Re Labour, forget Corbyn for a second, and just think Brexit.
There was no easy way out for them, because their seats fell into two broad groups: Remainiac City Centres and University towns, and Leaverstan towns in the North and North West of the country.
If the Labour Party had had a policy of "Brexit, but not a Tory Brexit", they might have held up in Leaverstan. But they would have lost in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and the like. They were faced with an unenviable choice, disappoint one group of supporters or the other. Wholeheartedly backing Brexit might have saved Leigh in Manchester or Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it would have lost them another bunch of seats.
Really? Where would Labour Remainers have gone? If to the Liberal Democrats it would not likely have lost Labour seats. If to the Tories we could have been fairly sure they were either not Remainers or not Labour.
Labour Leavers, however...
To the Lib Dems surely, hence Labour polling 20% after the EU Elections.
Labour was in an impossible place, just made so much worse by Corbyn being crap.
The best thing would have been to avoid the election altogether and voted for May's deal.
And in how many southern seats would even quite large numbers of Labour voters switching to the Liberal Democrats have made a difference? Hint - not many.
While they had a dilemma, they made the wrong choice. In fact, ironically, they took the wrong set of voters for granted,
Actually, I am not sure that is right. The LibDems came close to a tipping point after the Euros, and forced Labour to change tack somewhat.
It would have been much more dangerous for the Labour party to lose 50 seats to a resurgent, europhile LibDems than to the Tories. Because it might be the start of allowing the LibDems to replace Labour.
I think there was no easy way out for Labour -- other than voting for May's deal, of course. But they were too stupid to realise that.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
To be honest, the only people who should say who they voted for are those who work for or assist unpaid a political party. The rest, if they have any honour, will politely tell you to do one. I don't even discuss it with my family even when it's bloody obvious - which was the source of some awkwardness this weekend.
Is this going to be a PB Tory meme going forward? They just spent a month crapping themselves in fear but now they've won it's like seeing little PBHitlers hatching. Perhaps less telling people what to do, yes?
Having knocked on hundreds of doors saying "can I count on your support" trying to get peoples voting intentions I don't really like your stance.
Ms Briskin was threatening to not reveal to me but once she'd done it she just told me.
I've very rarely told people what to do - and when I have they've never done it about 99.9pc of the time
Re Labour, forget Corbyn for a second, and just think Brexit.
There was no easy way out for them, because their seats fell into two broad groups: Remainiac City Centres and University towns, and Leaverstan towns in the North and North West of the country.
If the Labour Party had had a policy of "Brexit, but not a Tory Brexit", they might have held up in Leaverstan. But they would have lost in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and the like. They were faced with an unenviable choice, disappoint one group of supporters or the other. Wholeheartedly backing Brexit might have saved Leigh in Manchester or Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it would have lost them another bunch of seats.
I think backing a CU plus Brexit may well have worked better in the North, perhaps lost in the South, but possibly would have lost both to more extreme views.
There is more than tactics to this though, if a party believes in something, whether Remain or nationalisation then it should campaign for it. It may be less tactically astute, but it will be more honest.
The LD campaign was the perfect example of how sometimes doing something is worse than doing nothing. If they'd said and done absolutely nothing during the campaign they probably would have almost automatically won around 15% of the vote. They lost about 3 or 4 points from doing and saying the wrong things. Similar to the way in which Hillary would probably have won in 2016 if she'd kept her mouth shut for the duration of the campaign.
I've been reading a Guardian piece on the start of the Labour leadership race/civil war and came across the following nugget:
The Fabian Society, the socialist society and thinktank, warned that to win a majority at the next election Labour needs to gain 123 seats, almost twice as many as it required at the 2019 election.
It highlighted the scale of the challenge facing the new leader, saying that to secure the “winning post” marginal seat Labour now needs an electoral swing of 10.3 percentage points, almost three times more than the swing it needed to win the 2019 election.
A 10.3% swing, which is what the Fabians have calculated is required for an absolute Labour majority of 2, is approximately equal to that achieved in the 1997 Blair landslide when Labour won a majority of 179 and reduced the Tories to a rump.
But it gets worse for them: the list of target seats running from 1 to 123 includes sixteen seats controlled by the SNP. As was pointed out in discussions earlier today, for every Scottish seat Labour can't wrest back it has to go further and further down the English and Welsh list - running into an increasing variety of theoretically possible but highly implausible targets as it goes, such as Colchester (target 104, last represented by Labour in 1945,) Finchley and Golders Green (target 117, no further explanation needed,) Bournemouth West (target 132, Tory since its creation in 1950,) Ceredigion (target 135, a Plaid/LD battleground that last returned a Labour MP in 1970,) Hexham (target 137, the only Tory seat in the North-East to survive in 1997, never returned a Labour MP,) Bromley and Chislehurst (target 140, Bromley having been Tory continuously since 1918,) and Basingstoke (target 148, never won by Labour in a history going back to 1885.)
Provided that Boris Johnson doesn't turn out to be heroically and, indeed, unprecedentedly useless, I'm satisfied that a majority Marxist Government come 2024 is somewhat unlikely - whatever nutcase the Labour membership ends up endorsing next Spring.
This is a somewhat overlooked point in the aftermath. Many of these traditional working class seats didn't just go Tory on Thursday, they went Tory by massive margins. To the extent that many aren't even obvious targets for the future. As a result it's not even clear, purely looking at the current electoral map, that recovering the working class vote should even be Labour's priority at the next election! Even if they bring themselves back to sanity in the leadership election, they still might end up selecting a new leader for the wrong reasons!
