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Ian Rex-Hawkes

@youdeservebetter.uk

220 followers 340 following 880 posts

Financial expert, former martial arts teacher, disabled, photographer, web designer, occasional chess player.

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Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 1d

A good start. Hopefully it will have an easy method of actually tracking the payments - I can see it being a major problem here in the UK because some political parties are incredibly devious about the source of their funding.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 1d

Would not be in the least bit surprising. Trump has form for taking credit for what smarter people did.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 1d

No, Boris, your job was first and foremost to serve the country. Instead you served your own interests and played games with people's lives, and you are will go down in history as one of the worst PMs this country has ever had. You're just lucky that Liz Truss beat you to the title of worst.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Absolutely this. And anyone wanting change needs to be very clear with their MP that they will no longer receive their vote unless they commit to supporting the change away from FPTP. No more "well, Labour are more likely to change it than the Tories, so vote for them if you want PR"

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Don't blame you

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

From what I can tell, they are doing some fairly decent things, but they're missing the big picture altogether, i.e. that small changes they make will only be undone if a right-wing party gets in next and longevity requires either that they are popular enough to reelect or the system is changed.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

And to be clear, the architects of that disaster were Farage, who wanted it, and Johnson, who didn't really care but saw there was more money for him if he supported Leave. Both of them should be in jail for the lies they spread to get the result they pushed for.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Estimated cumulative impact of leaving the EU the way we did by 2035 is £311bn.

The fact that we will be significantly worse off is not exactly a secret, and there have been plenty of studies quantifying the impact.

It was a financial disaster.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

You can start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...

Sources are linked in the article, with one conclusion reached being that Brexit directly caused a 4% permanent loss to GDP, or £32bn a year, in exchange for which we paid £13.2bn in membership fees (ignoring rebates).

Economic effects of Brexit - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Don't think the majority think it would be that simple, but it starts by asking. And that is a simple step that can and should be done by any government seriously considering all our options.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Agreed, but they're not currently looking like they might actually become PM in the next General Election. Farage is a much bigger danger than either of them because he's so close to afctually being given power, and if that happens the country is in serious trouble.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Rules out rejoining, rules out Proportional Representation, rules out scrapping the 2-child limit, make protesting essentially illegal in many situations, attacks disability benefits, then wonders why people on the left won't support him. Clueless doesn't even begin to explain it.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Only close to a decade too late. Those of us who were passionately Remain saw this coming and ended up being referred to as "Project Fear". If anything we actually underestimated the harm that our idiot government (with the blessing of the opposition in many cases) would allow to happen.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

It's not something I picked up on at the time, given I was 14 or 15, but it is something I rediscovered when I started taking an interest in politics and realised just how broken our current system is.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Sadly it's pretty clear that won't happen unless they replace their leadership, which doesn't seem likely at this point.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Was a promise in their 1997 manifesto. www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1...

They promised a referendum on the electoral method, and reneged on it. It took the Lib Dems to actually fulfill that promise, and then Labour MPs largely campaigned against it.

www.labour-party.org.uk

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 2d

Which is why the Tories won. If Labour had presented a unified front and explained that it might not be a perfect system but it works better than what we have now, there's a real chance that we'd now have a much more proportional government. And no Tory majorities.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

They have form for promising electoral reform, though they backtracked on that in the 90s and when the lib Dems actually managed to secure a referendum on AV, which was Labour's preference.

Basically they keep promising and then backing out of their promises.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

Exactly the same issue I talked about last year. Progressives are basically forced into voting for a non progressive party for fear of an even worse party getting in. Our system is broken, and Labour should be looking to fix it, but they don't want to now they're in power.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

I genuinely worry that they will end up only being a single term government, and I'm terrified that the right will get back in. And it will all be because Labour refused to use their overwhelming majority to make our electoral system representative of voters.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

Without a doubt they're more competent than the Tories, especially over the last 5 years or so, but being better than that shower isn't good enough, especially when they are squandering their political capital by chasing after Reform voters that will never vote Labour.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

No question, the economy takes time to respond, but the current Labour government have only done minimal changes to tax and have tried to pledge not to increase taxes of any kind, while retaining the 2 child cap and going after disability benefits.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

The alternative? Lib Dems - already there with 72 MPs, why would you highlight a party that only has a handful as the only viable alternative?

The harsh reality is that Labour has carried on with a lot of the Tory policies from the last 14 years deliberately. Some people need to see that.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

Hopefully this is the start of people realising that Reform are just saying things thewy think people will resonate with, without a care in the world as to whether it's actually realistic. I suspect their support will take quite a hit with this U-turn.

Ian Rex-Hawkes @youdeservebetter.uk · 3d

Well, that "promise" didn't last long, did it? Unsurprising given how economically insane it was - would have bankrupted the country in no time at all and completely destroyed our currency on the international stage, which would be terrible for a country so reliant on imports.