The PM (or one of the grown ups in her cabinet) need to be addressing the young directly. They voted, she has ignored them, and potentially little will change. Myths will build. She needs to be humble and open, and in listening mode. She needs a young friendly policy now.
Or her replacement does.
Bluntly, she can't afford to.
Her party has loaded austerity onto the young for the last 7 years and it's now baked into the books. It's why reversing her anti-young policies like tuition fees are so incredibly expensive that they're represented as a *magic money tree* fantasy by rightwingers.
The tories found their magic money tree (for the triple lock etc) after the financial crisis *by* squeezing the young until their pips squeeked.
She can say nice things to the young, but she has no other option but to rob them in order to bribe their grandparents.
That's the whole point of the tory party.
You know what's really robbing the young? Mammothly increasing the deficit or refuse g any austerity to cut it so that today's spending is paid for woth interest in perpetuity by the young.
Nobody has a legacy that has hurt the young more than Gordon Brown. Interest payments are already one of the highest expenditure items in the budget and would have increased massively if Corbyn, Abbott etc were in charge.
Indeed. I'm coming to the conclusion that in 2010 we should have had actual austerity like they had in Ireland - 15% in cash terms off all benefits, pensions and public salaries.
Osborne did a good job to balance spending and taxes to hold GDP just positive for a few years, but the people have now decided that they've put up with sensible for long enough and we should just open the spending taps again - despite the £50bn annual deficit.
All that will save our kids now is some decent inflation and interest rates up a couple of points.
It was probably the right thing to do, and we would have been better off past it now. But the LDs would never have allowed it.
As far as my betting is concerned,I would like to thank the good people of Weaver Vale,Cambridge-my 4-1 Nap -over 12,000 majority for Daniel Zeichner-lots of seats in Wales-big up to Prof Scully whose Welsh poll was spot on,I would put him up there with Prof. John Curtice for betting advice-the good folk of Plymouth Sutton and Devonport,DerbyNorth and Brighton Kemptown.Clegg's loss was pleasurable but costly,as was Norman Lamb's victory.Sadly I did not spot Canterbury,Peterborough or Lincoln. I am also on Jo Swinson and Vince Cable for next LD leader.
Excellent night's punting all in all .but I would like to know if Mr Smithson was "on" in Bedford and kept it to himself?
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
If Mrs May was even vaguely capable we wouldn't be worrying about getting to 326, Must be the worst PM in living memory.
I don't dispute that it was a disaster of a campaign. But it is worth noting that having a government is in the national interest now more than ever. Holding noses for coalition deals was acceptable when it was the LDs; why not now?
I reckon Boris would've got a majority. Media is all that matters
I'm not so sure about that. What should really worry the Tories is, what if May actually did okay - she won Mansfield FFS! How many other Tories could have got that? The more I think about this the more I think the Tories are completely f*****.
Boris can campaign. He proved that in London twice and in the EURef. The question with him is whether he can govern.
The PM (or one of the grown ups in her cabinet) need to be addressing the young directly. They voted, she has ignored them, and potentially little will change. Myths will build. She needs to be humble and open, and in listening mode. She needs a young friendly policy now.
Or her replacement does.
There's nothing the Tories can do or say to win over the young. They are Jezza's now.
The only thing that will change this is when Jezza gets power and they see the true horror of what a hard left, marxist government looks like.
Abandon that demographic altogether and they're stuffed. They won't win a majority amongst them, or even a plurality, but they need to get back in amongst the pack. Right now even many adults only voted Tory to keep our Corbyn - we're living in a world of a postponed Labour landslide under a patriotic Corbynite and doing nothing won't help them.
There again I work in the public sector and the Tories have been telling me I'm scum for years. I'm losing the will to care about wider issues, hold my nose, and consider them. So it's not just the young they have an issue with.
Where do they do this?
I'm most curious
Come on, not one conservative politician in the last seven years has made any effort to think about the morale of the public sector. Spiteful stuff like cutting holiday allowances and TCs was paired with (at times) necessary pay restrictions in the name of "modernisation" and has done precisely the opposite. Any Tory near a microphone speaks about further reform, but without any effort to reach or to the large chunk of e.g. the civil service that actively wants to modernise and hates some of the old fashioned nonsense.
It's also in the lexicon - such as referring to the private sector as the "productive" part of the economy. Activists on fora like this one assuming the public sector is a Labour block vote is also the sort of statement that quickly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
If you don't feel like someone wants your vote, eventually you stop worrying about the argument for any of their policies in any other areas.
