Don't vote Tory

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, Zac Quinn said:

been living this election on twitter rather than here

such things are becoming an issue. The amount of lies to favour Labour going round on facebook is making them as nasty as the nasty party. It looks like there's no truth they won't warp into the biggest porkie.

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, Zac Quinn said:

oh I agree with that but I think that was just him being overly-relaxed, his advisers will soon put him back into his 'likely to snap at any remotely difficult questioning' box I'm sure.

putting that away was the very best thing he managed for the whole campaign. 

It came out in one of the 'major' TV things (was it Paxman? I forget) but only for the briefest moment before he shut it down again, and most people would have probably missed it (thankfully).

I don't want to see that back again. A politician who resents questioning about his politics is not a good look.

Edited June 12, 2017 by eFestivals

[frostypaw]

19 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

So .... You are Dianne Abbott, and I claim my five pounds.

Now now, she doesn't need more kicking.

Just please wind back a bit from the "you're not violently anti Corbyn therefore you're a lunatic Corbynista" thing - it's not fair and it makes this thread an unpleasant place to be as someone who just sees this as a nice change. It seems inevitable after how far right things had gotten that the swing back would be dramatic - as long as we end up with the political window back somewhere near the middle so we can have sensible conversations about it all once more I'll be happy.

[Rose-Colored Boy]

15 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

such things are becoming an issue. The amount of lies to favour Labour going round on facebook is making them as nasty as the nasty party. It looks like there's no truth they won't warp into the biggest porkie.

I agree, although there's also more than enough BS being spread by the Tory and Kipper camps that this result was somehow an endorsement of the right. All balances out.

 

12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

putting that away was the very best thing he managed for the whole campaign. 

It came out in one of the 'major' TV things (was it Paxman? I forget) but only for the briefest moment before he shut it down again, and most people would have probably missed it (thankfully).

I don't want to see that back again. A politician who resents questioning about his politics is not a good look.

Yep. I don't know how he managed this, whether he brought in different advisers around him for the campaign (like May and Crosby) or whatever, but however he managed it he could jolly well do with sticking to the same strategy. The risk, I suppose, is that his 'snapping' before was based in extremely high levels of confidence that had come to pass because of the leadership landslides, and his election campaign behaviour was more grounded for constantly being told he was behind in the polls, so now he's ahead in the polls he'll go back to being an arse again. But hopefully not.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Zac Quinn

[DeanoL]

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

The PLP (and me) are happy to admit we got it wrong. Similarly Corbyn supporters need to recognise that those who opposed him were doing it for very good reasons on a good political basis - AND for what they saw as best for the party.

Some were doing it because they didn't like how left wing he was, not just because those policies were supposedly unpalatable to the electorate. I'll wager there are plenty more who never even bothered to think about if they liked his policies or not because they so convinced he couldn't win votes that it didn't matter.

Quote

All the polls were ball-park right with vote share.  Or were the polls lying with UKIP support, too, despite the poll numbers being about right for the support they got in votes? Etc etc etc.

Not lying, just not measuring correctly. They weren't "ballpark right" either or no-one would have been so surprised by the exit poll.

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

It doesn't mean they were all wrong either.

If Jez always had that support, he had a mediocre campaign - otherwise your arguments can't stand up.

He had a mediocre campaign. I think we're already seeing some revisionism here about how amazing the Labour campaign was, on the assumption that it must have been because he gained so much ground compared to the pre-campaign polls. But was it an amazing campaign? Really? The Tories had an horrendous campaign. Corbyn arguably had a strong manifesto, but as know you think it was bollocks and that you're no smarter than the average voter, so it's not like anyone else would have fallen for that. Did Corbyn kill on the debates? No. Were his interviews vastly better than Theresa May's? No.

Look at the actual campaign and the sort of bump you would expect it to give someone. Then look at how large a bump that needs to be to close the gap if you assume pre-campaign polling was accurate. I just don't buy it. It was not that good. It seems far, far more likely that the starting position was a lot higher than people thought. 

For your arguments to stand up, you'd have to think he had an astonishingly good campaign. Which you clearly don't.

Quote

 

And yet there's absolutely nothing-at-all to back that up, while there's loads to suggest it's crock of shit.

 

What is there? A bunch of polls? Conducted with methodologies that, with one exception, have proved to be flawed? So your "loads" is "YouGov's polling", the polling that you were saying you thought was nonsense a week ago? Your only evidence is something you yourself tried to discredit.

Edited June 12, 2017 by DeanoL

[zahidf]

45 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

putting that away was the very best thing he managed for the whole campaign. 

