Westminstenders: Manifesto or Bust?

[RedToothBrush]

The Brexit Party aren't doing one.

The Labour Party apparently can't afford theirs.

The Conservatives will just lie anyway.

And the LDs got upstaged by Prince Andrew's resignation from royal duties for being a fuckwit.

3 weeks to go...

What was the GLC?

Do people with smart phones even bother to respond to pollsters? I don’t have a landline, only a mobile. I generally ignore calls from unrecognised numbers.

GLC = Greater London Council
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Council

Just watched all of Question Time Leaders Special having just seen snippets beforehand. I actually felt Corbyn was least impressive
despite

'Inquiry. The Great British Housing Disaster (Adam Curtis, 1984)'

No immediate context to this - I came across it last night on YouTube.

It foreshadows Grenfell.

This is old and very long but written by Cummings. It will have been dissected on these threads at the time but it's worth a revisit now.

In it Cummings even admits that Johnson,Gove and Farage are dishonest. He identified Steve Baker as a rare person in the Leave campaign – an honest man.
Worth a read and reflection in the current weeks..

From~Cummings~in~ the~spectator

Posted too soon’

... Corbyn was least impressive. The fact he seemed to have a core of momentum cheerleaders flattered him.

Swinson actually did ok given the tough questions she was asked, and I think much of the criticism of her is excessive. Her performance was certainly no worse than Corbyn’s and she held her own against withering lines of questioning.... clearly their “revoke” policy is doing her no favours and seems to have been a pointless tactical error on the part of the LDs that has meant I’m less likely to vote for them and it seems I’m not the only one!

Johnson’s performance was mixed... evasive in places but engaging in others.

All in all, imo it wasn’t the car crash that many seem to have said it was.

Have you considered you are seeing that through your own filter oaken? To say the audience was stuffed with Momentum when the man who went for Corbyn is a QT regular and Tory activist (who disingenuously pretends not to be) speaks volumes.I doubt he was the only one there.

I should like Swinson : she represents my childhood constituency, she went to school in my teenage neighbourhood, I have sometimes voted LD. But she did not perform ell. She needs to work on all those 'right?'s . It makes her appear aggressive and anxious,

Is it me or do the later polls show the gap narrowing ? wishful thinking maybe

My 18 yo DS - first time voter in crucial marginal, says he is not particularly keen on 'the man Labour have put in charge' but Boris Johnson is 'cringeworthy' and 'embarrassing to watch'.

Is it me or do the later polls show the gap narrowing ?

Wishful thinking I think ... Tories no longer extending lead but do they need to?

The only possible route to a hung parliament now is for the polls to be systematically wrong AND for differential swings at constituency level to operate in favour of remain parties. And that looks very much like unicorn territory to me.

There was a discussion of potential sources of polling error on the LSE Brexit blog; tl;dr panels tend to be older and more brexity than the general population and this can lead to problems with weighting the samples (a small number of individuals can cause material movements in polling due to their heavy weighting).

I'd like to think that there is still a small chance of a hung parliament but I do think it is now small. And in some ways I am afraid that if we cannot have a hung parliament, the best option is a massive Labour defeat. If the tories are going to be in power, we need a functioning opposition and that is going to require heads to fall.

Remember when people were once so excited to vote to have Corbyn as leader? There were a lot of threads on MN about it IIRC. We thought he would be a brilliant success.

There are still people who think he is. Let's face it : he always would come down from the crest of the wave , and knew that himself. But he didn't come across as distant, rude or aggressive the other night.

We do need to remember, really not very many voters saw that QT!

I remember still when we voted for parties ,not leaders, on the whole. The Americanisation of politics has altered that. But, in actual constituencies, people do not often vote for the person representing them, otherwise I'd never be stuck with Dorries. The party and the values it represents still matter more in the UK.

@Piggywaspushed , we've never really voted for parties despite their rubbish leader. I've been voting since the mid eighties and we've had this discussion since before then.
Usually to try to explain why the hell Thatcher was re-elected.

clearly their “revoke” policy is doing her no favours and seems to have been a pointless tactical error on the part of the LDs that has meant I’m less likely to vote for them and it seems I’m not the only one!

In strong Remain constituencies, that is the LD's key selling point. All this three and a half years ago we had a referendum where one side squeaked a narrow win and must be implemented however damaging the result to the country, doesn't play especially well there. Or in a Parliamentary democracy two General Elections count for nothing, but a flawed referendum must be held to be sacrosanct.

Balance to my post earlier:

It's going the Tories way but they are not (quite) home dry yet.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/24/rob-ford-election-halfway-tories-lead-more-fragile-than-it-looks

In strong Remain constituencies, that is the LD's key selling point.

Strong Remainer household here. The LD Revoke policy is a significant plus for us, over the fence-sitting-less-clear-but-acceptable Lab PV offering.

However, the LD trans nonsense is a significant minus for me - on balance I may end up voting Lab because in this, their fence-sitting-unclear position is nevertheless preferable to the very clear LD one.

If that makes sense?

I agree in strong remain constituencies the lib dems revoke stance is winning them votes and will be the reason why they win them, if they do.
Boris ignored the question about the mandate for brexit given the lack of integrity in the referendum. The format of QT just allowed him to say what he wanted with little challenge.

Agree that QT format is frustrating Zxy : Johnson dodged referendum campaign -illegality- problems, Russian dossier.... What do people make of these latest depressing poll results? Presumably pre QT and still issue of previous observations on don't knows?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/23/tories-renewed-poll-boost-brexit-party-candidates-pull-out-opinium-observer

If that makes sense?

No, because under FPTP, voting for your preferred party is a luxury not available to all. If you want to remain, you need to vote tactically to beat the Tories, or 5 years of a Tory government will utterly destroy this country

Really annoyed I can't campaign in this election, even in another area totally unconnected with my work because I am in a politically restricted post. Another legal constraint the Tories placed on -assumed leftie- public sector workers

The LD Revoke policy is a significant plus for us, over the fence-sitting-less-clear-but-acceptable Lab PV offering.

For me too - I could have added this statement.

However, the LD trans nonsense is a significant minus for me - on balance I may end up voting Lab because in this, their fence-sitting-unclear position is nevertheless preferable to the very clear LD one.
A minus too, but not as significant for me, and nearly all the parties have gone down this route, with the exception of the Brexit party.. And if the Tories get in and wholly trash the economy for all but the very rich, then we will all suffer. As it happens, I am in a constituency where Labour always comes nowhere, so am not tempted to vote Labour on that or any issue.

Lewis Goodall
@lewis_goodall
NEW: KEY TORY MANIFESTO PLEDGES

• WAB back before Christmas
• No increases to income tax, national insurance or VAT
• NI threshold raised to £9,500
• £2bn pothole fund

-end car parking charges for NHS staff on night shifts/families of terminally ill -£1bn for childcare

@TheElementsSong - makes perfect sense.

Just read about the Tories’ triple lack on tax. How do they intend to pay for their great election give away? They look less credible fiscally than Labour but they’re not being challenged.