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Not sure you make a compelling case there. 2 exceptions from 3. I don’t think it’s that important. Chat beneath the line here is hardly inhibited by the thread headers.
I am a Tory but I don’t think that government works if it is not challenged and held to account. The last Parliament was undoubtedly the worst in my lifetime. No effective government, a significant proportion who lied to get elected (many of them thankfully paying the price) and no effective opposition. Just a total shambles.
I think Smithson Jnr is an anarchist?
I don't give a shit who Meeks votes for but I think Cyclefree, with her holier than thou stance, should starting making it clear.
If it matters, in this decade I have at different elections voted Green, Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and spoiled my ballot paper.
I've been reading a Guardian piece on the start of the Labour leadership race/civil war and came across the following nugget:
The Fabian Society, the socialist society and thinktank, warned that to win a majority at the next election Labour needs to gain 123 seats, almost twice as many as it required at the 2019 election.
It highlighted the scale of the challenge facing the new leader, saying that to secure the “winning post” marginal seat Labour now needs an electoral swing of 10.3 percentage points, almost three times more than the swing it needed to win the 2019 election.
A 10.3% swing, which is what the Fabians have calculated is required for an absolute Labour majority of 2, is approximately equal to that achieved in the 1997 Blair landslide when Labour won a majority of 179 and reduced the Tories to a rump.
But it gets worse for them: the list of target seats running from 1 to 123 includes sixteen seats controlled by the SNP. As was pointed out in discussions earlier today, for every Scottish seat Labour can't wrest back it has to go further and further down the English and Welsh list - running into an increasing variety of theoretically possible but highly implausible targets as it goes, such as Colchester (target 104, last represented by Labour in 1945,) Finchley and Golders Green (target 117, no further explanation needed,) Bournemouth West (target 132, Tory since its creation in 1950,) Ceredigion (target 135, a Plaid/LD battleground that last returned a Labour MP in 1970,) Hexham (target 137, the only Tory seat in the North-East to survive in 1997, never returned a Labour MP,) Bromley and Chislehurst (target 140, Bromley having been Tory continuously since 1918,) and Basingstoke (target 148, never won by Labour in a history going back to 1885.)
Provided that Boris Johnson doesn't turn out to be heroically and, indeed, unprecedentedly useless, I'm satisfied that a majority Marxist Government come 2024 is somewhat unlikely - whatever nutcase the Labour membership ends up endorsing next Spring.
First priority for Momentum cohort, tighten control of Labour party. Next election is nowhere until Labour party is exclusively Momentum.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
That's a silly question.
Not really, I typed astrology into Waterstones website and hundreds came up - Which do I pick?
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
ooh let me think. I gave my GF an astrology book which she loved, so I will ask her, I have forgotten what it was!
BTW I used to utterly dismiss all this woo-woo rubbish, but too many things have recently happened in my life, which defy rational explanation. I begin to wonder.
Re Labour, forget Corbyn for a second, and just think Brexit.
There was no easy way out for them, because their seats fell into two broad groups: Remainiac City Centres and University towns, and Leaverstan towns in the North and North West of the country.
If the Labour Party had had a policy of "Brexit, but not a Tory Brexit", they might have held up in Leaverstan. But they would have lost in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and the like. They were faced with an unenviable choice, disappoint one group of supporters or the other. Wholeheartedly backing Brexit might have saved Leigh in Manchester or Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it would have lost them another bunch of seats.
Really? Where would Labour Remainers have gone? If to the Liberal Democrats it would not likely have lost Labour seats. If to the Tories we could have been fairly sure they were either not Remainers or not Labour.
Labour Leavers, however...
To the Lib Dems surely, hence Labour polling 20% after the EU Elections.
Labour was in an impossible place, just made so much worse by Corbyn being crap.
The best thing would have been to avoid the election altogether and voted for May's deal.
Indeed but the North London tendency, aided and abetted in spirit at the very least by the likes of Tusk and Verhofstadt, and in fact by Grieve, Soubry et al decided to twist rather than stick.
They went, between them, from a position in March of being able to vote for, or enforce a deadline to get May’s deal over the line to now, where they have Boris with an 80 seat majority.
Total prats, as it worked out.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
To be honest, the only people who should say who they voted for are those who work for or assist unpaid a political party. The rest, if they have any honour, will politely tell you to do one. I don't even discuss it with my family even when it's bloody obvious - which was the source of some awkwardness this weekend.
Is this going to be a PB Tory meme going forward? They just spent a month crapping themselves in fear but now they've won it's like seeing little PBHitlers hatching. Perhaps less telling people what to do, yes?
Having knocked on hundreds of doors saying "can I count on your support" trying to get peoples voting intentions I don't really like your stance.
Ms Briskin was threatening to not reveal to me but once she'd done it she just told me.
I've very rarely told people what to do - and when I have they've never done it about 99.9pc of the time
Jeezo, you were out campaigning for a party? No wonder unionism's stuffed.
The LD campaign was the perfect example of how sometimes doing something is worse than doing nothing. If they'd said and done absolutely nothing during the campaign they probably would have almost automatically won around 15% of the vote. They lost about 3 or 4 points from doing and saying the wrong things. Similar to the way in which Hillary would probably have won in 2016 if she'd kept her mouth shut for the duration of the campaign.
