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UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

theguardian.com

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Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#211

Post by bshimmin »

tspiteri wrote: post #190
Accacin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah they did, in my eyes they did a great job stopping Tories doing too much damage. I'm also one who was affected by their tuition u-turn also but I decided to get over it.

And it is a bit ironic that New Labour introduced tuition fees, the Tories were the coalition partner that wanted to increase them, but it is the Lib Dems who caught all the flak.

It's understandable that they took a hammering over it: it was a tentpole pledge, they couldn't stick to it, and they then apologised for it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19646731

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#212

Post by davzie »

noja wrote: post #82
davzie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta get out of that echo chamber mate.

Maybe he does, but at 48% of those who voted it's not much of an echo chamber.

Yes but this is a general election where we're voting for a party, not pro or anti-Brexit. I despise the conservatives, but I support Brexit. So I'm certainly not voting for the lib dems. I actually like every single Liberal Democrat policy besides their hard-line on doing everything they can to ignore the result of the referendum. It's a shame because I don't feel like labour are in a position to really take the country forward right now.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#213

Post by deadbunny »

Keronk wrote: post #195
deadbunny wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is always describing Corbyn as some far left nutjob, look at Europe or Scandinavia and you'll see he is actually the moderate left. Don't let the continued hatchet job by every media outlet in the country fool you.

Corbyn isn't in Europe or Scandanavia, I'm going to assume your post you're under 30 and in the UK judging by your support for Corbyn. Maybe you should ask yourself why in your lifetime a Labour leader hasn't won an election without dominating the centre of the political spectrum. Corbyn is too far left to win a general election the press have nothing to do with it, Teresa May is becoming increasing right wing and he…

> I'm going to assume your post you're under 30 and in the UK judging by your support for Corbyn.

Nice assumptions there, shame they are incorrect other than my location. My point is that Corbyn is a bog standard left of centre politician in a left of centre party.

If you honestly believe the press have nothing to do with the image of him being a left wing loon then I honestly don't think you're paying attention. He is continually painted as a terrorist sympathizer for his views that talking and treating others as humans actually gets shit resolved (you know, diplomacy), he's quoted out of context time and again to paint him into the fringe left rather than where he actually stands.

That said, I agree that he's not the right candidate to get elected in the UK and he has been particularly ineffectual at providing any meaningful opposition to either Cameron or May both of whom I think Thatcher would think was a bit extreme.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#214

Post by d4rti »

sir_throwaway wrote: post #102
steanne wrote: post #64

...but she's gonna refuse scotland the chance for a quick referendum to get THEIR house in order before the brexit?

Most Scots are against a second referendum, and against independence [1]. May is just giving them what they want. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_second_Scottish_indep...

If we are citing polls now then most brits were against brexit.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#215

Post by midgetjones »

davzie wrote: post #199
nthcolumn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already had it! Any democracy without a free vote is a sham. Democracies have free speech, and their citizens ought to have a free conscience and privacy is a cornerstone of that - or do you wish to find out what we have to hide (plenty), make windows into all our souls and still want to know what we really, really think? Certainly democracies do not depend on nudge politics, dog-whistle tactics or the thought…

You're being a bit of a bellend. We can hold conservative views and not be fascist, the same as you can hold relatively left-wing views and not want socialism. Life isn't black-and-white, you know that I'm sure and labelling doesn't help anything.

> labelling doesn't help anything

> You're being a bit of a bellend

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#216

Post by Silhouette »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #101
Silhouette wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people claimed they regretted voting brexit after it became clear the brexit camp actually won. This is mostly just wishful thinking on the part of the Remain side. Opinion polls have pretty consistently shown very little change in overall sentiment on Brexit. In many cases they seem to have observed marginally more regret among Leave voters than Remain voters, but the numbers were small enough in both cases…

> This is mostly just wishful thinking on the part of the Remain side. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-leave-... "Four per cent of Leave voters polled said they thought Brexit was the worst thing to have happened this year," The result was 51% leave 49% remain, it would be the reverse if they could vote again today.

As far as I'm aware, that relates to the only major poll since Brexit that suggested sufficient remorse on the Leave side to affect the referendum decision. That's why it was big news.

Even so, it was still well within the margin of error. Your rounding was misleading: the referendum result was 51.9% to 48.1%, almost a 4% gap.

It also still assumed, probably incorrectly, no remorse on the Remain side to cancel out the remorse from Leavers.

But probably more significantly than any of that, I think every other poll I've seen from reasonably credible sources in recent months has pointed the other way. The one you're talking about appears to have been an anomaly.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#217

Post by mvindahl »

willyt wrote: post #186
sir_throwaway wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the main article is from The Guardian...

Your comment is over simplistic because many reputable news outlets are reporting the hard observable fact that a general election has been called. Therefore the fact that the Guardian is a source for this is irrelevant. A single newspaper, The Daily Express is reporting comments made by a single Danish MEP, who could be from some mad fringe party for all we know, as if this is the official policy of four nation stat…

Dane here. According to the article he is from the Danish People's Party. Although pretty right wing on issues like immigration, they're not exactly a fringe party these days but also they have never been a governing party.

As for the official foreign policy, I think our government is sorry to see the UK leave ship as we have often had similar objectives when it came to EU politics. I don't think there is any desire to "punish" Britain as far as the Danish government is concerned.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#218

Post by Silhouette »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #176
foldr wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming that no-one has shifted the other way: https://www.politicshome.com/news/europe/eu-policy-agenda/br...

No, it's not. From the same article I linked before: "But a small number of Remain voters were apparently glad the vote did not go their way, with two per cent saying Brexit was in fact the best part of 2016" So 4% of 'leave' voters regret voting leave and 2% of 'remain' voters regret voting 'remain'. So in total it's about a 2% shift which would reverse the current result percentages.

So in total it's about a 2% shift which would reverse the current result percentages.

No, it wouldn't. Your maths is off by about a factor of two, one way or another.

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#219

Post by alkonaut »

LibDems/Labour should just go into these elections saying "we'll keep the kingdom together". I think there is a fair chunk of people who voted leave who didn't actually realize they were voting for England and Wales to leave Scotland and Northern Ireland, rather than voting for the UK to leave the EU.

If Labour and LibDems play their cards right, couldn't they make these elections about the mandate for Conservatives the break the United Kingdom apart, rather than a mandate to negotiate with the EU.

Under those circumstances: how big an upset is needed for the election results to be seen as a complete disqualification of the Brexit vote?

Re: UK Prime Minister Theresa May announces intention to hold general election

#220

Post by beaconstudios »

grey-area wrote: post #209
malza wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labour's problem is they are basically two parties, the metropolitan socialists (remain) and working classes (leave). I doubt any leader would be able to fight this upcoming general election - it's a huge mess for them.

It's not quite as simple as that. Much of the country is prosperous but still voted leave, many working class people live in cities and voted remain, and it's quite hard to define working class now in a country which gets ~10% of its GDP from industry and most of it from services. There's stronger signs of a generational split, and a rural/city split than a simple rich poor split and of course each area has substanti…

> Unfortunately such a nuanced reality doesn't fit into a sound byte and people prefer to neatly put their opponents in a reductive box

> lots of people who are not nationalists voted for Brexit lots of people who are not particularly racist voted for Brexit

Sounds like you're doing the exact same thing. Are the majority of Brexit voters racist and nationalist (assuming you consider nationalism a negative)?

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