Be Excellent To Each Other

When do we found out that Boris won?

This evening.

Somehow, it appears that the Tories believe their losses are because they are not being right wing enough. Whilst some of the gains by UKIP are from there, it is odd for them to be actively courting more mental people.

The LD losses are sadly predictable, and due to them:
a) sucking at public relations
b) being idiots over the NHS Bill

It's all horribly predicable, but then I also genuinely don't understand why the LDs have acted the way they have in government. I guess they're arguing in favour of stability, but defeating the NHS bill wouldn't have brought down the government, and plenty of European states have coalitions formed of parties that disagree about specific bills, which end up being scrapped. Still, I doubt that's something we'll have to worry about again for a couple of decades anyway: it'll be Lab > Lab > Con > Con > Lab (or similar) for the next five or six elections, I imagine.

Still, interesting results last night, here in Blue Central (Hart, Hants): Con loss to NoC. Con down 3 (was 4 last night, so a recount must have happened), to 16; LD have no losses (10); 'Residents Association' up two (7) and 'others' up 1 (2). No Labour here, which is just as well, given the leaflet they shoved through the door.

EDIT: Just looked at our neighbours, though—Rushmoor (Aldershot/Farnborough) saw LD wipe-out, Lab grabbing the seats; bizarrely, Cons gained Winchester, due to LD losses. Bonkers.

I'm always entertained when in a midterm election, the political commentators say that "If this share of the vote were reflected in a General Election, the oppostiion would gain a majority of X seats". Mid-term shares are never reflected in a subsequent general election.

Because they're a centre-right party which has far more in common with the Tories than with Labour or even New Labour. Many people will have to get over the illusion that the LibDems were or are a centre-left/progressive party, they're not, but they misleadingly portrayed themselves as such for tactical reasons. Remember, most of the LibDem front bench co-wrote The Orange Book in 2003, including chapters advocating scrapping the NHS and replacing it with personal health insurance and other beyond-Thatcherite policies.

You know it's possible to be fiscally conservative, whilst still remaining socially progressive, yes? Left and right are pretty meaningless.

You've suffered my driving directions, too, then.

They might not be as rampantly pro-NHS as the Labour Party, but their general position on that bill in particular made absolutely no sense (Orange Book or not), and the grass roots of the party seems increasingly at odds with the leadership, which isn't the case to nearly the same degree with Lab/Con. Like myp, I'd also say left/right means little these days. When placed on that line, all of the three main parties are centre right, in the order Lab/LD/Con. The political compass is a bit more meaningful, because it at least also attempts to differentiate between authoritarianism and libertarianism (in which they, I think rightly, ordered the parties Lab/Con/LD).

What, like liberal political parties throughout Europe? That doesn't mean they aren't considered centre-right. Because they overwhelmingly are.

(Again, that's what liberal parties are in Europe, which include the LibDems' international allies - on the right on economics, moderate to radical on social policies. The problem is that the Americanisation of culture and discourse in the UK has corrupted the meaning of 'liberal' in everyday speech.)

I couldn't agree with this more. I think I've said before, here, that the Lib Dems are most often the party of choice, teh safe choice, for people who feel more comfortable with the "middle of the road, non offensive" policies that polarize the electorate between Labour and the Conservatives. They have always seemed to me to be quite happy with this "safe, third way" appearance and done little to actively alter it. I think that's mostly why I distrust them so. Also, wonderful bit in private Eye this week about their problem donor, and the possibility of defrauded investors suing the party to get their money back.

One of my local council wards was a draw! They chose the winner by drawing lots!

1) That's good as computers can't really be random.
2).
3) I like it that we stick to old traditions.

They should have had a joust.

Truly remarkable.

A superb result for Labour. I think these midterm elections may not be an exceptional case, and that the results will carry forward to a general election.

The Tory mask has slipped, and the people don't like what they see underneath.

Indeed. I voted for them based on Portal alone.


Hm. Do you follow @Thisangelbites too?

As gitish as the current gits are, I've not really seen a great deal from Labour to suggest they'd be any less git-like in government. The Labour crowing—"We're back! The electorate trusts us again!"—is almost as galling as the rampant stupid coming from the coalition itself. Show us some damn policies! Have some bloody backbone! Talk about repealing shitty laws in a very basic, definite sense, rather than using weasel words that will enable you to wiggle out of it in 2015 and, inevitably, blame everything on the last lot.


Nope. Should I?

I'm sure inspirational Ed Miliband will reverse all the cuts, tax the rich more and lead us to a great era of prosperity.

No, seriously.

*fake straight face*

I don't know. I like her.

