Westminstenders: Christmas Cold, Campaigning, Canvassing and Cancelled Carols

[RedToothBrush]

It looks like a December General Election is on.

The EU have officially extended A50 until 31st January. We have to name an EU Commissioner though.

All that seems left to do is decide between the 9th and 12th December.

The difference between the two is about whether there is any possibility that the WAB can be passed before Parliament dissolves.

A pre-brexit GE is thought to favour the LDs at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives. What the Brexit Party decide to do and where they decide to stand will also be crucial.

*You will have seen Dominic Grieve doing the rounds this morning saying that the Lib Dems are standing aside in support of him.

I am said Lib Dem PPC and it's true.*

This is really good news and I applaud the LDs even though they annoy me terribly in other respects.

Mummmy...he isn't your idiot. This man wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire . He couldn't care less about you. In fact, he's probably laughing at everyone who believes that he is some kind of lovable rogue.

Let's face it the politicians with star power are the ones who shine.
They pull in votes and win things.
Maggie.
Tony.
Churchill.
Boris is a Star and people will follow him.

Precisely, Misti
There are a lot of rightwing trolls pretending Corbyn is the problem,
but before him Miliband was the bogeyman and Brown and Blair .....

They have never considered voting anything but Leave
and only the Farage Comany is an alternative to the Tories for them

We need to focus on those who might genuinely be persuadable

e.g. show them Labour policies which will improve their lives and contrast those with the Tory ones which won't
Emphasise that it is their chance to vote for something better, after so many years of Tory austerity and really take back control

New speaker to be elected from 2.30 on Monday for those on speaker watch.

In that case, pretty, perhaps he's recycling 2015 leaflets!

Hopefully indicating a woeful shortage of money/sentient helpers. I've just had a look at his twitter, and he's not... popular... online.

I'll vote Labour. Labour will definitely win here (76.3 % of the vote last time). I'm OK with the policy they've ended up on wrt Brexit. I want a fresh referendum (which I hope remain would win) and if we have to leave, I think a Labour negotiated Brexit (very different red lines and priorities) would be less shit than a Tory Brexit.

Wrt Labour needing to do more than just be 'not Tories'- yeah, to some extent that's true, and I expect the official Labour campaign to embrace that fully. But I will always vote against the Tories and for the party most likely to beat them, and that's a sentiment you hear a lot. Under FPTP voting has to be tactical at times, so if casting a vote for the Libs or Greens or whoever was more likely to mean a Tory defeat I'd do it.

Ummmmm - Churchill also lost an election he expected to win - the first actual election he had to fight

But you personally won't be doing this.
And Corbyn is not capable, he will be beating his socialist views.
Labour is split as a party.

Why on earth would anyone vote for a liar rather than an honest man?
Why would anyone vote for an idiot?
(i don't think bj is an idiot, he doesn't do detail - just swivels for optics)

Mummy's comment about JC have no substance - so clearly hasn't seriously weighed JC/Labour.

That book I quoted upthread about May's time in No 10 described how ignorant BJ was
How May had to keep correcting him when he didn't know / understand important details about Brexit

His ignorance & laziness were embarassing as Mayor of London, but dangerous as PM - as it was when he was Foreign Secretary:

I bet Nazanin doesn't think BJ is a star
for blundering in with his piffle and getting her several more years in an Iranian jail.

Boris is a Star and people will follow him.

Ok Mummmy...you're over egging the Christmas pudding here.

Athelstane - iirc, the Conservatives diced on thin ice by allegedly paying for activists to be shipped into his constituency

Can't remember which election that one was though (suspect 2015)

So no, I don't think he has many feet on the ground to support him. And if they're trying to protect seats across the country, they'll be even more thinly stretched

Anyway, I should remind myself about my own advice

One of the rules of canvassing is not to waste time on those that are 100% set in their viewpoint (there will usually be about 20% in that category) .....

pmk!

Like it or not, a readiness to compromise remains the greatest skill in modern politics. The next generation of politicians – and of media – need to get used to that, whatever happens on 12 December.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/31/oris-ohnson-taught-us-greatest-skill-in-politics-compromise

One of the rules of canvassing is not to waste time on those that are 100% set in their viewpoint

I was under impression that from time immemorial (that's 6 July 1189 by the way) the most effective canvassing was to get people to vote, rather than trying to change their minds.

So rather than trying to convince 100 random strangers (and there's none stranger than some of the posters here ) to switch to your POV, you'd get more votes by just getting 100 people who weren't going to vote, to actually vote ?

Maybe it's just me, but that does seem to be a difference between Tory/Labour supporters. Tories seem a lot less insecure.

Boris is a Star and people will follow him.

Johnson is marmite. Many either really like him or really dislike him.

And where people are more in different those who will follow him, do so because they like the alternative less, not because he's a star.

Yes, DGR when canvassing and knocking on doors always thank people for their time and encourage them to vote.

*I was under impression that from time immemorial (that's 6 July 1189 by the way) the most effective canvassing was to get people to vote, rather than trying to change their minds.
*
True for the left.

Probably true for centre parties, because uncertain voters are more likely to vote for smaller parties.

Not true for the modern right, for whom vote suppression has been a very effective tactic.

I personally think Boris will save us from the next Conservative majority Government. He has to be out there, campaigning and six weeks is ample time to slip up.

I tend to agree that Boris is his own worst enemy. It depends how effective his campaign team are at keeping him away from danger while avoiding the impression that he is running scared.

For Jeremy there are only 3 countries in the UK. England Wales and Scotland. According to his launch speech

JC: Johnson has failed to deliver Brexit, and that failure is his alone. We need to take this decision out of the hands of politicians and let the people decide. A sensible deal, or remain - it really isn't that complicated. We will deliver what the people decide.

Adam Bienkov
@AdamBienkov
·
2m
That was the most effective speech I’ve seen from Corbyn. Very simple and potentially persuasive election messages which clearly set out dividing lines with Johnson.