Third parties always get squeezed in a campaign, it is something to get used to. FPTP in a parliamentary system with the executive arising from the parliament is a system of electoral dictatorship of a plurality. Tories wanting to remove the feeble existing restraints may well miss them under the next Labour government.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
ooh let me think. I gave my GF an astrology book which she loved, so I will ask her, I have forgotten what it was!
BTW I used to utterly dismiss all this woo-woo rubbish, but too many things have recently happened in my life, which defy rational explanation. I begin to wonder.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
Dump her.
I thought that but exercised some restraint to protect his, presumably somewhat sensitive feelings. He'll be very cross now.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Not sure you make a compelling case there. 2 exceptions from 3. I don’t think it’s that important. Chat beneath the line here is hardly inhibited by the thread headers.
I am a Tory but I don’t think that government works if it is not challenged and held to account. The last Parliament was undoubtedly the worst in my lifetime. No effective government, a significant proportion who lied to get elected (many of them thankfully paying the price) and no effective opposition. Just a total shambles.
I think Smithson Jnr is an anarchist?
I don't give a shit who Meeks votes for but I think Cyclefree, with her holier than thou stance, should starting making it clear.
If it matters, in this decade I have at different elections voted Green, Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and spoiled my ballot paper.
Serious question: if Labour had a better leader and had backed Leaving, wouldn't it have been utterly destroyed in London and the South?
I'm not doubting they would have done a lot less badly with a leader much better than Corbyn but I just can't see how a Johnson victory wasn't inevitable in hindsight.
If they had backed some kind of super soft "Andrex Labour Brexit" then I doubt it, especially vs the undemocratic Revoke position of the Lib Dems.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Not sure you make a compelling case there. 2 exceptions from 3. I don’t think it’s that important. Chat beneath the line here is hardly inhibited by the thread headers.
I am a Tory but I don’t think that government works if it is not challenged and held to account. The last Parliament was undoubtedly the worst in my lifetime. No effective government, a significant proportion who lied to get elected (many of them thankfully paying the price) and no effective opposition. Just a total shambles.
I think Smithson Jnr is an anarchist?
I don't give a shit who Meeks votes for but I think Cyclefree, with her holier than thou stance, should starting making it clear.
If it matters, in this decade I have at different elections voted Green, Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and spoiled my ballot paper.
I’m ahead of you, I’ve got Plaid and an Indy as well.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Not sure you make a compelling case there. 2 exceptions from 3. I don’t think it’s that important. Chat beneath the line here is hardly inhibited by the thread headers.
I am a Tory but I don’t think that government works if it is not challenged and held to account. The last Parliament was undoubtedly the worst in my lifetime. No effective government, a significant proportion who lied to get elected (many of them thankfully paying the price) and no effective opposition. Just a total shambles.
I think Smithson Jnr is an anarchist?
I don't give a shit who Meeks votes for but I think Cyclefree, with her holier than thou stance, should starting making it clear.
If it matters, in this decade I have at different elections voted Green, Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and spoiled my ballot paper.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
Dump her.
I thought that but exercised some restraint to protect his, presumably somewhat sensitive feelings. He'll be very cross now.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
To be honest, the only people who should say who they voted for are those who work for or assist unpaid a political party. The rest, if they have any honour, will politely tell you to do one. I don't even discuss it with my family even when it's bloody obvious - which was the source of some awkwardness this weekend.
Is this going to be a PB Tory meme going forward? They just spent a month crapping themselves in fear but now they've won it's like seeing little PBHitlers hatching. Perhaps less telling people what to do, yes?
Having knocked on hundreds of doors saying "can I count on your support" trying to get peoples voting intentions I don't really like your stance.
Ms Briskin was threatening to not reveal to me but once she'd done it she just told me.
I've very rarely told people what to do - and when I have they've never done it about 99.9pc of the time
Jeezo, you were out campaigning for a party? No wonder unionism's stuffed.
I was campaigning for the LDs - I admit I was a shit canvasser.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Not sure you make a compelling case there. 2 exceptions from 3. I don’t think it’s that important. Chat beneath the line here is hardly inhibited by the thread headers.
I am a Tory but I don’t think that government works if it is not challenged and held to account. The last Parliament was undoubtedly the worst in my lifetime. No effective government, a significant proportion who lied to get elected (many of them thankfully paying the price) and no effective opposition. Just a total shambles.
I think Smithson Jnr is an anarchist?
I don't give a shit who Meeks votes for but I think Cyclefree, with her holier than thou stance, should starting making it clear.
If it matters, in this decade I have at different elections voted Green, Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and spoiled my ballot paper.
This is a somewhat overlooked point in the aftermath. Many of these traditional working class seats didn't just go Tory on Thursday, they went Tory by massive margins. To the extent that many aren't even obvious targets for the future. As a result it's not even clear, purely looking at the current electoral map, that recovering the working class vote should even be Labour's priority at the next election! Even if they bring themselves back to sanity in the leadership election, they still might end up selecting a new leader for the wrong reasons!
Ah, BUT... of Labour's top 20 targets, 16 are Leave seats in Wales, the Midlands and the North. There's no avoiding the need to bridge the gap between the metropolitan Marxists and the provincial workers.
