General Election 4th July ...

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It is, I luckily read the whole thread before replying to your Labour didn't win post. I was about to ask you to name the malt.
I take things too personally sometimes mate.

Had a drop of Macallan last night and said my own goodbyes to the recent incarnation of the tories.

For full transparency this morning I have written an email to my new Labour MP. I have been trying to get some attention on the state of local grass community pitches and the outgoing tory MP was paying some attention. I was even polite to him and said congratulations :emoticon-0136-giggl
 
Smaller % of the vote than under Corbyn? Sure I read that somewhere.

Hard to claim a Labour win for me, it is much more about and absolute fall off from conservative and snp. That is the system though. The question is whether we are going to keep accepting it.

That's correct, regarding Corbyn, maybe the low turnout has made the difference.
The turnout reflects that people are dissatisfied with the political parties and the system.
With a majority that big, they won't rock that boat.
 
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That's correct, regarding Corbyn, maybe the low turnout has made the difference.
The turnout reflects that people are dissatisfied with the political parties and the system.
With a majority that big, they won't rock that boat.
Think turnout has an impact. If we use PR the I haven't voted party are probably now in charge:emoticon-0102-bigsm
 
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I take things too personally sometimes mate.

Had a drop of Macallan last night and said my own goodbyes to the recent incarnation of the tories.

For full transparency this morning I have written an email to my new Labour MP. I have been trying to get some attention on the state of local grass community pitches and the outgoing tory MP was paying some attention. I was even polite to him and said congratulations :emoticon-0136-giggl
I think we all do marra, but don't care to admit it.

I'll give that malt a go :emoticon-0148-yes:

You are always true to your word Fell, good luck with the email.
 
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I think that is a fair point. I voted Lib Dem and our seat numbers far exceeded vote share. But, it really isnt about me and my vote tbh. How do all those who genuinely want the green party get their voice heard in the current FPTP system? I couldnt be further from the Reform party views, but 14% of folk voted for their message. On a personal level I do not want them in parliament. An alternative view though would be to keep your enemies close. Perhaps if they had more of a voice, folk would see how unreasonable they are and they will die a quicker death as a party than than they may now do banging this drum of representation.

One of my big gripes about our current political system is the lack of balance in the debate. It is setup to be a 2 party debate. Leader v opposition leader etc etc. We see it all the time, in every element of the political discourse. This time it will be parties with 40% of the vote not having much of a voice. Turnout this election is the lowest in over 29 years. After the last years of Tory rule you would think it would be one of the highest. I think there may well be a correlation between turnout and feeling your vote wont count.

This election is by far the worst for the gap between vote share and seats. It is more than double what it was in 2019. It appears to be the worst in history. Worth a consideration in my opinion as to whether there is a better way.
I agree that the way politics is working at the moment isn't quite right. I've said earlier what I would do to change things. I think if people thought about it differently, we'd different outcomes but within the sort of safety net that we already have.

It's not a great argument against PR but I've got a good mate who is Polish. He does a postal vote for their elections. He showed it to me once. The document he had to fill in was really long and convoluted. It wasn't just put a cross in a box. There were pages and pages of multiple choice questions. It looked like taking an exam. If British voters had to do something similar, I can see turnout going off a cliff.
 
Looking at the new cabinet, foreign secretary, home secretary, chancellor, etc I know what they're responsible for, but wtf is the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster?
 
Smaller % of the vote than under Corbyn? Sure I read that somewhere.

Hard to claim a Labour win for me, it is much more about and absolute fall off from conservative and snp. That is the system though. The question is whether we are going to keep accepting it.

Wasting your time arguing politics with people from a demographic who still vote red because they dislike a woman who was in power over 30 years ago.

Sunderland lad made a post that went viral on X basically calling out reform voters but went on to whinge that there weren’t enough houses because of the tories. Nothing to do with the ridiculous increase in population mind, that just makes you racist for even mentioning it. People all over it like flies on **** without even bothering to fact check how many new houses were built under the last labour government or should I say how little council housing was built under the last labour government in comparison to the government they succeeded.
 
