In order to have a free and liberal society in the long term we are going to have to go through a period of illiberal restrictions to create the platform of tolerance from all sides that is essential for a free and liberal society.
As a result of this constant Islamic terrorism I'd expect more normal people to carry weapons. It certainly crosses my mind when I'm on the train to London that I'd feel safer tooled up
Guns are difficult to access and carry heavy sentences if caught. But I can imagine more people carrying tasers.
Even mace/pepper spray would have been handy to have had Saturday night against somebody wielding a knife.
I think maglites are the choice usually. Still challenging against a knife, that said.
That Tory 44-45% firewall shows no signs of weakening with three days of campaigning to go.
Plenty of people made up their mind on Corbyn even before the election was called - and haven't wavered.
But also a lot of people who normally vote labour and had reported as been repelled by him have grown to like him.
We'll see. The politically active who were sure he was a dud have had to, er, recalibrate. The voters of Mansfield? Not so much....
Voter in Mansfield "Corbyn? Oh yes, IRA....."
party before country. party before country.
hang your heads in shame.
What's your commission for each use of 'party before country'?
Given he suggested last week the Tories were worried about losing Rochford and Southend East to an independent Councillor I would take his posts with a pinch of salt.
How many more polls have we got before the big day?
Survation for GMB tonight, Kantar tomorrow and MORI Thursday morning are the one I know of. Yougov updates and presumably a final poll Wednesday. I think ORB, Opinium and Panelbase are final polls. ComRes Maybe?
As a result of this constant Islamic terrorism I'd expect more normal people to carry weapons. It certainly crosses my mind when I'm on the train to London that I'd feel safer tooled up
Guns are difficult to access and carry heavy sentences if caught. But I can imagine more people carrying tasers.
Even mace/pepper spray would have been handy to have had Saturday night against somebody wielding a knife.
Don't a lot of ladies carry a can of hairspray in their bags for just this eventuality, or do bouncers in bars confiscate them these days?
No idea but the commentator was making the point that TM is much more trusted than JC on security and that it is unlikely to change over the next three days
Lib Dems on 8%...I know that is what they got in 2015 and Tiny Tim has had a crap campaign, but I don't know I just feel like really, there has to be soft lefties remain types who like SO are disgusted by Corbyn in the way Miliband certainly didn't.
I keep coming back to that, where are "the 48%" hiding? Remainers are having a terrible campaign.
Lib Dems on 8%...I know that is what they got in 2015 and Tiny Tim has had a crap campaign, but I don't know I just feel like really, there has to be soft lefties remain types who like SO are disgusted by Corbyn in the way Miliband certainly didn't.
On the other hand, around 32% of the 2015 LD vote went for Leave. I know some of that (including a couple of commenters on here) are staying with the LDs, but some of them must have switched to Con (if they want hard Brexit) or Lab (soft).
Lets have a think about EC&A. The houses there that the Tories live in will be grade 1A dementia tax worries. It has a massively youthful population. It is remain, it is inner London. This is precisely where Labour should be doing well.
Lets have a think about EC&A. The houses there that the Tories live in will be grade 1A dementia tax worries. It has a massively youthful population. It is remain, it is inner London. This is precisely where Labour should be doing well.
Lets have a think about EC&A. The houses there that the Tories live in will be grade 1A dementia tax worries. It has a massively youthful population. It is remain, it is inner London. This is precisely where Labour should be doing well.
Because the population is relatively young, the 'dementia tax' would not be much of an issue, surely?
With two significantly different methodologies producing divergent outcomes, it seems odd that pollsters have all plumped for one or the other, and no-one has tried to find some sort of balance between the two approaches?
As the turnout modellers are new this is the first time such a clear divergence has been seen. There is no guarantee that the real result is simply somewhere between the two.
Squeeze Labour down to around 30% on the day due to people not turning out or wavering on voting for Jezza in the privacy of the Polling booth and you have Con 46% Lab 30% and the Tory landslide is back on,...
