The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
Looking at the list of SNP defences for next time it is amazing how slender many if their majorities are now. SLAB, SCON and SLD are all well-placed to make gains. Not sure that Tory C&S arrangement with DUP will be toxic everywhere and there is always Ruth to factor in.
Do you mind me asking if your avatar is of your own bunnies? If so, what breed are they?
If the posh boys weren't crap, they would today be PM and CotE.
Exactly.
Cameron is so good he had this utterly dismal negotiation, which saw a big shift of public opinion, lost a referendum, and immediately resigned despite saying he wouldn't, and then Osborne got the boot for his "punishment budget" idiocy. May is rubbish, but people talking up those two are looking through rose-tinted spectacles.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
As an aside, if the LDs had swapped 1,000 votes in Westmoreland & Lonsdale for half that number in St Ives, Richmond Park and Fife NE, then they would have had a truly spectacular night.
You're not suggesting that the LibDems would be better off without the great leader are you ?
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Zero defenses vs Labour next time round makes for an interesting dynamic.
Farron only just held on in Westmoreland. One last heave.
I think the Conservatives got very lucky there. If Farron had been ousted, the LDs would have ended up with a much, much more electable leader.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Zero defenses vs Labour next time round makes for an interesting dynamic.
Farron only just held on in Westmoreland. One last heave.
He will do better next time, Tory votes have reached their high tide and are only going down. One advantage of him stepping down would be that he has time to work his constituency.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
Much depends on the DUP's price. Retaining the triple lock and securing an increased role for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in Brexit would be unlikely to scare the horses.
Making 12 July a bank holiday would.
I think it would ironically cost the SNP seats. In the places where simply the idea of a DUP alliance would be properly toxic without even getting to the substance of he deal it would result in potential anti-SNP voters who were considering voting Con switching to Labour coalescing the anti SNP vote.
Want me to post the bar chart showing the number of net gains Cameron made vs the number of net gains Mrs May made?
I don't even have to go all Lib Dem to make that bar chart look bad.
Go ahead, but it won't change my opinion the Cameron screwed up the referendum and that Osborne is a berk.
I've just got off the phone to my father, a life-long Tory.
He told me the one thing the Tories must stop doing is fighting amongst themselves if they want to avoid a crushing defeat, and this is very obvious at the moment.
He even said that the "Tories can be real bastards", I was stunned as he hardly ever swears. But he's right.
To succeed and survive, Mrs May needs to develop a cross party consensus on Brexit and on other matters too. The role of Leader of the House is critically important in achieving this. So who does she appoint? Andrea Ledsom!
It looks to me as if Mrs May's strategy is to include all her potential rivals (including Gove) in the Cabinet rather than scheming outside it. I can imagine the next Cabinet meeting. That icy stare from May around the table. Poker faces with the mere hint of a smile looking back at her - the prey.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
Much depends on the DUP's price. Retaining the triple lock and securing an increased role for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in Brexit would be unlikely to scare the horses.
Making 12 July a bank holiday would.
hmmm this could work in the tories favour if the unpopular cuts are reversed.....
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Zero defenses vs Labour next time round makes for an interesting dynamic.
Farron only just held on in Westmoreland. One last heave.
I think the Conservatives got very lucky there. If Farron had been ousted, the LDs would have ended up with a much, much more electable leader.
I suspect there will be a lot more tactical voting next time. The LDs should benefit from that and up their number of MPs as a result.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
There are more supporters of the Orange Order in Scotland than in the entirety of England and Wales combined
There also more people who think the Orange Order are total twats in Scotland than in England and Wales combined.
I don't know where the narrative comes from that some Tory voters sat at home because they thought Corbyn couldn't win, and so it was safe not to vote for Theresa May. It was publicised over the campaign that the poll leads were narrowing quite significantly - indeed The Times had the YouGov model's projection of a hung parliament on the front-page, and the Daily Mail had the 1% Tory lead in a Survation poll on its front page as well. If anything, it appears in London seats that some Tory Remainers may have actually switched their votes to Labour.
- Garden Tax: I'm about to say this as someone who spooked by the so-called 'Garden Tax': what was said in the last thread is one of the reasons as to why the attacks on Corbyn were not particularly effective during the campaign. I sadly fell for it, but as I research more about it, I realised that what the right-wing press were saying, and what was the actual truth, were two very different things. Labour did not plan a 3% LVT on property owners - in their own manifesto they didn't specify any specific rate it would be set; hell they didn't even commit to implementing such a tax. What they did was say that an LVT would be one of the options for a review of council tax and business rates. The promise was to consider an LVT, not to definitely implement it. This 3% figure appears to come from a report on a website called Labour Land - a separate campaign group which advocates for an LVT - and furthermore that 3% figure applies to industrial and commercial property - not home-owners. It's the 0.85% figure that the report proposes in relation to homeowners. So even in media publications use of that report as a hypothetical analysis of the impact of an LVT implemented by the Labour party, they choose the wrong figure anyway! A lot of the reports on how it would financial impact people appears to also be based on property, not land value - which is silly, as it is the latter which is the basis for such a tax.
After all of that, Momentum, shortly before the GE posted on their Twitter a video of McDonnell and Mason clarifying some things about the LVT - mainly that it wouldn't actually apply to residential property - but only on business property.
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Zero defenses vs Labour next time round makes for an interesting dynamic.
Farron only just held on in Westmoreland. One last heave.
He will do better next time, Tory votes have reached their high tide and are only going down. One advantage of him stepping down would be that he has time to work his constituency.
Usually leaders get a boost by being on TV as I found out to my cost in Brighton Pavilion with Caroline Lucas (okay, it was only a fiver). I reckon Farron's presence on TV hurt him in his own seat.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
It's a truly terrifying thought! But I suspect he is too extreme for the moderate middle. Worth remembering he has never been elected to Westminster in how many attempts? He's clever though, I'll grant you that.
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
If, and remember I am saying "if", he had stood as a Conservative in a safe seat, as many in the cabinet have, and became leader, I think he would have done a better job than Theresa May. Comparing that with trying to get elected as a UKIP candidate is for the birds.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Although Southport showed that when an LibDem retires they struggle to hold the seat.
Which means they'll now have problems getting back Ceredigion, Leeds NW and Hallam and also suggests that we need to keep a track of how old the LibDem MPs are.
Some Conservative Cabinet ministers are privately lobbying the Theresa May to alter her Brexit plan from an "ideologically driven" approach to a "pragmatic Brexit".
The new approach would have "fewer things being ruled out" after the Prime Minister's failure to secure an increased mandate at the General Election.
One senior Cabinet source told Sky News: "What we were proposing genuinely didn't get enough buy-in.
"The British public themselves haven't reached a conclusion on what they want from Brexit.
"We need to recognise the outcome... people want practical pragmatism with fewer things being ruled out - not an ideologically-driven approach."
The election result also raises a question about the democratic legitimacy of the overall approach to Brexit.
"How do you get a legitimate decision? How does it have legitimacy? It's not instantly obvious," said the Cabinet minister.
The fact that the PM asked British voters to strengthen her hand in negotiations but instead they reduced her majority might now mean a clear parliamentary vote is required after any Brexit deal.
Hahaha, it's actually surreal how much things have changed for the Tories in two months, and just how needless and self-inflicted it all was.
