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

[rioted]

10 years ago when the vast majority of the current membership weren't members, and voluntarily walked out of that arrangement after a couple of years over policy issues.

5 years ago the Green councillors supported a minority labour council on a confidence and supply basis for a year, in preference to a potential contiuation of the libdem, tory coalition, yet that bit seems to get conveniently forgotten.

I'm enjoying the way Labour supporters delve into the past to find negatives against their rivals to the left. I went to hear Dennis Skinner speak a couple of weeks ago - he spent most of his time slagging off the SNP although no member of his audience could possibly vote for them. The only evidence he could come up with against them was that they'd sided with the Tories in the 1979 (!) vote of confidence to bring down Callaghan! Desperate or what? Of course you only have to go back 5 years to find evidence of Labour privatising the NHS, demonising those on Benefits, hitting the Low paid and generally being total tosspots.

 

[DotCommunist]

if you think the greens are shit= must be a Labour supporter

 

[J Ed]

Cameron forgets which team he is supposed to like

 

[brogdale]

Cameron forgets which team he is supposed to like

 

[brogdale]

dave was in Croydon town this morning...looking for a black man....apparently...



Gavin ("who gets things done")...

 

[killer b]

fucking hell, he's so shit. where did his rep for statesmanlike leadership come from? has no one actually watched him speak?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

who is he supposed to support?

 

[weepiper]

who is he supposed to support?

Villa. Same colours. Easy mistake to make etc

 

[DotCommunist]

fucking hell, he's so shit. where did his rep for statesmanlike leadership come from? has no one actually watched him speak?

posh accent goes a long way I suppose

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I'm enjoying the way Labour supporters delve into the past to find negatives against their rivals to the left. I went to hear Dennis Skinner speak a couple of weeks ago - he spent most of his time slagging off the SNP although no member of his audience could possibly vote for them. The only evidence he could come up with against them was that they'd sided with the Tories in the 1979 (!) vote of confidence to bring down Callaghan! Desperate or what? Of course you only have to go back 5 years to find evidence of Labour privatising the NHS, demonising those on Benefits, hitting the Low paid and generally being total tosspots.

whereas you only have to go back to this year to see the Greens being mendacious wankers in Brighton

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Villa. Same colours. Easy mistake to make etc

Should've gone for Scunthorpe then,get that Northern support

 

[butchersapron]

10 years ago when the vast majority of the current membership weren't members, and voluntarily walked out of that arrangement after a couple of years over policy issues.

5 years ago the Green councillors supported a minority labour council on a confidence and supply basis for a year, in preference to a potential contiuation of the libdem, tory coalition, yet that bit seems to get conveniently forgotten.

The situation now is that the Green Party conference committed the party not to go into coalition with anyone in government, not to support any austerity budget, and the leadership has explicitly stated that they won't prop up a conservative government in any way.

I'm not really sure what more the Greens could do to make it clear that they aren't about to do a lib dems and jump into bed with the tories to satisfy a lust for a ministerial position.

Win some seats before you can run.

 

[killer b]

posh accent goes a long way I suppose

he won't have even been on the debate team at Eton. Or if he was, they have a shitter standard than we're led to believe.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not really sure what more the Greens could do to make it clear that they aren't about to do a lib dems and jump into bed with the tories to satisfy a lust for a ministerial position.

I reckon 5 years to the day (or month at least) i can find you saying the exact same thing about the lib-dems.

 

[killer b]

five years. you're shit at maths.

 

[butchersapron]

I typed 5!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Chukka is definitely seen as a contender for Labour leadership, but largely by himself.

And some of his colleagues who know that Chuckie is smiled upon by the corporates. Fortunately his acolytes aren't really in any position to assist him to power. He's undoubtedly talented, for whatever that's worth, but he's as much a hollow man as Cameron or Blair - willing to shit on the poor to put money in the pockets of his mates.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

And some of his colleagues who know that Chuckie is smiled upon by the corporates. Fortunately his acolytes aren't really in any position to assist him to power. He's undoubtedly talented, for whatever that's worth, but he's as much a hollow man as Cameron or Blair - willing to shit on the poor to put money in the pockets of his mates.

