James Cooper

Sun headline about £500k compensation for migrants, discussing human rights, and public outcry over payouts.

Did you see this headline?

Did you feel the requisite anger and rage at asylum seekers that The Sun was asking of you?

Did you maybe blame Starmer because.... um... it was probably his fault🤷‍♀️

Would you like to know the reality behind the headline?

Course you would!😜

Let's take a look

🧵

1/25

With partygate it felt like they reluctantly had to report on it when the evidence of Johnson’s wrongdoing became overwhelming. Before that it was constant puff pieces about what the Tories said they were accomplishing

With Labour they’ve gone into overdrive when the PM hasn’t done anything himself

In an ideal world, sure - but that’s not the arena they are operating in, never has been going back thousands of years and certainly won’t be for the foreseeable future

They’ve got to operate in the system they find themselves in or get pushed out by better liars. The right are much better at that

Just taking one of those though - winter fuel allowance. Absolutely needed changing and becoming means tested - so the policy was right but the way they implemented it and the comms surrounding it was the worst possible way to do it

It should have been an easy win, but was a comms disaster

Their communications have been catastrophically poor, so this is probably for the best

Just hope they get someone in who knows how to control the narrative and promote their positive achievements

Yes, quite. It's the biggest scandal of this administration, so far, probably. It's an average Tuesday under Johnson.

What does a Labour government ever do for you?

Well here are 14 things they have done TODAY!

How many can you say other parties even have the first clue about?

1. Upgrades to more grass roots sports facilities

2. 450,000 disadvantaged students to be supported by new AI tutoring tools

1/8

That’s just not true - right wing governments would actively dismantle policies like those on purpose

Labour have introduced a lot of policies that are left of centre - they haven’t gone far enough in my view but they are clearly more left wing in policy than the tories or reform

BBC doing Farage’s publicity and marketing for him again

Ok well, it’s not a binary - it depends on the local factors in your constituency under FPTP

But good luck and I hope your decision doesn’t help a Reform candidate get elected - and if it does then please do enjoy your moral superiority while the rest of us try to deal with the consequences

Well - I wish it wasn’t so but the hard reality is that if you waste your vote on a candidate that can’t win then you might in some small way be sending a message to Labour (if they’re best placed to beat reform in your constituency), but in a big way you’ll be doing a lot more to help the far right

That’s just not true - Labour have been poor and it has been a calamitous error to lean into appeasing the far right

But to say they are ‘the same’ as reform or the tories is just not correct

There is no suggestion of corruption or self-enrichment with Labour - contrast that with the last lot

They don’t, they’re never happy

If anything it’s the opposite. The right are very good at putting aside their differences to vote collectively for an outcome they prefer to the alternative

It’s the left that engages in idealism and luxury politics, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good

Couldn’t disagree more

Reform have a united vote - ‘left-behinders’ plus most of the traditional right wing

The anti-Reform centre and left are split between Lab, Green, Lib Dem, Plaid, SNP and even soft Tory

The story isn’t Labour - it’s about doing whatever it takes to keep Reform out of power

And those votes would be completely wasted.

Under FPTP if you don’t want Reform you vote for the candidate best placed to beat them, whoever they are and whatever party they belong to

The Greens want to leave NATO - madness at the best of times, even worse in the current circumstances

Polanski wants to leave NATO - should be an absolute dealbreaker for anyone thinking of voting Green

In the current climate, NATO is more important than ever. Without the USA the remaining liberal democracies need to pool their resources for mutual defence

Just inconceivable that he can’t see that

I guess the problem is many are so transparently not making decisions based on conscience but on naked ambition

Gone is any sense of statesmanship or duty above their own self-interest

Things have changed and the rules should also - including bans on second jobs and an enforceable ethical code

Looking more like the Tories TBH with all the infighting, factionalism and naked ambition on display

Yeah

He just came out on top in a poll of who people would prefer as PM in a coalition government, with Lib-Lab the preferred combination.

No, he wants to curtail it because he and Lammy are desperate to cut the backlog in the criminal courts without spending any more money and they, wrongly, think this will help

It’s nothing to do with abuse of power

There’s plenty to criticise the gov for without making things up that have no basis

Europe needs to look after itself, that’s what

How far does ‘softly softly’ go?

Putin bites off huge chunks of Ukraine in 2014 and we responded ‘softly’. All that did was encourage him to take more

The same with Trump

Allies of Denmark should start to station forces in and around Greenland

True - but appeasing Trump makes an invasion of Greenland more likely

Sometimes you have to say enough is enough.

Maduro was the Venezuelan’s problem to resolve. There was no threat to the US from Venezuela. Trump needs to be told he is in the wrong

Sliming up to him just makes him more dangerous

Somebody becomes PM at the end of the day though. Realistically, barring leadership changes, it’s going to be Starmer, Badenoch or Farage.

If you don’t vote for the candidate best placed to defeat the tory/reform candidate then you’re doing nothing but helping them

I don’t know about your constituency but in mine it flips regularly between red and blue, so if you want to avoid blue you vote red. Voting green or LD just means the tories/reform have to gain one less vote to win

Depriving Labour of a vote just to make a point helps nobody but the right wingers

Neither the Greens nor the LDs will get a majority at the next election - it just won’t happen. So whilst I agree that Labour have been atrocious in their tone and messaging and weak on policy (inexcusable really given their majority), they remain the best potential gov of the realistic options

You would have to wait until year 125,206 to have as much money as Elon Musk.

General voting intention also hides the reality of tactical voting.

Reform could get 25% in every seat and might be enough to win under FPTP if other votes are split.

But if anti-reform votes coalesce around Labour/Lib Dem/Plaid/SNP candidates in those seats then probably not.