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Thus speaks the self-proclaimed political geek.
Sadly, I think you are right there TJ. Either of the two main parties can simply point to the LDs and say "Tuition Fees" and people will remember the shafting they got from that.
Also sadly, that's politics now. Just like people have said up there ^^^and echoed in every primary school playground in the world.
I’d love to have a sensible and boring government.
Amen to that. Remember the good old days where all you had to get your petticoats ruffled about was their duck-houses and moat cleaning, and things just seemed to tick along. Seems like a halcyon golden-age in the dim and distant past now, doesn't it? Replaced by chaos, ridiculous ideological posturing and rank incompetence across the board (see Chris Graylings latest billions-spanking cock-up-fest)
I did my postal vote for the EU elections last night. The remainer tactical voting website said the Green Party was my best bet to keep the Brexit Party nutters out, so thats what I did.
I'm 49 years old, have voted in every single election (GE, EU and local) of my adult life and its the first time I've voted anything other than Labour. I suspect I'll be among millions abandoning the two main parties who are both no longer fit for purpose. In fact, its difficult to see what purpose either of them serve other than perpetuating their own closed shop/chuckle brothers 'to me - to you' routine
Two cheeks of the same 'Will of the People' arse. A plague on both their houses
the first 15 years during which it will still dominate the business of government as it patches up the agreements and working arrangements it needs with 80 plus countries, as well as cleaning up the domestic fallout?
Same thing innit? The day after A50 is finally executed I'm more interested in the party that have a plan for the next decade... Right now they are all equally deficient IMO but we're not quite in GE mode yet.
Post Brexit … do mean the day after we have left, or after the first 15 years during which it will still dominate the business of government as it patches up the agreements and working arrangements it needs with 80 plus countries, as well as cleaning up the domestic fallout?
The day after, I will be hassling my Leave mp to know why the roads aren’t fixed and why the hospital back log isn’t cleared.
lib dems probloem is they have lost their USP of being truthful and safe.
That does seem to be the case, but what I don't get is why the tuition fees let down stays in public conscious, but other bigger things don't, like with the tories we have devastating welfare cuts, the Windrush scandal, police cuts, greyling wandering around in a daze hemorrhaging public money like it's not important and couldn't be put to better use elsewhere .. to name but a few...
... But oh no... The tututions fees are far more scandalous... Apparently.
mattyfez
That does seem to be the case, but what I don’t get is why the tuition fees let down stays in public conscious, but other bigger things don’t, like with the tories we have devastating welfare cuts, the Windrush scandal, police cuts, to name but a few…
At least we got this gem out of it
Instead of apologising, they should have just blamed the tories and denied/lied their way out of it like that teflon-coated **** Boris.
The tuition fees thing is just a convenient excuse for those that vote Labour but are full of guilt and remorse for doing so and so feel they need to justify it to themselves and others.
The problem with the Lib-Dems is that their raison-d'etre is to be in the government. Not to be the government but to be in the government. Any policy they claim to hold dear to their hearts is up for grabs in aid of their only true policy.
If they want to be a juniour player in government they should take a look at what the DUP are doing. Basically, wander around the halls of Westminster with a can of petrol and a lighter screaming 'I'll do it, you just see if I won't!!' until you get your way.
Amen to that. Remember the good old days where all you had to get your petticoats ruffled about was their duck-houses and moat cleaning, and things just seemed to tick along. Seems like a halcyon golden-age in the dim and distant past now, doesn’t it? Replaced by chaos, ridiculous ideological posturing and rank incompetence across the board (see Chris Graylings latest billions-spanking cock-up-fest)
And now on top of the risk of hard brexit, we have the risk of Corbyn nationalising the energy grid without paying the shareholders the market value for the company and flouting international law.
We either have people who don't know how to appropriately privatise things and who damage our reputation internationally. Or people who don't now how to nationalise appropriately and also like to damage our international reputation.
Definitely voting lib dem.
And now on top of the risk of hard brexit, we have the risk of Corbyn nationalising the energy grid without paying the shareholders the market value for the company and flouting international law.
To be honest, I think that the Labour party are now like the Lib Dems of the old pre-coalition days. They can basically say what they like. They know their never going to be in a position to ever have to deliver it. See above re: tuition fees
Team Jezza has looked at their (frankly unbelievable) total failure to make any impact at all on the most shambolic, incompetent government this country has ever seen, in the middle of an unprecedented national crisis, and thought '**** it!"
