General Election 4th July ...

As you say ,Labour, ( assuming it’s them ) have a grace period where anything achieved will be down to how brilliant we are , anything not achieved will be because tories left us at minus 5 and it’s taking time to just get back up to zero

 

Isnt that standard from all politicians? - take the credit themselve but blame those that came before them for any failures.

 

Absolutely- the previous govt or the ''world''conditions

 

Despite the undeniable logic of your argument, it's not one I can go along with.

PR for example has been shown to give weak, short lived, governments time after time.
Since 1946, France for example has had over forty Prime Ministers.
Italy has outshone them by having 66 different Governments over the same period.
Just look at Israel where a small group of small, extreeme, parties often hold the balance of power where the main parties get a similar number of Seats.
Their price for support can be seen on TV.
Scotlands rather odd system for their own parliament is a mixture of Pr and The Additional Members System.
I don't understand it, but we have seen that it CAN lead to a small party weilding power, way beyong their numerical suuport.

Despite all it's many faults, the first past the post, system will usualy proved an acceptable, normaly stable, Government.

 

Then moan we can’t because there is no reason for it to change

 

I'm very willing to be convinced that there is a better system than First Past The Post, just show it to me,

In passing I'll mention the system used to elect The President of The US of A.
Five time the winner of the Electoral Collage Vote has reciever a lower 'Popular Vote, than his opponant.
The most recent time was in 2016 when Hilary Clinton the popular vote over
Donal Trump,

 

First past the post also regularly gives us a system where less people have voted for the incumbents than the opposition and people can have a reasonable number of votes with no representation. I don’t think we should always think of whole term being a good thing. In this case 18 months and we were in bother.

 

I was always against PR because i think it essentially waters down the power of the ruling party and you end up with decisions being made on consensus rather than the full mandate needed to get things done, however I think the situation we are now in is so dire PR is the only conceivable way (unless there is a third way) to get new ideas into the public sphere for debate. I support PR but have been against it until very recently.

 

I got my leaflet through from my local Tory candidate last night. Half of it was essentially "vote for us to reduce the Labour majority because Kier Starmer wants to spend loads and tax you."

I've heard it by numerous candidates on the news lately too, this is the line the party in Government is going for... Not "vote for us, here's what we can do positively for the country" but instead "we're going to lose but you should be scared of someone else having power."

It's pathetic and cowardly. Sort of rolling over but trying to weasel in at the same time. Absolutely nothing to offer to the public but fear.

 

Sad times. Both main parties at it though. Spreading fear about the others because they struggle to stand behind their undeliverable manifestos.

The only party to actually knock on my door are the conservatives. We have a new candidate, after years of our last conservative MP. She was a very good local MP to be fair and I liked her, if not her party in recent years. The new guy seems smart, bright, humble, but maybe a bit naieve. That said, he is a local man and understands exactly our local problems and opportunities. Labour finally put up a candidate, who is managing to be neither seen nor heard and who does not even live in the area he is standing for. No local presence at all about his campaign, just the bland national leaflets coming via post. He may well get in as those I know wont vote conservative anymore, but whether he will be a worthwhile local MP time will tell. The choice here isnt exactly encouraging...

 

2 days left of those Tory ****ers.

 

I say let's have a supermajority. No excuses then, just like Johnson had no excuses with his majority.

Then maybe the penny will drop with the electorate. Whoever you vote for, the government always gets in

 

Exactly how i think, nobody to blame if you do s hit and also you get all the praise if you do well. Couldn’t care less which party it is.

 

A leaflet ? What’s that? I have had none . Still no posters in windows. Know nothing of any of the 7. I am going to draw a number from 1-7 and vote for that number in the list . If they win , I’ll let them know my vote was only chance , but whoever it is I’m going straight to them to ask local intentions

 

I had a knock on the door from a Tory activist who said Labour would find a way to tax everything ...

... What, even Sunak's wife

 

Boom boom bang bang

 

Strange, that the candidate doesn't live local, we had a by election here a few months back, she has not been since. Local Labour party members been moaning about her.
The wife (yes) that's her initials BTW has decided to vote, no idea who for yet.

 

I have noticed a bit of a thing where candidates move around to regions where they might stand a chance. I do hope the days of local people representing local people arent going. Not sure what it all means, but not having any motivation on local issues cant be helpful. We have 7 candidates on our ballot, and by my reckoning 3 are from outside the electoral boundary.

 

If we taxed Tory donors fairly they wouldn’t be Tory donors

 

I have a feeling the current disdain will help breed a new generation of politician, imagine a proper local politician who could speak well and be forthright about the problem sthe country is facing, he would landslide these career politician types.