Atleast Gordon Brown, in whatever darkened room he's in right now, can comfort himself with the thought that the only thing more politically-catastrophic than bottling out of calling a snap election, is actually calling a snap election.
Corbyn can sit back and demand cake and eat it. He learned this from vote leave. The government will have to deliver it without the numbers
Yup, makes the biggest promises you can make even if you can never deliver them.
I was wondering what Corbyn will do at the next general election should he remain the leader. Repeat 2017 or raise the stakes even higher? We could see some fantastical stuff in the next manifesto.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
It's a truly terrifying thought! But I suspect he is too extreme for the moderate middle. Worth remembering he has never been elected to Westminster in how many attempts? He's clever though, I'll grant you that.
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
If you entered up your horse six times in the Grand National and it finished tailed off last or tipped up on the way round every time then there would be questions to be asked about the advice you were receiving and the level of your delusion.
So, if the Conservatives are to win the next GE they will have to stop relying on a failed strategy: that attacking Labour will simply get them there. Voters did not like to be told that TINA, and that they had to vote Conservative - and the complacency of the Tories this time round and their dire campaign came from that assumption. The Conservatives will, have to - shock horror - outline a positive vision for this country and address the concerns of people in their policy content. And that can only be a good thing for this country.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
As an aside, if the LDs had swapped 1,000 votes in Westmoreland & Lonsdale for half that number in St Ives, Richmond Park and Fife NE, then they would have had a truly spectacular night.
You're not suggesting that the LibDems would be better off without the great leader are you ?
My view is that Farron organises campaigns well. He got the LDs fighting every council by-election, and he (sensibly) ran General Election as 20 by-elections.
Who forecast the LDs would win Eastbourne or came within a whisker of taking St Ives? (Not me.)
But he's repellent to approximately 92% of voters, and - let us not forget this - under his watch the LibDems went backwards from their worst result in 50 years in terms of vote share. A better leader, banging the drum for a Swiss-type arrangement with the EU, could probably get 15% of the vote.
You'll remember that I was never completely convinced the whole thing with Boris and Gove destroying each other "game of thrones" style wasn't set-up to get the pair of them off the hook from having to deliver Brexit....
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
There are more supporters of the Orange Order in Scotland than in the entirety of England and Wales combined
There also more people who think the Orange Order are total twats in Scotland than in England and Wales combined.
Evidence? The main complaints about the DUP have come from leftwing London liberals, even Salmond in 2015 said he could work with the DUP
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
Looking at the list of SNP defences for next time it is amazing how slender many if their majorities are now. SLAB, SCON and SLD are all well-placed to make gains. Not sure that Tory C&S arrangement with DUP will be toxic everywhere and there is always Ruth to factor in.
Do you mind me asking if your avatar is of your own bunnies? If so, what breed are they?
It is well withing the bounds of possibility that the SNP lose almost every seat at the next election.
Thinking about second election betting (StanJames offering roughly 1/3 on no second election this year) - how late in the year do we have to get before there simply isn't time? I guess it depends on how the election is called.
Vote of no confidence is 5 weeks, right? That's 2 weeks for a second confidence vote not to pass and then 3 weeks for the campaign. But anything else would be slower?
If the Tories chose to have a second election, might they avoid a winter date? 1974 was Feb and October, but we're already in June. Not long now if we don't want a freezing campaign. On the other hand, MPs may not have that level of control. If the DUP deal collapses it's election right now.
DYOR, but I don't feel that a second election imminently is likely, even 25% likely (for 1/3 being value on it not happening).The Tories haven't gone for one over the weekend, and they are close enough to 325 that I imagine they'll try to form a minority even if the DUP don't agree. A no confidence vote could be forced, but as some have discussed below no-one bar Labour (and possibly even some of them) want a snap election.
From informal soundings I've taken over the weekend, Tories are utterly terrified of a further election and will do everything possible to avoid one.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
I was wondering what Corbyn will do at the next general election should he remain the leader. Repeat 2017 or raise the stakes even higher? We could see some fantastical stuff in the next manifesto.
From The Sunday Times
By the time the Tory manifesto was produced, Labour was already enjoying an upturn in support after its manifesto was leaked in full to newspapers and the BBC the week before it was due to be published.
The content was audacious — a £50bn spending spree that offered feelgood baubles such as an £11bn bill to scrap university tuition fees. Insiders say the decision was taken that Corbyn should lay out what he believed and see what happened.
“If you’re going to risk a political hit by borrowing £20bn you might as well borrow £50bn,” one source said.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
It's a truly terrifying thought! But I suspect he is too extreme for the moderate middle. Worth remembering he has never been elected to Westminster in how many attempts? He's clever though, I'll grant you that.
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
If you entered up your horse six times in the Grand National and it finished tailed off last or tipped up on the way round every time then there would be questions to be asked about the advice you were receiving and the level of your delusion.
Well it is a fair comparison I think. Most of the times, six out of the seven, Farage was standing to get publicity for UKIP with no expectation, or hope, of winning. The horse in my example would be entering for its owners pleasure rather than trying to win, as most 50/1 shots are.
I don't know where the narrative comes from that some Tory voters sat at home because they thought Corbyn couldn't win, and so it was safe not to vote for Theresa May. It was publicised over the campaign that the poll leads were narrowing quite significantly - indeed The Times had the YouGov model's projection of a hung parliament on the front-page, and the Daily Mail had the 1% Tory lead in a Survation poll on its front page as well. If anything, it appears in London seats that some Tory Remainers may have actually switched their votes to Labour.
- Garden Tax: I'm about to say this as someone who spooked by the so-called 'Garden Tax': what was said in the last thread is one of the reasons as to why the attacks on Corbyn were not particularly effective during the campaign. I sadly fell for it, but as I research more about it, I realised that what the right-wing press were saying, and what was the actual truth, were two very different things. Labour did not plan a 3% LVT on property owners - in their own manifesto they didn't specify any specific rate it would be set; hell they didn't even commit to implementing such a tax. What they did was say that an LVT would be one of the options for a review of council tax and business rates. The promise was to consider an LVT, not to definitely implement it. This 3% figure appears to come from a report on a website called Labour Land - a separate campaign group which advocates for an LVT - and furthermore that 3% figure applies to industrial and commercial property - not home-owners. It's the 0.85% figure that the report proposes in relation to homeowners. So even in media publications use of that report as a hypothetical analysis of the impact of an LVT implemented by the Labour party, they choose the wrong figure anyway! A lot of the reports on how it would financial impact people appears to also be based on property, not land value - which is silly, as it is the latter which is the basis for such a tax.
After all of that, Momentum, shortly before the GE posted on their Twitter a video of McDonnell and Mason clarifying some things about the LVT - mainly that it wouldn't actually apply to residential property - but only on business property.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
Thinking about second election betting (StanJames offering roughly 1/3 on no second election this year) - how late in the year do we have to get before there simply isn't time? I guess it depends on how the election is called.
Vote of no confidence is 5 weeks, right? That's 2 weeks for a second confidence vote not to pass and then 3 weeks for the campaign. But anything else would be slower?
If the Tories chose to have a second election, might they avoid a winter date? 1974 was Feb and October, but we're already in June. Not long now if we don't want a freezing campaign. On the other hand, MPs may not have that level of control. If the DUP deal collapses it's election right now.
