General Election 2015 - chat, predictions, results and post election discussion

[Roadkill]

labour are bunch of tossers they don't care about working class or folk who do jobs which pay crap money ie council work,

Yeah, because the Tories really care about working class folk and public sector workers, don't they?

Pillock.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

i'd disagree to a point - certainly i'd accept that Labour defeating the tories in 1997 was going to happen regardless of policy or presentation, and that 2001 was also gifted to Labour by the Tories, but the size of those victories, and the acceptance by 'middle england' that Labour was the natural party of government and the Tories were incompetant nutjobs was (imv) brought about by Labour talking to, and about, people who weren't 'in need' of Labour, but who could be persuaded that Labour would be good for them, via being good for society.

Or they were persuaded to vote Labour because they no longer stood for the good of society. In particular, they no longer stood for preventing the gap between rich and poor from widening. Labour strove to become a party that could accommodate the sharp-elbowed 'fuck you' 'middle England'.

I don't really buy the argument, though, tbh. Huge swathes of that 'middle England' remained tory, after all.

One of the many ironies of Blair's big victories in 1997 and 2001 is that they effectively neutralised the back benches. A landslide labour govt meant, paradoxically, a far more right-wing govt.

 

[emanymton]

michael gove in every cell?

you'd be spreading him pretty thin, there's only something like 240 bones in the human body - you'd be hard pressed to share him among the inmates of pentonville let alone all the other gaols in the country.

It's a Challenge I'd be quite happy to try though.

 

[purves grundy]

So what is to be done?

 

[Idris2002]

So what is to be done?

Disassemble Gove on a molecular level.

 

[frogwoman]

By the way those John Harris vids are fantastic. I really recommend watching. Im beginning to think this election was not a case of the tories winning so much as labour losing.

 

[Pickman's model]

So what is to be done?

have people walk all over gove - two steps forward one step back

 

[Dogsauce]

 

[Lord Camomile]

I was wondering if it would be possible for sources to report the content of spoiled ballots. I presume it'd be illegal, but would there be an easy way it could be done anonymously?

Could be of diverting interest

 

[treelover]

So what is to be done?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/7-ways-make-difference-you-5672059
Now is the time to get active in your opposition to the Conservative government and its cruellest policies

The Mirror seems to be really pleased about the youth protest in London yesterday, five stories about it, including this one. I am beginning to think this term is not going to be as passive as the last.

 

[treelover]

Did i post this already?

see also

pretty powerful stuff.

 

[treelover]

The surprising victory for me was Gower, but again, farmers, and very close. Cardiff North too but it contains areas where I'm sure people have been doing very well over the past few years. Vale of Clwyd, not so much.

Farmers provide masses of free advertising space for the Tories, they were all over the peaks, hundreds of them.

 

[brogdale]

pretty powerful stuff.

It's actually a little geographically illiterate and simplistic. With the exception of the capital city that was based on trading, all of our major urban areas developed on the coalfields. It's just a map of urbanisation based on industrialisation.

 

[Belushi]

Farmers provide masses of free advertising space for the Tories, they were all over the peaks, hundreds of them.

Yes, my mum was saying the same where she is.

 

[treelover]

Sturgeon was very impressive on Andrew Marr this morning, and positioning herself as leader of all-anti austerity sentiment across the UK.

I plan to write to her and her spokesperson on welfare/social security on how they can work with disability groups/anti maximus groups, etc and how they can raise the issues Labour never did in Parliament.

 

[treelover]

Mandleson is getting stuck into Milliband now.

Ffs, Labour were invisible for four and a half years, contrast that with say Cooke savaging the Tories.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Ffs, Labour were invisible for four and a half years, contrast that with say Cooke savaging the Tories.

Robin Cook is the one person who could have saved Labour post-Blair, imo. Provided a post-Iraq catharsis. First John Smith's death, and then his. We were unlucky.

 

[Orang Utan]

Ffs, Labour were invisible for four and a half years, contrast that with say Cooke savaging the Tories.

Cooke?

 

[Orang Utan]

Robin Cook is the one person who could have saved Labour post-Blair, imo. Provided a post-Iraq catharsis. First John Smith's death, and then his. We were unlucky.

Robin Cook, the arms dealer....

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Robin Cook, the arms dealer....

I'm under no illusions that he would have led us into paradise. But he would have had some moral authority, having opposed the war.

 

[Orang Utan]

I'm under no illusions that he would have led us into paradise. But he would have had some moral authority, having opposed the war.

what sort of moral authority would that be, having ordered an intervention into Kosovo that wasn't sanctioned by the UN?

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm under no illusions that he would have led us into paradise. But he would have had some moral authority, having opposed the war.

As he left the government ranks, Mr Cook, who saw Mr Blair before the cabinet, said: "It is with regret I have today resigned from the cabinet.

"I can't accept collective responsibility for the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2857637.stm

it would have been fine i suppose if either international agreement had been there, or domestick support. not that launching a war based on a false prospectus was a bad idea.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm under no illusions that he would have led us into paradise. But he would have had some moral authority, having opposed the war.

afghanistan?
kosovo - as Orang Utan points out?
sierra leone?
iraq '98, operation foxtrot?

 

[treelover]

Oliver Colvile's staff found the 'graffiti' at his office in Plymouth only to realise 'something didn't smell quite right'

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/poo-smeared-over-tory-mps-5672895

Oh, my goodness!

 

[Pickman's model]

Oh, my goodness!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

what sort of moral authority would that be, having ordered an intervention into Kosovo that wasn't sanctioned by the UN?

He also agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan. Clearly these things are only ever relative.

It's a judgement, on my part, regarding the single biggest catastrophe of the Blair years - the Iraq War.

 

[Orang Utan]

He also agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan. Clearly these things are only ever relative.

so much for the moral authority you claim for him, though

 

[littlebabyjesus]

so much for the moral authority you claim for him, though

Moral authority to speak about mistakes made by the Blair government. We are still to reach the position where a Labour leader can do this.

 

[Pickman's model]

Moral authority to speak about mistakes made by the Blair government. We are still to reach the position where a Labour leader can do this.

i'd like to see robin cook speak about mistakes made by the brown government.

 

[Pickman's model]

He also agreed with the invasion of Afghanistan. Clearly these things are only ever relative.

It's a judgement, on my part, regarding the single biggest catastrophe of the Blair years - the Iraq War.

what, the war itself, not the lying which went on around it, not the expenses scandal of entitled mps, not the degradation of an already corrupt political class? THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO WAR IF BLAIR HAD ONLY MANAGED TO TELL THE TRUTH. but blair and the truth were very distant companions right from the get-go.