shakahislop

Well-known member
again, care to explain how did you lot end up with those governing you?
the obvious but still kind of interesting answer is that this is the outcome of a (globally speaking) moderately(ish) well functioning democratic system. This is broadly what people have voted for. You can say that it's a minority of people who actually vote for the tories, which is true, but with some fairly rare exceptions both parties for at thirty years have been triangulating and selecting candidates, making policy, doing communications based on what they think the electorate will like. They also have research systems which are pretty effective ways of hearing what the electorate want, I think. So what we get is a reflection of the desires of the british people en masse, not a perfect one obviously, but the politicians we get and the policies they choose, and how they decide to present themselves, is something that ultimately does come from the weird quirks of british people I think.

the other thing though is that the electoral system means you only need something like 13 to 15 million people to vote for you, and then as long as you can keep your party in line, which generally governments can through the whipping system etc, you can do pretty much whatever you want. there's very little local government power, not really any equivalent to a supreme court, very weak second chamber or whatever the word is for the house of lords. the main countervailing power is the press and to a more minor degree the devolved governments. so with the tories at the moment they get their power from convincing an absolute fuckton of people over 50 to vote for them, so you get someone like BJ or Cameron where at least part of the appeal is an appeal to the senile. coz there's no need for coalitions or compromise these weird pathologies held by one particular demographic end up being expressed much more strongly that they should in the political realm
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Here is a chart that I love, which shows how much of a minority tory voters are as compared to the general public, which is why there's often such a disconnect between 'people i meet are pretty normal and not psychos' and 'how the actual fuck is a sort of clown person called boris johnson the prime minister'.

this is for an election that was considered a huge 'landslide', a complete repudiation of corbyn and by implication any kind of left-wing platform, a major victory for boris, a mandate for 'getting brexit done' etc

1666532735790.png

Voting in the December 2019 General Election roughly assigned to age group (note for political parties that are very small this is very crude). Light grey: children. Dark grey: not voting. Black: EU not UK citizen. Blue: Conservative. Red: Labour. Gold: Liberal. Yellow: SNP. Green: Green or Plaid Cymru. Purple: Northern Ireland.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
again, care to explain how did you lot end up with those governing you?

I think I said the other day that a lot of stuff went wrong with Breixt. Another thing I would point to is the election in 2010. For those who don't know, Labour had been in power for some time, Blair had handed over to Brown as agreed when Brown stood aside for Blair to lead the parity in tthe 90s and as the election approached there was a three-way debate with the leaders - Brown, Cameron and also Clegg from the Lib Dems - Clegg performed well and there were suddenly all these crazy rumours about LDs being in with a shot in the election and so on.

Come election day I don't think that they managed an extra seat but there was a so-called hung parliament in which the Tories despite being the biggest party did not have a majority and thus could not form a government. And obviously neither could Labour. So there were a number of possibilities but the obvious one was for LD to form a coalition with either party, as they had enough seats that a Tory-LD coalition or a Labour-LD coalition would form a majority. But, I think party seduced by the previous press and desperate for power which they were close to for the first time in living memory (sort of) LDs chose to form a coalition with the Tories which was a huge betrayal of many of their voters who had voted for them specifically to keep Tories out of power... there were many things that fell out of this, but I think it kinda destroyed LDs as a credible party and was part of the conditions that led to Cameron calling the half-hearted and poorly thought through referendum, which in turn led to the rise of Johnson and the demise of anyone with a brain in the Tory party.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Perhaps I should enlarge on that. I think that with LDs removed as any kind of serious threat the rebel elements in the Tory party were more emboldened to talk about leaving the EU. I think I said before that traditionally (though hopefully not now) the Tories have been famous for infighting up to a point, but then putting that aside and joining together when they need to defeat outsiders. With one of the two main rivals removed there was no need to put aside differences and the EU as a whole especially leaving/remaining became a huge issue - the issue that the party needed to deal with to become one - and Cameron wanted to get it out the way... and then he dropped an absolutely colossal bollock doing so.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think I said the other day that a lot of stuff went wrong with Breixt. Another thing I would point to is the election in 2010. For those who don't know, Labour had been in power for some time, Blair had handed over to Brown as agreed when Brown stood aside for Blair to lead the parity in tthe 90s and as the election approached there was a three-way debate with the leaders - Brown, Cameron and also Clegg from the Lib Dems - Clegg performed well and there were suddenly all these crazy rumours about LDs being in with a shot in the election and so on.

Come election day I don't think that they managed an extra seat but there was a so-called hung parliament in which the Tories despite being the biggest party did not have a majority and thus could not form a government. And obviously neither could Labour. So there were a number of possibilities but the obvious one was for LD to form a coalition with either party, as they had enough seats that a Tory-LD coalition or a Labour-LD coalition would form a majority. But, LDs chose to form a coalition with the Tories which was a huge betrayal of many of their voters who had voted for them specifically to keep Tories out of power... there were many things that fell out of this, but I think it kinda destroyed LDs as a credible party and was part of the conditions that led to Cameron calling the half-hearted and poorly thought through referendum, which in turn led to the rise of Johnson and the demise of anyone with a brain in the Tory party.
I'm sure you've said this before, but I don't think that's right - about a Labour-LD coalition being possible, I mean. The two parties only got 315 seats between them, which is less than the 326 minimum needed for a majority in the HoC. (That's the theoretical minimum; I think in practice, it's half of 650 minus however many seats Sinn Fein get, plus one, since SF don't take part in the Westminster government as they consider it illegitimate in Northern Ireland. But in 2010 they got five seats, so the minimum number of seats needed for a majority government was 323, which is still more than 315.)