I don't know what you do, but one bit of rhetoric which always pisses me off is the distinction between NHS "front line staff", every one of whom is a nobler version of Florence Nightingale, and administrators who are by implication a bunch of bureaucratic jobsworths. Those promoting this vision should perform the thought experiment of imagining an operating theatre with an operation in progress, and then removing from it each element which would not be there but for administrators.
Funny that the party so keen to caricature Farron's equivacations about gay sex, are so keen to jump into bed with those who make no equivacation on the subject at all!
The PM (or one of the grown ups in her cabinet) need to be addressing the young directly. They voted, she has ignored them, and potentially little will change. Myths will build. She needs to be humble and open, and in listening mode. She needs a young friendly policy now.
Or her replacement does.
Bluntly, she can't afford to.
Her party has loaded austerity onto the young for the last 7 years and it's now baked into the books. It's why reversing her anti-young policies like tuition fees are so incredibly expensive that they're represented as a *magic money tree* fantasy by rightwingers.
The tories found their magic money tree (for the triple lock etc) after the financial crisis *by* squeezing the young until their pips squeeked.
She can say nice things to the young, but she has no other option but to rob them in order to bribe their grandparents.
Yup. And the biggest Tory betrayal? Houses.
Force the house builders to build some soddding houses, or start building themselves is what the government needs to do. Ban overseas oweneership would be a great start.
Fix the housing market. People become Conservative once they become homeowners. Giving the 20 - 35 year old age bracket the chance to become homeowners without inheritance would go a long way to making inroads with this demographic.
Once you have an asset that's yours, a patch of grass, a few bricks to call your own, suddenly socialism looks a lot less appealing, when you realise people are more interested in taking it away from you than in giving you something taken from someone else.
See also the dementia tax. When you mess with people's homes, they stop being Tories.
This is the key mistake of successive governments. Thatcher had her faults, but her lower middle class background meant she understood this in spades.
Abandon that demographic altogether and they're stuffed. They won't win a majority amongst them, or even a plurality, but they need to get back in amongst the pack. Right now even many adults only voted Tory to keep our Corbyn - we're living in a world of a postponed Labour landslide under a patriotic Corbynite and doing nothing won't help them.
There again I work in the public sector and the Tories have been telling me I'm scum for years. I'm losing the will to care about wider issues, hold my nose, and consider them. So it's not just the young they have an issue with.
Historically the Tories have done fine without winning over the under-30s.
But losing support among the 30-45s is harder to overcome. When May had huge poll leads she was dominating Corbyn among early middle-aged people, and higher turnout of 18-24 year olds for Corbyn wouldn't have prevented a Tory landslide. She seemed to be losing a lot of support in those mid-career and pre-retirement segments by polling day.
There's no point trying to make the party appeal to a right-on 19 year-old. They could spray cash at it but it would be a waste of pork. However, a 30-something, settling down, getting on the housing market, thinking about their career options .... a party that sees itself as a guardian of property rights and a sound economy really needs to be winning them over by then.
The public sector worker thing is interesting too - there were several public sector professions that traditionally voted Tory rather than Labour but which, over the years, the Conservatives have been almost wiped out with. Michael Gove and successive health secretaries stand out, but also George Osborne for imposing such harsh pay restraint for such a prolonged time. On the other hand, Osborne's slashing of the public sector headcount and the growth in self-employment may in the end work to Conservative advantage!
I reckon Boris would've got a majority. Media is all that matters
I'm not so sure about that. What should really worry the Tories is, what if May actually did okay - she won Mansfield FFS! How many other Tories could have got that? The more I think about this the more I think the Tories are completely f*****.
Boris can campaign. He proved that in London twice and in the EURef. The question with him is whether he can govern.
I am thinking that this last question is rather more than a minor detail!?
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
The Conservatives are not called the Conservative and Unionist Party for nothing, we are a United Kingdom of 4 nations and the largest party in one of those nations has as much right to get some influence on legislation as the SNP would have done had Corbyn been able to form a majority with them. The fact the Tories made by far and away their biggest gains in Scotland last night only confirms the fantasy of some rightwingers that an independent England freed of its Celtic cousins and Ulster would have a permanent Tory majority is precisely that
Unionists and Conservatives are natural allies.
And plenty of Scottish Conservatives are in the Orange Order.
