The Political Thread

[Will Cooling]

The point for the Corbynites is they don't need to worry about Scotland. The SNP would actually be happier to make Corbyn PM than the old Scottish Labour contingent because they know Jezza's hard-left politics would ultimately drive the English doolay.

The polls show it wouldn't make much difference because it wouldn't - on the final round. But the logical conclusion is that people would use the first round to register a protest vote (either to the right or left). The reality is that it would actually make wild cards marginal less likely because centrist Tory/Labour/LibDem voters would gang up on any UKIP or Green who manage to make it to the final round. 

The LibDems are an interesting party. Despite their opposition to FPTP they only exist because of it. As Paddy Ashdown said (way before the Coalition) if PR ever happened then the LibDems would loose much of their support to rival parties who suddenly became competitive. And indeed the LibDems have always done remarkably badly in European Elections.

I would exactly suggest a direct-election for Prime Minister. The General Election would basically be to a) elect the Prime Minister and b) elect an independent Parliament. There's nothing ridiculous about a Tory Prime Minister being held accountable by a left-wing majority Parliament if that's what the people want.

The LibDem politicians may overlap with Labour but the voters don't. Look at what happened in 2015 - what caused their devastation was tory-leaning voters across Southern England freaking out about the possibility of Labour coming into power. And now its liberal conservatives migrating back due  to Brexit that is causing the parties revival.

I disagree that predicting a General Election outcome has become tough - look at how well the Exit Polls have done. The issue is with making sure the polls don't capture too many enthusiastic young Labourites.

[Professor Bear]

It's one thing to claim the polls are off or fixed, but they've historically overestimated Labour support.

Yougov's survey of half a million GMB members was through a phone sampling of 58 people who claimed (but were not confirmed) to be members.  Yougov refused to carry out the Sun's infamous "1 in 5 Muslims" poll because the questions supplied by the Sun were weighted and misleading, but this didn't stop Survation doing so.
The means by which polling data is collected is flawed, and the means by which it's occasionally weighted and even dismissed to suit the client's preferred narrative is dishonest and harmful - insufficient polling regulation isn't a lefty conspiracy, it's a genuine concern for a country whose media is concentrated in the hands of five billionaires, especially when polling data is used to support claims like a spike in weekend deaths in the NHS.

The point for the Corbynites is they don't need to worry about Scotland. The SNP would actually be happier to make Corbyn PM than the old Scottish Labour contingent because they know Jezza's hard-left politics would ultimately drive the English doolay.

Scotland may be seen as Labour's "heartland", but the SNP are a provably conservative party and left-wing ideas may just not be popular with the Scotch electorate right now.

[IndigoPrime]

Professor Bear: I get all that. My point remains that I seriously doubt polling is out to the point that if a general election happened tomorrow, Labour would romp to victory. Polls can be inaccurate, but not to that extent.

[Professor Bear]

My issue was only with the assertion that people would have to be tinfoil hatters to distrust the motivation or accuracy of polling companies.

[Steve Green]

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/10/02/may-speech-makes-it-clear-we-re-leaving-the-single-market

Looks like Cameron's 'worst prime minister' record may be under threat.

[ZenArcade]

I agree, May looks as though she's going to truely fuck things up. Z

[Modern Panther]

Announcing that its definitely the plan to leave the single market, just a few weeks after refusing to tell the House if they were even going to negotiate trying to stay in.  Sounds like she already been told to piss off.

Deciding we're definitely going to allow Europeans to stay in the country, whilst removing any legal framework that allows them to be here.  Sound like she's making this stuff up.

Blaming "petty nationalist" for damaging Britain, whilst appealing to the separatist in her own party and giving senior jobs to the fuckers who dragged us into this mess to further their own careers. Expect four more years of project fear.

[TordelBack]

At least she admits the most important thing, the thing people actually voted for, is sorting out those stinking immigrants. Never mind that May served a full term as Home Secretary when she could have addressed the majority of all immigration to the UK, as per her government's stated objective, but did absolutely nothing.

[Professor Bear]

The way you whining lefty ninnies lot go on, you'd almost think commies were building a nuclear bomb inside our borders or something - you need to stop panicking and cheer up: we have our country back, the NHS is 350 million pounds a week better off, and no more immigrants will be moving in next door.

[Will Cooling]

The way you whining lefty ninnies lot go on, you'd almost think commies were building a nuclear bomb inside our borders or something - you need to stop panicking and cheer up: we have our country back, the NHS is 350 million pounds a week better off, and no more immigrants will be moving in next door.

As someone who works in a university, I can heartily say that she certainly didn't do nothing.

[IndigoPrime]

At least I now have a hard deadline by which to get my second passport sorted. Alas, not much we can do re Mrs IP other than either go for full citizenship (extremely costly) or hope things don't go entirely to shit. On the basis of today, hard to not see worst case scenarios.

[Modern Panther]

you'd almost think commies were building a nuclear bomb inside our borders or something

I'm sorry, I'm a bit slow and only just got this.

Oh my God, what are we doing?!

[sheridan]

you'd almost think commies were building a nuclear bomb inside our borders or something

I'm sorry, I'm a bit slow and only just got this.

Oh my God, what are we doing?!

Deserting our closest allies and making new alliances with people who are a) only in it for themselves and b) are ideologically opposed to our way of life.  What could possibly go wrong?

[IndigoPrime]

But but but... trade deal with Australia! *infinte headdesks*

[The Legendary Shark]

Don't worry, in its drive to create a single world currency the IMF formally added the Chinese renminbi (a.k.a. the yuan) to their "Special Drawing Rights" basket on Saturday, October 1st. The move boosts the yuan to the status of global reserve currency alongside its basketmates, the pound, the euro, the yen and the dollar. So now we're all tied to the same monster.