UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[joevsimp]

Yeah, that's the most likely at this point I think, I've been critical of CL/JB banging on so much about Progressive Alliance for a while, my branch also put in a motion at conference last year pointing out that it had not been voted on as party policy (it has now though I think).  I was also not surprised to see Labour reject it out of hand so quickly, what with Clause 1 and everything

muttering's I have heard so far are potentially Greens standing down in one of both seats in Plymouth which was one of the places in 2015 that the tory majority was smaller than the Green vote, but the issue is that we barely campaigned there, those voters actively chose not to vote for the Labour party and Labour can't expect to have them delivered on a platter without working to win them over.

Labour branch in Jeremy Hunt's seat in Surrey are considering standing down as well, but IMHO this should be so that they can get behind the NHS Action candidate who got 10% last time, rather than the Lib Dems, of course there's precedent for the LibDems backing that party's forerunners in Kidderminster in 2001, not that Labour would like to be reminded of that.

tl;dr, everyone's ideological baggage and mutual distrusts make PA a non starter, could've been done for 2020, but no chance this quickly, which I think was a minor contribution to May's deision to go for the snap poll

[joevsimp]

Dumb question: wonder if any of the regional parties could keep a deposit in any constituency outside their home area. SNP outside of Scotland might have more appeal to some than other non-Tory parties.

So, wonder if this election result will inspire some to become more supportive of IRV systems over FPTP

SNP in Berwick - a town that's transferred between England and Scotland about 10 times in the last 1,000 years. SNP, also, in Liverpool would do quite well.

The English Democrats have, on occasion, stood in Monmouth, Newport and the South East region for the Welsh Assembly, they lost their deposits and got outpolled by Plaid, in an area that some people insist on banging on about really being part of England

as for IRV, the referendum in 2011 was for AV which is the same thing, so that's out

for the conservatives to get 20 seats in Wales they need nine gains: the four remaining seats in the North East are easiest, then Bridgend, both Newport seats, and two out of Cardiff West, Cardiff South and Swansea West.

FWIW I think they will get as far as Newport and stall, leaving them just short of a majority, but will still overtake Labour (assuming that the latter will lose Cardiff Central and Ynys Mon)

[joevsimp]

Oh FFS, can we just ban all non-British nationalities from this thread? If you're going to post about a week's old news about a defection involving a years-long retired MP that no one cares about, at least get his name right.

Might have happenned a week ago but it went under the radar a bit. I only saw five mins ago when NS tweeted a link to this piece he's written for them.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/04/former-mp-bob-marshall-andrews-why-i-m-leaving-labour-and-joining-lib-dems

Very interesting, even if it is full of the vilest heresies about the past, present and future (or lack thereof)  of the Labour party.

[joevsimp]

only four candidates in my constituency, Reading West:

Alok Sharma, Con
Olivia Bailey, Lab
Meri O'Connell, LD
Jamie Witham, Green

Lib Dem is the only one who lives in the constituency, Green candidate and Tory incumbent live over the other side of town in the East seat, while the Labour candidate lives in Ealing, which seems to imply that they won't be bothering too much, in a seat that would be a must-win if aiming for a majority

[joevsimp]

For my constituency of Edinburgh South we have:

Alan Beal (Liberal Democrat)
Jim Eadie (SNP)
Ian Murray (Labour)
Stephanie Smith (Conservative)

Ian Murray is the incumbent, notable for being the only Labour MP to survive 2015, Jim Eadie was the MSP for the related but distinct scottish parliament seat of Edinburgh Southern (which does not have the council estates in the south of the city that Edinburgh South has, so is consequently better for the tories than Edinburgh South and worse for Labour and the SNP) from 2011 to 2016 when he lost his seat to (again, notably) Labour. Stephanie Smith is a councillor for Liberton/Gilmerton (the part that is in South but not Southern) and Alan Beal is, as far as I can tell, some dude.

I'll be voting for Murray, and am cautiously optimistic, given our performance in the council elections and murray's position in the sweet spot of the constituency of being both against independence and brexit, of a hold. In fact, I'd go as far to say that this could be one of the only constituencies  in the whole country where labour increase their majority.

Interesting, most pundits seem to have Murray tagged as dead man walking, will be very interesting to see who's right.

[joevsimp]

There are only about 35 Blairites inside the Parliamentary Labour Party, so the idea of the Blairites leading the purge is well incorrect. If anyone is going to do it will be the Old Right under Tom Watson, and  most of the Unions. I mean at best the Purge will be bringing back the electoral college- so its not as if anyone will get expelled.

How many are Brownites? or do they overlap with the Blairites and old right these days?