UK - December 2019 General Election

[The Don]

Overall this is a major condemnation of Corbyn and his 'leadership'. If I were a member of Labour I'd demand he resign unless Labour wins a majority.

Trouble is that a lot of the moderate members have already left the Labour Party and so Jeremy Corbyn will have the support of the majority of members regardless of the results of the election. Indeed, as I pointed out upthread, a thorough drubbing at the ballot box would be affirmation to many on the left that they're on the right tack

 

[McHrozni]

Trouble is that a lot of the moderate members have already left the Labour Party and so Jeremy Corbyn will have the support of the majority of members regardless of the results of the election.

Yes, obviously. American politics are broken, but the situation in UK is far worse than in USA. In the USA, a major party has been taken over by idiot fanatics. In UK, both major parties have.

USA is currently still resolvable. It is entirely possible a major trashing at the ballot box or three either forces the GOP to act differently or else sees them reduced to a minor local party with the DNC taking over and eventually splitting into a left and a right party. It's a rosy view perhaps but it happened before - Whigs splintered and this guy called Abraham Lincoln and his friends created the Republican party that eventually absorbed the racist part of the Democrat party, giving us the GOP we now all know and -(love).

UK does not have that option, because it does not have a sane major party left. Any such resolution will have to go either through the compromised LibDem or a creation of a two new parties that will compete for votes of either LibDem and Tories or LibDem and Labour. With FPTP the first side to create one is at an disadvantage. The other option is for moderates to flock to either of two major parties, restoring sanity. This is even less likely.

Indeed, as I pointed out upthread, a thorough drubbing at the ballot box would be affirmation to many on the left that they're on the right tack

As a general rule:
A _________________ (victory/defeat/deluge/12 plagues/everyone winning the lottery/...) would be affirmation to many on the _____ (either side of the spectrum) that they're on the right tack.
Insert as needed.

McHrozni

 

[Vixen]

Ten days to go and it looks as if Tories will scrape by a small majority.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

Mid range:
Tory: 324
Labour: 226
SNP: 44
LibDem: 15
DUP: 8
SF: 7
Plaid: 4
Alliance: 3
Green: 1

The mid-range of the results is slightly better for the Conservatives than 2017 election, with Labour doing notably worse. SNP does significantly better, LibDem, DUP do slightly worse but the difference is minimal because of the low number of seats in play.

Overall this is a major condemnation of Corbyn and his 'leadership'. If I were a member of Labour I'd demand he resign unless Labour wins a majority. One more sets of polls next week will give the indication of trend, if there is a wobble in support of Tories and an increase in Labour it may yet come to pass. If the opposite is true you Brits can look forward to your own Trump for the next five to twenty years.

Well, the Englanders can, at any rate.

McHrozni

This is massively down from the 80 point lead last week:

Current Prediction: Conservative majority 34

Eleven days to go. Eleven days is a long time in politics.

 

[ceptimus]

The usual polling pattern in recent elections has been to gradually narrow the margin of whichever party starts out in the lead, until approaching election day it is "too close to call." I wonder if this one will be different?

There's an argument that opinion polls should be banned during any election campaign, so that those polls can't influence voters. The idea is that people would then have to vote based on their own personal opinion. Banning opinion polls would reduce the scope for tactical voting and the "negative feedback loop" of voters not bothering to vote because they think their chosen candidate is already winning easily.

Seems to be running to form, so far.

 

[McHrozni]

This is massively down from the 80 point lead last week:

Eleven days to go. Eleven days is a long time in politics.

Yes, I put it here to gauge the change in the last - and most indicative - week of polling.

McHrozni

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Yes, obviously. American politics are broken, but the situation in UK is far worse than in USA. In the USA, a major party has been taken over by idiot fanatics. In UK, both major parties have.

What Labour policies do you regard as the work of idiot fanatics incidentally?

 

[KDLarsen]

Has anyone seen Rees-Mogg as of late? He really appears to have gone to ground following his disastrous remarks about the Greenfeld Tower victims.

 

[Rolfe]

I saw a friend of a friend tweet that he'd been at his door and he'd given him a piece of his mind. (If you can parse all the pronouns.)

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I saw a friend of a friend tweet that he'd been at his door and he'd given him a piece of his mind. (If you can parse all the pronouns.)

Hopefully it was a piece with mirror neurons, Where's Moggy needs to get some empathy from somewhere.

Johnson refused to answer whether Mogg still have a place in a new government, assuming the Torys win and Johnson & Mogg are both returned, there's been speculation that means "No" but I think it's actually "Yes but Mogg's too unpopular for me to admit it".

 

[McHrozni]

What Labour policies do you regard as the work of idiot fanatics incidentally?

We can start with their Brexit no-policy 'policy' that sees Labour trail behind the organizers behind the kingpins of the most destructive policy of the generation for the second election in a row.

McHrozni

 

[Andy_Ross]

We can start with their Brexit no-policy 'policy' that sees Labour trail behind the organizers behind the kingpins of the most destructive policy of the generation for the second election in a row.

