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[Randdalf]

Portillo Award is something like: "most senior/high profile MP to be unseated", named after Michael Portillo, once seen as future leader of the Conservative Party, was unseated in a shock upset in 1997. The more relevant reference for the younger generation might be the Ed Balls Award.

... and someone's uploaded the full 1997 election coverage to YouTube (including annoying buzzing noise), so you can watch it unfold in real time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7l7kLDUrx0

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Nothing wrong with Marxism. The 12 actionable points set out in The Principles of Communism are progressive taxation, the establishment of state companies to give competition to monopolies and the gradual mutualization of those monopolies over time, the confiscation of property of rebels against the people (this means monarchists and is now kind of redundant), the institution of a minimum wage, a benefits system for all people who are willing to work (UBI is literally more communist than Marx!), the establishment of a national investment bank, a cultivation of fledgling industries, free education for all provided by the state, the provision of social housing for all, the destruction of unsafe slums, equal inheritance rights for those born out of wedlock, and complete state ownership of the transport system.

Marx and Engels mostly talk about class relations - they surprisingly rarely advocated specific economic policies, and it's always surprising how moderate the policies they actually advance are (a product of their times, I guess - universal education free of charge was pretty radical in the 1850s). "Marxism" is a sociological theory, and has relatively little to do with direct economic policy. Of the above 12 points, most have actually already been implemented in Western countries to some degree or another.

/small history lesson

Now if you said "Leninism", we have more to agree about.

The Prime Minister doesn't have to be an MP. There's no law stipulating this. They are whoever can command the confidence of the House of Commons. Technically, if May lost her seat but the Conservatives won an enormous great majority, they could just make her Prime Minister anyway. We could make Harry Styles PM if the House of Commons thought that was okay.

In fact, technically, the Act of Settlement 1701 banned MPs from even becoming ministers, never mind Prime Minister - you could not be both an MP and hold an office of profit under the crown. But the later Robert Walpole used his influence over the judiciary at the time to have this act interpreted as referring to the offices of the crown concerned with the Crown's profits, and this has never been challenged since, meaning one of the most important aspects of the parliamentary system (the lack of separation between the legislature and executive) rests on one of the most flimsy pieces of common law of all time.

...but realistically, the Conservatives would have a super-short election to be able to pick a leader.

For more trivia: MPs are actually forbidden from resigning. You can only leave the job at the behest of the electorate, or by becoming ineligible to be an MP. So to "resign", MPs are actually appointed to the position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham - which is an office intended to manage the profits of the crown, thereby making them ineligible to be MPs. This is why you sometimes hear of MPs 'taking the Chiltern Hundreds' when they step down.

Again, this is due to Robert Walpole being a sneaky bastard and inventing most of the foundations of our parliamentary system.

I love these posts

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, lol

 

[jufonuk]

I going libdem.

I really hope that the Tories drop the ball and someone else takes the pm role that isn't ukip or so hell bent on hard Brexit or hope against hope they reverse the Brexit idea altogether.

well with work and GAF I won't be hearing the end of this election lol

 

[MLH]

Watching the news I don't get all the voter apathy, why do so many see it as inconvenience to vote again?
I'm chuffed we can vote again so soon. I honesty think May has bottled it and doesn't want to continue, I might be way off but I can see her resigning as leader if Conservatives win a majority. It's such a shame so many don't seem interested, likely leading to low turnout and further growth for Conservatives...

For me, I'd see Lib Dem gains and a hung parliament as the best outcome for this election. It's unlikely Labour will win a majority with Corbyn as leader and Scottish Labour being dead.
It's just a shame Labour's stance is pro-brexit, I'd rather see them go full on pro-Europe/ brexit reversal like Lib dems.

Honestly don't care about most of the other policies, this is all Brexit for me.

Would SNP try a reversal on Brexit if they found themselves in coalition? (Also what's the deal with parties not saying they would work with other parties? Can't anyone just say they would work together, it's obvious none of the left wing parties would win a majority.)

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I love these posts

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, lol

I would say Robert Walpole is a stupendously underrated character. He more or less single-handedly invented parliamentary systems as they exist today, which are the main political organization of most Western democracies, and presidential systems were designed almost directly in response to him - he was as influential in the American Constitution as anyone (albeit indirectly)! No idea how he gets so historically ignored; if he doesn't exist the world would look quite wildly different.

