Next UK General Election

[Gary J]

Question to people who keep up with this sort of news: have the government ... forgot about the Boundary Commission, and the fact that our constituencies are based on data from the early 2000's? Is this going to lead to some Old Sarum situation in a couple decades? The political parties seen to be operating under the assumption we'll be using the same borders we have now, given they are not selecting candidates for seats in the 2018 review, and I can't see the incoming government wanting to irritate backbenchers with the Cameronite pseudo populist pledge to cut MPs.

(Not to mention the 2018 plan would turn BJ's seat into a labour marginal, and remove Corbyn's seat entirely).

In theory the government is still preparing the Orders in Council to give effect to the boundary reviews, but in practice nothing has happened or is likely to happen before an early general election.

[Gary J]

Corbyn represents a faction of the Labour Party. He has no real interest in building bridges to the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party let alone to other non-Conservative political forces. Indeed the Corbynites probably regard everybody to their right, including most Labour MPs, as really being Tories.

So long as Corbyn and his followers control the Labour Party they will block any real chance of progress. They cannot attract enough support themselves, but can easily block anyone else from doing so.

I do not see any real chance of avoiding Brexit, without a deal.

An early general election, if one is timed before the problems of Brexit become undeniable, could well produce a large parliamentary majority for the Conservative Party on a historically low share of the vote.

[Gary J]

Why do leftwingers in the UK consider Swinson to be a Yellow Tory?

She literally supported building a monument to Thatcher.

I quote below comments from the Daily Telegraph online at the time, which seem completely appropriate. Clearly Thatcher was a significant historical figure and a statue was appropriate. If the subject of every public statue in London had to merit the approval of the modern left wing, there would be lots of empty plinths.

Campaigners for a statue of Margaret Thatcher in Parliament Square have gained an unlikely ally in the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has accused those opposing it of being “pretty sexist”.

Jo Swinson yesterday said the debate over the statue had been marred by a “whiff of misogyny”, as she expressed her disappointment at the decision by Westminster Council to reject the proposals.

Ms Swinson, who took over as deputy last year, said it was right that Britain’s first female prime minister be commemorated, adding that there was “no denying” Baroness Thatcher’s significance as a political figure.

[Gary J]

The Labour left have been trying out arguments intended to discredit Jo Swinson, in the eyes of former Labour voters who are now contemplating voting Lib Dem.

The favourite argument is that Swinson supported the austerity politics of the coalition government (2010-15). All that amounts to is that she was a loyal Lib Dem, who voted the party line during the coalition. She was not senior enough, in the junior coalition partner during those years, to have determined policy. Swinson was a junior minister and thus bound to follow government policy, but as she was never a cabinet member she did not have even a theoretical share in determining what the policy was.

[Gary J]

It seems that a general election is almost certain to take place in December 2019.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50221856