General Election 2017

[snowychap]

Just now, darrenm said:

Health & Fitness Party

It was your erstwhile 'party' that I had in mind.

[snowychap]

31 minutes ago, mockingbird_franklin said:

5) introduce a mandatory second layer of dispute resolution that has an target to uphold 80% of all decisions

A very important point. Mandatory reconsideration is an absolute shocker.

[darrenm]

Tories dropping like a stone

But I don't believe polls

[itdoesntmatterwhatthissay]

24 minutes ago, PauloBarnesi said:

With so much passion on here, how many people belong to a political party, or even more importantly stood for public office?

I wouldn’t vote for Corbyn in a month of Sundays, but I would happily cast my vote for Darren.

I belong to one now after spending 7 years in the wilderness. A few parliamentary debates swayed me.

I have been trying to stand for quite a few years but for whatever reason I've been unable to get my foot in the door. When I lived in Hall Green I would have tried to stand for the Lib Dems but I had to support the candidate Jerry Evans, not challenge him. If anyone deserves a chance it's him! 

I foolishly went the way of working in as many useful industries as possible before putting myself forward. I actually thought policy mattered! Ha.

When I moved to Brighton I offered to start up my old projects (tackling isolation and loneliness, youth projects and affordable housing policy) with a major political party. My passion was ignored..
That was 12 months before the snap election and of course when it was announced I put my name forward again; I just wanted them to meet me properly. All I'm after is a shot, turn me down if I'm no bloody good!
The local association ignored me again and 2 weeks later a parachuted candidate was chosen; in both seats local to me. I'm still helping them but they still haven't campaigned on any local issues.

I almost stood as an independent because I was so frustrated; imo local issues matter and I'm bloody sick of them being sidelined.

I still consider myself a floating voter, despite putting my hand in my pocket to belong to a party. But what it painful is that very few of these MP's know anything about real life and there is not an active search for representation. 
Even now the push for more women in so very frustrating; especially when 40% of Conservatives MPs went to the 'golden triangle' of universities. 50% of their party did too. And in Labour it's 40%, with a hefty dollop of St Andrews and Durham thrown in. 50% of Lib Dem MP's went to those universities too.

I'll keep battling but I suffer from the desire to make peoples lives better, not make them know who I am.

[mockingbird_franklin]

1 minute ago, snowychap said:

A very important point. Mandatory reconsideration is an absolute shocker.

Well it wouldn't be a shocker if it wasn't just a sham and a way to deter people from getting justice, if it was genuinely fair and not a typical Tory smoke and mirrors con

[Chindie]

3 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Tories dropping like a stone

But I don't believe polls

Tories with enormous, insurmountable lead is the other way to look at it.

[snowychap]

3 minutes ago, mockingbird_franklin said:

Well it wouldn't be a shocker if it wasn't just a sham and a way to deter people from getting justice, if it was genuinely fair and not a typical Tory smoke and mirrors con

As you say, though, it's just a means to slow down the process of appeal and put people off.

[darrenm]

2 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Tories with enormous, insurmountable lead is the other way to look at it.

Like I said, I don't believe these polls.

[mockingbird_franklin]

1 hour ago, PauloBarnesi said:

With so much passion on here, how many people belong to a political party, or even more importantly stood for public office?

I wouldn’t vote for Corbyn in a month of Sundays, but I would happily cast my vote for Darren.

of course you wouldn't or actually couldn't, we usually vote on Thursdays and never on a Sunday.

[mockingbird_franklin]

8 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Tories with enormous, insurmountable lead is the other way to look at it.

so a lead of 13%, pretty huge and difficult to overcome, can anyone remind me what was it a couple of weeks ago?

[blandy]

51 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

...On the one hand you have the promise of more of the same in the destruction of public services, further financial hardship for those already with the least whilst ensuring those with the most won’t feel a thing never mind the pinch all whilst demonising those most vulnerable in our society. More of expecting children to commit to years of debt ....

...Or we go with a new approach. One which will strive for greater equality. One which will put our young first ...One which will ensure our energy companies, mail, water, rail, will no longer be tools for a small amount of people to make huge sums of money from but will be in national ownership where we all benefit....where our NHS is nurtured and those with in it are treated with the respect they deserve and paid accordingly...

If that really was the choice, it would be easy. Everyone would vote for the nice choice and not the nasty choice and then the whole country could rejoice (apart from the 1%).

There are just 3 tiny problems with the analysis.

1. For most people, whoever they vote for, however they see the choice, it makes no difference. Maybe 100 - 150 seats will change hands. the other 500 odd will stay the same. So people's votes effectively won't count. The FPTP voting system is unfit for purpose.

