General Election Pre-Thread (4 of 6)

[chrisp65]

It’s got to the point now where I’m disappointed it looks like the tories will stay in double figures.

[bickster]

17 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It’s got to the point now where I’m disappointed it looks like the tories will stay in double figures.

Yep, not particularly convinced by IPSOS tbh

Green 3 and Plaid 4 seems a bit of a stretch

Also SNP and LibDems seem low

[viivvaa66]

That 45% of the votes can result in 75% of the MPs, is not a proper democracy.

It means that 55% of UK voted against Labour, but still they get to run the country, without a real mandate by the electorate.

In my view that any party can be allowed to govern the country without the majority of the electorate behind them is why we end up in this mess again and again. At the moment it is the conservatives that messed up everything and is hated by everyone, but it not that long ago everybody hated Labour and Blair, and before that Thatcher and so on. Now hindsight is needed to predict that a few years from now, Labour would be the hated one, and the conservatives will be the saviours.

[ml1dch]

41 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

It means that 55% of UK voted against Labour, but still they get to run the country, without a real mandate by the electorate.

No different to 2019 when 56% of the country voted against the Tories. Or 2015 when 63% of the country voted against the Tories. 

They still got to ruin (sic) the country.

[mjmooney]

Quote

A billionaire who gave the Conservatives £500,000 before the last general election has told the BBC he will vote Labour for the first time in his life next month. 

John Caudwell, the founder of Phones 4U, described Rishi Sunak as an “absolute dud” and said the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer “just really hits the spot with a lot of issues with me”. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw00rgq24xvo

 

[jones1328]

8 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw00rgq24xvo

 

I hope he's been just as generous with donating money to far more worthy causes than the Tory parties coffers.

[Mark Albrighton]

13 minutes ago, jones1328 said:

I hope he's been just as generous with donating money to far more worthy causes than the Tory parties coffers.

Having seen a programme about his home, I can confirm he’s been generous in buying a lot of gaudy furnishings and interior design to house and keep them off the streets and out of the public view.

[Jon]

3 hours ago, mjmooney said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw00rgq24xvo

 

He comes across as a total rocket polisher.  

[viivvaa66]

3 hours ago, ml1dch said:

No different to 2019 when 56% of the country voted against the Tories. Or 2015 when 63% of the country voted against the Tories. 

They still got to ruin (sic) the country.

That was my point in the section you didn’t quoted, so we are in total agreement.

The democracy in UK is rubbish, and should be replaced by real democracy where the government has the backing of the majority of the people.

A two party system like we have here and US do not work. One thing is that in most political issues have more than two opinions on how to solve them. With only two parties, only people with opinion a or b, have a party to cast their vote for, while those that thinks option c or d is the best solution is not represented by the two parties. And don’t think for a second that option a or b are the two best options.

Secondly it creates an us vs them divide, that isn’t related to actual policies. Now we hate conservatives and vote Labour because they are not the conservatives. Despite most of Labour’s policies could as likely been conservative policies. And before someone feels the need to point it out, yes conservatives won a few election just because they weren’t Labour, not because of their great policies.

Unless we change the system, we will continue this circle of madness where party X is elected by a minority because we hate party Y, and then a few years later a minority elects party Y because we hate party X. 

[tinker]

6 hours ago, viivvaa66 said:

That was my point in the section you didn’t quoted, so we are in total agreement.

The democracy in UK is rubbish, and should be replaced by real democracy where the government has the backing of the majority of the people.

A two party system like we have here and US do not work. One thing is that in most political issues have more than two opinions on how to solve them. With only two parties, only people with opinion a or b, have a party to cast their vote for, while those that thinks option c or d is the best solution is not represented by the two parties. And don’t think for a second that option a or b are the two best options.

Secondly it creates an us vs them divide, that isn’t related to actual policies. Now we hate conservatives and vote Labour because they are not the conservatives. Despite most of Labour’s policies could as likely been conservative policies. And before someone feels the need to point it out, yes conservatives won a few election just because they weren’t Labour, not because of their great policies.