It came out in one of the 'major' TV things (was it Paxman? I forget) but only for the briefest moment before he shut it down again, and most people would have probably missed it (thankfully).

I don't want to see that back again. A politician who resents questioning about his politics is not a good look.

It certainly contrasted with May hiding from the public. I think Corbyn massively improved hsi standing with the public during the campaign.

[Teddington]

15 hours ago, Mardy said:

 

Thing is, @russycarps is right I reckon. I don't understand where this "Glastonbury =Peace and Love" got twisted into "It's alright to be a c**t" thing.

If anything I believe, if anything, the ethos of Glastonbury is more about fighting for a fairer world, rejecting injustice and inequality, not 'Oh, you're a racist/sexist/homophobe/climate change denier? ah well, that's your choice and I respect your decision. Peace and love, eh'.

What?

You are missing the point.  Being a c**t is a subjective viewpoint.

Labelling someone a c**t for their political beliefs is not a particulary nice trait, now is it?  Just conjurs up an image of a knuckle dragging mouth breather if I am quite honest, and certainly not likely to change any preconceptions that I might have.

 

I say again the ethos of Glastonbury is live and let live.  If you don't like that, go and joint the People's Revolutionary Communist Party.  You can call people c**ts to your hearts content there.  Hey they even might think it's funny or intelligent.

 

 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

2 hours ago, zahidf said:

It certainly contrasted with May hiding from the public. I think Corbyn massively improved hsi standing with the public during the campaign.

Yeah, just got fingers crossed he capitalises on it. He's about to go back into the day-to-day stuff which was the reason the British public lost faith in him to begin with - if there's no improvement from him in PMQs etc, the polls could very easily and quickly revert to how they were before.

[Teddington]

1 minute ago, Zac Quinn said:

Yeah, just got fingers crossed he capitalises on it. He's about to go back into the day-to-day stuff which was the reason the British public lost faith in him to begin with - if there's no improvement from him in PMQs etc, the polls could very easily and quickly revert to how they were before.

Corbyn had by far the most successful campaign for two reasons imo:

 

1.  May was worse than hopeless (and is not in a million years a leader)

2.  Corbyn just agreed with everyone he could and promised more and more.  What's more, he didn't have anyone with a conscience in the Party to moderate him (they have all been purged or left of their own accord).  People love "free" things (or at least things that are perceived as free.  The NHS is a classic case).

 

It will be very interesting to watch things develop over the next couple of months.

Personally I think May will go, but who to replace her?   I would love Ruth Davidson, personally as I rate her very highly.  I think this would lead to a "soft" Brexit (and by that I mean one that is a Brexit in name only).   Sadly I think she will be perceived as too young. 

Corbyn would be a disaster for the country and a bigger disaster for the Labour party.  One term with him would at best see them unelectable for 50 years or at worse cause the party to fracture.

 

 

[incident]

1 minute ago, Teddington said:

Personally I think May will go, but who to replace her?   I would love Ruth Davidson, personally as I rate her very highly.  I think this would lead to a "soft" Brexit (and by that I mean one that is a Brexit in name only).   Sadly I think she will be perceived as too young.

Ruth Davidson also has the disadvantage of not actually being an MP

[Teddington]

1 minute ago, incident said:

Ruth Davidson also has the disadvantage of not actually being an MP

Yet.......

[incident]

Just now, Teddington said:

Yet.......

Oh, I'm sure that's coming. Given how high her stock is at the moment I'm sure she'll be heavily pressured to stand for Westminster, and has a very good shout for being Tory leader 10+ years from now.

But there's not any chance of it happening quick enough for the next Tory leadership election.

[Rose-Colored Boy]

24 minutes ago, incident said:

Ruth Davidson also has the disadvantage of not actually being an MP

Yeah, she's pretty busy reviving the Scottish Torys, not a job you can just casually give up and hand over to someone else.

Plus the British public have just said twice in under a year that they don't like being taken for granted by careerist Torys. Floating an MSP into a safe seat purely for a transparent attempt to get her to become PM probably wouldn't go well. She might even lose the seat. I think she's far more likely to wait a few years until she's finished her job in Scotland, the Torys look likely to take back power across the UK again, then she can take a safe seat in non-suspicious circumstances, and have a grand coronation after that.

In the meantime who takes over from May is anyone's guess. Boris is a careerist prat, the country hates Gove, David Davis is too old and closely associated with May, Phil Hammond doesn't want it, Amber Rudd's majority is too risky. Before the EU referendum they were talking up Sajid Javid as a potential future leader, having kept himself largely free of association with the May debacle he's probably as good a bet as anyone else. Or someone like Nicky Morgan, although she's probably been too publically critical of May to be favoured among the powers that be.

