Westminstenders: From Uxbridge to...? Part deux GE 2019 special.

[placemats]

New thread.

General election 12th December 2019. Results out on Friday 13th. Unlucky day for some.

So this election is unusual in that it will focus primarily on Brexit and referendums with domestic issues tagged alongside, for some parties.

I was hoping you'd reply Bear and I was being facetious when I wrote it wasnt trying to be disrespectful

That’s just the problem though, when someone has a history of being pretty vile to me, it’s then not easy to move to ‘easy banter’

Surely it’s better to just be more even all the time

" if you only allow posts from people who agree with you"

We can't delete other peoples' posts; we can only rebut them, disagree with them or ignore them
I never give a damn if nearly everyone else is furious at me - as happened when I was supporting May's WA

I have reported a couple of clear personal insults - and I would too if they were against someone else - but not those that called me "chicken", just made me laugh at the childishness of that poster.

as happened when I was supporting May's WA

iirc I came at you hard for that 1 BCF dont think I ever called you chicken though, urgh worse thing is you were right at the time still not a position I would personally have supported but at least we would have moved on from where we are/were

I've waded in when Louise is being imo hammered for her Leave views
Doesn't stop me disagreeing with her, but I don't feel any outrage that she has such differnt views to me
It's just debate

I think brusquely dismissive of everyone who isn't Bear doesn't make for great discussion. I've just broken my policy of ignoring Bear

*But surely nowhere near the 30% that people are estimating is needed.
*
I’m not so sure.... Most people want their votes to count and in close constituency races, the parties involved ensure this is well known to everyone who’s got the slightest interest. Take Oxford for instance...

Oh for a proper quote function!

Interested to hear your thoughts, though I disagree. I think that the Oxford area (and the north Herts/ Cambridge area, which is where the possibly-LD-voting colleagues I referred to live) are not at all typical of the rest of the country. I think that remain is really a critical feature of how people will vote in constituencies like these, where many people work in academia and in highly integrated European businesses like the one I work for. Elsewhere, I'm not so sure. I'd love to think 30% of remainers will vote tactically ... but that's a big number.

Does anyone know if estimates exist of what proportion of voters vote tactically in a normal election?

Nope, we've never got personal, poster

Odd intervention from mumsnet. People disagree on here all the time, more or less politely, but it's quite rare for posts to get deleted because for the most part people don't post stuff that breaks the site rules (like racist posts about east Europeans).

I'll disagree with anyone, generally in a forthright manner because I don't suffer fools gladly, but I'll also acknowledge good points and consider whether I need to change my mind.

I find it surprising and concerning that people think the LDs are right leaning. My perception is more that they are in a slightly otherworldly and often unrealistic way, left leaning, sometimes, certainly during Blair’s time, further to the left than Labour. They would have been much more comfortable going into coalition with Labour but the numbers didn’t add up. I am not a member of the party but I campaigned for them because I am lucky enough to live in a constituency where my remain vote really counts, and I wanted to show my children and —even though they are still at the I am never having children stage— grandchildren that I did all I could to stop this shitshow. I have to say that the Liberal activists here conform 100% to the stereotype of cardiganed well intentioned idealists who seek social justice. And actually as they are now in power locally they are implementing their ideals and are behaving in very stark contrast to the complacent and self interested —to the point of corruption— Tory regime before them.

I think that being seen to hold your nose at Jeremy Corbyn and a party just as riven by warring self interested factions as the Tories does not make you right leaning.

Like Elements my priority is stopping Brexit, not just that but challenging the appalling standards of governance and politics. I might prefer JC to Boris because I know he is a genuinely nice man but I still don’t think he is remotely PM material.

These tactical voting sites may well have different aims, which could explain why they recommend odd, or different things:

One may aim to keep out the Tories
Another may go for the "purest" Remain, even if that means a candidate with much less chance than a Remainer who won't die in a ditch for a PV
Another may be Remain, but keeping out Corbyn
etc

Whereas I don't give a shiny shit about Corbyn, yea or nay... *But I'm not going to be swanning about declaring that "I can't possibly sully my fingers by putting an X in the Labour box because Corbyn!"

Similarly, I don't really give a shit about Swinson... But I'm also not going to be swanning about declaring that "I can't possibly sully my fingers by putting an X in the LibDems box because Swinson!"*

So much this.

This is why I think it is so important that we have good MPs - ultimately, the government is not one person and you need good, competent MPs to form a good government. And why I was so encouraged yesterday to see people from the left agreeing that there are good competent decent MPs on the right and that it's a shame they are all going.