Unless we change the system, we will continue this circle of madness where party X is elected by a minority because we hate party Y, and then a few years later a minority elects party Y because we hate party X. 

Rather that than people like Farage getting a say in running the country, which is what PR would give us. Too many voters believe in his sound bites, if he had any power he would drive this country into an early grave, his brexit retric has cost us already yet no accountability for the lies he spread,  he just moves onto the next subject that stirs the masses up.

As for labour making a mess of it, I think that's just bollox compared to the tories who have destroyed this country. Under labour , the NHS was better and so was the majority of public services, the reason Labour went,  in my eyes , is Blair invading Iraq after the biggest anti war demo ever, arrogance. 

[delboy54]

Ok fellow VT ers, I have a dilemma...

In my local constituency of West Suffolk the Tory candidate came round knocking at doors yesterday.

I opened the door expecting an Amazon delivery but to find myself being introduced by Nick Timothy.

Now I am a polite sort of guy, heard what he said took his leaflet and find that whoever comes round wanting my vote I always say yes i will vote for you, as it's the quickest way to get rid of them.

Well I did a bit of research because it is extremely rare to actually have the candidate on their own canvassing, as I had heard of this guy.

You can look him up on wiki.

BUT we got chatting about football (Ipswich Town are huge round here) and it turns out that he is from Brum and educated at Aston king Ed's grammer school ......please say you support small heath I thought, however he is a big Villa fan, and has been all his life.

 

[delboy54]

To be fair he did come across as a bit of an ar$e

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, delboy54 said:

Ok fellow VT ers, I have a dilemma...

In my local constituency of West Suffolk the Tory candidate came round knocking at doors yesterday.

I opened the door expecting an Amazon delivery but to find myself being introduced by Nick Timothy.

Now I am a polite sort of guy, heard what he said took his leaflet and find that whoever comes round wanting my vote I always say yes i will vote for you, as it's the quickest way to get rid of them.

Well I did a bit of research because it is extremely rare to actually have the candidate on their own canvassing, as I had heard of this guy.

You can look him up on wiki.

BUT we got chatting about football (Ipswich Town are huge round here) and it turns out that he is from Brum and educated at Aston king Ed's grammer school ......please say you support small heath I thought, however he is a big Villa fan, and has been all his life.

 

Some villa fans are words removed. Nick Timothy is one of them

 

[Jon]

13 minutes ago, delboy54 said:

Ok fellow VT ers, I have a dilemma...

In my local constituency of West Suffolk the Tory candidate came round knocking at doors yesterday.

I opened the door expecting an Amazon delivery but to find myself being introduced by Nick Timothy.

Now I am a polite sort of guy, heard what he said took his leaflet and find that whoever comes round wanting my vote I always say yes i will vote for you, as it's the quickest way to get rid of them.

Well I did a bit of research because it is extremely rare to actually have the candidate on their own canvassing, as I had heard of this guy.

You can look him up on wiki.

BUT we got chatting about football (Ipswich Town are huge round here) and it turns out that he is from Brum and educated at Aston king Ed's grammer school ......please say you support small heath I thought, however he is a big Villa fan, and has been all his life.

 

Don't vote for anyone with 2 first names.  

[mjmooney]

Quote

It’s a two-horse race and rival parties can’t win here. That’s the claim you often see on political leaflets, often with a bar chart appearing to back it up. But can you trust it? 

What to watch out for with bar charts claiming who can win your seat - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c722gl8rzdro

Quote

It’s a two-horse race and rival parties can’t win here. That’s the claim you often see on political leaflets, often with a bar chart appearing to back it up. But can you trust it?

This is about tactical voting: for instance, the Liberal Democrats trying to get Labour voters or Green voters to back them to get the Conservatives out, or vice versa.

 

 

[NurembergVillan]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Some villa fans are words removed. Nick Timothy is one of them

 

He follows me on Twitter.

I don't follow him back.

[cyrusr]

2 hours ago, delboy54 said:

Ok fellow VT ers, I have a dilemma...

