The Political Thread

[JamesC]

The Tory voters and BoJo fans on my Facebook feed are mainly people I went to school with and were the kids who hung around with the school bullies just so they weren't the ones to get picked on.

[sheridan]

Devastating to think that there are people so awful, that they think that behaviour is acceptable. Sad that the Newspapers, Politicians etc. have one their damndest to normalise and make acceptable the behaviour of vile people who add so little to our communities.

And so loyal to their masters, who care nought for them.  I'm reminded of the brownshirts who pushed Hitler to power, but were executed in their hundreds when he had no further use for them (he had the SS by then)

[ming]

I'm heading back to the UK for Christmas but I've rarely felt so low at the prospect of a visit...  I'm just left shell-shocked.  We all live in our little bubbles / echo chambers so news and views are strongly filtered but I really hoped that this one would have gone differently.  I guess there are a lot of angry, frustrated people out there who thought that this result will leave them better off but having seen the trajectory of things like food banks, child poverty and homelessness under the Tories I think the vast majority are just going to be shafted even harder than previously.

Next election, if it's just a two party race, I think the ballot paper should just make it simple and offer a choice between 'an attempt to lessen inequality and make the place better for all' and 'fuck the poor' and let people put their mark where their conscience lies.

Having lived in various parts of the world for too long I'm not even eligible to vote in UK general elections any more - not that its would have made any difference, given the scale of the outcome.  The UK's not been home to me for a long time but it's never felt so distant as it does today.

[JamesC]

My constituency is Great Yarmouth and our MP is Brandon Lewis.
I've never heard anyone from Yarmouth have a good word to say about him - the town is a deprived area and has been on a downward spiral for years. Brandon Lewis is best known for being unreachable by people in the town. He's never here and he blocks people on social media if they ask him questions he doesn't want to answer.

He got a 65.8% share of the vote.
What the fuck?

[sheridan]

My constituency is Great Yarmouth and our MP is Brandon Lewis.
I've never heard anyone from Yarmouth have a good word to say about him - the town is a deprived area and has been on a downward spiral for years. Brandon Lewis is best known for being unreachable by people in the town. He's never here and he blocks people on social media if they ask him questions he doesn't want to answer.

He got a 65.8% share of the vote.
What the fuck?

He was probably hiding in a fridge.  It worked for Johnson.

[Rately]

Fridge them all.

Wait, isn't that Metallica's debut album?

[Dandontdare]

Nationalism I suspect has been the winner here, both in England and Scotland.

You keep using "nationalism" like this in relation to the SNP, but their platform is determinedly internationalist, rather than the isolationist nationalism peddled by the likes of Johnson, Farage and Trump.

I can't see how Scottish nationalism is different from any other kind of nationalism in that it distracts from the fact that we are ALL being screwed by an international elite, instead suggesting that life would be better for the (insert race or nationality here) if it wasn't for all those nasty (insert race or nationality here) - as long as we're fighting each other based on nationality or religion, we'll never fight the true enemy.

I am saddened and amazed that one of my oldest friends, who did more than anyone else to indoctrinate me with his Marxist views educate me politically, who taught me the words of the Internationale and who campaigned with me on the doorsteps of Dundee, now supports the SNP.

[The Legendary Shark]

I can't see how Scottish nationalism is different from any other kind of nationalism in that it distracts from the fact that we are ALL being screwed by an international elite, instead suggesting that life would be better for the (insert race or nationality here) if it wasn't for all those nasty (insert race or nationality here) - as long as we're fighting each other based on nationality or religion, we'll never fight the true enemy.

Spot on.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

My new MP is a Sínn Fein abstentionist, so now I'm not being represented in Westminster. This is a vast improvement over Nigel Dodds.

[Jim_Campbell]

I can't see how Scottish nationalism is different from any other kind of nationalism

Except in the way I described, presumably? The SNP positions itself as internationalist and inclusive — it's pro-EU membership and pro-immigration, exactly the opposite of the nationalism peddled by Johnson, Farage and Trump. Hence my suggestion that it's not reasonable to lump them all together. Their position is for independence from the UK but in the context of EU membership, rather than the isolationist dreams of empire the Tories, Brexit Party and UKIP have traded on.

If, by 'nationalism', you mean what Johnson, Farage and Trump are all selling then perhaps it's not right to call the SNP a 'nationalist' party at all, since the term, when applied to their aspirations for an independent Scotland, seems to mean something entirely different.

[IndigoPrime]

Scotland nationalism: we want to have our own say, after decades of being repressed and overruled by the Tories, and be part of an internationalist and cooperative EU

English nationalism: we want to force everyone do confirm to our mindset, and quite like the idea of Empire 2.0. Also: fuck all foreigners. Also: foreigners who don't integrate are bad. Confused? We hope they are. Etc.

(Also: thanks, folks, for the kinds words a page or two page.)

[CalHab]

I can't see how Scottish nationalism is different from any other kind of nationalism in that it distracts from the fact that we are ALL being screwed by an international elite, instead suggesting that life would be better for the (insert race or nationality here) if it wasn't for all those nasty (insert race or nationality here)

Is that really what they're saying? Or is it that Scotland's needs and aspirations are different from England's and will always be subordinate in the union? That's quite a different argument.

[Rately]

My new MP is a Sínn Fein abstentionist, so now I'm not being represented in Westminster. This is a vast improvement over Nigel Dodds.

Yes, a massive improvement surely. And a seismic shift in NI politics for a nationalist to take that seat.

I would say most parties would learn from having their noses bloodied, but the sheer arrogance of the DUP makes them very unpredictable.


Would think they need to get the Assembly back up and running as quickly as possible, with the RHI Report due as well. 

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

One Labour Guy quoted in the Times said he believed that the Tories would be in power for the next twenty years. Rather a grim thought, but it certainly is a possibility if this election is anything to go by. The 'Save our NHS' campaign the Labour Party endorsed appeared to make little impact on an election dominated by Brexit. One world slides out of view replaced by a more disjointed, national based world order. I was reading John Gray's 'On Humans and Other Animals', and it was full of dire predictions on how humans don't learn from the past, are arbitrary in their thinking and not logical or rational at all. Human Progress, Gray asserts it is a myth, and you can't help thinking there might be something in that after recent events.

[Dandontdare]

The SNP may have a more open outlook than many nationalist parties, but they share the trait of blaming all the ills of the world and all their failures in government on "them".



assuming the numbers are correct, this analysis is interesting:

The headlines this morning would be very different if we had proportional representation:
• No overall majority for any party
• The Conservatives win 75 seats fewer
• The Greens go from one seat to 17
• The amount of SNP seats halves
• A government could only be formed if parties worked together
• The Brexit Party win 13 seats