I am sure this will be a nice, calm 6 weeks while the country quietly rallies behind our PM to give her the majority she needs to deliver a fantastic Brexit deal. Or…?
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Great fun!
What a clever girl!
Doesn’t she just know it too.
She’s almost certainly OK’d this with Corbyn so that the necessary 2/3rds of MPs vote for it. Might be a face-saving campaign for Corbyn so that he can get it all over with, do his best, lose heavily, step down, and Labour can recover.
That might be the idea. But Labour will never recover from this. They’ll be lucky not to go down to double figures.
I think Erdogan inspired this.
Sadly I agree with you. My wife messaged me this morning to inform me.
My reply was this will see Labour annihilated and they will be lucky to get 100 seats.
It’ll be interesting to see if there’s evidence of Labour traditionalists/right-wingers in the constituency parties not pulling their weight in the campaigning and leaving it to the Momentum types.
Having pulled their weight for many a year only to be told they were wrong, who could blame them for withdrawing their labour
Well me for a start. Just as I have no time for those who flounced off over Iraq and Blair. Even when they have come back under St. Jeremy.
And there is some evidence of it around our way, and I’m not happy. If you don’t like things in a political party you dig in and fight, not take your ball home.
We’ve had a year of her saying there would be no snap election because of the instability it would cause. As of today it seems this will now give us stability.
I’m not strong enough for this ….
The instability is already present and slowly getting worse. No doubt she’s hoping this will put a stop to it.
And anyway, she’ll increase her majority at a point where it could otherwise only decrease, as people’s belief in the austerity myth evaporates.
As to the criticism of the PM for abandoning her anti-Brexit pre-referendum stance, she’s leader of a party in which her pro-EU view was proven to be a minority opinion. Whatever her own view, she has to go along with party opinion and try and make the best of it, if she wants to be the leader. Otherwise her only option is to quit and make way for Boris Johnson, an unprincipled Brexit hardline convert purely for the sake of his personal ambition.
May has consistently and categorically said there would be no early election, most recently as last month. She’s showing that for all her positioning herself as a moral and principalled politician she’s as opportunistic as the worst of them. She’ll win by a mile but I think in the long run this decision may come back to haunt her. How can we ever believe any assurances she gives in the future after this volte face?
I never believe assurances any politician gives. She has already had to change her stance on the EU from supporting remaining to leading the charge to the exit, so anything she says is open to alteration as the situation demands.
More vitriol, recriminations, hatred and rancour – just what the country needs!
I assume that you’re referring to Dean Gaffney’s return to Eastenders.
Stood right next to him at a West Ham-QPR game.
At the time, about 1994, his was probably the most recognisable face in Britain.
his return means nothing to me.
Aah … Vienna
Ure havin’ a laugh…
Mary or Midge?
(not sure what happened to Mungo)
He went off on his pushbike.
Well it puts off having to do anything about Brexit for another few months. Gotta love short-termism!
I am thinking that the Lib Dems might do well…getting the centre-left Remain vote?
You have to say it’s a smart move. Main opposition party in disarray, no worries over by-elections caused by electoral fraud allegations, and takes the temperature of Scottish independence support.
Ism’t this just short of the deadline for the police investigations into suspected Conservative fraud from the 2015 election? May save(s) her bacon? Will there be more roaming battlebuses this time round, with unlimited national budgets?
Under FPTP, it’ll be down to the key marginals, as per usual, won’t it? By my reckoning, the Conservative slim majority was won in 2015 not by them, but by other parties losing.
* Lib Dem MPs losing seats to Labour (by voting Labour), and to the Conservatives (by voting anyone but Conservative or Lib Dem).
* Labour losing almost all seats in Scotland.
Labour won more seats off of the Conservatives than vice versa. With a clear anti-Brexit stance to appeal to the 48% and those with buyers’ remorse, a general antipathy to austerity, possibly enough water under the bridge beyond coalition, and in spite of Farron, Lib Dems might win their seats back. Presumably the Scots Nats stay in their seats. I’d say the most uncertainty is in whether Corbyn and his mob can present a coherent message in the remaining seats where they are strongest.