Wotth reading Boon's commentary in the same Guardian link, showing the figures for all recent polls with and without turnout tweaks. Oddly the table omits his own poll - the figure there if I understand it correctly is Con 45 Lab 40 AFTER turnout weighting but BEFORE ICM's in-house adjustments guessing what won't says and don't knows will do.
It's obvious that the Tories are in front however you cut it, but really unclear whether it's by a few points or 10ish points.
The choice between the labour and conservative offers is quite marked in 2017, moreso than for a generation, yet the Labour campaign is in danger of petering out in these last few days to an argument about whether we have +/- 10,000 extra community constables in 2019.
Bad ground for them to fight on. The news agenda has hurt them.
Weird thing about this election, is not only heralds the return of two-party politics, it also provides a vivid example of why two-party politics is such a terrible idea.
The BBC Question Time special with Lib Dem leader Tim Farron and Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish National party leader, is being filmed and broadcast tonight on BBC1 at 9pm after the BBC postponed the scheduled event yesterday evening after the London Bridge terror attack.
Farron and Sturgeon are on the campaign trail in Scotland today and their Question Time contest highlights several battles between the two parties. The Lib Dems are pitching to win back a handful of former Lib Dem seats in East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh West, North East Fife and Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross won by the SNP in 2015.
Farron’s battle bus tour started at 6am in a café in the Lib Dem target seat of Edinburgh West, which his party is widely expected to regain, before heading to support Jo Swinson’s effort to win back East Dunbartonshire in the well-healed neighbourhood of Bearsden.
About an hour later, Sturgeon will fly into East Dunbartonshire on the latest leg of her helicopter tour on her so-called Nicolopter, before taking in other battleground seats in the Borders and central Scotland.
Weird thing about this election, is not only heralds the return of two-party politics, it also provides a vivid example of why two-party politics is such a terrible idea.
Thats not really either the tories, or labours fault though is it?
Lib Dems on 8%...I know that is what they got in 2015 and Tiny Tim has had a crap campaign, but I don't know I just feel like really, there has to be soft lefties remain types who like SO are disgusted by Corbyn in the way Miliband certainly didn't.
On the other hand, around 32% of the 2015 LD vote went for Leave. I know some of that (including a couple of commenters on here) are staying with the LDs, but some of them must have switched to Con (if they want hard Brexit) or Lab (soft).
The hope of beating expectations for the LDs is that their vote is similar to last time but that propensity to vote tactically increases, now that the coalition years are receding.
Part of Corbyn's rise is driven by positive support (particularly amongst younger female voters, looking at the breakdowns), but also by disillusion with May and the Tory campaign. It's credible that in Tory seats where Labour isn't the challenger, a chunk of the latter will vote for the LDs (or Green, PC etc) to beat the Tories. The LDs being squeezed further in Tory/Labour battlegrounds would keep their overall vote unchanged (although since a typical poll will only have one or two people in each seat, given the few seats they are fighting seriously it is equally possible that the polls don't reflect their actual performance there at all)
Morning everyone. Not been on since the grim events of Saturday night, but been reading here and watching the coverage of course. Whilst it's fairly unseemly in some ways to speculate on the possibility electoral impacts of terrorism, it's a thing so we must. My feeling is that this will not actually benefit the Tory party. May's personal ratings might rise a bit due to leadership in a crisis, but the undertone to commentary seems to be 'cuts bad' and they don't seem to have a line to trot out on that. Maybe because they can't. It happened and technical arguments aside for what difference it makes, it looks bad and feels bad and on a cursory level without regard to the economy, smells bad. Set that against Corbyn's ludicrous volte face on shoot to kill. It's clearly nonsense but It presses a button (deliberate choice of words) that he is prepared to say he will change his stance in the public interest. Whether he will or not is irrelevant. My read on how the public will reach overall is this......... For a government to have one terrorist atrocity in a GE campaign might be considered unfortunate, to have two...........
In Oct 1974 the IRA bombed two pubs in Guildford five days before the election.
