2015 UK Election Thread

[Hamish McPanji]

[video=youtube;YzGyEXPDQBI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzGyEXPDQBI[/video]

Natalie Bennet was a disaster as a leader as she could not articulate herself and her howlers sank her very early on. Despite that, they nearly quadrupled their vote tally with partipation in 50% more constituencies.

 

[Dave]

Having read through the thread I have one observation for those being happy about UKIP doing well (even the Conservatives to a lesser degree). I hope you already have your Passport or visa sorted, with the Conservatives remaining in power and being pulled right by UKIP policies you can expect immigration policies and procedures to get a lot tougher and more expensive to get into the UK.

I do find it funny that a user in SA would be openly happy that a bunch of xenophobic bigots like UKIP (who openly want to prevent immigration from places like SA) gained so many votes.

Nigel Farage getting a kicking in Thanet was actually a high point of the election for many people ).

 

[HavocXphere]

I hope you already have your Passport or visa sorted, with the Conservatives remaining in power and being pulled right by UKIP policies you can expect immigration policies and procedures to get a lot tougher and more expensive to get into the UK.

Don't think it matters much at this stage. Anyone that can currently get in will likely either have corporate backing or a 2nd passport/ancestral visa. UKIP/conservatives isn't going to affect either of those - short of a criminal record both are pretty much bulletproof.

UK exiting the EU would make things unnecessarily hard for everyone though imo. Really hope they stay put.

 

[Spizz]

So what? It'll be a more accurate reflection of the electorate's wishes.

It's ridiculous that SNP have 1.5m votes and get 56 seats while the Lib Dems have 2.5m votes and get 8 seats.

Garson made a good point about FPTP making sense in a world where instant and direct communication isn't possible, i.e. history.

Local government can sort out local issues. National legislatures should focus on bigger issues.

What is ridiculous is that by having 12 times the population of Scotland, 50 times the population of Wales and 60 times the population of Northern Ireland, by sheer numbers, English based parties will dominate Westminster even more no matter who these countries vote for. SNP will lose half of their seats, but Plaid Cymru might as well stay in bed. And Northern Ireland with completely different parties would have no MPs from their own country, rather a few uninterested and uninformed Greens and UKIP to replace UUP, DUP and SF.

Well, I suppose it's one way to make an unfair system even more unfair and might just hurry up independence a bit quicker.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

After the last referendum result, I just don't think the electorate is that interested in doing anything about it.

That referendum gave the choice between FPTP and Alternative Voting, not proportional representation, which we're talking about.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

What is ridiculous is that by having 12 times the population of Scotland, 50 times the population of Wales and 60 times the population of Northern Ireland, by sheer numbers, English based parties will dominate Westminster even more no matter who these countries vote for. SNP will lose half of their seats, but Plaid Cymru might as well stay in bed. And Northern Ireland with completely different parties would have no MPs from their own country, rather a few uninterested and uninformed Greens and UKIP to replace UUP, DUP and SF.

Well, I suppose it's one way to make an unfair system even more unfair and might just hurry up independence a bit quicker.

I don't think it's more ridiculous, but I agree that it's wonky. More autonomy and perhaps a move to a more federal system would make sense? I believe Boris Johnson mentioned something about that.

 

[Spizz]

I don't think it's more ridiculous, but I agree that it's wonky. More autonomy and perhaps a move to a more federal system would make sense? I believe Boris Johnson mentioned something about that.

Well if nothing else, it highlights the ridiculousness of the situation that has had Scotland voting for a socialist party every election since the 50s, but instead have ended up enduring years of Tory misrule.

Don't get me wrong, I like being British, but faced with a choice between the status quo and independence, I choose independence every time.

Let's hope that the 56 SNP MPs coupled with the realisation from the old Etonians running the show that Scots aren't happy might actually result in something concrete now. It would have done last year already, but Mr Cameron took Devo Max off of the referendum paper and left only 2 stark choices Instead of the 3 that people wanted.

Nothing new in that I suppose, just Westminster telling us how to behave. But now people are waking up at long last.

 

[JayM]

Having read through the thread I have one observation for those being happy about UKIP doing well (even the Conservatives to a lesser degree). I hope you already have your Passport or visa sorted, with the Conservatives remaining in power and being pulled right by UKIP policies you can expect immigration policies and procedures to get a lot tougher and more expensive to get into the UK.

