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 Ketara wrote:
Well. We all know Corbyn will feth this up, probably shed a good sixty seats to the Tories, and then get booted.

So the question has to be; who will replace him? My bets are on Chuka Umunna making a play for it, or Sadiq Khan. Angela Eagle will likely make another run. Apparently a Labour poll group has been roadtesting some newbie called Rebecca Long-Bailey as a potential leader, but I don't reckon she's got the chops to fend off the others.

I thought Angela Eagle was the Tory leadership candidate, who dropped her challenge to May? Or was that...Lead...som? Leadsome?

Bah. Red rosette, blue rosette, can't tell them apart anyways.

Leadsome...

She was caught out lieing about het experience I believe.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
Well. We all know Corbyn will feth this up, probably shed a good sixty seats to the Tories, and then get booted.

So the question has to be; who will replace him? My bets are on Chuka Umunna making a play for it, or Sadiq Khan. Angela Eagle will likely make another run. Apparently a Labour poll group has been roadtesting some newbie called Rebecca Long-Bailey as a potential leader, but I don't reckon she's got the chops to fend off the others.

I thought Angela Eagle was the Tory leadership candidate, who dropped her challenge to May? Or was that...Lead...som? Leadsome?

Bah. Red rosette, blue rosette, can't tell them apart anyways.

No, Angela Eagle was the one who was held up as the sacrificial lamb in the attempt to oust Corbyn after the referendum. The one who, at her press conference to announce her leadership bid, basically pleaded for there to be the heavyweight political correspondents. But they'd all run off as May was announcing something at the same time so Eagle ended up standing there, calling out people by name to ask her questions when those people weren't in the room. It was absolutely pathetic.

I met Jeremy Corbyn about a year or so ago. He came to speak in Matlock. His anti-austerity message was well-received. Not so much the local Labour councillors trying to explain that actually the reason they'd made so many cuts was because actually the Tories made them do it and actually they really had no other choice but to carry on being the axemen for the government but we're actually very reluctant to do it.

The reluctance of councillors to actually oppose austerity - and their success in pressuring Corbyn to back away from declaring Labour to be in principled active resistance in deed as well as in words - is academic for Matlock, now, as the Lib Dems have just taken the town on a platform denouncing the cuts Labour have made.

So, yeah. I'm seeing a big problem in Labour, and it's not trickling down from the top. But the big thing that I've not seen anyone - except a few on the hard left - pick up on is the state Labour was in before Corbyn became leader.

I'm not talking about its electoral performance. I'm not even talking about the health of its internal structures. I'm talking about paying its bills.

The party had a debt of £25 million. It stretched back over a decade. There was frequent speculation that the Tories would have to introduce state funding for parties, because Labour and Westminster were so entangled that if the party went bankrupt then government wouldn't be able to function.

Within a year of becoming leader, Corbyn had attracted so many more members than managerial neoliberalism did, all of the party's debts were paid and there was a surplus in the warchest.

It's bizarre. We've got people sneering at anyone who gets a bit excited at feeling hope for the first time in a generation as 'Corbyn cultists', then in the next breath praying for Tony Blair to wave a magic wand and cast an electability spell. (As if winning a hatrick against Black Wednesday, Billy Hug and Actual Dracula, all whilst promising things like electoral reform and no rises in study costs, was a spectacular achievement.)

And these people are wailing that if there isn't a coup within Labour, that exploits the aforementioned internal structures to make sure that the only candidates are cherry-picked apparatchiks the majority of the membership would never nominate, the party will be in opposition for a generation.

Now. Even if we take their claim that it is the left-wing leadership - and not the appalling behaviour of the "moderate" MPs and bureaucrats, with their purges and backstabs and literal calls for people to vote Tory - that makes Labour "unelectable"... surely it's better to be in opposition to the Tories than to be begging them for a bailout? A party divided, or a party facing eviction from its offices because it can't balance its own books... I can't see the latter option doing better in the court of public opinion.

I just can't get my head around it. All my adult life, I've been told I should vote Labour to keep the Tories out. Now, those same people who wanted to blackmail me into being their ballot-fodder are trying to rig the party's democracy to kick me out, after helping pay off the huge debts they ran up!