Yes, one positive out of this election is that with 13 Tory seats in Scotland now, 8 Tory seats in Wales and a likely pact for government with the NI Unionists the idea that the Tories are and should be only an English party can be put to bed, the Tories suffered a bigger swing against them in England than any other home nation
The Tories have to be a UK nationalist party, not an English nationalist one.
Perhaps they should form a United Kingdom Independence Party?
To my fellow Conservative PBers cheer up. Reasons to be cheerful: 1. There are 12 Scottish pandas. 2. Labour lost for the third time running. 3.None of the rifts in Labour is repaired. They are papered over 4.The fascination of the Media with plucky underdog Corbyn will fade. 5.With the anti-Semites and bigots of Momentum in full cry what could possibly go wrong? 6. We cannot play that badly again. 7. I remember 1st May 1997 and that was far worse. 8. 42 per cent after that campaign aint bad. 9. After 7 weeks it is finally over 10. I do not have to look at an opinion poll again. A great summer to you all.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
If Mrs May was even vaguely capable we wouldn't be worrying about getting to 326, Must be the worst PM in living memory.
I don't dispute that it was a disaster of a campaign. But it is worth noting that having a government is in the national interest now more than ever. Holding noses for coalition deals was acceptable when it was the LDs; why not now?
Big difference between coalescing with Clegg and the Orange Bookers and the DUP as you know. I don't have any easy answers but I'm not sure I would be willing to support the Tory party anymore under those circumstances.....It was difficult enough to yesterday. Fed up with voting for negative reasons...it wasn't like that before May.
To my fellow Conservative PBers cheer up. Reasons to be cheerful: 1. There are 12 Scottish pandas. 2. Labour lost for the third time running. 3.None of the rifts in Labour is repaired. They are papered over 4.The fascination of the Media with plucky underdog Corbyn will fade. 5.With the anti-Semites and bigots of Momentum in full cry what could possibly go wrong? 6. We cannot play that badly again. 7. I remember 1st May 1997 and that was far worse. 8. 42 per cent after that campaign aint bad. 9. After 7 weeks it is finally over 10. I do not have to look at an opinion poll again. A great summer to you all.
Last attempt, sop basing policies in the past, start looking at things that worry young people in the future, AI, robotics, ups killing the work force, housing, making the most of globalization, climate change and other environmental issues. Then work out a series of policies that reflect these concerns in a financially competent way, if you ignore them what other way do they have to go if all on offer is a bunch of old farts wanting to recreate either the 50's or eighties. I could throw in enlightened employers that remove the need for trade unions, more realistic share of wealth other than the socialist one and more enlightened investment along the lines of the charity who advertise a lot but can't remember the name of. Maybe we could even ask them what they are worried about heaven forbid
Come on, not one conservative politician in the last seven years has made any effort to think about the morale of the public sector. Spiteful stuff like cutting holiday allowances and TCs was paired with (at times) necessary pay restrictions in the name of "modernisation" and has done precisely the opposite. Any Tory near a microphone speaks about further reform, but without any effort to reach or to the large chunk of e.g. the civil service that actively wants to modernise and hates some of the old fashioned nonsense.
It's also in the lexicon - such as referring to the private sector as the "productive" part of the economy. Activists on fora like this one assuming the public sector is a Labour block vote is also the sort of statement that quickly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
If you don't feel like someone wants your vote, eventually you stop worrying about the argument for any of their policies in any other areas.
This is an excellent post. Yes, it is even in the vocabulary and the phrasing. How many teachers were pleased to hear they were part of Gove's "Blob"? (An analysis he was in many ways fundamentally right about, but nobody should have heard that word til he wrote his memoirs 30 years later!)
To my fellow Conservative PBers cheer up. Reasons to be cheerful: 1. There are 12 Scottish pandas. 2. Labour lost for the third time running. 3.None of the rifts in Labour is repaired. They are papered over 4.The fascination of the Media with plucky underdog Corbyn will fade. 5.With the anti-Semites and bigots of Momentum in full cry what could possibly go wrong? 6. We cannot play that badly again. 7. I remember 1st May 1997 and that was far worse. 8. 42 per cent after that campaign aint bad. 9. After 7 weeks it is finally over 10. I do not have to look at an opinion poll again. A great summer to you all.
