General Election December, 2019 (U.K.)

Bambi wrote: »

I see Labour *edit* are deciding on whether to add an open borders policy to their election manifesto that's on a scale unheard of


That's them done for anyway. Johnson Brexit it is.

It passed at their conference.

And people wonder why the Tories now have a majority of the Working Class lining up.

As for Laura Pidcock... A person who is considered a serious contender for the Deputy Leadership.

The Tories will be pulling strings to get her on TV.

Good to see Corbyn tackling immigration rhetoric head on:

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1195042683565301761

An Ciarraioch wrote: »

Good to see Corbyn tackling immigration rhetoric head on:

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1195042683565301761

Did that have to pick a guy that looks like Corbyn?

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

yet more crazy "one for everybody in the audience" socialism from Lab.
we know full well in this country where these daft ideas/attempts to buy the electorate end, and the problem is somebody ie taxpayers/future generations will end up paying for it!

we also know just how quickly the cost of rolling out nationwide broadband escalates to frightening levels.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7687521/Labour-FREE-ultra-fast-broadband-home-business-renationalised-BT.html

So vote Tory for a Brexit deal that will hurt the economy while they use the magic money tree to try and make up for chronic lack of investment in schools, hospitals, etc while giving tax breaks to the very rich!

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

if the Tories are shaking the Money Tree, the Corbyn & friends will be burning down the Brazilian Rain Forests to pay for their outlandish socialist promises.

Bertie & Co. bought (actually borrowed & taxed) elections and it ended in disaster. it'll curious to see if the UK electorate is foolish enough to fall for the same trick, and drive their economy off a cliff.

Do you know what the Deficit and national debt was 3 years ago versus today?

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

yet more crazy "one for everybody in the audience" socialism from Lab.
we know full well in this country where these daft ideas/attempts to buy the electorate end, and the problem is somebody ie taxpayers/future generations will end up paying for it!

we also know just how quickly the cost of rolling out nationwide broadband escalates to frightening levels.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7687521/Labour-FREE-ultra-fast-broadband-home-business-renationalised-BT.html

Oh well....if the totally scrupulous and unbiased daily mail says so...

Not going to get into specifics of this without seeing proper details and costings, but the idea of broadband as a service for all that should lie beyond the profiteers who care only about their own narrow interests is one i definitely can get behind.

Watching nadhim zahawi on sky earlier, seething with anger at how this would affect all his big powerful foreign bondholder pals was instructive. That it might actually benefit the neglected, less well off in society is of no consequence to them.

Diane Abbott doubling down in extending freedom of movement to Britain and opening up family reunification globally, bit just the EU.

That'll play well in City Bank boardrooms but will be roundly rejected in working class communities.

Most Polls now have the Conservatives as the largest party of the working class with some areas at near double of Labour.

Labour left them no choice but to go.

Have to agree with George Monbiot on bbc. Why are labour standing against caroline lucas in brighton? Not only should they be standing down, they should be talking about bringing her into government to work on the environment. A total no brainer for me. Greens going to win the seat anyway.

robinph wrote: »

Possibly registered claiming an address somewhere else in the UK. Irish people can stand, but was sure you needed to be resident in the UK.

I thought that too but it doesn't specify it here https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/elections/standing/

How bizarre.

quokula wrote: »

I know it was only mentioned on the previous page, but worth bringing up again in reply to this.

https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1195045327050625031

Your post pretty much encapsulates the caricature of the Tory politician destroying working class communities while blaming immigrants for it.

Mass immigration is just a part of neoliberalism.

If Labour call it internationalism, solidarity say they'll increase workers protection etc, it will still be a neoliberalism.

I think Labour are going to get called out hard by the Working Class.

They won't vote for the Tories thinking they'll be better for their communities, just less worse.

quokula wrote: »

She's in an extremely safe seat, and Labour are the only ones with the slightest chance of catching her - the Tories and Lib Dems are nowhere in Brighton.

If it was a Green / Tory marginal or a Green / Lib Dem marginal then it would make sense, but not sure what the logic would be in Labour stepping down in a seat where after the Greens they have more votes than all the other parties combined.

I do agree that she'd be a great fit in an environment focussed role in a Labour coalition Government though.

Yeah, fair enough, it would really just be a pr move but it could be one with a bit of value for them.

The isle of wight is a big green target, so i would definitely consider giving them a free run there. I'm not sure all these alliances are a good thing in general, but this is a unique situation and labour would have a bit to gain by giving the greens a reciprocal gesture or two. Its not admitting weakness to do so, as some labour insiders suggest.

