UK Election - Independence Day - 2024

[Jerry_Atrick]

You know, normally I love a good election (that is spelt correctly and I am not thinking about the way some from SE Asia may pronounce the other word)... But the UK election seems like a re-run of the Aussie federal election of, was it 2022. A totally on the nose conservative government that had outstayed its welcome by about a full term and a half, though thanks to Labour not being able to select inspiriging candiates; and a current Labour leader that has many of the traits of Albo as well, and running a similar  small target campaign. At least there is some difference being the rise of Reform UK; the Nigel Farage party of xenophobes and further to the right than the Conservatives have become - and they will follow.

 

Which means, there could be some really interesting outcomes. At the moment, the polls show Labour 20 points ahead of the conservatives, but that has been on a two party basis and before Nigel decided he would run for government after maintaining he wouldn't, and then I think taking the leadership of the party as well.The UK press is as bad as the Aussie press, except it is not all Murdoch - and even a Murdoch masthead - The Times - seems to be supporting Labour.But I still feel it will be a practical drubbing to Labour. They will likely win, but like the ALP, they will not likely do anywhere near as good as they should and it will reflect a defeat to the Conservatives more than a win to Labour.

 

Although, one thing is Kier Starmer's favour over Albo as the leader of the Labour party is that he is a bit more brutal than Albo; He reminds me more of Dan Andrews than Albo in the way he goes about things. But I don't think that will come through in the same way because, like hom or not, Andrews led with the front foot and had bold visions (too bold one may argue). On the other hand, Starmer, like Albo seem to lead from the back foot and block rather than attack.

 

The way I see this one going will be:

• Labour to take a relatively slim majority - maybe 10 seats
• Reform likely to pick up 3 - 4 seats in the south East and maybe more up North from what they call the "red wall" seats - typically Labour, but voted Conservative last time to "get Brexit done". These people would literally chop their noses off to spite their face if a pollie gave them someone to pile into for all their woes
• Lib Dems (sort of a better version of what the Democrats last were) have a genuine opportunity to overtake the Conservaties, as they have had at the last three elections, but always fluff it with fluffy policies. They have Ed Davey as their leader, who is a seasoned pollie. I think theyt will pick up seats from both Labour and the Conservatives, but their dogmatic persual of dodgy do-gooding policies (and coming from me, that means they really are over the top on do-gooding) will lose its sheen with many voters.
• Conservatives will probably suffer their worst defeat in a long time - since 1997, I would suggest.
• Greens will struggle - they are seen as too extreme and don't have the same sustainable growth agenda as the Aussie Greens. It may be unfair, but even listening to them on hour-long talk shows, they do drone on a bit.
• Count Binface (https://www.countbinface.com/) Sadly, only running for London Mayoral elections
• https://www.loonyparty.com/about/policy-proposals/  - They would get my vote if they stand in my electorate.

 

4th July - Bring in the Aliens!

 

 

[willedoo]

I seem to remember quite a few years ago in the UK there was a Best Party I've Ever Been To Party ran in the elections.

[Marty_d]

The gap always narrows on election day.  Very few changes of government are "landslide", at least in this country.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Tony Blair was elected in a landslide win in 1997 - just as I arrived here. John Major had led his conservative government in much the way Fraser did, and people had had enough. Then, after the disastrous decision to take the UK into Iraq, Labour booted him out, and his treasurer tool over (hmm,, watching UK politics simply requires looking back a little on Aussie politics). Sadly for Gordon Brown, who like Keating, wasn't a really popular PM, there was no John Hewson on the other side to stuff on the Conservatives chances.. Well, it was David Cameron and you can argue he is worse than Hewson in terms of relating to the public - Hewson was a far better politician than Cameron, IMHO. It was just that Brown was far less relatable to the public than anyone. However, like Keating, he is seen as a statesman of Labour at the moment.

 

Tony Blair's landslide victory was described by a law lard as an elected dictatorship, the majority was so strong. It was a 179 seat majority of a parliament out of about 650 seats. Ironically, arguably the beginning oif the very worst PMs in British modern politics, BoJo, had the next landslide with his Get Brexit Done slogan, took the Conservatives from a minority government to one with an absolute majority by 80 seats - still quite a healthy landslide, if not quite as much as Blair.

 

Yes, the margins tighten somewhat - the  biggest poll margin I heard of was 26% held by Theresa May.. she was so incompetent a leader, she made Gordon Brown look good. She squandered it to 4% by the time she called an election and they could not gain a majority. But generally a 20 point lead in the poll translates to a significant electoral gain.. I just feel that the pack has widened, Labour will win a majority, but it wont be a landslie.

[Jerry_Atrick]

One of the entertaining, if worrying bits of this election is Nige Farage and his Reform Party..

