General Election Pre-Thread (4 of 6)

[The Fun Factory]

13 minutes ago, limpid said:

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

Yes exactly, but Labour terrrfied of mentioning it and ruling it out for the entire parliament.  This is almost an act of economic sabotage. Take away all of the brexit nonsense being part of the single market should be the bare minimum this country should be looking at, unless we consistently want  a 4-5% underperformance of our economy.

[bickster]

37 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

The current system allow a party to win a general election with about 25% of the votes

Please show me an election where this happened. I ask this as an advocate of electoral reform. What doesn't help is people making things up

35.2% is the lowest percentage of votes a party has ever won to win a General Election and that was in the Blair 2005 election

[tinker]

41 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

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.

Farage would align with the tories under PR giving them power. PR sounds great but as we seen with lib dem tory aliances it doesn't work well with our politicians. Brexit was a PR vote, maybe if we had voted for the party to manage brexit or remain we could have had more choice and managed the whole thing with more common sense, leave yes.......but let's not cut our throats playing to a fickle electorate. 

[bickster]

Just now, tinker said:

Farage would align with the tories under PR giving them power.

Thats one hell of a leap.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, tinker said:

Farage would align with the tories under PR giving them power. PR sounds great but as we seen with lib dem tory aliances it doesn't work well with our politicians. Brexit was a PR vote, maybe if we had voted for the party to manage brexit or remain we could have had more choice and managed the whole thing with more common sense, leave yes.......but let's not cut our throats playing to a fickle electorate. 

Based on current polling, a tory bastard PR alliance would get about a third of the seats. They appear to be largely competing for the same voters, not adding voters to their core.

 

[ml1dch]

30 minutes ago, limpid said:

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

[ml1dch]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Based on current polling, a tory bastard PR alliance would get about a third of the seats. They appear to be largely competing for the same voters, not adding voters to their core.

The "aligning with the Tories" error is that the Tories are a single-minded homogenous blob.

PR would likely mean that the factions in the Tory party wouldn't have stuck it out as long as they have. It's one thing Damien Green and Caroline Noakes voting with Boris Johnson to give the Tories a victory over Jeremy Corbyn, it's a whole other world them voting to put a mish-mash of Faragists into power just to keep Keir Starmer out.

So it's probably a lot less than a third. 

[markavfc40]

From 35 food banks in 2010 to over 1200 now. These bastards should never be given power again. 

 

[limpid]

56 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Yes exactly, but Labour terrrfied of mentioning it and ruling it out for the entire parliament.  This is almost an act of economic sabotage. Take away all of the brexit nonsense being part of the single market should be the bare minimum this country should be looking at, unless we consistently want  a 4-5% underperformance of our economy.

A party led by a solicitor has "ruled it out". Let's take a look at that wording....

They aren't going to say anything before the election that might spook the people conned by Brexit. I'll be happy when they go back on this.

[bickster]

 superb sampling methods for this one

 

[bickster]

 

[cyrusr]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

 superb sampling methods for this one

 

Its weird, really the Greens should be in a prime position to pick up the disaffected Left Labour voters but are just not polling well/not getting much traction. Stuff like this also seems really small time as well. Do they want to have a chance to have an impact on the election at all?

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

Its weird, really the Greens should be in a prime position to pick up the disaffected Left Labour voters but are just not polling well/not getting much traction. Stuff like this also seems really small time as well. Do they want to have a chance to have an impact on the election at all?

I disagree, in 2019 the Greens were polling at between 2-3% of the electorate and ended up with 2.6%

They are currently polling at around 6% So if that holds will have over doubled their vote share in one election cycle

I'm also of the opinion that disaffected hardcore Corbynites aren't as big a subset of the population that they like to think. Also lot of former Corbynites are still voting Labour and are either holding their nose or have realised the idea was a bit daft.

There are also as many disaffected Tory NIMBY types in the Green figures  as there are Corbynites

[The Fun Factory]

The greens are bit like Reform in the fact that they will poll  quite a lot of votes across a lot of constituencies but not enough to challenge for a seat, apart from  a few in Bristol and Brighton. All part of our wonderful first past the post system, designed for a two party system when we are moving away from that in our voting behaviour.

[cyrusr]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

I disagree, in 2019 the Greens were polling at between 2-3% of the electorate and ended up with 2.6%

They are currently polling at around 6% So if that holds will have over doubled their vote share in one election cycle

I'm also of the opinion that disaffected hardcore Corbynites aren't as big a subset of the population that they like to think. Also lot of former Corbynites are still voting Labour and are either holding their nose or have realised the idea was a bit daft.

There are also as many disaffected Tory NIMBY types in the Green figures  as there are Corbynites

I forgot they didn't get that many in 2019; always had them around 5/6% in my head to be fair. 

[bickster]

Not quite Zinoviev but its getting there. I'm honestly speechless as to how bad that is.

 

[The Fun Factory]

12 minutes ago, bickster said:

Not quite Zinoviev but its getting there. I'm honestly speechless as to how bad that is.

 

Well Churchill compared the incoming Labour Government to the Getaspo after the end of the war so no change really. The nasty party since the dawn of time.

[bickster]

13 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Well Churchill compared the incoming Labour Government to the Getaspo after the end of the war so no change really. The nasty party since the dawn of time.

If I was the Labour Party I know how I'd respond

Russia Report, Lebvedev, Russian donations...

I'll be disappointed in Labour if they don't tbh

It's also interesting that they could have chucked ths Reform's way and have had an actual point but they shit out of doing that.

[viivvaa66]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Please show me an election where this happened. I ask this as an advocate of electoral reform. What doesn't help is people making things up

35.2% is the lowest percentage of votes a party has ever won to win a General Election and that was in the Blair 2005 election

I didn’t say it has happened, but that it theoretical could happen. If a party gets 0% in 324 constituencies and 50% in 326 constituencies, they win a majority in the parliament with about 25% of the votes. Actually it could be even lower if the votes in 326 constituencies they won were split among many parties, and less than 50% would win the seat.

I have problem understanding how a system where 35.2% of the votes win you the right to govern the country, is allowed to be called a democracy. 

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

but that it theoretical could happen

It's not