It's just that she was asking what happens if nobody at all voted, and she RT'd someone suggesting a joust.

I don't disagree with you, but it's early days for Labour in opposition and I think time is on their side, especially since the coalition appear so determined to exact a policy of self-immolation - (which is appropriate, since they're so busy crashing and burning the population of the country with their fundamentalist austerity bollocks, go on you cunts, beat up on disabled people some more!) - Miliband is looking better as time goes on, and he properly got the better of Cameron at PMQs last week.

The Tories look rattled, they look like what they are, a posh old-boys' network running government for the convenience of their rich chums - I think the next general election is Labour's to win.

This is not to say that New Labour under Blair and Brown didn't do a whole load of total shit, but it was at least well-intentioned shit in the main, this coalition government is fucking evil.

If you really think that the coalition MPs all sit round and try to think of how evil they can be, the, well, I don't know what to say.

They just have different priorities to you.

"I'm so evil that I propose to remove thousands of the poorest people out of paying income tax altogether, whilst simultaneously reducing the overall tax bill for other low earners. MUWAHAHAHAHAA! COWER BEFORE MY EVIL!"

That's not what I said though. The Lib Dems are propping up the Tories, the Tories are evil. (Not necessarily on an individual basis, but as a collective force in government.)

The sum total of the coalition is therefore evil, slightly diluted evil doesn't get them off the hook.



They've achieved a couple of small compromises here and there which on balance are better than them not existing at all, but they're lost in the tidal wave of destruction to be quite honest. (NHS bill, student loans, working tax credit changes, DLA Stasi enforcment etc.)

I've just checked my weetabix dictionary and "well intentioned" and "not evil" don't include faking evidence to convince parliament to go on a warmongering crusade in the name of stopping the proliferation of non WMDs.

I'd best order the new edition :-(

<refuses to bite>

Oh yeah Blair was a fucker, no doubt about that, but fortunately he wasn't the sum total of what Labour achieved during their time in office.

Given the two major legacies of the government were a dodgy war and an utterly fucked economy, I'd say any good only dilutes the sum total.

Their fucking of the economy was basically running it as the Tories would, namely letting the financial and banking sectors do whatever they wanted to. The stuff that Labour spent money on was, in a large part, redistributive and progressive (albeit going about it arse about face, for example by letting shit employers off the hook by topping up pay with tax credits).

But yes, the Iraq war was an abomination and is an indelible stain on the name of the Labour Party.

Let us not forget the never before seen levels of infringement on civil liberties.

Or the pensions raid.

"Evil", in governance, is mostly reserved for genocide and the like in my book. To suggest that even the worst excesses of either Labour or Conservative governments constitute "evil" is a spectacular failure of imagination or demonstration of blinkered thinking.

The illegitimate Iraq war is probably the nadir of British government policies of at least the last few decades, though. At least in terms of shitty outcomes from dubious motive, anyway.

That's me!

Which ward?

Also, this is a stupid idea, they should reopen the polling station and the next voter who wanders in calls it.

I remember working down Torfaen in the 2010 election. I wanted to stay up watching, and go into work late but want allowed because all my idiot colleagues who didn't understand things like what a hung parliament was were employed as counters. My argument that elections were for people who give a shit about politics fell on deaf ears.

Excellently my polling station was a room cut into a barn behind a cottage in Tredunnock. You walked into the cupboard sized room, took the card off the guy behind the desk, pivoted on the spot, marked your ballot, span round again and popped it in the box. No danger of the station guy seeing round you and no one else could get in, so it was ok. I've been in bigger toilet cubicles.

I don't buy that. I tend to vote a bit Labour and I'm a trade unionist. I marched against that war and while Tony Blair isn't really involved with the labour party now, I still am.

On reflection, the notion that because "Labour did bad things" they should now be shunned is the most Tory thing I've ever heard.

Green Meadow, Cwmbran, Torfaen.

Ummm... what? They were an awful government. Them having been out of power for ten minutes doesn't mean that they're suddenly great.

If the Tories and Lib Dems were thrown out tomorrow and replaced by Labour, and they didn't make the world perfect in a week, should we get the Tories back in? Of course not.

To not remember what a political party has done for more than a year is downright irresponsible. This is about running the country, not the X Factor...

That's mugging someone for a wallet containing fifty quid, then slipping them a grubby five pound note as compensation.

That's before we contemplate the devastating loss of healthcare coverage the Health and Social Care bill will lead to in just a couple of years time.

That's such a blatant misrepresentation of what I said that I'd struggle to believe you are not yourself a mainstream politician. They did some awful stuff and some good stuff, but improving the Labour party is a better way of ending up with a good party for the future than starting a new one.

