Depressed lefties sign in here...

[WilfSell]

...on the grounds that if we assume there will be a Tory govt, then the crowing triumphalism of all the Chinless Wonders and Thrusting Monetarists and Nasty Racists who'll poke in here to crow and gloat, will somehow force a cosmic rift in the time-space continuum. And it will be like 1992 all over again but the other way round.

I fear the best we can hope for is a hung parliament.

I've suggested hemlock for the Election Night supper thread...

Thanks policy

it says there's no point tactically voting and that I might as well give up vote for the party I support as its a safe seat

Join the safe-Tory-seat club

If you want electoral reform, vote LibDem to contribute to their national share of the vote (the greater the disparity between their national share and their number of parliamentary seats, the better the illustration of the need for reform).

If you are Labour at heart, vote for them to shore up their national share of the vote.

What really puzzles/depresses me, is what has been driving all of our parties (including Labour) so far to the right/authoritarian - does it really reflect what people as a whole want?

It's an interesting question Takver.

On civil liberties/authoritarianism I think the truth is that most people don't really care about things like ID cards, surveillance etc - if they believe that these things make them safer, or make systems work better, they don't feel outraged about it.

On the economy/fiscal policy, we're in the middle (or, possibly, coming to the end of) a period in which right-wing theory has held sway, globally. Blair and Brown didn't have the inclination to stand against this consensus, and most of the electorate doesn't know enough about economics to care.

Labour voters don't care about being right wing do they? Most of the whining on here seems to be about their personal economic prospects under a Tory govt. Kind of the same thing you get from Tory voters under a Labour govt.

I guess you're right. Its not a cheerful analysis, though. (Well, not for anyone left/libertarian inclined.)

Why the assumption that the "lefties" signing onto this thread are labour supporters?

They could support otehr parties, or indeed not agree with any of the current offerings. But still think the tories are the worst of a bad bunch.

Any consolation that KGB tried to recruit DC on a beach in the USSR?

Signing in to.

The irony is that DH said we (as a family) may be better off under the Tories, but on the whole we believe that a Tory government is a Bad Thing. DH is in fact a member of the Labour party, and I sent in my postal vote last week - Gordon's gaffe would not have changed my vote, tbh.

Tories look after the rich at the expense of the poor. When I look at all the good things Labour has brought in, I worry that the Tories are going to take them way again.

Loved the common people link, have posted it on my FB page!

Coolfonz - that's not true. Come on, you know that's not true. But Labour are a lot more left-wing than the Conservatives. And, as we all know, you "choose" from a limited palette when expressing your political preferences.

Takver and Policywonk - I'd add into that swing-to-the-right phenomenon the effect of the long, dark years when Labour couldn't get elected, and the insidious effect of the power of the swing-voter in the (annoying) first past the post system.

God you lot are miserable

DC tbinnks he has won but he hasn't because the election isn't held until Thursday
If they win thwn much as I hate it I have to accept it

But for goodness sake don't start the mourning yet, a faitr accoomplit might just amke a few posters not bother to turn out and hand over the keys to DC

Oh I'm going to vote.

I'm going to vote my little cotton socks off

I don't see it as a fait accompli. Today I had an animated discussion with one of my neighbours (lifelong labour voter entertaining the idea of voting tory ) about why he MUST vote to keep the tories out. I like to think I convinced him.

I did think about canvassing, but I would be a liability. Bit of a hothead where tories are concerned.

Yes animula, the FPTP system HUGELY inflates the influence of a few tens of thousands of middle England types. Another reason for anyone who identifies themselves as left of centre to get agitating for electoral reform. There's a broad Lib-Lab consensus in this country - 60% versus 35% for the Tories, according to the current polls. A reformed electoral system would lock the Tories out of power.

Anyway I think I agree with Sancti. I'm not crying into my Earl Grey just yet. Things might look brighter on Friday morning - who knows? It all comes down to the marginals, and nobody is confident about calling them.

Signing in gloomily.

I was 16 when Thatcher got in. The Tories ate my youth. Now they are going to devour my children.

Coolfonz, I think thats a rather unfair analysis. As Animula says, it is very much a matter of choosing from the best options available under our current system.

(And then bringing down said system and ushering in a new anarchist utopia, of course.)

(After supporting Policywonk in her creation of the ideal proportional representational system)

Labour - especially Mandelson as EU commissioner - tried to force pro-corporate pro-western economic power onto the poorest people in the world with the GATTS. Utterly disgusting.

Labour allowed the city to run riot and Blair is getting his reward from JP Morgan, just as your precious public services are cut as a result.

Labour could have taken banking out of private hands, instead it decided to destroy public services to prop up the richest 0.01pc of earners and the richest institutions in the country. It showed who really runs the country.

The rich - i mean the serious ones not jokers on £100k/yr - have never had it so good. All thanks to Labour, corrupt, very right wing, torturers, supporters of fascist military juntas, war criminals...

See ya...don't come back...

Agree w/coolfonz on GATTS - that was a low point. But the flip side is the extraordinary work that Labour has done with DFID: it took the ODA, which was an offshoot of the Foreign Office and the DTI and whose explicit role it was to sell military and infrastructural equipment to developing countries, and has built in its place the most forward-thinking state development agency in the world.

I live in a marginal marginal and is a two horse race between the Lib Dem MP and the Labor party candidate. Also a boundary change with the leafy suburbs going to another constituency, and replaced by ethnic area and student area. It went to the incumbent Lib Dem in 2005 (Bristol West) but so did a lot of university towns (cambridge, am thinking also Durham, but not sure). Tend to find two types of Labor supporters: the people who whisper Labor, and those who say they have always voted Labor, won't change a habit of a life time.

OK so I said I wasnt going to visit this thread, but Im starting to think it might be OK after all. I havent actually met anyone or spoken to anyone who will fess up to voting tory. Mind you, I suspect its one of those underhand things people do like buying pornography concealed inside a newspaper.

And what did it do with Saudi Arabia/Bandar and BAE systems?

What has it achieved in eight years in Afghanistan? Helped install a narco-government which legalised rape...ace work Labourites...

When they sing the internationale it makes me want to puke...

Tony Blair at Genoa G8 2001 mocking the "anarchist travelling circus" after a boy was shot dead by the Italian police...after British activists - the genuine left in the UK - were beaten within inches of their lives...

Fuck Labour. Blair should be hanging from a rope in the Hague...

PW - i appreciate your calm approach to politics. I'm not quite the same...

Again, agree re. Genoa. It was a disgrace. And the Blair/Berlusconi love-in was/is beyond parody. And the BAE stuff was/is horrific. And I'm not going to attempt to justify dealins with Saudi Arabia.

I'm like the rest of this lot I suppose - all I'm hoping for is for the least-worst outcome and electoral reform. At least then you'd be able to vote Respect/SWP or whatever your preference is, and know that you might actually get some representation.

Coolfonz, who are you voting for?

I would vote Plaid or possibly Lib Dem, but in a Tory/Lab marginal, I can't see a better option than voting Labour.

And yes, I have been stood there against lines of riot police under this government - I don't like them any better than you do, but . . . . but . . . . I can't bring myself to be part of the reason the Tories get back in.

alysonpeaches - tis the other way round here.I hide my love of Labour in my copy of Razzle. ( well, Gardeners World mag actually )