[jfdm]

This made me laugh telegraph btl comment about what's happening, priceless thinking.

"It is time for the UK to have a military coup. We have Brexit in shreds, terrorism abounds and social upheaval the likes of which we have not seen in decades. We have no politicians of any stature who can remedy any of this and the longer things remain the way they are the worse it is going to get.

By having a military dictatorship Brexit will be solved as the UK would be thrown out for being undemocratic. Job # 1 done !

The military can then deal with the terror agents within the country asthey should be dealt with. Job # 2 done !

Most of the social ills in the country are fostered by the young and immigration .Conscription will solve the problem of under 25's by giving them something to do and something else to think about other than anti-social media. Job # # done.

Immigration can be stopped in it's tracks and resettlement of those who do not integrate can be begun immediately as it should have been done 50 years ago at the behest of Enoch Powell. Job # 4 done.
Hopefully by then some decent politicians would have come out of the woodwork and Parliament can reconvene. The 2nd Commonwealth. All we need is a Cromwell !"

[Will Hunt]

I seem to remember quite a few UKber's previous trotting out the "Corbyn totally unelectable" line previously...anything to say on that now???

Not really, Corbs wasn’t elected. It’s undeniable that he led a very good campaign. Some of his policies are fab, some a bit more pie in the sky.

The question now is, can he be elected? Maybe in the future he can be, but we might have seen peak Corbyn in this election. Hard line Corbyn supporters have been quick to point out that Labour achieved a massive vote share in this election, but the Conservatives achieved a similarly large share and this is simply an artefact of the collapse of UKIP and the Lib Dems. There is less choice over who to vote for so the major parties sweep up.
People on the left voted for Labour in droves but I suspect this is as much an indictment of the Tories as an endorsement of Corbyn’s leadership. I’m not a particular Corbyn fan but I was happy to vote Labour this time round as it presented the best possibly chance of getting rid of the Conservatives. I think a lot of others are in the same boat.

Corbyn mobilised a big youth vote which has been very impressive. I wonder if those voters are here to stay? Probably, given that they voted and achieved a perceived win. However, Corbyn’s campaign was mirrored by the most ham-fisted, cynical, ill-judged election campaign that I can remember. Theresa May will not fight another GE as leader, and I expect that there are others in her party who could do the job much better. I’d be really interested to see a turnout breakdown to see if older voters tended to stay at home while the young were motivated to get to the polling booth. I think also that, as the dust settles, the Conservatives will sit up and take notice of this result and curb some of their greatest austerity excesses in order to become less toxic.

So: falling away of third parties; motivated young and "anybody but Theresas" against alienated and uninspired Conservative core vote; large amounts of tactical voting. All of that and Labour are still about 50 seats behind the Conservatives. If Labour want to actually win an election, as Tony Blair did so magnificently, and put themselves in a position to implement their manifesto then they have to appeal to people who hover in the centre and might otherwise be tempted to vote Conservative. These are the people to whom anything further left than left-of-centre is totally toxic. My neighbour for instance: late 70s or early 80s; very liberal minded for somebody of her demographic – she could not bring herself to vote Labour in this election because in her gut she doesn’t have confidence in Jeremy Corbyn.
After this election result, Labour are now going to have JC as their leader for some time. If he can’t appeal to those in the middle then I think we’ll have a stalemate. If he can, then we may well have PM Corbyn.

[Johnny Brown]

I’d be really interested to see a turnout breakdown to see if older voters tended to stay at home

This is what I'd expected; I don't think it happened. May pulled an impressive number of votes.

My neighbour for instance: late 70s or early 80s; very liberal minded for somebody of her demographic – she could not bring herself to vote Labour

Why not? What I'd imagine from both these points is that the print media does still have a big influence on the older demographic.

[dave]

This is one thing that annoys me, people saying "I couldn't vote for Corbyn". Well neither could I, because I don't live in Islington. We have this thing where we treat it like a Presidential election, when it's not. Leaders can come and go at the drop of a hat, as we've seen of late.

EDIT: I should add, I have no idea why this annoys me. But worth reminding people we have a parliamentary system not a president.

[Oldmanmatt]

I’d be really interested to see a turnout breakdown to see if older voters tended to stay at home

This is what I'd expected; I don't think it happened. May pulled an impressive number of votes.

My neighbour for instance: late 70s or early 80s; very liberal minded for somebody of her demographic – she could not bring herself to vote Labour

Why not? What I'd imagine from both these points is that the print media does still have a big influence on the older demographic.

I think they will disappear.

