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If there was some sort of electoral pact between Labour and the LibDems then of course it was dishonest. It would have been honest to have pointed out to voters precisely the nature of the pact and how it was hoped they would vote.
Instead voters were deliberately mislead into thinking that Labour wanted them to vote for them in
Tiverton and Honiton and that the LibDems wanted them to vote for them in Wakefield. Otherwise why stand candidates?
A 'wink and a nudge' politics is dishonest even if you think that it is justified.
Lol @ Tories calling anyone dishonest. 😂
Lol @ Tories calling anyone dishonest. 😂
The Daily Fail are at it too, they're very upset that these dishonest and undemocratic electoral pacts are being formed.
This is the same newspaper that told everyone how to form electoral pacts to ensure the Tories got in so that Brexit could get done.
# all Tories are ****s
Ernie, I think picton has it.
Oh and please can we not call it tactical voting.
It’s taking your single vote, your one and only, and transferring it to the candidate that you think is the best balance of who you would you would like to win against who is likely to win.
A manual version of the automated Single Transferable Vote system - one of a number of electoral systems loosely and inaccurately termed proportional representation, even though STV is arguably Aldo still a form of FTP. (Though it is certainly more proportional than bloody minded tribal-FTP voting)
This is exactly the sort of thing the LibDems in particular have been openly campaigning for for years, though admittedly I think they’d prefer a more formal and automated version.
PS - nothing dishonest in tactical voting.
Honourable I would suggest
If you want say Labour most, LibDem you could accept and preferably not the Tories, but the local opinion polls are suggesting Tories probably, LibDems possibly and Labour no chance (and variations on that are played out all over the country) the honourable thing to do is vote LibDem as the closest likely winner to the one you want.
You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.
Fielding a candidate whilst wanting your natural support to vote for another team to achieve a specific outcome is actually the honest thing to do.
If a party doesn't field a candidate then they disenfranchise their own core voters (like party members for example) who would only ever consider voting for one party.
If you think tactical voting and electoral pacts are dishonest and worrying, the answer is some sort of proportional representation. FPTP makes NOT voting tactically and splitting votes completely stupid.
That's a good breakdown of what's going on igm.
I'm quite impressed with how Labour and the Lib Dems have sorted this one out. The beauty of it is how simple it is, it doesn't really need much organising and the public gets it without explanation. It might even give some a sense of 'agency', where previoisly they felt only despair..
It makes the first past the post system deliver results that are more proportionally representative, so in the absence of real electoral reform, at least we can say that the electorate themselves are improving the system.
My father was a Professor of political science and wrote extensively on voting systems.
I should have picked up some of it around the dinner table.
Actually I think STV FTP probably is my preferred system.
It’s not perfect in that over a country the popular vote might not mirror the parliament elected, but it keeps the constituency tie for MPs, and should ensure each constituency gets an MP that best reflects the consensus view of those who voted.
As I recall though there are a few different versions of STV FTP, and we might need a digital voting system to do it overnight as opposed to taking days - like TV shows have I guess.
The beauty of it is how simple it is, it doesn’t really need much organising and the public gets it without explanation. It might even give some a sense of ‘agency’, where previoisly they felt only despair..
Which is key here
Are we just supposed to forget May's administration formed a pact with the DUP that no-one was given a choice in voting for?
It's extraordinary the contempt Tories have for the intelligence of 'others' or even their own rank and file.
They lie as they breathe.
I'm thinking of joining the Labour party, although I would be voting for the lib dems as best anti-tory option in this area. At the recent elections for the new North Yorkshire council, our ward succeeded in getting a Lib Dem elected. Mind it was a two horse race, I was actually well pleased to see only 2 candidates on the ballot paper. If any of the usual lab, green, indy or Yorkshire pudding party had stood, then the seat would almost certainly has gone to the cons.
Boris Johnson has said a "psychological transformation" in his character is "not going to happen" after by-election defeats led to calls for change.