 

[King_Moc]

Watching the news I don't get all the voter apathy, why do so many see it as inconvenience to vote again?
I'm chuffed we can vote again so soon. I honesty think May has bottled it and doesn't want to continue, I might be way off but I can see her resigning as leader if Conservatives win a majority. It's such a shame so many don't seem interested, likely leading to low turnout and further growth for Conservatives...

For me, I'd see Lib Dem gains and a hung parliament as the best outcome for this election. It's unlikely Labour will win a majority with Corbyn as leader and Scottish Labour being dead.
It's just a shame Labour's stance is pro-brexit, I'd rather see them go full on pro-Europe/ brexit reversal like Lib dems.

Honestly don't care about most of the other policies, this is all Brexit for me.

Would SNP try a reversal on Brexit if they found themselves in coalition? (Also what's the deal with parties not saying they would work with other parties? Can't anyone just say they would work together, it's obvious none of the left wing parties would win a majority.)

I don't think this is their position anymore. They want the illusional soft brexit.

Brexit IS happening. If you're hoping to vote against it, you may as well just stay indoors.

 

[CyclopsRock]

The Prime Minister doesn't have to be an MP. There's no law stipulating this. They are whoever can command the confidence of the House of Commons. Technically, if May lost her seat but the Conservatives won an enormous great majority, they could just make her Prime Minister anyway. We could make Harry Styles PM if the House of Commons thought that was okay.

In fact, technically, the Act of Settlement 1701 banned MPs from even becoming ministers, never mind Prime Minister - you could not be both an MP and hold an office of profit under the crown. But the later Robert Walpole used his influence over the judiciary at the time to have this act interpreted as referring to the offices of the crown concerned with the Crown's profits, and this has never been challenged since, meaning one of the most important aspects of the parliamentary system (the lack of separation between the legislature and executive) rests on one of the most flimsy pieces of common law of all time.

...but realistically, the Conservatives would have a super-short election to be able to pick a leader.

For more trivia: MPs are actually forbidden from resigning. You can only leave the job at the behest of the electorate, or by becoming ineligible to be an MP. So to "resign", MPs are actually appointed to the position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham - which is an office intended to manage the profits of the crown, thereby making them ineligible to be MPs. This is why you sometimes hear of MPs 'taking the Chiltern Hundreds' when they step down.

Again, this is due to Robert Walpole being a sneaky bastard and inventing most of the foundations of our parliamentary system.

More trivia from centuries ago, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679's wiki page is worth a reading for the lols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_Corpus_Act_1679:

The Bill went back and forth between the two Houses, and then the Lords voted on whether to set up a conference on the Bill. If this motion was defeated the Bill would stay in the Commons and therefore have no chance of being passed. Each side—those voting for and against—appointed a teller who stood on each side of the door through which those Lords who had voted "aye" re-entered the House (the "nays" remained seated). One teller would count them aloud whilst the other teller listened and kept watch in order to know if the other teller was telling the truth. Shaftesbury's faction had voted for the motion, so they went out and re-entered the House. Gilbert Burnet, one of Shaftesbury's friends, recorded what then happened:

Lord Grey and Lord Norris were named to be the tellers: Lord Norris, being a man subject to vapours, was not at all times attentive to what he was doing: so, a very fat lord coming in, Lord Grey counted him as ten, as a jest at first: but seeing Lord Norris had not observed it, he went on with this misreckoning of ten: so it was reported that they that were for the Bill were in the majority, though indeed it went for the other side: and by this means the Bill passed.[8]

The clerk recorded in the minutes of the Lords that the "ayes" had fifty-seven and the "nays" had fifty-five, a total of 112, but the same minutes also state that only 107 Lords had attended that sitting.[8]

The King arrived shortly thereafter and gave Royal Assent before proroguing Parliament. The Act is now stored in the Parliamentary Archives.

In other words, the only reason the bill that enshrines our right to a trial only passed through parliament and received royal ascent because someone made a joke about a fat guy.

 

[Maztorre]

...the DUP are the majority party in Northern Ireland and well to the right of the Conservatives?

