General election results 2015

[french frank]

Ok no offence intended

None taken.

"I met those from our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them:

1. To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy
2. To speak no evil of the person they voted against
and
3. To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that had voted on the other side."

That from the days of the Enlightenment … and when English [sic] society was certainly no more equal than it is now.

[Beef Oven!]

I don't know much about this site, but I like their analysis:

Chief losers of the 2010-2015 U.K. coalition was the Liberal Democrat party, whose numbers of Members of Parliament (MPs) plummeted from 57 to 8. The party acted like a bodyguard for the Conservatives, taking the blows delivered by a population angry at coalition policies, but at a huge cost for itself. Just 10 years after the Liberal Democrats secured a record number of MPs due to its opposition to the Iraq war and its promise to scrap tuition fees, the heavy price paid for propping up a right-wing coalition has left it with a parliamentary wing small enough to fit inside a minibus, with plenty of places to spare. It was the Conservatives that mainly gained from this. Of the 35 extra seats the Conservatives won (it lost others), 27 came from the Liberal Democrats. These were either in seats where the Conservatives were previously in second place behind the Lib Dems and gained from the later’s collapse. Or in areas where Labour looked set to win the seat from the Conservatives but where former Lib Dem voters rescued the Conservatives. Either way, the Liberal Democrats’ historic role appears to be nothing more than to have resurrected the corpse of the Conservative Party...

The main opposition party Labour had a humiliating night with the results leading to the resignation of leader Ed Miliband. It was undeniably a very bad performance, but again not necessarily for the reasons that the mainstream media has projected. Miliband did not lose the party any votes. In fact, Labour increased its vote share by 1.5 percent, more than the Conservative party managed and it gained almost 800,000 votes. That increase reversed the constant fall in votes that the party had seen since Tony Blair was first elected in 1997, losing five million votes through to 2010 due to its adherence to war, free market economics and illiberal social policies on immigration and civil rights. This reversal, however insufficient, in the number of votes won by Labour is being downplayed by Tony Blair and his loyal disciples who have gone onto the media post-election to urge the Labour Party to adopt even more right-wing policies.

I find their analysis lacking in objectivity. For example, their dismissal of UKIP's appeal as racist scapegoating and xenophobia, shows an analysis on par with 1980s student rants.

Bad news for us who are interested in political analysis, but good news for UKIP who will be around for a long time if it's not understood what the reasons are as to why they are the third biggest partying, in terms of votes.

[Bryn]

I find their analysis lacking in objectivity. For example, their dismissal of UKIP's appeal as racist scapegoating and xenophobia, shows an analysis on par with 1980s student rants.

Bad news for us who are interested in political analysis, but good news for UKIP who will be around for a long time if it's not understood what the reasons are as to why they are the third biggest partying, in terms of votes.

I reckon that we cane safely turn to Albert Einstein for a reliable clue as to why UKIP garnered so many vote:

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

[french frank]

Bad news for us who are interested in political analysis, but good news for UKIP who will be around for a long time if it's not understood what the reasons are as to why they are the third biggest partying, in terms of votes.

I think there may well be things that are 'understood' very well. But those potentially involved with running the country should not be slaves to what all sections of the population call out for. A prime example - and I'm simply expressing my personal view in what I've already said - restoration of the death penalty would be one such example. Some things should always be resisted.

[french frank]

Hmmm - Whittingdale as new Culture Secretary - I wonder what that holds for the BBC?

[Barbirollians]

If the EU referendum is a vote to stay in - UKIP are finished . The particularly shocking thing about them is that they have made racism respectable in some quarters .

The really shocking thing is their advance in the North - although it was nowhere near enough to get them a seat they clearly did much more damage to Labour than the Conservatives and makes it plain that a return to old fashioned Blairism is not the answer for Labour .

[burning dog]

UKIP?

They come over 'ere, with only 400 years ancestry and try to tell 'ard workin' Anglo Saxons and Celts, who've put over a thousand years in, 'ow to run their country!

[Richard Tarleton]

As someone with Welsh-speaking relatives, who speak Welsh simply because it's the language spoken by the majority where they happen to live, I find these comments quite offensive.

Jean, I had first-language Welsh great-grandparents, my maternal grandmother was a Welsh speaker (I've traced my Welsh ancestry back to my 18thC 4xgreat grandfather Reuben, a Welsh seafarer), have lived in Wales for a great many years, and worked in a bilingual context for over 20 years prior to retirement. I have first-hand experience of what I speak, and am perfectly entitled to have and express an opinion, I thought quite politely. You might hear such views expressed much more strongly in Wales, outside PC heartlands. You won't hear SNP, or Sinn Fein for that matter, obsessing about whether their people should have the right to speak to a GP in Gaelic, or bilingual internet banking.

[french frank]

Jean, I had first-language Welsh great-grandparents, my maternal grandmother was a Welsh speaker (I've traced my Welsh ancestry back to my 18thC 4xgreat grandfather Reuben, a Welsh seafarer), have lived in Wales for a great many years, and worked in a bilingual context for over 20 years prior to retirement. I have first-hand experience of what I speak, and am perfectly entitled to have and express an opinion, I thought quite politely. You might hear such views expressed much more strongly in Wales, outside PC heartlands. You won't hear SNP, or Sinn Fein for that matter, obsessing about whether their people should have the right to speak to a GP in Gaelic, or bilingual internet banking.

I can vouch for the fact that in the 1970s, at least, in the Welsh speaking/cultural university departments, support for the Welsh language/culture was positively aggressive. But they would have been quite distinct, I assume, from in rural areas which had remained largely Welsh-speaking.

[jean]

What I'm principally objecting to is the view that the Welsh language is

...not so much a means of communication as a means of reinforcing the otherness of Wales and excluding non-Welsh speakers.

This is a view that is heard a lot, mostly from English visitors, who like to imagine that everyone in the pub, or shop, or wherever was happily chatting away in English until the visitor appeared on the threshold, at which point they all switched to Welsh.

Of course you are perfectly entitled to have and express an opinion, just as I am to react to it.

[subcontrabass]

Hmmm - Whittingdale as new Culture Secretary - I wonder what that holds for the BBC?

There seems a marked difference between what appears in an interview from 2009: http://www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk/i...&id=1&Itemid=3 and his previous record on the BBC Licence ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4333653.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3005231.stm ).

[MrGongGong]

This is a view that is heard a lot, mostly from English visitors, who like to imagine that everyone in the pub, or shop, or wherever was happily chatting away in English until the visitor appeared on the threshold, at which point they all switched to Welsh.
.

I seem to remember some failed wannabe politician saying a similar thing about being on the train in Lewisham

and (a seriousish question)

What's the name for the psychological condition where one is unable to extend the empathy and consideration that one feels for ones own family and friends to people whom one hasn't met?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What's the name for the psychological condition where one is unable to extend the empathy and consideration that one feels for ones own family and friends to people whom one hasn't met?

Thatcherism?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

No, I got that wrong - "empathy and consideration" doesn't fit; particularly when applied to her female relations and ... err ... acquaintances.

[ahinton]

What I'm principally objecting to is the view that the Welsh language is


This is a view that is heard a lot, mostly from English visitors, who like to imagine that everyone in the pub, or shop, or wherever was happily chatting away in English until the visitor appeared on the threshold, at which point they all switched to Welsh.

Yes, that's a tired old cliché, to be sure, although I can speak from experience long ago when, on my only visit to Aberystwyth, I went into a pub where everyone seemed to be chatting in Welsh already but, as soon as I ordered something, they all suddenly stopped talking altogether; not the most pleasant experience that I've ever had...