The PM was responding to Tory party chairman Oliver Dowden saying it could not be "business as usual" as he quit.
Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he "humbly and sincerely" accepts criticism.
But he said he also had to distinguish between "criticism that really matters and criticism that doesn't".
Presumably 148 of his MP's doesn't count. Nor the newspaper barons that are calling him to go. Or the party grandees. So who would need to criticise for it to matter?
pictonroad
Free MemberAre we just supposed to forget May’s administration formed a pact with the DUP that no-one was given a choice in voting for?
The one that she formed by bribing the DUP with public money? That one?
Coincidentally, the only reason May was able to make that deal was the increase in scottish tory MPs- something that was made possible mostly by the Labour party's selfharming approach of treating the SNP as the greater enemy. Hey, it's almost as though not working together with closely aligned parties, and dividing that vote, is exactly how you get Tories in power! I wonder why it is that they're attacking the idea.
I’m thinking of joining the Labour party, although I would be voting for the lib dems as best anti-tory option in this area.
Supporting a candidate who is standing against an official Labour Party candidate is very much grounds for expulsion from the party.
However expulsions are almost always aimed at left-wingers so I wouldn't be surprised if it was tolerated as long as you weren't accused of being left-wing.
Boris Johnson has said a “psychological transformation” in his character is “not going to happen” after by-election defeats led to calls for change.
"It's not me; it's you".
Boris Johnson has said a “psychological transformation” in his character is “not going to happen” after by-election defeats led to calls for change.
Does this put to bed once and for all the myth that he will grow into the role and achieve greatness? Some of us have always known that a “psychological transformation” in his character was never “going to happen”, in fact see the OP in this thread.
Does this put to bed once and for all the myth that he will grow into the role and achieve greatness?
It's going to result in another Priti style apology:
I'm sorry that you feel I'm not perfect.
I'm sorry that you think I could be better.
I'm sorry that that's your impression of me.
Basically put it back onto the observer and imply there's something wrong with their perception and understanding.
Does this put to bed once and for all the myth that he will grow into the role and achieve greatness? Some of us have always known that a “psychological transformation” in his character was never “going to happen”
Does the PM not realise that his ignominious clinging to power and dishonesty is destroying his post politics chances? Anyone hiring him will be destroying their brand by aligning themselves with such a desparate moral vacuum.
He is incapable of understanding he has failed.
@ernielynch
Actually, I was wrong there!
Local NYC elections labour would have been a very distant 3rd in this ward (very rural, villages and farms), had there been a candidate (there wasn't).
2019 GE, labour were 2nd place, a fact which has just surprised me.
Con 63%
Lab 18.5%
LD 12%
Green 4%
Yorkshire Party 1.6%
If there was a tactical voting pact, could either LD or Lab take all the others vote and >1/4 of the con vote? Probably not, although if Boris is still there, in the very deep hole he seems intent on digging even deeper!
Does the PM not realise that his ignominious clinging to power and dishonesty is destroying his post politics chances? Anyone hiring him will be destroying their brand by aligning themselves with such a desparate moral vacuum.
There's a delicious irony in the way he's turning any chance of a post politics career into nothing more than him being a freak show.
£200k for a shed. So yes, in Carrie’s world, a treehouse does indeed cost 150k.
Especially if your not having to put your hand in your own pocket 🙂
It’s not like it’s even their own house.
There’s a delicious irony in the way he’s turning any chance of a post politics career into nothing more than him being a freak show.
I'm more worried that we may be paying his family's benefits because he's unemployable! Though I am on record as saying some people are worth keeping out of the workforce and the country can afford to carry some for the benefit of everyone.
There’s a delicious irony in the way he’s turning any chance of a post politics career into nothing more than him being a freak show.
That's breathtakingly naive. His future is already secured as non-exec director of this, and chairman of that, etc etc.
