All things Labour Party

[egg]

1 hour ago, Baird of the land said:

Sending a remainer as candidate to hartlepool certainly seems to have been a tactical error. You'd wonder if it was a case of rewarding friends/allies rather than making the right choice.

Still i feel they probably would have lost anyway with the timing of the election and some of the local issues. Starmer's unlucky in that i thought he did a decent job of criticising tories for their Covid failures  last year but the success of the tories vaccine decision has washed away all potential issues with their original mistakes.

I do feel he needs to clarify what his labour stand for policy wise. I''d say Tories are very weak environmentally, so that would be an area i'd suggest to push.

The whole stupid woke nonsense is certainly an issue for the party. I generally think he's less prone to swaying to the beat of that crowd than others in his party but he's got to find some way beyond superfificial flag waving to get out in front of these culture war arguments otherwise the tories will keep handing labour defeats outside of areas like london.

The party is all over the place. Not really socialist, not not really left of centre, just lost; remainer at hartlepool;  wokeness; taking the knee; getting all excited over the wallpaper and flat when the masses couldn't give a monkeys. They've gone from being weak opposition to shocking. They need some direction sharpish. 

Edited 8 May, 2021 by egg

[RedArmy]

Labour have lost the city council.
Maybe we can finally get rid of all the stupid cycle and bus lanes that were put in during the pandemic that cause unnecessary traffic jams. 

Edited 8 May, 2021 by RedArmy

[whelk]

1 hour ago, Baird of the land said:

Sending a remainer as candidate to hartlepool certainly seems to have been a tactical error. You'd wonder if it was a case of rewarding friends/allies rather than making the right choice.

Still i feel they probably would have lost anyway with the timing of the election and some of the local issues. Starmer's unlucky in that i thought he did a decent job of criticising tories for their Covid failures  last year but the success of the tories vaccine decision has washed away all potential issues with their original mistakes.

I do feel he needs to clarify what his labour stand for policy wise. I''d say Tories are very weak environmentally, so that would be an area i'd suggest to push.

The whole stupid woke nonsense is certainly an issue for the party. I generally think he's less prone to swaying to the beat of that crowd than others in his party but he's got to find some way beyond superfificial flag waving to get out in front of these culture war arguments otherwise the tories will keep handing labour defeats outside of areas like london.

The Owen Jones lot think this hammering is confirmation that they go back to Corbyn type policies. As said previously there is an element of being fucked by circumstances at the moment and whoever leader was wouldn’t be making inroads. 
Problem now is no one has attention span to actually worry about policies so superficial judgements are made and Labour don’t have an image or figurehead people can relate to.

[whelk]

5 minutes ago, RedArmy said:

Labour have lost the city council.
Maybe we can finally get rid of all the stupid cycle and bus lanes that were put in during the pandemic that cause unnecessary traffic jams. 

City is a mess. Need to put some money into sprucing and tidying it up nut have to fund or the mandatory stuff so things that suffer are those they don’t have to do.

and those stupid cycle lanes gave Tories loads of ammo

Edited 8 May, 2021 by whelk

[Baird of the land]

3 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Yeah, that’s really going to win back The Red Wall. Green pony, it’s what people in Hartlepool & Bolsover are crying out for. 

I more thinking green jobs.

 

See Labour have instead identified a scape goat. Yeah its all that Rayner fault, lol.

[Lord Duckhunter]

27 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

See Labour have instead identified a scape goat. Yeah its all that Rayner fault, lol.

Yes, After suffering a humiliating defeat in a northern working class seat, Sir Kier responds by sacking a high profile northern working class women. 
 

ITV reporting that it’s a bodged reshuffle that’s gone wrong. Perhaps they need someone more forensic in charge and get these things right. 

[SKD]

4 hours ago, egg said:

The party is all over the place. Not really socialist, not not really left of centre, just lost; remainer at hartlepool;  wokeness; taking the knee; getting all excited over the wallpaper and flat when the masses couldn't give a monkeys. They've gone from being weak opposition to shocking. They need some direction sharpish. 