DYOR, but I don't feel that a second election imminently is likely, even 25% likely (for 1/3 being value on it not happening).The Tories haven't gone for one over the weekend, and they are close enough to 325 that I imagine they'll try to form a minority even if the DUP don't agree. A no confidence vote could be forced, but as some have discussed below no-one bar Labour (and possibly even some of them) want a snap election.
From informal soundings I've taken over the weekend, Tories are utterly terrified of a further election and will do everything possible to avoid one.
I think they fear being blamed by the public for a second unwanted election, unless the situation was very visibly forced by others.
Thinking about second election betting (StanJames offering roughly 1/3 on no second election this year) - how late in the year do we have to get before there simply isn't time? I guess it depends on how the election is called.
Vote of no confidence is 5 weeks, right? That's 2 weeks for a second confidence vote not to pass and then 3 weeks for the campaign. But anything else would be slower?
If the Tories chose to have a second election, might they avoid a winter date? 1974 was Feb and October, but we're already in June. Not long now if we don't want a freezing campaign. On the other hand, MPs may not have that level of control. If the DUP deal collapses it's election right now.
DYOR, but I don't feel that a second election imminently is likely, even 25% likely (for 1/3 being value on it not happening).The Tories haven't gone for one over the weekend, and they are close enough to 325 that I imagine they'll try to form a minority even if the DUP don't agree. A no confidence vote could be forced, but as some have discussed below no-one bar Labour (and possibly even some of them) want a snap election.
From informal soundings I've taken over the weekend, Tories are utterly terrified of a further election and will do everything possible to avoid one.
You would have to be mad, as a Cons minister, to interpret the GE result as the peak of Lab's achievement, rather than a stage on the way to govt.
I was wondering what Corbyn will do at the next general election should he remain the leader. Repeat 2017 or raise the stakes even higher? We could see some fantastical stuff in the next manifesto.
From The Sunday Times
By the time the Tory manifesto was produced, Labour was already enjoying an upturn in support after its manifesto was leaked in full to newspapers and the BBC the week before it was due to be published.
The content was audacious — a £50bn spending spree that offered feelgood baubles such as an £11bn bill to scrap university tuition fees. Insiders say the decision was taken that Corbyn should lay out what he believed and see what happened.
“If you’re going to risk a political hit by borrowing £20bn you might as well borrow £50bn,” one source said.
They went all in, and it nearly worked. But actually in power it wouldn't have worked, and a solid leader of the opposition would have tied them up in knots.
What the Tories need to do now is start to move away from being reliant on print media, god knows how though.
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
The right wing press has been humiliated by this general election. Labour found other ways to speak to its target audiences. The Tories will need to do the same.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
+1. His leadership ratings (YouGov) have also shown him to be an unpopular figure.
If he could not be elected to Westminster at UKIP's peak, when can he?
You'll remember that I was never completely convinced the whole thing with Boris and Gove destroying each other "game of thrones" style wasn't set-up to get the pair of them off the hook from having to deliver Brexit....
I'd assumed that Gove was the ball Osborne fumbled last time.
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
The right wing press has been humiliated by this general election. Labour found other ways to speak to its target audiences. The Tories will need to do the same.
Haha, I just posted something similar. People treat newspapers as background noise nowadays, the Tories need a solid public speaker to the forefront now.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
It's a truly terrifying thought! But I suspect he is too extreme for the moderate middle. Worth remembering he has never been elected to Westminster in how many attempts? He's clever though, I'll grant you that.
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
Ok, no offence intended - I just think he's a bit of a 'Marmite' candidate, with more who can't stand him than who love him (and very few in between).
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Although Southport showed that when an LibDem retires they struggle to hold the seat.
Which means they'll now have problems getting back Ceredigion, Leeds NW and Hallam and also suggests that we need to keep a track of how old the LibDem MPs are.
Sure.
But the seats they gained this time were all ex-LD seats - Edinburgh West, OxWAb, Bath, CS&ER, Twickenham, Kingston, Eastbourne. And of those, the first four were all with new candidates.
Frankly, the LDs need a new leader and a bit of luck. If they get that, they can be back at 20-odd seats next time around.
Want me to post the bar chart showing the number of net gains Cameron made vs the number of net gains Mrs May made?
I don't even have to go all Lib Dem to make that bar chart look bad.
Go ahead, but it won't change my opinion the Cameron screwed up the referendum and that Osborne is a berk.
h
You're comparing apples and oranges in terms of starting seats, time in power, and quality of opponent. In response to your earlier post I do now accept that May is crap too.
We all do. But there's no sense in fighting like ferrets like a sack.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
It's a truly terrifying thought! But I suspect he is too extreme for the moderate middle. Worth remembering he has never been elected to Westminster in how many attempts? He's clever though, I'll grant you that.
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
Ok, no offence intended - I just think he's a bit of a 'Marmite' candidate, with more who can't stand him than who love him (and very few in between).
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
It's a truly terrifying thought! But I suspect he is too extreme for the moderate middle. Worth remembering he has never been elected to Westminster in how many attempts? He's clever though, I'll grant you that.
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
Ok, no offence intended - I just think he's a bit of a 'Marmite' candidate, with more who can't stand him than who love him (and very few in between).
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
As an aside, if the LDs had swapped 1,000 votes in Westmoreland & Lonsdale for half that number in St Ives, Richmond Park and Fife NE, then they would have had a truly spectacular night.
You're not suggesting that the LibDems would be better off without the great leader are you ?
My view is that Farron organises campaigns well. He got the LDs fighting every council by-election, and he (sensibly) ran General Election as 20 by-elections.
Who forecast the LDs would win Eastbourne or came within a whisker of taking St Ives? (Not me.)
But he's repellent to approximately 92% of voters, and - let us not forget this - under his watch the LibDems went backwards from their worst result in 50 years in terms of vote share. A better leader, banging the drum for a Swiss-type arrangement with the EU, could probably get 15% of the vote.
I was surprised about Eastbourne - I would have expected Lewes to be more likely for the LibDems.
I suspect that in St Ives Andrew George has a big personal vote. The problem is he's now nearly 60.
Worryingly for the LibDems is that they're now out of contention in many seats they won in 2005 and 2010.
You'll remember that I was never completely convinced the whole thing with Boris and Gove destroying each other "game of thrones" style wasn't set-up to get the pair of them off the hook from having to deliver Brexit....
I'd assumed that Gove was the ball Osborne fumbled last time.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
Looking at the list of SNP defences for next time it is amazing how slender many if their majorities are now. SLAB, SCON and SLD are all well-placed to make gains. Not sure that Tory C&S arrangement with DUP will be toxic everywhere and there is always Ruth to factor in.
Do you mind me asking if your avatar is of your own bunnies? If so, what breed are they?
Mini Rex, they're all full grown now and live together (All neutered)
Want me to post the bar chart showing the number of net gains Cameron made vs the number of net gains Mrs May made?
I don't even have to go all Lib Dem to make that bar chart look bad.
Go ahead, but it won't change my opinion the Cameron screwed up the referendum and that Osborne is a berk.
h
You're comparing apples and oranges in terms of starting seats, time in power, and quality of opponent. In response to your earlier post I do now accept that May is crap too.
