Westminstenders: The Non-Pact Pact

[RedToothBrush]

The Brexit Party and the Conservatives have agreed a trumpian pact to no deal. Led by the ERG.

They don't want you to know its a pact because the Conservatives still want One Nation Conservatives types to believe they are still One Nation Conservatives, simply because they say they are. They are not.

The Brexit Party won't stand any candidates in a Conservative held seat. But don't be surprised if there isn't more Non-Pact tactical stepping aside. This of course won't be a Pact. Cos the Brexit Party say its not. And the Conservative Party say its not.

The Liberal Democrats, Plaid and the Greens are in an electoral pact. They say they are in an electoral pact and have published a list.

Meanwhile the Labour Party isn't in a Pact. But there is still talk that in key seats that someone (either the LDs or Labour) should stand aside to try and deseat key Conservatives. This won't happen because the Lib Dems and Labour are not in a pact. And when they say they are not in a pact they aren't.

If after an election we have a hung parliament then either the Conservatives or Labour who are not in a pact and say they will never be in a pact, will try and woo someone to a kingmaker and be in government with them, probably on a supply and demand basis rather than coalition. They'll deny this but we kind of know how this goes...

Congratulations @Peachi82

Do we know how many wheels are left on the Tory bus? They seem to be falling off, it feels like they are having a disastrous campaign but I'm aware of my biased feelz so probably not even able to take an objective view on it, not to say any party is having an amazing campaign

Why do you think they are having a poor campaign?

It's not showing that in any polling?

Trump's campaign was horrendous. It certainly didn't harm him. If anything it aided him.

Keep that in mind...

Catching up

I'm feeling more hopeful today
Jon Ashworth's statement on the NHS was great. Imagine having a health secretary that wasn't our enemy??
Lib dem candidates behaving a good deal better than lib dem leadership. V impressed
Johnson's been in my neck of the woods today. We don't like him.

"Kind of like the way so many of the people heckling Boris mysteriously turn out to be Labour activists?"

So far, it seems they are people who live there / have their baby in hospital there
He is the one intruding, when they are just going about their lives

BJ is looking for 20-second soundbites on the news; They are people, who may bite back
It's the risk any politician takes when touring the plebs for PR

If they are flooded out, waiting for an operation or otherwise under stress, of course any PM will get it in the neck.
An out-of-touch bumbler like BJ will get it doubled

Labour has about ½ million members in an adult population of 50 million, so about 1%
Sounds small, but then if he keeps visiting places with a lot of people, statistically he'll keep meeting Labour members

Mike Hind
@MikeH_PR
· 4h
The interesting difference between negative public reactions to Johnson & Corbyn.

Corbyn-hecklers tend to be angry yobs. But Johnson's come across as reasonable people weary of his shtick

"So is the plan for the brexit party to contest this election by not standing and then claim they won anyway? "

pretzels Banks has just claimed that the Brexit party has won because the Tory party is not the Brexit party
He may be right

I have decided to hedge my bets.

My gut still says it's going to be tight or a hung Parliament. But as I am very biased (and trust in RTB's analysis), I am starting to stockpile gin and fizz for election night. Depending on who wins depends on what gets opened and for how long.

Congratulations peachi

Use your vote wisely

how are the bookies predictions looking ?

"having a negligible actual impact in Canterbury."

If I thought that, I wouldn't mind

As it is, I think LDems may let in the Tories, in several seats.
They could easily attract a few thousand votes there and Swinson has given no indication that they won't campaign ard

Remember, there are several seats with a majority of under 100, so sometimes a few votes matter

I will be looking closely at the GE results
It may well be that Swinson has decided a large Tory majority is inevitable, so she just wants as many LDem votes as possible, not just seats, as a base for the future
if so, she should say so

Sooo... having stood down his candidates in tory seats because he was so convinced by what Boris said in a video, Farage is now saying that he could not vote conservative based on 'what they have done this week' (I don't what it is that they have done to so anger him since ... 2 days ago).

What constituency does Farage live in - has he left himself a brexit candidate to vote for? Or has he just disenfranchised himself as well as all his supporters?

A question for the clever folks
Now that nominations have closed, how many BXP candidates are actually standing
and how many parties have actually stood candidates aside
so will the tactical voting sites start to settle down ?

Thought nomonations closed tomorrow??

Somehow the Swinson-haters can never seem to answer the question of how many seats Labour is standing down in for the sake of the Remain cause...

I think the problem for me centres on the fact that the LDs have had this attitude of critising Labour and the Tories of putting party before country. And yet when it comes to it, they certainly aren't demonstrating to the contrary themselves.

Ah, sorry, my bad.
Too much of the lovely Donegal sunsets

Sadly, I think RTB has a point about Johnson's campaign.

Johnson is bringing a culture war to the election.

The other Parties, not so much.

It's a different animal.

And, yes, it won Trump a presidential election.

Will that work at constituency level?

We will find out.

"Somehow the Swinson-haters can never seem to answer the question of how many seats Labour is standing down in for the sake of the Remain cause"

Because Swinson keeps banging on about that the LDems are the Remain party
They have Revoke as their promised aim after the GE, their central policy
Letting in a Tory majority goes against that

In contrast, Corbyn has promised a PV, but has almost entirely focused on non-Brexit issues
he focuses entirely on getting Labour MPs elected and has not pretended any differently

It's the LDem hypocrisy that I can't stand
They have always irritated me, even before Swinson, but she is full-on

As it is, I think LDems may let in the Tories, in several seats.

I can think of two in the NW without blinking straight off the top of my head.

I have something of a dilemma on those grounds myself.

tobee I really don't know anything vis a vis the prescriptions.

I would try asking the GP. Their answer will no doubt be neutral but should give enough information for you to go forwards.

BJ doesn't cope well with open Q&As at a press conference: obfuscates, avoids and mumbles; contradicts himself within the same answer, practically the same sentence with a complete bring generous lack of awareness.

@thecatfromjapan 👍

OK - Farage was going to vote tory if they put leaving transition by the end of 2020 in their manifesto. Apparently they haven't included this - so Farage won't vote for them.

Maybe shouldn't have unilaterally stood down his candidates before he read that.

I agree completely with red about the culture war

I find it helps to keep reminding myself that BJ is the British Trump
iirc, Trump boasted back in 2016 that he could still win if he shot someone in Times Square
He may well win again despite impeachment

BJ has squashed the Russian report that might have opened his most serious scandal
So what's to stop him ?

Of course Westministenders can't stand BJ, but MN itself is not a typical voter c/s
So:

Blatantly not giving a shit about the poor & vulnerable plays very well with the "I'm all right Jack voters"

Laughing about "picininnies" and "Burkha pillar boxes" plays very well with the racists

and the Old Etonian uc bumbling piffle routine wanks those who like to tug a forelock to their betters