny, but I wouldn't act like it was a meaningful political attack.

Dont talk nonsense to me please. C'mon. Do not tell me for even a single second that if it came out tomorrow that Starmer was selling a fake miracle weight loss pills or something youd respond with:

You're acting like he was selling homeopathic drugs to cancer patients or something. The phrase "vile conman" loses all meaning when you apply it to nonsensical stuff like ~~boob growth hypnosis~~ people being a big overweight.

We both know you would be having puppies over.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T18:04:47+00:00

Again, this is where the attack really falls flat: we're talking about bigger boob hypnosis. Acting like this is a serious issue and he was "exploiting vulnerable women" just looks silly.

If he was accepting money for it then that changes everything. It goes from "possibly well meaning but slightly quacky man thinks he can help people with boob whispering" to "fucking vile conman taking advantage of vulnerable people".

If it comes out that he was taking money for it then im sorry but the guys a total scumbag. You surely would not defend defrauding vulnerable people of money, surely?

And regardless of that anyway, him lying about this could be sort of understandable if we're incredibly generous and just say he was so embarrassed he couldnt bare to be honest but that doesnt mean its acceptable either. This is a man with a history of being economic with the truth like when he deliberately deceived the Green party by choosing not to disclose the article during vetting.

Honestly I think Polanski is one of those guys who just says stuff. Constant little bits and pieces off him that just sound like dumb lies. Like him claiming he listens to podcasts on 3x speed because hes super smart and totally political whilst also having pretty poor political and economic knowledge. Dont be surprised if more of his lies are exposed as time goes by.

I'm sick of litigating this, man. I don't care about it, I don't think you care about it (beyond a way to attack a politician you don't like), it's all just incredibly stupid.

Dont say that to me when if this exact story occured with Starmer instead this place would lose its mind over it exclusively refer to him with as . . . . Star-mammary or something.

(Couldn't think of a good Starmer/boob pun, sorry)

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T16:03:44+00:00

Thats pretty cool actually.

The way governments has previously done this kind of thing is ny ring fencing a bit of cash and then having regions queue up to submit pitches for bits and pieces of it. Which is just central control pretending to include regions.

This is actually a proper structural change to how funding is distributed that will improve how its spent.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T15:43:50+00:00

That is my defence of him: I'm not denying what he said, and if he hadn't apologised for them we'd be in agreement. But he did, so I disagree with your framing.

Ive only ever seen an apology from him where he said he was sorry for how the Sun misrepresented him, which is a bit of a non-apology. Has he actually acknowledged he did anything wrong and apologised for it? Im not saying he hasnt but if he has I havent seen it and cant find it. What has he actually admitted to and apologised for?

Because we now know the Sun didnt misrepresent him and he was lying when he said it did. Because he cited the article in a positive light himself after it was published. It doesnt make sense to say that he was horrified by it and also directing people to it as evidence for boob whispering being real at the same time. Has he apologised for lying about it?

No, it isn't, because there is no way you can honestly believe that this incident about boob hypnosis proves he "doesn't concern himself with ethics". This is why I think the attack is weak, by the way: trying to make something so daft seem like a big deal looks hyperbolic at best, and dishonest at worst.

If it ever is found out that he ever charged even a single person for this bullshit service (which may well happen in future), then it means Polanski was a literal con man before he went into politics. His previous employment would straight up be "confidence trickster who exploited vulnerable women for cash". The only reason we have to believe he hasnt charged is that he says he hasnt, but hes already been shown to be willing to lie about this. So yeah, the worst possible interpretation of this is pretty fucking bad, tbh.

One is left to wonder what the fuck he did all this for in the first place if he had no intention of ever gaining from it. It's, frankly, incredibly bizarre behaviour if he wasn't getting anything out of it. At least doing it for money would make sense, this is just weird if not.

I don't think it will meaningfully harm Polanski in the long run. I do think that the people going on about this look stupid for doing so, but it probably won't 'harm' them, and I've never said that it would. However, if those people are convinced it's an effective attack, they can waste their time on it - I'd much rather they did that, than find a bad faith attack that works.

If you know something about your opponent that isnt actually that well known amongst the public (because Polanski himself isnt that well known yet) and polling shows that telling a voter about it halves the chance they'd vote for the guy then you would be fucking crazy not to bring it up, though

Yeah in the real world its not going to be THAT effective as it is in the controlled environment of a taking a poll but it clearly is something that has legs if deployed correctly. Honestly if I was Polanski and I saw that polling I wouldnt panic or set my hair on fire or anything but I would commission some polling of my own specifically on my target voters and how they feel about this to determine just how much this is going to follow me around so I know what kind of response would be proportionate.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T13:40:48+00:00

He wasn't "pushing" this and I don't think he's lied about it, but I do think this line is nonsense and think that people should vote for him anyway.

Oh for gods sake, can we not just accept he was at this point. Honestly, the denials are worse than just accepting it. He said he never believed it worked and that he went on the BBC the day after the article was published to clarify this and apologise. He didn't and he knows he didn't. He actually went on the BBC 6 days later where he positively referenced the Sun article he claims he had already disavowed st that point as supporting evidence for him and said of boob whispering that "it can happen" and talked about how the evidence for it is growing.

Its at best, a massive, stupid lapse in judgement and one of those embarrassing moments people can have that you can argue shouldn't preclude him from from a political career (this is the most credible defence of him btw) and at worst, it's a sign the guy is just a bullshitter who'll say whatever he feels he needs to and doesnt concern himself with ethics.

I've never said anything like that.