She hasn’t get any effective opposition. This is a smart move on her part unless………….. she gets a kick up the arse from the electorate, particularly those who voted to remain.
The Scottish result will be the most interesting and possibly the reason she has called the election.
If the SNP lose a few seats will it make the Krankie woman change her mind about a second referendum?
Good decision, it works for everyone. May will win and get a mandate for Brexit and her wrecking ball domestic policies. The Lib Dems will pick up a lot of Remain support as the party of the Single Market, and Labour MPs will be able to unite behind Corbyn, give him and his supporters their six weeks in the sun, and still be rid of him three years ahead of when they expected. There was no chance of a Labour win in 2020, but there might now be in 2022.
Corbyn won’t go though. He could lose 100 seats and he’d hang in there and say it’s because they weren’t radical enough, Blairites, etc etc. He’s not interested in winning.
All the more reason to support him. If the public decide they like his polices and leadership, and Labour do well but still lose, he has a mandate to stay on. If Labour tanks, which seems more likely, giving him 100% backing means he won’t have his usual excuse. It turns a difficult three year project to rebuild an opposition into a six week one.
I’m having this precise argument elsewhere. My belief is that the Labour party afterwards will be:
“Of course he didn’t win. Right wing press/media conspiracy. Far from being the disaster that the number of seats would have you believe, this in fact shows that Jeremy just needs more time to get his values-driven message across.”
Or as Michael Foot said in 1983 “If only we were a bit more left wing”..,.
Yep, the False Consciousness belief remains widespread. Explains the total apoplexy that greets every iffy Mail or Sun story – ‘if only they weren’t fed such beastliness the scales would fall from the eyes of the masses and they would rise up, rise up and, and…’.
If Labour could get their vote out it could end up as a hung parliament then who knows what could happen. Unlikely, but if the LDs get the support from the supposed mass of people who want to stay in the EU, you never know. I’m tempted to put a hundred quid on a hung parliament. Wonder what the odds are?
Hung parliament? Labour are on 23% in some polls. This is going to make 1983 look like 1945.
Please. 1868 made 1945 look like 1332.
And 2016 made 1998 look like 1971.
And I’ve just turned 1961 upside down and it still looks like 1961.
The 6th June 2006 was a great day for me.
WWOOOAHH-HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
In an opinion poll of one, I have voted Labour in every general election since I came of age, but there is no way I’m voting for Corbyn. Initial feelings are that I’ll go for the Lib Dems, but there is a lot of water to flow under various bridges yet.
I’m exactly the same apart from the fact that I respect our local Labour MP (Ben Bradshaw) and would feel bad about not supporting him. After all, shouldn’t it be about supporting (or not) your MP rather than blindly supporting (or not) one party or another?
The sitting Tory here increased his majority last time, so I don’t have to factor that in, luckily as it is a conundrum to grapple with. Labour won’t win here this time (it was a new constituency last time so no proper historical record), but if they lose votes they had previously it’s more pressure for Corbyn to go. It’s perverse, and I hate to say it, but I hope Labour’s share of the vote plummets. They have some big majorities out there, and I’m not sure they’re going to lose hundreds of seats, but some of those majorities will take a beating. I’d cede two extra years of Tory rule for the chance of another Labour government in my lifetime.
I’m in neighbouring East Devon with Hugo Swine as MP….he’ll walk it unfortunately….
We are the Devon massive! (originally from Plymouth)
Don’t feel bad for Ben Bradshaw. I doubt he feels bad for letting you down. Vote as your head tells you.
Me too, I’ve never voted for anyone but Labour and I’ll be going elsewhere this time.
Luckily, my MP is Diane Abbott so I won’t need to feel guilty about abandoning her. It’ll be interesting to see if her vote goes down in the constituency, I sense a fair number of locals are cheesed off with her.
Unless you’re from an African-Carribean background, Diane Abbott is no more “Your” MP than she is mine. She’s the Clay Davis* of London politics – a clever opportunist who believes in absolutely nothing, and certainly isn’t interested in being in government. Which is just as well.
(*off The Wire. Probably too obscure a reference…)
According to Oddschecker only 2 bookies are offering odds – 1/12 on that it’s not a hung parliament (about the same as a May win). You can get 200/1 on Farage becoming PM.
