Westminstenders: Election Special 3

[RedToothBrush]

Reactions...

Of course it won’t. Social care is an insoluble problem. With us boomers heading for old age fast, the best bet for all of us is to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

You don’t win hearts and minds by punching people in the face when the disagree with you. The vitriol directed at Tories on some threads on this site has been utterly counterproductive.

Counterproductive to what? MN is not a news or political information medium, it’s a discussion forum. If Tory attitudes to BAME people, women, disadvantaged, low paid, sick and disabled etc make posters very angry, they’re entitled to say so.

Few (more) musings now the sedation has worn off - can't reply to individual points but somethings that jumped out:

• Even if the BXP hadn't stood, Labour would have lost a lot of seats. Which means whatever we think in this thread/forum, it was definitely a problem for some people to vote Labour.

• Notice the total ineffectiveness of the LibDems

• Class, class, class. Where to start ? DF never understood it. I think it goes something like:

-Two parents working = working class.
-One parent working and supporting a SAHP = middle class
Note that the SAHP doesn't actually need to SAH if they can afford childcare, and if their income exceeds childcare costs they are more well to do ...
-One parents unearned income (e.g. company director) supporting SAHP and family = upper middle class (as above for SAHP who can work if they choose)
-Trust fund income supporting family = upper class.

Now I still find myself boggled that we end up in the surreal situation where rather than a tax and benefits system which supports parental childcare, we created a byzantine system which mandates that a parent has to go out to work to pay for the childcare they could have provided at much less cost (if they wanted). A system that any outsider would have believed was created by a shadowy cabal of nursery owners.

Heard on the local radio that Boris is 'oop North today. Which is interesting if not hopeful.

Also, as the euphoria wears off, it's worth reminding the Toryistas that for all his backing of Boris, Dominic Cummings is not a Tory and could just as well use this solid majority platform to finally burn the old guard to the ground so his New World Order can rise from it. If that happens, please don't go "My God ! How could we have known that would happen ?" as it's hardly been kept a secret.

Meanwhile, in a bid to cheer me up, DS (who is going to have to live through more of this than I will) sent me this, which was sweet and raised a smile.

And ironically - the Tories have won support precisely by punching people in the face verbally. They currently appeal to people who like this kind of thing.

I've never cried because of an election result before

I take it you weren't old enough to appreciate 1992 ?

icannot
I understand you are angry right now but people who voted Tory because they wanted Brexit were not stupid. They had what they felt to be good reasons. You can disagree with their reasons, you can say you feel they have been misled but to label their decision as stupid implies that you think they are stupid. Surely, the key is to understand what drove them to vote the way they did.

Heard on the local radio that Boris is 'oop North today. Which is interesting if not hopeful

I heard that too and found myself thinking that if there had been a Labour win, Corbyn wouldn’t have bothered to leave London to say thank you.

Back to Brexit .

I don't think Boris can mess it up, as Boris now gets to decide what Brexit is. Given his majority he gets to mark his own homework. Again, if I was ERG-leaning, my spidey senses would be tingling. They are more than welcome to whinge and whine and bleat "that's not Brexit". But Big Boy Boris can't just point to the votes in parliament and say "sorry, chaps, parliament disagrees ...."

I'm thinking Boris is a narcissist. He likes nice headlines, he likes feeling ... appreciated. How that will play out is going to inform what sort of administration we see.

Tatiana
There haven’t been many threads on MN where Tories have been calling labour voters murderers, cunts etc. There have a fair few the other way around.

Momentum activists hijacked the Labour campaign and made it toxic. Outside of threads like this, it was painfully difficult to have a proper debate.

Another thought.

If - as was accepted fact - Corbyn always was a Leaver at heart then a little part of him must be happy now.

We will have to hope that Johnson makes a complete mess of Brexit and they realise that Johnson doesn't respect them either. Where will that leave them though?

So why would you hope for this if you care so much about them? I think there are many people whose only real concern is to be 'proved right' at any cost.

I understand you are angry right now but people who voted Tory because they wanted Brexit were not stupid. They had what they felt to be good reasons. You can disagree with their reasons, you can say you feel they have been misled but to label their decision as stupid implies that you think they are stupid

Can’t speak for the poster you’re responding to but I do think they’re stupid, there’s no getting away from it. When the shit hits the fan economically and Brexiters realise they were sold a pup - they will feel stupid too.

Then they will claim the government betrayed them which they did but the truth was always put there they just refused to look.

