The Hung Like a Donkey General Election December 2019 Thread

[Davkaus]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

One of the safest seats in the country isn’t it?

I’ve no idea if she’s a good local MP, or just the lucky winner of a super safe seat.

It has been a safe Labour seat since the 50s. You raise a fair point though, who knows what good work she might do for her constituents. I just hope the new leader has her nowhere near the front bench.

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

To try to provide a viable left wing alternative to the government, something that the Labour Party don't seem too keen on (capable of?) doing. 

That doesn't help the SNP. The SNP run against the Tories in Westminster; that's how they persuade people to vote for them. They don't want a viable left-wing UK government, that Scottish voters might prefer to independence. That would be incredibly counter-productive.

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

That doesn't help the SNP. The SNP run against the Tories in Westminster; that's how they persuade people to vote for them. They don't want a viable left-wing UK government, that Scottish voters might prefer to independence. That would be incredibly counter-productive.

Well we have probably gone further down this flippant avenue than I was originally intending but I'll run with it!

What seems to be one of the biggest hurdles to Scottish independence at the moment? Westminster/English reluctance to grant a second referendum? If the SNP were to set out an attractive vision for a post independence England, maybe they could secure a enough seats in England to force through their independent Scotland agenda...alternatively the fact that they seized control of control of the rest of the country might make independence irrelevant!

Meanwhile, how close do you think Labour are to providing a viable left wing government that Scottish voters might prefer to independence?

[chrisp65]

I can see it now, it’s be like the Berlin Air Lift all over again, with the Scottish airforce air dropping tunnocks tea cakes and tennents super on their Ribble Valley outpost.

 

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I can see it now, it’s be like the Berlin Air Lift all over again, with the Scottish airforce air dropping tunnocks tea cakes and tennents super on their Ribble Valley outpost.

 

Bastards, no caramel wafers or haggis? They can keep the Irn Bru though

[bickster]

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Bastards, no caramel wafers or haggis? They can keep the Irn Bru though

Back in the summer on our euro football odyssey we had to go through Glasgow (er, or maybe Edinburgh) airport and they had clocks with the simple slogan Tunnocks Time.

We all got selfies with the Tunnocks Time clocks.

Ambition this year, and its a huge stretch, would be to qualify for the Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Cup. It’s only open to the top 2, we’re currently 5th.

[welnik]

29 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Back in the summer on our euro football odyssey we had to go through Glasgow (er, or maybe Edinburgh) airport and they had clocks with the simple slogan Tunnocks Time.

We all got selfies with the Tunnocks Time clocks.

Ambition this year, and its a huge stretch, would be to qualify for the Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Cup. It’s only open to the top 2, we’re currently 5th.

Not relevant I know, but I'm going to be meeting Boyd Tunnock in February. He loves taking people round his factory 

[bickster]

33 minutes ago, welnik said:

Not relevant I know, but I'm going to be meeting Boyd Tunnock in February. He loves taking people round his factory 

If you could nick a truckload of plain chocolate wafers that would be great

[villakram]

8 hours ago, KHV said:

The 60 plus crowd did not screw the population

 

Little blue pill for aisle 5, little blue pill for aisle 5.

[snowychap]

 

[chrisp65]

Yeah she’s mentally ill and people spreading and sharing her illness aren’t helping.

[cheltenham_villa]

On 14/12/2019 at 01:49, MikeMcKenna said:

Yep, In general terms the older generation looked after themselves. However as a 60+, rest assured that we are not all greedy, selfish bastards. I am as devasted as my 26 year old son that the lying toerag Johnson has been elected. 

They won 45% of the vote, a huge majority massively representative of the country. It's not just old people, it's not just rich people, it's a massive cross section of society. Labour were never close to winning this, they got it completely wrong offering promises that even their own supporters thought ridiculous and unrealistic. This election was about brexit, a huge part of their membership voted for it and they didnt acknowledge that.

