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UK PoliGAF: General election thread of LibCon Coalitionage
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Gary Whitta
Member
Kinda tragic that Brown finds his voice and his passion just as he is going down in flames.
Let Brown Be Brown?
Let Brown Be Brown?
Sir Hamish
Member
Gary Whitta said:
yeah, tragic indeed, he really did come across well in that speech, far better than Cameron ever has and seemed just as passionate as Clegg
Sir Hamish said:
I blame political advisors telling him to "smile more" and fit in special sound bytes. They hadn't a clue. They tried to create as false a veneer over Brown as the one that Cameron has - and that's just not who he is.
Edit: And lol at the "We don't want any more Chernobyls!" guy. Read a science textbook, dickhead.
GAF, would it make me look like a massive dick if I had a political rant on Facebook the night before the election? It'd be more to get in the face of my obnoxious Tory-voting friends than to win people round. Something along the lines of:
"A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for:
[Looooong list of shitty stuff]"
"A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for:
[Looooong list of shitty stuff]"
freethought
Member
Wes said:
You ever notice the Bartlett presidency had absolutely no lasting legacy? Typical liberal, lots of talk, no action.
I did like the episode where he was seconds away from campaign finance reform and it was never mentioned again. Something tells me the DNC put the kibosh on that little venture.
fake edit: Actually, I forgot that he plunged America into a deeply unpopular war literally moments before leaving office. It would be like Bush invading Iran on January 19th 2009. Bartlett was a fucking terrible president. He should have left it at one term, for fictional reasons and because season five onwards was garbage.
Really good article by Monbiot calling out tactical voting for Labour, and detailing their many failures as a "progressive" party.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/03/parasite-new-labour-fear-hope
[QUOTE="Mr. Sam]
GAF, would it make me look like a massive dick if I had a political rant on Facebook the night before the election? It'd be more to get in the face of my obnoxious Tory-voting friends than to win people round. Something along the lines of:
"A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for:
[Looooong list of shitty stuff]"[/QUOTE]
Possibly, but i think you should do it and share the results on gaf anyway. Besides, if they are Tories you'll have to suffer a lot of unbearable post election smugness (this is why i won't be phoning my parents next week), so you might as well get your hits in now.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/03/parasite-new-labour-fear-hope
[QUOTE="Mr. Sam]
GAF, would it make me look like a massive dick if I had a political rant on Facebook the night before the election? It'd be more to get in the face of my obnoxious Tory-voting friends than to win people round. Something along the lines of:
"A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for:
[Looooong list of shitty stuff]"[/QUOTE]
Possibly, but i think you should do it and share the results on gaf anyway. Besides, if they are Tories you'll have to suffer a lot of unbearable post election smugness (this is why i won't be phoning my parents next week), so you might as well get your hits in now.
Gary Whitta
Member
Gotta love The Mirror right now 
Gary Whitta
Member
You mean apart from history-making unilateral peacekeeping in Africa, putting three judges on the Supreme Court (including the first female Chief Justice), securing a Middle East peace agreement, keeping Russia and China from starting WWIII over oil in Kazakhstan and taking out one of the world's top terrorists, preventing the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge?freethought said:
But what has Bartlet done for us lately?
Dark Machine
Member
Gary Whitta said:Gotta love The Mirror right now
Now it really is getting tasty. This election is exciting is all hell.
scotcheggz
Member
Not sure how I feel about that Mirror front page :lol
Mr.Sam, go for it on Facebook! I've been doing it all campaign, My friend list is 99% filled wih people I knew at school, I hated them then and I haven't seen them in years. I get updates all about their latest child spawn or how they just ate toast or just took a shit or other tidbits of bullshit everyday.
"my baby boy is 3 years old in less than 7 weeks :-( Growing up too fast little man! xxx"
"is off to lunch at my sisters new flat!"
Maybe they think I'm a massive dick, but maybe I think they're a bunch of mindless cunts so it's no bother really. I plan on running little "Do the right thing" campaign of my own this week.
Mr.Sam, go for it on Facebook! I've been doing it all campaign, My friend list is 99% filled wih people I knew at school, I hated them then and I haven't seen them in years. I get updates all about their latest child spawn or how they just ate toast or just took a shit or other tidbits of bullshit everyday.
"my baby boy is 3 years old in less than 7 weeks :-( Growing up too fast little man! xxx"
"is off to lunch at my sisters new flat!"
Maybe they think I'm a massive dick, but maybe I think they're a bunch of mindless cunts so it's no bother really. I plan on running little "Do the right thing" campaign of my own this week.
Dark Machine
Member
scotcheggz said:
Snap. I only use Facebook for Uni club stuff, and plan to abandon it after graduation. It's just full of crap like that from people who made my life hell, I've hated and couldn't give a toss about any more. On the other hand it makes finding potential Mad Axeman Rampage victims easier. :lol
TheGreatDave
Banned
So apparently my constituency has been Labour property ever since it was created.
Basically I'm contributing to nothing.
Basically I'm contributing to nothing.
PumpkinPie
Banned
Are we all gonna reveal who we've voted for after election day? I know who I'm voting for.
PumpkinPie
Banned
The Mirror likes to think that most of it's readers are 'working class', in reality they are probably lazy cunts on the dole that refuse to work and who think that Labour is the right party to vote for because it helps out the working class.