This is how things pan out in every populist regime that lie and manipulate and promise unicorns to get power. Eventually the shit hits the fan and it falls apart.

All the left had to do was be more moderate. Wide open goal. Still it looks like they won’t listen and won’t change.

There haven’t been many threads on MN where Tories have been calling labour voters murderers, cunts etc. There have a fair few the other way around.

I don’t bother with such threads personally. This is the internet at the end of the day, it’s an abusive place.

But calling Tories murderers isn’t entirely unjustified given the impact of their health and social care cuts, the changes to sick and disabled benefits system. It’s not a very intelligent way to phrase it but it’s not totally false. They certainly have blood on their hands.

I've been very disorientated since the result became clear, to know that I will no longer be an EU citizen in a few weeks. I have had confirmation today that I will no longer be able to buy a house where I was born and raised due to the fact of not being an EU citizen. It sounds silly and trivial but I am crying. I always have thought I would buy a house there and spend my free time there when my children have left home and finally retire there. There better be some tangible benefits though I havnt heard any yet. To be honest I still don't know what the leavers want. Everytime they say 'youve got to listen' I think 'fucking well say something then'.

rant. over.

Tatiana

We are going to have to agree to disagree. I have posted information on other threads from Full Fact that shows poverty levels haven’t changed in the last 20 years, so no party has done a great job. Do Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have blood on their hands for failing to tackle poverty? What about Gordon Brown and the expansion of PFI that has hammered the NHS financially?

How Brexit will play out will still be down to the hard realities of what business needs to trade. There will be a nod to immigration but much will be got rounable, I predict. Remember, most rich Tory leavers don't give a crap about FOM - that was a white working class concern. So, something might happen to look like it's not there but...

That could be wishful thinking but trade needs to be frictionless - much still to negotiate.

Who funded Momentum? Has that ever been clear?

Momentum funds Momentum (ie. members).

The Tory party is like a virus - it manages to recombine it's DNA faster than the political immune system can react. Another striking feature of the election night was Andrew Neill pressing various Tories and saying:

This is a changing of the guard, isn't it ? Your generation are out, and it's a fresh new set of people and ideas (I paraphrase).

Be interesting to see how the new Northern Tories fare, dealing with their constituents, week in, week out.

Also, since everybody loves metaphors, like they're going out of fashion , when life deals you lemons, you make lemonade. We all know that. But it's worth remembering if you want to make lemonade, you need to squeeze the fucking lemons first.

Anyway, catch-up TV time ... laters

Momentum funds Momentum (ie. members).

From the start? I don't know enough about it - Jon Lansman was/is a property developer. The rest?

Actually, reading more now and Lansman's dad was a Tory councillor. They're biggest mistake (and they made many) was the Unseat campaign.

We will have to hope that Johnson makes a complete mess of Brexit and they realise that Johnson doesn't respect them either. Where will that leave them though?

I should have punctuated my post better. I will try again:

We will have to hope that Johnson makes a complete mess of Brexit. They realise that Johnson doesn't respect them either. Where will that leave them though?

I read today in the BBC breaking news. Johnson in Sedgefield pledges that it will be a Peoples' Government. Yeah, right, is what I thought.

How long before the moneyed Tories of Surrey and Bucks start whinging about throwing money away on these northerners?

Looking at Bolsover's results, I see that even with the Brexit party siphoning off votes which might have gone to Labour, the Tories would still have won.

Reading about the constituents there who did hold their noses and vote Tory, well if they do get improvements in their lives and facilities like new hospitals or schools I will be pleased, but I really don't see it happening.

Labour and Conservative are two very different beasts. Labour is a bottom-up organisation founded by ordinary working men (sic) to represent them in parliament. The Labour Party is the membership.

The Conservative Party is the MPs. The rest is a federation of local Conservative Associations afilliated to the National Union. This set-up was created by the Tory Party in parliament to help it win elections.

The Tory Party is an election fighting and winning machine. It is the most sucessful electoral party in the world.

Labour is a goldfish with no memory. It gets so fed up with losing it gets serious and moves to the centre, and wins. Then the left start whining about not being left enough and take over, and lose again and again, until everyone gets fed up with losing and moves back to the centre, etc until the end of the solar system in five billion years or so.

I suspect when the shit hits the fan the EU will be blamed we've already seen this at times over the last 3 years. England will become more insular and isolationist. The right play the victim mentality very well.