UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Barnes]

The general wisdom is that usually a majority greater than twenty can make it through a Parliament with few problems, and greater than thirty should see you home and dry with regards to other parties. However, the larger the majority, the greater the problems governments tend to run into down the line with their own backbenchers.

For example, the 1959-64 Parliament, following Super Mac's landslide, was much more difficult to mange than any of the tight majorities they had in the fifties.

So, the takeaway from British politics is that you don't want a majority too small or too large!

[parochial boy]

The social grade breakdowns aren't much use from any pollster but from YouGov are worse than useless and not worth paying attention to. Can explain in tedious detail later.

Please do.

Yes please do, is it more to do with pollsters being particularly bad at capturing social grades - or is more the "Social grades are obsolete" line (which I'm not sure I really agree with)

[Blair]

FWIW as hilarous as it seems there's talk that if Corbyn became PM he'd do a complete switch around of the Cabinet- and give top jobs to moderates in the PLP to the ones which are filled by complete idiots 

[DavidB.]

Yes please do, is it more to do with pollsters being particularly bad at capturing social grades - or is more the "Social grades are obsolete" line (which I'm not sure I really agree with)

I don't think any British poster would be as stupid to make the last point -- and Al would be the last one to do so.

[EnglishPete]

Diane Abbott compares changing views on the IRA to changing hairstyle

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

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Great attack ad from the Tories around that clip

https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/868884091759886337

Very much in the style of the Conservatives brilliant election guru, the lizard of Oz himself, Sir Lynton Crosby (I expect Australian forum members here will recognise Sir Lynton's style)

[DavidB.]

Love these ads. And Labour just keep creating useful material for them.

[TheSaint250]

Has Labour's recent polling bounce been halted? It seems like they've been shooting themselves in the foot too much.

[ApatheticAustrian]

Love these ads. And Labour just keep creating useful material for them.

to be totally fair...isn't corbyn at the point at which nothing his voters hear is going to change their opinion anymore?

it's a pinata like trump and his unfavorable-rates are maxed out. xD

[Silent Hunter]

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

[Phony Moderate]

to be totally fair...isn't corbyn at the point at which nothing his voters hear is going to change their opinion anymore?

Well I don't know those 30,000 or so people in Islington North so I couldn't answer that question.

Also, it's worth noting that we don't have US-style television attack ads. The closest thing we have is party election broadcasts, but those tend to be little more than five minute chats about how great the party in question is. None of the ads above will be seen on television, only by a small minority of people on social media most likely.

[IceAgeComing]

Those things are basically made for activists more than anything else; I doubt that the sort of people who follow the Tory party on twitter are likely to be floating voters.

[parochial boy]

Those things are basically made for activists more than anything else; I doubt that the sort of people who follow the Tory party on twitter are likely to be floating voters.

Well the Tories have spent a lot of money on finding swing voters to target on social media - see the recent uproar over the dark ads and dubious legality of the Tories' funding and expenditure on data analytics.

[EnglishPete]

Those things are basically made for activists more than anything else; I doubt that the sort of people who follow the Tory party on twitter are likely to be floating voters.

Well the Tories have spent a lot of money on finding swing voters to target on social media - see the recent uproar over the dark ads and dubious legality of the Tories' funding and expenditure on data analytics.

Yes, plus the fact that Tories have a huge election war chest of money to spend on such things, unlike the other parties who were still financially recovering from the last election.

Also despite the decline of newspapers across the board the Tory press, and Sun and the Mail in particular, have millions of readers between them and can be expected to continue to print stories with lurid headlines about Corbyn's (and McDonnell's and Abbot's) long history of defending and excusing other terrorists.

Then there is the spread of these stories. People see these ads or see these stories, discuss them with friends and family over the following few days and the message spreads.

