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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2021 0:14:01 GMT
The Scottish Greens are a separate party but they're on course to have a very, very good election here and have a lot of buzz, pushing the Lib Dems into 5th place if polls are correct. And most importantly for the makeup of the government, they're the pro-Independence backup should the SNP fail to get an overall majority, which I think they won't do (they don't have one just now) - so the Greens are the ones who will tip the balance to a pro-Indy Parliament, should there be one (which seems likely). Turns out the question "Will Alex Salmond damage Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP?" seems to be, as I said here when asked, a resounding "no". We'll see over the wekeend but the SNP look to be holding on, not gaining a majority but keeping enough seats to win comfortably and have an Indy centric chamber with Green support. Scottish Labour look set to finish 3rd. Anas Sarwar ran a good campaign but ultimately Labour are done up here until they back Independence, as many of their traditional voters have shifted to the SNP. Well the Greens gained two seats so that's very very good I guess. Labour lost two. (If we can take our party hats off for just a second, were you as surprised as me that the SCons still hold 31 seats, their high-water mark from 2016, given Brexit and Boris since then and a less popular leader, so we're always told. And given all the same things, that the SNP made only 1 gain?)
I agree, Labour are finished in Scotland until they back independence. And if they do back independence, then whatever the result, they are finished, really finished, in England and Wales.
No, as I said above - for a certain part of the electorate, the Tories are the face of the Union here and that's probably why their vote share held up. Ruth, again, was everywhere. I saw her a LOT more than I did Ross on the trail. They clearly were smart enough to use her while she's here. She's been leading them during the election run up after all. The battle lines stayed much the same. I'd be more interested in looking at anecdotal things once Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar have had time to settle in. I also wouldn't overestimate how much names like Johnson matter here - the Scottish Tories use Ruth, and have done for years, as their face intentionally and little of the election discourse is based on Johnson and even less on Starmer and the like. I'm happy, personally, since SNP 1 and Green 2 was my vote and that's exactly what we're getting with the Greens being the powerbrokers here. Not that they'd cut their noses off to spite their faces but climate change and the like is something I think the SNP can work harder on. A louder Green voice in power for that is welcome. Poor Willie Rennie and his Libs though...they were in coalition for that very first Scottish Government with Donald Dewar's Labour, now they're so few they can share a taxi to the conferences.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on May 9, 2021 2:09:26 GMT
As daver had his moment to vent about the perceptions of Northern voters and their right to vote for who they wish, I'd like to take mine to take Mr Mahmood to task, especially on the perception of London, my home city.
In the same way that Hartlepoolers have the right to express anger at being seen as thick racists, I'll exercise mine to say that the idea of London as some golden city, full of wine-and-cheese chugging elites who live in ivory towers on gold-paved streets, is perhaps the biggest crock of utter B*llsh*t I've heard as a (shock, gasp) working class Londoner and child of immigrants, born and raised on a council estate. The City and all those big, shiny buildings is a tiny part of what London, its people and its culture is. You raise me Hartlepool, I'll raise you Tower Hamlets if Mr Mahmood wants to play poverty olympics. There's issues with air quality; the housing market being shot to sh*t and the borderline crime syndicate that is renting; all that purdy gentrification that Boris helped initiate pushing people out of affordable homes and disenfranchising minorities; even the fact that yes, gay bashing and hate crimes with very lethal consequences still happens from time to time in 'The Wokest Place On Earth'. I could literally go on all day about London's flaws, whether the mayor is Tory or Labour, and how we do very much have a working class here who also work those same grimey, exploitative, thankless jobs as anybody up North and that they have just as much a right to a voice as anyone else.
But you know what? Even though The Little Old Lady on the Thames isn't perfect, but she's home and I have a soft spot for her. This city's diversity of cultures, creeds and classes, and the people willing to stand up for that and accept that, is her greatest strength: no two streets are truly alike, and you can be exposed to just about culture here, make friends of any variety. The way communities come, and have come, together to help each other is heartwarming: up in Stamford Hill, Jews and Muslims walk side by side, as friends and neighbours, not enemies. The people whom I've called teachers, mentors and guides, who made me conscious of the wider world and to think harder and try harder: they run from a conservative, church-going New Zealander, to a Communist documentary director, to an Antiguan Pentecostal teaching assistant. None of whom were wealthy, but all were worldly. You'll never be bored here, I promise you that. Sorry Mr Mahmood if I'm proud of all that as a Labour voting, working class man whose parents never even got a secondary education, and had to scrounge a living from every menial job you can imagine - guess I'm not real or authentic enough for you because I'm so-called 'woke' (that I see a vision of the UK where these 'salt of the earth, honest, working class white folks' have open arms and minds, and don't dismiss others because of who they are or where they've been. Because I've seen it. Here, from those same kinds of 'Daves and Sarahs'.)