Much of the traditional Lib Dem vote was in the South West. They won’t be turning out for Brexit protest.
Labour/Lib Dem coalition anyone?
Two parties with about 130 seats between them forming a government? I think not…
That could change.*
*A long shot, I’ll grant you.
Christ, this is going to be carnage, isn’t it? I think I’m on fairly safe ground in suggesting the idea of the nation “coming together” will take quite a beating over the next 7 weeks; in fact the combination of party politics multiplied by Brexit/anti-Brexit sentiment probably means no-one’s going to be speaking to each other by 8th June…
Sadly I’m in a super-safe Conservative seat, where UKIP hoovered up the LibDem votes to come second in 2015, so I’m afraid my vote is going to be worse than useless, but let’s see how the wind blows…
There has to be a vote in Parliament on having an early election, it seems. What would happen if Labour, LibDems, ScotNats, some disaffected Tories and other odds and sods all voted against and won?
I don’t think this have been announced if it hadn’t been cleared with Corbyn to ensure the necessary parliamentary vote. His supporters within the PLP will follow the whip, his opponents will see electoral loss sooner rather than later as the quickest way of throwing him under the bus and rebuilding as electoral force (albeit probably from a historically low footing).
Edit – the procedure is outlined here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39630209
Labour and the LibDems would lose all credibility if they did. I don’t think Sturgeon is too happy about it though.
My Scottish friends tell me she has plenty to be unhappy about when it comes to the prospect of her record being evaluated by the electorate.
This will either sink all hopes of another referendum or provide a lifeline for one to go ahead. I predict the former. Corbyn has to say he welcomes the opportunity, but his party could be toast in 8 weeks time. LibDems have little to lose and potentially will gain very little too.
Having chewed this over in the past few hours, Game Theory would suggest that the best approach for one party (probably Lib Dems, maybe Labour) in these very strange times is to position themselves totally full-tilt as the anti-Brexit-let’s-rescind-Article-50 party. I don’t even know what’s realistically possible on that score, but there’s absolutely no percentage in trying to take on the Tories in a pro- (or even “grudgingly pro-“) Brexit argument, so if you’ve little or nothing to lose, go totally the other way…
That’s exactly the position that little Tim Farron has already committed to.
They already seem to be pulling back from that though. Sarah Olney on BBC News just now was talking about getting a softer Brexit, not about overturning it.
Farron is daft then. May and Corbyn are both committed to Brexit, LibDems have few MPs to lose and are pro-European. Never mind the long term politics, you’d be daft not to position your party to pick up votes from the 48% not the 52% split 3 ways.
Game theory.
Mr Mickey, Yours is exactly the correct answer on this entire post and in this entire event. The proposed election presents the populace with the option to vote on the issues within the UK and the UK alone, rather than on perceived and misunderstood supranational issues which have largely fuck all to do with the EU and its bearing on the UK.
(I meant to add before Edith timed me out).
This proposed election should have been the opportunity for that proportion of the 52% to register their disquiet, followed by the EU referendum- although I suspect it would not have been needed.
I imagine May will achieve her ‘mandate’ with disappointing ease.
Big British/International business will also be clearer in their ‘mandates’ and responsibilities to their shareholders as they watch UK plc float off further into the Atlantic.
We’ve been told over the last 10 months that more people wanted to remain than leave the EU. We have consistently been told that Brexit is the worst possible thing to happen to our country in our history. Doesn’t this election become a referendum re-run? Vote May = vote Brexit / vote Lib-Dem or SNP = vote chance to stop it. The fact that no-one in their right mind would trust Farron or the Scottish witch with anything. Then there’s Corbyn… It means people must be turning themselves inside out deciding where to put their X. I think it’s very funny and a stroke of genius, more fuel to my fire that she is the safest pair of hands out of a bad bunch. A Gary Sprake among a selection of Alan Roughs and Massimo Taibi’s
Here’s another way of looking at it: May takes the opportunity to shore up her personal mandate, wins a whacking great majority on 8 June, and then, newly empowered, slits the throats of some of her internal opponents (inc one B. Johnson) and negotiates her own vision of Brexit, no longer a hostage of the Tory right.