Yes, but the dynamic is different this time. Islamist terrorism comes with very different baggage socially to the IRA campaign which was very much a single issue republican campaign. It was fought in a very different time with very different political and social sttitudes.
The different social attitudes apparently included refusal to be cowed - possibly it helped that anyone then over ~50 had experienced World War 2 as an adult - and much less political correctness.
But I'd say the IRA came closer than these nutcases have done so far to threatening our way of life:
They assassinated multiple MPs, and Lord Mountbatten They planted a few bombs which as they said later could have been designed to kill the Queen of England ... if they'd wished to go that far They came very close to blowing up Thatcher and her cabinet in the 1980s They attacked Downing St. in the 1990s and so on.
Three attacks in 9 weeks getting through, after 12 years with them all stopped, does worry me rather.
The N.Ireland experience did tend to show what policies worked, e.g. total, ruthless infiltration by the security services was what led to the ceasefire and what didn't, e.g. internment and petty rules on not allowing Gerry Adams' voice on TV.
One big difference is that while PIRA were willing to risk their lives, they never carried out suicide attacks (they forced other people to).
It's very difficult to provide complete protection, when the attacker is willing to die as a martyr.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
Clearly they shouldn't. But remember in 2015, the first indication that things were going badly wrong for Miliband was not the exit poll, but that article (Labour Uncut?) that said the postal votes were not going well. So it may well be on the money.
That said, if the youth vote really is going to turn out massively, it will be on the day, not through postals.
This must be the most difficult election ever for a floating voter.
May has been exposed as a cardboard cut-out with a feeble and accident prone crew behind her and Labour don't resemble a government in waiting.
With those elephants in the room all scrutiny of manifestos counts for nothing.
Nope. My easiest decision yet, I think. Maybe 2010 was easier, slightly, I guess.
Yes, I don't think it is hard at all for an average floating voter. It's hard for a patriotic normal Labour supporter, but that isn't a floating voter.
Weird thing about this election, is not only heralds the return of two-party politics, it also provides a vivid example of why two-party politics is such a terrible idea.
Thats not really either the tories, or labours fault though is it?
(although you could blame FPTP)
or enjoy yourself, splash out and blame all three.
Lib Dems on 8%...I know that is what they got in 2015 and Tiny Tim has had a crap campaign, but I don't know I just feel like really, there has to be soft lefties remain types who like SO are disgusted by Corbyn in the way Miliband certainly didn't.
I consoled myself in the lead up to the last election that the polls were unable to pick up the 70byelections effect and whilst there would be losses it wasn't going to be as bad as it looked. You could make an even stronger argument this time given its only 20-25 mini by election but I'm not holding my breath.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
Clearly they shouldn't. But remember in 2015, the first indication that things were going badly wrong for Miliband was not the exit poll, but that article (Labour Uncut?) that said the postal votes were not going well. So it may well be on the money.
That said, if the youth vote really is going to turn out massively, it will be on the day, not through postals.
Yeah, they'll probably turn up at 9.55pm, if the last two elections are anything to by.
Young people will not know too much about the IRA bombings and Corbyn's lack of support for 'the authorities' trying to stop them.
But with then latest terror attack and viral video about Corbyn's views on terrorism back then (IRA are not terrorists but freedom fighters), young people will surely be re-assessing their views on Corbyn.
I'd like to read the comments the day after that show was on tv... my guess is anyone who flagged it as troubling was told to calm down with the usual stupid platitudes
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
I know they're not supposed to know how people have voted - but can they know who has voted?
I think so, you can then check that against canvass returns.
You can certainly find out afterwards - indeed the lists of who has voted and who has not will be made publicly available for inspection, and can be photocopied for a charge, at the Town Hall, until the autumn.
