The Political Thread

[Funt Solo]

Over a million views for this thread.

Mostly that's just me hitting refresh.

[TordelBack]

Not often, but sometimes, I'm proud of my fellow citizens and our democracy. An utter triumph for the Greens, my own No. 1 in every election since I was old enough to vote, this time partly on the strength of one young woman's televised drubbing of our home-grown racist candidate* and partly on the commitment of our schoolkids to mass protest and single-issue politics. No party, no candidate in furure elections, can affird to ignore this result. The hard decisions seem to be on the table at last. Finally the tables have started to turn. Talkin'bout a revolution.

Oh, and 87ish% in favour of reducing time restrictions on divorce. 87%. Yet again that's how you do referendums, neighbourinos.


*7% of the vote in his constituency. Ahahahahahahaha. Won't stop him being invited to chat shows and op-eds, but a steel toecap to the electoral nadgers is better than nowt.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Delighted to hear it.  Our own rich reality-TV racist left out in the cold.   And here he is doing the digital version of shouting at the traffic: https://extra.ie/2019/05/23/news/politics/peter-casey-m

[TordelBack]

Errr yes, that was all a bit effusive from me last night; rather too much happy juice taken. Still, yay!

[paddykafka]

Given that 50% of those who actually did bother to get off their arse and vote, continue to support those fuck-wits in FF & FG*, methinks that they could have done with a healthy dose of Happy Juice too.

Having been a lapsed Green voter - in protest at their deal with FF - I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, and as leaders go, Eamonn Ryan always impressed me and seemed to be down-to-earth and sensible. (I also wanted to make it as difficult as possible for any of the FFG and Labour Crowd too). So it was good to see the Greens doing so well.

A pity that the Left Wing parties had such a disappointing result. No doubt the usual excuses will be trotted out by those who did not exercise their franchise: "Ah shure, there's no point in bothering, sure dey're all the bleedin' same, an' anyway."

To which my response is: "Want to know one of the main reasons why the area that you live in is such a run-down, crime ridden and poverty stricken shit-hole? It's because of dense, apathetic Muppets like you who will invest all their energy in giving out about their situation on Talk-Radio shows, but when it comes to doing something as simple as voting people in to at least represent their concerns, they are too lazy to even bother".

And then I'll tell 'em to fuck off and stop annoying me, lol.

[TordelBack]

Other rays of sunshine are leading astroturf-operation Irexit candidate Herman Kelly polling at less than 1% and Anti-Vax climate-denying racist nutter Gemma O'Doherty looking at a likely 1%.

I agree about the collapse of the left, but I have always voted Green no 1 and filled the rest of the sheet with Labour and the Socialist Worker variant of the day so its safe to say lefties can depend on my transfers . Living at the back of Jobstown my enormous ballot papers were thick with SF, PBP and independant affiliates. Reader, this time I struggled to fill half the boxes. It's all local opportunists, there's no coherent left wing block to vote for.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Other rays of sunshine are leading astroturf-operation Irexit candidate Herman Kelly polling at less than 1% and Anti-Vax climate-denying racist nutter Gemma O'Doherty looking at a likely 1%.

Great news.  Irexit and anti-vax are among the two most toxic and ridiculous policies out there.

[Hawkmumbler]

Yorkshire, you let the side down.

[Jim_Campbell]

Yorkshire, you let the side down.

You call a Yorkshireman... but you can't tell him much. :-)

[CalHab]

SNP gain share in Scotland. The Greens miss out, unfortunately.

Bafflingly, 1.9% of Scottish voters put their X beside Change UK. A party whose candidate explicitly said not to vote for them as it was a waste of a vote in Scotland. If you follow the news enough to know who Change UK are, surely you'd have picked up on that? The only explanation I can think is that some people only watch the BBC news and listen to BBC radio, where Scottish news is not news.

[CalHab]

Labour continue to be utterly irrelevant in Scotland, finishing fifth. Their share of the dwindling unionist-but-won't-vote-Tory vote hijacked by the Lib Dems.

[IndigoPrime]

Rather than hating CHUK, Labour leaders should phone and thank them today. Without CHUK, Lib Dems would likely have two more MEPs and Labour would have two fewer. Still, not the worst night. Dance is still an MEP. Loads of new Greens and Lib Dems. Magid Magid won.

[Theblazeuk]

CHUK fulfilled their own prophecies, becoming a useless protest vote that only weakened other groups by its existence.

Ah well.

Overall, its a clear vote for Remain. It won't be reported as such, because the Right utterly collapsed into its most poisonous element.

We're a divided nation and we're divided by this utter obstinate stupidity that has coalesced around a single, destructive idea. We'll be told again and again to heal those divisions but the only path to reconciliation we'll ever be allowed is utter capitulation to that stupidity, which was formed around division (and which is divided in and of itself - whenever not simply turned against the wider, complicated world).

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

It's perhaps worrying to note that the parties that did well Brexit Party, SNP, Plaid Cymru are all Nationalists of varying shades. Bit of a sobering realisation but that seems to be the way of things at the moment — a retreat from integration towards separate Nations. I still suspect we'll be going out of the EU on the 31st of October just in time for Halloween. What horrors both economic and social come after that we'll have to endure. Perhaps a General Election might save us, but I doubt we'll get one. A new right-leaning Tory Leader would scupper any idea of that by chucking another billion quid at the Bronze Age Bigots Party from Northen Ireland.

[Tjm86]

I know what you mean but at the same time Plaid here in the Valley's seems to be capitalising on Labour's balls ups along with the Brexit party.  Plaid may have some unfortunate tendencies but they also have a social-democratic dimension that they are channeling against local authorities and the Labour led Welsh Assembly very effectively. 

Farage has tapped the 'victim' mentality that seems to be behind the pro-Brexit vote in this part of the world.  It doesn't help that successive governments' neglect has left too many communities reliant on EU money or that the Welsh Assembly have fairly consistently squandered that money.  All that matters is that little has changed since the collapse of the main industries back in the eighties, or that to get even a poorly paying job you need to commute crazy distances (okay, maybe not crazy but with limited options a 10 mile journey can take over an hour at the wrong time of day on a regular basis).  So just like Plaid, he is harnessing discontent effectively.

In the meantime Labour seems to have crawled up its own backside.  It has been notable by its complete absence in recent weeks.  Whilst Farage has carefully stage managed his appearances, the local donkey's have pretty much vanished.