General Election 2017

[darrenm]

9 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

Which polls? I don't trust them either, I feel they are becoming a bit of a 'fake news' propaganda weapon.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-election-polls-idUSKBN17W001

The YouGov poll for the Sunday Times found that 44 percent were set to back the Conservatives, down from 48 percent last weekend. Support for Labour climbed to 31 percent from 25 percent.

[chrisp65]

I get the feeling that May won't take much stressing if there's a hint of a tightening in the polling.

She reverts very very quickly to rudeness, poor none jokes and the simple little sound bites she's been coached in. Not a fast thinker, not a deep thinker.

Thing is, if the polling does turn, then perhaps the media will grow a backbone and call her out on her voting record on human rights and equality. Perhaps they'll finally question her standing in Saudi Arabia, selling bombs, making pronouncements about the National Trust's moral compass.

They might ask her if it's a sin to let the rich skip their inconvenient tax bill whilst there are people relying on food banks. They might ask if it is a sin to restrict access to maternity services and mental health services whilst giving the royal family a nice benefits rise to do up a few palaces.

[Rodders]

one can only hope, though one definitely doesn't believe that will ever happen. given her media mates will either themselves or have other close friends no doubt have various personal interests in many of those examples that the idea of scrutiny and accountability that might give them a bit of a knock is rather amibitious. 

Nope, suspect we're more likely to get ludicrous histrionics about what Corbyn would bring as leader. 

[Xela]

2 hours ago, darrenm said:

May was a bit of a disaster on Marr. Same time as the polls are showing huge swings to Labour. No wonder she looks panicked.

I don't trust polls though

Indeed. I think I read in the Metro last week (I know, but its free and I get bored on the train to work) that May has got the highest approval rating in a generatio

edit: Found it in the Telegraph, Make of it what you will, but like you, these polls/rating seem to massively vary by the day. After the last GE, Brexit and Trump, I'm struggling to take stock in any poll

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/26/theresa-may-popular-voters-leader-since-late-1970s/

Quote

Theresa May is more popular with voters than any leader since the late 1970s, a new poll shows as another reveals Jeremy Corbyn is more unpopular than ever.

Almost two in every three voters (61 per cent) believe Mrs May would make the most capable Prime Minister compared with about one in four (23 per cent) who said Mr Corbyn.

Mrs May’s score of 61 per cent is the highest recorded by the polling company Ipsos Mori since it started asking the question in 1979.

 

[StefanAVFC]

FWIW the polls for Hillary were pretty spot on, with the margin of error, having Hillary winning the popular vote.

Brexit polls being wrong is a myth too. On the other hand, Dutch and French polls were absolutely spot on.

[VillaChris]

Doubt I'll be voting in this election (I've voted in the last two and the referendum).

What I hate the most atm is any reasonable question directed to any Tory candidate about any number of policy issues and all you get back is "we need strong and stable leadership not a coalition of chaos."

I bet you could ask any of them what they had for Breakfast and you'd get that reply so robotically trained they all are atm. It's very Trump esque imo.

The sad thing is it will work just like it did in 2015 for them.

I also live in Sutton which is one of the safest Tory seats around.

Probably due to me getting older now but I've certainly started to get that hypocrisy bug now regarding general elections that I genuinely didn't in 2010 or 2015.

[PompeyVillan]

3 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Doubt I'll be voting in this election (I've voted in the last two and the referendum).

What I hate the most atm is any reasonable question directed to any Tory candidate about any number of policy issues and all you get back is "we need strong and stable leadership not a coalition of chaos."

I bet you could ask any of them what they had for Breakfast and you'd get that reply so robotically trained they all are atm. It's very Trump esque imo.

The sad thing is it will work just like it did in 2015 for them.

I also live in Sutton which is one of the safest Tory seats around.

Probably due to me getting older now but I've certainly started to get that hypocrisy bug now regarding general elections that I genuinely didn't in 2010 or 2015.

I would encourage you to spoil your ballot. 

I think politics is the way it is because we let politicians off the hook. If everyone who didn't vote spoilt their ballot the 'spoilt' party would have a good chance of being the ruling party.