10 - I'd suggest there will be even more focus on the polls over the next couple of weeks than you'd usually expect after an election.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
The posh boys fucked it all up out of laziness, arrogance and lack of attention to detail and then swanned off to Richistan to laugh themselves silly at the sight of an unutterably awful lower middle class woman's inept but well-meaning attempts to put it back together again. Classy to the last.
I reckon Boris would've got a majority. Media is all that matters
I'm not so sure about that. What should really worry the Tories is, what if May actually did okay - she won Mansfield FFS! How many other Tories could have got that? The more I think about this the more I think the Tories are completely f*****.
It is probable that we've got to experience a Labour/Corbyn government and all the disasters contained there-in before the Conservatives can get back in the game.
yeah madly the only way now to resolve the dire political situation is a Corbyn government. That boil needs lancing.
There's some interesting discussion on Twitter about whether the Salisbury Convention that binds the Lords to supporting manifesto commitments applies to minority governments. Consensus seems to be that it doesn't.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
When the 2015 exit poll flashed up at 10pm I'm sure you were to some extent both astonished and ecstatic. People at the time were speculating how it would now allow the Tories to govern alone without those pesky libdems, because they had the DUP in reserve. At the time that was the height of achievement for the "posh boys". An achievement they actually bettered once the results were finalised and which they then threw away in an act of monumental folly and an EU referendum campaign comfortably as inept as anything May managed this time around. And she got 43% of the vote! And however easy you think it should have been to beat Corbyn, as a campaigner he absolutely wiped the floor in comparison to Miliband.
The reality is that she doesn't measure up quite so badly with the posh boys when alls said and done.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
The posh boys fucked it all up out of laziness, arrogance and lack of attention to detail and then swanned off to Richistan to laugh themselves silly at the sight of an unutterably awful lower middle class woman's inept but well-meaning attempts to put it back together again. Classy to the last.
George was prepared to stay and help but the stupid georgraphy graduate sacked him thinking she knew better on how to win majorities, and she was so classy in the process.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
For about the 19th time in the past day, I can accept that.
But the way you're talking you'd prefer a Corbyn government...
Nobody sane wants that but people want to let a bit of steam off after listening to the posh boys being panned on here day after day since before the referendum and being told that May and Brexit were going to deliver 100 years of Tory rule.
It wasn't a huge surprise to find she was even more inept than she'd appeared prior to the election campaign and even less so to find that Brexit wasn't a massive net vote winner either.
So yeah some of us are livid that the work done by Cameron and Osborne has been undone by a reckless bunch of twats obsessed with Europe and an incompetent school matron.
There's some interesting discussion on Twitter about whether the Salisbury Convention that binds the Lords to supporting manifesto commitments applies to minority governments. Consensus seems to be that it doesn't.
This government is not doing anything but brexit (if it can even do that!)
Well, the government could bring in condensed degree courses. That would make education better value. Perhaps one year with four terms would be ok for most liberal arts courses.
Well, I leave the UK now for 3 weeks, with no mobile or internet connection, high mountains , jungle, and camping. I am depressed for the future, and have become ,so F**k them all,I have prepared well for my family, and we will survive OK. You get what you vote for, Brexit will end in tears, Corbyn I just shudder at the consequences, and the Cons, what a F**k up. Maybe I am just tired,(and a bit emotional),hope my trip will enthuse me and I return more positive, but at the moment, I want out of the UK and politics.
There's some interesting discussion on Twitter about whether the Salisbury Convention that binds the Lords to supporting manifesto commitments applies to minority governments. Consensus seems to be that it doesn't.
This government is not doing anything but brexit (if it can even do that!)
But can it get the Great Repeal Bill through parliament? Can it get a majority for leaving the single market?
There's some interesting discussion on Twitter about whether the Salisbury Convention that binds the Lords to supporting manifesto commitments applies to minority governments. Consensus seems to be that it doesn't.
This government is not doing anything but brexit (if it can even do that!)
But can it get the Great Repeal Bill through parliament? Can it get a majority for leaving the single market?
Oakeshott a complacent Conservative - Corbyn has already done far, far better than he really should have done. Those (including me) who talked about his unelectability could have never have imagined he'd get more than 40% vote share, and make GAINS in terms of seats.
I think he went way too close for comfortable for many Tories.
I just don't see Ruth going to Westminster. I think that she must have ideas on being the First minister of Scotland in 4 years time (With help from Kez and Willie)
There's some interesting discussion on Twitter about whether the Salisbury Convention that binds the Lords to supporting manifesto commitments applies to minority governments. Consensus seems to be that it doesn't.