The purpose of the verification is to check that the votes coming in are from the people who applied for them. Since scrutineers (counting agents) are supposed to be checking that the process is being done correctly, the information is there in front of them, and if they had a photographic memory they could come away with details of some voters who had voted. Whether it would be allowed to whip out a pen and start noting down the details, I am not sure.
edit/ There is of course the duty to maintain secrecy, and sharing or using any information observed at a PV verification would be an offence. On that basis I would expect an ERO to intervene if someone started noting down information, since there could be no reason to do so other than to use within the campaign. The role of the counting agent is solely to check that the staff are doing their jobs correctly.
Squeeze Labour down to around 30% on the day due to people not turning out or wavering on voting for Jezza in the privacy of the Polling booth and you have Con 46% Lab 30% and the Tory landslide is back on,...
Wotth reading Boon's commentary in the same Guardian link, showing the figures for all recent polls with and without turnout tweaks. Oddly the table omits his own poll - the figure there if I understand it correctly is Con 45 Lab 40 AFTER turnout weighting but BEFORE ICM's in-house adjustments guessing what won't says and don't knows will do.
It's obvious that the Tories are in front however you cut it, but really unclear whether it's by a few points or 10ish points.
My feeling is that this will not actually benefit the Tory party. May's personal ratings might rise a bit due to leadership in a crisis, but the undertone to commentary seems to be 'cuts bad' and they don't seem to have a line to trot out on that. Maybe because they can't. It happened and technical arguments aside for what difference it makes, it looks bad and feels bad and on a cursory level without regard to the economy, smells bad. My read on how the public will reach overall is this......... For a government to have one terrorist atrocity in a GE campaign might be considered unfortunate, to have two...........
The problem for the conservatives is that no counter factual exists. If it does then they think need to find it I.e. Did France increase police numbers and still not prevent terrorist attacks. Secondly it's all very well talking about reduction in police numbers but the numbers were artificially high caused by Brown's end of tenure splurge. The numbers have reduced to levels from the early 2000s - it's not like it is the Wild West. Do we really think labour would not have reduced police numbers when faced with similar cost constraints? Again If I were the Tories I would be looking at their 2010 proposals. Is there such thing as the Conservative Research Department still?
I don't disagree with any of that. The problem is time. Coming up with a convincing argument and strategy in 3 days is impossible. However, perhaps the fact that we are in the position of 3 days to save the UK (being hyperbolic deliberately) speaks volumes about the disengagement of the political class from the reality on the ground.
The answer is fairly simple. The attackers were dead within 8 minutes despite there being 3 of them in a chaotic urban area. That indicates the force levels of the police were exactly right.
Those complaining need to indicate in what way the police were stretched on Saturday night.
This is a bit of a straw man. I don't think the govt's policy is to allow terrorist attacks to happen but to make sure that the police get there soon enough each time to keep the number of casualties within acceptable limits.
The police have been complaining that cuts are reducing their capability to play their part in the fight against terrorism. May accused them of crying wolf - do you agree? But it's not just the police, of course. There are question marks about the inadequacy of funding in Prevent, in intelligence and in dealing with social media.
About an hour later, Sturgeon will fly into East Dunbartonshire on the latest leg of her helicopter tour on her so-called Nicolopter, before taking in other battleground seats in the Borders and central Scotland.
Lib Dems on 8%...I know that is what they got in 2015 and Tiny Tim has had a crap campaign, but I don't know I just feel like really, there has to be soft lefties remain types who like SO are disgusted by Corbyn in the way Miliband certainly didn't.
On the other hand, around 32% of the 2015 LD vote went for Leave. I know some of that (including a couple of commenters on here) are staying with the LDs, but some of them must have switched to Con (if they want hard Brexit) or Lab (soft).
The hope of beating expectations for the LDs is that their vote is similar to last time but that propensity to vote tactically increases, now that the coalition years are receding.
Part of Corbyn's rise is driven by positive support (particularly amongst younger female voters, looking at the breakdowns), but also by disillusion with May and the Tory campaign. It's credible that in Tory seats where Labour isn't the challenger, a chunk of the latter will vote for the LDs (or Green, PC etc) to beat the Tories. The LDs being squeezed further in Tory/Labour battlegrounds would keep their overall vote unchanged (although since a typical poll will only have one or two people in each seat, given the few seats they are fighting seriously it is equally possible that the polls don't reflect their actual performance there at all)
Con seats where the LD could make a serious challenge?