Yep, spot on with this. At the moment, impossible to vote for. 
 

Kier has a horrible job, Corbyn left him a mess, but I’m not sure he’s the right man for them anyway to be honest. 
 

He’s a Buffon and like him or not, the working class like and can relate to boris. 

Edited 8 May, 2021 by SKD

[SKD]

4 hours ago, RedArmy said:

Labour have lost the city council.
Maybe we can finally get rid of all the stupid cycle and bus lanes that were put in during the pandemic that cause unnecessary traffic jams. 

Confirmed they’re going as well as increased, I want to say 1000, parking spaces in the city Center.

[ChrisPY]

8 hours ago, SKD said:

Yep, spot on with this. At the moment, impossible to vote for. 
 

Kier has a horrible job, Corbyn left him a mess, but I’m not sure he’s the right man for them anyway to be honest. 
 

He’s a Buffon and like him or not, the working class like and can relate to boris. 

Good to have a safe pair of hands running the country. 

Expect a reshuffle to see Maldini brought in as Defence Secretary.

[The Cat]

8 hours ago, SKD said:

Confirmed they’re going as well as increased, I want to say 1000, parking spaces in the city Center.

Do we need another 1000 parking spaces? I've never had a problem parking on a weekend, and even after covid there's definitely going to be more flexible working which means less commuter traffic.

One thing the city lacks is a decent park and ride, a lot of other cities have them. The best solution to sort out any traffic problems is trams or a metro but obviously that costs obscene amounts of money. 

[rallyboy]

But we have obscene amounts of money to spend, it's all we're doing at the moment, it might be worth getting a call in.

Put a close friend of a minister under the money tree and give it a cheeky shake - voila, Solent Tram Trust!

Wait until six months before the next election when the voter bribes are dished out - £500m for 75 metres of track, a bus shelter, extra for trams.

[Tamesaint]

53 minutes ago, rallyboy said:

But we have obscene amounts of money to spend, it's all we're doing at the moment, it might be worth getting a call in.

Put a close friend of a minister under the money tree and give it a cheeky shake - voila, Solent Tram Trust!

Wait until six months before the next election when the voter bribes are dished out - £500m for 75 metres of track, a bus shelter, extra for trams.

Even better - just shag Boris 

Or better still

Give Boris some money so that you can shag him. 

 

Edited 9 May, 2021 by Tamesaint

[Lord Duckhunter]

 

Joe Haines who worked for Wilson hit the nail on the head in the paper this morning, not that any lefties on here will agree, they’ve still got their heads firmly in the sand alongside the brothers. 

 

“A party under a shiny, new forensically intelligent leader who was going to be a herald of change. Or so we thought.

Well, that’s not how voters up and down the country, north and south, east and west – and especially in Hartlepool – saw Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday.

They saw a man who served faithfully in Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet, who fought for another Brexit referendum until he was the last politician standing and who chose an anti-Brexit Remainer to defend one of the most pro-Brexit seats in the country.

They weren’t interested in the price of Johnson’s wallpaper. They wanted to know when they’ll get a house of their own. And put up wallpaper of their own.

For years, his circle and many others in the party have believed that life began in London and that the ‘Northern thickos’ could be relied upon to vote Labour come Hell or high water. The so-called ‘Red Wall’ of the North, with its huge Labour majorities, was a patronising myth. Scotland should have taught Labour that. The once-impregnable ‘tartan wall’ didn’t exist, either.

Labour’s greatest danger now is that it will shrug off Thursday’s elections as a Covid bounce, that it will resume its search for sleaze, continue to say that everything the Government does is too little, too late and hope that something will turn up.

The truth is that the Labour Party has lost its roots. Hartlepool was a chance to replant some of them and it wasn’t taken.“

 

 

 

 

[Fan The Flames]

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

 

Joe Haines who worked for Wilson hit the nail on the head in the paper this morning, not that any lefties on here will agree, they’ve still got their heads firmly in the sand alongside the brothers. 