In which case, it's a bit of a problem for Labour that so many of the metropolitan Marxists regard the provincial workers with such total and utter contempt (as per Lady Nugee.)
So Wait, Gove said " "In this general election we have just seen what happens when politicians try to overturn a referendum result and in the same way we should respect the referendum result of 2014."
And used that as justification for not allowing SindyRef2?
That makes no sense. Surely they should allow it and reap the benefit they think would accrue to themselves.
I voted Scottish Socialist Party in 2003 so you can all do one.
My first vote was for Scottish Socialist Party, I think I spoiled my ballot for the local election at the same time at the shocking lack of choice, in about 1999????
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
They fucked up in my mind, and lit the blue touch paper, by reneging on the promise of a referendum on the European Constitution by sleight of hand by renaming it the Lisbon Treaty.
The LD campaign was the perfect example of how sometimes doing something is worse than doing nothing. If they'd said and done absolutely nothing during the campaign they probably would have almost automatically won around 15% of the vote. They lost about 3 or 4 points from doing and saying the wrong things. Similar to the way in which Hillary would probably have won in 2016 if she'd kept her mouth shut for the duration of the campaign.
Third parties always get squeezed in a campaign, it is something to get used to. FPTP in a parliamentary system with the executive arising from the parliament is a system of electoral dictatorship of a plurality. Tories wanting to remove the feeble existing restraints may well miss them under the next Labour government.
If everyone wants to discuss The West Lothian Question then I wish you all goodnight. I’m not Scottish and, although I would be sorry to see them go, it is their decision to make.
People always say this as though it means non scottish people should not involve themselves. Yes the decision is theirs, it doesnt mean fellow brits should not involve themselves to try and persuade if they wish.
I hope the PLP stop her from standing, she will be awful
We at Tories4Wrong-Daily on the other hand can't believe our luck.
Conservative supporters hilariously shoehorning unsuitable candidates in as Leader of the Labour Party should be careful what they wish for. Don't forget Corbyn was only 2 percentage points away from it going horribly wrong in 2017.
No government should be without the checks and balances of a competent opposition, particularly one led by someone as erratic as Johnson.
I think Labour is going to run away from Brexit as much as possible, I do not think they'll be backing rejoin anytime soon.
My advice would be to just back whatever the Tories bring back now. They aren't going to have any influence to change it or block it, so they may as well just go along with it. After all, the electorate have pretty much endorsed whatever it is that the Tories come up with.
If the Tories destroy themselves over the final deal, then so be it. Labour should keep their hands clean.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
Dump her.
I thought that but exercised some restraint to protect his, presumably somewhat sensitive feelings. He'll be very cross now.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
That's a silly question.
Not really, I typed astrology into Waterstones website and hundreds came up - Which do I pick?
They did not campaign specifically for indyref2 at Holyrood 2016 and thus have no mandate for it, especially as they lost their outright majority then anyway
It's almost heroic the amount of crap you spout on this subject from such a low knowledge base.
'We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
And there is no clear evidence independence has become the preferred option of most Scots even despite Brexit
Fuckin' hell, an inability to understand basic English, let alone Scottish politics.
'or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
Can I just clarify my position
If the SNP gain a majority in Holyrood 2021 then a referendum should take place probably in the Autumn of that year
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
They fucked up in my mind, and lit the blue touch paper, by reneging on the promise of a referendum on the European Constitution by sleight of hand by renaming it the Lisbon Treaty.
Their reward came at 22.00 on Thursday.
Yes, Constitution/Lisbon was, for me, where it all went terminal.
Interestingly, some French historians trace the latest, most potent rise of the FN back to the French elite repudiating their own referendum on the Constitution.
Utterly ridiculous to argue that the SNP need to get a majority in a PR legislature to implement their key policy, yet the Tories can implement theirs on a FPTP majority of 45% of the vote. Especially when the SNP won a majority in Scotland at Westminster.
SNP's "key policy" isn't one their legislature has the power to implement though, as twice confirmed at a referendum.
By key policy, I mean another independence referendum. Not just implementing it off the back of an election result.
I know.
Their legislature does not have the power to implement an independence referendum.
Indeed.
I guess it's Civil War time.
All agreed?
We're going to lure the Scottish forces down to Wembley for the prize of our goalposts......
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Not sure you make a compelling case there. 2 exceptions from 3. I don’t think it’s that important. Chat beneath the line here is hardly inhibited by the thread headers.
I am a Tory but I don’t think that government works if it is not challenged and held to account. The last Parliament was undoubtedly the worst in my lifetime. No effective government, a significant proportion who lied to get elected (many of them thankfully paying the price) and no effective opposition. Just a total shambles.
I think Smithson Jnr is an anarchist?
I don't give a shit who Meeks votes for but I think Cyclefree, with her holier than thou stance, should starting making it clear.
If it matters, in this decade I have at different elections voted Green, Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and spoiled my ballot paper.
I expect the SNP will get another majority with the Greens, they did last time. Why will next time be different.
The latest Holyrood poll earlier this month had the SNP on 46% on the constituency vote, unchanged from last time but down on the regional list vote from 41.7% to just 37% with the Greens only up from 6.6% to 8%.
If the SNP and Greens thus lose their majority at Holyrood in 2021 they cannot claim a mandate for indyref2.
