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Source: (consider it) Thread: UK General Election June 8th 2017
Leorning Cniht
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# 17564

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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Two things became very apparent to me overnight: first that there is a huge disparity between the numbers of voters in different constituencies. Which just seems wrong - Dianne Abbott has a majority which is more than the total number of voters in a lot of constituencies.

Diane Abbott has a majority of about 35K, which is certainly a huge majority, but is bigger than precisely two unusual consituencies (see below). If you mean that her majority is more than the number of people that voted in other constituencies, you'll add some more - mostly the smaller Welsh ones.

Most seats have between 60,000 and 80,000 voters. There's some special cases - the Western Isles are a tiny constituency, and Orkney and Shetland isn't much bigger, but that doesn't seem unreasonable given the uniqueness of those areas. I'd happily ensure they had a voice at the cost of one extra bog-standard city or rural England voice.

Welsh constituencies are significantly smaller than English, Scottish, and NI ones (57K vs 72K, 69K, and 69K respectively). The Isle of Wight is huge (109K) and should be split in two. Wales needs to give up about 8 seats.

How important is getting exactly the same number of people in each constituency, vs having the constituency have some kind of rational boundary?

In terms of political balance, last time I looked, Labour constituencies were slightly smaller on average than Tory ones (by 3% or so in England; there's a big Welsh effect). Going the other way, rock-solid Labour seats tend to be redder than rock-sold Tory seats are blue.

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mr cheesy
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Sorry, you are quite right.

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arse

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alienfromzog

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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
What I find interesting psychologically, is that she may be deserving of pity, but that's not why I feel pity. In a sense, I can't control that, and it has no rational basis (I think), but is to do with empathy and sympathy. Going o/t.

Congratulations on the article - very prophetic. Any tips for Ascot?

Thanks. I didn't think it would actually happen though. [Hot and Hormonal]

AFZ

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]

An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Vellum is a better bet for archiving than paper. That's why original copies of the Magna Carta still exist.

According to the Worcester Cathedral and Archive Blog, it isn't that simple.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
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We might see the Drumcree march back on.

That'll fill everyone's heart with joy.

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Forward the New Republic

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PaulTH*
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Arguably nobody should be talking to them ever about forming a government. I certainly subscribe to that view.

I would be interested to know what those who share this view think should be happening instead. The pound is falling. Business confidence is gone. The UK risks losing its credit status. The markets hate uncertainty. So somebody has to try and form a government. It's quite likely that there will be another election later this year, and equally likely that Labour can win it, but we aren't there now. Corbyn's talk of forming a minority government is nonsense. The arithmetic of the House of Commons doesn't allow it. As the Tories are the largest party and nobody but the DUP are willing to work with them, they have no choice but to pursue this course. Does anyone have a better idea that is serious?

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Yours in Christ
Paul

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PaulTH*
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
We might see the Drumcree march back on.

Arlene Foster is a tough negotiator. She needs to be to go head to head with Sinn Fein. Does anybody believe that she really expects to extract such a concession from any British government?

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Yours in Christ
Paul

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I would be interested to know what those who share this view think should be happening instead. The pound is falling. Business confidence is gone. The UK risks losing its credit status. The markets hate uncertainty.

Another election pronto. If the only option is getting into bed with extremists, then it is the best one.

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arse

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Arguably nobody should be talking to them ever about forming a government. I certainly subscribe to that view.

I would be interested to know what those who share this view think should be happening instead. The pound is falling. Business confidence is gone. The UK risks losing its credit status. The markets hate uncertainty. So somebody has to try and form a government. It's quite likely that there will be another election later this year, and equally likely that Labour can win it, but we aren't there now. Corbyn's talk of forming a minority government is nonsense. The arithmetic of the House of Commons doesn't allow it. As the Tories are the largest party and nobody but the DUP are willing to work with them, they have no choice but to pursue this course. Does anyone have a better idea that is serious?
Try to work as a minority government. Got to be better than giving 10 people utterly unrepresentative of any population this side of the Isle of Man such disproportionate influence.

If she cannot put together programme at least compromising enough to get past the Lib Dems, then as Cheesy says, ut'll end in another election.