The whole situation is so complex and volatile that it’s very hard to know where any one outcome will lead.
It doesn’t lead to a Labour government at any time in the future. They will simply never get out of the Great Pit of Carkoon they’re about to get tipped into.
Which, if that were to occur, would not be utterly intolerable, no?
Would that be the Gary Sprake who once threw a ball over his own shoulder and into his own goal? In front of the Kop at Anfield too?
Clearly more people voted to Leave than Remain, so not sure where you are being “told” the opposite. And who is telling you it’s the worst thing ever to have happened? Just gross exaggerations. I think some are unhappy that they were misled by some of the statistics given during the vote eg. NHS funding.
I don’t think anyone now thinks it can be stopped (and it can’t be), so this election is not a re-run of Brexit, it is an attempt to increase the governments majority, give a mandate to May and destroy the opposition. Whether that also destroys Corbyn and/or the Labour party remains to be seen. It is a shame there likely will be no strong opposition as that is needed for democratic government to be truly effective. Called the leader of a political party a “witch” whether you agree with her or not is political understanding at about the level of The Sun or similar.
‘Scottish witch’? Nice…good to see your level of debate, Dave.
” I think it’s very funny”…. don’t have children then? Not planning to get old? In that case, maybe it is.
Are we attempting to collectively object to every single sentence of Dave’s post here? No one’s had a pop about the mixed metaphors yet.
Consign the leaden albatross of mixed metaphor to the dustbin of history’s black hole!
I have no idea what he’s about. I think the Massimo Taibi is some kind of coffee machine isn’t it?
As I’m sure you knew ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snVV_GI7Ky0
That’s almost Shilton like
Ok, in order. Good shout Bingo, who knows what will happen the crazy way elections have gone recently.
That’s the one Baron at least Sprake had a decent team around him….
Dai, among remainers there has been constant sniping that the Brexit vote was wrong and a dreadful result. Apologies for the “witch” comment. If Edith would let me I’d change it to Scottish politician Nicola Sturgeon MP.
Black Type, see above
Moose, yes I have children, I am getting old and I still think it’s funny. Sorry but I just do
Finally apologies for mixing my metaphors, I get a bit excited and carried away. Like a kid in a china shop. A Carlton Palmer among a selection of Paul Pogbas, and Geoff Thomas’s
Tories 380 – 400: advances in West Midlands, take back areas previously lost to Blair. Labour down to 180, Lib Dems up to 24, UKIP as dismal a political showing as ever, even though Nigel tries (and loses) no. 8, and Greens no better than before, even in Brighton. Jezza stands down to be replaced, in an act of genius, by Diane Abbott, which is when Labour’s problems REALLY begin.
I reckon this election has several functions; May’s own stronger mandate; Wipes out the electoral expenses scandal which stops at Cambourne; Osbourne can stand down improving Tory reputations in a pen stroke; SNP due to lose a few seats so can’t claim to speak for the country when wee Krankie is in decline; calls the bluff of UKIP’s stragglers; and reminds the urban liberal left that this is 27 years on from Thatch, with many of the newer voters barely born in the last century seeing a reasonably sensible PM as the sanest option compared to big-talking schoolboys and their lefty 68er granddad.
It so happens my ITunes shuffle has just thrown up TRB’s “Power In the Darkness”.
Freedom from the likes of YOU!
Best political song of the last half century.
*breeeep* *breeeep*
*breeeep* *breeeep*
*breeeep* *bree-
‘Hallo?’
‘Oh, hi there, is that Kim Jong-un?’
‘Yaas, this he, you have co-rordinates for me?’
‘Yep, here we go, this is Number 10 OK? – you’ll need another set for the Scottish woman.’
‘OK, OK, tell me numbahs!’
‘OK, it’s 51°30’12.4″N and 0°07’39.3″W’. Low yield, OK? Minimum collateral damage, as agreed.’
‘Ah. Yes. Very good. We launch immediatry’
I’m trying to decide if this is a “Michael Jackson-has-just-kicked-the-bucket-job.”
