Westministenders: Before the Fire Alarm of Rome goes off

[RedToothBrush]

I’m going to keep this one very simple.

THE DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IS 22ND MAY.
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Postal votes start to go out on 23rd May.

Your challenge is to persuade someone to register to vote or to get someone who is considering not to, to get their arse to the polling station.

Go forth and harass. Especially women and the young.

That’s it. No frills OP.

...and I'm not even particularly pro-Corbyn. I just recognise social democracy when I see it.

What people actually are doesn't matter. Its what people perceive them to be.

MrsSummerisle I have a similar issue understanding why people in China support Xi as the overwhelming majority actually do in spite of the repression, human rights violations and hardening authoritarianism and nationalism. Funnily enough when you ask the words strong and stable always come up in response........

If you think a Corbyn is a communist, then frankly we deserve the government we're about to get.

Well get a load of this...

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-drafts-in-andrew-murray-to-head-2017-general-election-campaign-team-unite-stop-the-war-chair_uk_5918c0ade4b0031e737e7b6d?2u1

A senior aide to Len McCluskey has been installed at Labour HQ to oversee Jeremy Corbyn’s final push in the general election campaign.

Andrew Murray, chief of staff to the Unite general secretary, is heading up the Labour leader’s campaign team under a special secondment from the union, senior sources have confirmed to HuffPost UK.

A former Morning Star journalist, he left the Communist Party of Britain last December to join Labour as a party member.

In one Morning Star column, Murray cited Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev, “who remarked in 1956 that ‘ against imperialists, we are all Stalinists ’”.

During his Communist party tenure, he praised North Korea , expressing its “solidarity” with “People’s Korea”.

There is now literal Communist entryism in the Labour Party

I'm glad I'm no longer in the UK, because - like LH - I would refuse to fill in an ethnic identity form
(unless anonymised, as in the national census)

The idea that it is a "liberal" idea from May ?

No, because about the only thing we really know about May's views is that she doesn't like immigrants and wants to "make life tough" for them

Also, even if you decide to trust May, she is an interim PM only -
Her job is to win the Tories a huge majority as a blank cheque and then take the Brexit flak.

We have no idea who the Tories will choose to replace her with, anytime from 2019.
We have no idea what state the country will be in.

That's what happens in a system where you only have two parties.
The extreme (right and left) have to push and become part of the of the two mainstream parties.
So you end up with right extremist in the Tories and Communists in the Labour Party.

Fwiw, the comments about North Korea are . Even the french communist party haven't dare saying things like this (as far as I know). But as a general rule, the Labour Party is closer to the center than to the left here, esp the Blairites.

BigChoc last time I filled the census in, they were asking for my email address and tel number to be able to contact me 'in case they had more questions'.
I've always been very about that as clearly that means it's not anonymous anymore! (Apparently I needed to get a grip).

Oh, just read you are wary of the census too, LH
Was I being naive ?
I thought the data would be anonymised before analysis.
On reflection, I expect it can be traced back to an individual house, if some agency particularly wishes to do so

Strangely, I've always been out of the country at census time.
iirc, the last I completed was late 1980s !

The extreme (right and left) have to push and become part of the of the two mainstream parties.

An interesting point. We had a period with new labour and the Cameron conservatives where the political parties all crowded around the centre. We now seem to be springing back out and have a situation where he conservatives are pushing ever right to attract the extreme right support and Labour is going ever left in response to attract the extreme left. If we had PR and a system more open to coalition would this stop this being needed by the main parties to cement power as there would be a wider range of smaller parties that could then join together without the need for the extreme ends of the vote?

The relevant difference between the hard left and the hard right atm is that the left haven't a hope of winning this GE.
So the hard left can't possibly sneak into govt on their coat tails

However, there seems an unholy temporary alliance atm between hard left and hard right, with Putin mixing in, too.
I think both extremes are hoping for a totally disastrous Brexit, after which a desperate angry populace might turn to them.

iirc, the late Tom Driberg, who was Labour chairman around 1970, was revealed as a KGB "agent of influence"
It's probably not the obvious ones you need look out for - if I wished to plant an agent in the Uk govt, especially in the MoD, I'd choose a very respectable boring conservative, who no one would notice.

(unless anonymised, as in the national census)

You believe that ?

They weren't anonymous in 1991, when a friend whose middle name had only ever appeared on the census got a poll tax demand in that name a few weeks later.

It's as anonymous as your vote.

‘I Want My Disability Living Allowance Back!’ Voter Cathy Rips Into Theresa May Over Tory Benefit Cuts

Oho, May has met a real live voter, see the movie, get the T-shirt

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-may-slammed-by-voter-cathy-over-disability-living-allowance-learning-difficulties-abingdonukk_591999a5e4b00f308cf69cb1

“Do you know what I want? I want my Disability Living Allowance to come back,” Cathy told the PM. “Not have PIPs and get nothing.”

“I can’t live on £100 a month. They just took it all away from me.”
“The fat cats keep the money and us lot get nothing!”

Symptom of our coming weakness in international trade relations?

