Westministenders: Sub-Prime Minister at large

[BigChocFrenzy]

Our Sub-Prime Minister BJ is threatening a govt tantrum strike until he is allowed his Haribo GE on 12 December.

If MPs vote for a GE, he has promised them "more time" to debate the WAB,
but that would only be from 29 October to 7 November

• ridiculously inadequate for such complex legislation -

before Parliament is automatically dissolved for the 25 sitting days before a GE.

The GE debate starts Monday 2:30 pm in the HoC
Corbyn says he'll agree to a GE if BJ takes No Deal off the table

BUT wIth this WA,
No deal cannot 100% be taken off the table whilst the Tories are in office:

they could still No Deal after transition ends on 31 December 2020,
if they don't request a transition by July.

We don't know when the EU will give their decision on an extension, or what it will be:

The EU may decide only after the HoC vote
- in which case MPs would be voting "blindly"

Tusk, Merkel & most other leaders want to grant the Flextension until 31 January,
but Macron & a few others want to give a short extension of only 2-4 weeks, to pressure MPs to pass the WA in November

• in which case the GE would take place shortly after Brexit, which would be a gift to BJ.

A 12 December GE would also cause serious logistical problems for local council officials:

Apart from their poll station bookings clashing with Xmas bookings for church halls & schools,

they are legally required to send out all the polling cards based on the current electoral roll,
then at the GE, check names against the new electoral roll which must be updated on 1 December

The Rebel Alliance want a long extension, so they have time to add amendments to the WAB,
e.g. a CU, the Level Playing Field agreement in May's WA, maybe even a PV
So many may want to vote against a GE before that ..... but what does Corbyn want ?

BJ as PM could still change the date of any GE after he has agreed to it, if it suits him.

What does BJ want ?
Alice Cooper said it:

"I'm your top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice
I wanna be elected
I'm your yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce
I wanna be elected
Kids want a savior, don't need a fake

I wanna be elected
We're all gonna rock to the rules that I make
I wanna be elected, elected, elected..."

m.youtube.com/watch?v=cSvy8HpxFxo

• Post edited to correct dates

It's really important, despite my hair being on fire, that my vote should only go to a party with the purest unsullied history of never diverging even slightly from every one of my personal values. Therefore I shall henceforth declare that even if I were in a suitable constituency, I couldn't bear to vote Toxic Labour because of the Iraq War.

If Labour don’t go for a GE (or vote through Boris’s deal) then there’s a very real chance that Macron will veto the extension and we’ll crash out with no deal. Corbyn has been backed into a corner.

And wouldn't that just serve the miserable old coward right!

still don't forgive the LibDems on the University fees

Strange how many Labour supporters say that when they have no qualms about Labour support for the Iraq War.

.....but then maybe my moral compass is a bit warped, and a war started on false pretences leaving 100,000s dead isn’t as bad as making students pay for their tuition over the course of their careers

If Labour don’t go for a GE (or vote through Boris’s deal) then there’s a very real chance that Macron will veto the extension and we’ll crash out with no deal. Corbyn has been backed into a corner.

Wasn't there a big fuss about 'traitor' rebel MPs colluding with the EU over negotiations just recently, with suggestions from Brexiters that there this sort of thing should result in jail. Now somehow if BoJos doing it, it's ok 🤔

I'm pretty sure that polls show very different intentions when asked their intention after a Brexit delay.

And, anyway, I'm still not sure any polls can be totally trusted!

@Basilpots, we need a bit of polling analysis!

At one point in the run up to the 2017 election Tories were at 50% and Labour at 25%.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election

I think many Labour supporters do have qualms about the Iraq War and is one of the reasons Corbyn was voted in as Leader.

The only one in the corner, who well and truly painted themselves there, is Boris Johnson. And he hates it.

He cares not for your support. All he cares for is getting his own way. He's an immature buffoon.

My north west constituency is held by Labour but voted leave by a small margin, I will be sticking with Labour.

I am looking fluff none of the data sheets are up yet.

I discount Deltapoll because they give zero info in their data sheets and provide no figures for don’t know and won’t vote so are impossible to see in context.

The thing with polls and voting intention, how are people canvassed ? In the street , on the phone, online ? how does it work ?

Or has Johnson managed to get at Macron?