 

Interesting article from the terrorgraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/04/nigel-farage-destroy-tories-history-on-his-side/

 

And should this lady have been arrested? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pp7yg0y3po

 

(BTW, that's twice he has been attacked by a miklshale weilding nutter.. Something very British about terrorism on that scale. 😉

 

 

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

And should this lady have been arrested? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pp7yg0y3po

Would you want a person dealt with according to Law if they dumped a thick shake over you on purpose?

[Marty_d]

8 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Would you want a person dealt with according to Law if they dumped a thick shake over you on purpose?

In reality? Probably not.  At the end of the day it's milk. It's not going to hurt you, it'll wash out. 

Actually should be allowed as a valid form if political protest. Pollies always want to milk the moment...

[Jerry_Atrick]

My comments er should she be arrested was meant in jest, but I concede there was no emoticon to give a hint..

 

I doubt she will be charged, though.

Edited June 5 by Jerry_Atrick

[Marty_d]

Given the target was Nigel Farage, a more appropriate weapon would be a steaming bucket of bullshit. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Nah.. that is his weapon of choice on the rest of us

[Marty_d]

Exactly!  This way he's just getting some back.

 

[facthunter]

The milk of human kindness.. Just add Honey.  Nev

[Litespeed]

I think imagination is required when dealing with Farage the farcical f**K wit...

 

 

A bucket of diluted honey and fire ants should help that itch.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Yes.. I think he is worse than Trump - he is far smarter and I would say a bigger % of the population follow him compared to Orangutan Man (that is an insult to Orangutans, by the way)

[Litespeed]

Farage is a big danger,  but not yet on Trumps level of proven malicious destruction of democratic norms and illegality.

 

I would have thought Farage would be getting votes mainly from the conservative side, not Labour voters.

 

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Farage will no doubt take voters away from teh Conservatives. In fact, one (and only one so far) puts Reform two percentage points ahead of the Conservatives https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/reform-uk-overtakes-pm-sunaks-conservatives-opinion-poll-2024-06-13/

 

However, BoJo won what the call the  "Red Wall", which is a bunch of Labour stronghold seats in the North of the country, and typically the most depraved. These were amongst the highest concentration of Brexit voters in the country, and they will swallow the Kool-Aid and the bottle with it for good measure. It is here that I think, when it comes to putting pen onto paper, that Reform will do not too badly, and Labour has to win many of these seats to get into power. What will possibily save Labour is the electoral system is "first pas the post", which if 50%+1 vote is where the post is, is a misnomer. The winner of a seat is the candidate that polls the most votes (tick/cross in teh box).. Often they are won with less than 35% of the vote. This may save Labour because Reform may see big gains in these seats, but maybe not enough. If it were preferential or proportional voting, it may be a different story, to be honest.

 

All the major parties have released their mainfestos., The Conservatives was largely derided as nonsense; the Lib Dems as aspirational; Reform Party's "Right of Centre" manifesto has been labelled as, "extemely right of centre" (note the clever play on wards where he does not say how far right of centre), so you can guess whats in it. Incedibly, a Conservative leaning radio presented last night labelled the Labour manifesto as uninspiring, not innovative, bland, etc.. he was really deriding ot for its lack of ground breaking policy, and then went on to say how it was clearly the best manifesto amingst the lot of them for putting the country on track. For someone who has publicly stated he would never vote Labour, he was basically saying, of the lot, you're (as in the UK public) are much better off with Labour's polices, so you may was well vote for them.

Edited June 14 by Jerry_Atrick

[willedoo]

Outgoing Conservative MP Sir Robert Buckland is fed up with his mob and said "I'm fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position, the truth is now — with the Conservatives facing this electoral Armageddon — it's going to be like a group of bald men arguing over a comb".  Sounds like a good description.

[facthunter]

Great analogy. How many new leaders in so many years?  Blame the Clown Johnson and Nigell Farage.  They are all private School and Oxford snobs. Ther's NO place for anything called the House of Lords either, in a democracy..  Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

Ther's NO place for anything called the House of Lords either, in a democracy.. 

Is your opinion based on the way people get to be members of the House of Lords, or are you against a two-house system as we have?

[Jerry_Atrick]

I would gues the method of appointment. However, I would suggest the House of Lords has, for the most part been an effective check and control as once appointed you can't be unappointed, and that has tended to result in members of the House of Lords more readily departing from party lines. Of course, BoJo has provided examples where it can be exploited outside of convention.

 

But the key difference between the Australian and UK bicameral system is that a bill does not have to pass both houses to become law. If the House of Lords continually blocks legisation, the government can invoke the Parliament Acts of 1947 and 1949 and bypass the House of Lords entirely. Of course, the political ramifications for doing so are potentially huge, so they don't do it often.