We all do. But there's no sense in fighting like ferrets like a sack.
I don't know where the narrative comes from that some Tory voters sat at home because they thought Corbyn couldn't win, and so it was safe not to vote for Theresa May. It was publicised over the campaign that the poll leads were narrowing quite significantly - indeed The Times had the YouGov model's projection of a hung parliament on the front-page, and the Daily Mail had the 1% Tory lead in a Survation poll on its front page as well. If anything, it appears in London seats that some Tory Remainers may have actually switched their votes to Labour.
- Garden Tax: I'm about to say this as someone who spooked by the so-called 'Garden Tax': what was said in the last threadmplementing such a tax. What they did was say that an LVT would be one of the options for a review of council tax and business rates. The promise was to consider an LVT, not to definitely implement it. This 3% figure appears to come from a report on a website called Labour Land - a separate campaign group which advocates for an LVT - and furthermore that 3% figure applies to industrial and commercial property - not home-owners. It's the 0.85% figure that the report proposes in relation to homeowners. So even in media publications use of that report as a hypothetical analysis of the impact of an LVT implemented by the Labour party, they choose the wrong figure anyway! A lot of the reports on how it would financial impact people appears to also be based on property, not land value - which is silly, as it is the latter which is the basis for such a tax.
After all of that, Momentum, shortly before the GE posted on their Twitter a video of McDonnell and Mason clarifying some things about the LVT - mainly that it wouldn't actually apply to residential property - but only on business property.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
They do. Also worth noting, though, that Labour will also need to find a way of taking votes from current Tory voters, while keeping its existing coalition together. Tacking even further left may not be ideal. The good news for Labour is that Scotland looks very promising after seven very bleak years. It's quite possible that at the next GE Labour could win 20+ seats there.
Thinking about second election betting (StanJames offering roughly 1/3 on no second election this year) - how late in the year do we have to get before there simply isn't time? I guess it depends on how the election is called.
Vote of no confidence is 5 weeks, right? That's 2 weeks for a second confidence vote not to pass and then 3 weeks for the campaign. But anything else would be slower?
If the Tories chose to have a second election, might they avoid a winter date? 1974 was Feb and October, but we're already in June. Not long now if we don't want a freezing campaign. On the other hand, MPs may not have that level of control. If the DUP deal collapses it's election right now.
DYOR, but I don't feel that a second election imminently is likely, even 25% likely (for 1/3 being value on it not happening).The Tories haven't gone for one over the weekend, and they are close enough to 325 that I imagine they'll try to form a minority even if the DUP don't agree. A no confidence vote could be forced, but as some have discussed below no-one bar Labour (and possibly even some of them) want a snap election.
From informal soundings I've taken over the weekend, Tories are utterly terrified of a further election and will do everything possible to avoid one.
You would have to be mad, as a Cons minister, to interpret the GE result as the peak of Lab's achievement, rather than a stage on the way to govt.
"Loosing the house is scarying everyone shame your party proposed it for care in your own home."
Wrong in every detail. Well done.
1. They are not my party 2. There was no proposal to lose the house. No money would be taken until the person in care had died. Unlike now when you lose the house as soon as you have to go into care.
So rather different from the Labour party and their stupid inheritance taxes on everyone not just those with dementia.
If you are going to argue these things at least get your facts right.
"Loosing the house is scarying everyone shame your party proposed it for care in your own home."
Wrong in every detail. Well done.
1. They are not my party 2. There was no proposal to lose the house. No money would be taken until the person in care had died. Unlike now when you lose the house as soon as you have to go into care.
So rather different from the Labour party and their stupid inheritance taxes on everyone not just those with dementia.
If you are going to argue these things at least get your facts right.
Two things about that Dementia Tax
Firstly, why should the state guarantee the inheritance of wealthy middle aged people?
Secondly, why isn't dementia care free on the NHS? Hospitals are being closed left, right and centre. Four near me in the last 15 years or so inc the one where I was born! (blue plaque) They could be NHS Old peoples homes
I don't know where the narrative comes from that some Tory voters sat at home because they thought Corbyn couldn't win, and so it was safe not to vote for Theresa May. It was publicised over the campaign that the poll leads were narrowing quite significantly - indeed The Times had the YouGov model's projection of a hung parliament on the front-page, and the Daily Mail had the 1% Tory lead in a Survation poll on its front page as well. If anything, it appears in London seats that some Tory Remainers may have actually switched their votes to Labour.
- Garden Tax: I'm about to say this as someone who spooked by the so-called 'Garden Tax': what was said in the last threadmplementing such a tax. What they did was say that an LVT would be one of the options for a review of council tax and business rates. The promise was to consider an LVT, not to definitely implement it. This 3% figure appears to come from a report on a website called Labour Land - a separate campaign group which advocates for an LVT - and furthermore that 3% figure applies to industrial and commercial property - not home-owners. It's the 0.85% figure that the report proposes in relation to homeowners. So even in media publications use of that report as a hypothetical analysis of the impact of an LVT implemented by the Labour party, they choose the wrong figure anyway! A lot of the reports on how it would financial impact people appears to also be based on property, not land value - which is silly, as it is the latter which is the basis for such a tax.
After all of that, Momentum, shortly before the GE posted on their Twitter a video of McDonnell and Mason clarifying some things about the LVT - mainly that it wouldn't actually apply to residential property - but only on business property.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
They do. Also worth noting, though, that Labour will also need to find a way of taking votes from current Tory voters, while keeping its existing coalition together. Tacking even further left may not be ideal. The good news for Labour is that Scotland looks very promising after seven very bleak years. It's quite possible that at the next GE Labour could win 20+ seats there.
Yes, but it doesn't help Labour very much unless they take them direct from the Tories.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
As an aside, if the LDs had swapped 1,000 votes in Westmoreland & Lonsdale for half that number in St Ives, Richmond Park and Fife NE, then they would have had a truly spectacular night.
You're not suggesting that the LibDems would be better off without the great leader are you ?
My view is that Farron organises campaigns well. He got the LDs fighting every council by-election, and he (sensibly) ran General Election as 20 by-elections.
Who forecast the LDs would win Eastbourne or came within a whisker of taking St Ives? (Not me.)
But he's repellent to approximately 92% of voters, and - let us not forget this - under his watch the LibDems went backwards from their worst result in 50 years in terms of vote share. A better leader, banging the drum for a Swiss-type arrangement with the EU, could probably get 15% of the vote.
I was surprised about Eastbourne - I would have expected Lewes to be more likely for the LibDems.
I suspect that in St Ives Andrew George has a big personal vote. The problem is he's now nearly 60.
Worryingly for the LibDems is that they're now out of contention in many seats they won in 2005 and 2010.
You're thinking about this like the LibDems are looking to be in contention to win elections generally.
They're not. They're looking to build a base of MPs comparable to what they had in the 1980s and early 1990s. They're looking to add councillors and be in with a shout in about 15 years time. They are slowly rebuilding.
Will they succeed? Who knows.
But it was probably the right decision to fight as they did. Imagine if they'd added 4% to their vote share, and gotten to 12%, but the entire election had gone with UNS. In which case, they would likely have ended up on about six seats around the country.
Want me to post the bar chart showing the number of net gains Cameron made vs the number of net gains Mrs May made?