A 1 seat majority in a statelet that was premised on having an overwhelming and gerrymandered unionist majority. A 1 seat majority following loss of vote share compared to the likes of Sinn Fein's 4% gains in first preference vote share. A loss in vote share that has resulted in the DUP losing the ability to issue "letters of concern" to block pro-LGBTQ legislation.

Mainstream Unionism has lost its majority here - DUP+UUP have a combined 28 seats vs SF+SDLP's 29. These are significant changes that most people here were expecting only to happen over the long term, and via demographic changes, rather than in response to Westminsterlurching onto a course that signficantly threatens Ireland as a whole and Northern Ireland particularly.

The further Brexit progresses (presuming it is being delivered by the Conservatives), the more absurd the idea of Northern Ireland existing as a British state becomes. If NI receives special designated status as an EU state, with customs barriers at the ports rather than at the Irish border, then the writing is on the wall.

 

[tomtom94]

I would say Robert Walpole is a stupendously underrated character. He more or less single-handedly invented parliamentary systems as they exist today, which are the main political organization of most Western democracies, and presidential systems were designed almost directly in response to him - he was as influential in the American Constitution as anyone (albeit indirectly)! No idea how he gets so historically ignored; if he doesn't exist the world would look quite wildly different.

I'm assuming you have this t-shirt, Crab:

 

[Abelard]

Not a Brit but I'm on the Corbyn train choo choo, hopefully the Lib Dems get wiped out.

I am curious though, in America left leaning people put aside there differences to vote for Clinton, which was an especially bitter pill for me. Why can't you guys do the same in the UK? Voting for Lib Dems sounds as fruitful as voting for Mr. What is Aleppo (well maybe not as useless because parliamentary system).

 

[TeddyBoy]

Thats where I am from, Billinge Represent!

Oh snap, I'm in Rainford myself. I actually thought BIllinge was part of Wigans area since I know the boundaries are quite close for us.

 

[Spaced Harrier]

Brexit can be canceled at any stage up until you actually leave.

Not without a price to pay now that article 50 has been triggered but it can happen.

Talk that it is inevitable is knowingly incorrect.
Because if it is inevitable it doesn't need to be justified.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I'm assuming you have this t-shirt, Crab:

I do not! How remiss of me.

 

[Matt_]

Both places I can vote are solidly conservative
Will vote lib dem or labour, doesnt really matter which is a shame

 

[Huw_Dawson]

Looks like I've gotta vote Labour. I voted Lib Dem last time.

Advice for anyone who wants to track actual Lib Dem support in a seat: if a by-election happened tomorrow and there'd been a month's campaign as usual, we'd probably get what we got in 2010, plus a small amount over.

 

[jufonuk]

Trump, Farrage and Lepen in power... glorious..ly terrifying.

Save me Tom Cruise

 

[phisheep]

More trivia from centuries ago, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679's wiki page is worth a reading for the lols

In other words, the only reason the bill that enshrines our right to a trial only passed through parliament and received royal ascent because someone made a joke about a fat guy.

Should be called the Habeas Magnum Corpus Act, eh?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Advice for anyone who wants to track actual Lib Dem support in a seat: if a by-election happened tomorrow and there'd been a month's campaign as usual, we'd probably get what we got in 2010, plus a small amount over.

The Lib Dems got 23.0% in 2010. Their current polling average is 9.9%. So... you're talking nonsense. There's just no evidence of a Liberal Democrat recovery. They may start to pick up as campaign season begins, but 2015 will almost certainly be more accurate than 2010 in the vast majority of seats. It's okay being optimistic but it is unfair to other posters who may not be as well informed to outright mislead them.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

I would say Robert Walpole is a stupendously underrated character. He more or less single-handedly invented parliamentary systems as they exist today, which are the main political organization of most Western democracies, and presidential systems were designed almost directly in response to him - he was as influential in the American Constitution as anyone (albeit indirectly)! No idea how he gets so historically ignored; if he doesn't exist the world would look quite wildly different.

Sounds like I really have to read up on this guy!

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Not a Brit but I'm on the Corbyn train choo choo, hopefully the Lib Dems get wiped out.