L1011 wrote: »

I can remember a properly independent yet state-owned Telecom Eireann rolling out digital telephony to every corner of the country in a relatively short period of time; and then the privatised one ignoring all new technology to sweat and/or strip the assets for the guts of a decade.

The costs being given by private operators for rollouts are including whatever profit margin they have grown accustomed to, for starters

Do you also remember when Telecom Eireann took 6 months to provision a simple house phone line?
Let us not romanticise old nationalised industries too much.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Yeah, fair enough, it would really just be a pr move but it could be one with a bit of value for them.

The isle of wight is a big green target, so i would definitely consider giving them a free run there. I'm not sure all these alliances are a good thing in general, but this is a unique situation and labour would have a bit to gain by giving the greens a reciprocal gesture or two. Its not admitting weakness to do so, as some labour insiders suggest.

In the Isle of Wight Labour comfortably beat the Greens at the last election, so if anything the Greens should be the ones stepping down there. The Tories have more than 50% of the vote though so no amount of tactical voting would have mattered anyway.

I agree with the sentiment that Labour could do more to work with other parties, but in reality the Greens are the only ones on the same page as them and there isn't a single constituency in the country where the numbers make sense for Labour to step down for them. There are many constituencies where it would make sense for the Greens to step down, but I guess they don't want to do that if it isn't reciprocal in some way.

Labour could step down in some Lib Dem / Tory marginals but the constant open hostility from the Lib Dems seems to make that pretty impossible.

SNP are fairly aligned with Labour on most things but to step down for SNP would just play into the Tory attack line (which for once is pretty much based in truth) that Labour will allow a second Indy Referendum and hurt them in the rest of the country.

quokula wrote: »

In the Isle of Wight Labour comfortably beat the Greens at the last election, so if anything the Greens should be the ones stepping down there. The Tories have more than 50% of the vote though so no amount of tactical voting would have mattered anyway.

I agree with the sentiment that Labour could do more to work with other parties, but in reality the Greens are the only ones on the same page as them and there isn't a single constituency in the country where the numbers make sense for Labour to step down for them. There are many constituencies where it would make sense for the Greens to step down, but I guess they don't want to do that if it isn't reciprocal in some way.

Labour could step down in some Lib Dem / Tory marginals but the constant open hostility from the Lib Dems seems to make that pretty impossible.

SNP are fairly aligned with Labour on most things but to step down for SNP would just play into the Tory attack line (which for once is pretty much based in truth) that Labour will allow a second Indy Referendum and hurt them in the rest of the country.

You can't hang everything on 2017, though. If you look at betting, greens are second to tories on isle of wight and rest not really in the picture. They believe they can win it and that would be good as a seat for labour. They won't do it though, so all moot really.

As for lib dems, they wont deal with corbyn so kind of moot as well. But stuff is happening on the ground - a lib dem candidate telling voters to support labour on one side, a labour clp (lewes) not campaigning in its own constituency (as per polly toynbee article 2 days ago). The leader of Lewes clp advocating a tactical vote (mark perryman) against his own party is a big corbyn supporter. You can expect more of that as we go on i think.

But on the greens, i think thats a no brainer for labour and it could backfire:

https://twitter.com/VixL/status/1194953557369327618?s=20

Joe_ Public wrote: »

You can't hang everything on 2017, though. If you look at betting, greens are second to tories on isle of wight and rest not really in the picture. They believe they can win it and that would be good as a seat for labour. They won't do it though, so all moot really.

As for lib dems, they wont deal with corbyn so kind of moot as well. But stuff is happening on the ground - a lib dem mp telling voters to support labour on one side, a labour clp (lewes) not campaigning in its own constituency (as per polly toynbee article 2 days ago). The leader of Lewes clp advocating a tactical vote (mark perryman) against his own party is a big corbyn supporter. You can expect more of that as we go on i think.

But on the greens, i think thats a no brainer for labour and it could backfire:

https://twitter.com/VixL/status/1194953557369327618?s=20

At the last election, Labour came second to the Tories in the Isle of Wight, with 17 thousand votes, which is thousands more than the Greens. The Greens came last in Southampton, with a few hundred votes.

"If you step down in a constituency you were the closest to the Tories and got thousands more votes than us, we'll step down in a constituency where we came last with a few hundred" is hardly reciprocal.

Those few hundred votes could of course make a difference in Southampton because it is indeed extremely marginal between Labour and the Tories. Which is why the Green party really ought to step down there if they want to achieve many of their policy goals.