Gary Whitta said:Gotta love The Mirror right now
Come on, that's taking the piss. How can a paper get away with that amount of bias?? I know most newspapers have a strong allegiance to either the Tories or Labour, but IMO that's just ridiculous, no matter which party it offends.
Dabookerman
Member
Sir Hamish said:
Holy fuck.. If Clegg actually spoke like that. God damn. I have to say, I've never disliked Brown. He should have told his advisors to fuck off :lol
travisbickle
Member
Ventron said:
Can you expand on this point?
J Tourettes
Banned
Lucius86 said:
I don't like it myself but it's not really any different to the anti-Clegg shit that was coming from the rightwing press a couple of weeks back.
Souldriver
Member
I was wondering too what I found worse:Ghost said:
- full on slandering and telling lies to persuade people in voting a certain way, or...
- full on telling people how to strategically vote
The second sounds worse, but at least it's not dishonest. Fact of the matter stays, that both tactics are absolutely vile and sickening. The UK press really is something else... Where does the idea to endorse a certain candidate and full on support that one or trash the competitors even come from? Is there any paper in the UK that doesn't do this?
freethought
Member
J Tourettes said:
THere's no smear on that front page, beyond the implied accusation that a Conservative government would be a terrible thing for the country.
Meh, I'm not one to censor the press, the idea of the editorial staff of any newspaper making a decision to support one candidate or the other seems perfectly fine to me. But we don't have fairness, the left wing press (the real left-wing, union press) was driven out of business years ago, the Mirror is the last remaining vestige.
What we need are laws concerning the ownership of newspapers and we need to place limits on ads, not on the editorial staff.
Ventron said:
I don't think anyone really does believe that. The trouble is they have no other option. The Lib Dems aren't a working class party, although I do think a lot of their momentum this election has come from the huge dive for the left Clegg's done. But make no mistake, the Lib Dem manifesto is a liberal manifesto, and there's not much support for such policies amongst the working class.
Souldriver said:
The former is disgusting, but what do you find so vile about the latter? It's simply preaching to the converted. People with strong political opinions but a lack of tactical knowledge need to know how to make the most of their vote. If anything I'd say it was positive. I'd have a problem if they were trying to subtly influence people while pretending to be neutral, but declaring an opinion is fine by me. This is a far cry from something like Fox News.
You won't see any broadsheet newspapers engaging in tactics like that, except maybe the telegraph though they've hired so many ex-daily mail people lately they're pratically a tabloid. I doubt whether tabloid readers are hugely influenced by the tactics of their papers; if they really cared about political news, they'd read a broadsheet paper.
freethought
Member
Acheteedo said:
Of course that's not how democracy works. But what does that have to do with the election?
Souldriver
Member
I don't like it. Papers shouldn't tell the voters how to vote, unless it's a big analysis where every region and every party is calculated. Not just a calculation how to keep the tories out of office, with a big red cross on Camerons face, on the front page. That's just low. Maybe a little payback for all the lovin' Cameron got and the mud slinging the other candidates got from the rest of the press, but low non the less. Every paper that does such a thing loses credibility imo. How can you assume the rest of their articles are factual, objective news then? Shit like that should be quarantined in a clearly marked "Editorial" space. If I lived in the UK, I wouldn't read any news paper because I'd just be subscribing to some party's propaganda leaflet.Aske said:
freethought
Member
Acheteedo said:
No, first past the post is what keeps the Lib Dems from being relevant. You want rid of it? Labour are weak enough at the minute that a Lib-Lab coalition could affect some real change. Don't want rid of it? Then vote however you like.
Souldriver
Member
But isn't a Lib-Lab coalition kind of unjustified if the Tories get by far the most votes? Isn't it an unwritten rule that the biggest party goes in office, or leads/forms a coalition?freethought said:
blazinglord
Member
There has been organised tactical voting in the past and it hasn't made a discernible impact on the overall outcome. Plus I think it will probably end up damaging soft LibDem voters who might find some resonance with the message 'vote liberal, get brown'. Polls have shown that Lib Dems supporters are evenly split on being either anti-Tory or anti-Labour. The Liberal Democrats knows this, hence why Clegg has said (in public) that he is against tactical voting.Acheteedo said:
freethought
Member
Souldriver said:
The Tories are not walking away with anything more than a tiny majority, they'll pull about 20% of the vote (the total vote, not votes cast) at most. Do you think it's justified to form a majority government with such a small percentage of the vote?
The system needs real reform, that should be every voters first priority. At the moment a Lib-Lab coalition is the only chance of that.
J Tourettes
Banned
freethought said:
It was good enough for Labour at the last election.
freethought
Member
J Tourettes said:
No, it really wasn't.
Souldriver
Member
I guess. Perhaps it's the system that fucks things up.freethought said:
But in my country, when there are 6 parties, and the results are like this:
25% for first
20% for second
18% for third
15% for forth
14% for fifth
8% for sixth
Then political decency and politeness tells the party with 25% of the votes get to form a a coalition, not the party that got 20% or 18%, even though they could make a majority coalition without the winning party.
Then again, if a party has support from 25% of the people, it gets 25% of the votes. In Britain it seems like you need only 20% of support to get a majority. Weird.
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