Oh, and apparently I'm living in a bubble, in my Northern Council estate, whereas their Westminster offices give them perfect insight into what the majority of the public wants - but apparently don't want enough to give enough donations & subs to keep the party afloat.

What would I like to see? I'd like Corbyn to rise up the historic fulcrum that a hubristic gesture of the Blairites has placed him on - settle this civil war between the membership of the party, and its careerist rump that wants to retreat into their comfort zone of Tory-lite economics plus toothless equal rights laws (that seem to mean little in practice) and soft immigrant-baiting. I'd like him to lead a struggle for democratic reform in the party, and then once elections & membership can't be stitched up by the Far Centre, someone like perhaps Clive Lewis can pick up the torch.

 lindsay40k wrote:

.......It's bizarre. We've got people sneering at anyone who gets a bit excited at feeling hope for the first time in a generation as 'Corbyn cultists', then in the next breath praying for Tony Blair to wave a magic wand and cast an electability spell. (As if winning a hatrick against Black Wednesday, Billy Hug and Actual Dracula, all whilst promising things like electoral reform and no rises in study costs, was a spectacular achievement.)

I can't say I've met, read, or heard about a single actual person wishing for Blair to return in about seven years. And without trying to flatter myself, I consume a fair bit of political media. Under what rock are you finding these people passionately wanting Blair back?

.....What would I like to see? I'd like Corbyn to rise up the historic fulcrum that a hubristic gesture of the Blairites has placed him on.......

I approve of the word 'fulcrum'. It's a great word! Otherwise, I'm afraid I can't see much that jives with what I perceive as political reality in your perception about Corbyn. All I can say is that I wish I found him to be even half the man his supporters seem to perceive him as, it might actually give me some faith in politics.

Well, until he crashed and burned at the GE anyway.

 lindsay40k wrote:


What would I like to see? I'd like Corbyn to rise up the historic fulcrum that a hubristic gesture of the Blairites has placed him on - settle this civil war between the membership of the party, and its careerist rump that wants to retreat into their comfort zone of Tory-lite economics plus toothless equal rights laws (that seem to mean little in practice) and soft immigrant-baiting. I'd like him to lead a struggle for democratic reform in the party, and then once elections & membership can't be stitched up by the Far Centre, someone like perhaps Clive Lewis can pick up the torch.

I would be happy to see Corbyn unite the Labour party behind him, because it really doesnt matter whether the party does or doesn't. He is still Jeremy Corbyn, only the hard left will vote for him, the population see a Michael Foot style loony left as unelectable. The only people voting for him are party members and those so poor they have nothing to lose, everyone else would prefer to have an economy and don't want the Falkland islanders disappeared just because they remind Corbyn of old memories of Margaret Thatcher.

I likely wont get my wish, when this election is over the party powerbase in Labour will find some way to remove him, and this time will not nominate a token hard left to stand alongside the Blairites justling for position. <shudder> Labour will be dangerous again.

 Orlanth wrote:

 lindsay40k wrote:


What would I like to see? I'd like Corbyn to rise up the historic fulcrum that a hubristic gesture of the Blairites has placed him on - settle this civil war between the membership of the party, and its careerist rump that wants to retreat into their comfort zone of Tory-lite economics plus toothless equal rights laws (that seem to mean little in practice) and soft immigrant-baiting. I'd like him to lead a struggle for democratic reform in the party, and then once elections & membership can't be stitched up by the Far Centre, someone like perhaps Clive Lewis can pick up the torch.

I would be happy to see Corbyn unite the Labour party behind him, because it really doesnt matter whether the party does or doesn't. He is still Jeremy Corbyn, only the hard left will vote for him, the population see a Michael Foot style loony left as unelectable. The only people voting for him are party members and those so poor they have nothing to lose, everyone else would prefer to have an economy and don't want the Falkland islanders disappeared just because they remind Corbyn of old memories of Margaret Thatcher.