Should Labour hand over a seat where they would otherwise beat the Greens in return? I guess there's an argument that the Tories are going to win there anyway so they could do so as a token gesture. They probably consider how such deals would mean losing out in "national popular vote" share to the Tories and how that might play out in media in future, but more than that the reality of the numbers is that if you want to look at the raw numbers and back the progressive party with the best chance, the Greens should be the ones stepping down in the Isle of Wight too.

The problem with FPTP is that the natural conclusion of a Green / Labour alliance that actually did what made sense mathematically, would realistically involve the Greens standing down every candidate in the country outside of Brighton.

A Lib Dem / Green alliance actually has some logical reciprocality because the Lib Dems tend to do poorly where the Greens do well and vice versa. Of course it makes less sense when you see they have practically no policies in common, but I guess the maths won out.

BTW I'm not sure why you think the Greens are so likely to beat Labour in the Isle of Wight. All the numbers suggest otherwise.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Isle%20of%20Wight

I'm guessing the bookie's odds are based on some speculative bets around talk of Labour stepping down. The Tories are still odds on by far with the bookies though.

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

well it's been a most eventful morning.
the Lab socialist mask has well n truly slipped.

as if we needed any convincing, we now can see where Corbyn & Mcdonnell's crazy "let's nationalise everything that moves (even if it doesn't move)" will lead.
confidence will plummet, investment will collapse, talent will flee, strikes, increased taxes, 4 day weeks. SOCIALIST MADNESS.

Welcome to Corbyn's 1970s!

Seems to be confusion if they can even nationalise the internet when in the EU. Its difficult to get many neutral takes on it, but looking at people I trust it would be really tricky. Might have to do a Lexit.:P

On immigration their stance may not be a vote winner, but Labour since Blair have always talked tough on immigration but its never cut through with the public who are obsessed with it.

Heck even Cameron said they were to hardline once.

Corbyn who I have issues with clearly has decided that for whom immigration is key Labour will never have their votes so may as well try and appeal to other demos and especially younger viewers who are not as immigration wary as older working class labour voters.

I dunno if it will work out for them, but I definitely understand his logic.

Also on immigration I think attitudes have softened on it since Brexit somewhat.

Letwin_Larry wrote: »

what utter nonsense! the UK has one of the most vibrant economies in europe. it attracts investment and talent from all over the world. business confidence will skyrocket, so long as socialist Lab is not elected and Brexit gets sorted.

I guess all the statistics must be wrong then.

They narrowly missed a recession, they have massive downturn in investment, business confidence is down.

You are talking based on the pre Brexit UK, the very thing you want they already had, but have decided it was what they really wanted.

So the Tories have gone about making sure not only the economy takes a massive and lasting hit, but the UK itself is not open to question in terms of staying together.

Zero hour contracts, 1000's employed in the gig economy, massive parts of the North England suffering badly from lack of development, NI is a social state in all but name.

You need to take your head out of London and see what is really happening. There is a reason why many voted for Brexit, and it's not economics, or sovereignty or any of the other high level notions. There is a massive cohort of people in the UK that, rightly, feel utterly left behind. They mistakenly picked the EU are the reason for their ills, but their ills are nonetheless genuine.

Aegir wrote: »

this article was linked to on AH recently. Daltry's outburst about immigration surprised me somewhat and it goes back to 2011

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2014979/Roger-Daltrey-reveals-attitudes-marriage-vows-far-straightforward.html

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

I believe that as the two traditional parties of power both the Tories and Labour don't want to set a precedent by standing down candidates in any constituencies. They both see party integrity as more important than Brexit.

By standing down candidates they would basically admit that they aren't as powerful as they once might have been which they are unwilling to countenance.

Labour is rapidly losing the Working Class, who despite years of being pissed on by them stuck around till now.

The middle class where much of its core now cones from and most of its activists, is the class where the Greens do the best.

Labour can't afford to see the Greens grow, it is at their expense.

They can hardly tell the White Van gammons they are sorry, want to be friends again and give us a vote.

The same snooty approach did for Scottish Labour.

L1011 wrote: »

Blair won sufficient seats in England/Wales but that is a once a century landslide probably

True, corrected.

I always felt the Blair years were like taking an old car, sprucing it up and driving the living **** out of it for a few years.

It left the party a wreck but it got good mileage at the time.

Nice to see a short piece quoting actual economists on Newsnight that pointed out buying assets means you now own those assets with their inherent value and potential future profits and the usual unchallenged economically illiterate arguments about affordability are completely spurious.

With Labour's plan to Nationalist BT and create 'British Broadband' does that mean they are effectively giving up the ghost on stopping Brexit.

Such a policy would not have been possible due to EU competition law.

Have to despair really at both Labour and the Tories. Both of them resembling extreme forms of their former selves.