I don't even have to go all Lib Dem to make that bar chart look bad.
Go ahead, but it won't change my opinion the Cameron screwed up the referendum and that Osborne is a berk.
h
You're comparing apples and oranges in terms of starting seats, time in power, and quality of opponent. In response to your earlier post I do now accept that May is crap too.
We all do. But there's no sense in fighting like ferrets like a sack.
Want me to post the bar chart showing the number of net gains Cameron made vs the number of net gains Mrs May made?
I don't even have to go all Lib Dem to make that bar chart look bad.
Go ahead, but it won't change my opinion the Cameron screwed up the referendum and that Osborne is a berk.
h
You're comparing apples and oranges in terms of starting seats, time in power, and quality of opponent. In response to your earlier post I do now accept that May is crap too.
We all do. But there's no sense in fighting like ferrets like a sack.
Don't we all remember what happened in 1997?
Yes of course. But we all interpret it differently. Personally all I can see since 95 or so is euro crazies destroying everything achieved despite them.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
Yes, I'd agree with you there too. I'd also say that I think the Conservatives may have to make a dent in Labour's monopoly on my age group - as it appears we made the difference in places such as Canterbury. The Conservative Party are unlikely to win over a majority of young voters, but it's perfectly possible for them to win over a sizable share if they respond to concerns regarding tuition fees and housing (especially the latter).
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
To become a Tory MP Farage would have had to work endless days and nights on doorsteps, in committees and so on. From there he'd have had to do it all again with knobs on to get noticed, then beyond that he'd have had to beat off a phalanx of other very ambitious individuals to get to having a sniff of being party leader. In short, he would not have been able to be Farage.
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
The right wing press has been humiliated by this general election. Labour found other ways to speak to its target audiences. The Tories will need to do the same.
The Tories already did -- Facebook. Labour copied Conservative techniques from 2010. Remember people posting tallies of how many had watched each party's videos?
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
Yes, I'd agree with you there too. I'd also say that I think the Conservatives may have to make a dent in Labour's monopoly on my age group - as it appears we made the difference in places such as Canterbury. The Conservative Party are unlikely to win over a majority of young voters, but it's perfectly possible for them to win over a sizable share if they respond to concerns regarding tuition fees and housing (especially the latter).
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
The Tories can fight on jobs, wages and houses, and perhaps education/technical training. But I think they will always be seen as the party of the rich no matter what they do.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
To become a Tory MP Farage would have had to work endless days and nights on doorsteps, in committees and so on. From there he'd have had to do it all again with knobs on to get noticed, then beyond that he'd have had to beat off a phalanx of other very ambitious individuals to get to having a sniff of being party leader. In short, he would not have been able to be Farage.
Gosh you are almost impossible! Disagree if you like, I think, if he had been Tory leader, he would have done better than Theresa May did vs Corbyn
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Although Southport showed that when an LibDem retires they struggle to hold the seat.
Which means they'll now have problems getting back Ceredigion, Leeds NW and Hallam and also suggests that we need to keep a track of how old the LibDem MPs are.
Sure.
But the seats they gained this time were all ex-LD seats - Edinburgh West, OxWAb, Bath, CS&ER, Twickenham, Kingston, Eastbourne. And of those, the first four were all with new candidates.
Frankly, the LDs need a new leader and a bit of luck. If they get that, they can be back at 20-odd seats next time around.
Surely the future fortunes of the LDs are inextricably tied to Brexit. If, as seems very likely, Brexit leads to economic woe, the LDs will benefit as the "I told you so" party, regardless of who their leader is.
I don't know where the narrative comes from that some Tory voters sat at home because they thought Corbyn couldn't win, and so it was safe not to vote for Theresa May. It was publicised over the campaign that the poll leads were narrowing quite significantly - indeed The Times had the YouGov model's projection of a hung parliament on the front-page, and the Daily Mail had the 1% Tory lead in a Survation poll on its front page as well. If anything, it appears in London seats that some Tory Remainers may have actually switched their votes to Labour.
- Garden Tax: I'm about to say this as someone who spooked by the so-called 'Garden Tax': what was said in the last threadmplementing such a tax. What they did was say that an LVT would be one of the options for a review of council tax and business rates. The promise was to consider an LVT, not to definitely implement it. This 3% figure appears to come from a report on a website called Labour Land - a separate campaign group which advocates for an LVT - and furthermore that 3% figure applies to industrial and commercial property - not home-owners. It's the 0.85% figure that the report proposes in relation to homeowners. So even in media publications use of that report as a hypothetical analysis of the impact of an LVT implemented by the Labour party, they choose the wrong figure anyway! A lot of the reports on how it would financial impact people appears to also be based on property, not land value - which is silly, as it is the latter which is the basis for such a tax.
After all of that, Momentum, shortly before the GE posted on their Twitter a video of McDonnell and Mason clarifying some things about the LVT - mainly that it wouldn't actually apply to residential property - but only on business property.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
They do. Also worth noting, though, that Labour will also need to find a way of taking votes from current Tory voters, while keeping its existing coalition together. Tacking even further left may not be ideal. The good news for Labour is that Scotland looks very promising after seven very bleak years. It's quite possible that at the next GE Labour could win 20+ seats there.
If 39 percent still support the Tories after the last few days they are going to take some shifting. Corbyn puts a noticeable ceiling on the Labour vote.
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
The right wing press has been humiliated by this general election. Labour found other ways to speak to its target audiences. The Tories will need to do the same.
It's honestly hilarious. Loved Prescott's anecdote about Murdoch not being....well....too happy at the result shall we say!
I have to say, I never thought using social media as a way to bypass the right-wing press would work. I thought that it would only speak to the already converted. But it seems that this GE has shown that the strategy can work.
"Loosing the house is scarying everyone shame your party proposed it for care in your own home."
Wrong in every detail. Well done.
1. They are not my party 2. There was no proposal to lose the house. No money would be taken until the person in care had died. Unlike now when you lose the house as soon as you have to go into care.
So rather different from the Labour party and their stupid inheritance taxes on everyone not just those with dementia.
If you are going to argue these things at least get your facts right.
Two things about that Dementia Tax
Firstly, why should the state guarantee the inheritance of wealthy middle aged people?
Secondly, why isn't dementia care free on the NHS? Hospitals are being closed left, right and centre. Four near me in the last 15 years or so inc the one where I was born! (blue plaque) They could be NHS Old peoples homes
Two downgrades in in Ealing and many other London councils. It is clear why the NHS has gone near the top of the most important issues. Could explain a lot of the result on Thursday.
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
I don't know how you come to that conclusion when it has not really been tried, unless you think Miliband was doing that, and I'd disagree there.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
Yes, I'd agree with you there too. I'd also say that I think the Conservatives may have to make a dent in Labour's monopoly on my age group - as it appears we made the difference in places such as Canterbury. The Conservative Party are unlikely to win over a majority of young voters, but it's perfectly possible for them to win over a sizable share if they respond to concerns regarding tuition fees and housing (especially the latter).
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
Generation rent+ tuition fees. No wonder they're turning to Corbyn.
Why did the government possibly think increasing them to £9000 was ever a good idea ? Did they just make the calculation that young people would never actually vote ?
