I’m going to say that one politics related change I’ve noticed as I get older is that I am less motivated to stay up to watch election results come in. Particularly because they do not come in that fast. The usual structure of an election night broadcast is:
10pm: Exit poll! Lots to talk about. Does it line up with existing polls or is it a surprise? What does it imply for the next government? Who might we see fall? Who might cling on to their seat? Polsters, comedians, pundits can all join in with this.
c.12 midnight: We’ve been gnawing at teh exit poll for 2 hours and are down to the gristle. No-one has antyhing left to say . But then! the first result. Almost certianly not a surprise. The talking heads rouse themselves to talk a bit more about the same stuff.
Midnight to 3am: Nothing happens. That first result was a false dawn, no other constituency ever reports so fast. The few results that do trickle in add zero information to what we already know. You’re tired. So very tired.
3am to 4am: Some stuff starts to happen. Maybe some big names lose their seats now. We begin to get some sense of how accurate the exit poll was. A mile adrenalin shot that keeps you going a little longer.
4am-6am: It’s finally getting interesting. Results start to come in waves. Losing candidates put a brave face on, much to our filthy glee. But you miss quite a lot of this because you’re fighting to keep your eyes open. Maybe just rest them for a little while…
6am-8am: If you’d gone to sleep after the exit poll chat like a sensible person you could have woken up now, seen the results and searched up the big moments while feeling like a human being. As it is you are now drooling on the sofa cushions.
Hey, I was up for Portillo. But that’s a young man’s game.
And Farage has decided that, after all, Donald Trump can do without his services, that he’s delighted America enough and that he owes it to himself and the country to take back the leadership of his fan club (beg pardon - party, though since he owns it as a private company it’s not like the other parties) and to stand for Parliament after all. This is likely more bad news for the Tories, syphoning off votes (though unlikely to give the Faragistes more than one or two seats).
it’s unlikely visitors will see much hoopla, bunting and frolic of campaigning, unless you happen to find yourself in somebody’s target constituency or run into some staged media event.
As for visiting a polling station as a tourist -
depending on a lot of variables you might well see party workers outside the polling station, but they’re not supposed to attempt to influence those going in, or to ask those coming out anything other than who they are. There might well be a policeman on hand to see that they stick to the rules. There are large formal notices at the entrance about who the candidates are, and what voters may and may not do. If you are able to get into the actual hall, you must not take photographs and you won’t be able to see the ballot papers themselves.
I was listening to a podcast this morning that said he’s actually got a fairly good chance if winning in that particular constituency, and once he gets in, he’ll be a shit-stirring thorn in Labour’s side as well, so this isn’t particularly good news for Starmer either. They played his speech, I was gobsmacked at how momumental his ego and self-regard are. It would be magnificent if he faceplanted in the election, but he’s got a better-than-you’d-think chance.
In Farage’s case, his ongoing mission in life is to be a gigantic Attention Suck. Remember his showboating while in the European Parliament? When three quarters of the U.K. press will ignore the actual business of the House of Commons in favor of whatever blathering the chinless wonder is on about, it’s an impediment.
Right now, he’s something special - an outsider. If he gets elected he’ll just be one MP out of hundreds, with no influence, no friends and no votes. I’d be willing to bet the press will listen to him less, not more.
It’s not impossible that “30p Lee” will also get back, but even together, Commons procedures wouldn’t give them many opportunities to make a mark inside Parliament
Well, will it actually be 8th time lucky for Fartrage? I suspect not.
Apparently the Reform party has largely been funded by Richard Tice over the years, and he’s had a huge falling out with the toad faced one, and thus funding is cut, so electioneering might be on the real cheap this time too.
Fartrage is really just the UK media’s got to troll. Want nonsense spouted? Go to him.
He was going on a “zero net immigration” policy. I mean, how stupid is that? I guess it gets the stupid racists, but the practicality, I assume, that wives, and the big uk money maker, students, will be barred.
Farage is a prat.
When he’s asked a difficult question, he attacks the interviewer.
He was claiming the other day that he hasn’t really lost 7 elections, as
he was only standing to get publicity for his UKIP party.
(so, a bit like the Monster Raving Looney Party then, Nige’ ?)
