Be Excellent To Each Other

Better quality of debate than in Oxford:

Osborne's having the time of his life.

BBC: Corbyn to take part in debate

Good decision Mr Corbyn.

A party everyone can get behind

https://www.loonyparty.com/2017-general ... anicfesto/

Christ has anyone else seen that car crash of May explaining why she won't be at the TV debate this evening? One of my friends added the comment:



I realise I'm hoping against hope here, and realistically I know the Tories will most likely still win, but a tiny little part of me is starting to believe that they could lose, or at least not get a working majority.

May has turned out to be as 'strong and stable' under a bit of pressure as a fucking meringue, whereas Corbyn, who's faced two years of monstrous hostility from pretty much every quarter head-on seems to have found his stride, and now that he's getting equal TV coverage as per the rules - is very much looking like the better leader IMO, and a far better human being to boot.

Theresa May channelling her inner David Brent when she mentioned ITV

May is running probably the worst, most vacuous campaign in political history.

She'll win by a landslide.

Aye, the Tories will win for some bonkers reason, but I'm hoping for at least an increase in Labour seats and some kind of stability in their party behind Corbyn. Although equally they could take the loss as a reason to begin another implosion and round of pointless infighting.

I'm hoping for Tim Farron as PM.

It could totally happen.

I think if the campaign had another month to run Labour could turn it around, as it is the snap election will most likely work in May's favour, but not in the way she intended. (i.e. She'll win because there hasn't been long enough for how shit she is to really become apparent, how awful their manifesto is and on the flip side how Corbyn has become a confident and assured leader, with a compassionate left wing manifesto that they have at least made a serious attempt to cost.)

As Bamba notes above though, if Labour do 'well enough' I think another term in opposition will be enough time for Labour to be ready to take power again, off the back of another national buttfucking from the Tories and a Brexit disaster. (And a proper Labour party this time, not the perversion that Tony Blair turned it into. I still rue the death of John Smith.)

What I'm finding interesting is how much Mrs May doesn't seem to be enjoying it. Basing a campaign on yourself and your leadership qualities then avoiding all contact except under very controlled circumstances, and even then coming across pretty rigid, seems to have been a very poor decision.

It also says a lot about the paucity of what the Conservatives are offering, almost as if they are well aware Brexit will bite them in the arses very hard very soon.

Very surprised the May didn't attend the TV debate, not helped her much perception wise a week away from voting day.

Not sure she will get the landslide that was predicted a few weeks ago, she may even end up worse off!

I get the impression that she genuinely did decide over Easter to call the election on the premise of President May, and only called Lynton Crosby afterwards, who then immediately told her to keep the fuck away from people.

I know the polls are always wrong and that, but I think there is definitely a move towards Labour, or at least away from May's robotic weirdness and lack of backbone and personality. The possibility of a hung parliament seems distinctly, well, possible.

This New Statesman article was quite interesting: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/me ... wing-press

It's staggering really that Labour are polling as well as they are given the hostility of the press. I'd love to see what the political landscape would look like without fucking cunts like Murdoch et al.

And if the rest of the Labour party had properly got behind him as well, most notably a large number of his own fucking MPs.

I'm going to vote for WEP. Reasons:

1) I feel that a vote for Labour would endorse Momentum and Corbyn and I'm not keen on that
2) The shadow cabinet lacks credibility in my eyes
3) Local Labour have whined and whinged about WEP appearing, went on about equality and selected a man to stand
4) local Labour look funny
5) and are very pro Corbyn
6) I feel betrayed by Labour over the whole Brexit episode
7) Labour coming third might affect change
WEP doing well will annoy Labour and MrsA.
9) She appears to be bright, articulate and capable

I don't want the Tories to win so I am voting Labour. Simple as that.

Labour don't need to 'win' to mess up the Tories, just enough to wipe out the majority.

Bring on the COALITION OF CHAOS

Same here plus I like the idea of an NHS and publicly owned railways etc. But whoever wins the Tories have already fucking wrecked the country beyond repair so, whatever.