There are about three of them. On the other hands they could boost their % a couple of points across the south-east which will do them no good.
One big difference is that while PIRA were willing to risk their lives, they never carried out suicide attacks (they forced other people to).
It's very difficult to provide complete protection, when the attacker is willing to die as a martyr.
There was a piece in The Times a few weeks ago which said if the IRA had the technology available now they would have caused a lot more carnage.
They'd have loved having mobile phones that triggered bombs for example
They had access to semtex and guns though. More dangerous than knives and vans. We should be reassured that the Islamist threat seems to be, on the whole, pretty much unorganised.
Weird thing about this election, is not only heralds the return of two-party politics, it also provides a vivid example of why two-party politics is such a terrible idea.
Thats not really either the tories, or labours fault though is it?
(although you could blame FPTP)
Well, it's Labour who chose the bloke who wants to nationalize all the things at a cost of zero pounds and the Tories who chose the woman who is literally trying to ban the online equivalent of whispering. It's not like there weren't any warning signs that these two respective candidates were a few peas short of a casserole.
On the core projections YouGov has since Saturday moved the Tories down three seats and Labour up seven. And - interestingly - the LibDems up from 10 to 13.
I am getting the YG panel VI poll every other day now, latest yesterday.
It appears there is still a gradual trend away from the Tories, amongst their 50,000 at least, in seats, although vote shares haven't shifted. Support for the emergence of tactical voting?
In order to have a free and liberal society in the long term we are going to have to go through a period of illiberal restrictions to create the platform of tolerance from all sides that is essential for a free and liberal society.
Discuss.
I would refer you to Benjamin Franklin
But tolerance doesn't mean allowing people who don't share our values free entry into our country and society to behave as you wish. George Washington was pretty smart on this (albeit as wooden as he always was in phrasing his points)
About an hour later, Sturgeon will fly into East Dunbartonshire on the latest leg of her helicopter tour on her so-called Nicolopter, before taking in other battleground seats in the Borders and central Scotland.
People aren't necessarily being naughty over postal votes, but they might be able to make a guess about turnout if postal votes in Labour areas are coming in more slowly than in 2015.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
That IS interesting though...
Surely, the inner envelopes containing the ballot slips aren't opened until the polls have closed. The outer envelope contains a specimen signature together with the voter's DoB for verification purposes. I therefore very much doubt the veracity of this story.
Young people will not know too much about the IRA bombings and Corbyn's lack of support for 'the authorities' trying to stop them.
But with the latest terror attack and viral video about Corbyn's views on terrorism back then (IRA are not terrorists but freedom fighters), young people will surely be re-assessing their views on Corbyn.
I'd say "surely" is a bit bold! Maybe....possibly...probably not.... They have drunk of the Kool-Aid.
Weird thing about this election, is not only heralds the return of two-party politics, it also provides a vivid example of why two-party politics is such a terrible idea.
Thats not really either the tories, or labours fault though is it?
(although you could blame FPTP)
Well, it's Labour chose the bloke who wants to nationalize all the things and the Tories who chose the woman who is literally trying to ban the online equivalent of whispering. It's not like there weren't any warning signs that these two respective candidates were a few peas short of a casserole.
If it were just a few peas that were missing it wouldn't be so bad.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
I know they're not supposed to know how people have voted - but can they know who has voted?
You do know, agents/candidates are invited to view them, but the crime is to report on what they show.
Party agents should not be able to see which way people have voted. But the council workers who check the signatures will surely get to see which way the vote has gone?
Council workers are people with political allegiances too.
That Tory 44-45% firewall shows no signs of weakening with three days of campaigning to go.
Plenty of people made up their mind on Corbyn even before the election was called - and haven't wavered.
