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Thread: UK General Election 2017

  1. #91
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    The one thing that has perplexed me about British politics in the past few years has been the process of Party Leaders. I must be blind to the inner nuances of British society because Corbyn in my eyes just seems like a dud. He seems to be alienating to a large section of the public, and as the 'Leader of the Opposition' he certainly abandoned any efforts to represent the 48% who wanted to stay. He had a vote of no confidence just last year and now his party looks like it is on the verge of complete irrelevancy after the next election. How is this man still Party Leader?

    In general, I really don't care if 60% had voted to leave. As a politician who is supposed to be looking in the best interests of the State, this drive towards Brexit at the possible expense of Scotland leaving the Union seems to be insanity. And over what, a non-binding referendum? Would a politician really be chastised in UK society for saying, "I will not vote for Brexit in the interest of maintaining a beautiful Union that has stood since 1707." I just don't understand and maybe I never will.
    There are unions that are more important than the European Union or the United Kingdom. For instance, the union between the various wings of the Conservative Party, with the right wing's placation being the reason for Cameron's promise to hold the referendum. Britain will leave the EU, Scotland may leave the UK, but the Conservative Party has held together, so the objective has been successful.

    In Labour's case, there are other unions too, that are more important than the EU or the UK. Such as Unite, whose leader (re-elected by a majority of 3000 on a 12.5% turnout) Len McCluskey is a personal ally and sponsor of Jeremy Corbyn, and whose union funds the political group Momentum (formerly Corbyn 4 Labour, and still registered under that name in some places). For Labour, too, as long as Jeremy Corbyn remains party leader, leaving the EU and Scotland leaving the UK is an acceptable price, as long as the core goal of keeping Corbyn leader is achieved. Corbym, of course, supports leaving the EU, as he's done throughout his career. Barring a lukewarm Remain campaign last year, but he reverted to form the day after the referendum.

  2. #92
    Forum Lurker Member Sir Moody's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    The one thing that has perplexed me about British politics in the past few years has been the process of Party Leaders. I must be blind to the inner nuances of British society because Corbyn in my eyes just seems like a dud. He seems to be alienating to a large section of the public, and as the 'Leader of the Opposition' he certainly abandoned any efforts to represent the 48% who wanted to stay. He had a vote of no confidence just last year and now his party looks like it is on the verge of complete irrelevancy after the next election. How is this man still Party Leader?.
    Because the Labour party is currently torn.

    "Red Ed" instituted a one member one vote system for selecting their leader (the old system saw the MP's, Unions and membership each get 33% of the vote) this gave the membership a massive "power" boost when it came to selecting a leader and massively weakened the MP's and the Unions.

    On paper this shouldn't be a problem because the MP's should represent the party membership - but that hasn't been the case in the Labour party since Tony Blair "hijacked" it (id actually argue this isn't the case in most the main parties in fact but that's politics for you...). New Labour shifted the party much closer to the centre (which is why they were nicknamed "Tory Lite").

    The membership has been looking for a more left leaning leader since Blair left and the only one who has currently stood forward is Corbyn so of course, with the new voting system giving all the power to the membership, he won both the original leadership contest and the attempted coup.

    Corbyn himself is a dud as you say, while I like his policies and will vote for him, he just isn't leadership material and has let the Tory's run amok with no real opposition - if Labour could find someone with more Charisma while keeping Corbyns policies they would have a much better chance.
    Last edited by Sir Moody; 04-27-2017 at 09:34.

  3. #93
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    It's all fair I guess as long as the black-hoodies don't show up, and even they have been pretty relaxed so far. I am kinda surprised really that there weren't any riots by RAF-types worth speaking of

  4. #94
    Voluntary Suspension Voluntary Suspension Philippus Flavius Homovallumus's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Sir Moody View Post
    Because the Labour party is currently torn.

    "Red Ed" instituted a one member one vote system for selecting their leader (the old system saw the MP's, Unions and membership each get 33% of the vote) this gave the membership a massive "power" boost when it came to selecting a leader and massively weakened the MP's and the Unions.

