2017 is a good election to lose. When Brexit takes shape someone is going to be very angry and that will be directed at the government
No doubt the remainers will be unhappy.
Freggles is 100% correct , when reality hits the pitchforks will be out big time.
Not on this one. People in general and voters in particular are usually very unwilling to accept adverse outcomes are the result of their own decisions.
We will see buyers regret in a few years time
You'll see it sooner than that in Scotland....June 9th, at a guess.....
Care to bet that Tories are not massive losers on June 8th,
You think the Tories will lose seats - well seat - in Scotland?
I am saying that SNP will be the winners in Scotland and will have most of teh seats, whethr the tories need a tandem or not is NOT winning. Tories will be massive losers in the Scottish vote. Carlotta's warped thinking that being a massiv eloser but ahead of the next massive loser is winning is pretty pathetic. No matter how you cut it the Tories are nowhere in Scotland.
SCON distant 2nd - just ahead of "dead in the water" SLAB in 3rd - both way behind SNP - being spun as a great SCON victory !!
SCON and SLAB combined well ahead of SNP though and that is all May needs to block indyref2
I find the media coverage of the Scottish results laughable. SNP has lost 7 seats from a very high peak.
They are 7 metres below the Everest summit whereas the Tories are , at best, on base camp 2 which is being spun as "victory".
Yes, the Tories have done very well. But they have just swapped places with Labour hardly hurting the SNP.
We no longer hear the Tories getting 12 seats next month. What's happened ? I thought the Tories won on Thursday.
The narrative is because for the first time in a long time(*) the SNP have had a setback.
(*) Well, except for the big one.
Oh to have the kind of setbacks where they have more seats and are largest party on more councils.
They actually lost a few seats overall
Notionally. Practically they have more. Not exactly the worst of setbacks.
Just got canvassed by Labour (Greenwich & Woolwich) - never happened last time.
The conversation went:
Him: "I'm here on behalf of the Labour Party" Me: "Two words: Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you." *shuts door*
I hope that's enough to get me put down as "against".
Lol, I'm back in London this weekend, I hope some Labour types come to the door.
Saw some in Acton the other day. I felt sorry for them and just smiled as sweetly as I could without saying anything. Didn't really want to make their day any worse than it already was.
They are choosing to ask members of the public to vote for a party led by Jeremy Corbyn. They deserve whatever they get!
2017 is a good election to lose. When Brexit takes shape someone is going to be very angry and that will be directed at the government
No doubt the remainers will be unhappy.
Freggles is 100% correct , when reality hits the pitchforks will be out big time.
Not on this one. People in general and voters in particular are usually very unwilling to accept adverse outcomes are the result of their own decisions.
We will see buyers regret in a few years time
You'll see it sooner than that in Scotland....June 9th, at a guess.....
Care to bet that Tories are not massive losers on June 8th,
You think the Tories will lose seats - well seat - in Scotland?
I am saying that SNP will be the winners in Scotland and will have most of teh seats, whethr the tories need a tandem or not is NOT winning. Tories will be massive losers in the Scottish vote. Carlotta's warped thinking that being a massiv eloser but ahead of the next massive loser is winning is pretty pathetic. No matter how you cut it the Tories are nowhere in Scotland.
SCON distant 2nd - just ahead of "dead in the water" SLAB in 3rd - both way behind SNP - being spun as a great SCON victory !!
SCON and SLAB combined well ahead of SNP though and that is all May needs to block indyref2
Adding the distant 2nd & 3rd parties from the opposite ends of the political spectrum to somehow beat the party which constantly wins in all forms of elections - FPTP, STV & AMS - is illogical on all counts.
SCON are the only Unionist Party, evidenced by their advance into Orange/Rangers areas in the Council Elections. Until SCON can win the elections ahead of the SNP in at least 1 of the above 3 electoral battlegrounds. Folks will be continuing to add up %s on the back of fag packets to make their case.
If SCON are so confident of winning IndyRef2 - why not call the SNP's bluff and stop opposing it !!
Because Sturgeon still wouldn't take no for an answer.
OK. I got it. But where the hell did they get all those votes. They lost seats for pete's sake.
In most of the seats the Lib Dems lost their vote actually increased , sadly the Conservative vote increased by more
Succinctly put. Applies in Con-Lab marginals too. In Broxtowe Labour's vote went up 2.5% compared with 2013, but the Tory vote went up 12%, and the UKIP vote collapsed.
Opposition parties need one of two things to happen: either Tories need to start feeling uneasy aboutr giving May a super-blank cheque to do whatever (and if we're honest, do any of us REALLY feel they know what she'll try to do or what will happen?), or UKIP voters need to feel uneasy. Either is possible, but largely out of the hands of the opposition parties. I don't think it is primrily Carbyn and Farron that are their problem: it's that voters are buying the "gimme a mandate and I'll get the best deal" stuff. At an abstract level people do often agree that giving her such a huge majority that she can settle on any terms might not be wise, but only sophisticated, very interested voters change their votes on that basis.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
2017 is a good election to lose. When Brexit takes shape someone is going to be very angry and that will be directed at the government
No doubt the remainers will be unhappy.
Freggles is 100% correct , when reality hits the pitchforks will be out big time.
Not on this one. People in general and voters in particular are usually very unwilling to accept adverse outcomes are the result of their own decisions.
We will see buyers regret in a few years time
You'll see it sooner than that in Scotland....June 9th, at a guess.....
Care to bet that Tories are not massive losers on June 8th,
You think the Tories will lose seats - well seat - in Scotland?
I am saying that SNP will be the winners in Scotland and will have most of teh seats, whethr the tories need a tandem or not is NOT winning. are nowhere in Scotland.
SCON distant 2nd - just ahead of "dead in the water" SLAB in 3rd - both way behind SNP - being spun as a great SCON victory !!
SCON and SLAB combined well ahead of SNP though and that is all May needs to block indyref2
I find the media coverage of the Scottish results laughable. SNP has lost 7 seats from a very high peak.
They are 7 metres below the Everest summit whereas the Tories are , at best, on base camp 2 which is being spun as "victory".
Yes, the Tories have done very well. But they have just swapped places with Labour hardly hurting the SNP.
We no longer hear the Tories getting 12 seats next month. What's happened ? I thought the Tories won on Thursday.
The narrative is because for the first time in a long time(*) the SNP have had a setback.
(*) Well, except for the big one.
Oh to have the kind of setbacks where they have more seats and are largest party on more councils.
They actually lost a few seats overall
Notionally. Practically they have more. Not exactly the worst of setbacks.
Still far from the momentum they need for indyref2 and if they lose seats at the general election and fall under 45% May will just ignore them
I find the media coverage of the Scottish results laughable. SNP has lost 7 seats from a very high peak.
They are 7 metres below the Everest summit whereas the Tories are , at best, on base camp 2 which is being spun as "victory".
Yes, the Tories have done very well. But they have just swapped places with Labour hardly hurting the SNP.
We no longer hear the Tories getting 12 seats next month. What's happened ? I thought the Tories won on Thursday.
The projections of Conservative success at the General Election were based on significant progress in Scotland-only polls. I concur that they are almost certainly exaggerated, although you and I may both need to re-think if any consistent evidence
Crudely speaking, what has actually happened is that yes, a lot of Labour voters do appear to have gone over to the Conservatives, but also there has been movement from Labour to SNP and from SNP to Unionist parties - principally the Conservatives, with limited ground also gained by the Liberal Democrats. The evidence for the latter comes from a number of local authorities in which Labour was already weak, and yet the SNP still lost significant ground to Unionist candidates. How else to explain results like Aberdeenshire, where Labour was nowhere last time and nowhere this time, but the SNP suffered significant losses, mainly to the Conservatives? The Tories have now replaced the SNP as the largest group in Aberdeenshire and Perth & Kinross, and have run them very close in Moray and several other areas.