You and opinion polls again. Polls aren't facts. If the SNP and Greens lose their majority in 2021 they won't be able to claim a mandate I agree, but Labour are so weak that's extremely unlikely to occur. And the Lib Dems losing their Scottish election won't help that either.
In PR terms Labour will still get around 15% as most likely will the LDs, with the Tories on 25%+ that makes a Unionist majority
No way! That's 55%, why would they get so much?
2016 the proportions on the Regional List were SCON 22.9, SLAB 19.1 and SLD 5.2
Don't forget that 4.5% of the Regional vote last time went to tiny parties.
Tories 25, Labour 14, LDs 10 and BXP 2 is 49% combined not 51% as the BXP wouldn't hit the threshold to get any seats. UKIP got 2.0 in 2016 but got 0 seats from that.
That might be what they're polling but they likely won't get it on the night. Especially LDs who have a terrible track record at losing votes lately and have also lost their Scottish leader.
Even 49% is still 4% more than the 45% projected for the SNP and Greens
Only needs a 2% LD to Green swing and there is a pro-IndyRef majority.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
ooh let me think. I gave my GF an astrology book which she loved, so I will ask her, I have forgotten what it was!
BTW I used to utterly dismiss all this woo-woo rubbish, but too many things have recently happened in my life, which defy rational explanation. I begin to wonder.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
I was insulted and abused on here, being told I was a plant etc., because I actually realised the shit show that was coming. We should have immediately accepted the vote and lobbied hard for CU/SM. We would have had a parliamentary majority for that if the people's voters had backed it. Then we should have accepted Theresa May's deal and been there open armed for her when the ERG started screaming betrayal. We could have got a lot more in the future relationship. Then we should have accepted the Boris deal and kept our numbers strong for the FR.
They did not campaign specifically for indyref2 at Holyrood 2016 and thus have no mandate for it, especially as they lost their outright majority then anyway
It's almost heroic the amount of crap you spout on this subject from such a low knowledge base.
'We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
And there is no clear evidence independence has become the preferred option of most Scots even despite Brexit
Fuckin' hell, an inability to understand basic English, let alone Scottish politics.
'or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
Can I just clarify my position
If the SNP gain a majority in Holyrood 2021 then a referendum should take place probably in the Autumn of that year
If everyone wants to discuss The West Lothian Question then I wish you all goodnight. I’m not Scottish and, although I would be sorry to see them go, it is their decision to make.
People always say this as though it means non scottish people should not involve themselves. Yes the decision is theirs, it doesnt mean fellow brits should not involve themselves to try and persuade if they wish.
So Wait, Gove said " "In this general election we have just seen what happens when politicians try to overturn a referendum result and in the same way we should respect the referendum result of 2014."
And used that as justification for not allowing SindyRef2?
That makes no sense. Surely they should allow it and reap the benefit they think would accrue to themselves.
Regardless of the actual merits of a second referendum, Gove’s argument is nonsense. The lesson this election is the same as was happened in Scotland. If a country is massively polarised by a close referendum to the extent that significant numbers will let it affect their future vote in a FPTP election, then the outcome of the referendum is irrelevant. Success is guaranteed if you are a single party on one side of the argument, facing multiple parties on the other.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
They fucked up in my mind, and lit the blue touch paper, by reneging on the promise of a referendum on the European Constitution by sleight of hand by renaming it the Lisbon Treaty.
Their reward came at 22.00 on Thursday.
Yes, Constitution/Lisbon was, for me, where it all went terminal.
Interestingly, some French historians trace the latest, most potent rise of the FN back to the French elite repudiating their own referendum on the Constitution.
You fuck with democracy at your peril.
Quite. That was the moment.
To me it was the moment the light bulb came on to say “hang on, these buggers are going to rub us out, integrate us into a USE, it’s just the speed that’s up for grabs, not the direction of travel. They are not going to let us alter the direction of travel. Whether we, the people, want it or not is of no consequence”.
They dont seem to like or even want to help the areas, they're just mad at them. Those in labour who care about poverty must be furious at these types who really see deprived areas as just a fiefdom which is disloyal.
Utterly ridiculous to argue that the SNP need to get a majority in a PR legislature to implement their key policy, yet the Tories can implement theirs on a FPTP majority of 45% of the vote. Especially when the SNP won a majority in Scotland at Westminster.
SNP's "key policy" isn't one their legislature has the power to implement though, as twice confirmed at a referendum.
By key policy, I mean another independence referendum. Not just implementing it off the back of an election result.
I know.
Their legislature does not have the power to implement an independence referendum.
Indeed.
I guess it's Civil War time.
All agreed?
We're going to lure the Scottish forces down to Wembley for the prize of our goalposts......
Ha ha my Dad RIP, did indeed, as well being in Gothenburg in 83, rip up the turf at Wembley one time apparently
It's strange to see people stick their fingers in their ears about Brexit and its many downsides but then become experts on Scottish Independence and how bad it will be
I consider myself very well versed in Scots matters having lived and been associated with the Scots, Scotland and it's politics for nearly 70 years
Not doubting it, it's a shame you don't provide the same kind of analysis of Brexit
I am a remainer remember so brexit happening is the will of the people being respected for better or worse
If Scottish people keep electing the SNP by a landslide, will you accept their right to a referendum or do you just pick and choose the results you like?
SNIP
Last thursday the SNP achieved 45% so not a majority vote
They will however lose it
So it is about picking results you like. The majority of people voted for pro-SNIP
The hypocrisy just shines through I'm afraid.