    On paper this shouldn't be a problem because the MP's should represent the party membership - but that hasn't been the case in the Labour party since Tony Blair "hijacked" it (id actually argue this isn't the case in most the main parties in fact but that's politics for you...). New Labour shifted the party much closer to the centre (which is why they were nicknamed "Tory Lite").

    The membership has been looking for a more left leaning leader since Blair left and the only one who has currently stood forward is Corbyn so of course, with the new voting system giving all the power to the membership, he won both the original leadership contest and the attempted coup.

    Corbyn himself is a dud as you say, while I like his policies and will vote for him, he just isn't leadership material and has let the Tory's run amok with no real opposition - if Labour could find someone with more Charisma while keeping Corbyns policies they would have a much better chance.
    It's not Charisma he lacks, it's a work ethic.
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  5. #95
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus View Post
    It's not Charisma he lacks, it's a work ethic.
    An 8am meeting on campaign strategy is too early for him. When those requesting the meeting normally began work at 6am. Towards the end of the campaign, rather than ramp up his efforts, he went on a holiday. One wonders if he'll do the same towards the end of this general election campaign. Private Eye, a magazine well acquainted with the necessity of verifiable sources, also alleges that Corbyn customarily takes a day off if he's required to make a TV appearance during the weekend. Apparently nearly 150,000 in public moneys is insufficient compensation for the occasional weekend workday.

  6. #96
    Member Member Gilrandir's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    Here's another generalisation for you. The British Free Corps, formed from British and Commonwealth POWs, had 54 members in total, with a maximum strength of 27. It's not exactly notable for having done anything practical, but there were quite a few complaints from the Germans that they were a waste of resources. Compare with Ukrainian recruits to the SS, both in numbers and activities.
    And France had a whole collaborant government doing practical things. Does it make the French pro-nazis?

    Generally, it is what Sarmatian and Seamus said. I believe what accounts for the difference in the number of collaborants (and for your misplaced pride) is the fact of being occupied/not occupied. When a country is under occupation there will always be found people ready to cooperate with the new regime - for differnt reasons, starting with a grudge against the old regime and up to desire to make a better living. Had the UK been occupied, I think we would be talking of much more than 27 or 54.

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    If anything, the Nazis missed an opportunity in Ukraine. They could have formed a satellite state that would probably have supported the war against the Soviets. However, they treated Ukrainians as "lesser men" as well and never truly made the effort to set up an independent Ukraine.
    I read the opinions of people who lived under German occupation (and heard something about it from my grandfather and mother). All of them claimed that at first (for a year or so) Germans didn't do anything particularly distasteful (reservation: those people weren't Jewish; had it been otherwise I'm sure their accounts would have been different). Since they thought they had come to last, Germans even restored some of the ruined enterpises and certainly gave more economic freedom to petty businessmen and (contrary to the Soviets) supported Ukrainian-language theaters, press and culture. Some of the witnesses even claimed that financially they were even better off than before 1941. As they put it, "under Germans we at last could eat enough bread". When the fortunes of war have turned against the Germans they became crueller, especially when the Soviet army was approaching nearer and nearer.

    My mother's family lived in the village and some German soldiers were billeted in their house. She was between 4 and 6 at that time, but she doesn't have bad memories of those soldiers. They even treated her to some chocolate (which she hadn't tasted before and was not to taste it for quite a time after) and were generally not particularly evil, certainly not in the way they were pictured in Soviet movies.
    Last edited by Gilrandir; 04-27-2017 at 12:54.
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

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  8. #98
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Just by chance, I'm reading "Tank Rider" by Eygeni Bessonov, and I've got to the bit where he comments on the differing attitudes to the Soviet troops from eastern and western Ukrainians. The former welcomed them as liberators and provided them with provisions, while the latter hid from them. I've only read the beginning so far, but the officers don't seem to be the horror show commissars of 40k fame; a mix of incompetence and competence, mostly well-meaning with a scattering of arse-covering. Of course, this might be because his campaign starts after Kursk, when the Soviets are in the ascendancy.