Essentially, what we are seeing here *might* be the beginning of a reversion to something akin to the Scottish electoral map before the Tories were wiped out in the late 80s and 90s - only with the SNP taking the place of Labour. The SNP consolidate control in the cities and the central belt, but especially in the poorer areas - hence the fact that they are very strong in Glasgow and Dundee, yet are now only one councillor ahead of the Tories in Edinburgh - whilst the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats mop up most or all of rural Scotland, and wealthy enclaves in the urban areas. The SNP would still be much the largest party, but the Westminster seat map would be very far from a sea of yellow.
We are not voting in a referendum. We are voting for Westminster. The idea that a Labour voter [ those left behind ] would vote for a Tory against SNP is laughable. Between the two, it is the SNP which is the left wing party. That is how they parked their tanks in Labour's lawn and have now dug in.
Scotland uses STV, so we know that some Labour voters transfer to Conservatives in preference to SNP.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
Yep, totally agree. There will be nothing strong, stable or unchaotic about a Brexit with no deal. Put it this way: no deal has been on the table since 24th June 2016. If it were in the UK's best interests the government would already have announced it had no interest in negotiating our withdrawal or a trade deal. It would hust be sitting tight until Brexit day came round.
I agree it is #1. That is why she has gone for the election to secure a large enough majority to keep the nutters away. The majority is needed for compromises. She can also lose 10 points in the polls as the next election will not be before 2022.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
there must be equal treatment between all EU and UK nationals in the UK
I have no problem with that.
But currently there is unequal treatment between EU and UK nationals in the UK when it comes to non-EU family members.
Extra-territorial jurisdiction for the ECJ seems the obvious sticking point to me.
Mrs May's government has said it will ratifyourts can refer questions to it, get an answer then issue a judgement.
How does that work if the UK government passes a law that conflicts with a ruling of the ECJ (eg on employment, or pensions?)
A UK court will The key is what applied on the day we leave. UK courts may want to refer to the ECJ on questions around that.
Theresa May is going to laws.
There could be a transistional period where a joint ECJ - Supreme Court roll could be envisaged but it will not be for long.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
Furthermore expect her to be ready to terminate discussions with the Commission until they put a free trade deal on the table and go even further by scaling the issue right up to the Council of Ministers.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
And once their bluff is called - what happens then? We leave the EU and inflict deep, long-lasting damage on ourselves. Singing God Save the Queen and saying nasty things about untrustworthy foreigners won't change that. And the EU knows this, as does the PM.
Why do you remainers always play the objectionable foreigners card. I support immigration from anywhere subject to a job offer and delight at the diversity of the UK
You know, one day , you may find there is a whole new world outside the EU
I note you did not answer my question.
The people playing the nasty foreigner card are the right wing Brexiteers seeking to prepare the ground for no deal. They want it to be seen as the fault of foreigners, not of Brits.
I do most of my business outside the EU. I am very aware there is a big world out there. I see a lot of it. Next stop is Canada in June. It's Japan in October.
I find the media coverage of the Scottish results laughable. SNP has lost 7 seats from a very high peak.
They are 7 metres below the Everest summit whereas the Tories are , at best, on base camp 2 which is being spun as "victory".
Yes, the Tories have done very well. But they have just swapped places with Labour hardly hurting the SNP.
We no longer hear the Tories getting 12 seats next month. What's happened ? I thought the Tories won on Thursday.
The projections of Conservative success at the General Election were based on significant progress in Scotland-only polls. I concur that they are almost certainly exaggerated, although you and I may both need to re-think if any consistent evidence
Crudely speaking, what has actually happened is that yes, a lot of Labour voters do appear to have gone over to the Conservatives, but also there has been movement from Labour to SNP and from SNP to Unionist parties - principally the Conservatives, with limited ground also gained by the Liberal Democrats. The evidence for the latter comes from a number of local authorities in which Labour was already weak, and yet the SNP still lost significant ground to Unionist candidates. How else to explain results like Aberdeenshire, where Labour was nowhere last time and nowhere this time, but the SNP suffered significant losses, mainly to the Conservatives? The Tories have now replaced the SNP as the largest group in Aberdeenshire and Perth & Kinross, and have run them very close in Moray and several other areas.
Essentially, what we are seeing here *might* be the beginning of a reversion to something akin to the Scottish electoral map before the Tories were wiped out in the late 80s and 90s - only with the SNP taking the place of Labour. The SNP consolidate control in the cities and the central belt, but especially in the poorer areas - hence the fact that they are very strong in Glasgow and Dundee, yet are now only one councillor ahead of the Tories in Edinburgh - whilst the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats mop up most or all of rural Scotland, and wealthy enclaves in the urban areas. The SNP would still be much the largest party, but the Westminster seat map would be very far from a sea of yellow.
We are not voting in a referendum. We are voting for Westminster. The idea that a Labour voter [ those left behind ] would vote for a Tory against SNP is laughable. Between the two, it is the SNP which is the left wing party. That is how they parked their tanks in Labour's lawn and have now dug in.
Scotland uses STV, so we know that some Labour voters transfer to Conservatives in preference to SNP.
Norfolk Mark Senior prediction - Con 47, Lab 17, LibDem 13 Actual result - Con 55, Lab 17, LibDem 11 Difference - Con +8, Lab --, LibDem -2
Dorset Mark Senior prediction - Con 25, Lab 4, LibDem 16 Actual result - Con 32, Lab 1, LibDem 11 Difference - Con +7, Lab -3, LibDem -5
Gloucestershire Mark Senior prediction - Con 24, Lab 9, LibDem 17 Actual result - Con 31, Lab 5, LibDem 14 Difference - Con +7, Lab -4, LibDem -3
Fair comment , in my defense the forecasts were made prior to the GE being announced .
I did say at the time that your predictions were brave.
The change in opinion polls from 2013 to this year showed that there would be big Conservative gains and big Labour losses - I remember John Cutice mentioning a 12% swing in the polls over a month ago.
Had May not swept up the UKIP vote by going to the Country on a hard Brexit platform - and had the GE not swamped a lot of local issues - Mark's predictions would probably have been on the money.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
Stalin pursued ethnic cleansing and extermination policies too.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
I take it that you have heard of the brutalities carried out by Stalin, Trotsky, Mao etc.?
I hope you have heard about the brutalities being carried out in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, our friends.
Yes, fair point, but what marks both Hitler and Stalin out is the systemic nature of the incarceration, forced labour and murder. Arguing whether it is worse to roundup entire categories of people, or give every local authority a quota of people to arrest arbitrarily, often fulfilled by torturing each person until they nominated two more, is a fine line. The industrial mass-murder of hundreds of people at a time was certainly a uniquely appalling crime. The Soviets however had a very large number of people shot one at a time.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
OK. I got it. But where the hell did they get all those votes. They lost seats for pete's sake.
In most of the seats the Lib Dems lost their vote actually increased , sadly the Conservative vote increased by more
Succinctly put. Applies in Con-Lab marginals too. In Broxtowe Labour's vote went up 2.5% compared with 2013, but the Tory vote went up 12%, and the UKIP vote collapsed.