[ 12. June 2017, 19:25: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

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Might as well ask the bloody cat.

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PaulTH*
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
what do you think are the chances of a cluster of Tory MPs supporting the policies of a minority Labour government, or of a cluster of Labour MPs supporting the policies of a minority Tory government?

We have so little experience of coalitions in this country that our political system is totally adversarial. Labour, in the position they are now in, would far prefer the UK economy go down the pan and blame it on the Tories to give them advantage next time around, than to try to rescue the economy in the national interest. The Tories would do the same if the situation was reversed. Perhaps we should take a lesson from the Irish Republic, where last year, after much wrangling, there was the first ever coalition between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, parties which haven't yet forgiven each other for the 1922 civil war! Admittedly Ireland has much more experience of coalition than we have, but I would love to see PR make it the norm here as well.

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Yours in Christ
Paul

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Try to work as a minority government. Got to be better than giving 10 people utterly unrepresentative of any population this side of the Isle of Man such disproportionate influence.

Right, exactly. Form a minority government which has sufficient support in the Commons. If you can't, let someone else try. If they can't, election.

We shouldn't be bullied into unwise political marriages just because someone is worried about losing money on the stock exchange.

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arse

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Mark Wuntoo
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Not sure why Corbyn's idea of forming a minority government is nonsense. Nobody wants an election and the Tories wouldn't dare force one.
I don't think Corbyn is calling their bluff so he must believe he can do it - without the support of other parties.

Perhaps if Theresa May got a cross-party group to negotiate Brexit it would take the heat off her. And I'm not wanting to find a way out of the mess for her. I wonder whether a cross-party team might, in the end, agree to put their Brexit deal to the public. Alternatively, if a cross-party team said that a suitable deal is not possible - bingo we stay in the EU (says he hopefully if naively).

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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
Not sure why Corbyn's idea of forming a minority government is nonsense. Nobody wants an election and the Tories wouldn't dare force one.
I don't think Corbyn is calling their bluff so he must believe he can do it - without the support of other parties.

It's not nonsense, but it is going to be pretty hard to pull off with multiple parties they'd need to get on board. There is pretty bad blood between Labour and the SNP and worse between Labour and PC, so they'd have to be prepared to find acceptable accommodations. Possible, but difficult.

quote:
Perhaps if Theresa May got a cross-party group to negotiate Brexit it would take the heat off her. And I'm not wanting to find a way out of the mess for her. I wonder whether a cross-party team might, in the end, agree to put their Brexit deal to the public. Alternatively, if a cross-party team said that a suitable deal is not possible - bingo we stay in the EU (says he hopefully if naively).
I don't really see how a cross-party group would work, sounds good in theory but impossible in practice.

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arse

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Mark Wuntoo
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Mr Cheesy:
quote:
I don't really see how a cross-party group would work, sounds good in theory but impossible in practice.

You don't! They'd be doing it for the good of the country, of course it would work. [Ultra confused] [Ultra confused]

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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.

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Arethosemyfeet
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quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
We have so little experience of coalitions in this country that our political system is totally adversarial. Labour, in the position they are now in, would far prefer the UK economy go down the pan and blame it on the Tories to give them advantage next time around, than to try to rescue the economy in the national interest.

More particularly, I doubt that anything the tories propose is likely to result in rescuing the economy so much as lining their own pockets and shafting the economy in the process, based on their form over the last 7 years (and the 18 they were last in power).
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Alan Cresswell

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# 31

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quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
We have so little experience of coalitions in this country that our political system is totally adversarial. ... Perhaps we should take a lesson from the Irish Republic

Or, an example from basically every other country in Europe (and many beyond). Coalition, minority government, and other non-adversarial approaches to government are the norm. Or, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. I'm going to assume that no one will suggest that Angela Merkel is a weak leader because she doesn't lead a party with an outright majority?

Even without PR, or another more sensible electoral system, our FPTP system won't give us a government with a large majority again. We've broken the two-party system with SNP/PC picking up 40-50 seats, and I can't see that number changing much over the next few decades, the NI parties sweeping up the 18 seats there, 10+ LibDems and the occasional Green or other MP. That leaves about 580 from 650 seats up for grab for Labour and Conservative - for either party to get 350 of those would be a significant achievement, and not getting 325 will become increasingly common. The UK Parliament will need to learn how to work non-adversarially, to find strength in cooperation.