    Oh hang on. His brigade gets hit by a Katyusha salvo, marmalising a couple of companies but his own is unaffected. Then his company hold the equivalent of Pavolv's House without even realising the intensity of the action, playing silly buggers with a German tank as they compete to see who can cross an open street the most times in the face of its machine gun fire. Bessonov does it once to avoid seeming a coward, while others do it multiple times.

  9. #99
    Like the Parthian Boot Member Elmetiacos's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    In general, I really don't care if 60% had voted to leave. As a politician who is supposed to be looking in the best interests of the State, this drive towards Brexit at the possible expense of Scotland leaving the Union seems to be insanity. And over what, a non-binding referendum? Would a politician really be chastised in UK society for saying, "I will not vote for Brexit in the interest of maintaining a beautiful Union that has stood since 1707." I just don't understand and maybe I never will.
    They don't know what they're doing. Nobody thought the Leave side was going to win. When it did, people were totally in shock, including the politicians and a lot of the people who'd voted to leave. They have this feeling now that there's a howling mob with pitchforks and torches on the horizon coming to get them if they don't cave in to the extreme Brexiters, or that they must stand by the result or horrible things will happen. Or possibly it's not that. I don't even understand how British politicians think any more and I live the UK.
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  10. #100
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Elmetiacos View Post
    They don't know what they're doing. Nobody thought the Leave side was going to win. When it did, people were totally in shock, including the politicians and a lot of the people who'd voted to leave. They have this feeling now that there's a howling mob with pitchforks and torches on the horizon coming to get them if they don't cave in to the extreme Brexiters, or that they must stand by the result or horrible things will happen. Or possibly it's not that. I don't even understand how British politicians think any more and I live the UK.
    I especially like how people who are pro-EU are labelled Remoaners, when for most of my life the Tory party has been divided between Europhiles and Eurosceptics. It's as though Eurosceptics are allowed to make a career of railing against the EU, but Europhiles must shut up and "respect the will of the people".

  11. #101
    Mr Self Important Senior Member Beskar's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    The issue with Brexshit was that the Boris Johnson and friends were meant to lose and use the next election as a platform to become elected Prime Minister with the populist support of Murdoch's Media Empire and steal the wind from Nigel Farage's sails. What then happened was they won and everyone scampered off as fast as they could, head behind their rear cheeks, as they realised the mess they made out of everything. Theresa May who was a 'remoaner' and voted to stay in the EU became Prime Minister then used the opportunity of Brexshit to boost her support by posing as a hardliner.
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  12. #102
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Beskar View Post
    The issue with Brexshit was that the Boris Johnson and friends were meant to lose and use the next election as a platform to become elected Prime Minister with the populist support of Murdoch's Media Empire and steal the wind from Nigel Farage's sails. What then happened was they won and everyone scampered off as fast as they could, head behind their rear cheeks, as they realised the mess they made out of everything. Theresa May who was a 'remoaner' and voted to stay in the EU became Prime Minister then used the opportunity of Brexshit to boost her support by posing as a hardliner.
    How dare you malign her thus. Obviously she is 'acceding to the expressed wishes of her majesty's subjects' and not merely "posing." Mo doubt this new stance represents as deep and as heart-felt a sense of change as any other position change she has made during her political career....
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  13. #103
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    The one thing that has perplexed me about British politics in the past few years has been the process of Party Leaders. I must be blind to the inner nuances of British society because Corbyn in my eyes just seems like a dud. He seems to be alienating to a large section of the public, and as the 'Leader of the Opposition' he certainly abandoned any efforts to represent the 48% who wanted to stay. He had a vote of no confidence just last year and now his party looks like it is on the verge of complete irrelevancy after the next election. How is this man still Party Leader?