I do find it funny that a user in SA would be openly happy that a bunch of xenophobic bigots like UKIP (who openly want to prevent immigration from places like SA) gained so many votes.

Nigel Farage getting a kicking in Thanet was actually a high point of the election for many people ).

Immigration from outside the EU into the UK is actually already very difficult (way more so than "buy your passport" countries like Malta for example) for those who are not eligible for ancestral visas/citizenship. I do not think there will be any changes there.

 

[JayM]

Well if nothing else, it highlights the ridiculousness of the situation that has had Scotland voting for a socialist party every election since the 50s, but instead have ended up enduring years of Tory misrule.

Don't get me wrong, I like being British, but faced with a choice between the status quo and independence, I choose independence every time.

Let's hope that the 56 SNP MPs coupled with the realisation from the old Etonians running the show that Scots aren't happy might actually result in something concrete now. It would have done last year already, but Mr Cameron took Devo Max off of the referendum paper and left only 2 stark choices Instead of the 3 that people wanted.

Nothing new in that I suppose, just Westminster telling us how to behave. But now people are waking up at long last.

The only reason to go for the 'devo max' compromise would be to guarantee that the rest of the UK would bail them out when they realise that they don't collect enough tax to support even their current spending. And they want to spend even more! As I said before, idealistic but really just a bit crazy. I'd love another passport though

 

[Arthur]

have ended up enduring years of Tory misrule.

You're right.

You forgot to add the years of even worse Labour misrule. The UK's semi-socialist experiment since WW2 has ruined the people. Now the Tories are statists too.

 

[Vox Populi Vox Dei]

Immigration from outside the EU into the UK is actually already very difficult (way more so than "buy your passport" countries like Malta for example) for those who are not eligible for ancestral visas/citizenship. I do not think there will be any changes there.

Correct. The point (missed by the caffe-latte sipping Guardian & Apple loving crew here) made by UKIP is that while you are in the EU, you can't apply immigration controls to other EU member countries. So, a Frenchman who has no useful skills to offer the UK faces far fewer hurdles than an Indian with a Ph.D.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/brendan-oneill/2015/05/the-biggest-loser-of-the-night-russell-brand/

Forget Vince Cable. Forget, if you can, Ed Balls (and I know that’s hard, because what a joyous result that was). Expel from your mind the image of Nick Clegg crying into his cornflakes this morning while texting his old pals in the Euro-oligarchy to see if they will give him a new plush job that involves no contact with pesky plebs. For last night there was an even bigger loser than those guys. Russell Brand. Or ‘Rusty Rockets’, as his politics-packed Twitterfeed has it. Rusty being the operative word, for now we know that the much-hyped ability of slebs like Brand to sway public sentiment is in a serious state of decomposition.

This election has just done to Brand what the last election did to Clegg: exposed that his powers of persuasion over the little people are nothing more than a Guardianista fantasy. In 2010 every liberal was banging on about Cleggmania and saying Nick was the Obama of Britain. (Obama should have sued.) Then the election results came in and revealed that Clegg’s Lib Dems actually lost seats – 57, down from 61 in 2005 (and now, of course, his party is wiped out).

This time round, leftish observers talked up the ‘Brand effect’, the possibility that Rusty’s reversal on not voting and his interview with and endorsement of Miliband might help swing the election. ‘The Tories should be worried’, declared the Guardian. Yeah, not so much. If Brand had any effect – and he didn’t – it was only to damn Labour even more than it was already damned.

The bigging-up of Brand’s intervention in the election was seat-shiftingly embarrassing. ‘He has nearly 10 million Twitter followers… he is listened to by hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Britons… Russell Brand matters’, said Owen Jones, clearly viewing Brand as a kind of priestly figure with a mystical hold over that inscrutable blob (us lot) that politicians can’t connect with. In another piece, Jones said ‘Miliband’s best route to young voters is Russell Brand’, not stopping to think that it might be super-weird that the leader of the alleged party of working people can only speak to the youth via a floppy-haired 40-year-old tabloid filler who hasn’t made a decent gag since 2008.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

(missed by the caffe-latte sipping Guardian & Apple loving crew here)

Grow up, please.