Unless there's Scottish independence, in which case the arithmetic for the rest of the UK without a large SNP contingent in Westminster then swings back to a near two-party system which can result in a large majority in the Commons.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I'd love to see what "considered opinion" that is.

It is certainly the opinion of Mr. Donald Tusk.

Quoted here.

My response is still [Killing me]

I read Tusk's response as laden with irony. It may be technically true, but it's actually unfeasible. It's like continuing to fantasise that swift impeachment will somehow emerge to undo all the damage Trump has done.

Besides, imagine the domestic mess that would leave for the UK. If the UK government can ignore a result from the electorate (however badly worded the question...) that opens the door for them to ignore other chunks of democracy. I think any kind of Brexit is better than that.

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:

"One of the reasons for the delay is also believed to be because the speech has to be written on goat's skin parchment paper, which takes a few days to dry"

The Queens Speech - however - is not printed or handwritten on vellum.

In other words, it's just another ploy.

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Eutychus
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Coalition, minority government, and other non-adversarial approaches to government are the norm.

A story I heard today from someone who should know has it that the Breton farmers and politicians, with different concerns and affiliations, would get on the train to Paris to attend negotiations with central government at successive stations in Brittany and argue amongst themselves until they got to Le Mans.

At which point they would call the chaos to order and hammer out a unified set of demands achieved by consensus that would be ready by the time they reached Paris: "give us this or expect the tractors on the périphérique by Wednesday".

(By contrast, bickering groups from other regions would ask the government to arbitrate between them).

Apparently the continued expansion of the high-speed train network westwards is playing havoc with this consensus-building as it significantly reduces the time for arguments and Le Mans is now less than an hour from the capital by train.

[ 12. June 2017, 21:03: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't really see how a cross-party group would work, sounds good in theory but impossible in practice.

There are a lot of cross-party committees in Parliament. I'm not a politics geek so I don't know how they work but I assume they must be basically functional.
(I don't know how many of the current party leaderships have sat on them.)

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Luigi
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't really see how a cross-party group would work, sounds good in theory but impossible in practice.

There are a lot of cross-party committees in Parliament. I'm not a politics geek so I don't know how they work but I assume they must be basically functional.
(I don't know how many of the current party leaderships have sat on them.)

From what I can gather select-committees are often parliament working at its best. It is about finding common ground and proposing practical solutions. A large amount of parliamentary business is not ideologically based but essentially managerial. This is no bad thing.
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Luigi
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quote:
Originally posted by Luigi:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by mr cheesy:
[qb] I don't really see how a cross-party group would work, sounds good in theory but impossible in practice.

There are a lot of cross-party committees in Parliament. I'm not a politics geek so I don't know how they work but I assume they must be basically functional.
(I don't know how many of the current party leaderships have sat on them.)

My take would be pretty similar to yours Dafyd. From what I can gather select-committees are often parliament working at its best. It is about finding common ground and proposing practical solutions. A large amount of parliamentary business is not ideologically based but essentially managerial. This is no bad thing.
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Luigi
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Sorry total ineptitude on my part. Can a host delete the first of these two posts? They are almost identical. And then delete this.
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mr cheesy
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Of course it is true that there are cross-party committees. But these usually are intended to keep the government to account in various areas.

It'd be nice to believe that a cross-party committee could set national policy which the government then accepted, but I can't see it happening in this situation.

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arse

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Luigi
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Of course it is true that there are cross-party committees. But these usually are intended to keep the government to account in various areas.

It'd be nice to believe that a cross-party committee could set national policy which the government then accepted, but I can't see it happening in this situation.

Yeah I can see the problem. However, maybe it could serve a sort of preliminary advisory roll. There is probably a great deal of common ground between the remainers and the soft brexiteers. Also common ground could perhaps be established on the need to explain just how important immigration is to our economy. Again most in the house know that the whole 'we'll get immigration down below 100,000' is just bollocks. Especially if our country is to cope with the aging population challenges.
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Doublethink.
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I think it could happen because it detoxes things for all the parties, if everybody's involved then it's harder to make electoral capital out of a less than perfect deal. It also allows all parties slightly more breathing space to sort out their internal difficulties without massively damaging the national interest.

