UK - December 2019 General Election

[lionking]

I don't think Corbyn could ever grasp the importance of presentation and being "on message" - two things at which, for example, his Labour predecessor Blair excelled.
Corbyn should - and could - have dealt early on and decisively on this whole antisemitism thing. But by dithering and refusing to put his cards on the table until well into the 11th hour, he left voters with a confused and ambiguous message about his stance on the issue.

And, I might add, Corbyn made exactly the same type of mistake over Brexit. It's an open secret that Corbyn prefers the UK to leave the EU; he should either have made his personal position crystal clear early on (and he could still have left plenty of room for pledging to put his deal to a confirmatory referendum alongside the Remain option), or he should have declared early on that the Labour party position was for Remain. If he'd done that, then of course there'd still have been many within his party who were staunch Brexiteers and who might seek to undermine the official Labour Remain position, but he was inevitably going to have to face that sort of issue regardless; and by coming out for Remain, he'd have immediately set out a polar differentiation from the Conservative position, from the only party which stood a realistic change of gaining more seats than the Conservatives in the GE.

I genuinely think that if Labour had officially come out for Remain, this could have been at least a very close-run election. But now we'll never know.

Again I absolutely agree. (I hope your heart isn't too damaged by regular agreement.....)

 

[Skeptic Tank]

 

[trustbutverify]

Labour was losing votes to the Brexit Party. The Tory appeal to Nationalism was successful and a wonderful example of wedge politics. It lost votes elsewhere, of course, but the worst loss was it's traditional support to nationalist rednecks. The same tactics used in the USA and Australia.

Yes, and the hard left roasted Clinton as the reason for it. The story they told was she was such a horrible candidate that she pushed the working class into Trump's arms... and, had they been given a real choice, with a true social-democrat vs the right wing populist, Trump never would have stood a chance. Will Corbyn now be held responsible for this humiliation?

 

[KDLarsen]

Hey, same here. I've always been of the view that a bad Labour/Labor government is better than a good Tory/Liberal government, but Corbyn has led me to reevaluate this belief.

Is any seriously surprised with this outcome?

I doubt anyone seriously considered that Corbyn would outright win, but the level and size of the defeat surely must have surprised some. Even in the 1983 election, with 'the longest suicide note in history', they still scraped home more than 200 MP's. Of course, that was largely down to the Red Wall, which in those days would still have been fiercely loyal to the party, but these days are more loyal to the thought of Brexit.

I was listening to Andrew Neil earlier in the night (Danish TV carried the BBC1 signal from midnight to 6 AM CET), and he kept asking various Tory representatives if they could actually offer anything to the voters in the 'Red Wall' constituencies who had voted Tories, and what they were going to do in the next election, when Brexit presumably would be over and done with, and those constituencies still won't be overflowing with milk, honey and £350 million per week to the NHS. Unsurprisingly, he found it rather difficult to get an anwer.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Does this count as a redo of the initial Brexit referendum? Seems like it settles the issue that a revote would have the same outcome. The Russian interference didn't change the election outcome hopefully.

The parties supporting a second referendum got more votes than the Tories.

Tories got 80 seats more on 43% of the vote than the others got on 57% of the vote.

FPTP has no place in a modern democracy.

Most infuriating swiz in recent times is the lie that PR was rejected when what was put forward was the most crazy, mutated, bloody shambolic mess that bore barely any resemblance to PR.

 

[The Don]

The parties supporting a second referendum got more votes than the Tories.

Tories got over 50 seats more on 43% of the vote than the others got on 57% of the vote.

FPTP has no place in a modern democracy.

Most infuriating swiz in recent times is the lie that PR was rejected when what was put forward was the most crazy, mutated, bloody shambolic mess that bore barely any resemblance to PR.

We British seem impervious to any kind of innovation in elections.

Despite FPTP being a terrible system, it's the one we've grown up with and so we'll stick with it regardless. The "problem" with proportional representation is that it almost inevitably results in coalition government which requires politicians to behave like adults, compromise and come to a consensus. This is anathema to UK MPs (as it also appears to be in the US) because any deviation from your original position, no matter the reason, is unacceptable weakness.

Likewise with the whole "go down to the polling station and put a cross on a piece of paper" thing followed by hours, days even, of manual counting. This is not the 19th century.