Apologies for poaching daver, but I think this is a good line to end on: I do not need a lecture as to why I am wrong. I know the facts myself and understand that pragmatism and idealism are not enemies. Maybe we need to reintroduce the concept of 'doing both' back into this country's political lexicon. Maybe when that happens, things can heal.
I fully appreciate your perspective and would not argue with it. You tell it as you see it from London and your own background, I tell it as it appears from up in the North East. I would never be guilty of assuming that the wealth in the capitol is anywhere close to being equitably disbursed. I do know from my own life choices however, that having attained a good degree at Bournemouth, how my peers of whom I collaborated closely with on our final year project (and of whom I gained a higher award classification), have attained a very well remunerated career in our chosen degree specialism (Systems Analysis). Jobs that I found simply did not exist in the North East (I had to return on graduation for financial necessity). 'Graduate opportunities' for no more than I earned on my Industrial Placement year. Teaching was not a choice as a career, but like so many others in this region, one of the few plentiful graduate opportunities. Too many here are what is termed 'underemployed'. That is to say over educated and over skilled. A region where Call Centre work was for quite a few years after I finished University, the biggest form of Graduate recruitment. My County remains one of the 10th hardest places in the UK to find a Job (any). There is a lack of diversity here still. Towns and communities are still largely homogeneous. People have little need to feel resentment of immigration or lack of integration, it simply exists as something people read about or see in the media in many areas. We have racial communities in towns such as Middlesbrough, but often ethnic minorities are usually the 'one family on the street', and as such are simply one of us. The same demographic as far as most are concerned, except for the knuckleheads. What Mr Mahmood appears, from what I discern, to allude to, is that the preoccupations of those in the metropolis do not register with traditional working class communities. Movements such as BLM are all very laudable, but are issues that affect other areas, that happen elsewhere. Many feel the same disconnect (right of wrong - that is their issue, not mine), from the mainstream and do come to feel forgotten about. It is not a racist issue, just a sense that they never seem to reach anywhere near the top of the list of priorities. I am not a Labour voter, so many of my points do not apply to myself. However, it has to be acknowledged as a case whereby long standing Labour supporters do no longer see their own priorities evident in the manifesto of their own party, yet find them front and centre in the traditional enemy - the Conservatives. As I say, no wish for disagreement - I appreciate that things are seen differently elsewhere. But by heck - this area of England is decades behind now. That needs to change. I'm truly thankful for your cordiality.
I suppose this acts as a 2-in-1 reply to 13's comment about the whys of the blue wall votes: the demographics are, as you say, homogenuous and the odd vox pop with a black person isn't going to negate that. The irony here is these new Tories are going to have to lean on a form of 'increasing diversity' if they are serious about turning these places around - some (not all, I concede) Brexiteers wanting a more British-for-the-British/isolationist mentality are going to get a shock when all the nations and foreign corporations that the trade deals court are going to be bringing their guys over to train and organize these new contacts and employees, meaning Hartlepool and similar places may be getting a 'splash of colour', if you'll forgive the crude phrase, if they want leveling up. But more than that, I think, not just for Labour's electoral chances but just for the good of UK political discourse, that the lie that a bunch of major polemics (jobs, crime, minority rights etc.) are separate and unrelated issues when, in reality, they are all deeply connected and should matter to rural town and city alike, needs to be called. And that's for pragmatic elements, not moral ones as you may say a 'city liberal' might argue. Systemic issues like mistreatment of race or gender play into issues around worker's rights, weakened unions, job insecurity, bad wages and lack of investment - when the rot is in one place, it spreads to the rest. If you fix it, you bring it up for everyone, whoever they are, goose or gander.
