General Election

[RicardoHCAFC]

Any amusing constituency names come up for people yet?

I've just seen that there's going to be an MP elected for "Down South". I know it's meaning County Down, but I like the idea that somewhere there's one called "Up North" as well.

 

[Happy Tiger]

Every year MPs go on a summer recess for about 6 weeks. Most people don't notice it.

As an observation, it's probably fair to say that if nobody notices when you stop doing your job for 6 weeks, it's probably a fair bet that you weren't doing very much of anything important when you were there.

As a great poet in the 80s wrote, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government wins. (That might get a laugh from OLM - NO Maggie Thatcher, NO GOVERNMENT, OI!).

The MPs make the odd decision, no doubt, possibly even drive major policy, but Yes Minister was probably closer to the truth than most people care to admit. The Whitehall mandarins and civil servants have more to do in the actual running of the country.

 

[Tobes]

I'd be more worried why they decided to start fracking in Leeds city centre to be honest, but I get your point.

There will never be that study because there are always going to be negative impacts, do they heavily publicise the negative environmental impacts of wind farms? Of course they don't but trust me there are plenty.

Everything has negative impacts, building a railway, extending an airport, mass farming, urbanisation, but we are comfortable with these or choose to ignore them, the problem with fracking is that it's new and sounds scary plus it's not helped by the environmental propaganda.

Its worth billions to the economy, it would create jobs in practically every sector and would reduce our reliance on imported fuel, we can't ignore it because it will happen, thats why we need the investment in research to minimise the impacts when it does happen.

Sorry I completely disagree. Have read reams of information about fracking I don't view the negative effects that are factual to be merely 'propoganda' and neither do I think it's essential that we scar our landscape, and risk untold environmental damage, trying to squeeze the last fossil fuels from our landmass. The economic benefits would be felt be the few not the many btw.

We should be putting all of our efforts, investment and focus into renewables, given you're patently involved in the petrochemical industry I no doubt think you'll disagree, but the resources we're talking about are piddling in comparsion to the long term needs of our country and fracking merely postpones the inevitable, we should face that reality head on now and find practical and sustainable energy sources that will provide what we need for hundreds of years to come, not a decade or so.

 

[RicardoHCAFC]

[

Isn't that the same for every person that ever takes a holiday?

Don't know about you, but if I went on holiday for 6 weeks in one shot then somebody else would need to do it for me whilst I'm away. During our busy times if I'm out the office for more than a couple of days at a time someone needs to either do bits of my job or problems start occuring. That's why in most places they don't let all the staff in one department take time off at the same time. MPs can have all 650 of them go off on holiday and nobody needs to step in and do anything about it.

Before someone says teachers get loads of time off, you notice the kids everywhere during their holidays.

 

[Barchullona]

[

Isn't that the same for every person that ever takes a holiday?

No.

 

[originallambrettaman]

As a great poet in the 80s wrote, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government wins. (That might get a laugh from OLM - NO Maggie Thatcher, NO GOVERNMENT, OI!).

My favourite political quote was John F Kennedy, who received the following message from his father during his presidential campaign - "Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide".

 

[HCAFC (Airlie Tiger)]

I don't deny the negative effects of fracking, far from it, but they are greatly exaggerated in comparison to the negative effects of various industries which enable us to live the lives we are accustomed to. The fact that it's new and different greatly exaggerate these effects and cause people to form strong opinions.

Whilst I work in the petrochemical industry, fracking would not impact my professional career at all, in fact it would probably detract from it.

I completely agree that money and time needs to be invested into renewables, but they are so inefficient that a long term strategy would require use to maintain our current fossil fuel dependance before we can feasibly replace it with renewable sources.

 

[originallambrettaman]

OLM I also had to go to the hospital today. Consultant was an hour behind, but, once in, he's a top bloke, and hopefully I'll never see him again. Yours sounds more fun and possibly worthy its own thread. Is the endoscope going in from the North or the South??

I have no idea where they plan to stick it, presumably they'll tell me via a letter at some point during 2018.

 

[Happy Tiger]

I have no idea where they plan to stick it, presumably they'll tell me via a letter at some point during 2018.

We should have a poll for that.

 

[RicardoHCAFC]

We should have a poll for that.

An endoscopy stick?

 

[HCAFC (Airlie Tiger)]

Don't know about you, but if I went on holiday for 6 weeks in one shot then somebody else would need to do it for me whilst I'm away. During our busy times if I'm out the office for more than a couple of days at a time someone needs to either do bits of my job or problems start occuring. That's why in most places they don't let all the staff in one department take time off at the same time. MPs can have all 650 of them go off on holiday and nobody needs to step in and do anything about it.

Before someone says teachers get loads of time off, you notice the kids everywhere during their holidays.

If all are away and no decisions are being made then no-one needs to be there to represent their opinion.

If you think those 6 weeks are essentially 'time off' then your mistaken, most are still doing valuable work to ensure their constituency has their voices heard.

 

[Chazz Rheinhold]

I've copied Chazz's post from the mod thread so you can all see if this goes wrong it's all his fault.

So, being GE day, what does everyone think will be the result? As it's a prediction rather than a wishlist I think I'm playing it safe on the politics rules.