 

“A party under a shiny, new forensically intelligent leader who was going to be a herald of change. Or so we thought.

Well, that’s not how voters up and down the country, north and south, east and west – and especially in Hartlepool – saw Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday.

They saw a man who served faithfully in Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet, who fought for another Brexit referendum until he was the last politician standing and who chose an anti-Brexit Remainer to defend one of the most pro-Brexit seats in the country.

They weren’t interested in the price of Johnson’s wallpaper. They wanted to know when they’ll get a house of their own. And put up wallpaper of their own.

For years, his circle and many others in the party have believed that life began in London and that the ‘Northern thickos’ could be relied upon to vote Labour come Hell or high water. The so-called ‘Red Wall’ of the North, with its huge Labour majorities, was a patronising myth. Scotland should have taught Labour that. The once-impregnable ‘tartan wall’ didn’t exist, either.

Labour’s greatest danger now is that it will shrug off Thursday’s elections as a Covid bounce, that it will resume its search for sleaze, continue to say that everything the Government does is too little, too late and hope that something will turn up.

The truth is that the Labour Party has lost its roots. Hartlepool was a chance to replant some of them and it wasn’t taken.“

You said yesterday it wasn't anything to do with brexit.

[The Cat]

What will Labour do now though? Have another leadership election? I'm unsure as to who could take over and unite the party which is what needs to happen to make them a credible opposition because they are a mess. Andy Burnham is one possible name that springs to mind but he's a bit busy being mayor of Manchester at the moment. 

[badgerx16]

7 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Joe Haines who worked for Wilson hit the nail on the head in the paper this morning, not that any lefties on here will agree, they’ve still got their heads firmly in the sand alongside the brothers. 

 

Guess that means I'm not a 'leftie' any more.

[badgerx16]

11 minutes ago, The Cat said:

What will Labour do now though? Have another leadership election? I'm unsure as to who could take over and unite the party which is what needs to happen to make them a credible opposition because they are a mess. Andy Burnham is one possible name that springs to mind but he's a bit busy being mayor of Manchester at the moment. 

Boris and the Tories need to be allowed time to run their course. It's too soon after Brexit to evaluate it's true impact, and Covid is providing a convenient smokescreen behind which Boris' clown act can be obscured. It might need to be the election after the next before Labour get sufficient traction to fully turn things around.

[The Kraken]

3 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Boris and the Tories need to be allowed time to run their course. It's too soon after Brexit to evaluate it's true impact, and Covid is providing a convenient smokescreen behind which Boris' clown act can be obscured. It might need to be the election after the next before Labour get sufficient traction to fully turn things around.

Yep. Labour have done a very poor job of presenting a decent opposition, but even had they done better, the Tories are riding the vaccine wave at the moment, propped up by having delivered Brexit.  The most important issue in most people’s lives since Brexit has been getting vaccinated as quickly as we have. The Tories have overseen both those, and any points raised about sleaze, corruption and nefarious contracting are completely overridden by much more important success factors, which satisfy their base but also allow them to break into old Labour heartlands.

Quite how long it will last remains to be seen, but I can’t see Labour getting anywhere close before the next election. Besides, at the moment I’m completely unsure what Labour are “for”, so while I’d likely never vote Boris, Labour don’t really give me a credible alternative right now.

[whelk]

38 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Guess that means I'm not a 'leftie' any more.

There is absolutely nothing right wing about this government.

[Weston Super Saint]

34 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

Yep. Labour have done a very poor job of presenting a decent opposition, but even had they done better, the Tories are riding the vaccine wave at the moment, propped up by having delivered Brexit.  

Really?  You couldn't see anything that the opposition could have capitalised on over the past year?

Cummings? Lockdown fiasco last March? tens of thousands of dead care home residents? emptying hospitals into care homes?  PPE? 

Up until the vaccine rollout, the opposition literally only had to 'oppose' to look good.  Boris has been indecisive and inept throughout the pandemic and yet Starmer hasn't managed to gain any political capital in the past 12 months!  WTF has he been waiting for?