The 'doing both' that I advocated, the need for robust demystifying, could well be the thing that helps end the nonsensical culture war that the Westminster-end Tories certainly have been profiting off of, by acting like everything in a society doesn't knock on something else and everything is in these bubbles. Plenty of talk about how we need to build bridges again after Brexit to 'move on', but I'd said the actual word should be 'connections': an unemployed kid up in the Northern sticks and one in a rental nightmare down South may have more goals and the same 'wrong' that needs to be fought, in common than either realizes.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 9, 2021 7:58:34 GMT
Just been reading that the incumbent Mayors of Teesside, the West Midlands and Manchester all increased their victory margins whereas London’s didn’t. Yep, 1.6% drop for Khan & a 1.6% increase for Bailey. I think a lot people, myself included, are disappointed in Khan so far. More upsetting is that Count Binface didn't beat Laurence Fox!
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Post by nucleusofswarm on May 9, 2021 18:32:27 GMT
Just been reading that the incumbent Mayors of Teesside, the West Midlands and Manchester all increased their victory margins whereas London’s didn’t. Glad you mention this as I think, in the interest of a balanced discussion, Labour has not been without some interesting wins:
They lost the War of The Councils and more of the red wall, but on the flip side, they won the War of Mayors, taking two Conservative areas in the forms of West of England and Cambridgeshire, and losing none. And, in the case of G. Manchester (which unless it suddenly got airlifted to the Thames is very much in the North) re-elected Andy Burnham and resoundingly crushed the Tories. Even in the West Midlands, Tory Andy Street's margin of victory is actually smaller than Sadiq's Khan's win in London (which some reporting, and not strictly only rightwing, would lead you to think is a terrible phyrric victory, yet Street's isn't, despite his lead in WM being much tighter than Labour's Londoner.) They also did rather well in Wales, so I think, as Starmer is doing his reshuffling and rethinking, there are successful precedents to look at in places not dissimilar to where he has been losing.
What did they and their campaigns do that wasn't mirrored in all the councils battles? This is a learning experience, if Labour higher-ups take it.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2021 9:19:52 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2021 9:52:12 GMT
She makes a good point. Party unity, ultimately, means little. There were still plenty of Michael Foot supporters who couldn't stand Blair in Government in 1997. There are plenty of Tories right now who can't abide Johnson. Unifying the party often means purging those of differing policy and deselecting them, leading to an echo chamber of approval - with pride coming right before the fall. Starmer still feels like a reactionary choice of leader to me. The media and Tories attacked Corbyn for being an old lefty, not well dressed, bit of a past with groups a PM probably wouldn't want to be pictured with etc. So Labour get the clean cut bank manager type, and he can't be attacked for being some old anarchist given he was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service. He's the embodiment of Blair's old "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime mantra". Yet this clearly isn't working well either. Did they go too far the other way from Corbyn to distance themselves? Is Starmer unlucky that when he does best Boris at PMQs there's an almost empty chamber there, like a standup telling his best material to an empty audience? Is it Brexit fallout? Is it cult of personality with "Boris" still being the character while Starmer seems like the kind of guy you'd avoid at dinner parties because he keeps talking about his model trains? Is it Labour seeming almost afraid of policy, in fear of alienating anyone, then wondering why few seem to know who they are? I don't know, honestly. It doesn't affect us in Scotland as much but those all seem like the kind of drip-drip reasons being somewhat of an outsider that seem to be stopping Starmer and Labour right now. They seem to spend more time worrying about what not to be, than what they should be. And there doesn't seem to be much of an attempt to understand quite why this is all going on, unless that's what today's reshuffle brings. Though how many post-mortems must Labour perform? We've seen this ever since Brown lost, more so since Milliband did. A constant assessment of failure - and an almost total refusal to change very much at all. And unlike post-Kinnock there doesn't seem to be a golden generation ready to lead at all. I mean...we're not that far removed now, 18 months, from an election where Diane Abbott was put to the country as a potential home secretary. Diane Abbott. If she was the answer...the question was clearly wrong.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on May 10, 2021 11:37:18 GMT
The election results in the North of England make me think of the lines from Kipling's poem If about Triumph and Disatster both being Imposters.
There seems to have been a big incumbency benefit in England, Scotland and Wales, a tendency to rally to the government in times of crisis plus a covid feelgood factor due to vaccines and easing restrictions. And before we need to allow for that before we start drawing too many conclusions about the longer term implications.
Having said that, there are clearly some long term implications.