I likely wont get my wish, when this election is over the party powerbase in Labour will find some way to remove him, and this time will not nominate a token hard left to stand alongside the Blairites justling for position. <shudder> Labour will be dangerous again.

By dangerous you mean functionally indistinguishable from the Tories?

 Orlanth wrote:
I likely wont get my wish, when this election is over the party powerbase in Labour will find some way to remove him, and this time will not nominate a token hard left to stand alongside the Blairites justling for position. <shudder> Labour will be dangerous again.

You mean that we might get a party that doesn't want to trash the NHS, education, social services etc and actually give those on the poorest incomes the ability to achieve something and improve themselves. I suppose if you are an 'elite' and can afford all the private services then yes that might be something to shudder about, after all they won't be able to sit on piles of working class people whilst they drink Pims and eat Strawberries; their position of power and money might actually get challenged!

On an aside the Guardian has done some basic analysis on the local election results and it doesn't actually appear as bad when you compare left central to far right politics. What really killed the left / central is the First Past the Post system. Lib Dems and Labour actually got a larger share of the vote overall. What favoured the Tories is UKIP collapsed and that Labour didn't have the support to offset newUKIP sucking up UKIPs vote. However overall between centre / left and far right politics the country is still just as divided as ever in that it is pretty much a 50:50 split. If this continues to the GE then it's not going to do anything for bringing the country together and it is going to be just as divided (and angry) as ever.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/05/the-guardian-view-on-the-2017-local-elections-a-clear-and-present-warning

On an aside this is the sort of thing we are going to get from Brexit. If you thought the Snoopers bill was bad they now want to be able to spy on all of the populace real time....I suppose this is Brexit and taking back control (of the populaces freedoms maybe?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39817300

There seems to be a lot of myths flying around Michael Foot and the 1983 election.

Labour got more seats and votes than Michael Howard and William Hague years later, and if it hadn't been for the euphoria sweeping the nation after the Falklands War, Labour might actually have won in 1983, as Thatcher was pretty unpopular.

I continued my tradition of voting for the losing side in every election I've taken part in.

Expect weirdness to happen in the General Election.

I also was going to comment on the voting patterns.

The FPTP system is capable of delivering a massive victory to a party that enjoys the support of under half the electorate. I think this is a weakness in the system.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I also was going to comment on the voting patterns.

The FPTP system is capable of delivering a massive victory to a party that enjoys the support of under half the electorate. I think this is a weakness in the system.

In Scotland, we use the STV system for the council elections, and the SNP won, and won well.

If it had been FPTP, the SNP vote would have to have been weighed.

It is possible for one party to dominate, regardless of voting system used.

Proportional representation does not allow a party that gets 36% of the votes to get 55% of the seats.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Proportional representation does not allow a party that gets 36% of the votes to get 55% of the seats.

Yeah, but it lets things like the nutters be kingmakers surprisingly often.

Every democratic system is broken is some way.

To be frank, I think it's better to allow the nutters their day in the sun if the population supports it.

Much though I disagreed with UKIP, I thought their 13% of the vote in 2015 deserved more than 1 MP.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
There seems to be a lot of myths flying around Michael Foot and the 1983 election.

Labour got more seats and votes than Michael Howard and William Hague years later, and if it hadn't been for the euphoria sweeping the nation after the Falklands War, Labour might actually have won in 1983, as Thatcher was pretty unpopular.

See, you're making the fatal mistake of basing your interpretation of events on a factual account of those events, when what you should be doing is gargling the load of the Great British Free Press and thanking them for the opportunity to do so.

For example, in Great British Free Press Land, Corbyn-led Labour getting 28%(I think that was the Poll of Polls beforehand? Correct me if I'm wrong) is a disaster, a nightmare, a colossal catastroshambles that proves, once and for always, that GBFP Land thinks Labour, and Corbyn Labour especially, is an irredemable joke.

