Fun and games with ballot papers

[Andy Freude]

Well, 14 million votes for the Tories - The Sun average daily circulation is 1.26million. (Average daily circulation of combined Sun, Mail, Times, Star, Express, & FT, around 4million). None of which takes online editions into account.

D. Telegraph has been a … strong … supporter of the Tories and Brexit. But of course circulation isn't the same as the number of readers. Each copy probably averages at least two readers. Whatever the influence (political opinion dictates choice of paper or paper of choice influences political opinion), the information/misinformation is being disseminated to the readership via that organ.

[oddoneout]

Or Brexit store-cupboards being replenished?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/10/brexit-stockpilers-still-have-enough-for-three-months

[ardcarp]

I put the election result down to this Forum...indeed to this thread. All the lefty liberals heraeabouts have been spoiling their ballot-papers. Ergo Boris.

[MrGongGong]

Told you so

Very sad and avoidable and catastrophic for those I often work with

we already have the "zombie apocalypse" store of tea, beans, lentils and the like.... these are difficult times indeed

[cloughie]

Yes, why was that, do you know? It's not as though it was a close call.

A simple act of God - it was rather windy - and the ballot boxes could not leave a couple of Scilly islands until this morning - the Count at Carn Brea then had to be moved to Truro, because of an afternoon sport event. Unfortunately for me there was no happy ending as my chosen candidate did not win - but that’s elections for you!

[oddoneout]

I put the election result down to this Forum...indeed to this thread. All the lefty liberals heraeabouts have been spoiling their ballot-papers. Ergo Boris.

Sadly there's no need to spoil ballot papers in my constituency to get Boris. The results did seem to suggest a certain amount of thought about what passed for choices though. Labour lost 25% compared with 2017 and predictably some of those ended up with the con candidate, to increase his share to 62.4%(60% 2017). However all the rest, bar a few hundred for the so-called independent(casualty of Farage change of mind about Brexit Party candidates against every Tory candidate) went to the LibDem candidate, which was what the most credible tactical voting site had suggested was likely to happen. Counter-intuitive given the 2017 Con/Lab ratio, but the argument was that disaffected Cons(if they existed) wouldn't go to Labour, and neither would many of the other floating voters. The fact that the labour candidate was a blow-in without any local connections at all wouldn't have helped in this area either.

[ardcarp]

Bad weather held up the arrival of the boxes from the Isles of Scilly.

This has the makings of a good novel. Imagine a potentially hung Parliament where neither prospective PM can go to the Palace until the weather subsides and Scilly votes can be counted. Add in a a few intrigues, some wreckers and other dastardly plots....it could be a cliff hanger. Well, maybe.

[cloughie]

This has the makings of a good novel. Imagine a potentially hung Parliament where neither prospective PM can go to the Palace until the weather subsides and Scilly votes can be counted. Add in a a few intrigues, some wreckers and other dastardly plots....it could be a cliff hanger. Well, maybe.

The next Poldark series maybe! ...and the Whigs win the day, but only after Demelza has saved the ballot boxes down at Porthcurno.

[muzzer]

Obviously there are all sorts of reasons why Labour lost an election it was its to win, but the current Labour setup and direction is toast, and for the party to play any part as a force for reform of the country in the future, and to do so it needs to get elected, it’s going to have to shape up sharpish, failing which all decent parliamentarians and moderates should leave and start a serious centrist party before Johnson tacks left, or cons the country into thinking he has, in the next couple of years, so that he can stay in power for a decade. A day of long sentences.

[Joseph K]

failing which all decent parliamentarians and moderates should leave and start a serious centrist party

That already happened. How did they do in this election?

[Dave2002]

Me too, but surely one of the first things to do will be to rescind the Fixed Term Parliament Act. It's provably not fit for purpose.

Sorry - “they”’ll probably decide that since we don’t like elections so much we can have them every 7 years, or 10 years maybe. I’m not totally against fixed term Parliaments, but I think that four years is about as long as we should be tortured with. Oh - the so-called democracy in which if we are dissatisfied with our MP we can vote him or her out works well, doesn’t it? I don’t dislike the MP in the constituency I’m moving out of, but not disliking someone is not the same as being satisfied. I voted against him, but it made - somewhat predictably - s*d all difference.

[Andy Freude]

That already happened. How did they do in this election?

Good question. They got about a million more votes than in 2017, had the highest percentage increase of any of the main parties, but net lost one seat compared with 2017. Now how could that happen, I wonder.

[muzzer]

That already happened. How did they do in this election?

If you mean the Lib Dems, they’re not a mass party. There’s been no serious break to the centre from Labour since the SDP joined the Liberals. Momentum has control of the party machinery, they will crown another loser to continue their project. Britain is essentially conservative with a small c. Alan Johnson said it all today. Go back to student politics if you’re in Momentum. You’re unelectable and today is the proof.

Anyway. It’s irrelevant. The Tories have got 5 years to do what they want. All those rabid lefties who’ve come of age since 2010 in an era of hung parliaments where every week is another cliffhanger can now reflect on their failure at length, as they are completely powerless.

Tragic. Avoidable. Heartbreaking.

[Richard Barrett]

A rabid leftie writes: I am trying to stay out of discussions on this subject for a while, because it's just too disheartening, but I will say this. Say what you like about Labour's unelectability, and obviously there will need to be changes, and there will be changes, but it is no mean achievement on Jeremy Corbyn's part in particular to have shifted the centre of gravity of political discourse in the UK in a leftward direction, to the point where Johnson has had to promise large numbers of people an enormous amount of stuff that he's going to have to deliver at least some of, if his majority isn't going to be wiped out at the next election. Otherwise needless to say I'm appalled that such a person has become prime minister, and, from a selfish point of view, I've never been so glad that I don't live in the UK. I think I'm going to give it a few months before I even set foot there.

[Joseph K]

If you mean the Lib Dems, they’re not a mass party. There’s been no serious break to the centre from Labour since the SDP joined the Liberals. Momentum has control of the party machinery, they will crown another loser to continue their project. Britain is essentially conservative with a small c. Alan Johnson said it all today. Go back to student politics if you’re in Momentum. You’re unelectable and today is the proof.

I think this kind of thinking is a self-fulfilling prophesy, often made by the same people who work quite hard ensuring that it becomes a reality! There's no precedent for a break-away centrist party taking power that I know of, but there is at least to this day the legacy of Labour winning power in 1945.