Whatever if it keeps you happy
I can only agree the Scots should have a referendum in late 2021 if they win Holyrood
I think you have far more serious problems in trying to prevent the extinction of the labour party
You're just a hypocrite, end of story.
I am trying to stop the extinction of Labour, I am taking action on it - but your pathetic whataboutism is telling.
Why?
What is there about Labour that is worth saving? I genuinely think that is the question @Cyclefree is asking. Is it fit for purpose?
I think that we need a credible centre left party that gives people a choice. That is as focused on inequality as growth. That recognises the threads that hold our society together. That is more tolerant of failure and the need for second or even third chances. That speaks up for the minorities who would otherwise be dominated and at times exploited by the majority. That makes the case for equality of opportunity not being enough.
I am not sure we currently have such a party. I am not sure when we will.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
Re Labour, forget Corbyn for a second, and just think Brexit.
There was no easy way out for them, because their seats fell into two broad groups: Remainiac City Centres and University towns, and Leaverstan towns in the North and North West of the country.
If the Labour Party had had a policy of "Brexit, but not a Tory Brexit", they might have held up in Leaverstan. But they would have lost in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and the like. They were faced with an unenviable choice, disappoint one group of supporters or the other. Wholeheartedly backing Brexit might have saved Leigh in Manchester or Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it would have lost them another bunch of seats.
They had a way out and Corbyn was following it for quite a while. Say you oppose the Tory Brexit but let May get it through. He could, especially at MV3 with a nod and a wink have ensured May had enough votes to get it through while still leaving her impotent and unpopular. Or done the same with Boris while he had no majority, they just didn't need to support the wrecking amendment on the timetable motion.
Then the Brexit issue would be closed tand they could move on. The issue was the Brexit issue wasn't closed. If Brexit had happened already then Leave/Remain/betrayal/whatever wouldn't matter so much.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
Where's the gracious bit?
Point taken. The future, I really do hope. Really.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
That's a silly question.
Not really, I typed astrology into Waterstones website and hundreds came up - Which do I pick?
It's strange to see people stick their fingers in their ears about Brexit and its many downsides but then become experts on Scottish Independence and how bad it will be
I consider myself very well versed in Scots matters having lived and been associated with the Scots, Scotland and it's politics for nearly 70 years
Not doubting it, it's a shame you don't provide the same kind of analysis of Brexit
I am a remainer remember so brexit happening is the will of the people being respected for better or worse
If Scottish people keep electing the SNP by a landslide, will you accept their right to a referendum or do you just pick and choose the results you like?
SNIP
Last thursday the SNP achieved 45% so not a majority vote
They will however lose it
So it is about picking results you like. The majority of people voted for pro-SNIP
The hypocrisy just shines through I'm afraid.
Whatever if it keeps you happy
I can only agree the Scots should have a referendum in late 2021 if they win Holyrood
I think you have far more serious problems in trying to prevent the extinction of the labour party
You're just a hypocrite, end of story.
I am trying to stop the extinction of Labour, I am taking action on it - but your pathetic whataboutism is telling.
Why?
What is there about Labour that is worth saving? I genuinely think that is the question @Cyclefree is asking. Is it fit for purpose?
I think that we need a credible centre left party that gives people a choice. That is as focused on inequality as growth. That recognises the threads that hold our society together. That is more tolerant of failure and the need for second or even third chances. That speaks up for the minorities who would otherwise be dominated and at times exploited by the majority. That makes the case for equality of opportunity not being enough.
I am not sure we currently have such a party. I am not sure when we will.
Cyclefree and Meeks should really be clear about who they back. All the rest of them have. For reference-
Smithson - LD TSE - Tory (although not anymore) Herdson - Tory (although not anymore)
I hope the PLP stop her from standing, she will be awful
We at Tories4Wrong-Daily on the other hand can't believe our luck.
Conservative supporters hilariously shoehorning unsuitable candidates in as Leader of the Labour Party should be careful what they wish for. Don't forget Corbyn was only 2 percentage points away from it going horribly wrong in 2017.
No government should be without the checks and balances of a competent opposition, particularly one led by someone as erratic as Johnson.
Totally. Please Labour elect someone sane, that does not have me literally having a thumb hovering over my banking app to wire cash out of the country come 2024 as I was at 21.59 on Thursday.
Out to 60s on Betfair and at least one bookie seems to have suspended the market. Is an announcement expected in the morning that Thornberry will not run?
Re Labour, forget Corbyn for a second, and just think Brexit.
There was no easy way out for them, because their seats fell into two broad groups: Remainiac City Centres and University towns, and Leaverstan towns in the North and North West of the country.
If the Labour Party had had a policy of "Brexit, but not a Tory Brexit", they might have held up in Leaverstan. But they would have lost in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and the like. They were faced with an unenviable choice, disappoint one group of supporters or the other. Wholeheartedly backing Brexit might have saved Leigh in Manchester or Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it would have lost them another bunch of seats.
They had a way out and Corbyn was following it for quite a while. Say you oppose the Tory Brexit but let May get it through. He could, especially at MV3 with a nod and a wink have ensured May had enough votes to get it through while still leaving her impotent and unpopular. Or done the same with Boris while he had no majority, they just didn't need to support the wrecking amendment on the timetable motion.