This government is not doing anything but brexit (if it can even do that!)
There's some interesting discussion on Twitter about whether the Salisbury Convention that binds the Lords to supporting manifesto commitments applies to minority governments. Consensus seems to be that it doesn't.
This government is not doing anything but brexit (if it can even do that!)
But can it get the Great Repeal Bill through parliament? Can it get a majority for leaving the single market?
Corbyn campaigned on leaving the single market. Still very double edged for Labour to oppose that.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
When the 2015 exit poll flashed up at 10pm I'm sure you were to some extent both astonished and ecstatic. People at the time were speculating how it would now allow the Tories to govern alone without those pesky libdems, because they had the DUP in reserve. At the time that was the height of achievement for the "posh boys". An achievement they actually bettered once the results were finalised and which they then threw away in an act of monumental folly and an EU referendum campaign comfortably as inept as anything May managed this time around. And she got 43% of the vote! And however easy you think it should have been to beat Corbyn, as a campaigner he absolutely wiped the floor in comparison to Miliband.
The reality is that she doesn't measure up quite so badly with the posh boys when alls said and done.
I just don't see Ruth going to Westminster. I think that she must have ideas on being the First minister of Scotland in 4 years time (With help from Kez and Willie)
Yep, I think she'd only go to Westminster after being FM.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
When the 2015 exit poll flashed up at 10pm I'm sure you were to some extent both astonished and ecstatic. People at the time were speculating how it would now allow the Tories to govern alone without those pesky libdems, because they had the DUP in reserve. At the time that was the height of achievement for the "posh boys". An achievement they actually bettered once the results were finalised and which they then threw away in an act of monumental folly and an EU referendum campaign comfortably as inept as anything May managed this time around. And she got 43% of the vote! And however easy you think it should have been to beat Corbyn, as a campaigner he absolutely wiped the floor in comparison to Miliband.
The reality is that she doesn't measure up quite so badly with the posh boys when alls said and done.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
The posh boys fucked it all up out of laziness, arrogance and lack of attention to detail and then swanned off to Richistan to laugh themselves silly at the sight of an unutterably awful lower middle class woman's inept but well-meaning attempts to put it back together again. Classy to the last.
Didn't Mrs May evict Osbourne, and even insist that he was fired rather than be allowed to resign? Not really a way to make him feel wanted.
Oakeshott a complacent Conservative - Corbyn has already done far, far better than he really should have done. Those (including me) who talked about his unelectability could have never have imagined he'd get more than 40% vote share, and make GAINS in terms of seats.
I think he went way too close for comfortable for many Tories.
The fact he has got so close may make the remainer Tories who wanted to kick May be a lot more careful next time.
I think it would be useful if everyone was thinking trawl through their election period posting history to find the single most wrong hint the posts in. The last seven weeks.
It would benefit self reflection. I've got some sinker predictions about the SNP in there I'm sure.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
The posh boys fucked it all up out of laziness, arrogance and lack of attention to detail and then swanned off to Richistan to laugh themselves silly at the sight of an unutterably awful lower middle class woman's inept but well-meaning attempts to put it back together again. Classy to the last.
Didn't Mrs May evict Osbourne, and even insist that he was fired rather than be allowed to resign? Not really a way to make him feel wanted.
I made that point earlier, then there was silence.
But, really, Nick: are you really happy that your leader has no qualms about associating with people who are Holocaust deniers? Does it not give you the slightest pang? Not even the slightest uncomfortable feeling?
What does this mealy-mouthed phrase "associating with" mean? Supporting? Agreeing with? Speaking to? Being in the same room as? On the same bus? Walking down the other side of the street from?
It's stuff and nonsense. I never hear people say it in everyday life - they say instead exactly what they mean. I only hear it when someone wants to tar someone else's reputation "by association".
Going on a trip paid for by them to Syria. Inviting someone to Parliament saying that their voice should be heard.
Clear enough for you?
I would not go on a trip paid for by Holocaust deniers. Nor would I invite them to speak in Parliament or anywhere else because I don't think such a voice should be heard. Evidently, Corbyn takes a different view. He is free to do so, of course. And others are free to form an opinion of such behaviour.
My question was directed at Nick Palmer (in response to his question to me) as to whether this caused him any concerns.
It is interesting, though, how many seek not to engage with the facts but rather to dismiss them as smears.
