Britain - The Official Thread

[UKMikey]

The Normal people are speaking.

...you know the Tories are to the left of your Democrats, right? They don't even oppose abortion.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...ervative-would-uk-conservatives-be-us/312573/

I don't think you've got this one quite normal.

 

[baldgye]

Well there you go the British electorate has spoken. They’d rather be lied to than deal with reality.


We are an island, inhabited by angry aggressive morons. At least now we’ve the data to back it up.

 

[mustafur]

Is Brexit basically assured now?

 

[Tired Tyres]

Well there you go the British electorate has spoken. They’d rather be lied to than deal with reality.


We are an island, inhabited by angry aggressive morons. At least now we’ve the data to back it up.

There was no reality to deal with. Labour were delusional fantasists with a we won't have an opinion on brexit and entirely unworkable spending plans.

Very bad day for the UK. There will be a swing back to the centre next time round, probably, but it will be far too late by then.

 

[baldgye]

There was no reality to deal with.

Sorry, in my reality people still buy newspapers and the owners of said newspapers pay the people who run the country.

 

[Tired Tyres]

Sorry, in my reality people still buy newspapers and the owners of said newspapers pay the people who run the country.

Are you saying this is not something that has been happening for decades and decades? Have you really not noticed newspaper headlines at EVERY election?

The Labour party had to become Tory wets to win power. As soon as they went back to the left they gave the Conservatives power.

 

[Touring Mars]

Is Brexit basically assured now?

Pretty much. But it remains to be seen what form it will take.

Ironically, the EU are delighted with last night’s result because it guarantees the Withdrawal Agreement is passed. But there is definitely trouble ahead - especially when the reality of what Brexit involves dawns on those who have championed it thus far.

The president of the EU Commission has already ‘congratulated’ Boris Johnson but said that they look forward to a trade deal with the UK that delivers a ‘true level playing field’... you are going to hear this phrase “level playing field” alot over the next year, and it is likely to become the new ‘backstop’ in terms of its popularity amongst Brexiteers.

The trouble is, the EU will not agree to any trade deal that does not guarantee a ‘level playing field’, which mean the UK agreeing to vast swathes of rules and legally-binding commitments that will prevent it from gaining a competitive advantage over the EU... which is, of course, the entire point behind Brexit.

This is why the Conservatives are so keen to press ahead with global trade deals - because they know that even the ‘bare bones’ trade deal they seek with the EU will not happen without huge compromises that essentially tie the UK permanently to EU law even after we have left.

The EU have not (and will not) give up on the idea of a Soft Brexit - but with a thumping majority, Johnson can now basically call the shots on what the UK wants and what the UK will do, and that will probably involve the UK leaving the EU next month and then failing to agree a trade deal with the EU, which will amount to a Hard Brexit at the end of 2020.

Meanwhile, the UK and the US will also start trade deal negotiations - right in the middle of a US election and impeachment proceedings. These factors probably won’t make a substantive difference though, since the UK are soon going to find out that a trade deal with the US is not going to be remotely as straightforward as the Johnson government seem to believe it will be.

If anyone thought Brexit was a mess before, they ain’t seen nothing yet...

 

[baldgye]

Are you saying this is not something that has been happening for decades and decades?

Are you saying The Telegraph has paid decades and decades worth of PM’s hundreds of thousands of pounds to write obscene columns?

Meanwhile, the UK and the US will also start trade deal negotiations - right in the middle of a US election and impeachment proceedings. These factors probably won’t make a substantive difference though, since the UK are soon going to find out that a trade deal with the US is not going to be remotely as straightforward as the Johnson government seem to believe it will be.

I don’t know, I can’t see Johnson not seeing it, given the leaks of previous conversations. Bojo’ll sell off the NHS to the yanks. After all who hasn’t got healthcare?


And if people don’t like it, he can just lie and we’ll rejoice

 

[UKMikey]

Corbyn has slung his hook.

https://amp-businessinsider-com.cdn...19-12?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE=

 

[baldgye]

Corbyn has slung his hook.

https://amp-businessinsider-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.businessinsider.com/jeremy-corbyn-resigns-as-labour-party-leader-after-election-defeat-2019-12?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE=

The slimmest of silver linings

 

[Famine]

We are an island, inhabited by angry aggressive morons.

A veritable basket of deplorables.

At least now we’ve the data to back it up.

I don't know which party is the angry aggressive morons party, but if it's Conservative then a 43.6% vote share on 67.3% turnout is 70.65% of people not voting for them, and thus 70.65% of people are not angry aggressive morons.

 

[baldgye]

I don't know which party is the angry aggressive morons party, but if it's Conservative then a 43.6% vote share on 67.3% turnout is 70.65% of people not voting for them, and thus 70.65% of people are not angry aggressive morons.