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
As an aside, if the LDs had swapped 1,000 votes in Westmoreland & Lonsdale for half that number in St Ives, Richmond Park and Fife NE, then they would have had a truly spectacular night.
You're not suggesting that the LibDems would be better off without the great leader are you ?
My view is that Farron organises campaigns well. He got the LDs fighting every council by-election, and he (sensibly) ran General Election as 20 by-elections.
Who forecast the LDs would win Eastbourne or came within a whisker of taking St Ives? (Not me.)
But he's repellent to approximately 92% of voters, and - let us not forget this - under his watch the LibDems went backwards from their worst result in 50 years in terms of vote share. A better leader, banging the drum for a Swiss-type arrangement with the EU, could probably get 15% of the vote.
I was surprised about Eastbourne - I would have expected Lewes to be more likely for the LibDems.
I suspect that in St Ives Andrew George has a big personal vote. The problem is he's now nearly 60.
Worryingly for the LibDems is that they're now out of contention in many seats they won in 2005 and 2010.
You're thinking about this like the LibDems are looking to be in contention to win elections generally.
They're not. They're looking to build a base of MPs comparable to what they had in the 1980s and early 1990s. They're looking to add councillors and be in with a shout in about 15 years time. They are slowly rebuilding.
Will they succeed? Who knows.
But it was probably the right decision to fight as they did. Imagine if they'd added 4% to their vote share, and gotten to 12%, but the entire election had gone with UNS. In which case, they would likely have ended up on about six seats around the country.
I'm not a LibDem but I find that whole plan so depressing.
Work hard for decades to get up to 50 MPs and a coalition government and then get destroyed and have to start again.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
Looking at the list of SNP defences for next time it is amazing how slender many if their majorities are now. SLAB, SCON and SLD are all well-placed to make gains. Not sure that Tory C&S arrangement with DUP will be toxic everywhere and there is always Ruth to factor in.
Do you mind me asking if your avatar is of your own bunnies? If so, what breed are they?
Mini Rex, they're all full grown now and live together (All neutered)
"Loosing the house is scarying everyone shame your party proposed it for care in your own home."
Wrong in every detail. Well done.
1. They are not my party 2. There was no proposal to lose the house. No money would be taken until the person in care had died. Unlike now when you lose the house as soon as you have to go into care.
So rather different from the Labour party and their stupid inheritance taxes on everyone not just those with dementia.
If you are going to argue these things at least get your facts right.
Two things about that Dementia Tax
Firstly, why should the state guarantee the inheritance of wealthy middle aged people?
Secondly, why isn't dementia care free on the NHS? Hospitals are being closed left, right and centre. Four near me in the last 15 years or so inc the one where I was born! (blue plaque) They could be NHS Old peoples homes
Two downgrades in in Ealing and many other London councils. It is clear why the NHS has gone near the top of the most important issues. Could explain a lot of the result on Thursday.
This one, next to the estate I grew up on, has been empty for ages. Absolutely massive, owned by the NHS, ready to rock as a Geriatric Hospice
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
The right wing press has been humiliated by this general election. Labour found other ways to speak to its target audiences. The Tories will need to do the same.
I also think that the Lab social media campaign worked very much better than the Tory targeted adds. People are much more likely to watch FB viral shares by friends than paid for adverts, that get scrolled by ASAP.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
To become a Tory MP Farage would have had to work endless days and nights on doorsteps, in committees and so on. From there he'd have had to do it all again with knobs on to get noticed, then beyond that he'd have had to beat off a phalanx of other very ambitious individuals to get to having a sniff of being party leader. In short, he would not have been able to be Farage.
Gosh you are almost impossible! Disagree if you like, I think, if he had been Tory leader, he would have done better than Theresa May did vs Corbyn
Farage as Tory leader would have seen the LDs close to 20%, The Tories on 30% and a Corbyn led government, he having still got his 40%
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
Although Southport showed that when an LibDem retires they struggle to hold the seat.
Which means they'll now have problems getting back Ceredigion, Leeds NW and Hallam and also suggests that we need to keep a track of how old the LibDem MPs are.
Sure.
But the seats they gained this time were all ex-LD seats - Edinburgh West, OxWAb, Bath, CS&ER, Twickenham, Kingston, Eastbourne. And of those, the first four were all with new candidates.
Frankly, the LDs need a new leader and a bit of luck. If they get that, they can be back at 20-odd seats next time around.
The Tories lost too many of those seats due to the dementia tax policy. OxWAb, Bath, Twickenham and Eastbourne all have high value property anda fairly large number of older voters.
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
Yes, I'd agree with you there too. I'd also say that I think the Conservatives may have to make a dent in Labour's monopoly on my age group - as it appears we made the difference in places such as Canterbury. The Conservative Party are unlikely to win over a majority of young voters, but it's perfectly possible for them to win over a sizable share if they respond to concerns regarding tuition fees and housing (especially the latter).
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
Generation rent+ tuition fees. No wonder they're turning to Corbyn.
Why did the government possibly think increasing them to £9000 was ever a good idea ? Did they just make the calculation that young people would never actually vote ?
Not sure if you saw my anecdote last night but a bloke in the pub last night told my dad he voted Labour for the first time on Thursday because he has six grand kids and he doesn't want them saddled with debt.
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
I don't know how you come to that conclusion when it has not really been tried, unless you think Miliband was doing that, and I'd disagree there.
I'm talking about May.
I think May did try Blue Labour - socially conservative (tough stance on immigration for example) and shifted more to the left economically.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
To become a Tory MP Farage would have had to work endless days and nights on doorsteps, in committees and so on. From there he'd have had to do it all again with knobs on to get noticed, then beyond that he'd have had to beat off a phalanx of other very ambitious individuals to get to having a sniff of being party leader. In short, he would not have been able to be Farage.
Gosh you are almost impossible! Disagree if you like, I think, if he had been Tory leader, he would have done better than Theresa May did vs Corbyn
Farage as Tory leader would have seen the LDs close to 20%, The Tories on 30% and a Corbyn led government, he having still got his 40%
FWIW, I agree with you. There aren't many "secret" Conservative non-voters.
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
Yes, I'd agree with you there too. I'd also say that I think the Conservatives may have to make a dent in Labour's monopoly on my age group - as it appears we made the difference in places such as Canterbury. The Conservative Party are unlikely to win over a majority of young voters, but it's perfectly possible for them to win over a sizable share if they respond to concerns regarding tuition fees and housing (especially the latter).
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
Generation rent+ tuition fees. No wonder they're turning to Corbyn.
Why did the government possibly think increasing them to £9000 was ever a good idea ? Did they just make the calculation that young people would never actually vote ?
Yes, I think they assumed that.
Even if we hadn't turned out at this GE, in future elections those issues still would have relevant - issues with housing aren't going anywhere, and paying off tuition fees is something students will be facing in their thirties and forties.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
To become a Tory MP Farage would have had to work endless days and nights on doorsteps, in committees and so on. From there he'd have had to do it all again with knobs on to get noticed, then beyond that he'd have had to beat off a phalanx of other very ambitious individuals to get to having a sniff of being party leader. In short, he would not have been able to be Farage.