Presumably a majority government could have been formed by Labour, the Lib Dems, and a bunch of minor parties, most of which would probably not want to form part of a Westminster government since their raison d'etre is independence from Westminster. (Or, in the DUP's case, would be unlikely to want to go into coalition with anti-Unionist parties.)

Edit: actually, Labour, the LDs and the DUP got exactly 323 seats between them, but the DUP is very right-wing and it's hard to imagine them wanting anything to do with a Labour-led coalition.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
What's ironic is that, prior to 2010, the Lib Dems had spent a few years as the darlings of the British left, as they had been the only major party to vote against taking part in the Iraq invasion in 2003.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm sure you've said this before, but I don't think that's right - about a Labour-LD coalition being possible, I mean. The two parties only got 315 seats between them, which is less than the 326 minimum needed for a majority in the HoC. (That's the theoretical minimum; I think in practice, it's half of 650 minus however many seats Sinn Fein get, plus one, since SF don't take part in the Westminster government as they consider it illegitimate in Northern Ireland. But in 2010 they got five seats, so the minimum number of seats needed for a majority government was 323, which is still more than 315.)

Presumably a majority government could have been formed by Labour, the Lib Dems, and a bunch of minor parties, most of which would probably not want to form part of a Westminster government since their raison d'etre is independence from Westminster. (Or, in the DUP's case, would be unlikely to want to go into coalition with anti-Unionist parties.)

Edit: actually, Labour, the LDs and the DUP got exactly 323 seats between them, but the DUP is very right-wing and it's hard to imagine them wanting anything to do with a Labour-led coalition.

I think we went through this before actually you're right. But, I bet the DUP would have done it to get in power, or maybe it was the other minority parties, but at the time it certainly seemed to be on the cards, LDs met with Labour to discuss the possibility. There seemed to be a belief that LDs were kingmakers and they had a choice between Labour and Tory.

The reason they gave was that they didn't want to form something that the tabloids would have called a "losers coalition" - but that kind of squeamishness looks so old fashioned now in this era of grab what you can and fuck convention, to be honest it seemed old-fashioned to me at the time.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
What's ironic is that, prior to 2010, the Lib Dems had spent a few years as the darlings of the British left, as they had been the only major party to vote against taking part in the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Yeah it was ironic. But I think it's totally wrong if you know full well you had candidates who got their seat in large part because Labour had no presence in a borough and LDs campaigned as anti-tories, to then take that seat and give it to the Tories just shouldn't have been possible. After that betrayal they deserved to be wiped out as far as I could see. Especially cos once in power the Tories totally ran rings around them and although they were nominally part of a coalition, basically all they did was allow Tories to be in power for a bit, until they another election and won outright and LDs were back out into the cold. What a bunch of dumb fucking idiots.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah it was ironic. But I think it's totally wrong if you know full well you had candidates who got their seat in large part because Labour had no presence in a borough and LDs campaigned as anti-tories, to then take that seat and give it to the Tories just shouldn't have been possible. After that betrayal they deserved to be wiped out as far as I could see. Especially cos once in power the Tories totally ran rings around them and although they were nominally part of a coalition, basically all they did was allow Tories to be in power for a bit, until they another election and won outright and LDs were back out into the cold. What a bunch of dumb fucking idiots.
Yes, it was a kick in the teeth for any progressive voter who voted LD tactically to keep a Tory candidate out - and they went back on their promise on tuition fees, which was meant to be one of their main USPs.

I do wonder what would have happened if they'd refused the Tories' overtures, though? Would there had to have been another GE? And if that resulted in another hung parliament, and a majority coalition again couldn't be formed, what then?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Chaos... which is what we had anyway.
At the time I honestly believe there was a potential left-wing coalition.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Who to believe

Isobel Oakeshott; AS of now, I understand that BorisJohnson is struggling to get the numbers. “I think he’s finished” says one backbencher who was asked for support. Still too early to say tho!!

David Bannerman; I am hearing many MPs are wanting to keep their support private. Lot of hidden numbers as a result. They need to get their single nominations in mind ASAP. Some confusion from last time where threshold much lower and looser nominations. I expect Boris to hit 150+ in my estimation
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Human haemorrhoid Johnson re-appearing shows the levels of crumbling hubris and desperation, a smokescreen to foreground “Rishi’s good with money” etc, which seems likes a last chance gambit in a preamble to an inevitable GE
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The worst scenario for the tories is if he (Johnson) just makes it over the 100 line with Sunak far ahead, because the members will vote Johnson in with the vast majority of his MPs against him.
Yeah that might be true actually. That's a potential problem with this way of picking a leader of course.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I really don't know what to think. If it's true why can't they name them? But why tell a lie when they'll be found out tomorrow? Do they think it will win him votes and become self-fulfilling cos that seems unlikely to me, why would people who were fifty-fifty feel any need to do to move if he was already over the line? It's really hard to tell what's going on.... they are just so totally untrustworthy. It's bad isn't it when you can't trust a simple statement like that from the people who are supposed to be leaders, the best the country has to offer. I mean we're all very used to that situation but I think it needs remarking every now and again, it should be said that it's NOT normal. We really need a proper clear out of these scumbags.

Meanwhile I saw someone getting annoyed when their letter requesting their MP back Boris got this "completely unacceptable" response


unacceptable.jpeg
 
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