[Turkish]

The problem is labour has an identity crisis. It always used to represent the working classes And be the peoples party. Growing up in the 80s that’s always how it was, the tories were the rich, labour were for us council estate mob. Now it’s full of middle class university educated Woke freaks who want to be be seen to be representing BLM, LGBTs, virtue signallers who all think brexit is horrendous because that’s what they’re told to think. Until they go back to their roots they’ll never be credible. 

[Jonnyboy]

49 minutes ago, Turkish said:

The problem is labour has an identity crisis. It always used to represent the working classes And be the peoples party. Growing up in the 80s that’s always how it was, the tories were the rich, labour were for us council estate mob. Now it’s full of middle class university educated Woke freaks who want to be be seen to be representing BLM, LGBTs, virtue signallers who all think brexit is horrendous because that’s what they’re told to think. Until they go back to their roots they’ll never be credible. 

Maybe those roots don't exist anymore? 

[Weston Super Saint]

6 hours ago, Jonnyboy said:

Maybe those roots don't exist anymore? 

No more working class people to represent?

[whelk]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

The problem is labour has an identity crisis. It always used to represent the working classes And be the peoples party. Growing up in the 80s that’s always how it was, the tories were the rich, labour were for us council estate mob. Now it’s full of middle class university educated Woke freaks who want to be be seen to be representing BLM, LGBTs, virtue signallers who all think brexit is horrendous because that’s what they’re told to think. Until they go back to their roots they’ll never be credible. 

Labour were a mess in the 80s. Being the party of the working class hasn’t got them to power. New Labour appealed to the masses basically because voters trusted them with the economy and Tories had become stale.

[whelk]

11 hours ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Really?  You couldn't see anything that the opposition could have capitalised on over the past year?

Cummings? Lockdown fiasco last March? tens of thousands of dead care home residents? emptying hospitals into care homes?  PPE? 

Up until the vaccine rollout, the opposition literally only had to 'oppose' to look good.  Boris has been indecisive and inept throughout the pandemic and yet Starmer hasn't managed to gain any political capital in the past 12 months!  WTF has he been waiting for?

You think Cummings is a factor to be used in local elections?  Things from last year don’t resonate with voters. That is how it is.

[egg]

20 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

 

Joe Haines who worked for Wilson hit the nail on the head in the paper this morning, not that any lefties on here will agree, they’ve still got their heads firmly in the sand alongside the brothers. 

 

“A party under a shiny, new forensically intelligent leader who was going to be a herald of change. Or so we thought.

Well, that’s not how voters up and down the country, north and south, east and west – and especially in Hartlepool – saw Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday.

They saw a man who served faithfully in Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet, who fought for another Brexit referendum until he was the last politician standing and who chose an anti-Brexit Remainer to defend one of the most pro-Brexit seats in the country.

They weren’t interested in the price of Johnson’s wallpaper. They wanted to know when they’ll get a house of their own. And put up wallpaper of their own.

For years, his circle and many others in the party have believed that life began in London and that the ‘Northern thickos’ could be relied upon to vote Labour come Hell or high water. The so-called ‘Red Wall’ of the North, with its huge Labour majorities, was a patronising myth. Scotland should have taught Labour that. The once-impregnable ‘tartan wall’ didn’t exist, either.

Labour’s greatest danger now is that it will shrug off Thursday’s elections as a Covid bounce, that it will resume its search for sleaze, continue to say that everything the Government does is too little, too late and hope that something will turn up.

The truth is that the Labour Party has lost its roots. Hartlepool was a chance to replant some of them and it wasn’t taken.“

My politics are very much left of centre (the "leftie" badge is silly) I agree with the article and it largely echoes what I posted above. Whoever is driving the labour policy machine has got it badly wrong. 

The labour party needs to understand who it represents and what it intends to do. At the moment I haven't got a clue who they are, and one problem they have is that this tory government are from "rightie" and have swallowed up the middle ground voters. 