But also a lot of people who normally vote labour and had reported as been repelled by him have grown to like him.
We'll see. The politically active who were sure he was a dud have had to, er, recalibrate. The voters of Mansfield? Not so much....
Voter in Mansfield "Corbyn? Oh yes, IRA....."
party before country. party before country.
hang your heads in shame.
Why are you quoting Andy Burnham? Fan of his?
You put the interests of the tory party ahead of your country. Shame on you.
Isn't Andy Burnham a 'party before country' merchant? Iirc The lovely Liz Kendall slapped him down during one of the 2015 leadership debates for saying 'the party comes first'
This is really really bizarre reasoning from Woodcock - if Corbyn wins then there is no way on God's green earth Woodcock (Who will probably still be an MP if Corby does win) will be able to demand that of him.
He's trying to see if a kite can fly. Unfortunately, made of lead, not really a chance. On the other hand, his constituency party will not be happy bunnies and may decide, sometime, before the next election that a new candidate might be required....
I reckon every other doorstep in Barrow is "I'd love to vote for YOU John, BUT". Probably one of the worst places in the whole country for Corbynism.
Are there any other really poor seats for Corbyn? I can think of Postsmouth seats, Gosport, Bradley Stoke and Filton, Plymouth seats as they all have defence connections, and Barrow, other Cumbria for nuclear, and I guess trident seats around aldermarston so Reading Newbury and Basingstoke.
Even with expectation management, doesn't sound like PLP members feel the corbgasm.
It could be expectation management, so anything above 200 seats will be greeted as 'not so bad' and Corbyn as having 'overachieved' etc.
Whilst we have obsessed for five weeks about the youth vote, the answer remains where it was at the outset of the campaign - in the Northern marginals. The final result of the whole election can probably be found in David Herdson's canvassing returns. And he no sharing.
Even with expectation management, doesn't sound like PLP members feel the corbgasm.
It could be expectation management, so anything above 200 seats will be greeted as 'not so bad' and Corbyn as having 'overachieved' etc.
I very much doubt Labour MPs want to present Corbyn as having overachieved. The range of seats where Labour has a massive problem is actually pretty wide.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
That IS interesting though...
Surely, the inner envelopes containing the ballot slips aren't opened until the polls have closed. The outer envelope contains a specimen signature together with the voter's DoB for verification purposes. I therefore very much doubt the veracity of this story.
The postal vote opening is a ritual in which observers can get very good at sampling. Believe it or don't believe it.
Weird thing about this election, is not only heralds the return of two-party politics, it also provides a vivid example of why two-party politics is such a terrible idea.
Thats not really either the tories, or labours fault though is it?
(although you could blame FPTP)
Well, it's Labour chose the bloke who wants to nationalize all the things and the Tories who chose the woman who is literally trying to ban the online equivalent of whispering. It's not like there weren't any warning signs that these two respective candidates were a few peas short of a casserole.
If it were just a few peas that were missing it wouldn't be so bad.
Personally I'd never include peas in a casserole, which I'd consider a most odd ingredient.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
I know they're not supposed to know how people have voted - but can they know who has voted?
You do know, agents/candidates are invited to view them, but the crime is to report on what they show.
Party agents should not be able to see which way people have voted. But the council workers who check the signatures will surely get to see which way the vote has gone?
Council workers are people with political allegiances too.
They verify face down, and the counting agents are watching them do it. Therefore both staff and agents are seeing (and not seeing) the same thing. Once verified they are locked back into ballot boxes and sealed. The only way someone at the council would have any more information is if they came back afterwards, took a peek, and then re-sealed the box. The penalties if caught doing so would be so severe as to be unthinkable, and they are supposed to be locked away securely in any case.
They almost have to be in a parallel universe to be able to suggest with a straight face that the Tories might be as low as 268 seats. No-one is forcing them to publish something that makes them look so daft.
This is really really bizarre reasoning from Woodcock - if Corbyn wins then there is no way on God's green earth Woodcock (Who will probably still be an MP if Corby does win) will be able to demand that of him.