I usually vote Green. If a GE is called I will vote Tory - irrespective of anything else and that GEs aren't about Brexit, unless the WAB is passed through HoC, then the next GE is all about Brexit.

After HoC reconfigures and the Brexit process starts (or stops even) every vote I cast will relatet to it. I look forward to the more important things such as Social Housing and the reditribution of wealth as the main factors that affect my Vote.

Or has Johnson managed to get at Macron?

Who knows? But at least Macron’s stance could finally force Labour’s hand over a GE and give the public another say on Brexit!

Social housing, redistribution of wealth, the environment, workers rights ....

The Tories are against all of those and plan to hammer them

Voting Tory is understandable if your priority is tax cuts for the better off
and / or to transfer funding from the welfare state to build up the military and keep Trident

making students pay for their tuition over the course of their careers

I do think that U.K. tuition fees are too high but I don't really understand why the left is so hung up on a policy which effectively acts like a graduate tax, with the least well-paid graduates never paying back their loan.

Free university education, while a noble cause in some respects, is also a massive subsidy of the already-wealthy.

making students pay for their tuition over the course of their careers

I’m more wondering why people are so hung up on that.
1- Yes they went back on their election promises but somehow this is shameful for the LD but not for the Tories, who promised a lot but who also went back on some of their promises (the NHS being one of them).
Why asking one party to have much higher standard than another?

2- the reality is, as seeing with what happened when the LD were not in government with the Tories anymore, they actually did a heck of a lot by stopping the Tories to implement fully some of their policies, incl austerity. Why is that they are never credited for it? it might not have been obvious at the time but it certainly was once they left....

Now I wouldn't vote LD atm because I disagree with the Revoke the way it’s been presented. But I’m annoyed at the way so many people have bought into the Tories narrative that they just did as the Tories told them wo a pip.

"a massive subsidy of the already-wealthy. "

I grew up v poor and would never have gone to uni if I'd had to take out a loan
Just one discouragement too many

I had enough people telling me to get a job and look after my (widowed & disabled) mum
or not get "ideas above my station"

Fortunately, back in the mid-70s to early 80s there was full maintenance grant for the poor & fees paid from BSc through MSc to PhD
I certainly wasn't the only one on full grant and most students qualified for at least partial

I was as far from privileged as you can get - poverty was already socially isolating throughout school,
but then going to uni changed my life,
enabled me to get a career, break out of the poverty trap..... and pay a lot of tax to repay this, many times over

Voting Tory will definitely redistribute wealth straight to the rich Tory voters!
If anyone votes Tory they are voting to make my dds life a lot worse than what it already is on minimum wage, zero hours contract, no sick pay, minimal holiday pay and a would be food bank user if it wasn't for me and working her arse off looking after autistic and severe learning difficulties adults without even so much as a thank you or well done while the rich get richer and the poor poorer!

I could not remember the timing so checked ....

The increase in Tuition fees en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_student_protests
was being pushed through at the same time as the FTPA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_2011
so by the time the Libdems realised how utterly toxic the loans were
they were trapped by the FTPA

crass misjudgement at the time
but it was the Tories who caused both

It's why I'm so horrified by the price of bus fares/travel cards to 6th form.
No way I could have gone to 6th form if mum and dad had had to pay :(
Ds1s travel card cost £600 pa...to pay monthly the cost goes up to £850pa

Just another way the disadvantaged and poor kids get shafted.

Bigchoc
Bright kids aiming for good unis are well aware that student loans are in fact a graduate tax
so they do not seem to impact on poorer kids applying.
I also think that the Stormzy effect has been massively positive at getting all bright disadvantaged kids to think that they can do top Unis
not just Black boys going to Oxford

I grew up v poor and would never have gone to uni if I'd had to take out a loan
Just one discouragement too many

Would you have been equally discouraged by a graduate tax? Because in principle, a system in which loans are only repaid as your income rises above a threshold, and where repayments are linked to your income, functions just like a graduate tax.

Hooo
Been there done that - £800 a year per child for 6th form after 5 years of £700 a year during secondary
London kids get free buses till they are 18
The rest of the country gets ripped off

On the plus side with those polls - Labour and the Lib Dems equal the Conservatives.

It's all going to be about the tactical vote. And hopefully alliances in constituencies.