Magic Grandad can basically promise to hand deliver a gold-plated unicorn to every household in the land, a week in Benidorm for everyone, and a kitten. He's never going to get the keys to number ten, so it really doesn't matter, does it? Its all academic
It must surely be time for yet another Labour Party commitment to abolish the House of Lords. Funny how they've never got around to it whilst actually in government.
Lib Dem here - like last time & the time before that etc etc etc.....
God loves a trier! 🤣
Maybe those Labour peers got upset at that plan.
Which is basically what Vince Cable said they would do.
Edit: this in response to Bruce wee's comment re the dup.
As its all been so quiet for a while, you should generally fear the worst, but it looks like Jezza's stitch up is go
After face-to-face talks between Mr Corbyn and Ms May, Labour said it would not support the bill without a compromise agreement complete with safeguards to avoid it being unpicked by a future Tory leader. “We are not in the business of getting into a car when we don’t know where it’s going,” said one source.
But senior Labour sources refused to rule out the party’s MPs being whipped to abstain in the crucial second reading vote, potentially saving the PM from defeat at the hands of Leave-backing Tory rebels and the DUP.
The Donkeys are back.
Labour Abstention was a danger last time but they didnt in the end, wuld be madness if they dead
good work Donkeys!
I see that Farages dodgy money harvesting scheme is working well he claimed 16000 donnations on day 1, records show 1200 website visits, so either he's lying or hes doing his very best to shield hs donors from scutiny AGAIN!
It's great to see LBD's back.
you should generally fear the worst, but it looks like Jezza’s stitch up is go
It really doesnt.
You have to be spectacularly stupid/frothing cultist to think that Labour would whip for abstaining considering that a)people would just disobey them anyway and b)then they would get the blame.
They might have an unwhipped abstain but even that is unlikely.
Morning Comrade. Hows the glorious revolution coming along? Are the proletariat ready to throw off off their chains, take on their capitalist oppressor and embrace a bold socialist future*?
* Via the medium of abstaining from crucial parliamentary votes
but it looks like Jezza’s stitch up is go
In your head maybe and that is the only place it has ever been. You are as stubborn about it as this guy would be.
See what I did there with a Monty Python reference.
Morning Comrade.
I am sure all that made sense in your head. I now realise your talk of 6th form politics is actually a compliment being something you want to eventually reach from the primary school playground level.
Are you seriously mad enough to believe that they would go for a 3 line whip abstain? Please explain your reasoning given the recent(ish) whips and without resorting to childish insults.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/16/labour-brexit-remain-voters-european-elections
Just for those few who still don't get why labours non policy isn't working.
Are you seriously mad enough to believe that they would go for a 3 line whip abstain?
Lets just have a quick refresher as to what he's three line whipped his MP's to support so far shall we comrade?
1. Triggering article 50
2. Leaving the EEA and the customs union
3. Leaving the single market
No, you're right. With that track record, theres no way he'd do anything to help facilitate Brexit, is there?
My apologies
Carry on.....
Just for those few who still don’t get why labours non policy isn’t working.
Without any data on the effect of any different policy/approach to it it tells us nothing. The current approach is not working but then any other approaches may not work either.
For example, I no longer support Labour but it has nothing to do with Brexit so don't jump to conclusions.
Lets just have a quick refresher as to what he’s three line whipped his MP’s to support so far shall we comrade?
Yes lets. Personally I like using up to date information unlike cult members like yourself.
So lets have a look at the recent indicative votes shall we?
For Customs union - 3 line
For customs union membership - 3 line
Labour brexit plan - 3 line
Confirmation referendum - 3 line
Common market 2 - support but not whipped.
Oh and again Stop being a primary schoolkid with your "comrade" bollocks. Just because not everyone is as binary position as you doesnt mean they have to be in the opposite camp.
Now carry on being a useful idiot for the hard right.
Without any data on the effect of any different policy/approach to it it tells us nothing. The current approach is not working but then any other approaches may not work either.
This is just silly bollocks, it would take months to carry out a study with that level of detail. Meanwhile labour would still be haemorrhaging support, so they need to change track now.