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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

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Rocinante
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For that reason I think Labour will be very circumspect about getting involved in any Brexit Commission. They will want the Tories to own the Brexit mess, whilst trying to avoid annoying their leave-voting supporters.

We can set up all the commissions we want, but in the end the sort of Brexit we get will be determined by what the EU is prepared to give us.

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm sorry, Alan, but as a person who is not aligned with either of them, they are both just as guilty as each other on this. Indeed, in the past - and my memories go back well over 50 years - the Labour Party has frequently been even worse on this.

I want to challenge this and ask for some data.

Accepting and admitting my own bias (which is well known on the ship) this does not ring true for me at first reading. I am not saying that you are wrong, just that I need you to provide something more to persuade me.

Just as it is ridiculous and dangerous to fall into the trap of thinking one's own side angels and the others devils, so it is equally so to declare they're all the same; that just leads to unsustainable false equivalents.

Let me give you a pertinent counter example. Whilst Mo Mowland is rightly credited for her excellent work in the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement, it was stuck and never would have happened without the personal intervention of Tony Blair. He was warned not to fly to Belfast as the likely failure would cost him too much personal political capital. He went because he wasn't prepared to not try at this historic opportunity.
Whatever else he did, Blair took a big risk and got that one right.

So, examples please?

I've been meaning to come back on this, but have been busy over the last few days. The rest of the thread has since run on for several pages. Pressures over the rest of the week will probably preclude me from getting back any further. However, here goes. It will be quite long. My apologies.

I entirely accept that politicians are not always totally self-serving, that they can do good things, and that Blair was prepared to take risks for peace in Northern Ireland.

Nevertheless, you asked for examples of the Labour Party seeing its own good as more important than the country's. A pertinent recent example is its vehement resistance to revising constituency boundaries because they perceive that the present ones work in their favour.

More fundamental is both parties' adamant resistance to any move to change the voting system. That was particularly critical in the 1980s, where a close result between them and the Alliance gave Labour over 200 seats and the Alliance 11.

If Labour had had any integrity over this, it would have used Scottish devolution in 1998 which gave Scotland a much more proportionate electoral system as the opportunity to give the UK as a whole something similar.


Another example. The other two Britain wide parties both have consistently claimed and aspired to represent the whole country. Even the SNP claims and aspires to represent the whole of Scotland. It wasn't until the Smith/Blair era that the Labour Party moved beyond the assumption that it was still a factional party, its LRC roots, there to further and protect the interests of its own supporters, in much the same way as the DUP and SF.

At the moment, it appears to be moving rapidly back in that direction. From outside the bubble, Corbyn's understanding of whatever he means by 'democratic socialism' sees his MPs as answerable to the party before they are answerable to the electorate.

Corbyn is on a roll at the moment. It seems a shame to begrudge him that, but there is no sign that that underlying assumption either has changed or that he is temperamentally capable of changing it. It's part of his political DNA.


And another one. Which party is it which as part of its party mythology, castigates Ramsay MacDonald for putting his country before his party?


I get the impression from your posts over the last few months, AFZ that unusually, your route to being a Labour Party supporter follows from your being persuaded by Keynsian economics, rather than the more usual route which is the other way round. But as someone outside the bubble of either of the two main parties, I can't see much difference between them in the way both,
a. Equate the national interest and their own, and
b. Assume that their party's survival as such is a matter of the public good.

[ 13. June 2017, 08:24: Message edited by: Enoch ]

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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
For that reason I think Labour will be very circumspect about getting involved in any Brexit Commission. They will want the Tories to own the Brexit mess, whilst trying to avoid annoying their leave-voting supporters.

I still think when the dust settles that Labour will be shown to be in as much of a mess as the Tories to be honest.

Both parties recorded spectacular highs in vote share, partly by pulling in all sorts of unstable voting coalitions that can't possibly have agreed with (or, less charitably, read) the respective manifestos.

