Westminstenders: Election Special 3

[RedToothBrush]

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I wonder what will happen to the idea of more autonomy for the North? The North needs investment - but who will lead that investment so it does the most help in those communities?

Peregrina
ahhh, Virginia Bottomley
her hubby is the new Father of the House
I met them a couple of times when they were based around Eltham

I was just adding some actual facts to your observations about the Conservative vote share - which is now the highest won by any party in the last 40 years

A higher vote share on a lower turnout compared to those elections though.

Once Brexit is done, will those Labour voters return and vote again?

Well of course, in my constituency, we didn't lose. We increased our vote share 10 fold.

Sorry, majority. I don't know what the vote share was before, but this time we got 53%.

peregrina
The Wiki page for each constituency has the voting figures going back to whenever
v v v v useful for numbers nerds

Thanks LQ - for the first time in the history of the Constituency one party got more than 50% of the vote.

Interestingly I assume I must have voted for Chris Huhne too - whoops.

In my constituency (Lab hold), Both Labour and Conservative vote share went down.

Labour 20,208 -4.4
Conservative 18,371 -1.4
Plaid Cymru 2,288 +1.5
Liberal Democrats 2,236 5.0 +3.0
Brexit Party 1,379 +3.1

So I think most of the Labour losses went to the Brexit Party and Tory Remainers went Lib Dem or Plaid. Turnout was down by 1100 on 2017. Who stayed at home? Labour voters I think.

This is a real worry. The kind of deals we'll end up negotiating with other nations in desperation. For example:

Five crucial years will be lost in the fight against the climate crisis. In search of deals, he will bend to every interest, every lobby, every fossil fuel and fracking pusher, hiding behind his empty 2050 zero emissions pledge.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-manifesto-antisemitism-brexit

Not sure if anyone's posted this yet. It's worth watching.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2019/dec/13/anywhere-but-westminster-how-labour-lost-and-the-hope-that-endures-video

I didn't watch all of that Dusty, but I did see the bit where one young man said that they were the new working class - the precariat, with the gig economy. Also the one person that I saw who used to be Labour, only voted Tory with reluctance. Definitely a lent vote. However, I do think that this is probably an area which Labour has tended to take for granted, because "they will never vote Tory."

Having lived near Stoke on Trent once, I can't for the life of me see what the current Tory party will offer them. Will there be more money for schools and hospitals? I doubt it. One advantage the area has is that housing is relatively cheap, so if you can find work you are probably better off than in London.

Delurking to say thank you all for continuing these threads, its giving me comfort (that at least the sky hasn't totally fallen in yet).

I'm in the denial stage still. I don't intend to read a newspaper until after Christmas. I'm going to put my fingers in my ears and get on with my normal life until I feel able to cope. But I'm also going to set up regular direct debits to charities which help people likely to be affected by Tory policies (homelessness, food banks, immigration, SEND) as a little positive contribution.

Like a PP, I hope Squid4 is ok.

Strangely, some of the best analysis I read is in the New York Times. They seem to report it with more clarity and less bias. They picked up that Labour policies polled very well with the public, but Corbyn polled v badly. I assumed it was both that turned off voters. Their take is that progressive policies can win, but need the right leader. Here they are worried about the 2020 election and possible mistake by Democrats. They also correctly noted that the vote share for Tories down in many places (remain, typically) and it was less a case of Labour voters moving to Tory than voting Brexit. There was some movement to Tory by traditional Labour, but this trend has been overstated.
Basically, Tories did not win so much as Labour lost.

The unravelling begins.

'Shock win Tory candidate ‘deceived’ voters by claiming to be a nurse'.

www.nursingtimes.net/news/policies-and-guidance/shock-win-tory-candidate-deceived-voters-by-claiming-to-be-a-nurse-13-12-2019/?fbclid=IwAR1nc3K94CGpwgAMti-w3hs8q4fICmxw2cD7YYlSvYtqRozzyNgftFZ6L58

Basically, Tories did not win so much as Labour lost.

Exactly that.

I assumed it was both that turned off voters.

I saw something on Twitter where if the public were asked questions about the policies, they polled well when they didn't know whose they were.

Journalist Esther Beadle exposed Mr Levy’s false claims over Twitter, demonstrating she had repeatedly reached out to him for clarification, but he maintained he had “worked at Nicholas’s hospital in Gosforth as a mental health nurse”.

With the example of a Prime Minister as a lying cheat, it's no wonder he feels he can get away with it. This is one case where the journalist will need to be a step ahead. The question ' Are you a registered nurse', or even knowing to be able to query the register would have either got a lie or a forced admission out of him.

Oh. Dear.

www.politico.eu/article/brexit-eu-hopes-for-india-trade-deal-talks/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

EU hopes Brexit will help deliver an India trade deal
Britain was a traditional obstacle to an agreement, because of immigration and Scotch whisky.

While most of the challenges of dealing with India look set to be long-term headaches, European officials believe that Brexit will at least remove two traditional hurdles. First, Britain always wanted India to drop its sky-high tariffs on Scotch whisky. Second, Britain was deeply concerned that a more liberal visa regime — one of New Delhi’s priorities — would bring a wave of Indian workers primarily to the U.K.

“Most Indian companies used to go to Britain as their point of entry into Europe,” said Prasad. “It appeared the obvious choice because of historical ties and the language. But with the U.K. leaving, they now look to Germany, to France, to Belgium. And they hope for a trade deal to facilitate investment and trade flows.”

The prospect of Brussels leading the charge for a trade deal with New Delhi is galling for Brexiteers, who have long argued that Britain’s former colonies would be its most natural trade partners after the U.K. leaves the EU.

We really shouldn't laugh, should we?

I'm just in resignation stage tonight.

Me too.

I think I've vented (thank you for listening. Hope it wasn't too much,) and now I'm just dully trying to think through the next few years.

🤷‍♀️

What is a 'sore loser' anyway?

Someone who points out the flagrant racist undertones in a Brexit campaign, and also the fact that certain promises on the side of a bus were lies, both of which factors appear to have swayed the 4% that separated Yes from No?

Or someone who looks ahead to the next time, with fingers crossed that the country will have come to its senses by then and not because it has turned into a banana republic consisting of England and Wales only?

With reference to listeningquietly's cartoon I remembered this Robert Graves poem.

As you were.

In Broken Images*
He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.
He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,
Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.
Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.
When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.
He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.
He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

With StinkEddie's positives...

1. Farage is finished.
2. The DUP will never have so much power again.
3. Any erg member or brexiteer is in for a shock if they think boris will actually do as promised. Who knows what he will do now he isn't reliant on them?
4. Corbyn is leaving. Along with McDonnell.
5. The sun will still rise tomorrow.*
6. Brexit will have a negative impact but it is 100% at the Tory door now. They own it.
7. A majority of fellow citizens 54.4% voted against the Tories & against faragism.*

Love #2. NI has some fantastic politicians going to bat for them receiving special status or SOMETHING that means it won't be as catastrophic as Johnson's deal. Johnson hopefully can't ignore they have now voted to remain AGAIN. Or maybe he can. We shall see. It so heartening to see the DUP sliding...they will never regain their power with the rise of Alliance.