The Ruth Davidson Queen's Eleven No Surrender To A Second Referendum FTP Party limping just ahead of 23%(estimated, since for some mysterious reason the national 1st-pref figures for Scotland seem to have vanished into the ether as far as the BBC are concerned) is a stunning victory, an incalculable success, truly it makes her a modern Britannia vanquishing all before her and proving once & for all that Scotland is, at heart, a Tory heartland. Indeed, there's only one winner in Scotland and, surely, with a stunning 23%(estimated) of the vote, that winner is the the Ruth Davidson QENSSRFTP Party.

As a wee public service announcement for those living in Great British Free Press Land and might be getting their info from Auntie, this was the Scottish local election result, beearing in mind we use the STV system and that both Labour and the Tories ran on a rabid "No 2nd Referendum" platform despite local councils having knob-all to do with the constitution:



It's a sad state of affairs when the Telegraph has a more accurate portrayal of Scottish politics than the BBC.

 Ketara wrote:

I can't say I've met, read, or heard about a single actual person wishing for Blair to return in about seven years. And without trying to flatter myself, I consume a fair bit of political media. Under what rock are you finding these people passionately wanting Blair back?

The rock in question would be the managerial structures of Labour and the ideological think tanks. Whether or not one regards these 'neoliberalism good, socialism bad' automata as actual people is a matter of personal opinion

 Yodhrin wrote:

It's a sad state of affairs when the Telegraph has a more accurate portrayal of Scottish politics than the BBC.

Errr.....I gave the figures in that chart earlier on...and I got them from the BBC?

To be honest, the reason Davidson's getting all the attention right now is twofold:-

a) Sturgeon and the SNP are last election's breath-taking unforeseen election victory story. Now they're the entrenched establishment, cemented in people's minds as the 'popular' vote. That means that they're expected to win the majority of the seats. It's only newsworthy if they don't. 'SNP retains roughly the same result as last time' isn't really much of a headline. It's kind of boring, really. Up there with 'Looks a bit cloudy today' and 'Butler has new Diana story'. The sort of drab filler people flick past. Nobody will read it, so they focus on something else.

b) The Tories are making some headway in Scotland again. Doesn't really matter whose seats they're gobbling up, the fact is, the Tories have made some headway in Scotland, where they've been utterly toxic as a name for a good twenty five years. That's a story in and of itself.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To be frank, I think it's better to allow the nutters their day in the sun if the population supports it.

Much though I disagreed with UKIP, I thought their 13% of the vote in 2015 deserved more than 1 MP.

I agree, one does not fight authoritarianism by throwing its votes in the bin. The far right have a consistent track record of losing elected positions after the public see the appalling job their candidates perform when actually put into power. Better burn them out than constantly fuel them the oxygen of "this system is rigged against us".

Sadly, when Blair ran on a manifesto including a mandate to introduce a PR system that wouldn't produce such egregious imbalances between share fomvote and share of MPs, he looked at his egregiously imbalanced majority and decided to sink the promise and copy Maggie's homework. After all, it's not like in fifteen years or so those pesky Scots Nationalists are going to pull a wee bit ahead in FPTP races, utterly annihilating one of the core bulwarks of Labour's ability to compete in a nationwide game of musical chairs! And come on, as if the Lib Dems will collaborate in a Boundaries Review that takes the bizarre rounding errors and stitches them up into a Tory dynasty!

 Ketara wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

It's a sad state of affairs when the Telegraph has a more accurate portrayal of Scottish politics than the BBC.

Errr.....I gave the figures in that chart earlier on...and I got them from the BBC?

Then you didn't get them from the TV news, where they've been insisting that the SNP have somehow lost seats based on their own completely made-up notional estimates of what the 2012 vote might have looked like when fed through the revised boundary changes, despite them getting more seats.

To be honest, the reason Davidson's getting all the attention right now is twofold:-

a) Sturgeon and the SNP are last election's breath-taking unforeseen election victory story. Now they're the entrenched establishment, cemented in people's minds as the 'popular' vote. That means that they're expected to win the majority of the seats. It's only newsworthy if they don't. 'SNP retains roughly the same result as last time' isn't really much of a headline. It's kind of boring, really. Up there with 'Looks a bit cloudy today' and 'Butler has new Diana story'. The sort of drab filler people flick past. Nobody will read it, so they focus on something else.

b) The Tories are making some headway in Scotland again. Doesn't really matter whose seats they're gobbling up, the fact is, the Tories have made some headway in Scotland, where they've been utterly toxic as a name for a good twenty five years. That's a story in and of itself.