Fuckin’ Trumpwit
Here’s a datapoint for y’all. I was out on the bike today, deep in the countryside of south Surrey, among the BIG houses - proper stockbroker belt, if you will. Quite a few of these very desirable houses were displaying their party affiliations on the placard-on-a-stick-in-the-ground that party doorknockers like to hand out. Here’s the thing - without exception (not a single one) every placard in this Tory heartland was in support of the Liberal Democrats.
I confess I know even less about them than the Tories and Labour. Can someone give me the Cliffs Notes? I listened to a podcast (Pod Save the UK) earlier today where they seemed to think that their goal was to pick up conservative voters who were tired of the Tories.
Sounds plausible, and chimes with what I noted today. Very short summary - the Lib Dems represent the middle ground, and therefore (in a first past the post system) lose out to both left and right. If we had proportional representation, there are enough “middle grounders” to make them into a significant force.
A better answer will include historical perspective etc; so I’ll step aside while we wait for someone better qualified than me to provide said answer.
The Lib Dems are a result of an alliance between the Liberal party (descended from the Whigs who were probably the most prominent party in the 18th century and also held some power in the 19th) and the SDP - a centre left splinter from the Labour party.
They have pretty consistently been the third party nationally with a few strongholds, especially in the south west and in parts on the south east.
They are considered to sit between the left leaning politics of Labour and the right leaning politics of the Conservatives.
Being third means being nowhere in a first-past-the-post system so their total number of seats has always lagged noticeably behind their share of vote.
They became coalition partners to David Cameron’s Conservative government after the 2010 election which proved incredibly unpopular with their base or any Labour sympathisers who might have retreated to them when not voting Labour. They have never recovered even though in 2019 there was a big gap in the centre ground.
Now that Labour have moved towards the centre it’s hard to see them turning their fortunes around but perhaps some never-Labour portion of Conservative leaning voters will go to them if they want to protest against the government. The polling seems to have them hovering around the 10% mark.
The problem the Lib Dems have is that they are a ‘protest vote’ party for both sides. There’s a lot of voters who would never vote Labour but will vote Lib Dem… but also a lot who would never vote Tory but would vote Lib Dem.
This made their coalition very difficult to manage, they were damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t. Their one big shot was to get PR through the referendum, which they failed to do, and then they paid for it at the next election and are slowly recovering.
The various troubles of the SNP have clearly led to a shift of voters away from them to the revival of Labour in Scotland (a useful 15+ extra seats for them, perhaps), and possibly the LibDems too.
As for the LibDems, the signs are that they will, as in 1997, benefit from tactical anti-Tory voting where they’re perceived to be the main challengers (rural and leafier commuter areas, mostly) but if it is indeed a Labour landslide overall the LibDems will struggle to have much impact in the Commons. They would at least become the third party in the Commons rather than the fourth behind the SNP.
This is indeed the very misleading statistic, as demonstrated by the fact that pretty much a poor country has knocked down the UK to sixth now (and France is coming up fast). This is the one often held up as “4th to 6th richest country in the world” when talking about the UK, when neither China (2nd) or India are considered rich countries.
GDP per capita is often the one held up to demonstrate richness, and that shows the real drop for the UK. Which was 14th in 2014, pre Brexit vote, and is currently 21st (based on a weird estimate of 12% GDP growth this year), and was 26th and I think somewhere in the 30s a couple of years ago. PPP lists the UK as 28th equal with the EU (which considering all the ex-soviet states, is a humbling match).
In reality, skipping this years massive jump, the UK has had no GDP per capita growth for nearly 8 years (yes, Brexit vote time).
If you want the “biggest” stat comparison on GDP per capita top 5, it is sobering:
No, they haven’t, and they have not been since 2010 election, when they last held over 50 seats (with the SNP 9). Since then the SNP has had 59, 39 (no hung parliament under May if they had held their normal set) and 52, with the Lib dems holding 8-12 in those elections.
It does irk me a bit when people just sort of assume the libdems are the 3rd place, they have been a spent force for the last ten years. Perhaps they will come back. Perhaps the SNP will lose more, it will be a reversal, but the third place of the SNP has been consistent in recent times (and I personally think they’re not going lose as much as 2017, it’s whether the libdems win all those tory english seats).
And the SNP has been more than just Scotland, they have been a left voice in parliament for that time, even more left than the relatively centrist Corbyn government.