Edited 10 May, 2021 by egg

[rallyboy]

When Boris has a reshuffle it'll be packaged by the Telegraph etc as a brave and dynamic indicator of Churchillian leadership.

However, Starmer's reshuffle is being sold to the easily-led as a dithering and chaotic work of blundering indecision.

I have no strong opinion on how reshuffles are performed, but the PR machine here is working overtime to dripfeed nonesense.

Get informed, make up your own mind and be wary of any media that tries to tell you what you should think.

You can easily become what you read.

[egg]

1 minute ago, rallyboy said:

When Boris has a reshuffle it'll be packaged by the Telegraph etc as a brave and dynamic indicator of Churchillian leadership.

However, Starmer's reshuffle is being sold to the easily-led as a dithering and chaotic work of blundering indecision.

I have no strong opinion on how reshuffles are performed, but the PR machine here is working overtime to dripfeed nonesense.

Get informed, make up your own mind and be wary of any media that tries to tell you what you should think.

You can easily become what you read.

Strong words, but impossible to follow where you're coming from on the Labour reshuffle. Rayner is everything to Labour's core vote that Starmer isn't. Seeing her job change in the aftermath of this election doesn't send any sort positive message that the party understands where it's going wrong...perhaps you can explain the positives of the reshuffle and particularly the Rayner situation. 

[badgerx16]

7 minutes ago, egg said:

 Rayner is everything to Labour's core vote that Starmer isn't.

Exactly; Northern, working class, educated at the local comprehensive, not University educated, shop floor union representative.

[egg]

2 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Exactly; Northern, working class, educated at the local comprehensive, not University educated, shop floor union representative.

Indeed. Canning her, sending a remainer to a leave town, all shows either a) a party out of touch with its core, or b) a party trying to reinvent itself but being unclear about what it's doing. It's a mess.

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, rallyboy said:

When Boris has a reshuffle it'll be packaged by the Telegraph etc as a brave and dynamic indicator of Churchillian leadership.

However, Starmer's reshuffle is being sold to the easily-led as a dithering and chaotic work of blundering indecision.

 

Agreed.
 

I read this morning about a  “cack-handed political management of the past 48 hours”. Claims that “long running tensions” have existed between Raynor & Starmer, that she refused a new position and he was forced to back down, and even that she “dressed inappropriately” during a visit to Hartlepool. I also read that “Starmers  botched attempt to sideline Rayner had increased the chances he could face a leadership challenge in the coming months”. 
 

Fucking last time I read that Tory rag, The Guardian. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

Edited 10 May, 2021 by Lord Duckhunter

[Fan The Flames]

It's felt very amateurish at Labour for a long time and I hoped that KS would usher in a slicker outfit. It hasn't happened and I think that is down to the in fighting between the two factions in the party.

I really think that Labour are in an existential crisis and could easily be hollowed out by the Tories on one side and the greens or some other progressive party on the other side. Like what has happened in Scotland.

[whelk]

3 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Agreed.
 

I read this morning about a  “cack-handed political management of the past 48 hours”. Claims that “long running tensions” have existed between Raynor & Starmer, that she refused a new position and he was forced to back down, and even that she “dressed inappropriately” during a visit to Hartlepool. I also read that “Starmers  botched attempt to sideline Rayner had increased the chances he could face a leadership challenge in the coming months”. 
 

Fucking last time I read that Tory rag, The Guardian. 

Just goes to show you twats like to assume as if he suddenly has an issue with her working class roots.

Worse that he keeps her cos she ticks boxes with thick northerners.

[badgerx16]

39 minutes ago, whelk said:

,.......thick northerners.

Plenty of thick southerners, many on this forum.

[buctootim]

1 hour ago, Fan The Flames said:

It's felt very amateurish at Labour for a long time and I hoped that KS would usher in a slicker outfit. It hasn't happened and I think that is down to the in fighting between the two factions in the party.