[EnglishPete]

Love these ads. And Labour just keep creating useful material for them.

to be totally fair...isn't corbyn at the point at which nothing his voters hear is going to change their opinion anymore?

it's a pinata like trump and his unfavorable-rates are maxed out. xD

Its more about turnout. Its about discouraging Labour voters from turning out by making Corbyn less attractive to them whilst at the same time scaring the crap out of Tory and floating voters and getting them to turn up at the polls for the Tories.

[IceAgeComing]

To go back to my Mum's SNP thing for a bit: I think that 2015 was a bad election for her: the option locally at the time was the council leader who brokered the local Labour-Tory coalition and generic SNP person and the Scottish Labour leader was Jim Murphy - I think that combination was just a big turn-off for her.  Once you get out of the habit its very hard to get back into it easily: she went SNP/Labour last year but this time with Labour being dead locally she's going SNP again.  The whole constitution thing tipped her over the edge in 2015; I think like me she was just tired of the thing and the SNP weren't talking about it to get people like her to vote for them.

You can't look at a uniform swing from 2015 for Scotland; things have changed so much since then that the 2016 Holyrood election (and the May locals to some extent) are a better basis - that's why I'm saying that East Lothian is the second realistic Labour seat (and on those Surveymonkey figures likely, I'd think).  The locals show a few other areas that they might have a chance, but I wonder whether its concentrated in a seat as much as the East Lothian support is - we'll see in June, I suppose!

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I know it might sound funny but, I'm sensing a Conservative rebound.

[jaichind]

Westminster voting intention (#Scotland)
SNP 39%
CON 29%
LAB 25%
LD 4%
GRN 2%
UKIP 1%
(SurveyMonkey/The Sun - 28 May - 2000 ppl)



@SirDavidButler
Voters are more volatile: the proportion switching parties between elections rose from 15% in 1960s to 43% in 2015.

CON numbers seems consistent with others but this poll does seem to indicate some sort of shift away from SNP and LIB toward LAB.

[jaichind]

Nicola Sturgeon confirms interest in a coalition with Labour as she says Tory governments 'damage Scotland'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/28/warning-coalition-chaos-nicola-sturgeon-says-would-seek-progressive/

It seems the CON talking point of "Coalition of Chaos" will be back ...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Nicola Sturgeon confirms interest in a coalition with Labour as she says Tory governments 'damage Scotland'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/28/warning-coalition-chaos-nicola-sturgeon-says-would-seek-progressive/

It seems the CON talking point of "Coalition of Chaos" will be back ...

The hard Brexit party is complaining about chaos? Hilarious.

[Shadows]

most of these older voters will die & be replaced by Corbyn style raging liberal young voters.

Who will likely get more conservative as they grow up.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Fewer in eight years than Syria in five

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Nearly all done by the terrorists. Also Daesh was formed in Syria.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

He may be a mass murderer, but he's a secular mass murderer?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

More I'd say that we didn't assist after we'd removed Gaddaffi.

Your 1st statement is illogical (Trumpian playbook) & has no factual basis. There is no logic in saying a +40/+50 demographic will die & when it will be replaced by -30/-40 demographic, the electorate will be the same. If anything studies have proven, a large share of the people tend to hold their views/ideologies/voting pattern in their old age that they have in their young age. While it is true, that a small extent of the population will become more conservative with age, is is nowhere near to enable an identical elecorable. In a war where millions of people were killed in Iraq, to show that intervention works, you selectly take the last 8 years & not the peak period in Iraq & then you compare it to the current Syrian war in its crisis. That is selective data selection for justifying the Iraq War. And your whole argument about Syria is void because ISIS was largely formed due to the invasion of Iraq.