I am curious though, in America left leaning people put aside there differences to vote for Clinton, which was an especially bitter pill for me. Why can't you guys do the same in the UK?

Because the historical dynamics of politics in this country are different. We actually have multiple parties outside of our big two to vote for, and who will have some noticeable reward from being put on the ballot.

Now, in reality of course the viability of any given party winning a seat is down to whatever is the two horse race in a given constituency, but it lends itself to weakening the notion of 'wasted votes', and parties will campaign on the basis of what they can win, not necessarily if they will rule (if you're not Tory or Labour).

Like, right now, the Lib Dem position can roughly be interpreted as being that a vote for them is to prevent a Tory majority, not that they plan for Tim Farron to actually end up in 10 Downing Street.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Not a Brit but I'm on the Corbyn train choo choo, hopefully the Lib Dems get wiped out.

I am curious though, in America left leaning people put aside there differences to vote for Clinton, which was an especially bitter pill for me. Why can't you guys do the same in the UK? Voting for Lib Dems sounds as fruitful as voting for Mr. What is Aleppo (well maybe not as useless because parliamentary system).

It's relatively complicated but the short version is that the Lib Dems are a hang up from when the two major parties were a conservative one and a liberal one (called, er, the Conservatives and the Liberals). Labour emerged as a working class party which was quite distinct from the elite liberal party that it went on to replace as the main opposition to the conservatives. As such, there remained very significant differences in their policy approaches. As time wore on, the Liberals merged with a more "typical" left wing party to become the Lib Dems. Not all that long afterwards (in British political terms) Blair came along and jerked Labour to the right and so you end up with this weird situation where you have two fairly major (Labour dwarf the lib dems but they're both national parties that stand in every seat) that ended up, almost by chance, to be aligned fairly closely, politically. Unfortunately (for them both) they remain fairly distinct, with their own invested structures and whatnot, so whilst your average Lib Dem voter would prefer Labour as an alternative, there's still a sizable chunk who are classical small-state liberals.

 

[tomtom94]

Trump, Farrage and Lepen in power... glorious..ly terrifying.

Save me Tom Cruise

Farage is standing in South Thanet again - got beaten handily last time even with the media giving him tonnes of publicity and the EU referendum's been delivered. I'd be very surprised if he even comes close.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Sounds like I really have to read up on this guy!

Watch this series by Extra Credits/History:
https://youtu.be/k1kndKWJKB8

It basically covers what you might be able to consider Walpole's backstory, though he only appears after a few episodes in.

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

Advice for anyone who wants to track actual Lib Dem support in a seat: if a by-election happened tomorrow and there'd been a month's campaign as usual, we'd probably get what we got in 2010, plus a small amount over.

Wish I could believe this. Would make it an easy choice for me.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Watch this series by Extra Credits/History:
https://youtu.be/k1kndKWJKB8

It basically covers what you might be able to consider Walpole's backstory, though he only appears after a few episodes in.

Thanks!

 

[jufonuk]

Farage is standing in South Thanet again - got beaten handily last time even with the media giving him tonnes of publicity and the EU referendum's been delivered. I'd be very surprised if he even comes close.

Family from south thanet region .. did me proud by voting for someone else and stopping him winning

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Should be called the Habeas Magnum Corpus Act, eh?

Don't be crass

Spoiler

um

.

 

[Nilaul]

Can the outcome of this stop Brexit?

 

[Huw_Dawson]

The Lib Dems got 23.0% in 2010. Their current polling average is 9.9%. So... you're talking nonsense. There's just no evidence of a Liberal Democrat recovery.

Yes there is.

Witney. Big swing to us.

Richmond Park. We won the seat, overturning a majority of 23,000.

Dozens of council seats across the country, won by the Lib Dems in the last year.

A party that now has twice the membership numbers it had before the 2015 GE.

The national polls show a moderate increase in support, up by anywhere from 2 to 4 percent, but where voters actually marked ballots, we've seen a clear recovery.

If you want to be mean, you could point out the Stoke by-election had us on about 9%, when we got about 4 or 5% there in 2015 and had over 20% in 2010.

So it's not always amazing results, but we've had many great results - far more than Labour have!

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Can the outcome of this stop Brexit?