    In general, I really don't care if 60% had voted to leave. As a politician who is supposed to be looking in the best interests of the State, this drive towards Brexit at the possible expense of Scotland leaving the Union seems to be insanity. And over what, a non-binding referendum? Would a politician really be chastised in UK society for saying, "I will not vote for Brexit in the interest of maintaining a beautiful Union that has stood since 1707." I just don't understand and maybe I never will.
    What you may have missed is the effect of an adversarial political system, operating in an adversarial political society, and the demands that makes upon parties that seek to [win] with our fptp electoral system.
    Looking around europe you'd be used to seeing nations that either have consensual political systems, using a proportional electoral system, or, even where an adversarial system exists there are mechanisms in place that function to allow protest.

    What happens in this situation is that the political spectrum fractures, and the political parties multiply to occupy that fragments as narrow ideologies. Moreover, those parties are legitimised in their narrow ideology because there is someone else to deal with other peoples problems. And everyone knows that a coalition of those narrow ideologies will be necessary to form a governing coalition.

    That isn't the way it works in Britain, fptp demands that a successful party seeks a 'majority' of the electorate from across the geographic and ideological divide. They must appeal not only to their core vote, but beyond their core vote with a platform that is wide enough to suck away people who might be tempted to vote otherwise. The Liberals and Tories did this, until the Liberals ideology became insufficient to the great questions of the age with socialist revolution and worker emancipation. The Labour movement better represented the left wing end of the spectrum, and they supplanted the Liberals. The Tories evolved and adapted, and so they marched on. A century later, the world has changed again and union membership is a good barometer to reveal how well the labour movement addresses the great questions of the 21st century.

    It is struggling. But Labour still knows in its bones that success is built on winning across the geographic and ideological divide, that is why it cannot seek solace in the 48%. It is not a winning proposition in an adversarial political society, rather it is a loser's niche from which the party will grow only more insular - and thus irrelevant - to the wider electorate. Corbyn's problem is that he is not mentally flexible enough to reinvent his ideology to face a world that is totally different from the environment that [needed] socialism a century earlier.

    This is why people despise him; they see he is only interested in addressing the requirement of his own doctrinaire worldview, and that is a losers game to an electorate accustomed to the perpetual adaptation a fptp system requires. This would be fine if he led a niche party that has no intention of winning, but he doesn't.
    Last edited by Furunculus; 04-28-2017 at 11:47.
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  14. #104
    Member Member Gilrandir's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    Just by chance, I'm reading "Tank Rider" by Eygeni Bessonov, and I've got to the bit where he comments on the differing attitudes to the Soviet troops from eastern and western Ukrainians. The former welcomed them as liberators and provided them with provisions, while the latter hid from them.
    In 1939 Western Ukrainians mostly welcomed the Soviet army liberating them from the Polish yoke (as they thought). In less than 2 years (September 1939 - June 1941) the Soviets earned the attitude the author reports about.
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  15. #105
    Member Member Greyblades's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    I especially like how people who are pro-EU are labelled Remoaners, when for most of my life the Tory party has been divided between Europhiles and Eurosceptics. It's as though Eurosceptics are allowed to make a career of railing against the EU, but Europhiles must shut up and "respect the will of the people".
    Europhiles made careers out of licking the boots of the EU at the same time the eurosceptics were making thier career, typically while serving as British MP's.

    Now they need to shut up and respect the will of the people because the battle both careers were leading up to is passed and they lost.

    Before you say it, the need isnt an order: it's advice. They're pissing off both the winners and the good losers for no possible gain beyond sating the desire for cheap catharsis.
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  16. #106
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
    What you may have missed is the effect of an adversarial political system, operating in an adversarial political society, and the demands that makes upon parties that seek to [win] with our fptp electoral system.
    Looking around europe you'd be used to seeing nations that either have consensual political systems, using a proportional electoral system, or, even where an adversarial system exists there are mechanisms in place that function to allow protest.

    What happens in this situation is that the political spectrum fractures, and the political parties multiply to occupy that fragments as narrow ideologies. Moreover, those parties are legitimised in their narrow ideology because there is someone else to deal with other peoples problems. And everyone knows that a coalition of those narrow ideologies will be necessary to form a governing coalition.