Couple of things. First, there's a difference between "The Tories increased their vote" and "The Tories are the real winners of this election despite coming a distant, distant second", and the latter is the line being taken by much of the media.

Second, lets not get carried away here, the Tories took less than a quarter of the popular vote in the local elections where differential turnout favours their key demographics, and even taken at face value they're still less popular up here than they were under Thatcher, so don't let yourself be kidded on we're seeing some grand left-right axis realigment or that the Tories have been detoxified up here, we're not and they aren't. What we are seeing is the realignment of Unionism with Loyalism - both the Tories and Labour ran this election as a proxy anti-referendum campaign(most Tory & Labour leaflettes didn't even mention local issues at all, they were 100% about "no second referendum", "only Labour/Tory delete as applicable can beat the SNP here" etc) and the combined position of Unionist parties declined marginally while the SNP and the Greens increased marginally.

The story here is the radicalisation of the core Unionist vote(hence why multiple SNP offices have been receiving threatening packages full of nitrate fertilizer and "SNP OUT TORIES IN" notes), the idea the Tories are being detoxified is a farce.

 Yodhrin wrote:
[
Then you didn't get them from the TV news

Nope. Followed the results on their live tracker and articles.

I'm also not entirely sure why you're so hassled about the BBC reporting of the stats. I just read an article on the website where it very clearly states that boundary changes mean that there are more seats now than there were at the last elections, which means that they're calculating seat proportions as percentages. So whilst the SNP have a higher number of councillors than they had before, they have a lower percentage of the overall number than they had before. It's not really a particularly complicated or unfair way of perceiving things, and they do explain it.

Second, lets not get carried away here, the Tories took less than a quarter of the popular vote in the local elections where differential turnout favours their key demographics, and even taken at face value they're still less popular up here than they were under Thatcher, so don't let yourself be kidded on we're seeing some grand left-right axis realigment or that the Tories have been detoxified up here, we're not and they aren't. What we are seeing is the realignment of Unionism with Loyalism - both the Tories and Labour ran this election as a proxy anti-referendum campaign(most Tory & Labour leaflettes didn't even mention local issues at all, they were 100% about "no second referendum", "only Labour/Tory delete as applicable can beat the SNP here" etc) and the combined position of Unionist parties declined marginally while the SNP and the Greens increased marginally.

The story here is the radicalisation of the core Unionist vote(hence why multiple SNP offices have been receiving threatening packages full of nitrate fertilizer and "SNP OUT TORIES IN" notes), the idea the Tories are being detoxified is a farce.

Tbh, it makes logical sense that as Thatcher drifts further away from public memory, less people will be so worked up about the Tories, that;s how cultural memory works. I suspect the way the SNP has pushed everything into a 'A vote for us is a definite vote/endorsement for our next independence referendum' ultimatum will probably push even more people towards the Tories next election, especially with the Labour vote imploded. Frankly, it would be stranger if it didn't.

Out of curiosity, I just went through the data for the last seven or so GE results in Scotland, and it made for some interesting reading. Frankly, practically all of the SNP's growth has been at Labour's expense, the Tories have been building up slowly since they dipped to their lowest point in 2001 (360,000 votes). Since then, the total number of Tory votes has crept up by almost another hundred thousand. It hasn't resulted in much in the way of extra seats in Scotland yet, but that could yet change over the next two to three elections with the above factors mentioned. They were literally 300 votes behind the SNP candidate in Berwickshire in 2015, for example.

So actually, I'm not really entirely certain your kneejerk reaction that the Tories are as loathed as they've ever been is quite supported by the data if you look at it as a trend. They took a hammering after Thatcher, followed by another hammering after Blair first appeared (as they did all over Britain with John Major on the way out). As the SNP has swallowed Labour over the last fifteen odd years though, the Tories have been fairly steadily (if slowly) increasing their voter base in Scotland. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see them take another seat or two next month or another forty thousand votes.