Technically speaking, yes, realistically, absolutely no in any way, shape, or form.

 

[Nilaul]

Technically speaking, yes, realistically, absolutely no in any way, shape, or form.

We had quite a lot of impossible things happen in the past year or so.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

I saw Corbyn in PMQs today and he seemed pretty fired up. I actually liked his performance in this one. Meanwhile fucknugget May and her cronies laughed like 18th century French aristocrats.

Fucking cunt badgers, the lot of 'em.

 

[Roberto Larcos]

Who's going to be brave and get their predictions in early?

Conservative Party seats:
Green Party seats
Labour seats:
Lib Dem seats:
SNP seats:
Plaid Cymru seats:
UKIP seats:
Independently held seats:
Seats held by other parties:

BONUS:
Labour wipe-out in Scotland?
More Conservative votes than Labour in Scotland?
More Plaid Cymru seats than Labour in Wales?
The Portillo award goes to..?
First resignation of the night?
How many party leaders will resign?
Seat for Nuttall?
Margin of victory by seats:
Margin of victory by votes:

Scoring works as follows: 1 point per correct seat allocation. 10 points per correct bonus question. For margin of victory by seats, 50 points for a perfect answer, lose 1 point per seat away from that perfect answer that you were. For margin of victory by votes, 50 points for a perfect answer (rounded to 100,000), lose one point per 100,000 that you were away from thay perfect answer. Margins will be between party with most seats / votes and the party with the second most seats / votes. Portillo award winner will be decided on the night.

Conservative Party seats: 415
Green Party seats: 2
Labour seats: 140
Lib Dem seats: 16
SNP seats: 56
Plaid Cymru seats: 3
UKIP seats: 0
Independently held seats: Just John Bercow in GB
Seats held by other parties: 0

BONUS:
Labour wipe-out in Scotland? Yes
More Conservative votes than Labour in Scotland? Yes
More Plaid Cymru seats than Labour in Wales? lolno
The Portillo award goes to..? Clive Lewis
First resignation of the night? No major resignations - May will claim victory, Corbyn will refuse to resign, Farron will claim improvement and so stay on, Paul Nuttall of the UKIPs will win the Premier League, etc.
How many party leaders will resign? None
Seat for Nuttall? No

I'm leaving out Nireland because that shit's a mess, will have a look at the numbers later. Left out margin of seats and votes because I'm not sure whether you mean the distance between the winner and the second placed party or the size of the majority.

Conservative Party seats: 431
Green Party seats: 2
Labour seats: 120
Lib Dem seats: 22
SNP seats: 55
Plaid Cymru seats: 3
UKIP seats: 0
Independently held seats: 0
Seats held by other parties: 19

BONUS:
Labour wipe-out in Scotland? Yep
More Conservative votes than Labour in Scotland? Yeppity yep
More Plaid Cymru seats than Labour in Wales? Nope
The Portillo award goes to..? Whazzat?
First resignation of the night? No
How many party leaders will resign? None
Seat for Nuttall? No

Added both predictions to the Excel spreadsheet (quote to reveal).



Quiche, you've selected too many MPs. Crab, I removed NI parties and lumped it in with other, as no-one her seems to pay enough attention to politics outside of Great Britain.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

We had quite a lot of impossible things happen in the past year or so.

So Trump won despite being 2-3 points behind because of the electoral college. Brexit was literally neck and neck in the polls.

The Liberal Democrats are the only party that 'might' reverse Brexit (and that's not even what they're campaigning on). They're on 9.9% in the polls, and would need about 45% to win.

Polls aren't always spot-on, but they're not that wrong.

 

[King_Moc]

Richmond Park. We won the seat, overturning a majority of 23,000.

What utter tripe. You can't have overturned the majority when the Conservatives didn't even stand. Lib Dems pretty much won by default, and even then it was close against the actual racist Zac Goldsmith.

 

[phisheep]

The Lib Dems got 23.0% in 2010. Their current polling average is 9.9%. So... you're talking nonsense. There's just no evidence of a Liberal Democrat recovery. They may start to pick up as campaign season begins, but 2015 will almost certainly be more accurate than 2010 in the vast majority of seats. It's okay being optimistic but it is unfair to other posters who may not be as well informed to outright mislead them.