Don't forget to vote for Lib Dems, Greens or anyone else who will oust a Tory MP in your constituency. If it's a Tory/LD marginal for example, then a Labour vote is wasted.

Mine is a safe Labour seat, but I am taking no chances with Tories and UKIP 2nd and 3rd.

We are in a Labour seat and I'll be voting Labour in the hope to maintain its safety from the Cons.

Anyone else planning on doing an all-nighter?

Not this year. I'll probably watch the exit poll and the first hour of speculation, then set an alarm for 4 AM and go to bed. I'll be doing my usual election night trick of having the radio on in the bedroom, however.

Definitely not. I prefer to wake up in the morning with the faint sense of optimism before having my dreams crushed and burned in front of my very eyes.

I used to, but for the sake of what is left of my nerves and sanity, I'm going to TRY not to. I'll probably end up looking at my phone every 15 minutes. Russell may need to hide it from me. Unfortunately I've started to get that little shred of hope and optimism this last week or so, and the fall is always harder from a higher place

Probably, I have done for the last two General Elections and the EU referendum.

It's the hope that gets you.

Yeah, but it's not the hope of a decent result, it's the hope of catching a sighting of the lesser sozzled Lohan.

Plus of course being off work the next day and not having to leave the house until 1pm. I'm going to need a liver transplant come Sunday.

https://www.channel4.com/news/could-bel ... flip-again

More excitement in the "Bellwether" constituency. It got on the news!

More informative than the actual interview

Yeah Theresa May is not nearly that good at impersonating an actual human being.

I am conflicted over who to vote for.

In the 2010 GE, the Conservatives got 52.8% of the vote in this constituency, Lib Dems got 32.8%, Labour got 6.7%
In the 2015 GE, the Conservatives got 54.3%, fucking UKIP cunts got 14.9%, Lib Dems 13.5%, Labour 12.3%

I don't want to vote Conservative or UKIP (obviously) but it was such a close thing between LD and Labour, tactically I'm not sure who best to choose. Not sure the Lib Dems have done enough to regain their lost ground this time.

The Lib Dem candidate this time is the same one from 2010, but it was someone else in 2015, and I'm not sure how much that will have affected votes.

I've always identified most closely with LD policies but am not really swayed by either LD or Labour this time round.

Any polling data for your constituency? Alternatively, take a look at the odds at the bookies.

I would say it matters not one jot. The Tories will get in there regardless. Vote with your conscience.

I've just found this which suggests Labour might be the best choice out of the two
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi- ... eat=Ludlow


My conscience says hibernate til it's over.

Hmm

What an interesting site. Surprised I haven't come across it before. I like the demographic breakdowns. Here's my seat.

In other election news, I found out recently that the Tories are proposing to scrap the supplementary vote system at mayoral elections and replace it with First Past the Post. This is exactly the kind of technical issue I find in manifestos that annoys me greatly, but that I never hear discussed.

stopthetori.es suggests that we should vote Lib Dem in our constituency.

It's almost certainly going to be Tories in ours, unless the Lib Dems can pull a blinder in the next few days. Our local LibDem candidate, the splendidly named Tessa Munt, seems to be popular so she may well do better than last time, but I don't think she'll win.

Sadly, all the local Lib Dem posters say things like "Vote Tessa!" not "MUNT".

It'll probably be Tories round here the way it's looking, although we have a Labour MP currently so it could be close.

All the posters I've seen are Labour except on the way to work when I cross over into the next constituency where there's loads of vote Tory posters with this fucking wingnut leering out:

I know that, but it's methodology is flawed. It's based on the LD's previous lead over other parties, which (as I said) was so small in 2015 as to be negligible IMO.

Jem, what's the sense been like on the street? Are there more Labour or Lib Dem posters up? Has one party bothered to contact you? If you're really stuck between them, reward the party that's putting the effort in. And if they're doing that, it suggests they think they are in with the chance. Similarly, the party that's not doing the work has decided to put its resources elsewhere.