The red wall is shifting, but the trend had been apparent in 2017 and earlier. What happened in 2019 was that it reached tipping point and a lot of seats changed hands. The Labour party has always had a degree of disconnect between the social liberalism of its activists and MPs and the small "c" conservatism of a lot of its working class support. In 1968 the London dockers - Labour supporters in the main - marched in support of Enoch Powell after his Rivers of Blood speech. Public opinion generally has had a higher % in favour of capital punishment than the % of MPs who want to bring it back. New Labour recognised this and to some extent addressed it with its "tough on crime" stance which reached its apogee in the Home Secretaryship of David Blunkett - who I recall once condemning what he called the "liberati". Labour was able to succeed in straddling this divide for most of its history, with the perceived economic self-interest of the less well off trumping their social conservatism and leading them to vote Labour. The combination of brexit, Boris and Corbyn finally ripped Labour apart along this faultline and Keir has a big task on his hands to put it back together again. It will take more than superficial and patronising wrapping himself in the Union Jack - if I was his adviser I would tell him he needs to pick a fight with the online woke warriors to show that he is not one of them and start defending illiberal comments on the grounds of free speech.
The recent reshuffle mess is the first serious damage to the Keir Starmer brand and I was disappointed he did not bring back Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn - partly because they are 2 of the most talented and effective Labour MPs and partly for the signal it would give that Labour was moving rightwards leaving Corbynism further and further behind.
But the reason why I say that Triumph and Disaster are imposters is that the blue wall is also fragmenting. Like the red wall before 2019 it has not yet reached the tipping point where lots of seats start to change hands, but the trend is definitely there in these results. It may never reach that tipping point, but I think it will eventually if Labour can get their act together (maybe under Starmer's successor?). The new Tory coalition has a big faultline running through it between the traditional low tax, small government types and the new Northern voters who want to see a bit of levelling up - which will require higher taxes and spending. The covid crisis has meant that everyone has accepted the necessity of higher spending in the short term and has papered over the cracks in the Tory coalition, but I can't see that lasting forever.
The other long term trend is the change in public attitudes and morality - by any standards Boris Johnston is a rogue and a scoundrel and a liar and is totally unfit to hold any public office, let alone the highest in the land. And yet, much as it pains me, I have to accept that doesn't seem to bother the majority of people in the UK. I suppose it is the inevitable consequence of the UK becoming a post-Christian country.
As for Scotland, I'm not convinced the SNP's victory is the triumph that it seems. The paradox of brexit, in terms of how it relates to Scottish independence, is that while it makes the superficial emotional case for independence stronger ("taken out of the EU against our will") it actually drives a coach and horses through the economic case - not that the economic case was particularly strong in the first place. For Scotland to leave the UK and join the EU would mean a customs and trade border between Scotland the rest of the UK that would do far far more harm to the Scottish economy than brexit ever did or could Just look at the experience of Ireland, North and South. And remember that trade follows the flag - brexit will mean less EU trade and more UK trade for Scotland so Scotland's economic interdependence with the rest of the UK will only increase over time. When you factor in the weaknesses that were already in the SNP's case - no good answer to the currency question, Scotland's fiscal deficit that is currently subsidised by English taxpayers - brexit makes the economic case for independence even weaker than before. I don't make a habit of agreeing with Nigel Farage but he was 100% right recently when he said that Scottish independence would be more sensible if based on staying out of the EU and in a customs union with the rest of the UK.
That's my twopenniesworth on the election results.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 10, 2021 12:56:44 GMT
The election results in the North of England make me think of the lines from Kipling's poem If about Triumph and Disatster both being Imposters.
There seems to have been a big incumbency benefit in England, Scotland and Wales, a tendency to rally to the government in times of crisis plus a covid feelgood factor due to vaccines and easing restrictions. And before we need to allow for that before we start drawing too many conclusions about the longer term implications.
Having said that, there are clearly some long term implications.
The red wall is shifting, but the trend had been apparent in 2017 and earlier. What happened in 2019 was that it reached tipping point and a lot of seats changed hands. The Labour party has always had a degree of disconnect between the social liberalism of its activists and MPs and the small "c" conservatism of a lot of its working class support. In 1968 the London dockers - Labour supporters in the main - marched in support of Enoch Powell after his Rivers of Blood speech. Public opinion generally has had a higher % in favour of capital punishment than the % of MPs who want to bring it back. New Labour recognised this and to some extent addressed it with its "tough on crime" stance which reached its apogee in the Home Secretaryship of David Blunkett - who I recall once condemning what he called the "liberati". Labour was able to succeed in straddling this divide for most of its history, with the perceived economic self-interest of the less well off trumping their social conservatism and leading them to vote Labour. The combination of brexit, Boris and Corbyn finally ripped Labour apart along this faultline and Keir has a big task on his hands to put it back together again. It will take more than superficial and patronising wrapping himself in the Union Jack - if I was his adviser I would tell him he needs to pick a fight with the online woke warriors to show that he is not one of them and start defending illiberal comments on the grounds of free speech.