I really think that Labour are in an existential crisis and could easily be hollowed out by the Tories on one side and the greens or some other progressive party on the other side. Like what has happened in Scotland.

If we had PR the political landscape would look totally different. It wouldn’t just mean number seats reflecting number of votes , I think it would mean people would vote for different parties such as the Greens or LDs. Without it though I can’t see much change tbh

[badgerx16]

2 hours ago, buctootim said:

If we had PR the political landscape would look totally different. It wouldn’t just mean number seats reflecting number of votes , I think it would mean people would vote for different parties such as the Greens or LDs. Without it though I can’t see much change tbh

With the SNP being the largest party in Scotland, and the demographics of England favouring the Tories, there is zero incentive to change it.

[rallyboy]

7 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I make a comment about Boris and his very public links with the media, so you post some Theresa May piece from ancient history that's so irrelevant to the discussion even the Telegraph has dropped it.

Bizarre.

Just calm down, focus, and try to be kind to people.

 

[whelk]

Probably not the right thread but has the new skate Police Commissioner for Hampshire got great tits or am I mistaken?

[badgerx16]

25 minutes ago, whelk said:

Probably not the right thread but has the new skate Police Commissioner for Hampshire got great tits or am I mistaken?

She seems to have plenty all round.

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 hours ago, rallyboy said:

I make a comment about Boris and his very public links with the media, so you post some Theresa May piece from ancient history that's so irrelevant to the discussion even the Telegraph has dropped it.

 

 

No you didn’t. You tried to claim that the “Telegraph etc” report Labour reshuffles differently. The fact The Guardian was amongst the most damning seems to have escaped you. Unless they’re being , drip fed by a Tory PR machine working overtime. 

Edited 10 May, 2021 by Lord Duckhunter

[Fan The Flames]

6 hours ago, buctootim said:

If we had PR the political landscape would look totally different. It wouldn’t just mean number seats reflecting number of votes , I think it would mean people would vote for different parties such as the Greens or LDs. Without it though I can’t see much change tbh

It can happen without PR, look at the election results https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections

The political landscape completly changed in the early part of last century. If Labour ceases to be relevant then their votes can easily dwindle. Labour needs a 1990s realignment and a decent Lib Dem leader would help as well. Both parties are being hollowed out and look lightweight. 

The Tories aren't going to make the same mistake they did under Major, of lecturing the public on standards.  

Maybe Labour have served their purpose and their time has come to a natural end. They met the needs of last century and now we need something new to meet the needs of this one. They saw the strict socioeconomic strata bend out of shape, oversaw the death of deference, created the NHS and revived it again in the 90's and put social and economic justice so far up the agenda even the Tories can't ignore it.

[buctootim]

51 minutes ago, Fan The Flames said:

It can happen without PR, look at the election results https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections

The political landscape completly changed in the early part of last century. If Labour ceases to be relevant then their votes can easily dwindle. Labour needs a 1990s realignment and a decent Lib Dem leader would help as well. Both parties are being hollowed out and look lightweight. 

The Tories aren't going to make the same mistake they did under Major, of lecturing the public on standards.  

Maybe Labour have served their purpose and their time has come to a natural end. They met the needs of last century and now we need something new to meet the needs of this one. They saw the strict socioeconomic strata bend out of shape, oversaw the death of deference, created the NHS and revived it again in the 90's and put social and economic justice so far up the agenda even the Tories can't ignore it.

That proves my point rather than disproves it. There has only been one major realignment in over 200 years. In countries with PR they happen regularly

 

Edited 10 May, 2021 by buctootim

[badgerx16]

24 minutes ago, buctootim said:

That proves my point rather than disproves it. There has only been one major realignment in over 200 years. In countries with PR they happen regularly

 

Sometimes 3 times in a single year.

[aintforever]

1 hour ago, Fan The Flames said:

It can happen without PR, look at the election results https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections

The political landscape completly changed in the early part of last century. If Labour ceases to be relevant then their votes can easily dwindle. Labour needs a 1990s realignment and a decent Lib Dem leader would help as well. Both parties are being hollowed out and look lightweight. 