Ofcourse Saddam was a brutal dictator & killed many people, but he is not the only one in the world.] Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictatorship where many people are executed for no good reason (apostasy, atheism, dissent, homosexuality) & which is the intellectual think-tank for ISIS, Saudi Arabia whom Britain supports. It is kind of hypocritical to argue about a brutal dictator killing some people (& arguing about a full fledged war) when Britain colonized countries all over the world, conducted mass murders to retain control of the colonies & even in the 60's overthrew & killed secular democratic non-violent leaders killed. And the argument about formation of Daesh is again an ignorant comment. ISIS's roots lie in Zarqawi who (ex-mujahideen, part of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan)  went to Iraq & formed Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) which bombed Americans & killed Shia people on a mass scale in opposition to both Shia Islam & the American Invasion of Iraq. They were the chief cause of civil war, terrorist groups in Iraq. Zarqawi had declared himself the Emir & was breaking away Al Qaeda to form a more islamist faction & after his death his followers galvanized to form the modern day ISIS with many people going to join them from many parts of the world.

This is history & these are facts. ISIS was created largely by the Iraq invasion & AQI & Zarqawi is widely regarded as the foundation stone & founder of ISIS. It is also ironical that US/UK supported Saddam during the iran-Iraq war when Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iran (which Iran didn't do) & they turned a blind eye.

[Shadows]

 “In early 2017 the FBI told MI5 that Abedi belonged to a North African terror gang based in Manchester, which was looking for a political target in this country," “Following this US tip-off, Abedi and other members of the gang were scrutinised by MI5. But nothing came of this investigation and, tragically, he slipped down the pecking order of targets.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fbi-warned-mi5-january-manchester-attack-bomber-salman-abedi-manchester-arena-a7760756.html

Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said: “People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels.“They did not hear anything since.”

Two friends of Abedi also became so worried they separately telephoned the police counter-terrorism hotline five years ago and again last year. “They had been worried that ‘he was supporting terrorism’ and had expressed the view that ‘being a suicide bomber was ok’,” a source told the BBC.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/24/security-services-missed-five-opportunities-stop-manchester/

Muslim clerics, his Muslim friends, the American intelligence & everyone informed the UK government & intelligence agencies about this person (with known past ties).This could have been avoided & is a total failure of the intelligence agencies & British government.

If this was Labour, they would be called out & butchered by the media & conservatives for letting people die!

[Shadows]

Jeremy Corbyn promises 1,000 new spy jobs in wake of Manchester attack

Labour would recruit 1,000 more security personnel across intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ as part of a range of measures to prevent terrorism, Jeremy Corbyn has announced. The promise is in keeping with other aspects of Labour’s manifesto, including a pledge to create 10,000 new police officers, more firefighters and border guards, and stands in stark contrast to the Conservatives, who have reduced police numbers by an estimated 20,000 since taking office in 2010, in budget cuts totalling £2.3bn. The party would also increase resources for schools, colleges and local councils to identify radicalisation in their communities, and move to protect those at risk from it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-1000-spy-jobs-manchester-general-election-conservative-police-cuts-a7759556.html

Well if the intelligence agency can't do anything despite so many warnings, don't know additional spies (which is a welcome move) will help !

[EnglishPete]

As recently as 2014 Corbyn wrote in a communist newspaper that he attended a wreath laying for one of the Munich terrorists

Quote "The Sunday Times has a story that Jeremy Corbyn attended a wreath-laying at the grave of a Palestinian terrorist involved in the Munich massacre. Guido can give a little more detail…

In October 2014 Corbyn wrote an article for the communist Morning Star newspaper in which he recounts attending a wreath-laying ceremony. He writes:

“After wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died on that day [at Sabra and Shatila] and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991, we moved to the poignant statue in the main avenue of the coastal town of Ben Arous, which was festooned with Palestinian and Tunisian flags.”
There is no record of any Mossad operation which killed anyone in Paris in 1991. However, Mossad is believed to have carried out an assassination in Paris on June 8, 1992. Atef Bseiso was the PLO head of intelligence and was one of the Palestinian terrorists who carried out the Munich massacre. " End Quote

https://order-order.com/2017/05/28/corbyn-honoured-munich-massacre-terrorist/

[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.

[Lachi]

Omg, you excpect us to take THAT sh*t seriously?