You don't need a methodologically and statistically rigourous poll if you know that only one in 8 brexiteers were working class labour. Look at the bloody defections. It's blindingly clear that labour should be remain
You have to admit that Farage is schooling the rest of them on both dog-whistle populist politics and obvious (in retrospect) stuff like this,
I mean, that is clever, particularly given the impairments, physical, emotional and intellectual, that many of his target voters will carry.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/16/labour-brexit-remain-voters-european-elections
the stupid thing is that Labour couldve prevented this if theyd come off the fence sooner & be sitting pretty right now
In the 2016 referendum, Labour supporters divided two to one in favour of remain. Today the ratio is three to one. This means the number of Labour remain defectors to remain parties is three times as large as Labour leave defectors to leave parties – and has continued to grow.
ON the Lib dems - its not just tuition fees. Its Carmicheals lying before the last election. Its Cable selling off the post office. Plus of course enabling a hard right tory government
If you have trust honesty and principles as your USp and then throw them all away then you are left with nothing. Thats the lib dems position right now. They have nothing to offer
It was never that simple TJ no matter how blinkered your own outlook is.
Because the other parties are shining bacons of integrity?
Don't talk b11x man and stop perpetuating the anti LD propaganda that precipitated the current mess.
It was also the the fact that most libdem voters would consider themselves left leaning centrists, more closely allied with the then labour party. So really in that election that ended up with the libdems supporting a tory government, the majority voted for left of centre politics, but rather than acknowledge that fact Clegg jumped into bed with the Tories because they had the largest minority. He ignored what the parties actually represented.
Tuition fees is an example of the policies they enabled, but mainly they enabled hard austerity, more tax liberation for the rich and punishment of those already victimised by society. The "hostile environment" for immigrants gets the headlines, but that same hostile environment has been applied to the poor and the disabled, and all that came from the libdem enabled tory government.
I find myself in that situation of where i vote in next GE.
I would never vote Tory. I always used to vote Labour, but hate the direction and sheer stubborn views of Corbyn and his lack of pro-activity in providing any opposition of real note to the Tories. I feel genuinely let down by Labour now.
Could i vote Lib-Dem, i come from Portsmouth which was always a Lib-Dem stronghold growing up, but for me, they would be the equivalent of voting for magnolia as a paint colour, it may make sense, but it would be last resort and fail to excite me...
Change indie party, they just come across as Tories who don't have business interests that would benefit from leaving..
So you'd like to vote for a sensible party but they're not exciting enough?!?
No wonder the country's ****ed
Look squirrel!!!
Nope they fail to excite me through doing very little, they are profiting now, purely because they are the only "remain" party of any longstanding, not because their policies or actions do much for me, without brexit i would never normally vote for them, so it's not because i am distracted by bushy-tailed rats......it's because they're an alternative i feel i am being forced to vote for, not the one i actually want to vote for, due to the issue of the day (well the issues of the last 2 years and for the foreseeable future)
I find myself in the position of wondering not to who to vote into the EP but rather who is most likely to keep Farage and his bunch of weasels out.
I'm in the north west of England so it's a toss up between the Greens and Lib Dems. I'd hate to waste the vote.
Whatever the Liberal Democrats may have done or not have done in the past they are the party that want to stay in the E.U. If you want to show a majority for staying in the E.U then I suggest you vote Liberal Democrats. Voting Labour will be seen as endorsing leave. At the moment the Brexit Party are in the lead, according to the polls, can you imagine what Farage will be like if they get a majority and the right wing of the conservative party will take it as a vote for no deal.
For the European MEP elections i'd vote for George and Bungle if it kept that smug-faced cockwomble out of it.......
@Coyote - if you're in the north west then the tactical voting site says a vote for the Green Party is the most likely to keep the faragists out if you don't want to vote for the Labour/Tory Brexit coalition.
We both voted Green with our postal votes last night.
I mean, that is clever
That logo is smart isn't it… they were so much more ready for this election than any of the other parties. Bloody scary who helped them be ready though. Dark days. For what it's worth James Baker is pretty good… but I don't see the LibDems getting two MEPs. One each for LibDems & Greens looking far from impossible though. Let's hope they get to represent us for years… oh, and…
VOTE !
Yeh, I bet they were laughing when we were all joking about Farage heading to the right.
Could i vote Lib-Dem, i come from Portsmouth which was always a Lib-Dem stronghold growing up, but for me,
In that case you do vote lib dem as the tactical anti tory vote.