Comments by "80s Music" (@eightiesmusic1984) on "What Raab jumping ship tells us about the Tories' election prospects | Pubcast #4 clip" video.

  1. The point about calibre is correct but it is commonplace for MPs to decide against standing in a GE. I suspect a comparison with previous elections would not necessarily show a huge difference in numbers. In any case, the numbers not standing does not say anything about the likelihood of a convincing Tory defeat as many are inferring.
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  2. Makes no difference- the Labour Party surrendered to Thatcherism under Blair and is committed to maintaining the same policies- low wages, low tax for the rich, privatisation, anti union legislation, austerity, all key tenets of the system that is the root cause of everything that is wrong with the economy and society. The left has been extinguished in Britain after the Corbyn interregnum and will not rise again.
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  3. Too many comments on here overstate the likelihood of the Tories doing very badly in the GE. Labour's poll support after the recent council elections is at the same level as in 2017, which shows that the Starmer project, for all its boasts about progress ( in reality moving the party even further to the right, if such a thing is possible), does not have traction in the way that the polls pointed in 1996 pointed to a landslide victory. Then Labour was 20 points ahead of the Tories consistently in a much more becalmed ( relatively) era, with a stronger economy, ironically due to the benefits of expulsion from the ERM in 1992. It destroyed Tory credibility but gifted Labour a stable economy.
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