I'd move. Maybe Labour picking someone called Sourbut suggests that they didn't take it that seriously?
It is under the current system. **** the Lib Dems, but if they can take enough Tory seats to make them lose, then that's great. And by lose I mean get totally removed and not end up working with their yellow mates again. If the Lib Dems can take the centre-right position and push the Tories right, I'll take it. They're heading in that direction anyway and it'll split the right-wing vote. Much better than their history of splitting the left/left-centre vote.
It's Tim Westwood. Of course they had complaints! He's the son of a Bishop and he acts like a plastic gangster. Anyone that's ever heard him talk should complain.
Isn't it odd that so many of these Trumpists have views that perfectly align with Putin's? By odd I mean entirely predictable and blatantly paid for, of course.
The problem isn't splitting the right-wing vote but the exact opposite, the assumption of the left-wing vote in spite various policies that are telling the left-wing vote to sod off And this is the issue with assumption in politics: there's always a point where a party pushes the assumed vote too far and it costs them, for example Thatcher assumed she had the public so beaten down she could get away with introducing Poll Tax and learned she was quite incredibly wrong, just as Labour had assumed the Scottish vote for decades and thought Miliband throwing his lot in with Better Together wouldn't send a chunk of the Labour vote into the waiting arms of the SNP overnight It also has to be said that Davey has the mindset of Charles Kennedy where the plan is just to nick a seat or two off the Tories in byelections (albeit Kennedy never staged cringey photo ops when they did...) and that's simply unsustainable because come election time Labour won't be using their current strategy of focusing on winning some seats but shrugging off others and that's where Davey's strategy could potentially backfire horribly if the Tory vote floods back in the seats the Lib Dems have pinched Obviously there's a lot of "could" and "potentially" in there, but we've seen the Lib Dem vote rise and fall enough times in the last 25 years to be wary of sustained growth
Not standing next to Cameron and say "Look what you'd be missing out on!" - especially since the Better Together campaign came across as more Labour than Tory, given Alasdair Darling was heading it with the likes of Blair McDougall and James Purnell running the campaign This is why the Lib Dems were also part of Better Together but didn't get wiped out in Scotland, as they didn't come across as standing side-by-side with the Tories while Labour did (which is ironic, given the Lib Dems were literally side-by-side with the Tories in Westminster at the time)
They got annihilated. Lost all of their mainland MPs in the buildup and their only MEP, too. Then they lost one of their two remaining in 2015, leaving them with Alistair Carmichael. Dropped to 5th place behind the Greens in 2016 and their overall votes have dropped since that. Labour's got no chance in Scotland. Most of those favouring independence are left-wing and strongly anti-Tory. I dread to think how the media up there is going to shift if and when they do leave.
The Better Together campaign was based on an illogicallity....Scotland being in the EU but not in the UK would not have been any sort of a disadvantage. On the other hand all the pro-Brexit arguments work much more strongly for Scotland v the UK.
I think you make a good point. I'll add that the problem is that conviction politics seems to have gone out the window. And the public can often (not always) see through it, especially when it doesn't come naturally to you or your political beliefs but you're doing it to try and appeal to the broadest possible electorate. You're trying to stand for so much in the end you stand for very little. We'll have a prime example of that today when Kier Starmer makes his speech today. He knows full well that Brexit is a clusterfck. But he won't be advocating what he truly believes. Instead he'll be saying how "there's no going back, that we have to make the best of it, and this is how Labour will do it." Why? Because he knows right now views are far too entrenched for him to do anything else. He's hedging his bets that although he may lose some Labour voters who want him to call Brexit the ****show it is and look to reverse it, but in return he'll gain more who may have bought into the lie. I can understand Starmer's approach, it's realpolitik. But the thing I disagree with is, it's clear there's no conviction in it. It's obvious why he's taking that approach. Instead I'd prefer far more for him to say "I didn't vote for Brexit, many of us knew the problems we're encountering now were always going to happen. But we are where we are and I have to lead us through it because ultimately our common interest is trying to make this nation as successful as it can be and right now the Tories are making things worse not better. However, I'll always be guided by public opinion and businesses on this and if the feeling in the country changes then I'll be listening and I'll do what the majority wants." That's compromise with conviction and honesty. Whatever anyone thinks of Blair (who I personally believe is a racist war criminal) he was a great orator because he spoke with conviction. It may have been spin half the time, but he believed in the message because it rang true with his political beliefs.
This might be true if we had a proportional voting system but we don't. The single most important issue when the Libs went into coalition with the Tories was the voting systems. The reason the Liberals themselves and the Greens have made no headway in a 100 years is FPTP. The Liberals had the chance to insist on this before joining the Tories, they failed. One of the major reasons I moved to Scotland was to support the campaign for Scottish Independence because this is the only way to get away from the closed shop of Westminster. Even now the system in Scotland was designed to keep the SNP from power but support for them is so high that they were elected in spite of it. That in itself should insure Independence from the kicking screaming of England as it fails to come to terms with the loss of Empire. Should; but of course Westminster can't have that and Labour, that has lost it's support in Scotland, thinks it needs Scotland to be elected to Westminster. Good luck with that. The only hope for England moving away from the toxic Tories is the visible evidence from an Independent Scotland of what can be achieved if you get shot of them. The Labour party may then campaign in England for Proportional Representation once it realises how difficult it will be to get elected in conservative England.
He became a US citizen last May! Not sure how either, as he appears to have moved there in about 2015-ish.
That actually leads me to an interesting point about the public perception of media coverage In England it's long been the way of the non-Tory parties that you're supposed to act as Tory as you can possibly be in the hope that maybe you'll be allowed to form a government if you're Labour or not be a punchline if you're Lib Dem, as demonstrated with Blair and Starmer for the former or Ashdown and Clegg for the latter, and any straying from that sees the media release the attack dogs and the public tend to fall in line North of the border there's plenty of press sniping towards the SNP, yet the public aren't falling in line and instead are mainly telling the people leading the attacks to piss off back to London The reason I bring this up is there was a suggestion after the one-two byelection losses a couple of weeks ago that the Tories' culture war bollocks went a long way to costing the Tories Wakefield because the locals saw them babbling on about the usual ****e that plays well with Express readers and saw it as exactly that, ****e that plays with Express readers as they snort with fury over their morning latte in their Berkshire pad with an Olympic sized swimming pool and heated tennis court and not people who live and work in Wakefield Which is the same issue that Labour being so prominent in the Better Together campaign had, as it gave plenty of people reason to tell Labour to piss off back to London which likely would not have been the case if, for the sake of argument, Ruth Davidson was the face of the campaign or the campaign was run by one of Cameron's oiks. True, either way Labour's vote share would surely be taking a hit as the SNP would be galvanised either way, but there's a difference between taking a hit and taking the Enola Gay's payload
