Feminist pub XIX: The Bluestocking meanders into May

[YonicScrewdriver]

We're running at about six weeks per pub at the moment! So if you want chat with a feminist flavour, or with fellow feminists, or just want to admire our patriarchy blaster cannon and goat - welcome!

Last pub Here

The 1997 elections I was too young, (17) but it was a VERY big thing as Tony Blair was our local MP and lived in the same village as my family, so the news vans and parties and armed police were very exciting.

Soon wore off :)

I didn't pay too much attention to the politics back then, but there was a highly charged atmosphere, it's hard to describe.

I was 11 in 1997 and even I remember how charged it was at the time. Our neighbours were heavily involved with labour and partied all night!

I had finals the week after the 1997 election, so I was somewhat preoccupied with non-political stuff.

I was working for an investment bank in 1997. Ah, that was fun! (Not everyone found it as amusing.)

I was 8 days too young to vote in 1997. I remember being completely unconcerned because I lived in a very safe Tory seat (the mp was very good actually, even if he was a Tory, he cared a lot about his constituents) and my labour vote would never have dented their majority. The result for the country as a whole were exciting, but not as pressing for me as my impending a levels.

At least it looks like Farage hasn't got his seat.

I first voted in 1979. Raised in a staunchly Liberal family, the first past the post system made elections deeply frustrating. It's even less of a 2 party race now, the system isn't fit for purpose.

Errol, that 1979 election was the only one my mum ever missed, she was in hospital giving birth to me She claims its all my fault that Maggie Thatcher got in, but I don't think her one vote would have stopped it really

Please can I pop my head round the door for a large gin and a quick cry? Am not going to be able to say out loud how disappointed I am with the election result (staying with family member whose political views directly oppose mine) but - just HOW were all those polls so wrong? :(

It's depressing, isn't it?

Could have been worse. Conservatives having to be propped up clandestinely by UKIP, or the DUP (described elsewhere as 'like UKIP but with god') seemed the likeliest scenario yesterday TBH.

Presumably the Labour party will now realise they backed the wrong Ed or the wrong Milliband and have a leadership contest. Any chance for Yvette Cooper or another woman?

And I'm hoping that this will lead to the Scots moving towards further independence during the next term - but in a more measured and less catastrophic way than a yes vote last year would have produced.

Secret Tories.

Secret because they know they're wrong.

Why on earth would anyone sit and think "I know, in the future I can tell my grandchildren that we used to have an NHS, social care and a sense of community in Britain, but, I decided to vote for a party that said they were getting rid of all that"?

Selfish, stupid bastards.

Never cried over politics before, but am now literally crying. The nhs, social care, social housing, and that £12bn from benefits - this is bad for women and bad for the country.

As the Pub's resident doley bum, can I just say I am ducking terrified of what's to come over the next five years.

OMG.

I don't think it'll be much of a consolation but looks like the % of female MPs is up from c23% to c30%

36.8% vote of a 66.1% turnout.

In my view the tories do not have a mandate from the british people for the cuts we all know they want to inflict and when they impose them we are all going to know about it. Unless they take the hint about how the economy grew as soon as they stopped inflicting cuts.

I am also more than a little worried about what is to come. I don't actually think they will last the full 5 years. At least, I kind of hope they don't, for all the problems it will cause.

GF - tories happy now because they didn't expect to win. A better result for John Major was seen as a disaster.

I know the election results are not necessarily happy making, but I have two links that have nothing to do with the election that might help.
this one about a woman of the ATA in a Spitfire again at the age of 92 and one of a wonderful female composer Cecile Chaminade. She deserves more recognition.

I went to bed feeling a bit unwell, woke this morning with throat on fire and swollen and just general shitty and shakey feeling all over so have spent the day on the couch. Dh just bought me a slush puppy home with him, it's lovely on a hot throat.

Watched Cameron's speech, might just be me, but the part where he said something about "Britain being great as long as people are willing to work, and do the right thing" felt more like a threat.

I'm very strongly anti-tory, BUT, I did think the other day that from a global market pov, the UK needs to be seen to be stable, and that the conservatives staying in power would be the best for that, mainly because they are already there, but also because they are internationally perceived as better at handling a strong economy. I know that means little for anyone facing cuts, but long-term it should make the pound stronger. I still don't like Tory politics, though (my entire extended family does).

I also think we're a bit delusional about how much a party really influences stuff. Domestic things, like education, they get to have a big effect on, but things like the economy, which relies so much on international events, it's really luck as much as judgement. We all seem to think that there is someone 'in charge' and keeping control, but it's really far more chaotic and unpredictable. I sometimes think that most politics, and historical tellings of political events, are just delusions of grandeur.

Yes, Cameron often comes across as sinister.

You know, I had a sobering thought this morning. I don't think that rich people tend to kill themselves when a left wing government get into power. But I would imagine that the agencies supporting vulnerable people are struggling right now.

I'm afraid even from the financial POV it's a disaster. Everyone will think we're going to leave the EU.

I'm pro-EU, and I am worried about the prospect of a referendum. I think we will stay in the EU anyway, but the uncertainty makes me nervous.

The local results are starting to come in thick and fast. So far it is looking OK for the Tories, less good for Labour and pretty terrible for the LibDems. I'm most worried about how well UKIP look to be doing....

I am also worried about the prospect of the HRA being potentially scrapped