UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Silent Hunter]

The Conservative manifesto promises to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act FWIW.

My analogy was pointing out that Labour would be able to implement none of their policies whether the majority was 20 or 200. Personally, I'm going for 50-100.

[Silent Hunter]

Have the IRA hot take artists considered that the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer has the surname "McDonnell"? There's a very substantial number of people in Britain who have Irish ancestry or who are Catholic and they tend to be Labour voters. With this in mind, the idea that this issue is going to destroy Labour in its heartlands is very strange to me.

Whatever people's memories of the IRA are, it seems that a substantial majority agree with Corbyn's premise.

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/88c1aff0-41f4-11e7-94a8-2ab0a50a8b9c/question/a76fff10-41f4-11e7-aa59-c62e889b3830/toplines

They may have weighted that, but it's still a self-selecting poll. Ergo, absolute junk.

As for the editorial cartoon, you always get an array of views in British opinion sections. At any rate, Sir David Low, the editorial cartoonist on The Evening Standard was a Labour supporter who worked on a Tory paper - he asked for and got complete editorial freedom.

[Silent Hunter]

Former gives the Conservatives a majority of 104 based on Electoral Calculus.

A note on methodology

[Silent Hunter]

The Tories only had a majority of 14 and saw a chance to get a landslide based on Corbyn's polling. They still might.

[Silent Hunter]

The election hasn't happened yet. A lot could change in the next 12 days.

A few months ago, we weren't expecting this election for one thing...

[Silent Hunter]

Labour may be narrowing the gap, but they are not closing it fast enough and there is a real possibility of polls overstating them.

[Silent Hunter]

Diane Abbott compares changing views on the IRA to changing hairstyle

Also, here's what might be deemed a Freudian slip...

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[Silent Hunter]

Some of them will have already voted - postal ballots went out a week ago.

[Silent Hunter]

Much of the increase of police numbers under Labour was PCSOs, I believe. Who are basically civilians in uniform without the full arrest powers of regular police.

As for Abedi and other terrorists, you need a large team to conduct a 24 hour surveillance operation and unless we want to start interning people, the resources aren't there to cover everyone.

At the end of the day, the only people responsible for the attack in Manchester are the terrorists themselves.

[Silent Hunter]

Also, Paxman doing the interviews. He's always fun.

[Silent Hunter]

How exactly is Corbyn catching up to May? I don't understand it.

What's there to not understand? It is very very common for voters to rebel against a governing party when they call snap elections based on arrogance and over confidence.

In the UK, however, it is quite common for a governing party to call a snap election and increase their majority (1955, 1966, Oct 1974, 1983).

[Silent Hunter]

The tories need to get some advice from TRUMP on how to win elections.

They have Jim Messina, who can actually do it and win the popular vote...

[Silent Hunter]

YouGov are thinking that there will be a major increase in the youth vote... it may well happen but I remain sceptical. Labour may be close but they are not close enough.

[Silent Hunter]

You did get a large number of late registrations ahead of the deadline... however, the turnout for the last four elections has been below 70% - the highest turnout electoral event since 1992 was the EU referendum.

If YouGov are assuming this big youth turnout and Labour are still falling short of largest party, with no-one else reliable even predicting a hung parliament, then May must be the favourite to get back in...

But that is reliant on the polls being right...

[Silent Hunter]

The number of seats Corbyn really must get more than is 209, which was the figure Michael Foot got in 1983.

[Silent Hunter]

This won't go down well in middle England

It definitely won't. Sturgeon is particularly disliked in my social circle.

[Silent Hunter]

This won't go down well in middle England

It definitely won't. Sturgeon is particularly disliked in my social circle.

[Silent Hunter]

This won't go down well in middle England

It definitely won't. Sturgeon is particularly disliked in my social circle.

[Silent Hunter]

Ipsos MORI Pol


CON   45
LAB    40
LIB      7

Not sure if they did not ask UKIP or just fail to publish it

That looks odd...  possible, but very odd.

[Silent Hunter]

He hasn't won yet and remember everyone that Labour is still behind in the polls.

[Silent Hunter]

Except he didn't actually say that. He said no to first use, then waffled on retaliation...

[Silent Hunter]

Corbyn won't retaliate to a nuclear attack that isn't going to happen? outrageous!

He does have to write the letters of last resort if he becomes PM, so this is not a non-issue.

[Silent Hunter]

Corbyn won't retaliate to a nuclear attack that isn't going to happen? outrageous!

Things can change a lot in 5 years. People deserve to know that if we are attacked, we are not just gonna sit back.

yea man, i'm sure that the irradiated zombies living in the rubble of post-nuke london would be primarily concerned about britain's ability to incinerate moscow or pyongyang and not about the fact that they are  dying a horrible death.

Zombies don't exist.

[Silent Hunter]

There are some really 'classy' comments about the audience on Twitter tonight...

[Silent Hunter]

You don't have to use them on a city... suppose the Chinese navy was sending an invasion fleet to occupy Alaska... you could drop a nuke on the ships and destroy it.