2. Many many people don't see that what you describe is the choice. Many people don't believe the situation as you describe it is the reality. The majority of the country is pretty much like "yeah whatever, things could be a bit better,  I could do with earning a bit more money...." and their choice if they make one will be about which party might make them a bit more comfortable. So for right or wrong, most people's personal version of the "choice" is (IMO) not the one you outline.

3. Brexit and Leaders. The coverage people mostly see does tend to be a bit of a "choice of President" rather than choice of constituency MPs. Given the strength of feelings around Brexit, and that the majority of folk, by a long way are either very Pro Brexit, or "just get on with it, now it's decided" compared to "Noooo. We must remain" and given the framework presented by T.May and much of the media coverage is all about Brexit and has been for months and months on end - probably the best part of a year - I suspect that drip feed and the "president" thing will both favour T.May over Corbyn.

So for all your espousal of what you see the choice as (and I agree, mostly with you), most people don't look at things in the same way. And of those who do, a fair number will think, "all this 'nice' - it's gonna be expensive and I don't wholly believe that the money will all be got off rich folks and big business, they seem awfully good at avoiding coughing up - so either 'nice' won't happen, or it'll happen at my expense"

But like I say, most people's votes don't matter, anyway. Mine doesn't.

[mockingbird_franklin]

19 minutes ago, snowychap said:

As you say, though, it's just a means to slow down the process of appeal and put people off.

well like so many Tory party policies, it proposes to do one thing on the surface and does something completely at odds (and it's usually nasty) with the headline propaganda in reality

they do it too consistently to be coincidence, never been a coincidence theorist.

[snowychap]

I think Duncan Smith has just let the cat out of the bag about the kind of thinking behind this intended change in home care funding.

He effectively suggested that people need to look at insuring themselves against the need for home social care (there are plenty of products out there that people could look at throughout their life blah blah - this may not be verbatim). Not sure how that helps anyone already in the boat but it's looks quite clear that the Tories are not missing this opportunity to push (maybe not blatantly) the idea of private health insurance as a solution.

[mockingbird_franklin]

15 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I think Duncan Smith has just let the cat out of the bag about the kind of thinking behind this intended change in home care funding.

He effectively suggested that people need to look at insuring themselves against the need for home social care (there are plenty of products out there that people could look at throughout their life blah blah - this may not be verbatim). Not sure how that helps anyone already in the boat but it's looks quite clear that the Tories are not missing this opportunity to push (maybe not blatantly) the idea of private health insurance as a solution.

The Tory party have been hinting at compulsory insurance for many things for quite a while, it's worth researching umin insurance and the part it has played in the destruction of the benefits system, 

But never mind insurance companies are cuddly teddy bears who only have your best interests at heart,

Edited May 18, 2017 by mockingbird_franklin

[TrentVilla]

32 minutes ago, blandy said:

1. For most people, whoever they vote for, however they see the choice, it makes no difference. Maybe 100 - 150 seats will change hands. the other 500 odd will stay the same. So people's votes effectively won't count. The FPTP voting system is unfit for purpose.

I agreed with pretty much your entire post but this point I feel is particularly important.

I've always voted but due to the places I've lived and currently live my vote is meaningless. Yet every time I go and put my mark in the box.

This time around, well for a lot of the reasons you outline and many you don't I'm not sure I will bother. It is meaningless in any case, so I can't help defeat the Tories. I may still vote, but right now I don't think I could vote for a Corbyn government (I know I'm voting for a local MP but Ken Clark isn't going to lose his seat to anyone I may vote for)

Only this morning I read that almost 3m more people voted in the EU referendum than voted in the last GE. I suspect that the turn out for this GE won't see them all vote again and that in part if because of our current system.

Many people in my position simply don't bother and I can entirely understand why.

[Dr_Pangloss]

This Tory social care policy is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen, diabolical. 

[snowychap]

Tories pledge to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, apparently.

Edit: And a requirement to show ID to vote.

Edited May 18, 2017 by snowychap

[a m ole]

11 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Tories pledge to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, apparently.

Edit: And a requirement to show ID to vote.

Sounds great, put the power back into Tory hands to hold an election only when it suits them and put up more barriers.

[Wainy316]

Only hearing snippets but this launch is sounding like a disaster.

[Davkaus]

20 minutes ago, a m ole said:

Sounds great, put the power back into Tory hands to hold an election only when it suits them and put up more barriers.

It's an absolutely pointless bit of legislation though, as shown by the election in a few weeks rather than 3 years away.