He's trying to see if a kite can fly. Unfortunately, made of lead, not really a chance. On the other hand, his constituency party will not be happy bunnies and may decide, sometime, before the next election that a new candidate might be required....
I reckon every other doorstep in Barrow is "I'd love to vote for YOU John, BUT". Probably one of the worst places in the whole country for Corbynism.
Are there any other really poor seats for Corbyn? I can think of Postsmouth seats, Gosport, Bradley Stoke and Filton, Plymouth seats as they all have defence connections, and Barrow, other Cumbria for nuclear, and I guess trident seats around aldermarston so Reading Newbury and Basingstoke.
This is really really bizarre reasoning from Woodcock - if Corbyn wins then there is no way on God's green earth Woodcock (Who will probably still be an MP if Corby does win) will be able to demand that of him.
He's trying to see if a kite can fly. Unfortunately, made of lead, not really a chance. On the other hand, his constituency party will not be happy bunnies and may decide, sometime, before the next election that a new candidate might be required....
I reckon every other doorstep in Barrow is "I'd love to vote for YOU John, BUT". Probably one of the worst places in the whole country for Corbynism.
Are there any other really poor seats for Corbyn? I can think of Postsmouth seats, Gosport, Bradley Stoke and Filton, Plymouth seats as they all have defence connections, and Barrow, other Cumbria for nuclear, and I guess trident seats around aldermarston so Reading Newbury and Basingstoke.
EC&A ought to be one of the seats Labour will outperform the most in the whole country, surely ?
Hmm, has someone been looking at postal votes.
Very naughty if true
That IS interesting though...
Surely, the inner envelopes containing the ballot slips aren't opened until the polls have closed. The outer envelope contains a specimen signature together with the voter's DoB for verification purposes. I therefore very much doubt the veracity of this story.
The postal vote opening is a ritual in which observers can get very good at sampling. Believe it or don't believe it.
That is nonsense.
To answer the OP's point, the ballot paper has to be removed from the inner envelope to verify that the number on the back matches with the number of the paper sent to that voter.
The elephant in the room is this government's support for Saudi Arabia, a country which indirectly sends money to Isis through oil revenue. Isis would be far less powerful if it lost its Saudi cash cow. The UK should stop the selling of arms to a country which has such ties.
Theresa May's leadership ratings have fallen like a stone showing that throwing money at a campaign doesn't work if you are working with unappealing material. At least Cameron was personable and could think on his feet.
This is really really bizarre reasoning from Woodcock - if Corbyn wins then there is no way on God's green earth Woodcock (Who will probably still be an MP if Corby does win) will be able to demand that of him.
He's trying to see if a kite can fly. Unfortunately, made of lead, not really a chance. On the other hand, his constituency party will not be happy bunnies and may decide, sometime, before the next election that a new candidate might be required....
I reckon every other doorstep in Barrow is "I'd love to vote for YOU John, BUT". Probably one of the worst places in the whole country for Corbynism.
Are there any other really poor seats for Corbyn? I can think of Postsmouth seats, Gosport, Bradley Stoke and Filton, Plymouth seats as they all have defence connections, and Barrow, other Cumbria for nuclear, and I guess trident seats around aldermarston so Reading Newbury and Basingstoke.
Birmingham, Warrington and anywhere else the IRA bombed?
Comments
Discuss.
As posted yesterday, I spent a few days in 2010 canvassing with this guy: 16 years he got, killers often get less. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tory-candidate-marcus-simpson-jailed-gun-smuggling-497496
I would expect a few more.
It's obvious that the Tories are in front however you cut it, but really unclear whether it's by a few points or 10ish points.
Bad ground for them to fight on. The news agenda has hurt them.
Farron and Sturgeon are on the campaign trail in Scotland today and their Question Time contest highlights several battles between the two parties. The Lib Dems are pitching to win back a handful of former Lib Dem seats in East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh West, North East Fife and Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross won by the SNP in 2015.