In my local constituency of West Suffolk the Tory candidate came round knocking at doors yesterday.

I opened the door expecting an Amazon delivery but to find myself being introduced by Nick Timothy.

Now I am a polite sort of guy, heard what he said took his leaflet and find that whoever comes round wanting my vote I always say yes i will vote for you, as it's the quickest way to get rid of them.

Well I did a bit of research because it is extremely rare to actually have the candidate on their own canvassing, as I had heard of this guy.

You can look him up on wiki.

BUT we got chatting about football (Ipswich Town are huge round here) and it turns out that he is from Brum and educated at Aston king Ed's grammer school ......please say you support small heath I thought, however he is a big Villa fan, and has been all his life.

 

Yeah he was the political advisor to Theresa May in the period when she called the 2017 general election (and subsequentially lost the majority). 

He is also a member of the Centre of Policy Studies (https://cps.org.uk/our-team/nick-timothy/) and Policy Exchange  (https://policyexchange.org.uk/author/nicktimothy/) which are two of the right wing "think tanks" on Tufton Street. These "think tanks" were in essence behind the "logic" of the Liz Truss' budget which pretty much broke the economy. 

So, yeah @bickster says, some Villa fans are words removed and he is very much one of them. He also looks really weird without a beard. 

 

Oh and I see that Matt Hancock was your former MP, that is rather unfortunate for you! Labour appear to be the choice on tactical voting on both Best for Britain and Stop the Tories should you wish for a non-Tory representation. 

[viivvaa66]

2 hours ago, tinker said:

Rather that than people like Farage getting a say in running the country, which is what PR would give us. Too many voters believe in his sound bites, if he had any power he would drive this country into an early grave, his brexit retric has cost us already yet no accountability for the lies he spread,  he just moves onto the next subject that stirs the masses up.

As for labour making a mess of it, I think that's just bollox compared to the tories who have destroyed this country. Under labour , the NHS was better and so was the majority of public services, the reason Labour went,  in my eyes , is Blair invading Iraq after the biggest anti war demo ever, arrogance. 

You argue that Farage would get power with PR, but at the same time you give him credit for Brexit in a non PR system.

I have seen Reform getting about 10% to 18% in the polls, not remotely enough to get a majority if there were PR. Yes, they would get MP’s that could voice their silly ideas in parliament, but Farage would have no power in the direction of the country. The current system allow a party to win a general election with about 25% of the votes, so Reform is closer to get power now than in a PR system.

Brexit was a result of the two party system and wouldn’t have happened with PR. Because Cameron wanted the support of the Farage supporters, he campaigned on having a vote on UK’s EU membership, but with PR the Farage voters would have voted for their own UKIP party, and Cameron would have campaigned on more sensible policies regarding EU. Maybe slightly oversimplified, but the point is that PR keeps the extreme policies out of the mainstream parties, and keeps those ideas in small fringe parties without any power. Democracy is not pretty, but an important part is that everybody should be heard, even if you disagree with them.

Thatcher won the election in 79, with the slogan “Labour isn’t working”, so every time a party has been in power for some time it becomes fashionable to dislike them. This seems to be a cyclical event in British politics, that is repeated again and again. Will Labour this time be perfect and be liked forever? Not a chance, the history will repeat itself.

[The Fun Factory]

Hope everyone remembered  to register to vote. I heard something on the news that up to 8 million people could be  not allowed to vote by having an incorrect address, is that true? Would affect Labour vote more.

It has been a odd election campaign. Labour on growth, Tories on tax cuts, Greens on tax increases and Lib Dems on social care. And yet personally for me the two biggest issues that this country faces,  how to adapt to climate change and how to repair our relations with Europe, seem to be issues that no one want to talk about.

[limpid]

11 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

It has been a odd election campaign. Labour on growth, Tories on tax cuts, Greens on tax increases and Lib Dems on social care. And yet personally for me the two biggest issues that this country faces,  how to adapt to climate change and how to repair our relations with Europe, seem to be issues that no one want to talk about.

I can only think of one quick way to generate growth.