Opposition parties need one of two things to happen: either Tories need to start feeling uneasy aboutr giving May a super-blank cheque to do whatever (and if we're honest, do any of us REALLY feel they know what she'll try to do or what will happen?), or UKIP voters need to feel uneasy. Either is possible, but largely out of the hands of the opposition parties. I don't think it is primrily Carbyn and Farron that are their problem: it's that voters are buying the "gimme a mandate and I'll get the best deal" stuff. At an abstract level people do often agree that giving her such a huge majority that she can settle on any terms might not be wise, but only sophisticated, very interested voters change their votes on that basis.
She only needs the massive majority for compromises, otherwise, her majority of 12 + DUP etc. would have been sufficient.
Some of the excitable Brexiters will be sorely disappointed in 2019.
The election is at a constituency level. Anything beyond the constituency level is not dealt with by the electoral system.
That depends on the system! I was simply pointing out that whilst at seat level a party gets all representation, even with vote shares as low as mid-20%s, it would be misleading to use WtA as title for the system since the second most popular party sometimes wins.
The second most popular party at a constituency level never wins.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Yet again, an imperialist mentality. They must behave like we want them to. WE will only deal with CoM.Good. Just wait until March 2019.
The election is at a constituency level. Anything beyond the constituency level is not dealt with by the electoral system.
That depends on the system! I was simply pointing out that whilst at seat level a party gets all representation, even with vote shares as low as mid-20%s, it would be misleading to use WtA as title for the system since the second most popular party sometimes wins.
The second most popular party at a constituency level never wins.
Except when a former representative re-stands against a newly selected replacement. Rochdale anyone?
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Juncker is not part of the negotiations.
Why was he at no 10 then
To taste the food which he found left a lot to be desired. Actually to introduce their negotiating team.
I find the media coverage of the Scottish results laughable. SNP has lost 7 seats from a very high peak.
They are 7 metres below the Everest summit whereas the Tories are , at best, on base camp 2 which is being spun as "victory".
Yes, the Tories have done very well. But they have just swapped places with Labour hardly hurting the SNP.
We no longer hear the Tories getting 12 seats next month. What's happened ? I thought the Tories won on Thursday.
So what you're saying was that 2013 was "peak SNP" and that the SNP are not very far from that peak now?
Not a bad argument at all except it misses a few key points.
1: The SNP supposedly surged forwards after the 2014 referendum, yet you're putting the "summit" at 2013. 2: The SNP needs to do better than 2014 to hold and win an Indyref2. Yet you're putting them behind what they were before then. 3: We've been told for years that calls of "peak SNP" were ridiculous, yet now you're saying we're four years on from "peak SNP".
I appreciate you're not the one who's made most of those claims but your argument is incompatible with any argument that the SNP improved after the Indyref.
Any economists out there able to sensibly estimate the net effect of a 1% income tax rate rise?
If i am taxed more out of my income, I have less to spend in shops etc, so the net effect is not what it seems clearly.
For the record, I believe I am taxed enough already thanks Mr Farron :-/ NHS needs reform more than it needs new cash hosed at it. Also IMHO a solution needs to be found outside of party politics
It's hardly hosed in cash. And most costs are staff pay which have gone up by 1% a year Max resulting in staff shortages. But OK, magic efficiency tree.
LD proposal involves only more cash
Nothing about reform, restructure, different ways of working, nothing.
So the cash would just be handed over, no strings. And you seem to prefer that it would disappear in salaries, not for patient care.
awesome
Given that other developed country systems appear to be less cost-effective than ours, they must have even greater inefficiencies that have not been removed
Thatcher increased NHS spending at 4%/y. 1%/y is a recipe for near-permanent crisis and excessive patient deaths. In fact the death rate did rise unexpectedly in 2015; I think we await the 2016 figure.
Ironically, more NHS staff will be driven to seek medical advice for stress, if not for a full nervous breakdown. How can it possibly help for the DoH to treat the workers like that?
There are obvious areas to save money. Spending on T2 diabetes is almost out of control. But there's a virtual epidemic of T2D in other countries.
The only country I know where doctors have seriously questioned the establishment view, with considerable success, is Sweden, www.dietdoctor.com. However, the doctor who runs that site resigned from Sweden's NHS to give full-time dietary advice on how to prevent T2D.
I have more time for doctors than politicians or budding politicians as on PB. Dr. Phil Hammond/Private Eye talks more sense than all of NHS England, DoH and SoS put together. So does Lord Owen. Sarah Wollaston too, but she's also become one of the awkward squad and won't be appointed to high office any time soon
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
Stalin pursued ethnic cleansing and extermination policies too.
Google Valeriy Blokhin. Somehow I find him far more chilling than the indistrial scale murders at Auschwitz. The Stalinist empire was every bit as murderous as the Nazi one.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
From the point of view of the victims, the motives of the mass murderers make very little difference.
Mass excitement of PB Toryites at Tory "victory" in Scotland except by the same definition Corbyn would be triumphant in England.
It is all an illusion. Tory success in deprived urban areas on Thursday was built on 12 per cent of the first preference vote under the STV system. It is as about as real as the IDS mission to Castlemilk all of these years ago.
Meanwhile Tory success in rural areas is built on fighting a local election as a general election and securing a large differential turnout. Trouble is in a months time everyone will be fighting a general election and the turnout will reflect that.
Pride and falls should be the wise Tory watchwords in Scotland but it shall not be thus. Davidson will screech and overreach and come back down with a bump.
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
Somebody on here last night suggested the lesson Mrs May took from David Cameron is that you need to be prepared to walk away and then you must follow through. But that misunderstands the purpose of these negotiations, which is not to walk away, but to get the deal. You do this by giving the other side what they want with the greatest benefit and least cost to yourself. That requires engagement.
If Mrs May had wanted to stall, she should have done it BEFORE triggering Article 50. We won't budge or cooperate until we get what we want. She threw away her hand on that to appease her Leaver faction, who mistrusted any delay.
I'm very late joining this thread, but this is so much on topic I can't resist.
On the bus this morning, passed a few boards from the local elections, obviously left up for the GE. One Conservative board had an extra sign underneath, neatly tacked on to the main board.
In decent-sized caps on blue paper, it proclaimed simply: WON HERE.
Don't know how many local people got the joke, but I laughed like a drain.
Pride and falls should be the wise Tory watchwords in Scotland but it shall not be thus. Davidson will screech and overreach and come back down with a bump.
I look forward to your posts on the 9th explaining why a loss of seats and vote share is a triumph for you Nicola
The election is at a constituency level. Anything beyond the constituency level is not dealt with by the electoral system.
That depends on the system! I was simply pointing out that whilst at seat level a party gets all representation, even with vote shares as low as mid-20%s, it would be misleading to use WtA as title for the system since the second most popular party sometimes wins.
The second most popular party at a constituency level never wins.
Except when a former representative re-stands against a newly selected replacement. Rochdale anyone?
Whoever gets most votes in Rochdale will win, same as anywhere else.
Because Sturgeon still wouldn't take no for an answer.
Quite. If any future indyref2 also ends with a "No" answer, then the planning, if not open agitation, for indyref3 will begin the next day.
From the UK Government side, they'll only grant the second referendum if and when they think that most Scots want it. Otherwise they'll stonewall.
