DONE FOR NOW, OR IS IT ‘DONE FOR, NOW? FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE GE2024 #politics

A final wrap of my reaction to the results of the U.K. General Election, held on the 4th July 2024.

Probably my last video mentioning politics for some time. Summer is the time for riding bikes (oh, and listening to records). Today was a beautiful day!

[Music] [Music] [Music] those of you who watch this channel we know that I occasionally talk about things other than music and in the last uh week or so I’ve put a couple of videos out that are kind of my attempt of making sense of the the UK general election that took place last week so I’ll this ride this morning I think I’ll just just a little bit refle I’ll reflect on that just a little where are we where are we okay so for those who aren’t following it I’ll just uh throw out a few headlines well the left leaning labor party won with a huge majority so out of 650 seats that are available uh at every general election the labor party won over 400 I don’t quite know what their majority is but they’ve got they’ve definitely got a huge one maybe 170 180 something like that it basically means that they can push their policy agenda through with uh pretty ineffective resistance from uh the opposition the various oppos I parties it’s always like this we don’t because we have first pass the post in the UK and we don’t have proportional representation is that if you’re a small party and uh you win a handful of seats you can be usually safely ignored by the party that wins so the labor party won despite having generating or garnering fewer vots in the 2024 election than they did in 2019 and it’s basically because was the the poor the previous government the conservative government disenchanted so many of their voters that they State at home or they voted for the new reform party it’s just one of those anomalies of the system where are the quirks of the system where if the opposition is in dis then the winning party can just Breeze through the middle and secure a great a great big majority so now we’re facing 5 years of a labor government that will pursue its kind of left leaning Progressive sometimes walk agenda and the big tagline they had for the campaign was change but those of us who are followers of politics would be very surprised if there’s going to be much change at all and that’s the reason why the Tory or conservative vard just collapsed oh man it’s a beautiful morning this morning it’s hardly any wind about 16° almost W to wall Sunshine fantastic oh let me just say that uh even though last week I did a couple of pre-election videos this is probably going to be my last video on politics for a while because not expecting much to happen new party comes in honeymoon period summer recess in Parliament so it should be fairly quiet so unless something really controversial kicks [Applause] off I’ll probably be taking the summer off of Politics as well just like the rest of you oh man look at this beautiful could do without the pylons though you probably can’t say this but uh that’s Birmingham in the background just about see the skyline in the distance what a glorious day anyway for me I’m neither thrilled by the new labor party being in government nor disappointed I’ve long ago Left Behind the notion that and I’ve said this before that politicians and leaders of parties are not my parents the people there to do a job of work and so I should judge them basically on how they do whether they keep their Promises of course whether I can trust them as I said in my last video whether I can trust them to genuinely want to do the right thing for the country but also whether they’re competent so do they want do they want to do the right thing for us can they keep their promises and are they capable of carrying out those promises and that’s what the last video was all about so you can link to that at the end I also talked about how we should judge our politicians not just on the notion of trust but I come up with uh I came up with 10 10 criteria on which we can judge our politicians and I’ll just encourage anybody who’s thinking I’m not too happy about the new government to check out those things and it’ll help you form an argument on whether you think the government is doing a good job or not but equally for the people who supported the labor party why shouldn’t you hold the the politicians to the same standard and uh once again when you’re having in discussions with friends and family you can at least begin to think about well I’m slightly disappointed in this area and that area and these are the reasons why so it’s a good way I think of judging politicians and judging government so have a look at those videos if you’re interested one thing I did notice that uh in the post election WhatsApp exchanges amongst friends it’s pretty it becomes pretty obvious as to which side they voted for but I don’t mind you vote for what you believe in my attitude has always been to try and be as rational as I possibly can don’t set myself up for failure by becoming too attached to one party or the other cuz being in government is bloody difficult and all these people with the best of intentions and I suspect most of them have the best of intentions most of these people are going to disappoint Us in the end so I read it so I really really shouldn’t say much more than that this morning neither thrilled nor disappointed wish the government well I hope the supporters get what they voted for and the people on the other side do what you have to do to hold the government to account stand up for what you believe in I guess and then we’ll see you in the next election I suppose suppose that’s the end do to take anyway I’m going to just enjoy this bik ride this morning I’ll see you soon [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]