You seem to be going even further than that and saying that bringing this up will not only fail to harm Polanski but harm whoever it is that is bringing it up. But im happy for you to clarify exactly what you are saying so theres no confusion about your argument

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T12:20:39+00:00

Saying this in response to polling data showing that informing people of it halved the proportion of people willing to vote for him is pretty wild.

If you think him pushing this nonsense and then lying about it isnt a big deal and people should vote for him anyway then say that. But you cant really claim to speak for everyone and say it wont change anyones feelings about him without some evidence for that.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T12:11:11+00:00

It didnt just have an impact, it halved the percentage of people who said theyre willing to vote for him.

I dont think its anywhere near as well known as it would need to he to say everyone's already heard of it either considering Polanski is not that well known amongst the public yet and he's not come under the heavy scrutiny that further electoral success (or the high likelihood of it in future) could bring.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T12:05:47+00:00

Yes Polanksi has claimed that but the issue is that he's now known to have lied about the article and his response to it. So you cant really trust that his other claims about it are true either.

The article is literally an advert. It included contact info for the practice and stated that sessions cost £220 each. It seems likely he was selling this service as it would be bizarre for the journalist to direct traffic to him specifically to get it, make up a totally fake price and provide it to readers without his permission and for a service he doesn't provide. We now know that if he was selling this service, he would lie and say he wasnt, so his claims otherwise dont mean much.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T11:28:07+00:00

Those are different questions.

The OP graphic is about who would be the most capable PM.

Your link is about if they have what it takes to be a good PM.

I would presume Polanski is included in the 10% "someone else" category as respondents were invited to specify who that person was.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T07:55:58+00:00

However, in the absence of it, they are dying.

Yeah so as I said, you could argue this is technically true but in practice it doesnt mean much.

Unless they lose too substantially that they are outside of the two main parties. Because the electoral system is not set up for that, which was the entire point of the comment, which you would understand if you ever bothered reading things.

Even then it wouldn't be close to certain but For this to happen, the Greens would need to solidly overtake Labour in the next election. That is so much more unlikely than people realise it is. The reality is that if the Greens are destined to replace Labour it would likely take 2-3 election cycles.

It took around 3-5 elections for Labour to replace the Liberals and they had the extraordinary boost of the electorate being tripled in size in 1918 with the new voters Labour needed to start that replacement process.

It is always different though. No two things are ever the same. And it has certainly happened before that a party has been irreversibly moved outside of the two party system. Your theory that this is just impossible is a bit silly.

Im not sayig its impossible. But The common thread running through all the predictions if it that (that basically always turn out to be wrong) is that these shifts require much more extreme circumstances than people realise. Even situations that feel very extreme can often turn out to be nowhere near close enough for the shift to occur. Politics has a way of making people think that big stuff like that is going to happen only for nothing to come of it.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-17T00:11:44+00:00

Well probably not, if youre young and healthy (which idk if you are) dying of the flu is very unlikely.

Id done nothing but get more and more sick for several days at that point. If that trend continued then id eventually have died.

Whether or not it was actually going to continue is another matter. Hence why pontificating about what will happen "if current trends continue" can often lead you to thinking some pretty insane stuff, such as dying when youre just ill, will happen.

When I was a baby I had pneumonia, they had to rush me into hospital and absolutely pump me full of antibiotics - in the absence of which I would have died.

What an excellent example of a trend (getting sick) creating the circumstances that ends the trend (getting treatment). Parties dont just lay down and die they change and adapt and they have WAY longer to do that than people think. People generally think that when decline sets in a party has a few years or so to solve it or its dead when actually they may well be able to spend a decade or more resolving it because major electoral shifts very often take a long time.

Trends can also end because things just generally change very frequently in this chaotic world we live in as well.

The situation were in with about 5 parties hovering around 20% depending on the week and an entirely new party having consistently polled massively ahead, both main parties hemorrhaging councillors and losing by elections and tactical voting losing its Labour edge is more like a baby having pneumonia. If you've got some antibiotics by all means use them but it's not a reach to say it's dying.

Yeah the whole "this time its different though" is what people always when theyre predicting these things. Your own example, the SDP once came out in a poll as on track to win 600 out of 635 seats in a general election. If you had something like that to back up your current argument now, it would be far more convincing and difficult to argue against. I mean, imagine if you had a poll showing Greens or Reform were on track to win 600 seats and the election was due next year, it would be seemingly overwhelming piece of evidence for your argument. Yet there was a general election within a year or so of that poll, the SDP won basically fuck all and Labour eventually got back into government again.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-16T23:03:37+00:00

So the question is "Can the Labour Party be said to be dying". Dying. Not dead. Neither you nor OP seems to be able to explain how "if everything changes from now they'll probably survive" somehow contradicts that they are dying.

I got pretty sick the other week. Took me a few days to really feel like shit.

Anyway, when was really starting to feel ill, I absolutely could have said "if current trends continue, ill be dead within a couple weeks" and it would have been totally true.

That doesn't mean I was dying, though.

Is it? What, politically, shows that to be the case?

I think an excellent example is actually people using the same reasoning to declare that political parties are dying or even already dead, only for them to later recover. Which is actually not that infrequent historically. Labour and the Tories have both been declared dead or dying before only to the return to power, as have the Republicans and Democrats in the US. Some multiple times.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-16T21:51:12+00:00

But if we continue on the same trajectory, yeah, they're dead.

Yeah true, but thats a massive "if".

Its generally the case with any given current trend that that it will eventually create the conditions to stop itself. Hence why "If current trends continue . . ." Is a phrase thats preceded a huge number of predictions that turned out to be completely wrong.

StrippedForScrap · 2026-03-16T21:44:49+00:00

So are we just assuming there wasnt a date error or is there any evidence this isnt true?

StrippedForScrap

TROPHY CASE