1 point for every seat you're out by for each party/group, lowest points total wins

I'm going for (brackets are the current numbers):

305 Tory (302)
240 Labour (256)
47 SNP (11)
20 Lib Dem (56)
5 Plaid Cymru (3)
4 UKIP (2)
3 Green (1)
5 Sinn Fein (5), who won't be arsed turning up so seems a complete waste of time electing them
21 Others (14)

There'll then be 3 meltdowns on social media:

1) UKIP supporters not understanding how they can get more votes than the LDs but end up with 1/4 of the seats. This will wind down when the few UKIP MPs there are go and back up the Tories making the complainers happy they hadn't done better (lets be honest, UKIP and the Tories are basically the British equivalent of the Tea Party and the Republicans, that's why so many Tories have defected to them)
2) SNP supporters creaming themselves about how well they've done and how significant it is in terms of getting rid of the Tories and making Scotland get recognised at Westminster
3) SNP supporters realising after 2) that it means absolutely nothing, and they have in fact made it more difficult to remove the Tories, as by switching from voting Lablour they've now got to find agreements with the Labour Party on policies anyway. They'd have been better off electing 55 Labour MPs than electing 8 Labour and 47 SNP as it would make Labour's attempts to gain power more credible.

Once the results start coming in we can probably also cover whether the results are a surprise or expected without actually having to get into the politics of it.

Seems to be going rather well so far.
As long as no blacks, Jews, people off OPE or Muslims have posted on my thread it'll be fine...

Anyways the Conservatives will win by 42 seats. All this sideshow about Labour and the SNP is a load of bollocks.
Cleggs going to get wiped out.

True story i was working in Cambridgeshire during the last election with a woman who was a Lib councillor. She was absolutely over the moon and then heartbroken when they broke all their promises to get their grubby mitts on power.
Truly sad watching her disintegrate. I didnt take the piss








much

 

[OedipusTex]

I for one have no intention of voting tomorrow.

Ha! I voted on Tuesday . . . for city council, school board, and community college trustees. These are the folks that have more affect on the everyday lives of we Americans than the POTUS, but less than 1% can name who represents them, and go out and vote.

 

[Quill]

Cleggs going to get wiped out.

Aye, the teaboy is royally ****ed this time round.

 

[RicardoHCAFC]

Aye, the teaboy is royally ****ed this time round.

Never mind the LDs being wiped out, there was talk last week of Clegg not even winning his own seat unless something changed.

Gordon Brown could be out as well. Last time round he got about 30,000 votes to the SNP candidate getting less than 7,000. A poll last week predicted a big enough swing for the SNP to knock him out this time.

 

[ellewoods]

Sorry ellewoods I don't agree with your stance here although I agree that whoever has a majority will stuff us once in power. But the suffering endured by millions through the World Wars enabling us to have a vote once every 5 years deserve some recognition from those of us alive today. What will it take half an hour of your time? I have no love for any particular party having once voted for the Monster Raving Loony Party to show my contempt but I did vote and I think everyone elligable should do the same if only to show some respect to the fallen ones.

I think you forgot that I am an American. Most of our voting happens in November with some exceptions like Tex's voting on Tuesday.

 

[Quill]

Never mind the LDs being wiped out, there was talk last week of Clegg not even winning his own seat unless something changed.

Gordon Brown could be out as well. Last time round he got about 30,000 votes to the SNP candidate getting less than 7,000. A poll last week predicted a big enough swing for the SNP to knock him out this time.

Labour are going to lose quite a chunk of what they have north of the wall.

And before anyone mentions it, I'm on about Hadrian's Wall, not this one:

You must log in or register to see images

 

[Chazz Rheinhold]

Never mind the LDs being wiped out, there was talk last week of Clegg not even winning his own seat unless something changed.

Gordon Brown could be out as well. Last time round he got about 30,000 votes to the SNP candidate getting less than 7,000. A poll last week predicted a big enough swing for the SNP to knock him out this time.

Thought he was stepping down?

 

[Spook]

Okay....immigrants don't just come from poor countries, anybody who relocates here from any country is an immigrant. All the students studying medicine at our universities, all the potential lawyers, teachers, scientists are wasting our money because....what they aren't British? Or do they not count either? What about American immigrants?

So let me get this straight, when the working class man gets annoyed at immigrants, they aren't getting annoyed at all immigrants. So in fact, immigrants would be the wrong word to use. What you mean is, people who move here for a better quality of life and to scrounge our benefits? Well yeah, obviously we don't like those people. But then, I don't much care for British people who do it either.

Furthermore, I have nothing against the Romanian/Kosovan people at the car-washes, shows how business savvy they are. How many British run hand car wash businesses were there in Hull before they started? If a working class person can't get a job in a factory because some bloke from Poland took his job, then they don't deserve the job. For ****s sake, you need NO qualifications to do that kind of work, so if you can't get a job that requires no qualifications and your response is "bloody immigrants took all our jobs", then you're wrong. They just took all the **** jobs that required no qualifications or aspirations to undertake. I'm not going to sweat it if Don from the Estates can't get a low paying job because he got beaten in the interview by Zlatan from Moldova. Tough ****, work on your interview technique, get some qualifications behind you and make yourself a more attractive prospect for employers.

What's that? It's cheaper to pay foreigners to do the work of an Englishman? Let me just check the rules employment law.....

It's just ****ing excuses for lazy people who can't get even the ****est of jobs.

A points-based immigration policy would be fair and sensible; judging people on skills, qualifications and work ethic rather than their country of origin. The current system discriminates in favour of Europeans and against those who are not from the EU. It's important to control immigration but it's important to do it fairly. The EU was good when it was just a trade agreement but now it's too bureaucratic.

 

[originallambrettaman]

Thought he was stepping down?

He was, he announced he was retiring from politics, then changed his mind.