The irony here is that the Tories will use FPTP to hammer Labour in England and Wales, and yet, in Scotland, the SNP will use FPTP to hammer the Tories, so a few thousand extra Tory votes will have minimal impact.

I predict that on June 9th, the electoral map will be mostly blue for England and Wales, and almost all yellow for Scotland. Quite the contrast.

Expect the SNP to get at least 50 seats again, and yet, some people will paint that as a defeat. It's a strange world we live in...

And for the record, the Tory local election vote share in Scotland is less now than it was 5 years ago...

And yet, that's a comeback...

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
And for the record, the Tory local election vote share in Scotland is less now than it was 5 years ago...

And yet, that's a comeback...

If its better than it was in the last election, then it is by definition a "comeback".

How substantial that comeback is, is debatable.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
And for the record, the Tory local election vote share in Scotland is less now than it was 5 years ago...

And yet, that's a comeback...

If its better than it was in the last election, then it is by definition a "comeback".

How substantial that comeback is, is debatable.

The Tories are making gains in England and Wales partly because the opposition is so feeble and they're able to run rings around them.

It's a different story up here, because fire is met with fire.

The SNP are a united party, with a popular leader, who know what they stand for and where they want to go. A complete contrast to the shambles that is Labour, a party in which Corbyn doesn't even know who is on his side or his is briefing against him.

Right, that's all well and good but that doesn't explain how the Tories gaining a considerable number of seats in Scotland more than the previous election is not a comeback.

It might well be a temporary comeback, their gains might evaporate in the next round of local elections, or it might not be reflected in the general election.

But its still an improvement and therefore can be described as a comeback, or the start of a comeback.

Well the general election was a disappointment from my perspective. It appears that the jingoistic British press and ministerial soundbites are swaying the population, compounded by the lack of an organised opposition. In contrast, the European press seems rather confused by how blinkered the (Dis)-United Kingdom is.

Not that it's going to be my problem much longer. I have dual nationality, my sector of scientific research is already in the process of migrating abroad and the money along with it.



Just for the fun of hyperbole, see where the following words fit in this GCSE History revision page: David Cameron, Austerity, Theresa May, Article 50, Conservative Party, Recession, £8.8M debt to EU, General Election.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/hitlerpowerrev1.shtml

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Right, that's all well and good but that doesn't explain how the Tories gaining a considerable number of seats in Scotland more than the previous election is not a comeback.

It might well be a temporary comeback, their gains might evaporate in the next round of local elections, or it might not be reflected in the general election.

But its still an improvement and therefore can be described as a comeback, or the start of a comeback.

It's a fair point, but I will say that when you're starting from rock bottom, any gain is going to look good.

The proof will reach us on June 9th, and if I'm wrong, I'll be the first to put up my hand and admit it, but I'm confident enough to predict we'll win at least 50 seats up here.

The money situation is very good for funding a GE campaign, morale is high amongst the activists I know, the party is united, and like I said, they know who they are, what they want, and where they're going. I'm very optimistic about this GE.

Whatever your views of the SNP, and I respect the fact that some people don't like them or their policies, any democracy needs strong opposition to the government of the day. We all know that Labour are finished, that the Lib Dems will gain, but not enough, and that ultimately, June 8th will be a coronation for May.

But in one part of the UK, there is a very strong opposition to the Tories, and that is some measure of balance to preserve our democracy.

We are the resistance.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Right, that's all well and good but that doesn't explain how the Tories gaining a considerable number of seats in Scotland more than the previous election is not a comeback.

It might well be a temporary comeback, their gains might evaporate in the next round of local elections, or it might not be reflected in the general election.

But its still an improvement and therefore can be described as a comeback, or the start of a comeback.

It's a fair point, but I will say that when you're starting from rock bottom, any gain is going to look good.

The proof will reach us on June 9th, and if I'm wrong, I'll be the first to put up my hand and admit it, but I'm confident enough to predict we'll win at least 50 seats up here.