Then the Brexit issue would be closed tand they could move on. The issue was the Brexit issue wasn't closed. If Brexit had happened already then Leave/Remain/betrayal/whatever wouldn't matter so much.
Yep i’m sure that there were quite sufficient numbers of Labour MPs in leave seats who would have been quite happy to “rebel” against the leadership, provided they had reasonable reassurance that they wouldn’t have been immediately thrown to the hounds.
They did not campaign specifically for indyref2 at Holyrood 2016 and thus have no mandate for it, especially as they lost their outright majority then anyway
It's almost heroic the amount of crap you spout on this subject from such a low knowledge base.
'We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
And there is no clear evidence independence has become the preferred option of most Scots even despite Brexit
Fuckin' hell, an inability to understand basic English, let alone Scottish politics.
'or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
Can I just clarify my position
If the SNP gain a majority in Holyrood 2021 then a referendum should take place probably in the Autumn of that year
I don't think any assumptions can be made about the way in which LD voters would have preferenced the Conservatives and Labour under a transfer system of voting.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
I have no recommendation but please find below a link to the "astrology" section of Waterstones. Please choose the one that fits your budget.
Am I misremembering the original claim or is Caroline Flint slightly back-pedalling? The allegation now is second or third hand; I had earlier understood it was said to Flint herself.
Re Labour, forget Corbyn for a second, and just think Brexit.
There was no easy way out for them, because their seats fell into two broad groups: Remainiac City Centres and University towns, and Leaverstan towns in the North and North West of the country.
If the Labour Party had had a policy of "Brexit, but not a Tory Brexit", they might have held up in Leaverstan. But they would have lost in London, Cambridge, Bristol, Sheffield Hallam and the like. They were faced with an unenviable choice, disappoint one group of supporters or the other. Wholeheartedly backing Brexit might have saved Leigh in Manchester or Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it would have lost them another bunch of seats.
They had a way out and Corbyn was following it for quite a while. Say you oppose the Tory Brexit but let May get it through. He could, especially at MV3 with a nod and a wink have ensured May had enough votes to get it through while still leaving her impotent and unpopular. Or done the same with Boris while he had no majority, they just didn't need to support the wrecking amendment on the timetable motion.
Then the Brexit issue would be closed tand they could move on. The issue was the Brexit issue wasn't closed. If Brexit had happened already then Leave/Remain/betrayal/whatever wouldn't matter so much.
Yep i’m sure that there were quite sufficient numbers of Labour MPs in leave seats who would have been quite happy to “rebel” against the leadership, provided they had reasonable reassurance that they wouldn’t have been immediately thrown to the hounds.
Not just Labour Leavers, his own mates too. Corbyn and his mates were Brexiteers. Dennis Skinner was as ardent a Brexiteer as anyone in Parliament but he voted against or abstained on the Meaningful Votes. I think he might have spontaneously combusted going into the Aye Lobby with a Tory PM but still I'm sure with a conversation between him and Corbyn he could have voted to get Brexit done.
Electorally naive Remainers thought the Tories would be screwed by Brexit not happening, but instead realistically the Tories just removed May and Johnson profited from being seen to show Parliament as the obstruction. The reality is Corbyn needed Brexit done more than Johnson - and he was the one to block it!
Am I misremembering the original claim or is Caroline Flint slightly back-pedalling? The allegation now is second or third hand; I had earlier understood it was said to Flint herself.
I think in the interview this morning she said it was something Thronberry said to a colleague.
They did not campaign specifically for indyref2 at Holyrood 2016 and thus have no mandate for it, especially as they lost their outright majority then anyway
It's almost heroic the amount of crap you spout on this subject from such a low knowledge base.
'We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
And there is no clear evidence independence has become the preferred option of most Scots even despite Brexit
Fuckin' hell, an inability to understand basic English, let alone Scottish politics.
'or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
Can I just clarify my position
If the SNP gain a majority in Holyrood 2021 then a referendum should take place probably in the Autumn of that year
I've just been looking at R L-B on wikipedia. It says she is a Roman Catholic. Could this be an issue regards e.g. abortion?
Roman Catholics, judging by ROI, don't give a shit about these things anymore, see Gay Marriage/PM and abortion rules
I think it’s more a large and increasing majority of the Irish don’t give a shit about Roman Catholicism. Something to do with paedophile priests and establishment coverups.
Now that you Tories Against Thatcherism have finally discovered the North of England exists, it is quite hilarious to see you queuing up to lecture Terry Christian on what Northern working class people should think.
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
I have no recommendation but please find below a link to the "astrology" section of Waterstones. Please choose the one that fits your budget.
Thanks for the, err, help. I note Dummies guide is on the first page and I was thinking about that one cus I've found the dummies books to be quite good quality.
They did not campaign specifically for indyref2 at Holyrood 2016 and thus have no mandate for it, especially as they lost their outright majority then anyway
It's almost heroic the amount of crap you spout on this subject from such a low knowledge base.
'We believe that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another referendum if there is clear and sustained evidence that independence has become the preferred option of a majority of the Scottish people – or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
And there is no clear evidence independence has become the preferred option of most Scots even despite Brexit
Fuckin' hell, an inability to understand basic English, let alone Scottish politics.
'or if there is a significant and material change in the circumstances that prevailed in 2014, such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against our will.'