[Rodders]

Quote

Can’t be bothered to vote? If you’re young, you simply can’t afford not to
Armando Iannucci
Sunday 30 April 2017 07.00 BST

A senior political figure who shall remain nameless, but is currently mayor of London, once told me that on the final day of general election campaigning he had just enough time left to visit one of two places: a students’ hall of residence or an old people’s home. He chose the old people’s home.

The calculation was clear: it was in the old people’s home that he stood the better chance of meeting actual voters. To his credit, he knew something drastic needed to be done about this, but it was a sad acknowledgement that in politics the young are nowhere near the front of the queue.

Around 75% of people aged 65 and over will vote in this election; unless something thunderously radical happens in the next six weeks, only around 42% of 18- to 24-year-olds will do the same. The over-65s coming out to vote and the under-24s staying in has been the norm for the past few decades. This is why we’re now all hearing so much about the pros and cons of the triple lock on pensions, but absolutely nothing about student fees and housing benefit.

The older electorate has become an effective voting lobby, more powerful than the gas industry. Because the over-65s turn out in such large numbers, every politician needs to court them and doesn’t want to utter a single word that will alienate them or drive any of them to political opponents.

Why can’t it be like this for 18- to 24-year-olds? If they registered and voted in force, they would become powerfully unignorable. I admit that “Powerfully Unignorable” is not a great campaign slogan, but it’s much better than “Mostly Forgotten”.

Of course, a lot of young voters choose not to vote because they’ve been put off by what’s on offer. When the prime minister asks to consult the electorate but refuses to be consulted by it in televised debates, what’s the point of joining the discussion? When parties steal each other’s tactics and policies – Labour going all out for Brexit, the Tories pinching old Ed Miliband policies such as caps on energy bills, and the Lib Dems, the party of coalition, declare they will not do coalitions, then it’s easy to wail, “they’re all as bad as each other” and stay indoors.

But the reality is this is an act of protest that immediately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s no coincidence that the collapse in the 18- to 24-year-old vote has seen the advent of tuition fees, reductions in housing benefit for 18- to 21-year-olds, the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance, no entry to the “national living wage” until the age of 25, and cuts to student disability allowances.

These are measures taken in recent years by Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem ministers alike because, in the end, the youth vote was never going to trouble them. So, if financial savings were going to have to be made somewhere, they were going to be made from young people. This in turn has produced disenchantment: if the young are going to be so neglected, why should they bother voting? And so it spirals on: each reduction in registration and turnout met with a further opportunity for ministers to raid young people’s resources. While older voters are invited to the top table, the young are dumped around the back by the bins.

That’s why, for this election, I’ve been joining others and urging 18- to 24-year-olds to reverse this cycle by registering to vote and then getting out and using that vote. My advice doesn’t get any less basic than this: just vote. Yes, I assume a large percentage of young voters are likely to vote for progressive parties. That’s great. I’m all for it.

But really, each vote is each voter’s privilege, to do with what they like. So, go out and vote any which way you think is best. Vote for who you really believe in. If you don’t believe in anyone, vote for who you think might make any kind of difference, whether it’s to your constituency or to the makeup of the next parliament. Vote with your heart or your head, I don’t mind; that’s your quiet moment. Spoil your vote if you want to. Just get out and vote.

The material benefits are clear. If young voters turn out in large numbers, then they become a powerful bloc that needs to be heeded and addressed. It’s the basic politics of self-interest: the more 18- to 24-year-olds vote, the more their concerns will be taken seriously.

But there’s idealism in this too. It’s about keeping democracy healthy. If we don’t participate in democracy, we won’t have much of a democracy left in which to participate. The truly wasted vote is the one that isn’t cast.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ignoring the fat sheaf of opinion polls predicting a huge Conservative majority. But it makes me all the more determined to point out to voters the many ways a vote can still be used effectively.

Although we were all mostly appalled by Donald Trump’s victory, there is some consolation that he has the courts and Congress placing checks and balances on him. In Britain, we don’t have these restraints. Total power resides with the prime minister. The bigger the majority, the more unchecked her (or his) sway across health, education, taxation, benefits, and indeed all legislation, not just Brexit negotiations.

And it is possible to act to stop that majority from growing, if that’s what most concerns you. It’s now possible to find out via websites such as Votingcounts.org.uk, Tactical2017.com and Compassonline.org.uk what the best option is in your constituency.