Which of the current er incumbents, can't really call them MPs I suppose - do you think would like Chukka to be leader? Not saying there aren't any just can't think who

 

[rutabowa]

Should've gone for Scunthorpe then,get that Northern support

possibly the only thing that would make me consider switching vote.

not really, I guess I'll vote labour till my death (unless I move to scotland)

 

[ViolentPanda]

so what would you have done then? Just stuck with the existing budget, play safe, have lots of volunteers but no campaign materials for them to distribute?

One way we have a chance of running a proper campaign that just might achieve something, the other way we may as well not bother.

Only if you don't have the nous or the creativity to make a virtue of your skintness. Sure, flyers through every second door is the traditional thing to do, but you could easily reach as many people in the constituency by having a stall at the local market, and engaging local people on the issues.

Looks like your party had a shite campaign manager.

 

[brogdale]

possibly the only thing that would make me consider switching vote.

not really, I guess I'll vote labour till my death (unless I move to scotland)

Reminds me of the old pub-quiz favourite..."name 3 England captains that played for Scunthorpe?"

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Only if you don't have the nous or the creativity to make a virtue of your skintness. Sure, flyers through every second door is the traditional thing to do, but you could easily reach as many people in the constituency by having a stall at the local market, and engaging local people on the issues.

Looks like your party had a shite campaign manager.

is a having a high street stall really thinking outside the box?

 

[rutabowa]

Reminds me of the old pub-quiz favourite..."name 3 England captains that played for Scunthorpe?"

ian botham and...2 more. (er im not really a very active fan)

 

[brogdale]

ian botham and...2 more.

Well...yeah...but surely you know?

 

[JTG]

ian botham and...2 more. (er im not really a very active fan)

Kevin Keegan and Ray Clemence!

 

[rutabowa]

not without googling. which would be cheating. err ray clemence maybe?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

up the iron! Keegan and Clemence

 

[ViolentPanda]

Which of the current er incumbents, can't really call them MPs I suppose - do you think would like Chukka to be leader? Not saying there aren't any just can't think who

The usual Blairite suspects, really. Hodge and Jowell both rate him (and like the idea of being a "power behind the throne"), and Sadiq Khan has made it clear he'd vote Chuckles in a post-Miliband situation (if he weren't running himself, blates).
There's also quite a few ex-MPs and/or members of t'other chamber who support him, including the likes of Purnell, Mandelson and Milburn (again, all of who see themselves as a Cardinal Richelieu to Chuckie's Louis XIII).

 

[rutabowa]

weyy I got 2 of 3. ive got ray clemences england shirt from a school raffle so I should have got that straight away

 

[ViolentPanda]

what would be the point in having loads of money in the bank now?

What we have is tens of thousands of leaflets, newspapers, posters, posterboards etc. in place and being distributed and a campaign that has gained a lot of momentum by campaigning hard for months before the election not just in the last 2 weeks.

On top of that we're now raising additional funds to do more if we can, but we'll already have distributed 3000 posters, and over 100,000 leaflets / newspapers across the constituency without that additional funding for the last push.

Now, that's the level of campaigning I'm pulling together, sorry if it doesn't meet with you approval.

The problem being that conventional publicity material is more likely to go straight in the recycling bin, than get read. It's a case of the law of diminishing returns - as politics gets shittier, fewer people are willing to pay any attention to flyers and other printed material containing the the party-political gibberings of politicians. The only thing that really still works in the conventional armoury is solid canvassing over a period of time, and even the major parties seldom have the constituency-level manpower to do that nowadays. 20-30 years ago things were different, but now? Even insurgent politics can't generally raise those sort of numbers at constituency level. The mass canvass at Barking & Dagenham in 2010 that saw off the BNP was a co-operative effort between Labour activists from the south-east of England, and other anti-fascist and anti-racist activists from all around the UK.