Given how long it's taken SCon to get to this place, I bet they will want to tread carefully if there's toxicity floating about down south - the 14 seats weren't thanks to the English Con campaign were they?
I think it would be useful if everyone was thinking trawl through their election period posting history to find the single most wrong hint the posts in. The last seven weeks.
It would benefit self reflection. I've got some sinker predictions about the SNP in there I'm sure.
I thought Labour could win Brighton Pavilion.
I've decided that from now on I'm not going to go looking for bets myself. I'm much better at listening to the tips on here and deciding if I like the look of them.
The PM (or one of the grown ups in her cabinet) need to be addressing the young directly. They voted, she has ignored them, and potentially little will change. Myths will build. She needs to be humble and open, and in listening mode. She needs a young friendly policy now.
Or her replacement does.
Bluntly, she can't afford to.
Her party has loaded austerity onto the young for the last 7 years and it's now baked into the books. It's why reversing her anti-young policies like tuition fees are so incredibly expensive that they're represented as a *magic money tree* fantasy by rightwingers.
The tories found their magic money tree (for the triple lock etc) after the financial crisis *by* squeezing the young until their pips squeeked.
She can say nice things to the young, but she has no other option but to rob them in order to bribe their grandparents.
Yup. And the biggest Tory betrayal? Houses.
Force the house builders to build some soddding houses, or start building themselves is what the government needs to do. Ban overseas oweneership would be a great start.
Fix the housing market. People become Conservative once they become homeowners. Giving the 20 - 35 year old age bracket the chance to become homeowners without inheritance would go a long way to making inroads with this demographic.
Once you have an asset that's yours, a patch of grass, a few bricks to call your own, suddenly socialism looks a lot less appealing, when you realise people are more interested in taking it away from you than in giving you something taken from someone else.
See also the dementia tax. When you mess with people's homes, they stop being Tories.
This is the key mistake of successive governments. Thatcher had her faults, but her lower middle class background meant she understood this in spades.
Exactly. I genuinely despair that the Tory Party in 2017 seems to have completely lost sight of this.
Help To Buy was well intentioned but had the opposite effect of driving house prices up even further because of limited supply. The answer is to build, build, build.
It's really quite simple - when the vast majority of people have homes to protect, when they have skin in the game, you get a thriving capitalist society that naturally trends Tory. When you have a concentration of homes in the hands of the old and the wealthy, when the young should be settling down, putting down roots, having families, but are unable to do so, that's when you get the cries for socialism and confiscation and redistribution we hear now.
The fact that only those who inherit can afford to buy makes the system seem even more rigged to the under 30s.
Evening all. I'm still trying to digest the events of the last 24 hours. I wanted the Conservatives to win but for weeks I had strong doubts that they would given the relentlessly negative media coverage and letting Corbyn hog the limelight. The votes have been counted and yes they are the largest party but it has to listen to the voters. They did not give May a ringing endorsement and I find it untenable that she and the government can carry on regardless as if the vote never happened. Things need to change and that starts with May going. If May and the government carry on as if nothing has happened then they deserve to lose next time. I don't want a Corbyn government but the current government has to change starting with May leaving her position.
You look at a picture of a lame duck. That's Theresa May! The EU will laugh her out of the room...
John Major had his grey Y fronts. There's something about this cartoonist's depiction of Theresa May as a zombie that captures the zeitgeist. It will stick.
Not toxic, won't reflect badly on anyone making a deal with them.
Somehow not surprised that the Scottish voices are some of the most vocal about how bad an idea it is to a deal with the DUP. A long history of sectarianism and all it's associated problems especially in Glasgow but also in other towns and cities in Scotland makes people very wary of parties who divide on religious grounds.
Mrs May is desperate to retoxify the Tory brand isn't she?
The D U fucking P.
We've done a deal with the party of Sammy 'The gays are poofs and perverts' Wilson.
Trust me in 2015 English voters weren't keen on sending their money to Scotland, they won't be happy about sending English money to Northern Ireland.
What has Northern Ireland ever done for England except brought terrorism to the mainland ?
Mrs May needs to be deposed before she fatally damages the Tories, if she already hasn't.
Biggest issue raised on my knocking up yesterday? Disability cuts. Osborne did quite enough as chancellor 15-16 to retoxify the brand all on his own.
How do you propose to get to 326?