Farron’s battle bus tour started at 6am in a café in the Lib Dem target seat of Edinburgh West, which his party is widely expected to regain, before heading to support Jo Swinson’s effort to win back East Dunbartonshire in the well-healed neighbourhood of Bearsden.
About an hour later, Sturgeon will fly into East Dunbartonshire on the latest leg of her helicopter tour on her so-called Nicolopter, before taking in other battleground seats in the Borders and central Scotland.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2017/jun/05/london-attack-isis-claims-responsibility-victims-named-live-updates
(although you could blame FPTP)
Part of Corbyn's rise is driven by positive support (particularly amongst younger female voters, looking at the breakdowns), but also by disillusion with May and the Tory campaign. It's credible that in Tory seats where Labour isn't the challenger, a chunk of the latter will vote for the LDs (or Green, PC etc) to beat the Tories. The LDs being squeezed further in Tory/Labour battlegrounds would keep their overall vote unchanged (although since a typical poll will only have one or two people in each seat, given the few seats they are fighting seriously it is equally possible that the polls don't reflect their actual performance there at all)
It's very difficult to provide complete protection, when the attacker is willing to die as a martyr.
That said, if the youth vote really is going to turn out massively, it will be on the day, not through postals.
They'd have loved having mobile phones that triggered bombs for example
But with then latest terror attack and viral video about Corbyn's views on terrorism back then (IRA are not terrorists but freedom fighters), young people will surely be re-assessing their views on Corbyn.
The purpose of the verification is to check that the votes coming in are from the people who applied for them. Since scrutineers (counting agents) are supposed to be checking that the process is being done correctly, the information is there in front of them, and if they had a photographic memory they could come away with details of some voters who had voted. Whether it would be allowed to whip out a pen and start noting down the details, I am not sure.
edit/ There is of course the duty to maintain secrecy, and sharing or using any information observed at a PV verification would be an offence. On that basis I would expect an ERO to intervene if someone started noting down information, since there could be no reason to do so other than to use within the campaign. The role of the counting agent is solely to check that the staff are doing their jobs correctly.
Sheffield
Even with expectation management, doesn't sound like PLP members feel the corbgasm.
The police have been complaining that cuts are reducing their capability to play their part in the fight against terrorism. May accused them of crying wolf - do you agree? But it's not just the police, of course. There are question marks about the inadequacy of funding in Prevent, in intelligence and in dealing with social media.
There are about three of them. On the other hands they could boost their % a couple of points across the south-east which will do them no good.
I am getting the YG panel VI poll every other day now, latest yesterday.
It appears there is still a gradual trend away from the Tories, amongst their 50,000 at least, in seats, although vote shares haven't shifted. Support for the emergence of tactical voting?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-use-of-firearms-statistics-england-and-wales-april-2015-to-march-2016/police-use-of-firearms-statistics-england-and-wales-april-2015-to-march-2016
http://uk.businessinsider.com/theresa-may-blamed-for-london-bridge-terror-attack-by-top-cameron-aide-steve-hilton-2017-6
But tolerance doesn't mean allowing people who don't share our values free entry into our country and society to behave as you wish. George Washington was pretty smart on this (albeit as wooden as he always was in phrasing his points)
By the way, it costs £10k an hour to lease it, is that local or national spending for the SNP?
Council workers are people with political allegiances too.
Iirc The lovely Liz Kendall slapped him down during one of the 2015 leadership debates for saying 'the party comes first'
And
https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/871648704205402112
Complete and utter Cowardice fro May.
Get out there defend your record as Home Secretary and PM
To answer the OP's point, the ballot paper has to be removed from the inner envelope to verify that the number on the back matches with the number of the paper sent to that voter.
The UK should stop the selling of arms to a country which has such ties.
Theresa May's leadership ratings have fallen like a stone showing that throwing money at a campaign doesn't work if you are working with unappealing material. At least Cameron was personable and could think on his feet.
Not sure it's big enough to gain traction.