The Tories aren't going to make the same mistake they did under Major, of lecturing the public on standards.  

Maybe Labour have served their purpose and their time has come to a natural end. They met the needs of last century and now we need something new to meet the needs of this one. They saw the strict socioeconomic strata bend out of shape, oversaw the death of deference, created the NHS and revived it again in the 90's and put social and economic justice so far up the agenda even the Tories can't ignore it.

It is mental that even in the Tory landslide election of 2019, more people voted for left wing parties than the Tories. The whole system needs reforming.

Hopefully this latest shit show will see Labour sorting themselves out but I’m not holding my breath. With the SNP in the position they are it will need some sort of alliance to change anything because the fact is if you are left leaning you have Labour, Green, Lib Dem and possibly SNP or PC to choose from, right wing you just go Tory.

[Lord Duckhunter]

11 hours ago, aintforever said:

It is mental that even in the Tory landslide election of 2019, more people voted for left wing parties than the Tories. The whole system needs reforming.

More areas of the country wanted a Tory to represent them. I know you lefties only like the system when it produces the result you want, but the Lib Dem’s had the opportunity to propose something different and blew it. 
 

 

[badgerx16]

38 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

More areas of the country wanted a Tory to represent them. I know you lefties only like the system when it produces the result you want, but the Lib Dem’s had the opportunity to propose something different and blew it. 
 

 

Democracy is supposed to be the will of the people, not of areas of land. Has any UK Government in the last hundred years had a majority of the votes cast, let alone a majority of the electorate ? Certainly not Blair or Thatcher with their 100+ majorities in the HoC.

Edited 11 May, 2021 by badgerx16

[buctootim]

43 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

More areas of the country wanted a Tory to represent them. I know you lefties only like the system when it produces the result you want, but the Lib Dem’s had the opportunity to propose something different and blew it. 
 

 

I don’t know why you are acting like a Tory tribalist when afaik you supported the Brexit Party and think Johnson is a dipping pinko. PR would have seen a whole slew of Brexit Party  MPs elected. It’s not some lefty plot it’s about a Parliament which genuinely reflects the electorate - more right wing MPs as well as left and Liberal. Anyhow it won’t happen whilst the duopoly  who benefit from first past three post continue.  

[CB Fry]

7 minutes ago, buctootim said:

I don’t know why you are acting like a Tory tribalist when afaik you supported the Brexit Party and think Johnson is a dipping pinko. PR would have seen a whole slew of Brexit Party  MPs elected. It’s not some lefty plot it’s about a Parliament which genuinely reflects the electorate - more right wing MPs as well as left and Liberal. Anyhow it won’t happen whilst the duopoly  who benefit from first past three post continue.  

Exactly: PR would have seen Farage and Richard Tice as MPs years ago. PR probably could have resolved Brexit far quicker: in the election of 2015 the UKIP vote share (12%) was miles ahead of Lib Dems (8%) and Sturgeon (5%). And thats with worthless FPTP votes. Under PR would be higher.

PR just as likely to wipe out lefties and embolden Right wingers as any other outcome.

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, buctootim said:

I don’t know why you are acting like a Tory tribalist when afaik you supported the Brexit Party and think Johnson is a dipping pinko. PR would have seen a whole slew of Brexit Party  MPs elected. It’s not some lefty plot it’s about a Parliament which genuinely reflects the electorate - more right wing MPs as well as left and Liberal. Anyhow it won’t happen whilst the duopoly  who benefit from first past three post continue.  

I happen to believe the present system gives us the best Governance and ensures the most equality for the whole of the uk. Local people vote for somebody to represent their interests at Westminster. It’s a principle that goes back years and has served us well. If that resulted in less Brexit party MP’s, so be it.
 

I’m sure you and others would be attacking me if I wanted PR just to ensure Nigel got a Westminster seat. No area of the UK wanted him to represent them, and whilst I think they’re wrong, its their decision to make.