UK General Election 2024

[Roasted Swan]

I like what they've done with some of those (s)mugshots. E.g the Truss* one

(Truss was/is the MP where I lived previously, in SW Norfolk, to my despair; my current one is Cleverly, which is almost as bad. My brother's, next door, is Priti Patel.... we really do pick 'em in East Anglia. How many will survive the night....  )

I can trump (pardon the pun) your Priti Patel - my next-door MP is Jacob Grease-Bog

[Elgarian Redux]

my next-door MP is Jacob Grease-Bog

I can hardly imagine the depth of your suffering.

[Luke]

I can trump (pardon the pun) your Priti Patel - my next-door MP is Jacob Grease-Bog

Ooof. That's nasty!

[steve ridgway]

https://portillogeddon.com/

Conservative Wipeout Bingo 2024

LOL at least the leadership election will be easier with so few to choose from .

[steve ridgway]

I'm not voting. Labour deserve a chance and I'm fine with them having a go at stopping the decline, but don't want to feel responsible when it all comes to nothing .

[Luke]

Exit poll gives Labour enormous 269 seat majority.

[steve ridgway]

Current results Lab 87 - Con 10.

[steve ridgway]

Lab 203 - Con 32.

I can see a pattern here .

[steve ridgway]

Lab 331 - Con 70.

180 results yet to come but Labour have already won .

[Florestan]

Landslide.

[Irons]

I have no love for Labour but a change of government long overdue. The Johnson/Truss/Sunak axis has been an absolute disaster. I see the rise of Reform a greater threat to the future of the Conservative party then the Labour party. Bad night for SNP too and the reasons behind their downfall not far removed from the Tories. Power does corrupt.

[Mandryka]

Landslide.

N.B Labour took about 34% of all votes cast. Another way of putting it is, 66% of voters didn't want Labour.

[Florestan]

N.B Labour took about 34% of all votes cast. Another way of putting it is, 66% of voters didn't want Labour.

What kind of a democracy is that, in which a party who took about 34% of all votes gets the vast majority of the seats? To me looks like a sham. 

[Crudblud]

What kind of a democracy is that, in which a party who took about 34% of all votes gets the vast majority of the seats? To me looks like a sham. 

It happens every time with the current electoral system here. The case for proportional representation, in which vote share actually equates to seat share, grows stronger each election. The Labour conference even voted in favour of having it in the Labour manifesto, though Starmer predictably vetoed that. It's a Catch-22 really, the only way to get rid of Labour and the Conservatives is through PR, but the only way to get PR is to get rid of Labour and the Conservatives. As long as we go back and forth between the big two nothing will change.

[Mandryka]

What kind of a democracy is that, in which a party who took about 34% of all votes gets the vast majority of the seats? To me looks like a sham. 

An alternative voting procedure was rejected in a referendum in 2011

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum

[Mandryka]

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49947-why-are-britons-voting-labour

[Florestan]

An alternative voting procedure was rejected in a referendum in 2011

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum

Why, sure, the AV sounds way more complicated than PR.

The only real and most democratic alternative is PR, but it seems that the UK political establishment is afraid of it like of plague. 

[Todd]

Did Sunak ever explain why he called for early elections?  From an outsider's perspective, things do not appear to have gone well for the Tories, so his decision seems sub-optimal in some ways. 

[Luke]

That he thought he might catch the other parties unprepared, but for the most part, knowing that a general election could be called at any point, they were about ready to go. The only people truly unprepared were the rest of the Tory party, who thought he'd leave it till the last possible moment. He's a genius.

Also, that he wanted to catch a brief window of better economic figures than will likely be coming down the line.

[Florestan]

That he thought he might catch the other parties unprepared, but for the most part, knowing that a general could be called at any point, they were about ready to go. The only people truly unprepared were the rest of the Tory party, who thought he'd leave it till the last possible moment. He's a genius.

Totally unlike Macron, then, who literally destroyed the French center and left France torn apart between far right and far left.