The EU are resisting Xi's "belt and road" plan, investment in rail and port infrastructure to create two new "Silk Roads" because they are demanding greater sustainability and transparency to avoid the danger that the plan will be just a ruse to shift excess industrial capacity to poorer nations and bring those nations more tightly into China's grip, which would not exactly be inconsistent with their past tactics (which haven't been driven by any deliberate strategy but rather by the pragmatic pursuit of China's economic interests). Apparently concerns raised by the EU were not incorporated into the plan which was discussed at a high profile summit of leaders in Beijing. EU leaders therefore boycotted the event, as did the US in spite of the bromance between Trump and Xi (he is said to ring him daily) .

However Philip Hammond was there and the UK says it welcomes the initiative regardless of EU concerns.

"By some estimates, China plans to pump $150bn into such projects each year. In a report released at the start of this year, ratings agency Fitch said an extraordinary $900bn in projects were planned or underway.

There are plans for pipelines and a port in Pakistan, bridges in Bangladesh and railways to Russia - all with the aim of creating what China calls a “modern Silk Road” trading route that Beijing believes will kick start “a new era of globalisation”.

According to the global consultancy McKinsey, the plan has the potential to massively overshadow the US’ post-war Marshall reconstruction plan, involving about 65% of the world’s population, one-third of its GDP and helping to move about a quarter of all its goods and services. Some describe Xi’s scheme as the biggest development push in history."

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/15/eu-china-summit-bejing-xi-jinping-belt-and-road

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/12/the-900bn-question-what-is-the-belt-and-road-initiative

"It's as anonymous as your vote." < gulp >
LH, we're supposed to be encouraging people to vote !

Wow, what an incredible project, ron - and I'd never heard of it before
It hasn't had the media attention it deserves
We all need to be discussing the implications on the world economy of something that huge

Indeed MrsSummerisle there was a reason I used the word communist. It wasn't merely to be inflammatory.

To a lot of people who are somewhat to the right economically Corbyn was already viewed with that suspicion and that particular appointment is simply fodder to the perception. Its almost as if he's trying to throw the election and he doesn't want to win any seats...

LH, we're supposed to be encouraging people to vote !

I will not talk about Care.Data ....

I've always wondered why I'm asked to fill in forms like that at hospital appts - I'm not going to fill them in again

Yes Big Choc This sort of massive infrastructure spending to encourage development is the driver of China's growth strategy. Every time I go to China I see jaw dropping projects but it just is not in the UK's collective consciousness, either the scale of it or that that it is an important factor in the competitive threat in global markets that we face from Asia, along with the fact that in development terms it still has so much potential.

Meanwhile I am sure Theresa and the right wing of the party are still in the mindset of the buccaneering days of Taipans and tea clippers........

May and Corbyn to be interviewed by Paxman on 'May v Corbyn Live' election programme

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are going to take part in a joint Channel 4 News/Sky News election programme. They will be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and then take questions from a studio audience, moderated by Sky’s political editor Faisal Islam. But they won’t be going head to head.

Notewothy that there is no third party presence. Both parties want to eliminate it. But Paxman interviews could be interesting. Especially since its C4 News behind it.

I've always wondered why I'm asked to fill in forms like that at hospital appts - I'm not going to fill them in again

And don't get me started about Bounty, how inappropriate it is they are on hospital wards and how they sell your data. (Waits for the obligatory "But they give you free stuff" from naïve people who haven't realised there is nothing free about it. You just sold yourself).

Golden rule: If anyone asks for your info or details, be sceptical and ask questions. And avoid it unless you have a good reason in your interests.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39927866
General election 2017: A tale of two campaigns

Well, Mrs May is spending the bulk of her time in front line seats. She made one visit to Maidenhead, her own seat, which is the block to the far right. But it is very clear she where she thinks the fight is - and it is roughly where Dr Hanretty thinks it is

and

That emphasis on the West Midlands and Yorkshire is telling: 28 of the seats that Dr Hanretty currently expects to flip are in those two areas.

and

Mr Corbyn is holding events in safe Labour seats and in Tory seats which, the polls suggest, are very unlikely to be won. But he is not doing much in the zone in between, where seats are most likely to change hands. Why?

and

The simplest answer is that Mr Corbyn's team simply think the polls are wrong. They think the Tory seats he's going to are going to go red - and the Tories are wasting their time fighting in seats that will stay with Labour. We will see. A less simple answer is that his campaign has chosen not to take him to the front line. Several Labour MPs in those seats have made it clear that they think his presence will not help them persuade swing voters.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/15/tory-facebook-ads-attack-corbyn-while-labour-avoids-mentioning-him?CMP=twt_gu
Conservatives launch online offensive against Corbyn
Study of Facebook ads reveals parties’ tactics for targeting voter groups with tailored messaging

A less simple answer is that his campaign has chosen not to take him to the front line. Several Labour MPs in those seats have made it clear that they think his presence will not help them persuade swing voters.

Considering there seems to be support for the policies but not the person among a lot of people I wouldn't be surprised if they are being selective about where they wheel him out. Particularly if the local candidate is well thought of and/or openly anti-corbyn.