McHrozni

I think Brexit is a lot more popular than you think.
Most of the people I know are for it regardless of the effect it has.
In both the Pubs I go to I am a lone voice against.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

Is Brexit popular because it's perceived as the patriotic thing to do? I've been wondering about that for some time. I've seen interviews with pro-brexit people who clearly have no real understanding of economics or anything fact-based, really. They seem to just -feel- that it's the right thing to do.

 

[The Don]

Is Brexit popular because it's perceived as the patriotic thing to do? I've been wondering about that for some time. I've seen interviews with pro-brexit people who clearly have no real understanding of economics or anything fact-based, really. They seem to just -feel- that it's the right thing to do.

There are many reasons behind people supporting Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn's reasons are very different to Nigel Farage.

IMO however, a combination of jingoism. xenophobia and harking back to the days of Empire when "Britain was great" is certainly a factor for a significant number of Brexit supporters.

 

[KDLarsen]

Is Brexit popular because it's perceived as the patriotic thing to do? I've been wondering about that for some time. I've seen interviews with pro-brexit people who clearly have no real understanding of economics or anything fact-based, really. They seem to just -feel- that it's the right thing to do.

It often sure sounds like it. The Guardian is running a series of articles from Stevenage, and here's one of the pro-Brexit voter's view:

“I didn’t pay any notice to what was written on the side of the bus,” he says. “I wanted us to stand on our own two feet. I think we can. And I think we should. I don’t like the fact that we’re dictated to.”

Even if it makes us worse off, I ask him. “Yes,” he says. “It might be uncomfortable but that doesn’t mean we stop. People remember what was said if we voted to leave. What was going to happen to the economy. What was going to happen to jobs. It was going to be Armageddon. It never happened. The truth is none of us know. I don’t know. The experts don’t know. We won’t know until it’s happened and then we’ll have to deal with it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/30/the-view-from-stevenage-union-rep-not-voting-labour

Whenever the economy, and how it hasn't felt any hit post-Brexit, is mentioned, I often wonder if he's realised that a) the UK hasn't actually left the EU yet, and b) the Chancellor & the Bank of England pretty much opened the sluice gates in order to soften the landing, but at some point they'll have to be closed.

 

[Pixel42]

It's tribalism, pure and simple. Us and Them. White Brits are Us, everybody else is Them. They don't want Them living next door, or having any say in what We can and can't do. Hence my leave voting acquaintance who describes people who have lived here all their lives as foreigners simply because they don't look and sound exactly like her.

Tribalism is natural, of course, even instinctive. But so is hitting people over the head and taking their stuff. Civilised people control and override their animal instincts, that's what civilised means. But the tide of civilisation ebbs and flows, and currently it's in retreat pretty much everywhere. We can only hope it will turn soon, before the damage is irreversible.

 

[GlennB]

I think Brexit is a lot more popular than you think.
Most of the people I know are for it regardless of the effect it has.
In both the Pubs I go to I am a lone voice against.

If I were in a generally 'leave' pub I'd probably keep my gob shut, just to avoid futile arguments. I expect there are other remainers in your pub.

 

[Dave Rogers]

If I were in a generally 'leave' pub I'd probably keep my gob shut, just to avoid futile arguments. I expect there are other remainers in your pub.

If my experiences are anything to go by, it's possible to identify them by the half-smile, gentle shake of the head and subtle eye-rolling expression. Any subsequent conversation with them should generally be conducted very quietly in a corner to avoid a noisy and possibly violent argument.

I wish I were joking.

Dave

 

[Rolfe]

“I didn’t pay any notice to what was written on the side of the bus,” he says. “I wanted us to stand on our own two feet. I think we can. And I think we should. I don’t like the fact that we’re dictated to.”

You know, if anyone had said this during the Scottish independence referendum we'd have been pilloried as all sorts of evil racist blood-and-soil nationalist scum. Actually, even though that sort of rhetoric was conspicuous by its absence in 2014 a lot of the commentators decided just to say it was happening anyway.

It's quite instructive the way the Scottish campaign was rigorously policed to squash anything like that as being unacceptable (and yet we were accused of it anyway), and yet now it seems to be the absolutely unashamed face of the English Brexiteer.

 

[Rolfe]

If I were in a generally 'leave' pub I'd probably keep my gob shut, just to avoid futile arguments. I expect there are other remainers in your pub.

In Scotland it seems to be the opposite. Brexiteers (assuming there are any left, those of my acquaintance have gone awfully quiet) are the ones keeping their heads down. People come out with anti-Brexit comments about as readily as they complain about the weather on a rainy day, and don't imagine anyone is going to contradict them. And usually they're right.

Even local revue performances and things like that routinely take a "Bollocks to Brexit" line and expect and get laughs.

 

[McHrozni]

I think Brexit is a lot more popular than you think.
Most of the people I know are for it regardless of the effect it has.
In both the Pubs I go to I am a lone voice against.

The politicians are not suppose to ask the public what is their opinion, then shout it from rooftops. They're supposed to ask the difficult questions, give difficult answers and then persuade the public their answers are indeed the best solution for the nation.

You don't need a well-paid political body to just do what the prevailing opinion of the public is. You can have just a small body of minimum-wage bureocrats who just do whatever the polls say should happen. It's cheaper, faster and has a lot less hassle than populist politics practiced by Labour.

Tories at least have an ideological backing for Brexit, horrible though it might be.

McHrozni