But Mrs May knows so much better than the posh boys?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose your majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Changing the subject old bean.
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
For the last year you've been banging on how awful the posh boys were and how brilliant Mrs May was.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
The posh boys fucked it all up out of laziness, arrogance and lack of attention to detail and then swanned off to Richistan to laugh themselves silly at the sight of an unutterably awful lower middle class woman's inept but well-meaning attempts to put it back together again. Classy to the last.
Didn't Mrs May evict Osbourne, and even insist that he was fired rather than be allowed to resign? Not really a way to make him feel wanted.
I made that point earlier, then there was silence.
OK, if you want an answer here it is: I have always been comfortable with the idea of revenging wrongs and never seen why the NT is so down on it. If GO wants vengeance from T May good luck to him, except that he seems happy to regard any damage to his party and his country as purely collateral. The kindest thing to be said about him is that he is incapable of thinking through what happens, if things go otherwise than he planned. The Standard sniping would have been a good laugh if, and only if, we were now sitting and exulting in con maj >60. We aren't and who knows whether him being a childish dick may have cost us Kensington?
Exactly. I genuinely despair that the Tory Party in 2017 seems to have completely lost sight of this.
Help To Buy was well intentioned but had the opposite effect of driving house prices up even further because of limited supply. The answer is to build, build, build.
It's really quite simple - when the vast majority of people have homes to protect, when they have skin in the game, you get a thriving capitalist society that naturally trends Tory. When you have a concentration of homes in the hands of the old and the wealthy, when the young should be settling down, putting down roots, having families, but are unable to do so, that's when you get the cries for socialism and confiscation and redistribution we hear now.
The fact that only those who inherit can afford to buy makes the system seem even more rigged to the under 30s.
The worst part is that mention this to those on the ladder already and there seems to condemnation that building more houses is stealing from homeowners. This bizarre situation can only lead to dark places. Unfortunately I think we are going to need to go through a Corbyn(ite) government to get a recognition from the screwed over young that socialism isn't going to fix things for them. Maybe by then the Tories will get the point that you can't be the party of homeowners forever if you stop anyone becoming one.
Having totted up my bets. A 14/60 hit rate. PBers tips on the Scottish seats and Ynys Mon saved my bacon. Down about £50 overall.
For the second election in a row I got the Lab/Con position totally wrong. Lost loads on that. Made slightly more on my LD/UKIP/SNP bets. Small profit, but nothing to be proud of.
Comments
It was probably the right thing to do, and we would have been better off past it now. But the LDs would never have allowed it.
I am also on Jo Swinson and Vince Cable for next LD leader.
Excellent night's punting all in all .but I would like to know if Mr Smithson was "on" in Bedford and kept it to himself?
Well there are two very simple ways of getting to 326
1) Don't break your word and call a snap election and lose Dave's majority
or
2) Fight a good general election campaign.
May is a stain on the Tory power, and the sooner she is removed the better.
Also talked to the Corbynistas I know today - they are ecstatic. They really believe they can do it in 2022.
Isabel Oakeshott sounding ridiculous on QT. This QT audience is interesting - actually quite Pro-Tory, in London of all places!
I know you're angry - we all are. But now we have 318/19, we have to form a government....
But losing support among the 30-45s is harder to overcome. When May had huge poll leads she was dominating Corbyn among early middle-aged people, and higher turnout of 18-24 year olds for Corbyn wouldn't have prevented a Tory landslide. She seemed to be losing a lot of support in those mid-career and pre-retirement segments by polling day.
There's no point trying to make the party appeal to a right-on 19 year-old. They could spray cash at it but it would be a waste of pork. However, a 30-something, settling down, getting on the housing market, thinking about their career options .... a party that sees itself as a guardian of property rights and a sound economy really needs to be winning them over by then.
The public sector worker thing is interesting too - there were several public sector professions that traditionally voted Tory rather than Labour but which, over the years, the Conservatives have been almost wiped out with. Michael Gove and successive health secretaries stand out, but also George Osborne for imposing such harsh pay restraint for such a prolonged time. On the other hand, Osborne's slashing of the public sector headcount and the growth in self-employment may in the end work to Conservative advantage!
1. There are 12 Scottish pandas.
2. Labour lost for the third time running.
3.None of the rifts in Labour is repaired. They are papered over
4.The fascination of the Media with plucky underdog Corbyn will fade.
5.With the anti-Semites and bigots of Momentum in full cry what could possibly go wrong?