There may not be much evidence, but - well, I'm considering voting LibDem and I haven't voted Liberal since the 1979 election. So, yes, I expect a LibDem recovery at least among disaffected Tories (who of course won't be worried in the least about the LibDems having been in coalition with them).

 

[Deleted member 231381]

There may not be much evidence, but - well, I'm considering voting LibDem and I haven't voted Liberal since the 1979 election. So, yes, I expect a LibDem recovery at least among disaffected Tories (who of course won't be worried in the least about the LibDems having been in coalition with them).

Right, but not to the point that they're going to be closer to 2015 than 2010, which is what Huw is suggesting people base their voting intentions on when voting strategically. That's just dishonest.

 

[Vagabundo]

This will be interesting. There could be some major swings if people become single issue voters over the next few weeks. May is really rolling the dice here. It could blow up in her face.

 

[theaface]

Watching the news I don't get all the voter apathy, why do so many see it as inconvenience to vote again?

Well, for me, I'd just like to see our MPs do some actual governing. This election, just like the EU referendum before it, is simply intended to give an illustration of 'taking back control' and a government working in the interests of its people. It's newspaper fodder. Style over substance. See the Daily Mail headline? 'Crush the Saboteurs'. What a circus.

I'm sick to death of grandstanding, bickering at PMQs, soundbites on the news from the likes of David Davis or IDS, bitching about what Corbyn has/hasn't been up to, the """will of the people""" and so on and so on. Our politics is a farce, and I'm bored to fucking tears of seeing it treated like one big game by a club of smirking buffoons.

Brexit, Brexit and more sodding Brexit. It's garbage and it's detracting from SO MANY other important things that a government could be doing for the real benefit of its people. But no, all we get is endless sniping from both sides, unaccountable toxic press spewing hate from every orifice and nothing tangible to show for any of it. Every day a prominent politician makes a bare-faced lie and it's become so common that nobody even challenges it any more. BBC "impartiality" gives an enormous platform to racist lying bigots like Nigel Farage and the seriousness of politics is forgotten. It's desperate stuff. We're the laughing stock of Europe and deservedly so.

That a general election is going to be fought on a single issue alone (Brexit, shocker) tells you all you need to know. Complex issues have been boiled down to one-liners or ignored altogether. Personalities are valued far more than policies. Party above country has reached its logical conclusion. It's bleak as all hell to me.

Top that all off with an appalling system in FPTP where nothing will or realistically could change in safe seats all over the country and it's hard not to feel disenchanted by the whole affair. Apparently democracy now begins and ends at the ballot box, and to disagree with the will of the people (i.e. 40% of the 65% of people who bother to vote) essentially amounts to treason in the eyes of Sun readers, frothing at the mouth for a chance to be indignant at any perceived slight towards the glory of Britannia.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still turn up and vote, but it's easy to see why one could feel like not bothering.

Oh, one more thing. Everyone knows that IndyRef 2 is coming down the line as well, so there's one more ballot box visit to look forward to/observe with baited breath. At least that'll be fun to see how the Brexiteers manage the hypocrisy gymnastics around respecting the will of the people and taking back control there.

 

[Conan-san]

I hope it all goes sideways for May so she'll be forced to look in the mirror and admit to herself what a child she has been this whole process.

 

[whyamihere]

This is a good guide for how to vote based on your seat. Haven't really done a deep dive into it, but seemed like a good place to start:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...RKwztzY9KSI_2BMaI1bU8/htmlview?sle=true#gid=0

 

[PJV3]

This will be interesting. There could be some major swings if people become single issue voters over the next few weeks. May is really rolling the dice here. It could blow up in her face.

I think it's more likely that an external event would cause an upset, it would take a hell of a lot of Tory voters taking the result for granted and labour ones just not being able to vote Tory in the poll booth to do it.

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

Nothing wrong with Marxism. The 12 actionable points set out in The Principles of Communism are progressive taxation, the establishment of state companies to give competition to monopolies and the gradual mutualization of those monopolies over time, the confiscation of property of rebels against the people (this means monarchists and is now kind of redundant), the institution of a minimum wage, a benefits system for all people who are willing to work (UBI is literally more communist than Marx!), the establishment of a national investment bank, a cultivation of fledgling industries, free education for all provided by the state, the provision of social housing for all, the destruction of unsafe slums, equal inheritance rights for those born out of wedlock, and complete state ownership of the transport system.