So unless the prevailing attitude is a function of age, there should be a re-alignment of politics. The Boomers, who grew up in the chaos of the '70s, boom of the '80s and hunger still for the mighty Thatcher; will be replaced by those (like me and most of my juniors) who feel more keenly the aftershocks of the 2008 crash, the cut of the Austerity knife and pay attention to where that Quack's scalpel avoids.

[36chambers]

I’d be really interested to see a turnout breakdown to see if older voters tended to stay at home

This is what I'd expected; I don't think it happened. May pulled an impressive number of votes.

Older peeps had a higher turnout and were more likely to vote blue.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election/

[Will Hunt]

This is one thing that annoys me, people saying "I couldn't vote for Corbyn". Well neither could I, because I don't live in Islington. We have this thing where we treat it like a Presidential election, when it's not. Leaders can come and go at the drop of a hat, as we've seen of late.

Absolutely correct, however the party is undoubtedly steered by the leader and the leader is the biggest single influence on the parties direction. So in a sense you vote for the party as the leader envisages it. There's a big difference between Blair's Labour and Corbyn's Labour.

My neighbour for instance: late 70s or early 80s; very liberal minded for somebody of her demographic – she could not bring herself to vote Labour

Why not? What I'd imagine from both these points is that the print media does still have a big influence on the older demographic.

I didn't quiz her so I don't know. However I expect the reason would be that he's a bit "airy fairy" or a bit of a wet lettuce. These are very loose points which can be roughly translated to "I don't know, I just get a bad feeling about him". Rather than blaming the media, perhaps consider that many people prefer a political leader who appears commanding, maybe to the point of being authoritarian, especially. The print media, edited largely by middle aged and up white people reflects this.

I'm not putting these arguments forward because they reflect my own opinion, but because I think a lot of Corbyn supporters have spent a lot of time thinking about what they and their friends want and not a lot of time thinking about what everybody else wants.

[danm]

Actually Will, one thing that seems to have struck a chord with voters, especially the young, was Corbyn's collegiate approach - asking people what they wanted rather than telling them what they needed.

I went out on Thursday after using MyNearestMarginal.com to help get the vote out in Stocksbridge. Bear in mind I've never done anything political previously other than post on FB and protest the Junior Doctors contract last year. It was most enlightening!

So many volunteers had turned out we were sent over to Ecclesfield to help out. My agenda was my own, I only voted Labour for the first time last election, I'm not really a true socialist and I'm certainly not a Corbynista. What got me out was concern over Conservative arrogance, and concern over a hard Brexit and losing the NHS.

The day was a game of two halves, the local Labour activists follow a plan, basically vote counting and hoping a bit of personal contact gets people on board. By contrast, I wanted to get people to vote whoever that might be for, to hear some views outside my FB bubble, and also see how election canvassing works on the ground. In the morning, our handler, a friendly old veteran called Helen, totally got it. We were left to chat to people, and I got a few to vote, talked about a few issues with folks. Corbyn came up a fair bit, most people saying he was growing on them over time. I think most people were impressed that I wasn't giving it the hard sell and was eager to listen.

In the afternoon, we got an old git who just wanted the numbers and got annoyed if we spent too long chatting. I had to pull him up for leaning on someones car to fill in his clipboard. Eventually I just fucked him off and went renegade, doing my own thing. The most poignant thing was chatting to a young lad in a particularly run-down bit of the estate we visited. I could see something light up in him when I said that he had as much right to vote as anyone, and that we all had an equal voice so why not vote on what was important to you individually (OK, maybe bullshit without PR but it's the sentiment that counts). He may well have gone and voted UKIP, but I'd rather that than the slow decline in turnout which this election seems to have reversed.

So, whether you like him or hate him, one thing Corbyn seems to have done is got people engaged in politics again, which can only be a good thing?

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

I’d be really interested to see a turnout breakdown to see if older voters tended to stay at home

This is what I'd expected; I don't think it happened. May pulled an impressive number of votes.

Older peeps had a higher turnout and were more likely to vote blue.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election/

Saw those charts, what will be interesting to watch/research is as the current 18-50 age groups get older, and the 50-70+ groups die off, will they keep their views or do people generally develop more conservative opinions as they get older?

[finbarrr]

as rich people have been saying for a century and a half: “If you aren’t a socialist at twenty, you have no heart, and if you are a socialist at forty, you have no head.”

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/

[i.munro]

The fact that Mays tories  rather than being conservative are actually intending to tear down almost every aspect of life that the old have always lived with suggests to me that it's simply tribalism. " I've always voted tory" rather than a desire for a right wing revolution.