Looking at the new cabinet, foreign secretary, home secretary, chancellor, etc I know what they're responsible for, but wtf is the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster?
In charge of policy or something, I think. And a ceremonial role in administration of the estates of the Duchy of Lancaster.
 
One good thing about Farage being in the House of Commons is he’ll keep kier and co honest and on their toes regarding illegal immigration
Be interesting to see how much time he actually spends in the House, particularly in November. His attendance as an MEP was woeful.
 
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I know Starmer has only been in the job for a couple of days but the fears of him being boring are looking like being true. I mean, there hasn't been a sniff of any extramarital affairs resulting in abortions or illegitimate offspring. He has not rode any zipwires wearing a Union Jack waistcoat to the best of my knowledge. Not once has he spoke in Latin or quoted Greek mythology. There has been no hiding in fridges, no giving Knighthoods to Russian criminals, or any handing million pound contracts to friends and family. As far as I am aware he hasn't told any lies and there have been no holidays in the Carribean on Labour Party donors yachts. It just isn't good enough :emoticon-0102-bigsm
 
I know Starmer has only been in the job for a couple of days but the fears of him being boring are looking like being true. I mean, there hasn't been a sniff of any extramarital affairs resulting in abortions or illegitimate offspring. He has not rode any zipwires wearing a Union Jack waistcoat to the best of my knowledge. Not once has he spoke in Latin or quoted Greek mythology. There has been no hiding in fridges, no giving Knighthoods to Russian criminals, or any handing million pound contracts to friends and family. As far as I am aware he hasn't told any lies and there have been no holidays in the Carribean on Labour Party donors yachts. It just isn't good enough :emoticon-0102-bigsm
Absolutely! I was initially sceptical about Starmer but he has been just the steady hand that Labour needed. He flip flops a bit too much for my liking but he is intelligent and shrewd. His speeches since becoming PM have been impressive as well. Injecting quiet optimism into the country while not making big promises.
 
One good thing about Farage being in the House of Commons is he’ll keep kier and co honest and on their toes regarding illegal immigration

I doubt it mate, Starmer knows the situation is chaotic, out of control and needs addressing ...

... he's spent the last two or three years rightly criticising the Tories.

I doubt he needs the likes of Farage to remind him. Reform have tried, and succeeded with some people, to make it look like it's only them who can see there's a problem. Even the Tories knew there was a problem although they've made a mess of it. The Reform 'solution' is to scoop them all up and dump them all on French beaches ...

... we had an agreement, with the French, in order to take back certain migrants.

Sadly that agreement automatically ended when Farage, etc, blindsided us into leaving the EU.

Because there are no international waters, in the Channel, once they're in the boats they're technically in our territory.
 
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Absolutely! I was initially sceptical about Starmer but he has been just the steady hand that Labour needed. He flip flops a bit too much for my liking but he is intelligent and shrewd. His speeches since becoming PM have been impressive as well. Injecting quiet optimism into the country while not making big promises.

Some of the decisions they've already made have been excellent- the appointments of Hermer and Vallance. Not so sure about Timpson and some of the comments that have already been made but the logic is good. These are what any sensible leader would do.

The politicking, the doublespeak, has already started though. That speech contained a clear hint, if not an outright admission, that he'll have to put taxes up; "taking the tough decisions". Now, that shouldn't come as a surprise- to do things that he's said they're going to do, they'll need to raise money and the only way to do that is to put taxes up. But he's not going to say that. He also squirmed on question about the two child cap. He knows they can't do anything about and he knows that saying "he wants to" lift it during the campaign was a little bit of gamesmanship.

I'm sure if you're not familiar with Greek mythology that was a great speech, but he's still a politician and he's still speaking like a politician (and a bit like a boring vicar). That much hasn't changed.