Tories:
1. core Tory voters
2. "stop Jeremy" voters
3. "stop SNP" voters
4. hardcore leavers
And, *really* interestingly:
5. disproportionate numbers of less well educated, and seats which have seen no growth or things going backwards since the crash

That is not a usual Tory picture, especially the last bit

Labour:
1.hardcore Labour voters
2. hardcore Remainers (who are now kicking off because they presumably thought Labour didn't really mean the bit in the manifesto about ending freedom of movement)
3. students/the young
4. Labour voters who hate/don't agree with Jeremy but thought it was safe to vote for their local MP because he wouldn't get anywhere near No10 anyway (this was basically Chuka and Clive Lewis' entire campaign pitch - and they're the ones leading the charge towards Jeremy now)
5. and counter to the Tories picking up the less well educated and people who have done worst since 2008 - Labour got the educated middle classes and disproportionately good performance in the seats where things have got better since the crash

Overall the two main parties have generated a massively unstable base for themselves. It's clearly worse for the Tories, but if they can somehow cling on for 12-18 months, and get a less disastrous leader, then it's possible that Labour's support might have peaked last week. Not suggesting the Tories would win the subsequent election, but more that yet another hung parliament could be on the cards.

The Tories should hold 1,2 and 4. God knows about 3, but it's like writing a counterfactual to say they got 5 in the first place. Seriously bizarre.

Labour should be safe enough with 1 and 3, 2 could very easily feel betrayed and go towards the LibDems in the future, God knows about 4 now that he looks like he's in with a shot, and 5 much like the Tories just seems odd in the first place.

On turnout, one of the most disturbing things, to the extent that I've actually left Twitter, has been the harrying of journalists by the real hard-core Corbyn fans who seem to think that they've just got a mandate for hard core old school socialism.*

To which I would make the same point as is made to Brexiters. On turnout of the available electorate Labour just got below 30%. That is not a mandate for a red dawn, anymore than it ought to be a mandate for cocking up relations with the EU.

*and I'm prepared to accept that's a misrepresentation of what Corbyn wants, but it's not a misrepresentation of what his more vocal/dangerous/frankly scary social media warriors want.

--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....

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betjemaniac
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Oh, and I think this is the election that has finally persuaded me of the merits of proportional representation.

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And is it true? For if it is....

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
*and I'm prepared to accept that's a misrepresentation of what Corbyn wants, but it's not a misrepresentation of what his more vocal/dangerous/frankly scary social media warriors want.

I tend to discount things like this without actual examples being given - twitter is pretty much the wild west and trolls exist on all sides.

Secondly how do you define 'hard core socialism' - it seems likely to me that given the particular economic and political circumstances in which they were brought up the younger voters are more likely in general to swing left, and the kind of classical social-democratic policies which were the core of Corbyn's manifesto are likely to have purchase.

This is in fact what cohort based polling has long shown.

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Jane R
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Doublethink. on the idea of setting up a cross-party commission to negotiate Brexit:
quote:
I think it could happen because it detoxes things for all the parties, if everybody's involved then it's harder to make electoral capital out of a less than perfect deal.
Yeah, because that worked so well for the Lib Dems in the not too distant past. Let's face it, if there is a cross-party commission for Brexit the tabloid press will busy itself flinging all the mud at the non-Tory members and claiming that the Tories would have done a lot better if their hands hadn't been tied by the other parties.

If we want consensus politics we need a different lot of politicians. And a better press, or at least one with a wider range of political views.

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Boogie

Boogie on down!
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The tabloid press has had its day. People, especially young people, saw through them this time.

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Garden. Room. Walk

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
*and I'm prepared to accept that's a misrepresentation of what Corbyn wants, but it's not a misrepresentation of what his more vocal/dangerous/frankly scary social media warriors want.

I tend to discount things like this without actual examples being given - twitter is pretty much the wild west and trolls exist on all sides.


Here's one of the nicest people in the lobby:

Jane Merrick

It's obviously the fall-out, but then she has been having to delete rather a lot of tweets lately... Otherwise see the comments under pretty much anything by John Rentoul, Dan Hodges, Polly Toynbee - one ex Corbyn staffer was actually calling yesterday for re-education courses for comment journalists...