It's irrelevant, we as a British public have voted for a part that isn't interested in truth or reality. It doesn't matter who did, or who didn't vote, we the British public voted to **** ourselves economically through Brexit and now we voted to be lied too. We're all part of the problem.

 

[Tired Tyres]

Are you saying The Telegraph has paid decades and decades worth of PM’s hundreds of thousands of pounds to write obscene columns?

No. And you know that is not what I'm saying. Every ELECTION, newspapers make the stand the owner of the newspaper wants. You can pretend that is recent all you want.

It's irrelevant, we as a British public have voted for a part that isn't interested in truth or reality. It doesn't matter who did, or who didn't vote, we the British public voted to **** ourselves economically through Brexit and now we voted to be lied too. We're all part of the problem.

We, the people, get the government we deserve. That's democracy.

 

[Daz555]

Remain and #peoplesvote parties outscored the Brexit parties by about 2m votes.

Corbyn's arrogance that he could win the election has snatched a final say on the agreed Brexit deal out of the hands of the British people.

 

[PzR Slim]

Pretty much. But it remains to be seen what form it will take.

Ironically, the EU are delighted with last night’s result because it guarantees the Withdrawal Agreement is passed. But there is definitely trouble ahead - especially when the reality of what Brexit involves dawns on those who have championed it thus far.

The president of the EU Commission has already ‘congratulated’ Boris Johnson but said that they look forward to a trade deal with the UK that delivers a ‘true level playing field’... you are going to hear this phrase “level playing field” alot over the next year, and it is likely to become the new ‘backstop’ in terms of its popularity amongst Brexiteers.

The trouble is, the EU will not agree to any trade deal that does not guarantee a ‘level playing field’, which mean the UK agreeing to vast swathes of rules and legally-binding commitments that will prevent it from gaining a competitive advantage over the EU... which is, of course, the entire point behind Brexit.

This is why the Conservatives are so keen to press ahead with global trade deals - because they know that even the ‘bare bones’ trade deal they seek with the EU will not happen without huge compromises that essentially tie the UK permanently to EU law even after we have left.

The EU have not (and will not) give up on the idea of a Soft Brexit - but with a thumping majority, Johnson can now basically call the shots on what the UK wants and what the UK will do, and that will probably involve the UK leaving the EU next month and then failing to agree a trade deal with the EU, which will amount to a Hard Brexit at the end of 2020.

Meanwhile, the UK and the US will also start trade deal negotiations - right in the middle of a US election and impeachment proceedings. These factors probably won’t make a substantive difference though, since the UK are soon going to find out that a trade deal with the US is not going to be remotely as straightforward as the Johnson government seem to believe it will be.

If anyone thought Brexit was a mess before, they ain’t seen nothing yet...

Quite a few political commentators saying BJ might now pursue a softer Brexit with such a large majority as he doesn't need the ERG loons to win votes. He did seem more conciliatory in his tone this morning.

 

[baldgye]

No. And you know that is not what I'm saying. Every ELECTION, newspapers make the stand the owner of the newspaper wants. You can pretend that is recent all you want.

Well thank god no one reads news papers and I was pretending about that too!

Because you are pretending that anyone bothers with newspapers anymore outside of older people that grew up with them pre internet.

We, the people, get the government we deserve. That's democracy.

Quite





Soft-Brexit are people already so desperate as to cling to that nonsense again?

 

[Tired Tyres]

Well thank god no one reads news papers and I was pretending about that too!






Quite





Soft-Brexit are people already so desperate as to cling to that nonsense again?

Soft brexit? I'm not seeing anything you've linked?

Anyway, check newspaper sales numbers. Are they on the up?

 

[baldgye]

Soft brexit? I'm not seeing anything you've linked?

The gap in my post was to denote that I wasn't replying to you directly.

 

[mustafur]

Soft brexit? I'm not seeing anything you've linked?

Anyway, check newspaper sales numbers. Are they on the up?

When it comes to media everywhere it favours the owner class because the get to pull the strings, even on youtube they only promote mainstream news now because they got their hands on that as well.

 

[Famine]

It's irrelevant

Not if your argument is that 43.6% of 67.3% of people voting Conservative is data proof of the Great Britain being populated by angry aggressive morons. The data shows more than 70% of people didn't vote Conservative.

we as a British public have voted for a part that isn't interested in truth or reality. It doesn't matter who did, or who didn't vote, we the British public voted to **** ourselves economically through Brexit and now we voted to be lied too. We're all part of the problem.

In part the gerrymandered FPTP system did it for us. Under a full proportional representation system, the Commons would (with one seat still to declare) look like this:

Conservative - 283
Labour - 209
Lib Dem - 75
SNP - 35
Green - 18
Brexit - 13
Others - 17

The data literally says that 70% of people didn't vote Conservative, and 56.4% of those who did vote didn't vote Conservative. Suggesting that the whole country is "angry aggressive morons" when more than half who voted didn't vote for what I assume is the angry aggressive moron party (because they won and the country is full of angry aggressive morons) - and more than two-thirds as a whole didn't - is a reach.

