Westminstenders: Election Special 3

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That's it's just over an hour from border to Glasgow. Well just under 100 miles do maybe closer to 90 mins but all good motorway.

It never ceases to amaze us how much driving there is to do between the border with England and Glasgow.

Yes indeed. I have relatives in the Furness area of Cumbria and some in Glasgow. It's a distance of about 180 miles. Only 10 miles less than the distance between Bristol and Penzance.

Fantastic scenery between Cumbria and Glasgow though, plus the magnificent motorway stop at Tebay.

But could we go back to Thatcher's time - significant numbers of people who voted Mrs Thatcher into power must have been voting For something.

Safety. It was the same this time. People were scared of what would happen if the Opposition got in. Then, it was nuclear annihilation and, with the recessions, they were scared for their jobs. This time, they built up a fear of Corbyn, anti-semitism, the economy crashing.

I can remember my dad complaining at the time that the Conservatives never based their elections on what they were intending to do, they just created a fear of what the Opposition would do if they were elected.

They tried it in 1997 with their Devil's Eyes Blair but failed. They tried it again when Theresa May kept parroting "Strong and Stable".

@Random18

You should see the house price falls though - they were overinflated in the boom times and now many of them are just unsaleable unless you can take afford to take a massive hit (lots of people can’t so rent them out - rents have halved).

Salaries were good (and not so good now) because so many people were contractors rather than staff - easier to shrink the work force that way. Plus if you were on a mobile contract you’d have a fair uplift.

Doric - I used to do some voluntary stuff with a woman from Peterhead - it often took me a few moments to realise she’d asked me a question because I generally only caught one word in three. And The Broch was like a whole different country!

The one thing that I am taking from this is that:

a) Boris is clearly identified as the head of Brexit and we know what he has promised the electorate
b) The Conservatives didn't as much gain new voters as Labour lost voters to the Brexit party. Brexit will not be on the table at the next election.
c) The issues in the areas that felt left behind are immense - and it's going to take changes that may not be done in 5 years. If they are done, then that's good for those areas.
d) Money....it's going to be an interesting few years financially. Yet the Tories have said they aren't going to raise taxes. Somehow this all has to be paid for.

Clearly not a northerner.

Hell no. The north starts after Gloucestershire. Naturally being a southern softie I eat supper.

I know. It was always going to happen.

People were getting forced further and further out of Aberdeen too. There were so many houses getting built.

Salaries were too high to begin with so again was always going to happen. And a lot of the Dead wood will have gone.
It has been tough up there.

I did laugh about what you were saying re Doric.

I lived in Black Country, very working class estate and I always remember talking to my neighbour and I really did miss most of what he was saying.

Paul Brand@paulbranditv
Hearing Dawn Butler throwing her hat in the ring for Labour leader...

That'll be a no from me then...

"The left need to start basing policy on what their traditional supporters want, not what the left think they should want.

Sorry can’t remember who posted this - the thread’s raced on!

Am I the only one who thinks that the next 5 years will be overtaken by events, and we won’t be basing policy on what traditional voters want, what people think they should want, or what Johnson wants, but on dealing with what the climate crisis challenges us?
Soon we won’t have the luxury of deciding what we should debate; we’ll be forced to act on extreme weather events and worsening air quality.

To me this seemed largely missing from the election campaign. With their 2.7% of vote share, the Greens should rightly have 18 MPs. Then they could stimulate debate and action.

But no, (the excellent) Caroline Lucas is sole MP again. The winning party’s Green manifesto was sorely lacking, and their leader didn’t even bother to attend the climate debate.

We ignore this at our peril.

They tried it in 1997 with their Devil's Eyes Blair but failed. They tried it again when Theresa May kept parroting "Strong and Stable".

This is interesting - why did it fail with Blair? I assume because he was more charismatic and people were prepared to believe him. With Theresa May, they built a Presidential style of campaign around her, when she just hadn't got the personality to carry it off.

Nor had she the imagination which Major had - he I recall took to his soapbox which he found to be an effective way of reaching people, and not one his minders had suggested. This was in keeping with him - a grammar school boy who hadn't done terribly well there, and then gone into banking and taking exams, by correspondence, I think. This was very much a career trajectory that many of his contemporaries would be able to identify with.

"The left need to start basing policy on what their traditional supporters want, not what the left think they should want.

I think Labour always encompassed different strands - the working men of heavy industry and the public sector which employed a lot of women. The heavy industry has gone and they don't really know how to appeal to the gig economy people, and public sector work has been cut back. Corbyn anyway, wouldn't really be able to appeal to the first group at all.

wraithberry thank you for the Greggs map. Invaluable.

Am I the only one who thinks that the next 5 years will be overtaken by events, and we won’t be basing policy on what traditional voters want, what people think they should want, or what Johnson wants, but on dealing with what the climate crisis challenges us?

I think there is a fair chance we will still be burying heads in the stand tbh.