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And is it true? For if it is....

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
It's clearly worse for the Tories, but if they can somehow cling on for 12-18 months, and get a less disastrous leader

At what point will they try and elect another leader? Doing this before the Brexit negotiations will mean that their split over Brexit re-emerges, especially as any Remain MPs will be want to push back on May's definition of Brexit as a Hard Brexit. If they run their contest before negotiations, then it can be portrayed as further time wasting, if they try to run it during the negotiations then they'll be seen as chaotic, after the negotiations they may well be seen as economically incompetent anyway.
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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

Secondly how do you define 'hard core socialism' - it seems likely to me that given the particular economic and political circumstances in which they were brought up the younger voters are more likely in general to swing left, and the kind of classical social-democratic policies which were the core of Corbyn's manifesto are likely to have purchase.

This is in fact what cohort based polling has long shown.

Don't dispute any of that, but what I will say, based purely on anecdata and spending the last few weeks on the front line of all of this, that regardless of what the manifesto says, and regardless of what the people at the top of the Labour party may personally want, I am genuinely worried that they are playing with fire and a hard core of people who want to go much further than "classical social democratic policies."

If it was just csdp then I would be happy enough, what with being just about in the "young" cohort myself.

I can only reiterate, I am genuinely scared by some of the forces that have been unleashed.

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And is it true? For if it is....

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Otherwise see the comments under pretty much anything by John Rentoul, Dan Hodges

Whereas the gross misrepresentations of Corbyn by both were presumably just trenchant and robust commentary.
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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
It's clearly worse for the Tories, but if they can somehow cling on for 12-18 months, and get a less disastrous leader

At what point will they try and elect another leader? Doing this before the Brexit negotiations will mean that their split over Brexit re-emerges, especially as any Remain MPs will be want to push back on May's definition of Brexit as a Hard Brexit. If they run their contest before negotiations, then it can be portrayed as further time wasting, if they try to run it during the negotiations then they'll be seen as chaotic, after the negotiations they may well be seen as economically incompetent anyway.
Personally I think they'll have to do it after the negotiations. And they may well be seen as economically incompetent. Nevertheless, I stand by the point that both Labour and the Conservatives have ended up with frankly unsustainable coalitions of supporters. Labour are hiding it better because they're still playing "we won really."

Next GE will see a surge in smaller parties, probably be a good one for the LibDems, and could well see another hung parliament if it's not this year.

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And is it true? For if it is....

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Rocinante
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# 18541

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Entirely agree with Betjemaniac that both parties have unstable coalitions of support, and that Labour's position on Brexit is just as impossibly self-contradictory as the Tories'. Both parties' support is like a rock balanced on a point; any disturbance is likely send it crashing down.

That's why I think that masterful inaction is the best policy for Labour right now; the Tories are the ones in power (for the time being), and they are the ones who got us into this mess. It is up to them to get us out of it; let them decide what form of Brexit they want and thus alienate part of their coalition. If they go for hard Brexit they'll alienate their traditional big business support and put the economy at serious risk; soft Brexit and they risk losing the ex-Kippers.

I'm not saying this is what I want; I think a cross-party commission is probably the most sensible way forward, actually. But Labour's recent experience of working with the Tories on two referendum campaigns has had unpredictable effects on their electoral fortunes and they may be wise to steer clear.

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Otherwise see the comments under pretty much anything by John Rentoul, Dan Hodges

Whereas the gross misrepresentations of Corbyn by both were presumably just trenchant and robust commentary.
how are you defining gross misrepresentations?

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And is it true? For if it is....

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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
If it was just csdp then I would be happy enough, what with being just about in the "young" cohort myself.

I can only reiterate, I am genuinely scared by some of the forces that have been unleashed.

Really? What forces are those? I don't see large numbers of people calling for the policies of the revolutionary left, outside the normal set of hotheads.

OTOH I see columnists supporting the policies of the radical right being printed in the national media, and regularly on television.

The day we see the left equivalents of 'Breaking Point!' and 'Immigrants are Cockaroaches' in the mass media you will have a point.