He'll be turning over millions into a company registered in Grand Cayman to keep it away from his kids.
Don't forget plenty of people think he's great.
And also remember Jeremy Vine's story about his after dinner speeches - Joris an entertainer and he'll be able to pull in hundreds of thousands for those. Sure, they'll have no content or gravitas, but they'll be funny.
That’s breathtakingly naive. His future is already secured as non-exec director of this, and chairman of that, etc etc.
Yep,I keep banging on but he’s ‘Special’ and will happily prosper after his premiership. They can’t wait to stuff fifties in his pockets.
An Opinium poll in today's Observer gives Labour a 3% lead, which isn't particularly bad for a Tory government midterm between general elections.
Yep,I keep banging on but he’s ‘Special’ and will happily prosper after his premiership. They can’t wait to stuff fifties in his pockets.
This ^^
All of these politicians, no matter how breathtakingly incompetent, fall upwards into "advisory roles" on corporate boards, the after-dinner speaking circuit and occasional appearances on "celebrity" shows. They're all incredibly well paid positions.
Example:
Chris Grayling, a strong contender for the most staggeringly stupid and useless person ever to set foot in the HoC, the only man capable of losing a rigged election for a Chairman position (Intelligence and Security Committee Chair - oh the irony...) was appointed to a £100,000-per-annum, 7-hour-per-week job advising the British Virgin Islands domiciled Hutchison Port Holdings Limited "on its environmental strategy and its engagement with local enterprise bodies".
He is truly deluded.
He doesn’t know when the time is
By the time his on a 3rd term he'll be at the abortion ban stage of far right populism
He is truly deluded.
He doesn’t know when the time is up.
Anyone else imagining Boris in the famous Berlin Bunker clip?
Maybe I am naive about his future, but he's at a point of appearing full Trump/Hitler desperate to cling to power at all costs, and his past and future paymasters are ruthless enough to cut him off when he becomes so toxic that they can't afford to have him connected to their business.
his past and future paymasters are ruthless enough to cut him off when he becomes so toxic that they can’t afford to have him connected to their business
There's a reason the likes of billionaire hedge fund donor Hintze & Dacre of the Mail are getting peerages! .
I do hope Johnson clings on to power
https://twitter.com/willgeorgelloyd/status/1540994414218207233?t=TGY1Iux_OvCIi9Crq3xCqQ&s=19
Not sure what’s really changed tbh,other than a few more lies have been proved as lies.
It’s not like he’s behaving any differently in his life than at any other time.
When he walks it’ll be with a daiquiri to a private jet to a m8s island for a months holiday,whilst picking up the best offer for his memoirs.
There’s no bunker scene.
In this day and age the way the internet, and especially social media platforms, encourage the "echo chamber" effect - it's easy to think that everyone, or at least the vast majority of people, thinks the same way you do.
The reality is there are still an awful lot of people who do and always will think differently to you - whatever the subject in question may be. Boris/Tories/Brexit on STW are all good examples of this - there is a world of people outside of STW who think very differently.
Boris isn't going to die alone, hated and buried in a paupers grave.
Saw this today,
https://twitter.com/erdmuted/status/1540962797714120705?s=21&t=9md4V0RELRljn9HupWOrig
Right now we have Col Bud Holland in charge. Not boring, but lethal.
What happens when a charismatic individual is allowed to break the rules.
Yeah, standard
https://twitter.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1540760177095241729?t=ItUTTnY1o5xKIQ3v8pfJwQ&s=19
that pilots who are able to fly bits of metal around the sky safely at 500 miles an hour. are usually quite
boring.They don't do standup,but they are reliable safe people
But when the plane is in trouble they cease to be boring and do something about it.
If the plane was in trouble I'd prefer the pilot to remain boring & disconnected, to do a load of problem solving & mental maths to work out the best solution & to carry it through safely & not care how it looked outwardly.
