International elections

[stui magpie]

What is it with holding polling during the working week?

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but I understand the UK uses first past the post rather than preferential voting like we do. Could be very interesting to see how many seats are won with less than 50% of the vote.

[stui magpie]

For extra points, why Corbyn can't win.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-12/ ... s/11786960

Yes it involves polls but also alleged analysis.

Not being a follower of British Politics apart from the Brexit sideshow, I hadn't read this stuff before.

The stench of anti-Semitism
After his early victories, secure in the leadership, Mr Corbyn and his allies cemented control of the party apparatus around him. A hardcore of believers, and thousands of new members, electrified by Mr Corbyn's radicalism, shifted the Labour Party to the far left. The checks and balances steadily eroded.

Which is why the firestorm of anti-Semitism has been impossible for Mr Corbyn to extinguish.

Despite his repeated promises to crack down on the problem, an anti-Jewish culture has flourished under his watch. Almost weekly there have been revelations of anti-Jewish words and actions from his party members, and there have been repeated accusations, all denied, that he himself harbours anti-Semitic sentiments.

That's the first I've read of these accusations.

On the other hand, he seems to have Peter Pan syndrome. Fixed his world view at an early age and stuck with it.

Jeremy Corbyn is railing against "cuts, closures and poverty". He's campaigning to build more homes, and to fight fewer wars. He's condemning the Tories for creating a "divided and unequal society".

But these are snippets not from his 2019 bid for Downing Street. They were his slogans in 1983, when he first ran for Parliament.

The simple fact is the Labour leader has never changed his views.

In the late 1970s and 1980s he and his staunch left-wing colleague John McDonnell, now the shadow chancellor, promised a revolution to upend the Western capitalist order.

And yet, in 2015, as he was fighting to take over the leadership of the party, he was pledging the same: "Capitalism is in its death throes!"

It's not mere sloganeering. His policy agenda over the past year has been: renationalise British utilities and trains, cap all wages, and force large companies to transfer 10 per cent of their equity to their employees.

With the conservatives basically self destructing, this guy is the best Labour can do?

[pietillidie]

^The anti-Semitism claims have been in the news for the last year here, as has the Beige Cardigan's unelectability. Yet still he and the party press on repeating the same mantras.

Unfortunately, Blair poisoned the Labour centre-right with Afghanistan and Iraq, so the musty old left got to take over the party. Imagine all the old unionists you hate being raised from the dead and put in charge.

[David]

[Wokko]

Exit poll: Conservative 368, Labour 191, Liberal Democrats 13, SNP 55

[pietillidie]

Also, there's no shame in consistent, principled politics. A few of the weathervanes here in both major parties could take a leaf out of his book.

Yes, there is shame; the shame of a lack of self awareness, new ideas and an ability to learn and adjust. Plenty of people you don't want leading anything are 'consistent'. The alternative to a pathological liar and charlatan like Johnson isn't an unelectable drone repeating old Marxian slogans.

[Wokko]

Matthew Goodwin (Politics professor)

"'The narrative' is already emerging. Replace Mr Corbyn and all shall be well. Not so. Labour's problem is that it's breaking into 3 parties (1) liberal degree-holding Brahmin Left, (2) dwindling blue-collar, socially conservative Traditional Left, (3) students + ethnic minorities"

The same thing that I said about Labor in Australia. The left is in a cold civil war around the world, trying to find its identity in a world of its own creation.

[thesoretoothsayer]

IMPEACH BORIS!

[David]

Matthew Goodwin (Politics professor)

"'The narrative' is already emerging. Replace Mr Corbyn and all shall be well. Not so. Labour's problem is that it's breaking into 3 parties (1) liberal degree-holding Brahmin Left, (2) dwindling blue-collar, socially conservative Traditional Left, (3) students + ethnic minorities"

The same thing that I said about Labor in Australia. The left is in a cold civil war around the world, trying to find its identity in a world of its own creation.

Are the right any less fractured? Everything looks rosy when you're getting into power, and Johnson may well have a more comfortable prime ministership than either Cameron or May enjoyed, but there are still a lot of bandaids being put over the cracks.

[Wokko]

The Right is factional too sure; Populists (Trump, Johnson), Religious conservative (Abbott, Dutton) and Moderate/Neo Con (May, Turnbull, Romney). But somehow the right always seems to get behind the guy who wins and kind of hold their nose until it looks like they're a surefire loser. The left is eating itself alive (Bernie Bros vs Clinton).

Australia has probably found the balance on the Right, Morrison is a bit of everything. Whether he's just putting on hats ala Eddie McGuire or is a genuine right/centrist able to keep a foot in all the camps remains to be seen.

[Pies4shaw]

Matthew Goodwin (Politics professor)

"'The narrative' is already emerging. Replace Mr Corbyn and all shall be well. Not so. Labour's problem is that it's breaking into 3 parties (1) liberal degree-holding Brahmin Left, (2) dwindling blue-collar, socially conservative Traditional Left, (3) students + ethnic minorities"

The same thing that I said about Labor in Australia. The left is in a cold civil war around the world, trying to find its identity in a world of its own creation.

Are the right any less fractured? Everything looks rosy when you're getting into power, and Johnson may well have a more comfortable prime ministership than either Cameron or May enjoyed, but there are still a lot of bandaids being put over the cracks.

Every time someone wins an election, they assert (and the media agrees) that they have become “the natural party of government”. That’s probably true, too, for about a week.

As you say, victory puts bandaids over cracks.

Looking at the apparently substantial change in voting (about a 10% swing to the Conservatives), it looks a lot like many just want Brexit done and dusted and want a “strong” leader to get that done. I have no particular fondness for Corbyn but any reasonable analysis says that he’s not been much different this election than last, so plainly other, bigger factors than who was delivering (or not) the Labour “message” (if there was one) are at work. That’s not to say that he should stay or that Labour doesn’t have other, more fundamental, problems, merely that those are probably not the big reason for this result.

Everything is, of course, temporary and if Brexit delivers a damp, uneconomic squib to the people who aren’t Johnson’s natural constituency, one can expect a rapid readjustment of alignments. It’s one thing to tell people that they stand at the edge of the Promised Land and ask that they help you walk them into it. It’s another thing altogether if the Promised Land tends to feel more like Purgatory after you’ve spent a bit of time there.

Unlike in the US, I doubt that the conservatives in the UK will be able to position themselves as billionaire “underdogs” protecting the public from billionaire progressives - whatever the Labour Party is, it isn’t the Democrats.

[watt price tully]

[watt price tully]

Also, there's no shame in consistent, principled politics. A few of the weathervanes here in both major parties could take a leaf out of his book.

Yes, there is shame; the shame of a lack of self awareness, new ideas and an ability to learn and adjust. Plenty of people you don't want leading anything are 'consistent'. The alternative to a pathological liar and charlatan like Johnson isn't an unelectable drone repeating old Marxian slogans.

Correct weight.

BTW PTID, where in the UK do you live?

[Wokko]

LibDem leader Jo Swinson loses seat to SNP.

[Jezza]

Fantastic result.

Great to see the end of Corbynism and the reaffirmation from the British people that they want to see Brexit finally happen.