 

OK to the election. In the end, despite the massive gains to Labour, the results are very similar to that of the last Aussie federal election. The reason for the difference, I think, is two fold. First, the UK has a first past the post system; the one weith the highest votets - not the majority - in a seat. The second is voting is not compulsory, and this was the second lowest turnout since the mid 1800's, at around 60%. I would suggest a lot of the people of the greater than average who didn't turn out to vote were Tory voters who couldn't vote them in, and couldn't vote for another party. If they had all turned up and voted for their next best, the results may be different.

With 6 seats to go, here are the stats:

• Labour: 410 seats (326 to win, up by 209); 33.8% of the national vote. Up by 1.6% (yes, Labor in Australia was down and only had 30% of the prmary vote).
• Conservatives: 119 seats, down by 248 seats, and 23.7% of the vote. So, with 7% less of the national vote, they have just over half the searts.
• Lib Dems made a comeback and a half. 71 seats - their best ever; up by 63 with 12.2% of the vote.
• Scottish Nationals were wiped out of Scotland with 9 seats, so far a loss of 38 seats and with 2.4% of the national vote,. (yes, all concentrated in Scotland, so that has to be taken into account)
• Sinn Fein made some real gains - 7 seats; a gain of.. 7 seats with 0.7% of the vote (concentrated in Northern Ireland).
• Independents: 6 seats, up by... 6 seats with 2% of the national vote. These are Jeremy Corbyn and a handful of pro-Palestinian candidtes; there may be a couple that are running on independent lines.
• Democratic Unionist Part 5 seatsl down by 3; with 0.6% of the national vote, concentrated in Northern Island. Hang on, in the national parliament, there seems to be some gerrymander for the smaller states (they are not countries).
• Reform UK (Nigel Farage's far right partyy): 4 Seats.. up by 4, on 14.3% of the national vote - that is 2.1% more than the Lib Dems that managed over 70 seats!
• Greens: 4 Seats - up by three on 6.8% of the national vote
• Plaid Cymru: 4 Seats - up by 2 on 6.8% of the national vote )concentrated in Wales).

 

The rest are minor parties..

 

There seems to be a disporoprortionate allocation of seats based on the national vote. Despite the hughe parliamentary majority Labour has, it is not representative of the national votes cast. Obviously, for example, Reform UK had very high levels of concentration in their votes, but many of their supported will feel short-changed when the Lib Dems had less of the national  vote, but acquired almost 18 times the number of seats! In a proportional or perferential system of voting, the numbes would look a lot more like that of the Aussie election - Labour would have probably still won, but nowhere near with the same majority.

 

Labour ran a candidate in similar vain to the ALP - from humble background, probably a very good deputy, but with little charisma; and they ran a small target campaign when the electorate were crying out for boldness. I credit Starmer with more intelligence than Albanese and the above numbers will not be lost on him. He has to perform to stop the lurch to the far right; he knows it. His acceptance speech, I thought was measured and about the job that has to be done.

 

Even the Murdoch press, in the end, got behind him. The Sun, which has lambasted him virtually through the campaign, in the last print before the election coverage backout 24 hours before polls open, stated their readers should vote Labour. I think that was the dawn of reality - their readers would have voted Reform UK if nto Labour, and that would even be worse for the conservatives.

 

[facthunter]

Responding to OME the appointment by status. is my concern.  I don't mind the idea of a House of review. The USA constitution starts with ALL men are born equal. Any qualification or restriction of that is  a reduction of the. Democratic Process.   Nev

[onetrack]

The statement that "all men are born equal" is a crock of sh**. What it should be, is, "all men should have equal opportunity" (to better themselves, or to become leaders). Many people fail to progress to the heights they could reach because of their family financial position, skin colour, religion, or other "looked down on" attributes.

No-one is equal to anyone else at birth, we all have different natures, attributes, inborn skills, and education/skills potential - all it takes, is being positioned to take advantage of education and training to progress.

You only have to see what some downtrodden people have achieved, when they fall under the protective umbrella of someone rich and well-connected.

And the fact that highly ambitious people become our leaders is a constant failing of our societies. Some of our best leaders only fell into leadership positions by chance, and they were often reluctant to take up those positions - but when they did, they excelled.

[red750]

A New Zealand journalist has revealed that she was so sure of Labour’s landslide win in the UK’s general election that she filmed a segment on the result weeks ago.

 

Standing outside Downing Street, Lisette Reymer, the Europe correspondent for New Zealand’s Newshub, boldly proclaimed that Sir Keir Starmer’s victory over the Conservative party was so “predictable” she was able to record her report in advance before flying home.

 

“The change in power has appeared inevitable for months – if not years,” she said. “Today’s result was so predictable, I was able to confidently film this weeks in advance before flying home to New Zealand.”

[facthunter]

O/T It was in reference to the RIGHT to vote. to put it in context. I think it was followed with I hold this to be self evident. This needed to be stated at a time when many argued other wise in the USA.. I can recall when Women didn't have the right to vote HERE..  Nev