Namely, duck down for a time in the Sea of Holes, set all controls to BBC 4Extra or BBC 5Extra – live with a constant stream of long-form cricket, non-election Afterword threads, Hancock Half Hours and Tamla/psych/pop made between 1963 and 1969.
Not a political rosette in sight until I vote for the losing party at 7.00 a.m. on Thursday, 8th June.
Yes, I think it is.
I’ll start with Chris Clark’s “Soul Sounds” L.P.
I’ll sign up for that!
I’ve just discovered Radio4 Extra on the TuneIn Radio app. It’s wonderful!
I read elsewhere that this was a “Snap Election” – not being familiar with the term, I assumed it was named thus because matters were “as serious as cancer”, but now I see it’s so called because the lady requesting the vote has already “got the power”…
I used to live in Mansfield. A snap election there is a democratic vote on what to have in your packed lunch.
Or a painful sexual mishap for VV’s comedy Korean leader (see above)
I predict that the Lib Dems will do better than expected. There’s a large remain vote to be had and they are well placed to pick it up.
This works for Labour because Corbyn will have his Nicky Hutchinson moment 3 years ahead of schedule.
The Tories will lose seats in England but gain some in Scotland.
Net result – not much change. May isn’t going to get the thumping majority she is clearly hoping for.
Very good. Must watch Our Friends in the North again.
Canny fettle!
It all makes perfect sense for our head girl. She’s changed the Cameron cabinet, she’s clearly forgotten what was in the last Tory manifesto and she’s doing what Gordon Brown probably should have done when he became leader. I believe she will win, but nowhere near as handsomely as people predict. The English generally don’t like see thumping majorities and what the polls say now will not be the case when election draws near. What will be interesting is to see how the Lib Dems do and how bad it will be for Labour. Quite frankly I fear a Labour government under Corbyn, Abbott and McDonell (is that the right spelling ?), because of their archaic incompetence and to have a PM who has consorted with and shared platforms with anti-semitic and holocaust denier lowlifes is a step too far for this country. I want to see a Labour party emerge from the likely ashes of this election with a sense that they need to re-discover some moral force & competence which will put them in some position to be a serious opposition and genuine candidates come the next election. As far as May is concerned, she is hoping that she will get a mandate which will strengthen her position and keep her cabinet colleagues (that’s you Boris) in order and the barking brexiteers in her own party in check. She may well get that because people trust her, and there seems to be another fact which seems to have gone unremarked – the economy. There’s people talking serious downturns and problems on a scale with 2008 on the horizon. That won’t happen before June 8th, and people have yet to feel the effects of an economic downturn which may not have been the case come 2020.
Well people keep moaning about her not having a mandate, not being elected etc so it seems sensible to me that she gets one. Not necessary under our system of course as we don’t elect the Prime Minister but as usual our puerile electorate moans about what they’d like it to be rather than as it is, so an election should solve that one. Of course has we had another coalition we wouldn’t be in this mess at all. See puerile electorate again.
https://whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com/#16
Let us not forget that one of the reasons people keep throwing that at her was because of how she treated Gordon Brown after he became PM.
Not to mention going against her predecessor’s position, at least when it came to Gordon Brown being PM – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8641552.stm
As an observer from a land Down Under, surely people in the UK are sick of voting – the election in 2015 then the referendum in 2016. Voter fatigue – mightn’t be much of a turnout
My thought too. This will wallop Labour as well as everything else.
The idea of ‘Voter Fatigue’ is a fucking disgusting concept when you think that people died for our right to vote. Imagine having to make all these big decisions and tick a box on a piece of paper every few months. Just to add to the strain these terribly over-stretched voters are under, there are already Local Elections and City Mayoral elections in some places on May 4th as well – oh man…all that box ticking….even if they can get their head around Postal Voting…. some may not make till June 8 at this rate. FFS.
So is compulsory voting, which we have in Australia, ever raised as a possibility?
When I floated this notion after the referendum I got a bit of a seeing-to on here, iirc. Still can’t see any serious objection though.
All for it myself, as long as there is a ‘none of the above’ option.
The NOTA option is there anyway. Just spoil the voting paper in a manner of your own choosing
Anyone who thinks compulsory voting ensures people engage with politics hasn’t observed the Australian political landscape recently.