The recent reshuffle mess is the first serious damage to the Keir Starmer brand and I was disappointed he did not bring back Yvette Cooper and Hilary Benn - partly because they are 2 of the most talented and effective Labour MPs and partly for the signal it would give that Labour was moving rightwards leaving Corbynism further and further behind.
But the reason why I say that Triumph and Disaster are imposters is that the blue wall is also fragmenting. Like the red wall before 2019 it has not yet reached the tipping point where lots of seats start to change hands, but the trend is definitely there in these results. It may never reach that tipping point, but I think it will eventually if Labour can get their act together (maybe under Starmer's successor?). The new Tory coalition has a big faultline running through it between the traditional low tax, small government types and the new Northern voters who want to see a bit of levelling up - which will require higher taxes and spending. The covid crisis has meant that everyone has accepted the necessity of higher spending in the short term and has papered over the cracks in the Tory coalition, but I can't see that lasting forever.
The other long term trend is the change in public attitudes and morality - by any standards Boris Johnston is a rogue and a scoundrel and a liar and is totally unfit to hold any public office, let alone the highest in the land. And yet, much as it pains me, I have to accept that doesn't seem to bother the majority of people in the UK. I suppose it is the inevitable consequence of the UK becoming a post-Christian country.
As for Scotland, I'm not convinced the SNP's victory is the triumph that it seems. The paradox of brexit, in terms of how it relates to Scottish independence, is that while it makes the superficial emotional case for independence stronger ("taken out of the EU against our will") it actually drives a coach and horses through the economic case - not that the economic case was particularly strong in the first place. For Scotland to leave the UK and join the EU would mean a customs and trade border between Scotland the rest of the UK that would do far far more harm to the Scottish economy than brexit ever did or could Just look at the experience of Ireland, North and South. And remember that trade follows the flag - brexit will mean less EU trade and more UK trade for Scotland so Scotland's economic interdependence with the rest of the UK will only increase over time. When you factor in the weaknesses that were already in the SNP's case - no good answer to the currency question, Scotland's fiscal deficit that is currently subsidised by English taxpayers - brexit makes the economic case for independence even weaker than before. I don't make a habit of agreeing with Nigel Farage but he was 100% right recently when he said that Scottish independence would be more sensible if based on staying out of the EU and in a customs union with the rest of the UK.
That's my twopenniesworth on the election results.
Interesting, though I fail to see what being a post-Christian country has to do with anything.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 10, 2021 13:30:48 GMT
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 11, 2021 7:45:20 GMT
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Post by Chakoteya on May 11, 2021 8:47:17 GMT
^^ Likewise the pensioners whose licences have been taken away due to age and or illness, but never bothered with a bus pass due to no reliable bus service. I'm not sure if the over 75s can still get a free passport though, which might help them if they can provide the photograph too.
However.
If this government does the sensible, tried and tested thing instead of giving money to Capita, you should be able to apply to your local council for a voter's ID card like they do in Northern Ireland at present, where ID to vote has been required for well over a decade - the legislation was passed in 2002!
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 11, 2021 9:15:51 GMT
^^ Likewise the pensioners whose licences have been taken away due to age and or illness, but never bothered with a bus pass due to no reliable bus service. I'm not sure if the over 75s can still get a free passport though, which might help them if they can provide the photograph too. However. If this government does the sensible, tried and tested thing instead of giving money to Capita, you should be able to apply to your local council for a voter's ID card like they do in Northern Ireland at present, where ID to vote has been required for well over a decade - the legislation was passed in 2002! Or is it this Government getting ready to bring in mandatory ID cards?