Gosh you are almost impossible! Disagree if you like, I think, if he had been Tory leader, he would have done better than Theresa May did vs Corbyn
I disagree with your premise, sorry. Nigel Farage could never have been a Tory leader.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
There are more supporters of the Orange Order in Scotland than in the entirety of England and Wales combined
There also more people who think the Orange Order are total twats in Scotland than in England and Wales combined.
Evidence? The main complaints about the DUP have come from leftwing London liberals, even Salmond in 2015 said he could work with the DUP
I honestly don't know how to respond to this. Maybe you need to speak to a couple of west coast Catholics or something.
"Loosing the house is scarying everyone shame your party proposed it for care in your own home."
Wrong in every detail. Well done.
1. They are not my party 2. There was no proposal to lose the house. No money would be taken until the person in care had died. Unlike now when you lose the house as soon as you have to go into care.
So rather different from the Labour party and their stupid inheritance taxes on everyone not just those with dementia.
If you are going to argue these things at least get your facts right.
Two things about that Dementia Tax
Firstly, why should the state guarantee the inheritance of wealthy middle aged people?
Secondly, why isn't dementia care free on the NHS? Hospitals are being closed left, right and centre. Four near me in the last 15 years or so inc the one where I was born! (blue plaque) They could be NHS Old peoples homes
Dementia Care:
Care home fees are 30 to 35 k a year. Higher for very serious dementia.
There are about 350,000 elderly people in care. That is a bill of 30 * 350 k = 10 billion year.
For comparison, the Labour Party manifesto estimated that the cost of a National Care Service was 3 billion a year.
FWIW, I like the idea of a National Care Service, but it will require a lot of money. Much more than has so far been budgeted for.
LD candidates lost 375 deposits, Farron must be wary of a push for another General Election.
They also increased their number of seats by 50%, and came within about four hundred votes of doubling their representation. Another election might well see them capture St Ives, Richmond Park, Fife NE and Cheltenham.
While things obviously didn't play out as well for them as they'd hoped at the beginning of the campaign, I suspect senior LibDems feel they've done OK.
As an aside, if the LDs had swapped 1,000 votes in Westmoreland & Lonsdale for half that number in St Ives, Richmond Park and Fife NE, then they would have had a truly spectacular night.
You're not suggesting that the LibDems would be better off without the great leader are you ?
My view is that Farron organises campaigns well. He got the LDs fighting every council by-election, and he (sensibly) ran General Election as 20 by-elections.
Who forecast the LDs would win Eastbourne or came within a whisker of taking St Ives? (Not me.)
But he's repellent to approximately 92% of voters, and - let us not forget this - under his watch the LibDems went backwards from their worst result in 50 years in terms of vote share. A better leader, banging the drum for a Swiss-type arrangement with the EU, could probably get 15% of the vote.
Repellent is far too strong a word , not attractive would be a more accurate phrase . I expect Jo Swinson to be leader by the end of the year unless a new GE is called before then .
As someone who was actually worried about the impact of a LVT on their parents, a worry which I now know was based on lies, it's the kind of nonsense spread about Labour's LVT tax by The Telegraph, Mail, Express, The Sun etc that is the reason as to why so many no longer take these publications seriously and feel so free as to dismiss their content as BS. It is people not taking them seriously because they cried wolf too many times that mean that we have to question to what extent future attacks on Corbyn would be effective from these publications. The groups which tend to rely on newspapers the most as a source of news are 65+ voters - younger voters access their news online (and are more likely to do so via social media) - and so it will not be critiques from outlets which they don't trust anyway which will impact their vote.
The right wing press has been humiliated by this general election. Labour found other ways to speak to its target audiences. The Tories will need to do the same.
A (possibly) interesting anecdote... My mum, who's 80, takes the Sun every day (she 'likes the gossip'). She also can't stand Corbyn ('he's an idiot'). I assumed the two were connected but this weekend she told me she's not going to buy the Sun for two weeks because what they said about him was 'wrong, nasty and unnecessary'. It's just one regular Sun reader but I really do wonder if the viciousness of the right-wing press backfires with a lot of people.
The SNP would be desperate to avoid one. In the near future they'd be carved apart by tactical voting everywhere. The voters would now know exactly how to oust them.
The tricky question for them is how to avoid being seen to be propping up Tories.
Do you not think project Tory-DUP retox gives the SNP a bit of pushback. I think Scotland is going to remember why it hates the Tories again... Of course the obvious beneficiary of both currents is ... Scottish Labour - a force written off only two years ago !
There are more supporters of the Orange Order in Scotland than in the entirety of England and Wales combined
There also more people who think the Orange Order are total twats in Scotland than in England and Wales combined.
Evidence? The main complaints about the DUP have come from leftwing London liberals, even Salmond in 2015 said he could work with the DUP
I honestly don't know how to respond to this. Maybe you need to speak to a couple of west coast Catholics or something.
I've just seen another installment of 'Tezzie May: The Robot Years' on the BBC. Even when gifted a chance to say how she was feeling she parroted the same response she'd given to every other question.
'Getting on with the job' - truly Gordon Brown in a dress.
Surely the best thing about the election is the impending return of the UK's most successful politician?
I'm sorry, I'm being dense I know, but who?
Super Nigel Farage!
If he was Conservative Leader, is there any doubt he would have wiped the floor w Corbyn? Majority of 100 odd
He tried seven times to be elected as an MP and was rejected on each occasion.
If you really think that is a killer point I don't think you can be as clever as you think
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
I am merely making the point he is hardly electoral kryptonite. He is a hugely divisive figure whose championing of Trump and Putin would make him deeply unpopular with the vast majority of voters, if he ever has the guts to put himself in front of them again.
Yes, but I am making a hypothetical point, that if Farage had stood in a safe Tory seat, never having been involved w UKIP, he would probably have won. It is because he was standing for UKIP, who have never won a seat really, that he didn't win, and 6 of the 7 times they had zero expectation of winning.
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
To become a Tory MP Farage would have had to work endless days and nights on doorsteps, in committees and so on. From there he'd have had to do it all again with knobs on to get noticed, then beyond that he'd have had to beat off a phalanx of other very ambitious individuals to get to having a sniff of being party leader. In short, he would not have been able to be Farage.
Gosh you are almost impossible! Disagree if you like, I think, if he had been Tory leader, he would have done better than Theresa May did vs Corbyn
I disagree with your premise, sorry. Nigel Farage could never have been a Tory leader.
Comments
Do you mind me asking if your avatar is of your own bunnies? If so, what breed are they?
Cameron is so good he had this utterly dismal negotiation, which saw a big shift of public opinion, lost a referendum, and immediately resigned despite saying he wouldn't, and then Osborne got the boot for his "punishment budget" idiocy. May is rubbish, but people talking up those two are looking through rose-tinted spectacles.
He told me the one thing the Tories must stop doing is fighting amongst themselves if they want to avoid a crushing defeat, and this is very obvious at the moment.
He even said that the "Tories can be real bastards", I was stunned as he hardly ever swears. But he's right.
Think about it.
He survived a life time in politics before retiring at a time and manner of his choosing
It looks to me as if Mrs May's strategy is to include all her potential rivals (including Gove) in the Cabinet rather than scheming outside it. I can imagine the next Cabinet meeting. That icy stare from May around the table. Poker faces with the mere hint of a smile looking back at her - the prey.
