As summed up by the political analyst Will Hutton "Every Labour canvasser knows the truth, however the Corbyn coterie blame Brexit. It was Corbyn the terrorist, Corbyn the Marxist, Corbyn the anti-semite. So much idealism and hope trashed. Johnson was salivating to fight Corbyn. Like lambs the Labour party played his game."
Labour were unelectable and the conservatives, led by Boris with that margin, scare me. It's been a really crap choice south of the border. Scotland seems to have voted no to Boris, no to Brexit, and no to being ruled by another Westminster government they didn't elect. Time I sold up and moved back home, after 46 years away. Oh flower of Scotland, when will we see...
As @Callumity said earlier, I just don't get our voting system it is so poor at representing the voters. The best example of this is the craziness of LibDems vs SNP: LibDems 11.5% of the votes 11 seats, SNP 3.9% of the votes 48 seats. That to me represents a broken system
Invest in property in Cumbria and Northumberland........ plenty of Scots would vote with their sporrans should ‘independence’ happen. It is, of course, a funny kind of independence being proposed.
John, don’t let the facts disturb you. Scotland is full of marginal seats. With 1st past the post a minor swing has a wholly disproportionate effect. Meanwhile the size of the Tory majority marginalises the ERG. Some things run counter to expectations.
Whilst it's true their seats have increased the actual vote share difference was only +0.8% so not really rubbish
You totally misread me. I favour strong, certain government over endless manoeuvre and coalitions but the current system is TOO unrepresentative. As for ‘not using figures like that’ they ARE the figures. The SNP/Lib Dem disparity is something of an outrage. I am a democrat rather than a party poodle for anyone. How are you on inverse proportionality?
Are you comparing LibDems vs SNP across the whole of the country? Since the SNP didn't have anyone standing in England, Wales & NI, it's not a like-for-like comparison. SNP won 45% of vote in Scotland - up 8.1%, (0 elsewhere). LibDems 11.5% UK, but 9.5% share in Scotland. Conservatives have 47.2% share in England, 43.6% in U.K., 25% in Scotland. But I agree, we need a better system of representation. No party picked up more than 50% of the vote, so really, we will be ruled by a party that more than half the voters didn't vote for.
Not sure where your SNP +8% comes from. .8% everywhere and Boris is pretty marmite in these parts! I don’t greatly favour straight PR but the US electoral college system equalises up States of disparate size and population. Even there the Dems bleat that Hilary ‘won the popular vote’ (but lost the Electoral College because Trump out gamed her) and Republicans in California generally don’t waste time going to the polls in Presidential elections. Whatever, civil war subsides for a while. That’s a win for everyone.
that or people are over invested in the bs media portrayal of her. by many accounts she is a pretty decent constituency politician.
0.8% rise is correct if looking at the UK as a whole, but as I said before, the SNP only have candidates in Scotland. So if you look at Scotland alone, they have an 8.1% rise in the vote compared to the Scotland SNP vote in 2017. I'm not really a supporter of the SNP or independence, but I really get why we ("they" really, since I live in England) get fed up of being governed by Tory governments that we (they) overwhelmingly didn't vote for.
That's probably true. She doesn't come across well on the television, but if she works hard for her constituency, that counts for a lot.
Nah, I've met her, she blurts out platitudes like candy, bumbles and is in my limited experience way out of her depth. They didn't vote for her they voted labour. The rest of the country voted to keep Jezza out, at no other moment in history has Labour had the best opportunity to win, let's face it Boris is a lying dick, yet less of a dick than Jezza who cost the reds the country. But I know fark all about politics, as clearly evidenced by this ill informed rant, either way the country is screwed, Boris says lets get Brexit done, well Boris its only just beginning my old china, five years plus of negotiations, getting bummed by Europe and Trump waiting to fark us over royaly, just sayin.
It’s purely academic but I am struggling with your arithmetic. The SNP got .8% more votes in 2019 than 2017 but, with other factors (i.e. marginally increased turnout, local issues and Con -3.5% Labour -8.5% collapse) netted 13 more seats. My underlying point in the whole election is how quite small shifts can have a major impact on seats. The winners always point to seats won!
I do agree with your underlying point, small shifts in voting patterns and numbers can seem to have a disproportionate effect on seats won. SNP votes 2019 1,242,380 SNP votes 2017 977,569 Increase 2019 over 2017 = 264,811 That looks like more than 0.8% to me. But I still agree with your underlying point.
You are right. The Beeb and Sky ticker tape was wrong. Mind you, still more than 50% Unionist votes.....
I agree with you @half ton, it is difficult to forget the divisions, and I don't think they'll go away anytime soon. There's been a lot of unnecessarily bad stuff said on both sides that can't be unsaid. As someone who wanted to remain in Europe, I found the attitude of many leave supporters threatening and often very nasty. I learned pretty quickly to keep my head down and say nowt, but it's left a bad taste that won't go away.
