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

[Smokeandsteam]

IWCA view:

Who will fill the vacuum?

(I think the piece needs to define euro-nationalist a bit clearer, i don't think it fits for UKIP at all)

Fair enough, although a glance at who UKIP are aligned with in the European Parliament is telling.

A more central point for the zombie left and anyone else expressing even a passing interest in pro working class politics is the section throwing down the gauntlet regarding the free movement of labour and the EU, why and who defends it and in whose interests it's applied.

 

[treelover]

Why is it only the tiny IWCA who seem to have a coherent, realistic and genuinely radical appraisal of the situation and the current lefts'(EU wide) failures?

though Podemos, which I think is for open borders got 12% in the local elections in Spain.

 

[Artaxerxes]

The PM has issued a pre speech release

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...for-the-country-in-a-one-nation-queens-speech

Ahead of the Queen’s Speech today (27 May 2015) Prime Minister David Cameron said:

Behind this Queen’s Speech is a clear vision for what our country can be. A country of security and opportunity for everyone, at every stage of life.

That is our ambition. To build a country where whoever you are and wherever you live you can have the chance of a good education, a decent job, a home of your own and the peace of mind that comes from being able to raise a family and enjoy a secure retirement.

A country that backs those who work hard and do the right thing.

This is the Queen’s Speech for working people from a ‘one nation’ government that will bring our country together.

We have a mandate from the British people, a clear manifesto and the instruction to deliver. And we will not waste a single moment in getting on with the task.

As part of our long-term plan to back working people and make work pay, the government is determined to reward work by letting people keep even more of the money they earn. The government has already committed to raising the income tax personal allowance to £12,500 by 2020. Today the government is going further in its actions to offer more security to working people by confirming that legislation will be brought forward to ensure that future increases to the Income Tax personal allowance reflect changes to the National Minimum Wage.

This will mean that people working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage will not pay any Income Tax.

Increases in the personal allowance during the course of this Parliament are expected to benefit around 30 million working people.

The government will also bring forward legislation for a 5 year tax lock which means there will be no Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance rises in this Parliament.

Work work work work work thats all you ever talk about young man

 

[DotCommunist]

a home of your own

*hollow laughter* yeah right, rentier scum.

 

[Dogsauce]

Next up: People not earning enough to pay tax chastised as 'scroungers' and undeserving in the popular press, to divide them from those above the threshold. Certain benefits of society to be only available to those 'paying in'. And so it goes...

 

[Sea Star]

Oh christ yes, it's easy to find someone who'll stand as a paper candidate in a no-hope ward. Finding someone who actually wants to be a councillor, that is nigh impossible, it's why so many of them are such weirdoes, they are literally the only people who would step forward. This is true of just about all parties, not just Labour. The careerists who are using it as a stepping stone are one in a hundred in most places.

I've said I'll only stand as councillor if I am pretty certain of not winning. Winning would ruin my life!

 

[treelover]

Next up: People not earning enough to pay tax chastised as 'scroungers' and undeserving in the popular press, to divide them from those above the threshold. Certain benefits of society to be only available to those 'paying in'. And so it goes...

This is what Mitt Romney floated in the presidential elections.

 

[Joe Reilly]

IWCA view:

Who will fill the vacuum?

(I think the piece needs to define euro-nationalist a bit clearer, i don't think it fits for UKIP at all)

Ukip is not a party of the far-right. Correct. But the strategy they are pursuing is, near as dammit, identical (with refinements) to the strategy previously pursued by the BNP. The BNP may be gone from the scene but the pitch from Ukip is having resonance with the same people and for the very same reasons, just to a greater degree. Putting it another way, the efficacy of the strategy itself rather the party that adopts it, is the real challenge.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Why is it only the tiny IWCA who seem to have a coherent, realistic and genuinely radical appraisal of the situation and the current lefts'(EU wide) failures?

Read the Jean Jaures Foundation report on the French Left quoted in the article and see how closely it corresponds to the attitudes of the Brit Left and you are more than half way to answering your own question.

 

[William of Walworth]

I've said I'll only stand as councillor if I am pretty certain of not winning. Winning would ruin my life!