From the SNP side, not only is all else for them secondary to the goal of independence, it's central to the cohesion both of their voter base and of the party itself. They have to keep banging away at it, and maintain the narrative of inevitability. The moment that it becomes obvious to people that the goal is receding again, and that devolution within the UK is therefore Scotland's most likely long-term end state, then the wheels will begin to work loose from the wagon.
Without the cause to hold it together, a party encompassing everybody from Tartan Tories to Republican Socialists ain't going to survive in one piece.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
From the point of view of the victims, the motives of the mass murderers make very little difference.
Fair enough. The same applies if you are below an US or British or French bomber / drone. These do not discriminate between the good guys and the bad.
Mass excitement of PB Toryites at Tory "victory" in Scotland except by the same definition Corbyn would be triumphant in England.
It is all an illusion. Tory success in deprived urban areas on Thursday was built on 12 per cent of the first preference vote under the STV system. It is as about as real as the IDS mission to Castlemilk all of these years ago.
Meanwhile Tory success in rural areas is built on fighting a local election as a general election and securing a large differential turnout. Trouble is in a months time everyone will be fighting a general election and the turnout will reflect that.
Pride and falls should be the wise Tory watchwords in Scotland but it shall not be thus. Davidson will screech and overreach and come back down with a bump.
You think Corbyn is going to win hundreds of seats in England like the SCON won hundreds of seats in Scotland? It's a theory.
True but Stalin still killed even more than Hitler did
I think we all need to move on, frankly - the electorate has (and so in my limited experience have most Russians). I used to be a (Euro)Communist and told my voters about it back in 2000 or thereabouts. Nobody complained - the reaction was exactly was as if I'd said I used to be a Mormon, mildly interesting, worth a raised eyebrow, but no longer relevant. I was re-elected with good majorities in both following elections. 17 years later, I don't think it matters to anyone much in Britain what we think of people's actions 70 years ago. My mum was an ex-Russian who came to Brkitain in the 30s, voted Tory but quite liked Stalin for (eventually) standing up to Hitler - that's historically interesting family history to me, but she died 18 years ago and it's very much yesterday's argument.
In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!) - a deal's been done, the past is the past. It's possible to get too caught up in this stuff, and voters just switch off.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
What part of Stalin had extermination policies are you struggling with?
Or are they acceptable because he was on "our side" in the war?
Because I adopt the normal definition of winning multi party election contests which is what the SNP has done under FOUR different systems in 2011 (Scottish list),2012 (locals STV), 2014 Euros (D'Haunt), 2015 (UK FPP), 2016 (Scottish list), 2017 (locals STV).
That is SIX elections you chose to discount on your looking glass definition of winning and loosing.
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
From the point of view of the victims, the motives of the mass murderers make very little difference.
Fair enough. The same applies if you are below an US or British or French bomber / drone. These do not discriminate between the good guys and the bad.
The difference, hopefully, is with the intention.
There is a reason why none of the myriad versions of the Top Trumps card game ever featured murderous dictators. It's not an edifying discussion to be having.
Meanwhile one interesting fact (and I make no comparison other than statistical) - the US now has a higher proportion of its population behind bars than did the USSR at the height of the Terror and the gulags.
OK. I got it. But where the hell did they get all those votes. They lost seats for pete's sake.
In most of the seats the Lib Dems lost their vote actually increased , sadly the Conservative vote increased by more
Succinctly put. Applies in Con-Lab marginals too. In Broxtowe Labour's vote went up 2.5% compared with 2013, but the Tory vote went up 12%, and the UKIP vote collapsed.
Opposition parties need one of two things to happen: either Tories need to start feeling uneasy aboutr giving May a super-blank cheque to do whatever (and if we're honest, do any of us REALLY feel they know what she'll try to do or what will happen?), or UKIP voters need to feel uneasy. Either is possible, but largely out of the hands of the opposition parties. I don't think it is primrily Carbyn and Farron that are their problem: it's that voters are buying the "gimme a mandate and I'll get the best deal" stuff. At an abstract level people do often agree that giving her such a huge majority that she can settle on any terms might not be wise, but only sophisticated, very interested voters change their votes on that basis.
How did the results compare to your canvassing if you don't mind me asking.
And where will you be pounding the streets for the next month - Ashfield, Nottingham South or Gedling ?
Yes - nice to see another illustrious name in the comments section.
It does rather prove the problem with paywall journalism though - who's going to pay to read The Telegraph when a wonk / nerd / obsessive is prepared to do the same work and publish it to a nic(h)e blog, for free?
I don't know if anyone's added up first preference votes, but the SNP probably won about a third of the total. Adding in pro-SNP independents, that suggests they'll get about 40% in June, which is good, but a definite step back from 2015.
As I keep banging on and on, it's all about dat turnout.
Turnout was up massively on the 2012 Council elections, and it was up more in richer areas than poorer areas. And richer areas tended towards electing Conservatives.
If that differential turnout is continued in the GE then it's a night of Con surging. If it isn't then it's not.
But we don't know what the Scot turnout will be like at all.
Surely, if they're turning out in high numbers for locals, then they will definitely turn out for a General.
The anti-indyreffers are motivated, they know they can stop a looming indyref2 in its tracks, right here, right now. And there are lots more Scots who DON'T want a referendum, now, than Scots who do, as the polls show.
So my guess is, yes, they will come out and vote.
It's a question of if the 'lazy' SNP voters who don't bother turning out for Local and Scottish elections (which is what has happened to Labour in the past) turnout for the GE.
In the 2015 general election there was a direct correlation between low turnout in a constituency and a high SNP vote. There wasn't a connection between high turnout and a Con or Lab vote.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
Oh, and (to take one example) deliberate starvation for ideological purposes is better than "an extermination policy"?
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Yet again, an imperialist mentality. They must behave like we want them to. WE will only deal with CoM.Good. Just wait until March 2019.
A successful mentality yes. You seem to think we must behave like they want us to. The act of compromise is for both parties to have to reach an agreement and Juncker does not seem bothered by that so we should walk away until someone is willing to talk to us on an equal footing.
And while doing so many provisions for a clean break Brexit with deals with the rest of the world and not a cent in further payments to Europe.
One problem for the Lib Dems at the GE with regards to the Labour fights is that the Labour vote held up a bit better in middle class as opposed to working class places so far as I could tell. I think this makes Bristol West perhaps harder than one might think for instance.
With the exception of Cambridge the other lib/lab gains are by no means shoo ins.
Just got canvassed by Labour (Greenwich & Woolwich) - never happened last time.
The conversation went:
Him: "I'm here on behalf of the Labour Party" Me: "Two words: Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you." *shuts door*
I hope that's enough to get me put down as "against".
It can't be much fun being a labour doorknocker right now.
Btw, I owe you an apology. I had you down as one of the PB rightwingers who (hilariously) paid £3 to elect Corbyn back in 2015. It occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. So I checked - and I did. There were quite a few £3 rightwing Corbyn trolls - and some who continue to post - but you weren't one of them.
So apologies for my hostility directed at a few of your recent posts, particularly in our discussion last week where I went at you quite hard. Sorry about that, you didn't deserve it.
'The people playing the nasty foreigner card are the right wing Brexiteers seeking to prepare the ground for no deal. They want it to be seen as the fault of foreigners, not of Brits.
I do most of my business outside the EU. I am very aware there is a big world out there. I see a lot of it. Next stop is Canada in June. It's Japan in October.'
Canada next week for me.
The mistake you are making is that you seem to think that those of us who want to leave are by default extreme Brexiteers.
I condemn UKIP as my posts will confirm and it is not immigration I have a problem with, it is the EU itself and the way it operates.