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Post by anothermanicmondas on May 11, 2021 11:42:37 GMT
^^ Likewise the pensioners whose licences have been taken away due to age and or illness, but never bothered with a bus pass due to no reliable bus service. I'm not sure if the over 75s can still get a free passport though, which might help them if they can provide the photograph too. However. If this government does the sensible, tried and tested thing instead of giving money to Capita, you should be able to apply to your local council for a voter's ID card like they do in Northern Ireland at present, where ID to vote has been required for well over a decade - the legislation was passed in 2002! Most pensioners wouldn't have a photo driving license anyway - I'm 55 with a non-photo driving license and would need to pay to get it replaced with a photo version (if changing for that reason)
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Post by Chakoteya on May 11, 2021 14:09:28 GMT
Well, we shall see when we hear more about this in debates about the Electoral Integrity Bill.
(Probably after they abolish the Electoral Commission for daring to investigate reported irregularities in political donations etc.)
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Post by number13 on May 11, 2021 15:19:41 GMT
^^ Likewise the pensioners whose licences have been taken away due to age and or illness, but never bothered with a bus pass due to no reliable bus service. I'm not sure if the over 75s can still get a free passport though, which might help them if they can provide the photograph too. However. If this government does the sensible, tried and tested thing instead of giving money to Capita, you should be able to apply to your local council for a voter's ID card like they do in Northern Ireland at present, where ID to vote has been required for well over a decade - the legislation was passed in 2002! I would imagine that many or even most people of pensionable age vote by post, and if not, that's the simple solution for them or anyone else. No photo ID required at any stage. And it's a lot more convenient than going to the polling station in person.
Anyone can sign up for postal votes so there is no risk at all of exclusion. It's free (even the return post-paid envelope), ballot papers are sent to you automatically for all future elections if you ask for that, and when you vote, your signature and date of birth (which accompany, but are separate from the sealed envelope holding your ballot paper) are verified against your original registration so that's all the proof of ID you need.
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Post by number13 on May 11, 2021 15:44:33 GMT
Just been reading that the incumbent Mayors of Teesside, the West Midlands and Manchester all increased their victory margins whereas London’s didn’t. Glad you mention this as I think, in the interest of a balanced discussion, Labour has not been without some interesting wins:
They lost the War of The Councils and more of the red wall, but on the flip side, they won the War of Mayors, taking two Conservative areas in the forms of West of England and Cambridgeshire, and losing none. And, in the case of G. Manchester (which unless it suddenly got airlifted to the Thames is very much in the North) re-elected Andy Burnham and resoundingly crushed the Tories. Even in the West Midlands, Tory Andy Street's margin of victory is actually smaller than Sadiq's Khan's win in London (which some reporting, and not strictly only rightwing, would lead you to think is a terrible phyrric victory, yet Street's isn't, despite his lead in WM being much tighter than Labour's Londoner.) They also did rather well in Wales, so I think, as Starmer is doing his reshuffling and rethinking, there are successful precedents to look at in places not dissimilar to where he has been losing.
What did they and their campaigns do that wasn't mirrored in all the councils battles? This is a learning experience, if Labour higher-ups take it.
But... Manchester is a Labour city and London is about 2/3 Labour, we know that, and 1/2-3/4 of Bristol is too. How many Westminster seats would change hands based on those results? Probably 0 in London and maybe 1 of the Bristol seats?
In the West Midlands, the Conservative mayoral majority increased and that's in an area where it does matter, being full of traditional marginal seats which (at local council level) swung very heavily to the Tories again just as many of them did at national level in 2019. Across England, town after town which are traditional Westminster marginals and which voted for Blair swung even further to the Conservatives - Dudley, Gloucester, Swindon, just to pick three.
Cambridgeshire has a long Liberal/LibDem history and Cambridge city has been a Labour/LibDem battle for some time now. That is one place where the council results look liked one might expect for a government that has been in power for a decade. But Cambridge and its environs are hardly typical of the rest of the Shires, where Labour went backwards, even in the counties like Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire which they used to regard as normally safe. The LibDems did win some seats here and there in other places in the SE, they used to be strong in local government in many parts of the south.
And if Labour don't do well in Wales, it really is game over! It looks like the old UKIP vote went 50/50 to Labour and Conservatives in Wales, both parties went up nationally by about 5%, unlike in England. So it was also the Welsh Conservatives best ever Senedd result.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on May 11, 2021 16:01:47 GMT
^^ Likewise the pensioners whose licences have been taken away due to age and or illness, but never bothered with a bus pass due to no reliable bus service. I'm not sure if the over 75s can still get a free passport though, which might help them if they can provide the photograph too. However. If this government does the sensible, tried and tested thing instead of giving money to Capita, you should be able to apply to your local council for a voter's ID card like they do in Northern Ireland at present, where ID to vote has been required for well over a decade - the legislation was passed in 2002! I would imagine that many or even most people of pensionable age vote by post, and if not, that's the simple solution for them or anyone else. No photo ID required at any stage. And it's a lot more convenient than going to the polling station in person.