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romanesque
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Projection from what I vote to what I believe is the reason why I've never been a member of the Labour Party or put up a Labour poster, despite friends bringing me them every election day, and being a tribal Labour voter. The popular sentiment is Labour represents a Marxist or quasi-Marxist socialist doctrine, or in recent years, Blairist sentiments. Neither are the case and I don't care to be stereotyped as such. I'm a social and moral conservative who thinks looking after the weakest members of society is an ethical duty worth higher taxes for those who can pay. I doubt that position is denoted by a Labour Party in my window for the majority of passers by.
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chris stiles
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Otherwise see the comments under pretty much anything by John Rentoul, Dan Hodges

Whereas the gross misrepresentations of Corbyn by both were presumably just trenchant and robust commentary.
And seriously, just look at the comments under anything by any female left journalist since forever.

I'm not excusing either - those are just the extremes twitter tends towards to, you are just happening to notice it now.

[ 13. June 2017, 10:20: Message edited by: chris stiles ]

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Otherwise see the comments under pretty much anything by John Rentoul, Dan Hodges

Whereas the gross misrepresentations of Corbyn by both were presumably just trenchant and robust commentary.
how are you defining gross misrepresentations?
I think that's a homonym for 'lie'. If you're an adult needing help with that concept, then we've reached a pretty poor state.

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Forward the New Republic

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Enoch
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The tabloid press has had its day. People, especially young people, saw through them this time.

As distinct from Facebook, Twitter, and certain news websites that present themselves as select groups of journalists who claim to have a special integrity and to be the only people who really know what is going on?

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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson

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Alan Cresswell

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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Oh, and I think this is the election that has finally persuaded me of the merits of proportional representation.

There has been at least one meme going round the last few days pointing out that the traditional argument against PR (or other system that increases the proportionality of the elected chamber) was that it allows small, extremist groups a seat in government. Which is exactly what has happened, under FPTP. A more proportional system would have made the medium sized parties (SNP/PC, LibDems) the king-makers and not needed the smaller parties (eg Greens) and especially not the terrorist backed DUP.

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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
The tabloid press has had its day. People, especially young people, saw through them this time.

As distinct from Facebook, Twitter, and certain news websites that present themselves as select groups of journalists who claim to have a special integrity and to be the only people who really know what is going on?
Young people get their news from twitter and Facebook. Not from the Mail or the Sun.

You might not like it. You might decry the journalistic standards of websites such as the Canary. But that's what happened, and will continue to happen. Labour, and Corbyn especially, outflanked the (almost universally hostile) press and did something different. Please acknowledge that.

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Forward the New Republic

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Jane R
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Enoch:
quote:
As distinct from Facebook, Twitter, and certain news websites that present themselves as select groups of journalists who claim to have a special integrity and to be the only people who really know what is going on?

So unlike the shining beacons of Truth that are the Sun and Daily Heil... oh wait, Doc Tor has already made this point.

I actually feel sorry for May today, and I never thought I'd say this. She has accepted full responsibility for the mess we're in, which I think is unfair when it was Cameron who started steering for the iceberg by calling for the referendum in the first place. An iceberg that was carefully manufactured by the anti-EU propaganda fed to the public by the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

Guilty of trying to turn the Titanic and making matters worse, yes. Not single-handedly responsible for the whole mess.

Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Boogie

Boogie on down!
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quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Enoch:
quote:
As distinct from Facebook, Twitter, and certain news websites that present themselves as select groups of journalists who claim to have a special integrity and to be the only people who really know what is going on?

So unlike the shining beacons of Truth that are the Sun and Daily Heil... oh wait, Doc Tor has already made this point.

I actually feel sorry for May today, and I never thought I'd say this. She has accepted full responsibility for the mess we're in, which I think is unfair when it was Cameron who started steering for the iceberg by calling for the referendum in the first place. An iceberg that was carefully manufactured by the anti-EU propaganda fed to the public by the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

Guilty of trying to turn the Titanic and making matters worse, yes. Not single-handedly responsible for the whole mess.

True, then she goes and puts Gove back in the cabinet [Roll Eyes]

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Garden. Room. Walk

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Jane R
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...and Boris Johnson never left... [Roll Eyes]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged



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