    That isn't the way it works in Britain, fptp demands that a successful party seeks a 'majority' of the electorate from across the geographic and ideological divide. They must appeal not only to their core vote, but beyond their core vote with a platform that is wide enough to suck away people who might be tempted to vote otherwise. The Liberals and Tories did this, until the Liberals ideology became insufficient to the great questions of the age with socialist revolution and worker emancipation. The Labour movement better represented the left wing end of the spectrum, and they supplanted the Liberals. The Tories evolved and adapted, and so they marched on. A century later, the world has changed again and union membership is a good barometer to reveal how well the labour movement addresses the great questions of the 21st century.

    It is struggling. But Labour still knows in its bones that success is built on winning across the geographic and ideological divide, that is why it cannot seek solace in the 48%. It is not a winning proposition in an adversarial political society, rather it is a loser's niche from which the party will grow only more insular - and thus irrelevant - to the wider electorate. Corbyn's problem is that he is not mentally flexible enough to reinvent his ideology to face a world that is totally different from the environment that [needed] socialism a century earlier.

    This is why people despise him; they see he is only interested in addressing the requirement of his own doctrinaire worldview, and that is a losers game to an electorate accustomed to the perpetual adaptation a fptp system requires. This would be fine if he led a niche party that has no intention of winning, but he doesn't.
    Actually, 40% is usually enough to get one of the two main parties a majority in the UK's FPTP system, although sometimes the figure is lower (eg. Cameron's 2015 success). This is acceptable because customarily a British government does not seek to revolutionise society, but will seek a degree of consensus with the other 60%. This is what is meant by winning the centre, which the majority of the UK's population deem themselves to be. However, a combination of the polarising effects of Brexit, the Lib Dems making themselves toxic from their partnership with the Tories, and Corbyn's ineptness, has left the political landscape with no centre to speak of. In most elections, 48% would win a main party a massive majority, as that many votes would also imply another 20% or so who aren't that opposed to them, but will give them a chance to see what they make of it. In this case though, the Brexit side has told the 48% to just lump it as they've lost. This is as far from the UK's norm as it's possible to get; not even Thatcher broke with the past as decisively as May is threatening to.

    Edit: See GB's post above for an example of what I'm talking about.
    Last edited by Pannonian; 04-28-2017 at 13:09.

  17. #107
    Member Member Greyblades's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Your claim of 48% being told to lump it is erronious as the 48% you are citing is split between the good losers who were and are willing to accept the result, thus joining the winning 51%, the bad losers who are living up to the moniker of remoaner, and the people who do not care anymore.

    At this point it's closer to 20%, at best, of the population being told to lump it. Business as usual in british politics.
    Last edited by Greyblades; 04-28-2017 at 13:21.
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    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    Actually, 40% is usually enough to get one of the two main parties a majority in the UK's FPTP system, although sometimes the figure is lower (eg. Cameron's 2015 success). This is acceptable because customarily a British government does not seek to revolutionise society, but will seek a degree of consensus with the other 60%. This is what is meant by winning the centre, which the majority of the UK's population deem themselves to be. However, a combination of the polarising effects of Brexit, the Lib Dems making themselves toxic from their partnership with the Tories, and Corbyn's ineptness, has left the political landscape with no centre to speak of. In most elections, 48% would win a main party a massive majority, as that many votes would also imply another 20% or so who aren't that opposed to them, but will give them a chance to see what they make of it. In this case though, the Brexit side has told the 48% to just lump it as they've lost. This is as far from the UK's norm as it's possible to get; not even Thatcher broke with the past as decisively as May is threatening to.

    Edit: See GB's post above for an example of what I'm talking about.
    Your missing the point. I put "majority" in inverted commas for a reason. It doesn't matter that a 40% win is less than the 48% lose of Remain:
    You only win in fptp by extending your appeal beyond the faithful.
    Remain lost.
    Parties that seek to win (Labour, despite Corbyn, and the Tories), can only achieve what they seek to achieve by taking majoritarian posiions even when it is outside their own sectarian interest. Blair is a classic example in wooing the middle class.
    Thatcher is another in pulling in the southern working class.

