UK General Election 2017

Shall we just change the title of this one or create a new one?

I'm beginning to think we should just have a generic 'political turmoil' thread and change the year... if not the month

 

It is not political turmoil -- it is democracy.

 

Not politics, parties. That May gets through with this is due to the messy state of UK parties. May calls Labour, Libdems and Scottish nationalists national traitors and at the same time asks for their vote for dissolving the parliament. And they will do her the favor for their own short term gains. The only reason for this is May wanting a bigger majority and not the well being of the country and so she is going to strengthen her position at the cost of a disuniting kingdom.

 

There's also the matter of the 20+ Conservative MPs under investigation for electoral fraud which would wipe out her majority. Calling an election pretty much kills this off as they can dump them if charges are brought, and outcomes are expected soon.

 

I heard there were 30 people but that might include others who aren't MP's so, yeah... 20 is probably a reasonable estimate.

But it looks like she WON'T dump them and will let them stand in the election even while they're under police investigation.



The world's gone mad mate, I'm telling yer

 

I've seen 24 bandied around by people supposedly "in the know", but it could all be runnish.

She'll likely have no choice but to dump them if charged. If guilty they can be barred from public office.

It is the smart thing to do, however, as any charges will probably get lost in the general election while two dozen by-elections all fought under the banner of electoral fraud would be a hard sell.

 

And that Mail headline is nothing short of a disgrace (not that anyone was expecting anything else).

 

Snap elections for party interests always gets punished where I come from. The other side could be the apocalyptic horsemen and they would win from it. As a whole, would you agree the party landscape is not in a good shape?

 

Other than the SNP, definitely. Labour are all over the place and Farron is an idiot. He's continuing to attack Labour when his best hope is for them to minimise their losses and the Lib Dems grab 30 seats back from the Tories from those they lost in 2015. If Labour drains seats to the Tories then any Lib Dem gains are moot. If they don't then he might have a chance of getting some policies through.

 

As for snap elections, if the majority of the press weren't going to rabidly back May regardless then she could be in trouble, but the Mail, Sun, Express and Telegraph are just going to go on a full on Corbyn assault as only May will give them the Brexit they crave.

 

We're in 'Enemies of the people' territory there. I bet, if you look back into Germany in the 30's, Goebbels had something pretty similar as well.

Of course, the hate-mail were big fans of the nazis in those days.

 

It can be both though, can't it.

 

Well, to be fair, labour's stopped her doing the article 50, haven't they.

Oh... no... that didn't happen, did it.

Well, OK then but the lords made them have a 'meaningful vote' after the negotiations, though, didn't they.

Oh... no.. that didn't happen either, did it.

... as you say.

 

My last remaining hope is that labour and liberals sort themselves out into an electoral pact, (it's not like their policies are vastly different, anyway, FFS), and put up one 'anti-tory' candidate in each constituency.

They'd have to agree an article 50 policy, obviously, but that's not impossible. I'd suggest we leave but 'we negotiate the best possible deal we can and then put it to the people', i.e. a total fudge which might keep the rubes happy. It's not ideal but it might just bring the numbers down into something less than the total wipeout for the anti tory, anti hard-brexit element we'll see otherwise.

Possibly even get near making another hung parliament lib/lab deal?

I dunno... I think I'm getting desperate and going stir-crazy fellas

 

Maybe if you guys chilled and just focused on the important stuff!

 

Hopefully enough people will vote tactically for the leading non-Tory, non-UKIP candidate from 2015, but I just don't see it happening. There's too much anti-Corbyn stuff coming from the Lib Dems and no sign of any interest from the Labour top brass (could the two be linked?) for any pact.
Denying the Tories a majority is possible at a stretch - but will depend on how the vote changes are distributed as the Lib Dems will make gains in the South. It's possible, but unlikely, that Labour's vote has collapsed in Conservative seats and been maintained in their seats - it happened to quite a large extent last time around, so a small group of marginals could be key in this case. The eagerness in which Corbyn backed the election means, to me, that he is either completely naive or has received some positive private polling. Otherwise it's a suicide note.
It is highly likely that much of the Tory growth in vote share is taken directly from UKIP, which would help them in some marginals but not massively elsewhere. With it being a snap election there's little chance of detailed polling to provide any hints at this though.
Any hung parliament would be a disaster for May (or even only a small increase in majority, which would spur on the hard right in the party), as she has no natural allies outside the Ulster Unionists, and even that might be stretched with the situation over there.
A Labour/Lib Dem minority government would need SNP, and possibly Plaid, backing, but there's probably enough in common to keep the Tories out if nothing else.
We can but hope.

 

Chilled? Have you not been paying attention?

 

I've been chasing up the local lot to sort out my bit in canvassing, (which is always good for a laugh), and it's gonna be interesting, shall we say.

I didn't do much in 2015 because of my heart op. but I shall be doing my bit so I'll give you the word 'from the doorstep', as it were

TBH I'm not holding out a LOT of hope but we'll see how we go I suppose

The daft thing is the actual policies are quite popular.

 

Are you kidding.....if you guys can't use proper English how can you ever hope to enjoy the Paradise we have here in the Colonies? Our votes never come back to bite us in the ass!

 

Fair comment. It's everybody else that happens to.

 

I've traipse around the streets of Telford for many years and, sometimes, I'm canvassing for the labour party

We used to have David Wright as our MP whose mum, as it happens, used to be my cleaning lady. He went to the same school as my daughter. Nice family. Y'know... a local lad.

Now we've got Lucy Allen, a tory who's some carpetbagger idiot from 'darn sarf', (Wandsworth, IIRC). She only won by 700 votes and that was largely because of the UKIP swing from David so hopefully we'll get most of them back but, y'know... with the tabs against us, (as per bleedin' usual), it's an uphill struggle

Jezza comes across well but that's mainly among the faithful. Everybody else believes the guided tour from the meeja.