Winning. Such shit if it ever happens, I've rarely found

 

[treelover]

Minister worked as spin doctor for tobacco giant that paid workers £15 a month

Priti Patel worked for PR firm Shandwick on improving BAT’s image over Burma factory, and also lobbied MEPs against EU tobacco regulations

http://www.theguardian.com/business...ked-as-spin-doctor-tobacco-firm-burma-scandal

Well well, but I do wonder if our newly liberated public give a shit about whether foreigners are getting shafted.

 

[killer b]

What's this got to do with the general election?

 

[killer b]

Also, your contempt for the British public is a bit confusing. I thought you were on the side of the common man?

 

[treelover]

What's this got to do with the general election?

its a general thread, and as for the public, many(a significant amount) seem to have been let off the leash going by the comments about claimants on social media, social darwinists, eugenicists, in some cases. ok?

 

[killer b]

No.

 

[killer b]

Comments on social media are meaningless as a guide to how the public think. Have you learned nothing the last couple of years?

 

[killer b]

Actually, seeing as your stock in trade remains quoting comments from btl in guardian articles here, I guess we know the answer to that already.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Minister worked as spin doctor for tobacco giant that paid workers £15 a month

Priti Patel worked for PR firm Shandwick on improving BAT’s image over Burma factory, and also lobbied MEPs against EU tobacco regulations

http://www.theguardian.com/business...ked-as-spin-doctor-tobacco-firm-burma-scandal

Presumably being a former spin doctor for a combination of repressive regimes and dodgy corporations actually seen as a strong qualification for her new job?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Actually, seeing as your stock in trade remains quoting comments from btl in guardian articles here, I guess we know the answer to that already.

and remarking on what the SWP are doing or not doing and how that affects or doesn't affect something.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

There are probably better threads for this but I can't find them.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/129...outhampton_MP___s_election_behaviour/?ref=rss

So Kim Rose the eccentric UKIP candidate and local jeweler in Southampton Itchen has accused his Tory rival of trying to use UKIP to undermine Labour.

There is an interesting sub-plot there in Rose's targeting of working class voters - in 1997 he was the Socialist Labour Party candidate for the same seat.

What is partcularly interesting though is the Tories use of a picture of Fagin as the placeholder for Rose's pic on the leaflet they designed for him

 

[butchersapron]

Birth of new social movement that is all the old faces that i love why all the same faces all the time i don't know these people this is great why is this so bad

 

[brogdale]

So...finally...last night the winners of the 2015 General Election were declared at the Mansion House.

 

[yield]

So...finally...last night the winners of the 2015 General Election were declared at the Mansion House.

Osborne swallows loss of £7bn in RBS sell-off

The people get shafted by loss of £7 billion. How many £ billions of budget cuts?

 

[brogdale]

Osborne swallows loss of £7bn in RBS sell-off

The people get shafted by loss of £7 billion. How many £ billions of budget cuts?

It's almost as though you don't believe Gideon's claim of $14bn "profit" for taxpayers.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's almost as though you don't believe Gideon's claim of $14bn "profit" for taxpayers.

I wouldn't believe his numbers if he told me I had five toes on each foot and one hole in my arse.

 

[kebabking]

I wouldn't believe his numbers if he told me I had five toes on each foot and one hole in my arse.

indeed, i've noticed how 'sweating like George Osborne in a maths test' has begun to replace 'sweating like Gordon Brown in a maths test'....

 

[William of Walworth]

Even from a purely City-centric perpective, selling off now is a bad reading of the market.

 

[brogdale]

Even from a purely City-centric perpective, selling off now is a bad reading of the market.

But Pratley regards the decision as some sort of a 'rational' economic or financial one. We all know that this is an ideologically driven, political act of largesse

 

[David Clapson]

<burp>

Ed Miliband, the useless, pointless dickhead, has been reminiscing about his defeat. Ed Miliband: I'm still recovering from time as Labour leader What isn't mentioned in the article is whether he should have opposed his brother. How would David have done in that election? Has there been any reliable research?

 

[magneze]

Badly