    The body is willing, but the mind is not. This is the Labour/Corbyn problem in a nutshell.
    Even when Corbyn accepts the 52/48 result, it is because it fits with his worldview.
    But he continues to talk about Palestine, and (virtual) pacifism, when these positions are thoroughly irrelevant to a useful 'majority' of the electorate.
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  19. #109
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
    Your missing the point. I put "majority" in inverted commas for a reason. It doesn't matter that a 40% win is less than the 48% lose of Remain:
    You only win in fptp by extending your appeal beyond the faithful.
    Remain lost.
    Parties that seek to win (Labour, despite Corbyn, and the Tories), can only achieve what they seek to achieve by taking majoritarian posiions even when it is outside their own sectarian interest. Blair is a classic example in wooing the middle class.
    Thatcher is another in pulling in the southern working class.

    The body is willing, but the mind is not. This is the Labour/Corbyn problem in a nutshell.
    Even when Corbyn accepts the 52/48 result, it is because it fits with his worldview.
    But he continues to talk about Palestine, and (virtual) pacifism, when these positions are thoroughly irrelevant to a useful 'majority' of the electorate.
    Er, that's my point. When a main party gets 40% in an election, that's 40% voting for them, plus an implied 20% who didn't vote for them but who aren't especially opposed to them (the other part of the centre). Corbyn has solidified his core, but anyone outside his core aren't just not voting for him, but are actively opposed to him. There is zero attempt to conciliate with the voters outside his core, such as is necessary for any electoral victory, but instead he actively seeks to turn Labour into an irrelevance (the Labour party does not exist to gain power, but to be a movement, etc.) When the other main party sidelines itself into irrelevance, it renders the centre moot, as there is no longer a constituency vote that didn't vote your way, but doesn't really oppose you. That leaves the ruling party as the only party capable of gaining power. In most cases in the past, the ruling party is moderate enough to bear the other voters in mind whilst in government. But May sees no practical reason to, and neither do the Brexit side. Victor gains all.

    In US terms, imagine if a single party has just enough power to pass constitutional amendments, due to the other party being utterly inept. Then, when they gain power, they rip up the constitution to solidify their hold on power.

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  20. #110
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Ah, i see. Does that mean you largely agree with my thesis above?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post

    In US terms, imagine if a single party has just enough power to pass constitutional amendments, due to the other party being utterly inept. Then, when they gain power, they rip up the constitution to solidify their hold on power.
    i accept all you say except this. i don't think it is any way a demonstrably useful parallel to british politics right now.
    Last edited by Furunculus; 04-28-2017 at 15:31.
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  21. #111
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
    Ah, i see. Does that mean you largely agree with my thesis above?

    i accept all you say except this. i don't think it is any way a demonstrably useful parallel to british politics right now.
    Note that I don't blame May for doing what she does, except I'd rather she didn't. I blame Corbyn's faction for making it so that the centre has nowhere to go if they don't want to vote Tory. It's not the Tories' fault that they rule in a one party state. It didn't used to be so, and they're not the ones making it so.

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  22. #112
    Like the Parthian Boot Member Elmetiacos's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Greyblades View Post
    Europhiles made careers out of licking the boots of the EU at the same time the eurosceptics were making thier career, typically while serving as British MP's.

    Now they need to shut up and respect the will of the people because the battle both careers were leading up to is passed and they lost.

    Before you say it, the need isnt an order: it's advice. They're pissing off both the winners and the good losers for no possible gain beyond sating the desire for cheap catharsis.
    Yes, just as the anti-Europeans all shut up and respected the will of the people in 1975.
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  23. #113
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elmetiacos View Post
    Yes, just as the anti-Europeans all shut up and respected the will of the people in 1975.
    There's a rare constitutional point that the 52%ers who tell the 48% to shut up miss. Both HM Government and HM Opposition are Loyal. The British political system expects and allows for dissent.