Can I just clarify my position
If the SNP gain a majority in Holyrood 2021 then a referendum should take place probably in the Autumn of that year
Labour were actually very lucky at the election, because during the campaign there was a swing of about 5% from the LDs to Labour due to the ineptness of the LD campaign. Without that swing, the result would have been something like Con 43%, Lab 28%, LD 17%, and Labour would probably have won fewer than 170 seats.
There's always next time
Glad you made it tonight Byronic - I've got a question to ask you (and others please feel free to join in)
So you posted about Tarot one time (and framed it as a maths puzzle, very clever)
So, my GF is "New Age" and I want to buy her an astrology book for xmas.
I wondered if anyone had any recommendations????
That's a silly question.
Not really, I typed astrology into Waterstones website and hundreds came up - Which do I pick?
Comments
It would have been much more dangerous for the Labour party to lose 50 seats to a resurgent, europhile LibDems than to the Tories. Because it might be the start of allowing the LibDems to replace Labour.
I think there was no easy way out for Labour -- other than voting for May's deal, of course. But they were too stupid to realise that.
Ms Briskin was threatening to not reveal to me but once she'd done it she just told me.
I've very rarely told people what to do - and when I have they've never done it about 99.9pc of the time
There is more than tactics to this though, if a party believes in something, whether Remain or nationalisation then it should campaign for it. It may be less tactically astute, but it will be more honest.
It then waffles, but still
BTW I used to utterly dismiss all this woo-woo rubbish, but too many things have recently happened in my life, which defy rational explanation. I begin to wonder.
I know, shoot me. But there it is.
They went, between them, from a position in March of being able to vote for, or enforce a deadline to get May’s deal over the line to now, where they have Boris with an 80 seat majority.
Total prats, as it worked out.
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
Thanks for sharing, quite intriguing.
God Bless RLB.
++++
And there’s more. Given there is no possible route to a Labour govt of any kind even with SNP support that doesn’t go through West Bromwich, Stoke, Leigh, and Grimsby, how “ rejoiny” can Labour be next time?
If the EU, “North London”, the Lib Dem’s and the clever dick lawyers running off to court every five minutes or coming up with Byzantine Parliamentary wheezes had really accepted the vote of June 2016, they’d be in a better place now vis a vis our membership both now and in the future.
They didn’t, they spent three years carpet bombing people like me that we were thick, racist, stupid etc etc. Well we won. I hope we can be more gracious than they’ve been.
We need as a nation to rest, heal, and above all a bit of normality for a few years.
+++
Yes, this is why I think there won't be any Scots indyref for a while, let alone a YES vote. The nation is weary. Sturgeon knows this, she just has to feed her radical Nats some separatist ribeye
On your point, the Remainers totally fucked up all of this, from the start. Indeed you could easily argue they fucked this up from about Maastricht, when any kind of referendum, if offered, would have stopped EU integration for the UK, but kept us in the EU.
Instead they overplayed their hand all the way along, and in the end they have lost everything. Total wretched arrogance. Hubris/nemesis. Twats.
In which case, it's a bit of a problem for Labour that so many of the metropolitan Marxists regard the provincial workers with such total and utter contempt (as per Lady Nugee.)
https://twitter.com/terrychristian/status/1205825339500441600?s=20
And used that as justification for not allowing SindyRef2?
That makes no sense. Surely they should allow it and reap the benefit they think would accrue to themselves.
Their reward came at 22.00 on Thursday.
No government should be without the checks and balances of a competent opposition, particularly one led by someone as erratic as Johnson.
My advice would be to just back whatever the Tories bring back now. They aren't going to have any influence to change it or block it, so they may as well just go along with it. After all, the electorate have pretty much endorsed whatever it is that the Tories come up with.
If the Tories destroy themselves over the final deal, then so be it. Labour should keep their hands clean.
Well, if they're sensible - hmm.
Interestingly, some French historians trace the latest, most potent rise of the FN back to the French elite repudiating their own referendum on the Constitution.
You fuck with democracy at your peril.
Oh, I know, he's the guy who said Boris was unfit to be PM.
To me it was the moment the light bulb came on to say “hang on, these buggers are going to rub us out, integrate us into a USE, it’s just the speed that’s up for grabs, not the direction of travel. They are not going to let us alter the direction of travel. Whether we, the people, want it or not is of no consequence”.
Well we did alter the direction of travel.
So she'll be ramped endlessly until the members give in.
Then the Brexit issue would be closed tand they could move on. The issue was the Brexit issue wasn't closed. If Brexit had happened already then Leave/Remain/betrayal/whatever wouldn't matter so much.
It is alright for you posh PB Tories, I suspect you have a 'little man' do that sort of chore for you.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7794199/Labour-meltdown-MPs-warn-leader-Corbyn-without-beard.html
God alone knows what personal stuff lies behind this.
If the answer is then next generation there'll be a vote, I'm sure they can live with that.
https://www.waterstones.com/category/spirituality-beliefs/mind-body-and-spirit/fortune-telling-and-divination/astrology
Thank you for the tip about public school curriculars. It bodes well for environmental policy for the next five years.
Electorally naive Remainers thought the Tories would be screwed by Brexit not happening, but instead realistically the Tories just removed May and Johnson profited from being seen to show Parliament as the obstruction. The reality is Corbyn needed Brexit done more than Johnson - and he was the one to block it!
https://wheredotheystand.org.uk/t/salford-and-eccles/rebecca-long-bailey
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