2017 UK General Election - 8th June

Sam Russell wrote: »

Well, they asked the wrong question. There are many ways of having a fair, democratic, election. The French use a two vote system where, if the first vote does not produce a result of a 50% plus winner, the have a run off of the top two candidates.

Other countries use a list system to equalise the popular vote vs the candidate vote - voters vote for a candidate and for a party and the party list is used to top up the stength of under-represented parties. Under this system, UKIP would have won at least some seats, and the Tories would not have got a majority on 37% of the votes. Some countries give the winning party bonus seats to get a stable government.

The referendum talked about an 'alternative vote' system which was a second choice system - nuts.

STV is portrayed as a complicated system but it is actually very simple - vote in the order of your choice - how hard can that be? The complication comes in the counting.

So the LibDems settled for a rushed referendum with a simple but confused question with no time to get the electorate energised by the advantages of their preferred result. Their question should have been a simple 'in-out' type question to rid the elections of 'the undemocratic' FPTP system and have a Royal Commission to select a replacement. That is how they ballsed it up.

Look at how long the SNP took to get their question asked, how much preparation they went to in order to answer the questions before they were asked, how exercised they got the electorate to vote, and how nearly they won. In the subsequent election they nearly swept the board.

Not so the LibDems - they were nearly annihilated in the following election. How could they have done any worse?

The thing is, this was the first time in a very long time that such a small party was in government, albeit in a coalition. They got the referendum as part of the coalition agreement with the Conservatives.

Ultimately, this showed how uninterested the public were as a whole in voting reform. That the two main parties both opposed it means that FPTP is likely here for good.

murphaph wrote: »

STV is perhaps the "ultimate democracy" but I strongly dislike the multi seat constituencies it necessitates. I believe it's at the root of clientelism in Irish politics.

STV is just one of many parliamentary electoral systems - some argue that it is the most proportional - but it has many contradictions.

One thing that STV is not is 'ultimate democracy' - all forms of parliamentary democracy are very limited forms of democracy.

joseph brand wrote: »

I hear people complain about him, uttering stupid lines like: "He doesn't wear a suit." or "He needs a shave." Oh, it doesn't matter what he SAYS, or what he wants to do for most people. It's his fashion sense.
Never mind that the (mostly right wing) UK press have labelled him a Stalin-loving Trotskyist. What I can't get my head around is, less well off voters supporting the Tories. Then again, so many people have zero interest in politics because it's 'boring.' They need to save time for 'I'm a Celebrity Dancing in the Jungle.'

I also hear comments along the lines of he didn't really support EU membership, he has fought consistently with large numbers of PLP members. He has a lot in common with fringe far left elements and his foreign policy views are not necessarily aligned with many people's. The campaign issue of taxing "rich" people starting from 70K sounds nice but will do the grand sum of absolutely nothing whatsoever about the massive inequality issues that the UK has. He also seems to desire to campaign on issues which do not include Brexit related matters which, given Brexit is the number one policy issue affecting the UK right now, given that it is siphoning funding, effort and resources from absolutely every single other policy area at the moment smacks of a detachment from the reality of Britain at this point in time.

Jeremy Corbyn appears to be content to allow the Tories to stay in power for whatever unclear reason of his own. He did not seriously challenge May on government policy regarding Brexit since June last year and he whipped the Labour MPs on the Article 50 vote.

If you think people's problems with him are because they are brainwashed by the media, then fine. But many people's problems with him are because he is fundamentally enabling the Tories to do whatever the hell they like, he doesn't appear to understand that his job is to win elections. More than 60% of Labour voters voted to remain. He is out of touch with his own party's base and he is pushing it further and further to the left, away from people who might actually vote for him. In this he is allowing the Tories to gain a massive hold on power. It is a massive dereliction of duty for a Leader of the Opposition and the tragedy is that the Labour party have been there before and have been hurt by the leftfringing before. The result was Margaret Thatcher.

If you want people to vote in favour of the Labour Party, then the Labour Party deals with the reality that Jeremy Corbyn is an utterly toxic brand whom people do not want to vote for and deal with it. Stop moaning that it's all the nasty press's fault. Corbyn has contributed to it.

it must be utterly wonderful for the Tories , looking at decades of power as labour sinks beneath the waves

Corbyn wants Brexit. Time for the centre in the Labour party to stand up and be counted and openly defy the party leadership.

Brexit is the defining moment for a generation and we get sideshows like public holidays brought into it.