If the plane was in trouble I’d prefer the pilot to remain boring & disconnected, to do a load of problem solving & mental maths to work out the best solution & to carry it through safely & not care how it looked outwardly.
Slight thread derail, apologies but this immediatley sprang to mind -commercial airlines won't though new pilots, they have to have x thousand air miles (I can't remenber the figure but it's a lot) to even get a look in.
So what a lot of them have to do is go to Indonesia or somewhere and work for dodgy small operators in errm... interesting conditions...they are cool as cucumbers because they have litteraly seen it all by the time they get thier hands on a commercial airliner.
If only we had the same checks and balances for people in politics, lol!
This series is crazy and a real eye opener:
I see Boris and his advisors have done it again, throw out his desire of a 3rd term and all previous **** ups have been removed from the discussion and replaced with another dead cat talking point.
TBH this all works perfectly.
The cost of living crisis is starting to bite and by Q4 this year the consequences of Boris' nonexistent "leveling up" will be increasingly visible; food banks servicing the "working poor", starving children and freezing pensioners is what He will have presided over.
We might as well have kept George and Dave if that's what we wanted.
Right now they're embarking on the road to eroding our rights via this new "bill of rights". The real goal is to cut back actual rights, don't be shocked if you're employment rights take a kicking in order to help out those poor needy shareholders.
Boris being as popular as a fart in a spacesuit is fantastic cover for these sort of things, all the news coverage is focussed on him being a shitebag, not the policies his cabinet are trying to enact with their majority.
The next 12 months are possibly the most dangerous our country has faced for a long while, an increasingly unpopular PM insulated from removal by a recent VOC, devicive, dog whistle policies intended to fan the flames of the "culture war"... It's all just running interference for the top 5% to smash and grab whatever they can, and chip away at the wider public's protections from their worst, most pernicious behaviour...
The things that actually require attention aren't getting it, because we've fallen for the Borris as a pantomime villain act and are so busy shouting about wine and cheese, when they've got far worse schemes on the go...
He's got another year at least, his paymasters want results now, so put VOCs l to one side and start focussing on the UK binning the ECHR, and the millions falling further into poverty while Tories keep lying about "levelling up"...
Possibly one for the Brexit thread but that's inextricably linked to Boris as well so here we are...
Moves beyond viewing Boris as a liar, it paints him as a serial bullshitter.
I hope that when conference time comes, Zelinsky tells Boris he's 'busy watching Gogglebox'.
Right now they’re embarking on the road to eroding our rights via this new “bill of rights”
Even that is a distraction, it doesn't matter what the law or your legal rights are if you don't have access to the legal system. The Tories have been massively successful in removing access for anyone but the rich.
The headlines may be bad for Boris, but they have been very successfully dismantling representation, rights and access to many parts of the system that should give people help and hope.
I hope that when conference time comes, Zelinsky tells Boris he’s ‘busy watching Gogglebox’.
Zelinsky knows that what is best for Ukraine currently, is to massage Boris's ego and praise him publicly. Zelinsky has one prime mission, and it isn't the UK's internal political landscape.
Hey, public sector workers… why didn’t you tell us all about your inflation busting pay rises…?!?
https://twitter.com/peterstefanovi2/status/1541365205757820928?s=21
[ good short concise video, worth a watch ]
Telegraph reporting three red wall Tories in talks with Labour to defect.
I guess they are anticipating that they will be the next Wakefield!
Telegraph reporting three red wall Tories in talks with Labour to defect.
I guess they'll be panicking on losing their seat and income?, nothing but grifters who'll swing whatever way so the cash keeps rolling in.
Hey, public sector workers… why didn’t you tell us all about your inflation busting pay rises…?!?
We got a deal 3 years ago that took away some benefits but got us 11% over three years - looked pretty good back in 2020.
Just had the last increase - not looking so great in 2022.
Sterling work from The Times' infographic wrangler.