For too long, politicians have played a cynical game in which they target the slim minority of the electorate who hold the balance of power – the target seats with slender majorities, the swing states, the key regions. It’s a system that took an awful lot of the electorate for granted. That system ran aground last year. Populist explosions not just for Marine Le Pen and Trump but for the likes of Nigel Farage, Bernie Sanders and Emmanuel Macron in France are the extremely loud shouts of frustration from whole sections of the electorate who have been feeling more ignored or taken for granted. It has made the electorate more unpredictable, more loudly disloyal, which in turn has stirred fear in established political parties. In short, the parties don’t know what we’re up to, and they really don’t like it.

That’s good, because it puts power back where it belongs, with the voter. The downside, though, is that votes can go in either direction. Brexit, the election of Trump, the rise of Le Pen, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s increasing autocracy in Turkey; these are the will of democratic electorates. Unpredictability is extremely unpredictable. Votes matter and those who don’t vote risk getting not more of the same but the opposite of all they believe in.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/30/young-must-vote-general-election-8-june

 

It's a good point. Young people do need to vote, even with the very understandable skepticism involved - becomes a vicious cycle. Become unignorable - regardless of position taken. 

[Jon]

Progressive Alliance

Fully agree with this , although it needs to be more than just 2 seats. 

[meregreen]

If you don't bother to vote, then politicians won't bother about you.

[HanoiVillan]

9 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

FWIW the polls for Hillary were pretty spot on, with the margin of error, having Hillary winning the popular vote.

Brexit polls being wrong is a myth too. On the other hand, Dutch and French polls were absolutely spot on.

British polls have a significantly worse track record than those in most other major democracies. 

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, Jon said:

Progressive Alliance

Fully agree with this , although it needs to be more than just 2 seats. 

Portilo made an interesting point on This Week , this week .... it was along the lines of progressive alliances are in favour of government spending and the wealthier are invested in government bonds so actually get even wealthier on the back of it 

I'm paraphrasing (badly)  but I think that was the gist of what he said , it's on iPlayer if anyone wants to listen to it 

[darrenm]

This is gathering pace

"Mrs May is under investigation by the Property and Ethics group of the Cabinet Office in connection with an alleged failure to declare an enormous conflict of interest on Brexit related to profits of billions of pounds"

https://skwawkbox.org/2017/04/30/theresa-may-under-investigation-re-brexit-profits/

[tonyh29]

54 minutes ago, darrenm said:

This is gathering pace

"Mrs May is under investigation by the Property and Ethics group of the Cabinet Office in connection with an alleged failure to declare an enormous conflict of interest on Brexit related to profits of billions of pounds"

https://skwawkbox.org/2017/04/30/theresa-may-under-investigation-re-brexit-profits/

I think the  bit where they say "details are sketchy " is the key bit from this  Corbyn propaganda site

 

 

[dAVe80]

14 hours ago, darrenm said:

I don't trust polls though

Racist,

[Risso]

2 hours ago, darrenm said:

This is gathering pace

"Mrs May is under investigation by the Property and Ethics group of the Cabinet Office in connection with an alleged failure to declare an enormous conflict of interest on Brexit related to profits of billions of pounds"

https://skwawkbox.org/2017/04/30/theresa-may-under-investigation-re-brexit-profits/

You honestly believe that?  Really?

[darrenm]

5 hours ago, Risso said:

You honestly believe that?  Really?

Where did I say that?

[PompeyVillan]

Anybody know any conservative policies, apart from being *robot* "strong and stable"?

Sorry, but they are making a right fudge of this campaign. They're too scared to face the public unless it's on their terms. They only want to talk about Brexit, but then they don't really want to talk about Brexit policy, they'll just say "strong and stable".

I can almost guarantee that when Labour release their manifesto that almost all floating voters will really like the policies. The policies they've talked about so far are totally what the country needs.

 

[Risso]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

Where did I say that?

It was a question, hence the question mark. And "gathering pace" seems to mean the same fantasist being retweeted. 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

British polls have a significantly worse track record than those in most other major democracies. 

I have never told the truth in any poll regarding politics.  What do Polls actually achieve ? IMO they are counter productive and cost a lot of money and I fail to see their core purpose.  

I we to look at current polls and think what ? Change a vote based on their polls ?