I see however little chance of success and believe that a hard lesson in humility is on the horizon for the UK and Ireland better batten down the hatches.

youreadthat wrote: »

Nasty little Britain, better get a dose of humility from their European betters for not wanting to be in the EU...............like most of the world.

Drop the victim complex. The EU is a partnership of nations that the UK is free to leave. The lesson in humility will come because of the damage leaving will do to the UK's financial services dominated economy.

Nobody with any sense in Ireland wants to see the UK economy damaged but it seems it's inevitable.

Most of the world is either itself a large country like the US or China or part of a regional trading bloc or piss poor truly independent nations.

A very interesting article in the Torygraph today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/23/polls-show-scottish-tories-win-12-seats-blow-nicola-sturgeon/

It seems like Ruth Davidson's personal popularity in Scotland is transferring across to the Tories up there - apparently they could get as many as 11 of the 59 seats in Scotland!

Even if the Tories were to get 4 or 5 seats it would be a massive turn up for the books and you can be guaranteed they will seize on it as 'proof' that Nicola Sturgeon is obsessed about something that most of Scotland doesn't care about. Apart from the obviously hypocrisy of the Tories, the evidence does show that opinions on Scottish independence have barely shifted since the EU referendum last year and the Tories are picking up Brexit voters in Scotland as well as obviously Unionist ones.

While Scotland is far more pro-EU than the rest of the country, nearly two in five of them did vote for Brexit and even amongst Remain voters it would be fair to say plenty of them have a far greater affinity for the UK than they do for the EU - hence why the Tories can get away with blue murder and completely ignore Sturgeon and not pay any price for it. The demographics are shifting towards Independence (younger voters are much more likely to vote for it than older voters), but it's going to take quite a bit of time before it will lead to a solid majority for independence and if the UK does well outside of Brexit then they might well decide to stick with the UK. Let's also not forget that 1 in 3 SNP voters voted for Brexit for selling independence on the basis of going straight back into the EU isn't necessarily so attractive for some SNP voters - hence the subtle but distinct shift towards being in the EFTA by Sturgeon (which ironically makes Scottish Independence less attractive to me, because if I was living there I would vote for it on the basis of them going straight back into the EU - although of course if it's a disastrous hard Brexit then even being in the EFTA would be a massive improvement on a hard Brexit and reverting to WTO terms).

captainspeed wrote: »

A very interesting article in the Torygraph today.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/23/polls-show-scottish-tories-win-12-seats-blow-nicola-sturgeon/

It seems like Ruth Davidson's personal popularity in Scotland is transferring across to the Tories up there - apparently they could get as many as 11 of the 59 seats in Scotland!

Even if the Tories were to get 4 or 5 seats it would be a massive turn up for the books and you can be guaranteed they will seize on it as 'proof' that Nicola Sturgeon is obsessed about something that most of Scotland doesn't care about. Apart from the obviously hypocrisy of the Tories, the evidence does show that opinions on Scottish independence have barely shifted since the EU referendum last year and the Tories are picking up Brexit voters in Scotland as well as obviously Unionist ones.

While Scotland is far more pro-EU than the rest of the country, nearly two in five of them did vote for Brexit and even amongst Remain voters it would be fair to say plenty of them have a far greater affinity for the UK than they do for the EU - hence why the Tories can get away with blue murder and completely ignore Sturgeon and not pay any price for it. The demographics are shifting towards Independence (younger voters are much more likely to vote for it than older voters), but it's going to take quite a bit of time before it will lead to a solid majority for independence and if the UK does well outside of Brexit then they might well decide to stick with the UK. Let's also not forget that 1 in 3 SNP voters voted for Brexit for selling independence on the basis of going straight back into the EU isn't necessarily so attractive for some SNP voters - hence the subtle but distinct shift towards being in the EFTA by Sturgeon (which ironically makes Scottish Independence less attractive to me, because if I was living there I would vote for it on the basis of them going straight back into the EU - although of course if it's a disastrous hard Brexit then even being in the EFTA would be a massive improvement on a hard Brexit and reverting to WTO terms).

Don't believe everything you read, a recent poll about party leader popularity in Scotland had Davidson way behind Sturgeon. There is not a chance the Tories will get 11 seats. They may struggle to get 2 or they may get 5 ot 6 depending how many Labour voters migrate to the Tories as diehard unionists. In fact their only Govt rep may struggle (Mundell)