General Election 2017

[Awol]

33 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

It'll end tears. The way I see it May is putting her Brexit agenda ahead of peace in Northern Ireland.

She's already been punished by the electorate for opportunistically conning them into another election, I hope they finish her and her party off at the next election, hopefully sooner rather than later.

She's not putting her Brexit agenda first, she's putting herself first.

This is about her personal survival as PM, nothing more than naked self interest. That's why she's cozying up to the DUP, there's no strategic thinking or thinking at all beyond reaching bedtime without having to resign - or concede she will have to go soon.

True character is revealed in a crisis and hers is squalid.

[Dr_Pangloss]

This really does put their hang ups over Corbyn's supposed IRA sympathies/ links into a new light. The DUP are still activity being backed by the UDA, a terrorist organisation. This will be the nail in May's coffin, and could will bring the entire Tory party as we know it, down. 

[Awol]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Shame? You either run a national political party or you don't. To his credit, Corbyn does. 

The labour party needs more mp's, not unstable alliances with other people's. You don't see the tories just giving up in seats where ukip do well do you? 

Agree, it's not for political parties to rig the options presented to the electorate in a particular constituency according to the preferences of those politicians. Doing so is undemocratic and the height of arrogance, imo. 

[PompeyVillan]

I don't believe progressive alliances are good tactically either. It presumes folk will vote with what they're presented with because the alternative is worse.

Sod that, I'd spoil if I supported the withdrawer in the alliance.

[HanoiVillan]

16 minutes ago, Awol said:

Agree, it's not for political parties to rig the options presented to the electorate in a particular constituency according to the preferences of those politicians. Doing so is undemocratic and the height of arrogance, imo. 

While I see your point, that goes a bit further than I would. 

My main issue is that supporters of a 'progressive alliance' think that they are being deep strategic thinkers by working out that LAB < CON and LD < CON while LAB + LD > CON in a constituency, while simply assuming that if either LAB or LD were not present all of the other party's voters would line up for the one that was present. This is simply, provably, not true. There are huge amounts of voters, especially in the South West of England, who would rather vote Tory than vote Lib Dem if the Lib Dem party was basically Labour's B team. I don't understand how people haven't worked this out after 2015. You can perform a similar analysis over large areas of Scotland w/r/t the SNP as well. 

[OutByEaster?]

3 hours ago, magnkarl said:

This time around Corbyn actually took the time to discuss policy rather than the shit show we saw with Trump/Hillary where the left pretty much brought themselves down by focusing on how morally superior they feel rather than why and how they offered a better solution than Trump. 

In fairness to the left in the US - in that contest, they had nothing else to do but to be angry against a system that put forward two right wing candidates - if there had been an alternative, I think you'd have seen a campaign with a little more focus on issues, as things stood, when you have a candidate who is further to the right than May and then an absolute looney who is in a field of his own, you can't expect the left, or centrists to debate policies that aren't part of the election.

Quote

Whoever gave Corbyn the tip to go more mainstream this election has hit the nail on the head. He ditched a lot of the things that made him unpalatable for older folks, for centrists and for people who don't like extremes. Being against the prevailing view of the left did not get shouted down by a bunch of Momentum activists, it got debated and discussed, which at the end of the day appeals to the gray vote which I am a part of.

This is really interesting because Corbyn hasn't changed at all. What's happened is that the more people have understood his views, the more people have actually read or heard what he's saying, the more they've moved away from the nonsense in the right wing press. Corbyn didn't go more mainstream - people listened and the mainstream moved to him. It's not Corbyn or Momentum who changed Magnkari, it's you.

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Let's hope the conservatives bring in a leader that can hold a debate without a critical motherboard overload every time she's asked a question, that way we'll be in pretty good shape moving forward.

I said a couple of pages back, that the best hope for the Conservative future is a softer Conservatism, with a slight move to the left in policy and a huge move to the lead of Labour's softer politics. Let's hope they don't do that - there's certainly no immediate hint that they will. The problem for Conservative party leaders in terms of current policy and debates is that it's hard to stay popular while you're telling people you're robbing them.

 

 

[darrenm]

4 hours ago, Chindie said:

Put it like this.

Corbyn ran a very good campaign, with a manifesto many liked, against a dreadful PM, running one of the worst campaigns ever, built on a terrible manifesto, and he managed to gain 30 seats. They lost votes to the Tories in traditionally Labour areas that voted Leave despite Labours declared position on Brexit. They lost working class votes. The Tories grew in vote share.

I just do not see many of the Tories traditional seats going for him. Ever.

No offence. But you were completely and utterly wrong about how the election was going all the way along. I've resisted smugly quoting many posts deriding me for how I saw it going. You were also very sure with your predictions before. Don't you think your radar may be a bit off?

[HanoiVillan]

8 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

In fairness to the left in the US - in that contest, they had nothing else to do but to be angry against a system that put forward two right wing candidates -

Woah woah woah this is not a good description of the US election at all. 

[darrenm]

3 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

There are two things you have to offer the British electorate to get them to vote for you - bribes and sentiment.

Corbyn understood this and May did not.

You may running a campaign? Surely all manifestos are bribes to someone or other?

3 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I reckon that was protest vote.  If they get a half decent leader whi isnt such a arrogant clearing in the woods that will be tory again

All inner cities and metropolitan areas are left leaning. Countryside and shires are right. Kensington shouldn't be that much of a shock.