Then again people in the UK still drink pints, refuse to get rid of the 1p and 2p coins which have no useful purpose and cling on to the monarchy so perhaps we're beyond hope

 

[Pixel42]

As a good socialist I've always been determined not to buy private health insurance, I even turned it down when it was offered free by my employer. It's now the first thing on my shopping list for the new year. I no longer feel the slightest inclination to consider the welfare of my fellow citizens. **** em. They've chosen to make this bed, they can bloody well lie in it.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

As a good socialist I've always been determined not to buy private health insurance, I even turned it down when it was offered free by my employer. It's now the first thing on my shopping list for the new year. I no longer feel the slightest inclination to consider the welfare of my fellow citizens. **** em. They've chosen to make this bed, they can bloody well lie in it.

It will be hard to have sympathy when Brexit starts to hit some of them and they realise the Tories don’t give a stuff about them.

 

[The Don]

As a good socialist I've always been determined not to buy private health insurance, I even turned it down when it was offered free by my employer.

Me too.

It's now the first thing on my shopping list for the new year. I no longer feel the slightest inclination to consider the welfare of my fellow citizens. **** em. They've chosen to make this bed, they can bloody well lie in it.

I'm not quite there.........yet

 

[The Don]

It will be hard to have sympathy when Brexit starts to hit some of them and they realise the Tories don’t give a stuff about them.

The thing is, they won't realise anything of the sort, they'll continue to blame immigrants, the last Labour government or simply refuse to acknowledge that there is an issue.

 

[Puppycow]

Has power shifted in Northern Ireland?

DUP lost two seats. A party called Social Democratic and Labour Party gained two seats. Sinn Fein unchanged.

I'm wondering if NI had a referendum on reunification, what the result would be.

 

[Brainster]

Let the blame game begin.

Ken Livingstone finds an old, reliable target: the Jews.

"The Jewish vote wasn't very helpful," Mr Livingstone said.

Can racism, sexism or Putin be far behind?

 

[angrysoba]

Has power shifted in Northern Ireland?

DUP lost two seats. A party called Social Democratic and Labour Party gained two seats. Sinn Fein unchanged.

I'm wondering if NI had a referendum on reunification, what the result would be.

The SDLP are a long-standing party once led by John Hume. Basically they have similar aims to Sinn Fein but not the same methods or IRA connections.

 

[The Don]

Let the blame game begin.

Ken Livingstone finds an old, reliable target: the Jews.



Can racism, sexism or Putin be far behind?

Actually, he blamed Corbyn for failing to tackle antisemitism effectively

The former Labour MP and Mayor of London, said his friend and ally Jeremy Corbyn had paid the price for several aspects of his campaign, including not taking more action against anti-semitism.

"The Jewish vote wasn't very helpful," Mr Livingstone said

"Jeremy should have tackled that issue far earlier than he did."

 

[The Don]

Has power shifted in Northern Ireland?

DUP lost two seats. A party called Social Democratic and Labour Party gained two seats. Sinn Fein unchanged.

I'm wondering if NI had a referendum on reunification, what the result would be.

The SDLP are a long-standing party once led by John Hume. Basically they have similar aims to Sinn Fein but not the same methods or IRA connections.

Does that therefore represent a net loss of 2 unionist seats ?

 

[Architect]

We British seem impervious to any kind of innovation in elections.

(cough) Holyrood (cough)

 

[psionl0]

The parties supporting a second referendum got more votes than the Tories.

Tories got 80 seats more on 43% of the vote than the others got on 57% of the vote.

FPTP has no place in a modern democracy.

Most infuriating swiz in recent times is the lie that PR was rejected when what was put forward was the most crazy, mutated, bloody shambolic mess that bore barely any resemblance to PR.

If you are talking about the 2011 referendum, it was AV and not PR that was rejected. AV is hardly a "crazy, mutated, bloody shambolic mess".

 

[uke2se]

I think I can speak for most EU-citizens and say that we'll welcome Scotland back into the union with open arms. Just hope you guys can manage it without bloodshed.

 

[Puppycow]

Does that therefore represent a net loss of 2 unionist seats ?

I think so.

https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2019/results/northern_ireland

 

[P.J. Denyer]

As a good socialist I've always been determined not to buy private health insurance, I even turned it down when it was offered free by my employer. It's now the first thing on my shopping list for the new year. I no longer feel the slightest inclination to consider the welfare of my fellow citizens. **** em. They've chosen to make this bed, they can bloody well lie in it.

I'd probably feel the same if I was in a position to afford it. Frankly I'm very, very worried. just keep remembering that more than 50% didn't vote for Johnson