Interesting, if unsurprising, that Corbyn’s taking the anti-Establishment tack. It could actually help him.
The Friday happens to be my 40th birthday, can’t think of a better way to spend it…
Not disputing you, but a question from this USA guy if I may.
It seems implausible in the extreme that the LD forms the next government. At their utmost success they might become the significantly junior member of a ruling coalition and we all saw just how powerful Clegg wasn’t in that situation.
So what’s the reason to change your vote for MP on the basis of who the party leader is? To be sure, who he is affects what the platform says. But the connection is far more tenuous than, say, the difference over here between voting for local congresscritter vs. voting for president.
In a strictly two party system the voters in marginal constituencies have a good reason to vote with an eye to picking the PM more than picking their local MP. In other conditions, such as this impending election, I’m not sure I see the same imperative.
So what do you (and any others) think and why?
You know, this might make a great separate thread. I, too, would love some insight as to how/why people pick who to vote for in different systems. We have enough Dopers from disparate democratic systems that I think it would produce some interesting discussion.
Probably almost as many reasons as there are voters, but if you’re looking for systemic/structural factors, FPTP clearly incentivises tactical voting in constituencies perceived to be marginal, at least for those voters whose primary motivation is to get or keep out X (X may be a party or a particular candidate in the constituency). But what persuades people their constituency is marginal, or so much the opposite that their vote won’t make that much difference, and what then motivates their vote - if I knew that, I’d have a whole different career.
We’ve always had tactical voting - fwiw, I thought the Tory minority gov/Coalition of 2010 was a brilliant example of the population deciding by tactical voting it didn’t like either main party.
This time though, tactical voting is upfront and centre from the start: Gina Miller plans ‘biggest tactical voting effort in UK history’
We shall see …
I don’t think any of these parliamentary candidates “who campaign for a real final vote on Brexit” will be Tories:
Traditionally the British voter would be expected to vote for their local MP on largely local issues and the government would be formed from the party with the most MPs with the Prime Minister being regarded as “first amongst equals”. But over the course of the 20th century the Prime Minister’s role has become increasingly important culminating in Thatcher who led the country more like a President. The idea of the cabinet having a collective responsibility has been somewhat eroded as PMs have become more and more dominant.
So now we have a situation where you vote for your local MP however the common voter probably thinks about the national picture and the leader of that party and many I bet would not even be able to name who their main candidates are. They would vote based on the party listed alongside the candidate’s name. A smaller percentage would probably have some knowledge of their incumbent MPs record and vote for or against them accordingly.
For sure though people in swing constituencies will hunk about the national picture and vote tactically. The incentive to turn out is much lower if you’re voting in a safe seat.
I think the Brits invented divide and rule 
No wait, I think it was the Romans!
I think it dates back at least to Churchill and WW2, with the process beginning with the advent of radio and maturing with Pathe News in the cinemas.
So, I’ll be in the U.K. from 4 May-15 May. Are there likely to be any rallies or public speeches I can attend? How would I find out?
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You could probably take it as far back as Lloyd George in WW1 (but probably not his immediate predecessors). Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald and Chamberlain were certainly
“personality” PMs.
But then again, Disraeli and Gladstone were dominating figures in their time.
Hard to say at the moment, since everything’s being done in a bit of a rush, but off the top of my head, I’d guess any full-scale meetings or rallies will be highly staged with an eye to TV news, and would most likely be ticket-only for party members. The party bigwigs will also be doing meet-the-people events, but the chances of seeing or hearing anything significant are fairly small. John Major’s soap-box speech back in 1992 was considered a remarkable throwback to older times.
I may be unusually jaded, but you won’t see meetings like this nowadays.
Most of the effort goes into creating something for TV news and the newspapers, or on highly local campaigning, sometimes setting up some leafleting in shopping streets or outside commuter railway stations, usually (depending on the numbers of workers available) door-to-door leafleting and canvassing. Keep an eye on the party websites to see if they announce anything interesting. There will be pre-set allowances of PPBs (party political broadcasts) on the main TV channels.
Not necessarily relevant to this particular point, but for the record I was pretty happy with the outcome of the 2010 election, as it resulted in a government which (in my view) pursued economic policies that were good for the country in the long term but tempered by the Lib Dem influence (so benefits weren’t cut too hard etc).
I basically agree with Fiendish Astronaut’s response. The leader of the party is it’s national face (and more importantly, voice). A vote for the local candidate of that party is implicitly a vote supporting the leader. As I think I posted earlier, I am probably more swayed by the views and actions of the local candidate, but you have to balance local and national issues, in my view.
Thanks for the link. The emergence of pre-staged events and a lack of discourse between public and politicians is probably why we have seen the rise of meme’s and the like. Meme’s have become an effective way of undercutting the smooth politician and the all controlling party machine. Im not applauding the rise of meme wars but I think they are an understandable and natural reaction to modern political mass media culture.
It happened in Canada with the federal Liberals in 2000. They increased their majority from the previous election by 17 seats.
They first were elected in 1993 with 177 seats. They lost some seats in the 1997 election, going down to 155, but they rebounded in the 2000 election and won 172.
Economic news isn’t good given the sharp drop in retail sales due to the spike in inflation, and rumours Hammond will drop the 2015 pledge not to raise income tax.
It’s obvious it’s due to the economic self-harm that is Brexit, although the usual suspects will insist recognising that is ‘negative thinking’ rather than joining in the mass delusion they have. I wonder what this will do for the polls as it all starts to bite.
Around here when things start sliding downhill everybody votes for “change”.
But when the downhill is caused by a pending change that hasn’t taken effect yet, is “change” going ahead with the pending change or is it reversing the pending change?
It’ll be fun to watch both sides try to explain / exploit that conundrum.
Whatever it is, it’s the fault of ‘The Establishment’ ™, never the fault of the half of the country who abandoned critical thinking and got themselves duped.
Having moved on (nearly) from ‘you’re all racists’ the latest liberal mantra: see what you’ve done, it’s all your fault!
If only the leave voters understood they had been living in the land of milk and honey and should just leave things to the educated people who know best.
It’s all … very … infantile.
Well you’re both right. As are the corresponding pundits in the US.
The angry voters are right to be angry; they’ve been let down by recent history. So their answer is to do something thoughtless that makes their problems worse. That’s not actually helpful to them or anyone else. It’s “crabs in a bucket” thinking to the degree it’s thinking at all.
It *is *time, past time in fact, for the Establishment elites to do the long-term smart thing and ensure the majority (ideally everyone) gets jam, not just the 1%. Are they insightful enough to do the long-term smart thing, or will we see them do the short-term easy thing? AKA more of the same.