[andyh]

The Honnold - May analogy

[Oldmanmatt]

The Honnold - May analogy

I quite literally just logged on to UKB to share that after seeing it on Twatter.
F#%€ing hilarious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jfdm]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tvjfq#play
About 25 minutes in on BBC 4, Bozzer put under a little bit of pressure and wilts.
All bluster, hot air and horse play- classic car crash material.
Interviewed for 10 minutes and nothing to say.
Well done Paul Muir for not putting up with his shit.

So Queeny speech what I got from this.
1) those that voted for Mays manefesto get nothing, no fox hunting etc apart from soft Brexit.
2) Brexit on the rocks, DUP want Brexit but soft border with Republic - that's not going to work. Scottish Parliament may be able to create owns laws during great repeal bill independent of Eng. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-block-scotland-vote-repeal-bill-theresa-may-latest-news-a7801741.html
If somebody can tell me what Brexit means, they will have cracked the enigma code of our times.
3) DuP want at least £2billion in order to support May, I'd call that bribery.
4) Corby appeared to have leadership written all over him today, didn't even bow to Queen!
In summing up present situation could only be called a cluster fuck.
Things to look forward to - nothing, MP's/gov to do fuck all until next election.

[Oldmanmatt]

Not sure where the dividing line, between the referendum and election threads, sits anymore. It's all too tangled up.
However, the last paragraph of this is worrisome.
I wonder if it's real or journalistic fantasy?

http://www.politico.eu/article/battered-and-bruised-theresa-may-limps-into-enemy-territory/

[mrjonathanr]

I don't know if it's actually a faithfully repeated quote but it's a pretty uncontentious statement of the obvious tbh

[Fultonius]

Is anyone else also so resigned to the impending doom this country is sailing towards that they've given up even caring?  I almost have a mild sense of amusement about the whole thing, in a sort of, "well, it's going to utterly fucked whichever way it turns out, so let's hope there a bit of flotsam to cling on to.

Fucked.

Utterly, utterly fucked.

[SamT]

Yep.

Just finished reading an albeit light hearted book re the first world war (if such a thing can exist) and it feels like we're in a similar state of (bloody) mind.

The establishment ploughing on regardless, "over the top boys",   whilst the nation, who probably thought it was all a good thing to start with and would vote for it, are realising that its all just a bloody tragic shambles, with no real point to it all that costing millions (ok, at least its not lives this time around).

[dave]

Read a thing this morning saying that Ireland are planning to block any UK Brexit deal (do ALL eu members need to agree to it?) in response to the DUP deal potentially knackering the peace process. Which could mean no Con-DUP deal.

[tomtom]

Sinn Fein are taking it to the high court too iirc.

[dave]

A kangaroo high court?

(sorry).

[Johnny Brown]

Is anyone else also so resigned to the impending doom this country is sailing towards that they've given up even caring?  I almost have a mild sense of amusement about the whole thing, in a sort of, "well, it's going to utterly fucked whichever way it turns out, so let's hope there a bit of flotsam to cling on to.

I'm actually quite encouraged by the news at the minute. After the referendum there was a long period of uncertainty - with such a vague question and an unclear majority it was unclear to everybody what to do. Slowly the Tories managed to talk themselves and the country into Brexit - the delay in triggering Art50 being necessary to let everyone get used to that idea. What I think we are seeing now is the beginning of the opposite process. Politicians (who lets not forget were overwhelmingly remain) have a clear sign that the mood of the country has changed, the economic effects are being felt and they now feel comfortable publicly challenging Brexit. The juggernaut has not turned round yet but the brakes are firmly on.

[dave]

I could see the negotiation process being an absolute shambles, then the public being presented with the best deal they can get (which will be dogshit) as a referendum question, the other option being to sack off Brexit. Which of course only the most insane UKIP and EDL crowd could conceivably vote for Brexit at this point. Job done, "will of the people" etc etc but tanking the economy for the time being.

[mrjonathanr]

do ALL eu members need to agree to it?

I understood that any of the 27 could veto, which isn't exactly the same.

[i.munro]

I'm very confused by all this talk of a "deal" by our politicians. It was made very clear in the run-up to the referendum that the article 50 period was to be for negotiating the process of leaving.

Nothing we have heard from the EU side has suggested otherwise.
It was also made clear that typical times for the EU to negotiate free-trade deals are 7-10 years.

So presumably a successful "deal" would cover , a solution to the Irish border issue (really!!) the U.K. paying it's agreed contributions to EU budgets (really !!) and protection of EU citizens in the UK 's rights etc. None of that has anything to do with the future prosperity of the UK.

I guess if everything  went well from an EU perspective(ie they get everything they want) they might agree in principle to a to-be-negociated free-trade deal.

Is that the "deal" we'd be voting on ? I'm  baffled.