What do you mean? Compulsory voting has revealed that about a third of voters reject the major parties – so maybe that means people don’t engage with politics. Is that what you mean?
I mean free choice – a basic function of democracy – is violated. The significant shift to the right in Australia is clear evidence that people are disengaged. Why do you think all the major parties are gung-ho for compulsory voting? Because it favours them.
And always has.
(And it’s actually a quarter.)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-03/election-results-historical-comparison/7560888
Spoiling the ballot paper just counts as a spoiled ballot paper. I want to register a vote that says I have voted but didn’t want any of the options.
As someone said on Twitter, it’s a big boost for the tiny-pencils-on-string industry.
🙂
The PM is reportedly refusing to join in with public televised debate, which makes sense given the looming spectre of electoral fraud, her blundering into an unnecessary grammar schools debate and subsequent climbdown , her dismal performances at PMQs and, more importantly, the unquestioning support of the non-doms, xenophobes and tax-evaders who own the finger pointing hate comics which many of our newspapers have become, she knows she can’t perform and frankly doesn’t need to…
Given that the focus on Labour seems to be personal and not policy-based, could the opposition parties not coalesce around a social agenda dealing with schools, NHS, jobs,housing and widening inequality whilst promoting a position of ensuring that withdrawal from Europe supports these key priorities ?
Given the lack of involvement within the political process of younger people, is it not time for a change, such as the above which might move us away from the personal, the reactive and the short term ?
Here’s hoping for a triumph of imagination over opportunism and expediency for a change !
The points you raise here speak to @dr-volume ‘s post above. This disregard for democracy is lamentable but the contempt that politicians and the media have for the electorate fuels the “fatigue”. I’ve always voted and always will but it’s with a growing sense of being mugged off.
The cynicism of Mother May’s refusal to debate on TV (matched by my MP’s disregard for speaking to her constituents given the safeness of her seat) is matched only by Corbyn’s’ attempt to spin it as her being afraid to face him on TV.
Yeah, good luck with that.
A reason to be cheerful!
All sitting labour MPs are automatically re-selected, given the time constraint. That means no opportunity for Momentum et al to re-shape the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Why does that matter? Because when Corbyn resigns post-election, none of his fellow flat-earthers will be able to find sufficient MPs to nominate them.
Of course, a greater reason to be cheerful would be if May was actually up against someone like Yvette Cooper (though, to be fair, she would have been unlikely to call a GE under that circumstance) – but I’m taking my cheer where I can find it.
The PLP is going to be reshaped. Into a very small shape.
But there are a few jacking it in rather than face an election – Alan Johnson, Iain Wright, Tom Blenkinsop, Pat Glass and possibly Gisela Stuart and Fiona Mactaggart. That helps Corbyn a little doesn’t it?
*If* he resigns. They can’t make him, and while most leaders would immediately resign after a thumping defeat, there’s no guarantee he will. After all, he clung on last year when 80% of his MPs declared no confidence in him, which would have done for any other leader.
John McDonnell is trying to get a resolution through at the next conference to reduce the number of nominations required to stand as leader down from 15% of MPs to 5% – ie to secure another hard left candidate acceptable to Momentum on the ballot when Corbyn does go. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Corbyn try to cling on until that’s had a chance to be passed.
Miliband stood down when Labour won 232 seat and I imagine if Corbyn, who is nothing if not a man of great principle, can’t beat that two years further into a Tory government, he’ll do the right thing.
We’ll see. The reason there’s no mechanism to remove a leader is because it was thought that anyone who’d lost over 50% of MPs wouldn’t try to hang on. And yet…
I’m reminded of Stewart Lee’s remark about “refining his audience”.
But he’s joking.
So, farewell then (for a while) George Osborn
I’ve must have clicked on the Daily Mail by mistake. Ye get more right wing as ye get older right enough.
I’d happily vote Corbyn if I lived in England. Can’t understand left-wingers refusing to vote for him when they happily voted for the useless cretin that was Ed Milliband.