 

[Spizz]

The only reason to go for the 'devo max' compromise would be to guarantee that the rest of the UK would bail them out when they realise that they don't collect enough tax to support even their current spending. And they want to spend even more! As I said before, idealistic but really just a bit crazy. I'd love another passport though

What a load of nonsense (not the passport). It's all just propaganda and scaremongering because the way things are now, nobody knows and how you interpret things is down to your allegiances of indeed the newspaper you read. But don't you find it incredibly insulting that the nation who gave us everything from modern economics to the television, are too stupid to run their own affairs?

And don't you think if it was as simple as you say, that the rest of the UK would be clambering to remove Scotland from the union and save some money? The same as a business closes down a branch that is losing money? But no, we see the politicians falling over themselves to tell us to stay. Why?

Anyway, all a bit OT so sorry for derailing.

 

[Spizz]

You're right.

You forgot to add the years of even worse Labour misrule. The UK's semi-socialist experiment since WW2 has ruined the people. Now the Tories are statists too.

What ruined my country and indeed great swathes of the rest of the UK, was Thatcherism. Many places still haven't recovered.

 

[Arthur]

What ruined my country and indeed great swathes of the rest of the UK, was Thatcherism. Many places still haven't recovered.

Spoken like a true socialist. In my view Maggie, despite her faults, saved Britain.

 

[Spizz]

Spoken like a true socialist.

Thanks.

In my view Maggie,despite her faults, saved Britain.

I suppose you would say that, she obviously never ripped your community apart.

But never mind, she never gave into the ANC so all's good.

 

[Arthur]

I lived in London through the Winter of Discontent. When I got a broom and black bag to sweep the underpass near my digs in Shepherd's Bush, the pickets tried to get me arrested. The Britain Labour created was a nightmare, and the effects are still with us.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

What a load of nonsense (not the passport). It's all just propaganda and scaremongering because the way things are now, nobody knows and how you interpret things is down to your allegiances of indeed the newspaper you read. But don't you find it incredibly insulting that the nation who gave us everything from modern economics to the television, are too stupid to run their own affairs?

And don't you think if it was as simple as you say, that the rest of the UK would be clambering to remove Scotland from the union and save some money? The same as a business closes down a branch that is losing money? But no, we see the politicians falling over themselves to tell us to stay. Why?

Anyway, all a bit OT so sorry for derailing.

Quite a big difference between arguing that something doesn't economically make sense and that the people are too stupid to run their own affairs.

 

[JayM]

What a load of nonsense (not the passport). It's all just propaganda and scaremongering because the way things are now, nobody knows and how you interpret things is down to your allegiances of indeed the newspaper you read. But don't you find it incredibly insulting that the nation who gave us everything from modern economics to the television, are too stupid to run their own affairs?

And don't you think if it was as simple as you say, that the rest of the UK would be clambering to remove Scotland from the union and save some money?

A lot of the English would love that, but there is in fact no mechanism to abandon a part of the country. There is a lot of synergy between the two, and both benefit from each other which is why there was a 'better together' campaign. A split would have hurt the UK and Scotland, but much more so Scotland. They would have to borrow in foreign currency from day 1 at silly rates and their own currency would have no credibility whatsoever. It has nothing to do with being incapable of administering their own affairs.

Why would Scotland prefer devo max over complete independence if they dislike Westminster so much? Why not just cut the cord?

 

[Spizz]

I lived in London through the Winter of Discontent. When I got a broom and black bag to sweep the underpass near my digs in Shepherd's Bush, the pickets tried to get me arrested. The Britain Labour created was a nightmare, and the effects are still with us.

No they are not.

What is still with us is her selling off of council houses at 1/10th of value that means now that people can't afford property anymore, and private landlords are dictating prices. Council houses that were meant as a step on the ladder are simply not there now. Or what about privatising the utility companies so that they are all now owned by foreign money. Or perhaps the death of the manufacturing industry in the UK, creating the north/south divide. Years of power dressing and opulence in the south while at the exact same time mass unemployment and food banks in the north.

But whatever it was, she polarised and broke large parts of Britain like never before. And you'll notice I haven't mention trade unions at all. There's far more she fscked up than them.