Most years since 2013 it's been a derisory .5%. I think the biggest one was a massive 2.5%. Guessing we'll be back to .5% again for the next 10 years!
I'm effectively public sector as university funded, our uplift this year was offset by the NI rise
It's ridiculous, we have chronic staff shortages , so many posts unfilled were struggling with basic running of the buildings, this is in a world class cancer research institute, and I know it's the same at plenty of others.
No longer any EU intake to make up the numbers either
Us in the Fire Service have just been offered 2%. I imagine we'll be balloting soon then?
Double ace in North Yorkshire as we've also had funding pulled by bozzer and his mates so the rank and file are also having to fight off the loss of Fire Engines. Happy times ahead.
We got 1% the same year NI was increased by 1% so a small pay cut.
All of these politicians, no matter how breathtakingly incompetent, fall upwards into “advisory roles” on corporate boards, the after-dinner speaking circuit and occasional appearances on “celebrity” shows. They’re all incredibly well paid positions.
Example:
Chris Grayling, a strong contender for the most staggeringly stupid and useless person ever to set foot in the HoC, the only man capable of losing a rigged election for a Chairman position (Intelligence and Security Committee Chair – oh the irony…) was appointed to a £100,000-per-annum, 7-hour-per-week job advising the British Virgin Islands domiciled Hutchison Port Holdings Limited “on its environmental strategy and its engagement with local enterprise bodies”.
But Grayling isn't getting this money as an exMP he's getting it as a current MP.
What do you reckon they're looking for as a return for their £100k, and who's paying it?
Corruption pure and simple - and if folk can't see it, they're either simple or can't accept the truth.
I do wonder if they've missed their moment now, it's not just that Tory MPs lack a spine , by-elections shown that any of them could be vulnerable, I think there's 2 calculations going on..
Change PM now & the new leader bounce may have crashed by the next GE
And the obvious one is that the alternatives are mind numbingly daft: Truss, Javid, Hunt?
Finding one of those that's palatable to the members, the MPs & the electorate not easy, Truss going all in on ripping up the NI deal ATM is all about exciting the brexit headbangers for this very reason
Steve Baker being
a) the voice of reason in the Tory Party
b) touted as a potential PM (at least by himself)
makes me favour the idea of Johnson limping on until the next election. There is literally no better alternative on the benches behind him, and a lot of worse ones.
I work in the public sector on a wage that is maybe 2/3 of that available in the private sector for the same job. My effective remuneration has reduced by 20% in the last eight years. Recruitment has failed and targets are missed year after year. Red tape impediments make achieving more difficult each year.
From where I am it feels as if my sector is being manoeuvred into the position of "look, it's failed, we need to totally privatise it". Which shall cost the taxpayer a fortune compared to a properly funded public sector, and harm the environment as we act as a check on rogue behaviour from private sector companies working within the industry.
I'll be leaving as soon as I identify an appropriate exit.
Apologies for keeping thread off topic, but to pull it back on, the source of the problem is tory ideology.
the source of the problem is tory ideology.
While that is unarguably true when it comes to pay, strikes and the public sector, as far as the economy is concerned, It’s not even really Tory policy anymore, as this isn’t really a Tory party. It’s an English Nationalist one.
No previous Tory regime would have countenanced making trade considerably harder, but Johnson is about to start not one, but two trade wars. And he’s starting them with the economic big boys, to boot, so hasn’t a chance of winning.
Not that he’s bothered about that, or probably even thought that far ahead.
He’s going to break international law and scrap the NI protocol which will start a trade war with the EU (as well as dragging the US into it) and then he’s going to break it again by slapping illegal protectionist tariffs on imported steel, which will start a trade war with various other countries like China and India
All to placate the creationist nutters of the DUP and the increasingly unhinged headbangers on his own backbenches, who we all know will never be placated
He’s about to reek economic havoc, on top of everything else he’s done, in a desperate attempt to keep himself in power.
