The Politics Thread

Yeah, cos that went so well last time!

 

So what hasn't that happened in any by-election?

Newport West: Labour win, Lib Dems finish fifth and fail to get their deposit back
Peterborough: Labour win, Lib Dems finish fourth and just barely got their deposit back
Brecon & Radnorshire: Lib Dems win, but due to a combination of the Tory candidate losing 8000 votes due to expenses fiddling and Plaid Cymru standing aside which led to the Lib Dem vote increasing by the exact same number of votes PC got in 2017

This is the great lie about the Lib Dems: they don't have a core support, their support comes from people who want to vote but refuse to vote for other people - which is why they flourished in the Blair years, but were absolutely hammered in 2015 when there was five years of evidence that a vote for the Lib Dems was a vote for the Tories, five years of evidence that Swinson wants us to forget as it means nobody will check her voting record

 

All the polls say it will happen at this GE. People will ignore or forget about her voting record. Why should ex Tory voters care anyway?

A vote for the Tories doesn’t exist this time. The LibDems are running on a revoke A50 ticket, the exact opposite of The Turdies.

 

The polls said the Tories would win the last election at a landslide
The polls said Hillary Clinton would win the last Presidential election
The polls said Remain would win the EU Referendum

More important than any of that, please explain how the Lib Dems would appeal to Remainers or Moderates? I voted Remain, and I find the Lib Dems abhorrent.
I found them abhorrent when they were happy to prop up the Tories
I found them abhorrent when they tried to claim the 5p tax on plastic bags as a "victory" when it was an EU directive the England adopted nine months later than Scotland did,
I found them abhorrent when they try and gaslight the voting public into believing that they didn't support the Tories during the coalition when their voting records make it abundantly clear they did
I find them abhorrent that their approach is not to try and unite the Remain side of things but to try and create further divisions
I find them abhorrent that they got into bed with the Tories and UKIP to oust the Labour council in Bolton back in June
I find them abhorrent that their talk of a "Lib Dem surge" is a lie based on them bringing in MPs who have failed to give their constituents the courtesy of a by-election in spite of representing two, three or even four parties during the course of this year - yet when Douglas Carswell and Jim Reckless left the Tories for UKIP, they did have that courtesy, thus making the Lib Dems less honourable than ****ing UKIP

 

But at least their Tory leader Nick Clegg has gone
EDIT: ****ing Google, it's getting worse

 

General Election and Boris Deal v Remain referendum simultaneously. Everyone wins. Or loses badly. Something like that.

 

Instead their last leadership election was Tory enabler Ed Davey or Tory cheerleader Jo Swinson

Or, to put it more succinctly...

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You can find them as abhorrent as you like, but in constituencies like mine it is either them or the Tories.

 

If more Labour voters had voted LibDem in the 2010 election they Tories would have ended up with fewer seats than Labour. They effectively had no choice but to try to dilute the Tory programme. Because they got the blame for that even more Labour voters deserted them and we got the current shower in charge.

 

Pretty sure that there's at least three parties on the ballot in your constituency

Hell, I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country and there's four on the ballot, as well as a pretty easy explanation for why voter apathy exists

 

And then the Lib Dems would've agreed to another coalition with the Tories anyway and been blamed for all of the **** that they've done.
They need to kill Brexit off and then disappear, hopefully taking Corbyn with them. They're no longer a viable third party.

 

The Lib Dem and the Tory got 85% of the vote with the Lib Dem winning by 1%. If people like me voted Labour the Tory would win.

 

If there's one way to guarantee the Tories win it's voting Lib Dem

For decades it's been noted they would regularly partner up with the Tories in local councils to vote against Labour, which only serves to benefit the Tories, with the aforementioned goings-on in Bolton barely raising eyebrows
A succession of Lib Dem leaders have looked for spurious reasons to not go into coalition with Labour, not least the last four of Clegg, Farron, Cable and Swinson, yet going into coalition with the Tories wasn't much of an issue for them nor was selling out their election manifesto PDQ
The fact that they're having Allen, Woolaston, Lee and Gyimah remain in their constituencies yet are parachuting Umunna, Berger and Smith into Tory marginals reeks of trying to nick votes off Labour, which would only serve to keep the tory candidate in that seat

Also, your constituency has swapped back-and-forth between the Tories and the Lib Dems since it was created in 1983, which actually says a hell of a lot more than you think that it does (and, funnily enough, the same can be said for Brecon and Radnorshire)

 

Of course the Lib Dems suffer massively from the first past the post system.
But the a lot of their votes are defections because of this system.
Like many aspects of our society, politics is polarised. There's no room for anybody who attempts to be all things to all people. But the Lib Dems give it a go - and end up sidling up to one or other of the main parties to try to gain some influence.

 

If more Labour voters held their nose and voted Lib Dem tactically the Tories would never win.
By the way this is the first time I've ever lived in a non Labour seat and the first I have voted Lib Dem

 

That’s where my vote is going. My MP over there is a Tory who voted remain, but he has since had an epiphany that revealed to him that Brexit was just what his career, I mean the country, needed.

Labour came second, LibDems third. Let’s see what happens this time.

 

Boris is gambling on those constituencies which are economically left wing, but politically right wing going over to the Tories.
Can't see it because the Brexit Party will put up candidates here and get the Brexit votes.

 

Hillary Clinton did get several million more votes than Trump but kicked in the rear by that College.....whatever that is and who ever that was.Who were they? Politicians or drunks at a bar?

 

If more Lib Dem voters took their noses out of their Tory overlord's backsides and voted Labour the Tories would never win either

Funny how that works...

 

Except that isn't a true comparison because a) there are fewer seats where the Liberals hold the balance and b) All Labour voters ought to prefer Liberals to Tories but all Liberals don't prefer Labour over Tory.