I have little doubt that a trade deal will be agreed but it has to be similar to Canada and if the EU refuse to discuss it we call their bluff and will deal with the consequencies that may cause us problems, but they too are going to be in crisis as they descend into division and frustration
Summary of the 107 council by elections held on Thursday
Conservatives gained 16 seats 9 from Lab 3 from LD 3 from Ind 1 from UKIP but lost 6 , 3 to LD 2 to Ind 1 to Green Labour gained 1 from UKIP but lost 9 to Conservatives Lib Dems gained 3 from Conservatives but lost 3 to them Greens gained 1 from Conservative UKIP lost 1 to Con and 1 to Lab Ind gained 2 from Con lost 3 to Con
The Conservatives are not going to deliver an upset in Motherwell — despite 23-year-old Nathan Wilson winning Ravenscraig (Ravenscraig!) on Thursday — but they will be looking to drive up their vote share across the country. A Tory resurgence in seats, and a landslide for Theresa May across the UK, might convince some Scots that the time has come for independence.
However, a sizeable increase in vote share, even in seats comfortably defended by the Nationalists, could mark a change moment in Scottish politics, an indication that the Conservatives are no longer the monsters under the bed of Labour lore and SNP scare tactics. That would pose a perception problem for nationalism, a cause dependant on optics in the absence of facts. Tories cannot be your oppressors at Westminster when they are also your neighbours in Wishaw. Independence has lost the economic argument and could be losing the political one too. What does it have left?
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Yet again, an imperialist mentality. They must behave like we want them to. WE will only deal with CoM.Good. Just wait until March 2019.
One problem for the Lib Dems at the GE with regards to the Labour fights is that the Labour vote held up a bit better in middle class as opposed to working class places so far as I could tell. I think this makes Bristol West perhaps harder than one might think for instance.
With the exception of Cambridge the other lib/lab gains are by no means shoo ins.
Even Cambridge the Labour vote held up fairly well, at least in the estates away from the University, as well as most middle-class areas. A lot will hang on whether Tory-leaning folk will vote tactically.
I'm very late joining this thread, but this is so much on topic I can't resist.
On the bus this morning, passed a few boards from the local elections, obviously left up for the GE. One Conservative board had an extra sign underneath, neatly tacked on to the main board.
In decent-sized caps on blue paper, it proclaimed simply: WON HERE.
Don't know how many local people got the joke, but I laughed like a drain.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
From the point of view of the victims, the motives of the mass murderers make very little difference.
Well, mostly. Though I can imagine (thankfully only imagine) that there must have been an extra level of horror for some to realise that their fellow citizens of one of the most civilised nations on earth were herding them and their children towards extermination. Of course many, maybe most, were unaware almost until the end, but still.
One problem for the Lib Dems at the GE with regards to the Labour fights is that the Labour vote held up a bit better in middle class as opposed to working class places so far as I could tell. I think this makes Bristol West perhaps harder than one might think for instance.
With the exception of Cambridge the other lib/lab gains are by no means shoo ins.
Even Cambridge the Labour vote held up fairly well, at least in the estates away from the University, as well as most middle-class areas. A lot will hang on whether Tory-leaning folk will vote tactically.
They already did vote tactically in 2015.
Whether they will continue to do so is the question.
If Theresa May achieves a good majority expect her to take on the EU rejecting their financial and silly demands for EU citizens to have lifetime rights underscored by the ECJ.
In other words she will call their bluff empowered by the mandate of the GE
1. It's just talk to harvest gullible voters. Afterwards, serious negotiations will start, on the expected lines - a broad agreement on the initial issues (£££s, foreign residents' rights) subject to subsequent agreement on trade, then a deal on trade.
2. May actually means it. In that case we're in for a wild ride. All the stuff about security and stability can be chucked in the bin.
My guess is still 1, but I'm less sure than I was.
To be honest Nick I think 2 is very possible but without it 1 will not happen. This process must be upscaled to the Council of Ministers. A newly mandated Theresa May will not deal with Junckers again, he lost her trust and he cannot ever be considered a part of these negotiations
Yet again, an imperialist mentality. They must behave like we want them to. WE will only deal with CoM.Good. Just wait until March 2019.
The imperialist mentality is the whole reaction of the Remainers to Brexit. No little Britain can't possibly entertain thoughts of escaping from Mother Europe's aprons, and a desire to do so is evidence of some sort of gross moral turpitude.
I'm so jealous of the WMCA and GM. I really wish the NECA hadn't fallen apart. Labour councillors do not want to jeopardise their jobs for life up here.
Just got canvassed by Labour (Greenwich & Woolwich) - never happened last time.
The conversation went:
Him: "I'm here on behalf of the Labour Party" Me: "Two words: Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you." *shuts door*
I hope that's enough to get me put down as "against".
It can't be much fun being a labour doorknocker right now.
Btw, I owe you an apology. I had you down as one of the PB rightwingers who (hilariously) paid £3 to elect Corbyn back in 2015. It occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. So I checked - and I did. There were quite a few £3 rightwing Corbyn trolls - and some who continue to post - but you weren't one of them.
So apologies for my hostility directed at a few of your recent posts, particularly in our discussion last week where I went at you quite hard. Sorry about that, you didn't deserve it.
Thanks, Pong, I appreciate it. I couldn't quite understand why you were firing at me and the post you quoted at the time didn't shed any light as I knew I hadn't voted for Corbyn and I knew I had voted honestly, ie for who I thought was the best leader to take Labour where it needed to be for the good of the country.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
From the point of view of the victims, the motives of the mass murderers make very little difference.
Well, mostly. Though I can imagine (thankfully only imagine) that there must have been an extra level of horror for some to realise that their fellow citizens of one of the most civilised nations on earth were herding them and their children towards extermination. Of course many, maybe most, were unaware almost until the end, but still.
Nationalists scapegoating a group. Hard to imagine.
True but Stalin still killed even more than Hitler did
I think we all need to move on, frankly - the electorate has (and so in my limited experience have most Russians). I used to be a (Euro)Communist and told my voters about it back in 2000 or thereabouts. Nobody complained - the reaction was exactly was as if I'd said I used to be a Mormon, mildly interesting, worth a raised eyebrow, but no longer relevant. I was re-elected with good majorities in both following elections. 17 years later, I don't think it matters to anyone much in Britain what we think of people's actions 70 years ago. My mum was an ex-Russian who came to Brkitain in the 30s, voted Tory but quite liked Stalin for (eventually) standing up to Hitler - that's historically interesting family history to me, but she died 18 years ago and it's very much yesterday's argument.
In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!) - a deal's been done, the past is the past. It's possible to get too caught up in this stuff, and voters just switch off.
But it's not in the bloody past, you stupid man.
Look at Venezuela. TODAY. Dozens are dying, army vehicles are literally driving over the people.
Why? Because Venezuela was economically destroyed by the insane Marxist/Socialist hammer-and-sickle policies of Hugo Chavez, a man vocally admired by your dear Leader, Jeremy Corbyn. The man you voted for, the man you decided was best placed to guide the Labour party, and the United Kingdom, to Chavezite paradise, where starving people are run over by tanks.
Here's dear Jeremy, eulogising Hugo. And praising his policies.
So when you say, Oh, let's forget, let's ignore the Shadow Chancellor standing under the flag of communism, it's just a symbol, it's water under the bridge, you should know there's an entire nation in South America which would probably like to shove that fucking horrible and very relevant flag up your ridiculous and imbecilic butt.