Anyone can sign up for postal votes so there is no risk at all of exclusion. It's free (even the return post-paid envelope), ballot papers are sent to you automatically for all future elections if you ask for that, and when you vote, your signature and date of birth (which accompany, but are separate from the sealed envelope holding your ballot paper) are verified against your original registration so that's all the proof of ID you need.
I mean that's fine, but that's kind of talking past the issue here: that Boris' 'reform' for the main way people vote isn't fixing any actual problem and is putting up pointless barriers meant to disenfranchise a not insubstantial segment of the population (est. at over 3.5 mill) who don't/can't get those IDs. Voter fraud in the UK is so astronomically small that this doesn't really benefit anyone, not to mention if you are from a poorer background, you're less likely to own a car (license) or travel (passport), and both cost money. Unless Boris has a secret gotchya of making these docs free ala Nor. Ireland's ID system, then how is this method not open to immediate abuse?
Heck, here's some legal professionals throwing their two cents in on voting fraud:
Surely it's odd that, if his party is doing so well with the working class, why is he implementing something that could only hurt their ability to vote for him? Isn't his campaign success self-evident?
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Post by Chakoteya on May 11, 2021 16:39:30 GMT
And when Tony Blair introduced ID cards as a voluntary scheme at £35 a pop - which the younger generation loved - the Tories came along and promptly scrapped them. We shall have to watch this space.
Oh, nice to see the proposals for social care reforms that he promised at the election still aren't happening, but a bill to try and stop judicial reviews of government is being looked at. There's a wonderful set of priorities - stuff the poor and sick and otherwise vulnerable, it's more important that people don't find out when we've c0cked it up again.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 11, 2021 17:42:15 GMT
BBC will be in trouble with their Tory bosses for this!
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Post by number13 on May 11, 2021 23:32:49 GMT
I would imagine that many or even most people of pensionable age vote by post, and if not, that's the simple solution for them or anyone else. No photo ID required at any stage. And it's a lot more convenient than going to the polling station in person.
Anyone can sign up for postal votes so there is no risk at all of exclusion. It's free (even the return post-paid envelope), ballot papers are sent to you automatically for all future elections if you ask for that, and when you vote, your signature and date of birth (which accompany, but are separate from the sealed envelope holding your ballot paper) are verified against your original registration so that's all the proof of ID you need.
I mean that's fine, but that's kind of talking past the issue here: that Boris' 'reform' for the main way people vote isn't fixing any actual problem and is putting up pointless barriers meant to disenfranchise a not insubstantial segment of the population (est. at over 3.5 mill) who don't/can't get those IDs. Voter fraud in the UK is so astronomically small that this doesn't really benefit anyone, not to mention if you are from a poorer background, you're less likely to own a car (license) or travel (passport), and both cost money. Unless Boris has a secret gotchya of making these docs free ala Nor. Ireland's ID system, then how is this method not open to immediate abuse?
Heck, here's some legal professionals throwing their two cents in on voting fraud:
Surely it's odd that, if his party is doing so well with the working class, why is he implementing something that could only hurt their ability to vote for him? Isn't his campaign success self-evident?
Labour's proposed ID card scheme was an abomination, that's very true. But that would have been a mandatory national ID card linked to a database which would have allowed government to track our lives. It wasn't having to show that card to vote that was the problem, it was the very existence of the proposed card/database that would have been the problem. It is the worst thing that Labour have ever done or tried to do, but then, they had form on requiring UK citizens to have 'papers' in peacetime.
As it happens, I fall into that 3.5m right now and I am not revolting. (Insert joke here.) Postal voting is a pre-existing solution to the 'problem' (so, no new setup costs beyond a publicity campaign or a mailshot to invite signups) and it would very likely increase turnout among the voters that people are concerned about excluding, if they received postal votes. Signing up is very easy and there is a point at which you have to say, if people can't be bothered to do XYorZ in order to vote, are they likely to vote?
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