[darrenm]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

This is the shame of what Corbyn and farron did, in declining to co operate with each other and the greens etc. There are a whole bunch of seats won by the tories, where if lib dems had stood down, labour would have won, or where if labour had stood down, lib dems would have won. Amber Rudd, Zak Goldsmith etc. would be out and lib dems and labour in. No Tory government....

Absolutely agreed. But again, perhaps it would have helped the coalition of chaos attack line and they wouldn't have won the seats they did. We'll never know.

[jon_c]

2 minutes ago, darrenm said:

All inner cities and metropolitan areas are left leaning. Countryside and shires are right. Kensington shouldn't be that much of a shock.

I wouldn't say all and right leaning, I live in the countryside and the Tories came fourth, and UKIP fifth. 

[darrenm]

Anyway, the way I see things going

Monday is going to be crazy. I think there may be perhaps conversations going behind the scenes between all centre/left parties. Labour, Lib Dem, Green, SNP, Plaid will possibly put out their Queen's speech and ask the house to invalidate the Tory / DUP coalition. Then we'd have a rainbow minority. Which would be fine.

[darrenm]

1 minute ago, jon_c said:

I wouldn't say all and right leaning, I live in the countryside and the Tories came fourth, and UKIP fifth. 

Yeah I'm talking very generally. Almost all shire and countryside seats did swing left still I believe. Those seats won't take long to follow the other outliers like Canterbury.

[snowychap]

4 minutes ago, darrenm said:

ask the house to invalidate the Tory / DUP coalition

What do you mean by this?

[jon_c]

Just now, darrenm said:

Anyway, the way I see things going

Monday is going to be crazy. I think there may be perhaps conversations going behind the scenes between all centre/left parties. Labour, Lib Dem, Green, SNP, Plaid will possibly put out their Queen's speech and ask the house to invalidate the Tory / DUP coalition. Then we'd have a rainbow minority. Which would be fine.

I think it would be very destructive to both the Lib Dems and SNP to enter into that coalition. Particularly given their strong anti-brexit stance. 

Also, I can't begin to imagine how they'd make up the cabinet. 

[OutByEaster?]

18 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Woah woah woah this is not a good description of the US election at all. 

I'm all a-whoa-ed. It's not an easy thing to describe. How would you go at it?

 

[PompeyVillan]

I think the best bet Labour have is to let May make a complete mess of this parliament and win the inevitable upcoming general election. Whenever it may be. They can't be criticised for opposing her in parliament because she/her party called the election and lost seats. 

She'll hugely damage the Conservatives credibility with this DUP deal with her small minority falling over in the commons. She's going to struggle to stop internal opponents in marginal constituencies rebelling.

If she attempts to enact her disastrous manifesto it'll lose out in the commons and if she doesn't she and and her party lose trust and credibility with the electorate.

Forget weak progressive alliances, its not strong enough, go for the throat at the next election.

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, OutByEaster? said:

I'm all a-whoa-ed. It's not an easy thing to describe. How would you go at it?

My objection is to 'a system that put forward two right-wing candidates'. 

There was a national primary process, across all 50 states and sundry other territories, in which Clinton got several million more votes than Sanders. The 'system' chose Clinton because that's what more Democratic primary participants wanted. You can argue that this was a mistake, on their part - I don't disagree. But it was a choice made by people, not by the Cigarette-Smoking Man. 

In the primaries, I 'backed' Clinton over Sanders, not because I liked her policies more, but because I thought she was a more likely winner. I was wrong, plain and simple, and I'm happy to admit it. Sanders supporters have been pretty quick - as they should be - to tell people to 'learn the lessons' of 2016. And I have. Go with your gut, even if you don't think it will win, because in a two-party system anything can happen, and analogues to 1972 (or 1983, to make the obvious parallel to bring this post back on topic) aren't necessarily predictive explanations. But Sanders supporters, and the left of the Democratic party, also have lessons to learn, the first one being that it's very difficult (impossible) to win a Democratic primary without appealing to African Americans, who went for Clinton over Sanders by nearly 80 points (I seem to recall - this may be slightly too high, but it was a very very large margin). Most of the people who voted for Clinton weren't 'right wingers', but they were active participants in an electoral process, not victims of a Potemkin stitch-up.  

[Chindie]

30 minutes ago, darrenm said:

No offence. But you were completely and utterly wrong about how the election was going all the way along. I've resisted smugly quoting many posts deriding me for how I saw it going. You were also very sure with your predictions before. Don't you think your radar may be a bit off?

No offence, but 'it's happening' didn't happen either. They missed a majority by 60 odd seats. So I wouldn't be too smug.

Yeah I, like just about everyone, got it wrong. I was hopeful I would be wrong. And I'm happy to be wrong. 

Corbyn will never hold a majority. I'll happy send £20 to any charity of your choice if he does. It's not happening. He did spectacularly well and still came massively short. He's not going to get there.

[OutByEaster?]

Fair enough - there's not a lot of attention here until you get down to the final knockings of the primary's. 

In political terms, Sanders is to the right of Corbyn by a little ways, probably a little nearer the Lib Dems, Hillary is I think a little further right than May - a smaller government, increased defence spending and a continued bonfire of regulations for banks and so on - Trump is basically someone who doesn't believe in government or for that matter democratic process, he's nearer the Koch brothers - I guess that's very far to the right, but it seems a different scale. 

I'm a big Bernie fan - but I think once we got down to the Presidential race, you can't blame the American left from being more than a little frustrated with what was being offered.