Unusually I agree with SeanT (excepting the gratuitous vulgarity). Why isn't membership of the Communist Party treated with the same pariah status as is rightly earned by people who join the BNP?
Yes - nice to see another illustrious name in the comments section.
It does rather prove the problem with paywall journalism though - who's going to pay to read The Telegraph when a wonk / nerd / obsessive is prepared to do the same work and publish it to a nic(h)e blog, for free?
"In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!)"
Just what the actual fuck...No wonder no oldies say they will vote labour!
The Conservatives are not going to deliver an upset in Motherwell — despite 23-year-old Nathan Wilson winning Ravenscraig (Ravenscraig!) on Thursday — but they will be looking to drive up their vote share across the country. A Tory resurgence in seats, and a landslide for Theresa May across the UK, might convince some Scots that the time has come for independence.
However, a sizeable increase in vote share, even in seats comfortably defended by the Nationalists, could mark a change moment in Scottish politics, an indication that the Conservatives are no longer the monsters under the bed of Labour lore and SNP scare tactics. That would pose a perception problem for nationalism, a cause dependant on optics in the absence of facts. Tories cannot be your oppressors at Westminster when they are also your neighbours in Wishaw. Independence has lost the economic argument and could be losing the political one too. What does it have left?
' The Conservatives are not going to deliver an upset in Motherwell — despite 23-year-old Nathan Wilson winning Ravenscraig (Ravenscraig!) on Thursday '
The Conservative didn't win Ravenscraig he was elected in a four member ward.
Offtopic, does anyone know who's behind the Maomentum Twitter account? Fantastic parody and cutting comment, with half their retweets being genuine Corbynistas and the other half being parody - and no idea which is which! https://twitter.com/Maomentum_/status/860394101627289600
Is this important? Seriously? So someone brings a communist flag to a rally. Big deal. Surely the one Tory press and establishment have more ammunition that a few photos of the hammer and sickle?
It would be news if someone took a swastika flag to a UKIP rally. The shocking thing is that ignorance of history is such that the H&S is seen as harmless.
It wasn't just someone took it to the rally, it was in pride of place with McDonnell speaking under it.
Imagine if Theresa May spoke under a swastika. It would be horrific yet this supposedly isn't?
Did you know that in the last war, the country whose flag had the hammer and sickle were our allies and they lost 20 million people to defeat the country whose flag then had the swastika on it ?
You are comparing the two ? Shame on you !
Yes I am directly comparing the two. What are you saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That had we been allied with the Germans in WWII that the Holocaust would be OK and the swastika would be fine with you? Shame on you!
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The six million deaths cannot be compared to the killings of a monster dictator. The six million or more [ somehow Slavs, Romas are not counted ] was part of an extermination policy.
From the point of view of the victims, the motives of the mass murderers make very little difference.
Well, mostly. Though I can imagine (thankfully only imagine) that there must have been an extra level of horror for some to realise that their fellow citizens of one of the most civilised nations on earth were herding them and their children towards extermination. Of course many, maybe most, were unaware almost until the end, but still.
There is a special horror at the thought of being gassed in a small room full of people.
Just got canvassed by Labour (Greenwich & Woolwich) - never happened last time.
The conversation went:
Him: "I'm here on behalf of the Labour Party" Me: "Two words: Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you." *shuts door*
I hope that's enough to get me put down as "against".
It can't be much fun being a labour doorknocker right now.
Btw, I owe you an apology. I had you down as one of the PB rightwingers who (hilariously) paid £3 to elect Corbyn back in 2015. It occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. So I checked - and I did. There were quite a few £3 rightwing Corbyn trolls - and some who continue to post - but you weren't one of them.
So apologies for my hostility directed at a few of your recent posts, particularly in our discussion last week where I went at you quite hard. Sorry about that, you didn't deserve it.
Thanks, Pong, I appreciate it. I couldn't quite understand why you were firing at me and the post you quoted at the time didn't shed any light as I knew I hadn't voted for Corbyn and I knew I had voted honestly, ie for who I thought was the best leader to take Labour where it needed to be for the good of the country.
Not that it made a difference to the final tally, but why JC over AB?
2017 is a good election to lose. When Brexit takes shape someone is going to be very angry and that will be directed at the government
No doubt the remainers will be unhappy.
Freggles is 100% correct , when reality hits the pitchforks will be out big time.
Not on this one. People in general and voters in particular are usually very unwilling to accept adverse outcomes are the result of their own decisions.
We will see buyers regret in a few years time
You'll see it sooner than that in Scotland....June 9th, at a guess.....
Care to bet that Tories are not massive losers on June 8th,
You think the Tories will lose seats - well seat - in Scotland?
I am saying that SNP will be the winners in Scotland and will have most of teh seats, whethr the tories need a tandem or not is NOT winning. Tories will be massive losers in the Scottish vote. Carlotta's warped thinking that being a massiv eloser but ahead of the next massive loser is winning is pretty pathetic. No matter how you cut it the Tories are nowhere in Scotland.
SCON distant 2nd - just ahead of "dead in the water" SLAB in 3rd - both way behind SNP - being spun as a great SCON victory !!
SCON and SLAB combined well ahead of SNP though and that is all May needs to block indyref2
Adding the distant 2nd & 3rd parties from the opposite ends of the political spectrum to somehow beat the party which constantly wins in all forms of elections - FPTP, STV & AMS - is illogical on all counts.
SCON are the only Unionist Party, evidenced by their advance into Orange/Rangers areas in the Council Elections. Until SCON can win the elections ahead of the SNP in at least 1 of the above 3 electoral battlegrounds. Folks will be continuing to add up %s on the back of fag packets to make their case.
If SCON are so confident of winning IndyRef2 - why not call the SNP's bluff and stop opposing it !!
Because Sturgeon still wouldn't take no for an answer.
Until either SCON or SLAB can beat the SNP in Holyrood & WM - there will always be an underlying demand for an IndyRef. With SNP's support still solidly c.45%, I think there's plenty scope for SCON's tactics to backfire and drive another (probably final !!) SNP surge.
Just got canvassed by Labour (Greenwich & Woolwich) - never happened last time.
The conversation went:
Him: "I'm here on behalf of the Labour Party" Me: "Two words: Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you." *shuts door*
I hope that's enough to get me put down as "against".
It can't be much fun being a labour doorknocker right now.
Btw, I owe you an apology. I had you down as one of the PB rightwingers who (hilariously) paid £3 to elect Corbyn back in 2015. It occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. So I checked - and I did. There were quite a few £3 rightwing Corbyn trolls - and some who continue to post - but you weren't one of them.
So apologies for my hostility directed at a few of your recent posts, particularly in our discussion last week where I went at you quite hard. Sorry about that, you didn't deserve it.
Thanks, Pong, I appreciate it. I couldn't quite understand why you were firing at me and the post you quoted at the time didn't shed any light as I knew I hadn't voted for Corbyn and I knew I had voted honestly, ie for who I thought was the best leader to take Labour where it needed to be for the good of the country.
Not that it made a difference to the final tally, but why JC over AB?
I am now wondering about that too. Burnham must have done something during the campaign to really turn me off but I can't now remember what it was. Maybe my posts from the time might shed some light but I haven't got the time to trawl through them now. Maybe this evening.
I certainly thought that it was the other way round, showing that I'm not immune to false recall!
Lib dem propose increasing all income tax rates by 1%....hmmmm
Taxes are going up, one way or another, whoever wins. At least the LibDems are being honest about it.