6. We cannot play that badly again.
7. I remember 1st May 1997 and that was far worse.
8. 42 per cent after that campaign aint bad.
9. After 7 weeks it is finally over
10. I do not have to look at an opinion poll again.
A great summer to you all.
Suck it up, your girl has been proven to be the pound shop Gordon Brown I warned you she'd be.
:-)
I've also had to delay a thread with an awesome subtle pop music reference.
The headline was 'Knowing me, knowing EU'
But the way you're talking you'd prefer a Corbyn government...
Also enjoyed @Ismael_Z's response.
But Kensington has gone red under Mrs May's watch.
Let that sink in.
That's like Bootle going Blue.
Westminster N Lab 7/2 and Gedling Lab 5/2 were also very nice.
But in the cold hard reality of today, that is not an option. Minority
Government with support from the DUP is better than a Corbyn...
Having a temper tantrum at her beloved Daily Mail being criticised.
She must have hated it last night.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/873267940724023298
The reality is that she doesn't measure up quite so badly with the posh boys when alls said and done.
https://twitter.com/GeneralBoles/status/871057849253801984
https://twitter.com/GeneralBoles/status/871068337551355905
She's reaping what she sowed.
It wasn't a huge surprise to find she was even more inept than she'd appeared prior to the election campaign and even less so to find that Brexit wasn't a massive net vote winner either.
So yeah some of us are livid that the work done by Cameron and Osborne has been undone by a reckless bunch of twats obsessed with Europe and an incompetent school matron.
Those 5 seats would make things an awful lot more comfortable - technically they would have a majority of 3 without DUP, but in practice 23 with DUP.
However Con won quite a few seats narrowly as well.
I am depressed for the future, and have become ,so F**k them all,I have prepared well for my family, and we will survive OK.
You get what you vote for, Brexit will end in tears, Corbyn I just shudder at the consequences, and the Cons, what a F**k up.
Maybe I am just tired,(and a bit emotional),hope my trip will enthuse me and I return more positive, but at the moment, I want out of the UK and politics.
https://twitter.com/graham4sinead/status/873244809410031620
Kensington and Chelsea.
lol
I think he went way too close for comfortable for many Tories.
There, I've said it.
Mrs May made net losses in her first election.
I feel a bar chart coming up.
That'll be SCons declaring independence soon.
Shami is awful. Labour need to get rid.
Why the government have decided to put Grayling in QT is beyond me. Even Liam Fox would be better....
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/06/jeremy-corbyn-has-prepared-electoral-map-finish-tories
The fact he has got so close may make the remainer Tories who wanted to kick May be a lot more careful next time.
It would benefit self reflection. I've got some sinker predictions about the SNP in there I'm sure.
Clear enough for you?
I would not go on a trip paid for by Holocaust deniers. Nor would I invite them to speak in Parliament or anywhere else because I don't think such a voice should be heard. Evidently, Corbyn takes a different view. He is free to do so, of course. And others are free to form an opinion of such behaviour.
My question was directed at Nick Palmer (in response to his question to me) as to whether this caused him any concerns.
It is interesting, though, how many seek not to engage with the facts but rather to dismiss them as smears.
I've decided that from now on I'm not going to go looking for bets myself. I'm much better at listening to the tips on here and deciding if I like the look of them.
Help To Buy was well intentioned but had the opposite effect of driving house prices up even further because of limited supply. The answer is to build, build, build.
It's really quite simple - when the vast majority of people have homes to protect, when they have skin in the game, you get a thriving capitalist society that naturally trends Tory. When you have a concentration of homes in the hands of the old and the wealthy, when the young should be settling down, putting down roots, having families, but are unable to do so, that's when you get the cries for socialism and confiscation and redistribution we hear now.
The fact that only those who inherit can afford to buy makes the system seem even more rigged to the under 30s.
Yet still TM thinks she can hold on to power?
You look at a picture of a lame duck. That's Theresa May! The EU will laugh her out of the room...
https://twitter.com/JohnSimpsonNews/status/873204898548109312
"Something of the night" about her and all that.
https://twitter.com/DaveBrownToons/status/873145667220385792
Zombie government. That's what May has given us.
A long history of sectarianism and all it's associated problems especially in Glasgow but also in other towns and cities in Scotland makes people very wary of parties who divide on religious grounds.
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/873275714182815744
As it is, it's more like Mansfield or Stoke South...