I agree with Emily here.

I still think concentrating on Corbyn completely an utterly misses the planet-sized problem of the UKs media.

Of course there's loads of love (at the moment) for any Labour figure who isn't Corbyn. That's the cheapest and easiest way to try an destabilize any threat from Labour.

If Corbyn were to be replaced with either Starmer or Lammy, then within 24 hours, we'd have the same swell of media against them, and people would be clamouring for them to go. And when they'd gone, the next one. And the next.

It wasn't that Tony Blair was a brilliant Labour leader that won the 1997 election. It was that the media decided it was time for Labour to lead and made him electable.

I've just broken my policy of ignoring Bear

Yet another example of the problem here - and you really don’t see it

Having a policy of ignoring people who you’ve disagreed with in the past is just narrow minded

I know it’s not going to sink in as many of you only see what you want to see, but that exactly the problem and exactly why MN has been asked to step in, presumably by several people who don’t think you actually play nicely at all.

There is a very strong Labour incentive to paint the LDs as yellow tories, because objectively the LDs are a threat to Labour because most Labour voters are remainers.

I think that few modern parties have positions which are all left or all right. The tories are about to go on an unfunded spending spree like a 1970s labour government. LAB are buying student votes with a regressive policy on student fees/loans. I dare say the LD manifesto will contain a mix too.

Odd intervention from mumsnet

The bots have learned where the "report" button is.

Prepare to see threads pulled for the foreseeable future.

Thing is Bear if you want people to engage, you have to post interesting stuff that is capable of discussion. Not whine that people don't understand your posts (they won't if you write more clearly) or ignore you (they won't if you post something interesting).

Actually DGR they posted on Brexit Arms too so I take back my previous post. I think it was just a friendly reminder and a show of even-handedness. Don't envy the mods.

These tactical voting sites may well have different aims, which could explain why they recommend odd, or different things:

I don't think so - I think it's just that this is a very inexact science, and your recommendations will depend very much on the assumptions you have in your model.

Like I said misti, I’ve made the decision not to engage in discussion on here because it’s been proven countless times that it’s pointless.

I only popped up as I heard I was being referred to.

You think it’s useful to deliberately provoke posters who having differing opinions to you, just to get a reaction - I don’t see what you hope to achieve by doing that

The fact is we all see things from our own point of view but, unless you attempt to see them through the point of view of others, any discussion has very little value

The LDems would be very much the junior partner in any GNU, as they were in the Rebel Alliance
imo Swinson keeps sounding childish, arrogant and foolish, to basically demand that one of the 2 main parties sideline or sack their elected leader.

Swinson should have kept her options open
whether for Corbyn or anyone else

She should have avoided being tied down by demands that could prevent a GNU later, if there is a hung Parliament

• we could even end up with another bloody GE if she and Corbyn out-stubborn each other. We've seen BJ mostly get away with not dying in a ditch, but he's Teflon to many - which is unhealthy.

I really wanted to support her & the LDems and I would accept the normal mistakes all politicians make,
but she seems more like a student agitator, demanding purity and no compromise
That's exactly what, as a centrist, I do NOT want and have no patience with.

I want cooperation, an end to party before country, to arrogance and petulance from all parties
If I had the choice, I'd like to junk all 3 leaders - from Labour, Tory and LDem
In the real world, we have to put up with these crocks.
Probably at most Corbyn will go after this GE, unless things go seriously off piste.

This thread has been running for years without needing imput from mnhq.
It's not needed now either.

Same message was posted on the pub thread earlier - suspect it’s MNHQ being even handed

On the subject of ‘interesting points’, pretty much the final straw on here for me was after I made a point last week about how I thought the opposition parties needed to make themselves a positive alternative rather than just focusing on it not being Tory.

And how Remain lost by focusing on negatives not positives so we’d be better to try no not to make that mistake again

Whilst several subsequent posters completely agreed with that sentiment the first comment said ‘Don’t tell me what to do Bear’

Pretty much sums up the issue really

BJ may be Teflon at present. Tony Blair was also Teflon once.

I agree with Bear - the opposition parties need to focus on what they will offer.

Bear If several people agree with you, why is the one stroppy one important ?
Just water off a duck's back to me, even when the ones agreeing with me are the minority

For those who do get wound up emotionally:
ignoring / not engaging with a poster is probably better than getting into a bitter argument and things degenerating