I can't quite work out if he's actually going to stand, but according to Twitter Richard Burgon already has his own spoof account @backboregone....

Is it true that Theresa's old uni mate Damian Green has finally been upfront about a new health care system?

Well forewarned is forearmed..

Sorry I asked a question earlier about where the south begins, but rl stuff intervened. However, have been catching up on and interested in your answers

From supply chains, business departures , the extensions, the border, Scotland's probable departure etc etc. Is there any consequence of Brexit predicted on these threads that hasn't come true?

This from FB (I am not the author):

'We enjoyed this from Jon Douthwaite:

“So congratulations if you wanted Boris Johnson as pm.

Please don’t celebrate too much though as you have work to do. You see us remoaners have spent three and a half years now telling you brexit was wrong but we’ve finally and completely lost. There’s pretty much nothing we can do now to stop it.

So, it’s over to you leavers. You need to get yourselves into gear to make it work. We need to see some of these benefits you’ve been able to see yet unable to properly articulate since 2016.

I hope you don’t mind but I’ve taken the liberty of writing a to do list for you.

1. Get brexit done please. When we say done we mean as promised so we’ll be looking for trade deals with the EU, Japan, Australia and Canada etc. In fact there’s about 40 deals covering 70 countries that need to be done please. Also with the US that doesn’t involve the nhs or chlorine. We want what you promised us. That was that we’d be no worse off than when we were an EU member. You need to crack on as this was promised by the end of Jan. You have seven weeks.
2. The nhs. We want the cash that was promised please. £350 million per week is about 72000 nurses so please get recruiting. This is important.
3. Scotland. Ok so these guys were promised they would remain in the EU if they remained in the UK. They’re pretty pissed. In fact they’ve voted almost exclusively for the SNP so they might want to leave. Equally you said the UK wouldn’t split so you’ll need to both grant Scotland its independence and keep it as part of the United Kingdom. Good luck squaring this circle. NB. This is urgent.
4. Northern Ireland. Oooookay then. You’ve really buggered this one up. There’s a chance they could look to reunify with the republic now because they didn’t want to brexit. Regardless you’ve caused instability there where we and they can least afford it. NB. This is also urgent.
5. The economy. Johnson keeps talking about unleashing the potential of the country. We need to see this soon if possible. We don’t want to see the downturn that “project fear” predicted. We don’t want to be poorer. We don’t want to lose out.
6. You’ll also need to “bring the country back together”. This might be tricky as a lot of people seem to be really really angry with each other.

That’s as far as I’ve got. Should keep you busy. So go and get all british about things. Roll up your sleeves, pull your socks up, dig deep and deliver what you promised.

And remember if you fail to deliver any of this it’s on you, brexit and Tory voters. You wanted this so badly and now you have it. We honestly hope we’re wrong and that you can make a success of this but if you can’t then we will forever tell you that we told you so.”

Except that it won't be on them because apparently it's all Corbyn's fault

Well when Corbyn is out of the picture he won't be able to be blamed.

This is down to the Conservatives and BJ, to deliver what they have promised and what they promised 3 1/2 years ago. Especially all the beneficial trade deals we're meant to be getting.
And beyond Brexit, all the extra nurses, the student bursaries; everything they've been promising.

The Tory talking heads have been saying that it's all good now, they can Get It Done because of a strong majority.

Great. Off you go, Borinions. (I invented a word. Boris + Minions)

Great post dead souls. That's exactly how I feel. You Brexiteers wanted this, now go and do it. My only silver lining yesterday was they have to unequivocally own it. No ifs or buts (to quote their de leader.)

• There’s pretty much nothing we can do now to stop it.

So, it’s over to you leavers. You need to get yourselves into gear to make it work. We need to see some of these benefits you’ve been able to see yet unable to properly articulate since 2016.*

That's a very succinct and comprehensive piece.

I spent yesterday feeling sort of pre flush. I've not got flu but it's that sort of drained listless feeling.

Just woke up with that anger still there. It's so illogically unjust. Put simply.

1. The old Conservative party had an internal chasm it out a sticking plaster over.. Instead of resolving this, in a fit of pique, Cameron gave in. He made the hugely strategic error to give the 40 or so agitators the ref they wanted.

1. Then there are three years of trying to define what Brexit should be. The same agitating politicians still incapable of agreeing their own vision. Still incapable of articulating or finding any economic benefits.

3.The reward to the party and its internal faction for causing all this is to be rewarded with the biggest electoral victory since 1987.

I now accept that the damage and departure is unstoppable. However to reward the party that caused the problem is just so counter intuitive. It's like having an uncooperative parent on the PTA who obstructs the preparation for everything, doesn't help with the summer fair, argues with the proposal for the Christmas fair. Then everyone votes them in as chair three years later. It makes no sense.

Out of interest, where do posters consider the south starts?

In England ? at a rough guess about 30 miles south of Sheffield ? Just below the Peak District