The money situation is very good for funding a GE campaign, morale is high amongst the activists I know, the party is united, and like I said, they know who they are, what they want, and where they're going. I'm very optimistic about this GE.

Whatever your views of the SNP, and I respect the fact that some people don't like them or their policies, any democracy needs strong opposition to the government of the day. We all know that Labour are finished, that the Lib Dems will gain, but not enough, and that ultimately, June 8th will be a coronation for May.

But in one part of the UK, there is a very strong opposition to the Tories, and that is some measure of balance to preserve our democracy.

We are the resistance.

The SNP have not set a foot constituancy wise past Hadrians wall or the border.
There whole being might be honestly solid and has a fixed aim but to gain ernough seats to be bigger than labour...

They need more seats... Those seats are not in Scotland.
But there goal is well incomparable with the a above.

So... Do you oppose tories on English soil . Can they even translate south of border?

The turnout at this election was very low. This makes the results more volatile, and traditionally discriminates against Labour. Therefore we can probably expect a better performance from Labour at the GE.

The Lib-Dem performance was patchy. They increased their overall share of the vote, but their problem in this election was that much of their traditional heartland -- the south-west -- is strongly Leave while the Lib-Dem campaign is based on Remain. The Lib-Dems should improve their position when London comes into play.

UKIP of course obviously collapsed, for the highly expectable reason that they are a one-issue party and their issue has been decided. They don't have a message and rallying cry any more.

The Conservatives benefited more from the collapse of UKIP than anyone. They also benefit from the FPTP system as the most popular party though still a clear minority of support.

The SNP's problem is that they are foremost a party of independence. This means they cannot campaign outside Scotland without legitimising the English voice in that issue. The second difficulty is that independence actually is supported by less than half the electorate of Scotland. However, by being left-wing the SNP hoovered up a lot of previously Labour votes. They benefit by being pro-Remain in a strongly pro-Remain region. But if you are a right-leaning, pro-Union, Brexiteer, who you gonna vote for? The Scottish situation is also complicated by regression to the mean.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I also was going to comment on the voting patterns.

The FPTP system is capable of delivering a massive victory to a party that enjoys the support of under half the electorate. I think this is a weakness in the system.

I agree. FPTP only works where you have two party system really because then it does generally become more representative. The issue is that we now have multiple parties and that means that one or the other side of the major party votes gets 'eaten into' giving the other side an easy win without there really being a shift in the political leanings either way. Hence you have the 'silliness' of tactical voting because to vote for who you really believe in just takes votes from the group that has a chance of removing the party you definitely don't want. It also disengages both the electorate and the politicians from certain areas where there is a massive weighting one way or another because gaining those extra votes doesn't actually mean anything at all. PR gets round this issue because every vote does count.

The fear that PR could put someone in charge that is truly a nutcase doesn't really work for this Country because we have representatives. It can be more of an issue where you have one power hungry president (for example what is happening in Turkey), but no system can prevent this when you have one person ultimately in charge. In some ways FPTP system is more dangerous to the UK because a minority (relatively) can put in charge such a sweeping majority that there is no method to challenge policies and legislation. One of the greatest fears we should have is that Tories do get such a significant majority that they can pass through aggressive boundary changes (noting it was quietly put to one side because some Tory MPs were unhappy it had too much on an impact on the Tories). Even the previous proposals initial estimates/indications showed that the Tories would need approx (IIRC) 2.5% less votes to maintain their MP ratio. If a more aggressive change was made then we may find that it is nigh impossible to remove them from power unless the populace significantly changes its voting attitude. We then have the unenviable situation where a relative minority dictate to the majority and in some ways this is no better than more dictatorial countries where this happens (its just the method is far more subtle).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yodhrin wrote:


The story here is the radicalisation of the core Unionist vote(hence why multiple SNP offices have been receiving threatening packages full of nitrate fertilizer and "SNP OUT TORIES IN" notes), the idea the Tories are being detoxified is a farce.

Hmmm didn't know that was going on. That's worrying that's a trend that we saw in NI and we know where that ended up. I doubt we want to see another UK nationalist/independence nationalist civil war break out.