[blandy]

On 14/12/2019 at 09:49, MikeMcKenna said:

Yep, In general terms the older generation looked after themselves. However as a 60+, rest assured that we are not all greedy, selfish bastards. I am as devasted as my 26 year old son that the lying toerag Johnson has been elected. 

I dunno about this stereotype that the older generation, 60+ etc "looked after themselves". I don't see it, really. Sure they voted Tory in larger proportion than other age groups, but was it for selfish reasons? I mean perhaps the NHS might be really key to them, as opposed to say teenagers? Many are retired, so tax rates etc. isn't really a big issue compared to say 30 or 40 year olds?

And things like inheritance tax - they're not the recipients, they're the ones leaving property to their kids, aren't they?

So I'm not sure that they "look after themselves" more than other age groups. If anything, rather less than some younger people. I think the reason they vote tory is rather different (though it's obviously not just one reason). I think it's more about fear of change, fear of losing things familiar, reminiscence for "how things used to be". I accept that all (or most all) parties try and pander to the older voter in some regards, as they're more likely to vote. But I don't think it's "ooh look at who is giving me the most" at all. It's almost the opposite. It's "preservation" of the country and the order of things (as they see it). They (generalising) are tending to think of climate change as made up non-sense and don't see the need for change there, and they're scared that so and so will make them use low energy hoovers, or electric cars, or  those ugly wind farms, and they don't hate foreigners, but they feel threatened by all the different languages spoken on the bus - not through racism, but through, again, fear of the unfamiliar.

All that's perhaps as generalist as the point I'm arguing against, but I really think different ages are scared of different things and desire different things. The elderly are more likely to be selfless for the sake of their kids, than kids themselves are. In other words older people voting tory aren't all golf-playing, considerably richer, uncaring, hoorays lacking self-awareness or a social conscience. I think they mostly don't trust Labour not to wreck the economy. They don't vote tory in Scotland in the same number, and that's IMO because they are more trusting of the SNP not to do exactly that.

[Dodgyknees]

This

https://youtu.be/4As0e4de-rI

Is the last time I remember feeling truly patriotic. 

[blandy]

27 minutes ago, avfcDJ said:

This

https://youtu.be/4As0e4de-rI

Is the last time I remember feeling truly patriotic. 

Thought that would be it. It was great wasn't it?

Maybe the Kosovo England match a couple months back was (on a smaller scale) a reminder that not everyone hates us, too and "we" did good things back 20 years ago.

[chrisp65]

What the pensioners do, is vote.

Whether they are selfish or not, that’s completely debatable. What’s not up for debate is fewer young voters bother voting, and then commentators pin anything seen as going against younger voters, on elderly voters.

Number of people voting here went up by a couple of thousand. I went out in the middle of a horrible squall, absolutely lashed it down. When I got there I was in a queue that was entirely pensioners. Every house in this street has a young person with a shitty little first car they can’t park. Over the course of the day, I didn’t see one person younger than me walk the 100 metres to the polling booth literally on the corner of our street. I didn’t stand vigil checking i.d., but I reckon last Thursday I might have been the youngest person that voted in our street.

Meanwhile, the students in Cardiff were moaning they weren’t being allowed to vote because they’d left it to the last day and then got their addresses wrong en masse, ‘cos they copied a template that didn’t know what it was on about. Apparently hundreds of them had been told they didn’t need to include their flat number, and as not writing two digits down saves sooooo much time, hundreds of them left it off, like they were living in some 15 storey **** commune with no door numbers.

Can’t blame pensioners for that result.

[chrisp65]

Interesting bit is the clubs that changed colour (left of team name denotes last election).

Places that switched:

Burnley, Wolverhampton, Lincoln, Blackpool, Port Vale, Crewe.... 

[welnik]

15 hours ago, bickster said:

If you could nick a truckload of plain chocolate wafers that would be great

That's the plan! 

[blandy]

32 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Places that switched:

Burnley, Wolverhampton, Lincoln, Blackpool, Port Vale, Crewe.... 

And Accrington. And Bury. And Forest Green Rovers. And Ipswich.

Do I get a pedantry prize?