Not sure making a big play of increasing taxes on ~£15-20k is the smartest move to win back seats in places like Cornwall where wages are famously very poor.
"In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!)"
Just what the actual fuck...No wonder no oldies say they will vote labour!
Communism probably killed 100 million or more. It was responsible for arguably the most appalling of all genocides, the Khmer Rouge, where a nation slaughtered between a quarter and third of its own people. At the same time it imprisoned and impoverished half the world for half a century. It is still destroying nations today - North Korea and Venezuela, for example.
The idea the hammer and sickle is some harmless bit of retro bunting is just puke-worthy. It might not have quite the Satanic implications of the Swastika, but it is a disturbing and repulsive symbol nonetheless, especially for those who suffered in the Soviet Bloc, or Mao's China.
No politician of any decency should go near it, let alone stand beneath it, proudly giving speeches.
Wonder what the reaction would be if Mrs may or Hammond were photoed giving multiple speeches surrounded by swastika flags?
Nobody cares about Hitler and nazi's anymore right?
"In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!)"
Just what the actual fuck...No wonder no oldies say they will vote labour!
Communism probably killed 100 million or more. It was responsible for arguably the most appalling of all genocides, the Khmer Rouge, where a nation slaughtered between a quarter and third of its own people. At the same time it imprisoned and impoverished half the world for half a century. It is still destroying nations today - North Korea and Venezuela, for example.
The idea the hammer and sickle is some harmless bit of retro bunting is just puke-worthy. It might not have quite the Satanic implications of the Swastika, but it is a disturbing and repulsive symbol nonetheless, especially for those who suffered in the Soviet Bloc, or Mao's China.
No politician of any decency should go near it, let alone stand beneath it, proudly giving speeches.
Totally agree. Nick might laugh off the fact Corbyn and McDonnell wanted the IRA to win, but ordinary voters are rightly less sanguine. They expect their leaders to be patriots. That may make Nick wince, but it's a fact.
Seamas Milne has defended Stalin. Dianne Abbott thinks Mao did more good than bad. Corbyn eulogised Castro and called Hamas his friends. They have a total disregard, a complete lack of ibterest, in the lives of ordinary voters. And ordinary voters know this. That's why Labour is totally screwed until the far left and its apologists are forced out.
So when you say, Oh, let's forget, let's ignore the Shadow Chancellor standing under the flag of communism, it's just a symbol, it's water under the bridge, you should know there's an entire nation in South America which would probably like to shove that fucking horrible and very relevant flag up your ridiculous and imbecilic butt.
Hear, hear!
And to all the Tories on here who say that Anna Soubry is to the left of Nick: take a good look look at yourselves.
The Conservatives are not going to deliver an upset in Motherwell — despite 23-year-old Nathan Wilson winning Ravenscraig (Ravenscraig!) on Thursday — but they will be looking to drive up their vote share across the country. A Tory resurgence in seats, and a landslide for Theresa May across the UK, might convince some Scots that the time has come for independence.
However, a sizeable increase in vote share, even in seats comfortably defended by the Nationalists, could mark a change moment in Scottish politics, an indication that the Conservatives are no longer the monsters under the bed of Labour lore and SNP scare tactics. That would pose a perception problem for nationalism, a cause dependant on optics in the absence of facts. Tories cannot be your oppressors at Westminster when they are also your neighbours in Wishaw. Independence has lost the economic argument and could be losing the political one too. What does it have left?
' The Conservatives are not going to deliver an upset in Motherwell — despite 23-year-old Nathan Wilson winning Ravenscraig (Ravenscraig!) on Thursday '
The Conservative didn't win Ravenscraig he was elected in a four member ward.
Also, it's not "Ravenscraig", it's "Motherwell South East and Ravenscraig" and Motherwell South East and Ravenscraig contains some of the least deprived areas of Scotland (as well as having some of the most - split by the railway line).
"In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!)"
Just what the actual fuck...No wonder no oldies say they will vote labour!
Communism probably killed 100 million or more. It was responsible for arguably the most appalling of all genocides, the Khmer Rouge, where a nation slaughtered between a quarter and third of its own people. At the same time it imprisoned and impoverished half the world for half a century. It is still destroying nations today - North Korea and Venezuela, for example.
The idea the hammer and sickle is some harmless bit of retro bunting is just puke-worthy. It might not have quite the Satanic implications of the Swastika, but it is a disturbing and repulsive symbol nonetheless, especially for those who suffered in the Soviet Bloc, or Mao's China.
No politician of any decency should go near it, let alone stand beneath it, proudly giving speeches.
Comments
Mr. Pulpstar, likewise, and huzzah!
Mr. Littlewood, great minds think alike.
Opposition parties need one of two things to happen: either Tories need to start feeling uneasy aboutr giving May a super-blank cheque to do whatever (and if we're honest, do any of us REALLY feel they know what she'll try to do or what will happen?), or UKIP voters need to feel uneasy. Either is possible, but largely out of the hands of the opposition parties. I don't think it is primrily Carbyn and Farron that are their problem: it's that voters are buying the "gimme a mandate and I'll get the best deal" stuff. At an abstract level people do often agree that giving her such a huge majority that she can settle on any terms might not be wise, but only sophisticated, very interested voters change their votes on that basis.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/05/morning-all-hell-broke-loose-when-gordon-brown-found-out-i-was-going-radio
I do not care whether someone was historically an ally or not. A lot of the brutalities we now know about the Nazis and Soviets came to light clearly after those alliances were drawn. We now know about how evil the Nazis and Soviets both were and anyone who now associates with either of them deserves to be treated with the utmost contempt.
The people playing the nasty foreigner card are the right wing Brexiteers seeking to prepare the ground for no deal. They want it to be seen as the fault of foreigners, not of Brits.
I do most of my business outside the EU. I am very aware there is a big world out there. I see a lot of it. Next stop is Canada in June. It's Japan in October.
The reality is that the LibDems were lower in the polls four weeks ago than they were four years ago.
There was never any prospect of LibDem gains from the Conservatives but what the LibDems should have been able to achieve was gains from Labour.
Some of the excitable Brexiters will be sorely disappointed in 2019.
This is a really hard sell as a fallback.
Not a bad argument at all except it misses a few key points.
1: The SNP supposedly surged forwards after the 2014 referendum, yet you're putting the "summit" at 2013.
2: The SNP needs to do better than 2014 to hold and win an Indyref2. Yet you're putting them behind what they were before then.
3: We've been told for years that calls of "peak SNP" were ridiculous, yet now you're saying we're four years on from "peak SNP".
I appreciate you're not the one who's made most of those claims but your argument is incompatible with any argument that the SNP improved after the Indyref.
Given that other developed country systems appear to be less cost-effective than ours, they must have even greater inefficiencies that have not been removed
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uks-healthcare-ranked-the-best-out-of-11-western-countries-with-us-coming-last-9542833.html
Thatcher increased NHS spending at 4%/y. 1%/y is a recipe for near-permanent crisis and excessive patient deaths. In fact the death rate did rise unexpectedly in 2015; I think we await the 2016 figure.
Ironically, more NHS staff will be driven to seek medical advice for stress, if not for a full nervous breakdown. How can it possibly help for the DoH to treat the workers like that?
There are obvious areas to save money. Spending on T2 diabetes is almost out of control. But there's a virtual epidemic of T2D in other countries.