Also, just like with Labour, when the leadership election is will decide a lot. Half the potential candidates might be taken out of contention if they backed Brexit and May quits after Brexit starts being regarded as a disaster. But vice versa anyone who 'went against the base' and backed Remain probably wouldn't be able to win a leadership election before Brexit becomes a disaster.

Edited June 12, 2017 by Zac Quinn

[Teddington]

1 minute ago, incident said:

Oh, I'm sure that's coming. Given how high her stock is at the moment I'm sure she'll be heavily pressured to stand for Westminster, and has a very good shout for being Tory leader 10+ years from now.

But there's not any chance of it happening quick enough for the next Tory leadership election.

"Phew I am feeling a little faint, sadly I must stand down through ill health"

I actually agree with you that it won't happen..........but it could.

[Levitz]

Not been on since before the election, although the campaign gave me hope still thought it would be about minimising the size of the Tory majority. Young people don't vote, previous non voters won't vote, UKIP voters will vote Tory, remainers will vote Lib Dem.....but no. The main thing I hope this is the start of young people and previous non voters really seeing that they can make their voice heard, it can make a difference and if they do they can't be taken for granted. Whatever happens Corbyn energised parts of the electorate other politician haven't been able to reach and in doing so has challenged the accepted wisdom that the neo liberal economic model is the only economic approach. For too long has that been a hegemony in our political system. There are other ways. Hopefully we might see that now. 

Re-watching the exit poll coming in is a special kind of ambrosia.....

 

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, Zac Quinn said:

I agree, although there's also more than enough BS being spread by the Tory and Kipper camps that this result was somehow an endorsement of the right. All balances out.

it does, but making people more stupid via lies does no one any favours.

Plus, Labour are meant to be better, not the same arseholes.

 

12 hours ago, Zac Quinn said:

Yep. I don't know how he managed this, whether he brought in different advisers around him for the campaign (like May and Crosby) or whatever, but however he managed it he could jolly well do with sticking to the same strategy. 

yeah, he brought in new people, and I hope he sticks with them. There was a clear improvement.

(or in other views, he was always that good and popular so he didn't do anything more-impressive or vote-gaining in the campaign at all )

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, DeanoL said:

Some were doing it because they didn't like how left wing he was, not just because those policies were supposedly unpalatable to the electorate. I'll wager there are plenty more who never even bothered to think about if they liked his policies or not because they so convinced he couldn't win votes that it didn't matter.

Nothing of that stacks up to 82% of MPs wanting him to step down, tho. To get opposition at that high level, a person has to be doing something very badly wrong.

Don't forget, that opposition only cropped up after he'd badly fucked up Labour's want of remaining - including taking 6 days holiday at the end of the campaign.

(and of course, his claim that he didn't do half-hearted, which we all know now was exactly what he was doing)

 

12 hours ago, DeanoL said:

Not lying, just not measuring correctly. They weren't "ballpark right" either or no-one would have been so surprised by the exit poll.

The share of the vote was ballpark right. How that translates into seats is always going to be a more difficult thing to judge - tho yougov were pretty close (tho I accept nearly everyone dismissed that as too hopeful - including Jez & team).

 

12 hours ago, DeanoL said:

Look at the actual campaign and the sort of bump you would expect it to give someone. Then look at how large a bump that needs to be to close the gap if you assume pre-campaign polling was accurate. I just don't buy it. It was not that good. It seems far, far more likely that the starting position was a lot higher than people thought. 

That's a view, but a view without any supporting evidence - even from Jez.

 

12 hours ago, DeanoL said:

For your arguments to stand up, you'd have to think he had an astonishingly good campaign. Which you clearly don't.

I clearly do.

 

12 hours ago, DeanoL said:

What is there? A bunch of polls? Conducted with methodologies that, with one exception, have proved to be flawed? So your "loads" is "YouGov's polling", the polling that you were saying you thought was nonsense a week ago? Your only evidence is something you yourself tried to discredit.

Forget the methodologies.

Those polls still took a measure of public opinion, and there's nothing in what was said by those who were polled to suggest he was "was gaining votes in that entire two year period".