Marx and Engels mostly talk about class relations - they surprisingly rarely advocated specific economic policies, and it's always surprising how moderate the policies they actually advance are (a product of their times, I guess - universal education free of charge was pretty radical in the 1850s). "Marxism" is a sociological theory, and has relatively little to do with direct economic policy. Of the above 12 points, most have actually already been implemented in Western countries to some degree or another.

/small history lesson

Now if you said "Leninism", we have more to agree about.

The Labour party has never been and never will be a revolutionary marxist party. Clause 1 of the constitution.

 

[Huw_Dawson]

Not going to write out the full list, but my suspicion is, if things go predictably and Brexit isn't a massive issue:

Con 40
Lab 25
LD 16
UKIP 8?
GRN 3?

And the overall numbers being something like a Tory majority of 70.

I think that Scotland will see a couple of SNP seats being lost to Lib Dems, none to the Tories or Labour (this is due to the weirdness of FPTP and how vulnerable a couple of the SNP's seats are).

Wales will be the region with the strongest UKIP retention. Plaid will make minor inroads, but this is the safest region for Labour. Brecon and Radnorshire will flip Lib Dem, and there may be some other inner-city seats where Labour may have to fight hard (Cardiff Central being an obvious one).

England is hard to judge. Corbyn is deeply unpopular but most of his seats have little tradition voting anything other than Labour.

The Tories will wipe him in swing seats, and anything remotely rural.

The Lib Dems will claim a lot of scalps in former seats, and maybe one or two shock results otherwise.

I predict, personally, a Tory majority of 70+ and a Lib Dem rise to about 40 seats. Corbyn will be battered badly but cling on as leader.

However, this election has the potential to go askew. Massive chunks of the electorate don't know anything about Farron or Nuttall. Brexit, or membership of the single market, may end up as the defining policy argument - if that happens, it's probably very bad for Labour.

What utter tripe. You can't have overturned the majority when the Conservatives didn't even stand. Lib Dems pretty much won by default, and even then it was close against the actual racist Zac Goldsmith.

Oh, yeah, sorry, I just got off the phone with party HQ and they told me that someone actually replaced Goldsmith with a parrot in a HIGHLY CONVINCING rubber suit.

Goldsmith was the incumbent, he had a 23,000 majority over the Lib Dems, and we beat him.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

If Labour only gets ~120 seats, is the party functionally dead? Even in the 80's it wasn't that bleak. How does Labour rebound from that?

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

One thing that will be interesting about this thread is that there's unlikely to be frothing, insane right wingers on here. Everywhere else on the internet this is going to descend into a bloodbath.

 

[mo60]

This will be interesting. There could be some major swings if people become single issue voters over the next few weeks. May is really rolling the dice here. It could blow up in her face.

I have witnessed a few canadian elections federal and provincially in the last few years where the leader in the polls at the start of the election did not end up winning.

 

[Tregard]

You've upset me deeply by reminding me of Arlene Foster, how dare you.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

This will be interesting. There could be some major swings if people become single issue voters over the next few weeks. May is really rolling the dice here. It could blow up in her face.

To be honest if it were to blow up in her face it'd be more of a long term deal, and would require opposition parties to jump on it.

Because what's very likely to happen with this is that the Conservatives will emerge with a majority. A strong majority. But it may be a majority predicated on an odd alliance primarily driven by a single issue - Brexit. So while she may take that majority as a signal of a mandate for a Conservative government, those people aren't actually guaranteed to like whatever she does in government, and may abandon her once they get a real taste of it. Where they would flock to is unclear though, and if a competent opposition is not in place by the election now set for 2022 (i think), they may just abstain or persist with the Tories.

 

[Roberto Larcos]

Not going to write out the full list, but my suspicion is, if things go predictably and Brexit isn't a massive issue:

Con 40
Lab 25
LD 16
UKIP 8?
GRN 3?

Valid stance to take if you don't want to win a bottle of scotch, sure.