He’s empowered economically illiterate lunatics to prop himself up and couldn’t give a toss about the implications for the rest of us
This government has only one aim… to keep itself in power. And it couldn’t care less about the damage it does to achieve that
It’s an administration dangerously out of control, behaving like a drunk gambler, desperately chasing its Brexit losses
I see Channel 4 are discussing the potentially defective red wall Tory MPs, but the BBC seem to be avoiding it....presumably as they claim to require two decent sources before running a story?
Is Boris home for PMQs tomorrow?
And he’s starting them with the economic big boys
Lining them up to be Eastasia and Eurasia for us Oceanians to be at war with?
ffs
Is Boris home for PMQs tomorrow?
Nope he is at the G7.
Its going to be Raab and Rayner.
I hope she unleashes hell.
potentially defective red wall Tory MPs
I don't think there's any question about many of the 2019 red wall intake. Question is whether there is any value for Labour getting saddled with any of the poundshop fascists who got voted in back then. Perhaps if the majority was 8, not nearly 80.
I had wondered the same - surely when it came to the next election Labour would put up a candidate that hadn't recently been a conservative, would be stupid not to right?
Private Eye has much scurrilous gossip about the cancelling of The Times' piece on de Pfeffel attempting to parachute Carrie into a top job. I could've done without the suggestion that an unnamed Tory MP walked into Johnson's office to find Carrie on her knees mid-nosh. That horrific image is burned into my brain, now it's in yours too.
I don’t think there’s any question about many of the 2019 red wall intake.
A veritable smorgasbord of congenital incompetents, semi-lobotomised libertarian automatons, fascist sympathisers and Lee Anderson, who encompasses all of the above. Oh and Gullis, Scott Benton etc. I quite like the idea of these idiots being way out of their depth, trying to cling on to their seats and panicking about being defenestrated.
I had wondered the same – surely when it came to the next election Labour would put up a candidate that hadn’t recently been a conservative, would be stupid not to right?
There's nothing stopping Labour from encouraging the wobbling Tories to defect and then deselecting the candidates at the next GE.
Surely even the most dull-witted of potential defectors would want some kind of guarantee that they'd be the candidate for at least one future election? Especially if the reason for that defection is to try and hang onto their job.
Not having to deal with the Tory whips between now and the next election might be appealing enough to get out of there.
Or not having to answer any more constituents letters about 150 grand treehouses, or whatever next weeks gift to them from Boris is?
Steve Bray must be inwardly delighted that the government appears to enacted legislation more or less entirely to deal with just him embarrassing Tory MPs.
That horrific image is burned into my brain, now it’s in yours too.
Thanks, really, thanks.
Surely even the most dull-witted of potential defectors would want some kind of guarantee that they’d be the candidate for at least one future election? Especially if the reason for that defection is to try and hang onto their job.
Quite a few are already tainted by their less than savoury voting records and in one case, photographs of them during their days as a parliamentary aide (to JRM no less) being photographed smiling with a pair of far-right extremists.
I am amused at the thought of former Labour councillor Lee Anderson having painted his political career into a corner though.
Things settling down for Johnson now, polls on a 5-6pt lead for labour
Dowdens resignation failed to land a killer blow, all of this is great imho
The last 2 byelections have shown that Tories cant get the vote out (local Tory party chairs voting lib dem should be a huge klaxon!!) & that Lab/Lib voters are figuring out how to do tactical voting
Whats mad is that raab at PMQs today must be fully aware that his seat is toast, Tiverton result blows up his 2000 vote majority. Lib Dems way outperformed the polls. if they cand do that in a GE then Tories are toast- the like sof 30p Lee & those 2019 Tories really turn off a lot of moderate tories
https://twitter.com/HoneywallBeer/status/1487120525495189509
a lot depends on this
If the 1922 boot Johnson out over/after the summer Tories can possibly fix things if their next leader is halfway competent
Anyone else feel soiled after seeing Raab wink at Rayner?