People have very short memories for something which happened only 2 years ago.

I remember well the moment the campaign turned – it was when Theresa May brought up “dementia tax”, means testing the winter fuel allowance and ending the “triple lock” guaranteed 2.5% increase in pensions. They got punished for that.

Then Labour courted young voters. You know, the ones who thought Corbyn was someone’s commie old grandad.

Similarly Charles Kennedy offered voters an alternative to the Tories and New Labour, Nick Clegg did not. LibDem support increased impressively under Kennedy but totally collapsed under Clegg.

Kennedy offered PR. That’s what the lib Dems stood for in the public eye. And that was never going to fly. Don’t think it ever will, either. Not unless something drastically changes.
Clegg stood for marginally more, which is partly why he got to government and Kennedy didn’t. Lib Dem support collapsed undr the coalition, which was inevitable.

. Get PR through and they would have been forgiven a lot of the other stuff. As it was they instead allowed a miserable compromise to be put on the table and set the entire thing back.

That was never, ever going to happen. Not untik the Lib Dems got a majority. At which point they would see absolutely no reason to go to PR and jeopardise their future. Which is why basically no one has switched to PR.
The Lib Dems put all their demands (cards) on the table at the start and got shafted because of it. They were dumb.

The centre moves about a bit but always comes back. That’s why it is the centre. Thatcher was much farther right than this lot so we are already in the way back.

Yes he did. Which is the really damaging thing by him and Blair. They surrendered to the hard right economically and allowed them to dictate

If you hadn’t lopped off the part of my quote that said he, as part of the coalition did, then we’d be saying basically the same thing.
No one would describe Blair as ‘right’ in any sense of the word.

I am not sure it does. There was clear feedback from the previous election for example that once Milliband actually dared to push some mildly leftwing policies he started doing better it was just too little too late.

Certainly Corbyn’s anti austerity played well but May’s personal unlikeability and the words dementia tax, means test and end of pension guarantee did it.

Yeah right, the Tories were “punished” because they had the wrong policies. And young voters were drawn to Labour because they saw Corbyn as an old grandad.

I can see this is going nowhere – you are just going to ignore all the facts that don’t suit whatever point you are trying to make.

But I’ll leave you with this, since you mentioned it :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42747342

I can see this is going nowhere – you are just going to ignore all the facts that don’t suit whatever point you are trying to make.

I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Particularly if you distort what I actually say so you can refute what I didn’t say.

I’m not sure you read the whole article you posted a link to like;

51% of respondents told Comres that the Conservatives had “more realistic and well thought out policies than Labour” as opposed to 31% who thought that Labour’s policies were more realistic.

And despite backing Labour policies overall, 47% of respondents said they were “less likely to vote Labour” after hearing their policies than they had been before, as opposed to 34% who said the opposite.

Meanwhile 56% of respondents told Comres that they believed Jeremy Corbyn “would be a disaster as Prime Minister” as opposed to just 30% who said he “would be given a fair chance of leading the country.”

Doesn’t sound like the kind of feedback that would lead you to think it was going to turn the election in labour’s favour, does it?

I’ll leave this for you. I’ll even give you the Coles notes version:

The turning point of the campaign, according to insiders, was Theresa May’s U-turn on social care.

and

Labour (not Corbyn) countered Tory attack ads on Facebook with upbeat messages and celebrity endorsements. Labour’s successful push to get out the youth vote was a decisive factor in some seats, although there is still some debate about the size of the surge in voting among 18 to 24-year-olds.

The whole thing:

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40237833

Only two people have answered the OPs question.

Yep and no more have answered yet. It can’t be that hard to answer can it?

I have voted conservative in the past when I was younger as a “it’s what my parents did ” vote.

I have not in years now dispite on the face of it being a conservative target. I don’t like government interference. I believe a correctly organises market is efficient. (Note correctly organised, i.e. regulated to minimise asymmetric relationships).

I would not vote conservative anymore, especially after Brexit.

I also would not vote labour. They are dishonest is there approach of better public services “we can get the rich to pay for that” but with a very low bar to be regarded as “rich”. Better public services mean everyone has to pay more. Even if this mean those at the bottom get some more money back via some form of benefits it help with the phycology if everyone pay more. This is why I think lib Dems are the only party who are honest about this point.

Well, yes, they did forget the cardinal rule of don’t be the smaller partner in a coalition.

Seems to be working fine for the DUP 🙂

To be fair, the DUP are far more used to saying NO! than the Lib Dems

Not untik the Lib Dems got a majority

Of course it could have. They were in the position to do so in the coalition. To put it into perspective just look at the influence the far smaller DUP are having.

The centre moves about a bit but always comes back. That’s why it is the centre.

No it is the “centre” because its arbitrarily placed there based on the alignment of the major parties or, sometimes, just because people like to declare themselves as such since they think it makes them look balanced. The casual example of this is looking at the “centre” in the UK, USA and mainland Europe. It is in a very different position.
The only way you move it is by actually offering something to the left or right. If you chase the other party then the centre moves with you.

means test and end of pension guarantee did it.

Aside from when you look at the votes the older generation still turned out enmass for the tories. So it doesnt seem to have had quite the effect you are claiming. The “unlikeable” May got a massive increase in pro tory votes. If Labour hadnt managed to also increase their turn out it would have been a landslide.