If there was a GE today who would you vote for?

[87SPD]

Bit cheeky but I’m curious to see if there are genuinely any Tory voters out there at all following another disastrous week for Rishi Sunak.

So who would get your vote?

I‘ll go first, I would vote Labour. As much as I would love to hear more on policy and a firm grittiness from them, I do understand that Keir Starmer is doing the best he can, in that he can’t alienate a large proportion of the electorate so needs to toe the line.

I would vote Tactically to get the Tories out. They should be wiped off the face of the Earth and we should have a valid opposition, Greens, Lib Dem’s, True and Fair Party, etc.

I think this is the plan for a lot of us.

Arm ourselves with the facts and do the best we can in our own constituencies.

I'm expecting to vote Lib Dem in order to stop the Tory winning here in heady Surrey, but I'll vote for whoever I need to.

One might have expected the same in mid-Befordshire by-election, but Labour won, not quite Surrey, but.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html

Latest prediction has the Tories losing over 300 seats.

Good point @jgw1

I'll do my best to choose wisely.

We're not on Labour's target list, or we weren't last time I looked.

Given the current predictions, I'd have thought that pretty much every seat in the country ought to be a Labour target?

Mine isn’t.

You would hope @jgw1.

Madeleinemummy. What are you talking about? You only have a choice between Tories and Labour.

What do you mean?

Electoral Calculus predict that 12 parties will have seats in the next parliament.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html

So clearly in some constituencies there is a very real choice that is not Labour or the Tories, and in practically ever constituency there will be more than 2 candidates standing.

Oh I see what you mean now. You think Labour will get a huge majority and the other smaller parties will be able to band to gather to form an effective opposition. We’ll good luck with that. We haven’t had an effective opposition for years when it has only been made up of members from one party. I doubt very much there will be an effective opposition made up of members from more than one party.

This is how the majority of countries have democracy, not by having a large majority of votes cast out because they are in a stronghold of another party. Let’s say an area has 40% Labour, 20% Lib Dem’s, 18% green, 15% Cons and the rest divided amongst other fringe parties. Labour are in a minority but the still have the largest vote share. By creating a culture where all voices ( within reason) are represented, the parties learn to compromise and make alliances.

in this way, you don’t have extremes of swings to one side and a more representative democracy.

Yes and these other countries are such bastions of good governance that we a 1000 year old country should follow their example. We have our own ways of doing things. They might not be working very well at present but I don’t know of another country that is so good at democracy that I would want to embrace their system. It is fine to want change but we don’t want to throw the baby out with bath water and all suggestions I have heard so far about how we should do things will be doing just that - to our ultimate detriment.

What difference does it make that we haven't been invaded for a 1000 years? we have had "democracy" for about 100 years, its in its infancy and needs an overhaul, we aren't "special"

We are consistently governed by around 43% of the vote, we have weird things were Teressa May loses her majority but Boris got a 80 seat majority with just over 1% extra of vote share... even Blair didn't get above 44%, yet over a 100 seat majority ... this isn't "democracy"

Are we a thousand year old country?

Well 1066 and 1215 were very important years for us, nor far from 1000 years.

Many dates are important. I would quote 1997 as Blair’s regime brought in a load of change, accelerated globalism, huge migrant population, financial deregulation and buy-to-lets which changed the social contract enormously. 1998 when tuition fees were raise, 2012 when they went up to £9k. Also 2006 which seems to be when public sector spending was sat on and we officially became a culture where people (women) in the public sector were expected to work for free while paying for basic training.

Most people would point to the post-war - and post-empire - period for our current political set up.

1066 @Badbadbunny?

When we were invaded by the Normans and the Vikings?

I'm drawing a blank on 1215.

@Vinvertebrate 1215 was Magna Carta

When the dinosaurs died out as they could not fit into the ark.

The Magna Carta was a power struggle between the king and next branch of aristocracy, not a bill of rights for commoners as is sometimes supposed. Sometimes in England and later Britain the monarchy is on the commoner side, against exploitative middle ranks. Elsewhere too.

I'm not a History buff admittedly but I don't really see the link between the Magna Carta and us being a 1000 year old country.

Didn't King John start dismantling it as soon as it was signed?

The really dramatic rise in Immigration in this country has been since the Brexit bongs.

Look at 1997, then look at 2020.

Its the will of the people.

If it can't be blamed on Covid, Ukraine or Welsh Labour It must be @jgw1