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  24. #114
    Member Member Greyblades's Avatar
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    Yes, just as the anti-Europeans all shut up and respected the will of the people in 1975.
    So you're admitting to being no better than the anti EU then?

    I do not refer to personal bitching, though it is annoying, I refer to the calls for disregarding the referendum and sabotaging the negociation process, street marches, protests, the fringe lunatics courting treason are especially counterproductive.

    Anti EU people are many things but seing the abuse of them over the last few decades has made a lot of us very touchy over the sanctity of referendums.
    Last edited by Greyblades; 04-28-2017 at 19:23.
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  25. #115
    Senior Member Senior Member Idaho's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    The one thing that has perplexed me about British politics in the past few years has been the process of Party Leaders. I must be blind to the inner nuances of British society because Corbyn in my eyes just seems like a dud. He seems to be alienating to a large section of the public, and as the 'Leader of the Opposition' he certainly abandoned any efforts to represent the 48% who wanted to stay. He had a vote of no confidence just last year and now his party looks like it is on the verge of complete irrelevancy after the next election. How is this man still Party Leader?
    The labour party has spent the last 30 years marginalising and ostracising the traditional left. They had a leadership election based on the new one-member-one-vote system (aimed to reduce the influence of the unions to placate the right)... But then for lols decided to stick an old left winger on the ticket - for appearances. They were sure that one of the 4 Tony Blair clone no marks would be voted in - but instead someone who appeared to have some personal integrity and gave straight answers seemed to attract votes.

    The fact that he turns out to be a bit of a grade C candidate is by the by.
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  26. #116
    Mr Self Important Senior Member Beskar's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    The Mirror posted an article about the top 30 worse policies that the Conservatives have introduced.
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...ve-29-10303180

    Obviously, the blue electorate will completely forget about them when it comes to voting in search of 'strong and stable leadership'.
    Last edited by Beskar; 04-29-2017 at 03:01.
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  27. #117
    Mr Self Important Senior Member Beskar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    How is this man still Party Leader?
    You can replace the question with "How is this man still President?". That is what the world thinks about Trump.
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  28. #118
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Idaho View Post
    The labour party has spent the last 30 years marginalising and ostracising the traditional left. They had a leadership election based on the new one-member-one-vote system (aimed to reduce the influence of the unions to placate the right)... But then for lols decided to stick an old left winger on the ticket - for appearances. They were sure that one of the 4 Tony Blair clone no marks would be voted in - but instead someone who appeared to have some personal integrity and gave straight answers seemed to attract votes.

    The fact that he turns out to be a bit of a grade C candidate is by the by.
    It would be hard of them to top the level of ineptitude that Corbyn has shown. And it was predictable, as Corbyn has never held any kind of office or management role in his life (prior to his election, I had more experience in this regard than him). Compare with the other candidates in 2015, at least some of him had solid achievements to their name (eg. Cooper, who was one of the architects of Sure Start). What was Corbyn's CV?

  29. #119

    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Beskar View Post
    You can replace the question with "How is this man still President?". That is what the world thinks about Trump.
    Lol, not taking the bait.

    Impeachment under the US Constitution is a whole different ball game than internal UK party leadership struggles. The party leadership can remove Corbyn at any time with minimal political capital lost, if they desire.


  30. #120
    Mr Self Important Senior Member Beskar's Avatar
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    Default Re: UK General Election 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
    The party leadership can remove Corbyn at any time with minimal political capital lost, if they desire.
    I am sure that is what Paul Ryan said before the United States Presidential Nominating Convention too.

    If the suggestion is as simple as you sound, then why did the Blairites lose their coup and Corbyn got re-elected as party leader with an even larger majority? I know the media likes to make out Hiliary is the shoe-in character, such as they are supporting Theresa May, but that doesn't stop the fact there is a large number of people support the other candidate.

    Not bait. Simply it is the Will of the People.
    Last edited by Beskar; 04-29-2017 at 02:50.
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