Breaking News - PM Calls for General Election

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Apparently not, Tory strategy appears to be "Well, it's either us or Corbyn".

A strategy that worked so well in the general election...

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's not a bad line with the DUP, to be fair.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Just in case Terri (or a Tory successor) has a brainstorm and calls another election this year, here's a summary of majorities in their 318 seats:

0- 5%: 40
5- 10%: 27
10- 15%: 26
15- 20%: 31
20- 25%: 39
25- 30%: 42
30- 35%: 44
35- 40%: 37
40- 45%: 21
45- 50%: 11

Could have been worse too.

Labour probably didn't know many of those small majorities were even in play. 2 of those in Wales alone (Aberconwy, Preseli Pembs).

A separate issue, but a few seats could have slipped away because of Labour's "Jewish problem".

http://www.danielallington.net/2017/...-antisemitism/

These are certainly within range, and with more time for appropriate legwork, might easily be won.

[Levin]

What's wrong with the boundary changes and reduction in number of MPs? I can see why people aren't keen as it would reduce the number of Labour MPs but as far as I see it.

Still independent mapping body.
And it aims to give each constituency the same number of voters.

Oh. And while I'm here. What would it take to get a proportional method of running general elections in the UK?

[Lucy Waterman]

The public actually like FPTP.

[Lang Spoon]

Hahah Gerard Coyne, we hardly knew thee.

Is he just being a bitter kipper areswipe talking about a rerun of the Unite election, or does he have a case?

[Levin]

The public actually like FPTP.

Oh, I completely believe that. Which was why i was wondering what would have have to happen for that to change.

I've read a few pro PR things recently which state that one of the things people like about FPTP is that it delivers strong majorities. Is that really true?

[Snake Plissken]

Aaaaand out come the Blairites to fuck things up for Corbyn again. Regular as clockwork.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...P=share_btn_tw

[Lang Spoon]

The public actually like FPTP.

What a masochistic bunch the Great British Public can be. Most people's votes don't end up counting for shit, all for some fetish of certainty and strong govt. oh and you wouldn't get what you voted for in the manifesto cos of all the backroom deals. I'm truly amazed that people put any faith in manifestos as at all.

[Lang Spoon]

Aaaaand out come the Blairites to fuck things up for Corbyn again. Regular as clockwork.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...P=share_btn_tw

Think the Sensibles are right here though, if cack handed and tone deaf. It was good politics to gain Remainers and still hold onto Northern seats with promises of no single market, but that's not tenable for long. And really dangerous. No social democracy will be possible with hard brexit. Capital flight will be unstoppable, we would be absolutely buggered. I think Starmer knows this, and Corbyn and Abbott too are by all accounts instinctively pro FOM and Single Market. At least according to the last Good Blairite hack Stephen K Bush (certainly the only good thing in the Spectator lite NS under that classist gimp Cowley) , it's McDonnell that's the driver behind racist pander and resultant Suicide Brexit.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Aaaaand out come the Blairites to fuck things up for Corbyn again. Regular as clockwork.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...P=share_btn_tw

They're not "Sensibles", they're mostly principled pro-Europeans. Look at all the Article 50 rebels, especially from London. They've just got elected on a massive swing as avowed Remainers. Look at the MEPs too.

I think Corbyn's shifting the right way, but I'm keeping my eye on McDonnell, Milne etc.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't know whether it is tone deaf or badly timed either. The Tories are in the shit and in government. They tried the old "you're just as divided on the EU" under Major. Smith and Blair easily batted that one back over the net.

[Diable Rouge]

Yes, surely it makes sense for Labour's Soft Brexiters to put down the gauntlet to remaining Tory counterparts (Philip Hammond, in particular), ratcheting up the pressure on May thereby.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Any offer of "help" from anybody in Labour is going to have to be refused by May anyway.

[Patrick Thistle]

We ended up with UKIP assembly members in Wales thanks to PR. A party nowhere near actually winning a seat directly got a few protest votes and now we have slimy Neil Hamilton sucking down a salary in a country he won't deign to live in.

Not that great an advert for PR that.

[Lang Spoon]

It was a very good short term electoral ploy, but if it becomes fixed policy Labour will probably lose half their new vote. They can't shift just now but, but if there's an election in October I fear the McDonnell argument will win again, and it will be very hard to back down then (esp as they will most likely be the govt).

[Diable Rouge]

We ended up with UKIP assembly members in Wales thanks to PR. A party nowhere near actually winning a seat directly got a few protest votes and now we have slimy Neil Hamilton sucking down a salary in a country he won't deign to live in.

Not that great an advert for PR that.

But surely, as with the BNP winning MEPs, they'll be promptly turfed out in 2020, anyway?

[Etienne]

Lots of people voted UKIP. It was a fucking disgrace to democracy they only got one MP in 2015. Just because they are a bunch of morons doesn't mean we should keep in place our hopelessly unfit electoral system in order to fuck them over.

[Tubby Isaacs]

But surely, as with the BNP winning MEPs, they'll be promptly turfed out in 2020, anyway?

One of them's walked already. Mark Reckless is trying to get himself back in the Tory party. About the only good thing about the Welsh Conservatives is that they don't seem to want him.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Oh, I completely believe that. Which was why i was wondering what would have have to happen for that to change.

I've read a few pro PR things recently which state that one of the things people like about FPTP is that it delivers strong majorities. Is that really true?

ah, the desire of so many british people to grant near monarchical powers to the leader of a party that can grab about 35% of the vote. Some people just want to be lead like sheep. Would it help or hinder the debate if people in the UK knew how funny we found fptp on this side of the Irish Sea?

[Lang Spoon]

STV can be pish as well to be honest. The 5th choice in 1st round of ballot wanker sneaking through with cunning transfer management, the wankers' roar of "YOU BETRAYED THE MANIFESTO!!" Still as loud as in FTTP idiot joy showland, even though coalition has been the norm for almost 100 years outside of intense periods of FF recklessness/trickle down corruption. I'd see AV+ working for Westminster. More proportional than the AV pish that Clegg tried to get through, less confusingly different for the auld yins than STV, or as awful as the Israeli List with no proper threshold system. If the Sweaties can get it, I'd say E&W (NI already having PR, but at least fairly consistent a system, unlike Scotland's AV+ for Holyrood, STV cooncil - which anecdotally no one really understands up there- stramash) can too.

[Patrick Thistle]

Lots of people voted UKIP. It was a fucking disgrace to democracy they only got one MP in 2015. Just because they are a bunch of morons doesn't mean we should keep in place our hopelessly unfit electoral system in order to fuck them over.

Strange that UKIP aren't campaigning to change the system then.

I don't see it as a disgrace to democracy. It depends how you define representation. Your MP represents your constituency whether you voted for them or not. You can still ask them to raise issues on your behalf.

[Snake Plissken]

UKIP support AV. For obvious reasons.

[dddd]

You can still ask them to raise issues on your behalf.

Good luck with that if said issue doesn't fit with them and their party's preoccupations.

A friend of mine had the idea of standing for parliament as an independent who would promise to put every HoC vote to a referendum of his constituents. There are obvious logistical problems, but I'm still slightly surprised that no-one has done anything resembling this.

[Patrick Thistle]

UKIP support AV. For obvious reasons.

Must have missed that in their electoral bumf. (Although we got nothing from UKIP this past eiection. I get the feeling they've burned out locally.) They don't make a big play out of it. For a lot of their support it would feel suspiciously foreign.