I don't know where the narrative comes from that some Tory voters sat at home because they thought Corbyn couldn't win, and so it was safe not to vote for Theresa May. It was publicised over the campaign that the poll leads were narrowing quite significantly - indeed The Times had the YouGov model's projection of a hung parliament on the front-page, and the Daily Mail had the 1% Tory lead in a Survation poll on its front page as well. If anything, it appears in London seats that some Tory Remainers may have actually switched their votes to Labour.
- Garden Tax: I'm about to say this as someone who spooked by the so-called 'Garden Tax': what was said in the last thread is one of the reasons as to why the attacks on Corbyn were not particularly effective during the campaign. I sadly fell for it, but as I research more about it, I realised that what the right-wing press were saying, and what was the actual truth, were two very different things. Labour did not plan a 3% LVT on property owners - in their own manifesto they didn't specify any specific rate it would be set; hell they didn't even commit to implementing such a tax. What they did was say that an LVT would be one of the options for a review of council tax and business rates. The promise was to consider an LVT, not to definitely implement it. This 3% figure appears to come from a report on a website called Labour Land - a separate campaign group which advocates for an LVT - and furthermore that 3% figure applies to industrial and commercial property - not home-owners. It's the 0.85% figure that the report proposes in relation to homeowners. So even in media publications use of that report as a hypothetical analysis of the impact of an LVT implemented by the Labour party, they choose the wrong figure anyway! A lot of the reports on how it would financial impact people appears to also be based on property, not land value - which is silly, as it is the latter which is the basis for such a tax.
https://fullfact.org/economy/labours-land-value-tax-will-you-have-sell-your-garden/
After all of that, Momentum, shortly before the GE posted on their Twitter a video of McDonnell and Mason clarifying some things about the LVT - mainly that it wouldn't actually apply to residential property - but only on business property.
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/872789943898263552
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National
The "Never elected to Westminster" meme is so stupid it degrades this site. Six of the seven times he tried he was little more than a paper candidate with less than 2% chance of winning.
It's like criticising a horse for never winning a race after 7 attempts, when 6 of them were The Grand National and it was 50/1
If, and remember I am saying "if", he had stood as a Conservative in a safe seat, as many in the cabinet have, and became leader, I think he would have done a better job than Theresa May. Comparing that with trying to get elected as a UKIP candidate is for the birds.
Which means they'll now have problems getting back Ceredigion, Leeds NW and Hallam and also suggests that we need to keep a track of how old the LibDem MPs are.
Atleast Gordon Brown, in whatever darkened room he's in right now, can comfort himself with the thought that the only thing more politically-catastrophic than bottling out of calling a snap election, is actually calling a snap election.
Who forecast the LDs would win Eastbourne or came within a whisker of taking St Ives? (Not me.)
But he's repellent to approximately 92% of voters, and - let us not forget this - under his watch the LibDems went backwards from their worst result in 50 years in terms of vote share. A better leader, banging the drum for a Swiss-type arrangement with the EU, could probably get 15% of the vote.
By the time the Tory manifesto was produced, Labour was already enjoying an upturn in support after its manifesto was leaked in full to newspapers and the BBC the week before it was due to be published.
The content was audacious — a £50bn spending spree that offered feelgood baubles such as an £11bn bill to scrap university tuition fees. Insiders say the decision was taken that Corbyn should lay out what he believed and see what happened.
“If you’re going to risk a political hit by borrowing £20bn you might as well borrow £50bn,” one source said.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/election-2017/i-look-stupid-not-strong-and-stable-theresa-may-said-after-the-shock-general-election-result-jeremy-corbyn-10-downing-street-gv0z0f5x8
The Conservatives have to take votes directly from Labour, probably focused on women and those in the 35-44 age bracket (with young children, or children approaching university age) in the first instance, and hold onto everything else.
What the Tories need to do now is start to move away from being reliant on print media, god knows how though.
If he could not be elected to Westminster at UKIP's peak, when can he?
I'll have to go an look up what a meme is now ;-)
So, had he been a Tory, become leader, I think he would have been better than May, and would destroy Corbyn. It's not possible to make the argument you are trying to against this hypothetical, because he wouldn't have been UKIP leader, or been hugely divisive in the past
But the seats they gained this time were all ex-LD seats - Edinburgh West, OxWAb, Bath, CS&ER, Twickenham, Kingston, Eastbourne. And of those, the first four were all with new candidates.
Frankly, the LDs need a new leader and a bit of luck. If they get that, they can be back at 20-odd seats next time around.
Don't we all remember what happened in 1997?
I suspect that in St Ives Andrew George has a big personal vote. The problem is he's now nearly 60.
Worryingly for the LibDems is that they're now out of contention in many seats they won in 2005 and 2010.
Let's not help contribute toward it.
Yorkcity said:
"Loosing the house is scarying everyone shame your party proposed it for care in your own home."
Wrong in every detail. Well done.
1. They are not my party
2. There was no proposal to lose the house. No money would be taken until the person in care had died. Unlike now when you lose the house as soon as you have to go into care.
So rather different from the Labour party and their stupid inheritance taxes on everyone not just those with dementia.
If you are going to argue these things at least get your facts right.
Firstly, why should the state guarantee the inheritance of wealthy middle aged people?
Secondly, why isn't dementia care free on the NHS? Hospitals are being closed left, right and centre. Four near me in the last 15 years or so inc the one where I was born! (blue plaque) They could be NHS Old peoples homes
They're not. They're looking to build a base of MPs comparable to what they had in the 1980s and early 1990s. They're looking to add councillors and be in with a shout in about 15 years time. They are slowly rebuilding.
Will they succeed? Who knows.
But it was probably the right decision to fight as they did. Imagine if they'd added 4% to their vote share, and gotten to 12%, but the entire election had gone with UNS. In which case, they would likely have ended up on about six seats around the country.
Please read about it.
What's interesting to me, is how Blue Labour - and idea which was seen by quite a few as one which could generate potential electoral success - turns out not to be that great in electoral terms after all.
Corbyn puts a noticeable ceiling on the Labour vote.
I have to say, I never thought using social media as a way to bypass the right-wing press would work. I thought that it would only speak to the already converted. But it seems that this GE has shown that the strategy can work.
Why did the government possibly think increasing them to £9000 was ever a good idea ? Did they just make the calculation that young people would never actually vote ?
Work hard for decades to get up to 50 MPs and a coalition government and then get destroyed and have to start again.
http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/stgeorgehornchurch.html
Commiserations to Mr. Dancer on his tips this time (though he may have made money on Ocon ?)
I think May did try Blue Labour - socially conservative (tough stance on immigration for example) and shifted more to the left economically.
I reckon it would be 39/31/17
Even if we hadn't turned out at this GE, in future elections those issues still would have relevant - issues with housing aren't going anywhere, and paying off tuition fees is something students will be facing in their thirties and forties.
Care home fees are 30 to 35 k a year. Higher for very serious dementia.
There are about 350,000 elderly people in care. That is a bill of 30 * 350 k = 10 billion year.
For comparison, the Labour Party manifesto estimated that the cost of a National Care Service was 3 billion a year.
FWIW, I like the idea of a National Care Service, but it will require a lot of money. Much more than has so far been budgeted for.
'Getting on with the job' - truly Gordon Brown in a dress.