I’m too useless to beable to display this but, it does – if accurate and not from the Trumpton School of DIY stats – paint an interesting picture.
http://api.ning.com/files/kaztzwUAT-JMb1ljuuxKu477QwyP8Aqc6JkMTjWwQ4UNuBJZIVv-BK05kTv*7nCDBChvOMNnbuI0ScEqKb3k-ZWqpGtMqxC3/Capture.JPG
That is interesting. Basically if you’re 18-34, it’s 50/50 whether you vote at all.
Before we froth ourselves up over this – consider how remote and protected politicians are generally. I’m really interested in politics and am at the perfect (middle) age to engage with them but they actually appear to be a bit scared and certainly not at all engaging. If you wear a T-shirt saying “Fuck off and leave me alone” – you can’t expect people to warm to you and want to hear what you’ve got to say.
Very interesting.
At the last election, both Tory and Labour increased their share of the vote by 1%. However, the implosion of the Lib Dems benefited the Tories more. Perhaps the anti-May vote is best placed with the Lib Dems?
I would say it was a must. The Lib Dems analysed their losses after the 2015 election and found voters switched from them to anyone but Tories. In many cases Tories slipped in without substantially increasing their vote.
The Lib Dems lost 9000 votes in my constituency last time. Labour only gained 300, the sitting Tory gained 3000, and UKIP picked up an extra 6000. It’s interesting that the maths adds up, because Lib Dem to UKIP doesnt fit the narrative of UKIP gaining the swivel eyed xenophobic loons from the Tories and the dissatisfied working class in the Labour heartlands.
I have a sneaking suspicion that UKIP’s vote is going to really tank, this time around.
Not all leavers are as swivel-eyed as some Remainers would have it. The racist loons will either stick with them or vote Tory but a lot of those who deserted Labour for UKIP because they wanted out of the EU, will return to them, having got their Brexit. Especially as Labour seem to have accepted the inevitability of our EU exit. The hardline remainers will go for the Greens or LibDems. I think we might end up with a hung parliament.
Breaking news! Thatcher’s Hologram to announce that she intends to throw her apparition into the ring!
A fun game to play over the next few weeks is Who’s That At The Back? There’s a whole science that goes into choosing who appears behind politicians in election announcements.
The Labour Party edit of Corbyn’s launch yesterday in Croydon suggests there’re only one MSP (male, stale, pale) in the whole town (part from Jezza of course). (I tried to embed the video, but don’t know how – anyway it’s on twitter)
While this is even more subtle. To the left, pasty-faced Tory boys. To the right, diversity.
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d125/botlblonds/GettyImages-670302582-2.jpg
Watch out for nurses and care workers in the front row – they usually start to appear around week three.
Reminds me of the Spitting Image Neil Kinnock’s campaign speech:
“Nurses! Nurses! Nurses! Pensioners! Pensioners! Nurses! Pensioners!”
“We need a nurse, a fireman, a Muslim woman and a wheelchair user to Richmond High Street, pronto!”
“Strong and Stable Leadership in the National Interest”
That’s one helluva snappy slogan.
“I believe in strength. I believe in unity. And if that strength, that unity of purpose, demands a uniformity of thought, word and deed then so be it”.
Fred Durst has really upped his game recently, lyric-wise, hasn’t he?
BREAKING NEWS: Theresa May has just announced that conditions have changed and she doesn’t actually believe in any of those things.
The new slogan goes:
“Blah blah placeholder text we’ll win anyway will this do?”
perhaps if they could maintain a “strong and stable” Manifesto then the big message might be a bit more convincing.
‘Strong and Stable, until the tabloids turn on us and point out that a major manifesto commitment directly attacks our core voter base’.
‘Strong and Stable My Arse’, to quote the signs which are popping up around London.
Here we go again!
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/theresa-may-commits-tories-cutting-161539947.html
Just to throw this into the mix as well.
Many of the people who are decrying May for her snap election seem to believe Gordon Brown ‘dithered’ when faced with a similar opportunity. Hard to argue that Brown would have been on a morally stronger footing for taking advantage of his position at that time than May is now, given the ‘interesting times’ in which we currently dwell.
The real precedent for this is Wilson in ’66… the cynical old bastit.