The only country I know where doctors have seriously questioned the establishment view, with considerable success, is Sweden, www.dietdoctor.com. However, the doctor who runs that site resigned from Sweden's NHS to give full-time dietary advice on how to prevent T2D.
I have more time for doctors than politicians or budding politicians as on PB. Dr. Phil Hammond/Private Eye talks more sense than all of NHS England, DoH and SoS put together. So does Lord Owen. Sarah Wollaston too, but she's also become one of the awkward squad and won't be appointed to high office any time soon
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4120282/Sarah-Wollaston-accuses-Theresa-dishonesty-10billion-NHS-pledge.html.
It is all an illusion. Tory success in deprived urban areas on Thursday was built on 12 per cent of the first preference vote under the STV system. It is as about as real as the IDS mission to Castlemilk all of these years ago.
Meanwhile Tory success in rural areas is built on fighting a local election as a general election and securing a large differential turnout. Trouble is in a months time everyone will be fighting a general election and the turnout will reflect that.
Pride and falls should be the wise Tory watchwords in Scotland but it shall not be thus. Davidson will screech and overreach and come back down with a bump.
If Mrs May had wanted to stall, she should have done it BEFORE triggering Article 50. We won't budge or cooperate until we get what we want. She threw away her hand on that to appease her Leaver faction, who mistrusted any delay.
I'm very late joining this thread, but this is so much on topic I can't resist.
On the bus this morning, passed a few boards from the local elections, obviously left up for the GE. One Conservative board had an extra sign underneath, neatly tacked on to the main board.
In decent-sized caps on blue paper, it proclaimed simply: WON HERE.
Don't know how many local people got the joke, but I laughed like a drain.
Good afternoon, everybody.
youNicolaFrom the UK Government side, they'll only grant the second referendum if and when they think that most Scots want it. Otherwise they'll stonewall.
From the SNP side, not only is all else for them secondary to the goal of independence, it's central to the cohesion both of their voter base and of the party itself. They have to keep banging away at it, and maintain the narrative of inevitability. The moment that it becomes obvious to people that the goal is receding again, and that devolution within the UK is therefore Scotland's most likely long-term end state, then the wheels will begin to work loose from the wagon.
Without the cause to hold it together, a party encompassing everybody from Tartan Tories to Republican Socialists ain't going to survive in one piece.
In the same way, almost nobody hates the Argentinians over the Falklands, and not many people still feel strongly about the IRA either (I know Southam disagrees!) - a deal's been done, the past is the past. It's possible to get too caught up in this stuff, and voters just switch off.
The answer is we simply don't know yet.
Or are they acceptable because he was on "our side" in the war?
Because I adopt the normal definition of winning multi party election contests which is what the SNP has done under FOUR different systems in 2011 (Scottish list),2012 (locals STV), 2014 Euros (D'Haunt), 2015 (UK FPP), 2016 (Scottish list), 2017 (locals STV).
That is SIX elections you chose to discount on your looking glass definition of winning and loosing.
There is a reason why none of the myriad versions of the Top Trumps card game ever featured murderous dictators. It's not an edifying discussion to be having.
Meanwhile one interesting fact (and I make no comparison other than statistical) - the US now has a higher proportion of its population behind bars than did the USSR at the height of the Terror and the gulags.
And where will you be pounding the streets for the next month - Ashfield, Nottingham South or Gedling ?
It does rather prove the problem with paywall journalism though - who's going to pay to read The Telegraph when a wonk / nerd / obsessive is prepared to do the same work and publish it to a nic(h)e blog, for free?
In the 2015 general election there was a direct correlation between low turnout in a constituency and a high SNP vote. There wasn't a connection between high turnout and a Con or Lab vote.
And while doing so many provisions for a clean break Brexit with deals with the rest of the world and not a cent in further payments to Europe.
With the exception of Cambridge the other lib/lab gains are by no means shoo ins.
Btw, I owe you an apology. I had you down as one of the PB rightwingers who (hilariously) paid £3 to elect Corbyn back in 2015. It occurred to me that I might have made a mistake. So I checked - and I did. There were quite a few £3 rightwing Corbyn trolls - and some who continue to post - but you weren't one of them.
From September 2015; http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/772905#Comment_772905
So apologies for my hostility directed at a few of your recent posts, particularly in our discussion last week where I went at you quite hard. Sorry about that, you didn't deserve it.
'The people playing the nasty foreigner card are the right wing Brexiteers seeking to prepare the ground for no deal. They want it to be seen as the fault of foreigners, not of Brits.
I do most of my business outside the EU. I am very aware there is a big world out there. I see a lot of it. Next stop is Canada in June. It's Japan in October.'
Canada next week for me.
The mistake you are making is that you seem to think that those of us who want to leave are by default extreme Brexiteers.
I condemn UKIP as my posts will confirm and it is not immigration I have a problem with, it is the EU itself and the way it operates.
I have little doubt that a trade deal will be agreed but it has to be similar to Canada and if the EU refuse to discuss it we call their bluff and will deal with the consequencies that may cause us problems, but they too are going to be in crisis as they descend into division and frustration
Conservatives gained 16 seats 9 from Lab 3 from LD 3 from Ind 1 from UKIP but lost 6 , 3 to LD 2 to Ind 1 to Green
Labour gained 1 from UKIP but lost 9 to Conservatives
Lib Dems gained 3 from Conservatives but lost 3 to them
Greens gained 1 from Conservative
UKIP lost 1 to Con and 1 to Lab
Ind gained 2 from Con lost 3 to Con
Surely on the tips of your tongues for you (like legion) are many to judge from your 24 hr posts!
However, a sizeable increase in vote share, even in seats comfortably defended by the Nationalists, could mark a change moment in Scottish politics, an indication that the Conservatives are no longer the monsters under the bed of Labour lore and SNP scare tactics. That would pose a perception problem for nationalism, a cause dependant on optics in the absence of facts. Tories cannot be your oppressors at Westminster when they are also your neighbours in Wishaw. Independence has lost the economic argument and could be losing the political one too. What does it have left?
https://stephendaisley.com/2017/05/06/stuck-in-the-middle-with-ruth/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/05/local-elections-2017-jeremy-corbyn-putting-voters-beaten-labour/
Anyone who cites the rather nasty ex Tory press officer Daisley as a sage of Scottish politics requires as much help as he does!
Though I can imagine (thankfully only imagine) that there must have been an extra level of horror for some to realise that their fellow citizens of one of the most civilised nations on earth were herding them and their children towards extermination. Of course many, maybe most, were unaware almost until the end, but still.
Whether they will continue to do so is the question.
Just what the actual fuck...No wonder no oldies say they will vote labour!
The Conservative didn't win Ravenscraig he was elected in a four member ward.
The actual votes per party were:
SNAT 2471
SLAB 1444
SCON 1184
http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=20644&p=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYD3QtyEGGM
I certainly thought that it was the other way round, showing that I'm not immune to false recall!
Nobody cares about Hitler and nazi's anymore right?
Seamas Milne has defended Stalin. Dianne Abbott thinks Mao did more good than bad. Corbyn eulogised Castro and called Hamas his friends. They have a total disregard, a complete lack of ibterest, in the lives of ordinary voters. And ordinary voters know this. That's why Labour is totally screwed until the far left and its apologists are forced out.
And to all the Tories on here who say that Anna Soubry is to the left of Nick: take a good look look at yourselves.
https://twitter.com/marksteynonline/status/860822851884113920
https://youtu.be/uB4o5n2EGyA
At least SCON just managed to edge SLAB !