I like the Labour party in principal, if not always what some of those who rise to the top through it do... And what I've always wanted was a decent Opposition to keep them in check, but neither the Lib Dems nor the Tories managed to do that.

You know, it really does come across that you are wilfully taking hyperbole seriously in order to rubbish the left leaning members of the forum. I have been "taken out of tax" but that's not going to make up for the three jobs I lost to cuts over the last eighteen months, nor the VAT hike, nor the false economies of cutting vital services that were set up in the first place to save money and reduce costs to society as a whole by ensuring, for example, that the welfare state was accessible by the very people it was set up to protect.

In the TV debates and general campaigning for the last election, there seemed to be no real attention paid to the NHS save for what was mandated by the broadcast agenda. Labour did a good job on the NHS. In fact the only person talking about the NHS with any vigour was Cameron. He said he wouldn't cut it... And he lied. Whether one lies about Iraq or the NHS, people still end up dying.

I'll let you start on about mortality rates in either case as if that's remotely my point now. In fact you can say what you like, because you aren't coming across as if you are talking with any sense of goodwill or respect for the rest on here so I'm going to go and do something else, because Saeeda fucking Warsi is on fucking Newsnight again and I really can't stand her voice a moment longer and I need to get out of the lounge.

In fact for her alone, fuck the Tories. Any argument against and I invoke Pickles.

1) I was responding to an utterly ludicrous suggestion , that Labour with their wars and civil liberty trampling and pension stealing were 'good' and the Coalition were 'evil'. Not just divided or misguided or different, but 'evil'. I think that warranted an equally daft response.
2) If I misinterpreted your post then I apologise. I can't really see what else it could mean though; I think we should be distrustful of a party with an abominable track record in recent times, made up of much the same people as before. You appear to think that is weird and a very 'Tory' thing to say (whatever that means).

But of course Ed Miliband wouldn't have made any cuts. Labour would have sorted out a way for everyone to be fine, right? They've certainly not said they would have made most of the same decisions, or increased tuition fees to be potentially unlimited. Not at all.

Miliband has been quite clear that he's not going to churn out policies that won't be relevant or appropriate come the election, and that Labours job now is to keep the coalition in check, and they're doing a fair job across the commons at present. The coalition isn't getting away with much in debates, even if they are the dominant votic bloc. Indeed Milliband has come across to me today as being fairly humble in the main, even if the snippet being repeat-quoted is him saying labour have re-won trust. They demonstrably have regained a bit, but I feel the message I've got is that the main work is yet to be done and labour must not be complacent. As such I'm surprised by Craig's reading of that bit, if not his overalls view of labour.

I'm not much of a fan of Milliband though, and I think one of his main problems is that he refuses to truncate his message for the masses and the puckered arsehole of opportunity the media offers opposition leaders to make points through at times. Nonetheless I can see why he does it... And can see how in a year or two when the policies get wheeled out he might not have any chinks in his armour from over reaching himself now.

On an entirely separate note, if one more lib dem councillor blames their tsunami of fail on national issues I shall scream. From Cardiff to hull via Manchester, their constant mailbox spamming has for a good many years now been condescending, negative, sensationalist and a huge turn off for people like me who are quite happy to vote lib dem when the right candidate puts themselves forward.

For the record, I have voted for all three main parties, the greens and socialist labour in the past. I might lean slightly to the left but I'll not stick to a party out of bloody mindedness or blind idealism.

I managed to miss all of the election coverage until now, just turned on Scottish Newsnight and it's full of the usual petty squabbling, point-scoring and evasion from all sides. Sick of the fucking lot of them.

Has BORIS won yet?

1 I read that much differently to yourself, then.

2 I refer to the right's approach of punishment and ostracising of poor behaviour rather than the left's approach of rehabilitation. In broad terms, obviously. But wholly writing off the party of the labour movement for the wrongs of the new labour project is dumb. And I remain Unconvinced that the shared DNA of Pre and post Brown era Labour guarantees us similar problems when they get back in.

3 Labour would of course have made plenty of cuts, but I can't imagine they'd have been quite so far reaching and they certainly wouldn't have been driven by a societal reform agenda based upon Reaganomics.

Not yet. Turns out he left Jeb bush in charge of the count.

By a pube's width, perhaps.

Scottish politics does seem to be fucking rabid, doesn't it? I'd not want to be too independent, if I were you lot. At least in Westminster they have to pretend to be polite to one another from time to time.

Scottish politics has given us a Lib Dem councillor getting less votes than a man dressed as a penguin, however. I think we should all be thankful for that.

Fewer votes.

Man, the Green person's speech was dreadful

It's not easy being green.