(being mindful of the site I’m on, I don’t mean Brian)
I don’t think many people are decrying her for it. It’s politics. Complaining about her seizing what she perceives as a great opportunity is like complaining about water being wet.
That is its worst characteristic though, imho. I went swimming yesterday – got bloody soaked.
On the face of it she’s right though – the HofL threatening that and that because there is no electoral mandate. You can bet that awful Gina Miller woman will be back in court the minute there is a bicycle wheel and a cricket stump to hand. From May’s POV getting a proper mandate must seem the best route. It’s hardly her fault the Labour party has gone mad. I’m hoping for an LD resurgence and another coalition to balance the thinking up a bit.
I suspect the number of people complaining about her taking advantage of a weak opposition is about the same (and may overlap with) the number who a week ago were complaining that she was an unelected Prime Minister with no mandate to make decisions on our behalf.
I agree, they’d complain whatever she did.
Disagree. She had a mandate, and was fully enititled to serve a full term. Parliament passed a law delivering fixed term parliaments which, they told us, would stop opportunistic elections being called. It’s clear we were sold a pup. May has consistently, repeatedly and categorically said she wouldn’t call an election and to do so would be damaging to the country when all attention needed to be on delivering Brexit. It’s clear now that this was rank hypocrisy, and her attempts to justify what is manifestly political self interest are pathetic and fool no one. It’s that which angers me about this – the consistent presentation of her as a moral, straight talking and honest politician when this decision tells a very different story.
That’s why she has Boris in her cabinet. Put her next to him and she looks like Nelson Mandela.
As an aside, there doesn’t seem to have been much comment anywhere that the ‘fixed term’ parliament idea seems to mean nothing at all in practice….? If a government proposes a motion to call an election, under what circumstancees is the opposition actually going to vote against it?
They could, they just chose not to. Democracy is served.
Well, yes….but I would question why, in fact, any opposition would not agree. Labour is miles behind in the polls and probably won’t improve its position, but still felt compelled to vote for the motion.
No ruling party with a small majority that’s doing badly in the polls is likely to call a snap election, but a party with a small majority that’s currently polling well might see an opportunity to gain a large majority.
An opposition party doing badly in the polls at the time, could then be accused of cowardice if they voted against, thus worsening their support. No matter which party that was, our news media would have a field day with them.
The practise of governments opportunistically calling snap elections to prolong their term of office while their ratings are peaking is what the creation of fixed-term parliaments was designed to guard against. Right or wrong, it has now been shown to be pretty meaningless.
Precisely my point. It’s strange that nobody actually recognised that this would inevitably be the case, but it’s bleedin’ obvious now.
Is England a Shrew?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrew
Something that makes me wonder, when Politicians get on their Battle Buses, travel far and wide going door knocking and visiting constituencies, why do they think this makes any difference to the voters? I understand they can’t just stay in London or their own constituencies, but does a stage managed visit to a factory, a walk up to and swiftly back down from a couple of doorsteps accompanied by 3 PAs and a full camera crew, and a Press Q&A session, without the A, make a scrap of difference to a voter? Maybe they’re just hoping a swing an individual vote or two , but its just as much a risk ( Gordon Brown meets Old Lady ) as an opportunity. What’s the point?
I agree. Why on earth do they do it?
Having said that though, Corbyn’s campaign footage seems more natural and usually involves him among large crowds of people. Teresa May seems to be mingling with just a handful of oiks and nodding like an overkeen minor royal.
This picture below is of Tony Blair on his resignation day in Sedgefield in 2007. Look at those handwritten signs the crowd are holding up. Earlier on in the day, when the BBC was reporting from outside the venue, you could clearly see the signs being handed out to the crowd. One of them said in swirly writing with lovehearts “Cherie – thank you for lending us your husband”. At least Corbyn doesn’t do bollocks like this.
I think Theresa wants to be personally popular. Or wants to feel that she is. This may be her downfall. I smell a Poll Tax or an Iraq or a Black Wednesday, a catastrophic mistake based on a misapprehension of how much political capital she has.
“Strong and stable” may go the way of “we’ve abolished boom and bust”.
So…is there a ” Labour surge”…?