[eFestivals]

4 hours ago, Levitz said:

Not been on since before the election, although the campaign gave me hope still thought it would be about minimising the size of the Tory majority. Young people don't vote, previous non voters won't vote, UKIP voters will vote Tory, remainers will vote Lib Dem.....but no. The main thing I hope this is the start of young people and previous non voters really seeing that they can make their voice heard, it can make a difference and if they do they can't be taken for granted. Whatever happens Corbyn energised parts of the electorate other politician haven't been able to reach and in doing so has challenged the accepted wisdom that the neo liberal economic model is the only economic approach. For too long has that been a hegemony in our political system. There are other ways. Hopefully we might see that now. 

Re-watching the exit poll coming in is a special kind of ambrosia.....

 

Hmmm.

He promised free uni for kids. It certainly got the vote out amongst them, but I wonder how that might hold up if/when kids have got that free uni - cos at that point there's not so much to grab their interest.

As for challenging the neoliberal model, that's not really the case. Offering the world on a stick is only offering free stuff - which will always be popular - but until the offering is tried to be implemented (and with some success) it's merely some great sounding words.

(just to be clear, I think investments in infrastructure would make a difference, but that doesn't get to mean that everything in the Labour manifesto will make the claimed differences and claimed revenues. It's easy to destroy at least some of the claims made there, and by 'amateurs' because some flaws are blindingly obvious with just a little thought [and with real-life implementations that show Labour's assumptions are a crock of shit, too]).

 

[zahidf]

Whats interesting is that the Tories completely gave up the economic ground. They hid away the chanchellor during the campaign (presumably because of a personal falling out with May rather than for political ones) and didnt put ANY costings in their manifesto.

Labour at least had costings which could be looked at (even if they couldnt always remeber them). Even if a valid question is how to fund them, thats a follow up question to having a costing in the first place.

One of many fuck ups of the campaign was seceeding the economy to Labour without challenge by the Tories. I assune it was too hide the Brexit economic fuck up coming.  

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

and didnt put ANY costings in their manifesto.

They didn't put any policies in their manifesto, so there was nothing to cost.

That's a slight exaggeration, there were some minor policies of a few hundred million here and there, that they claimed as balancing each other out. 

They might have been (were) a bit off with what they claimed, but it's exceedingly small beer when put alongside the huge amount of changes to the state's finances that were in the Labour manifesto (and where [at least] some of those Labour costings were top-comedy laughable).

 

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

Labour at least had costings which could be looked at (even if they couldnt always remeber them).

Yep, they could be looked at, but anyone who didn't laugh didn't understand what they were looking at.

 

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

Even if a valid question is how to fund them, thats a follow up question to having a costing in the first place.

No, if a costing is shit, it's shit.

I refer you to the claims for how much a financial transaction tax (FTT) would supposedly raise - which only works out as correct if changes in taxation don't change behaviour towards tax (but they do), and if financial firms would be making all of the same transactions when that tax was applied (which they wouldn't be, because that tax makes the trades less profitable, and they wouldn't make the trades that the tax had made into a loss).

And the real life example of when Sweden introduced a FTT shows that in the first year no extra revenue is raised from the firms affected by the tax, and that in following years it's a loss as the business migrates to elsewhere without the extra tax costs.

So instead of being a big revenue raiser, it never ever raises a penny and loses shit loads of revenue over a period of time - and these would be losses of revenues from one of the country's biggest-tax-raising areas, too.

And I say all of this as someone who supports a FTT. I just don't support it as a revenue raiser (if implemented unilaterally, anyway) because it's clearly not that.

 

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

One of many fuck ups of the campaign was seceeding the economy to Labour without challenge by the Tories. I assune it was too hide the Brexit economic fuck up coming.  

that'll be the same brexit-fuck-up that had zero costings allowance within the labour manifesto despite them no less wedded to causing that brexit fuck-up.

As I say, having costings don't mean shit. Having meaningful costings is what counts.

[FuzzyDunlop]

anyone seen todays mirror?

This was my tweet to them....

Whether my tweet gave them the idea or not - I am taking credit!!. They shouldn't have had May as Leia though. I wanted it more as a Star Wars / Circus theme. Corbyn is Obi Wan, storm troopers / Darth Vader - all in a Circus tent, but what can you do?

[zahidf]

This is good

 

 

[eFestivals]

53 minutes ago, zahidf said:

This is good

 

 

Corbyn learnt to compromise. The PLP learnt to compromise. The Corbynistas are having none of it.

[grumpyhack]

It's the kids wot did it (plus a few old farts like me).

[Rose-Colored Boy]

15 minutes ago, grumpyhack said:

It's the kids wot did it (plus a few old farts like me).

Youth turnout only estimated at 57% though, rather than the 72% that was floating around on Friday. So still plenty of us youngsters for Jeremy to inspire