For that matter it's a bit of a reach, and likely part of the result you're seeing, to suggest that Conservative voters are angry aggressive morons. For the last two days my Twitter feed has been full of people hashtagging #VoteLabour, and using literally every insult imaginable to describe someone who'd vote Conservative or consider voting Conservative - ranging from the regular "vote Tory if you don't care about poor people" to "only a **** would vote Tory" (which seems quite angry and aggressive to me and, given the below, faintly moronic). So many famous people too - actists and musicators everywhere - piling into the "**** the Tories" pre-election/voting day social media bubble.

It's a mistake Hillary Clinton made pretty glaringly - and strangely, given that the Remain campaign did the same mistake six months earlier. Insulting people for considering not voting how you would vote isn't going to make them vote for or with you. Calling Trump voters a basket of deplorables, or Leave voters racist Nazi arseholes, is not going to make wavering voters come your way, but push them the other way.

A lot of it has come from the Corbynistas and Momentum. They've been doing little else but call people who are not 100% behind Corbyn himself traitors and Tory scum. There was a hilarious exchange on Twitter yesterday when ex-footballerer and now-pundit Lee Dixon replied "No" to Corbyn's Tweet saying "Vote Labour". The Corbynet absolutely piled onto him, calling him Tory scum and all kinds of other Tory-based insults - for balance there were also pro-Conservative accounts back-slapping him for voting blue. 16 minutes before he replied to Corbyn, he'd posted that he'd voted Green.





Click on his second tweet to see the responses (language warning advisory). This was pretty typical of yesterday's social media.


The social media bubble is a lot different this morning. There's still quite a lot of people on the whole "if you voted Tory **** you" wagon, and a fair bit of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but there's so much hate being aimed at Corbyn right now from the wider Labour-supporting community it's almost incredible. People who only yesterday were supporting Corbyn and Labour are now posting that he's destroyed Labour. Momentum is surprisingly quiet and nobody is queuing up to murder Rachel Riley for the first time in four years, which she's probably happy about.

For reference, I did not vote Conservative.

Remain and #peoplesvote parties outscored the Brexit parties by about 2m votes.

But the Brexit parties outscored either, by a lot. And just one of them outscored not-voting, which is unusual.

More unusual is that Boris beat even Maggie.

Highest winning vote shares since 1974*:
1. Thatcher (1979) - 43.9%
2. Johnson (2019) - 43.6%
3. Blair (1997) - 43.2%
4. May (2017) - 42.4%
5. Thatcher (1983) - 42.3%
6. Thatcher (1987) - 42.2%
7. Major (1992) - 41.9%
8. Blair (2001) - 40.7%
9. Cameron (2015) - 36.9%
10. Cameron (2010) - 36.1%
11. Blair (2005) - 35.2%

Highest winning vote counts since 1974*:
1. Major (1992) - 14.1m
2. Johnson (2019) - 13.9m
3. Thatcher (1987) - 13.8m
4. Thatcher (1979) - 13.7m
5. May (2017) - 13.6m
6. Blair (1997) - 13.5m
7. Thatcher (1983) - 13.0m
8. Cameron (2015) - 11.3m
9. Blair (2001) - 10.7m
10. Cameron (2010) - 10.7m
11. Blair (2005) - 9.6m

Highest winning seat share since 1974*:
1. Blair (1997) - 63.4%
2. Blair (2001) - 61.6%
3. Thatcher (1983) - 61.1%
4. Thatcher (1987) - 57.8%
5. Johnson (2019) - 56.0%
6. Blair (2005) - 55.0%
7. Thatcher (1979) - 53.4%
8. Major (1992) - 51.6%
9. Cameron (2015) - 50.8%
10. May (2017) - 48.8%
11. Cameron (2010) - 47.1%

Highest winning seat count since 1974*:
1. Blair (1997) - 412**
2. Blair (2001) - 407**
3. Thatcher (1983) - 397
4. Thatcher (1987) - 376
5. Johnson (2019) - 364
6. Blair (2005) - 357**
7. Thatcher (1979) - 347**
8. Major (1992) - 336
9. Cameron (2015) - 330
10. May (2017) - 317
11. Cameron (2010) - 306

Johnson beats the popular vote and seats (and seat share) in Maggie's best year for vote share, and the popular vote and vote share in the years she got more seats.

As a side note, isn't it amazing how efficient the Blair elections were? His best election for the number of votes won ranks 6th in raw count, but third in share... and won him the largest number of seats by count and share ever recorded post-war. Meanwhile Theresa May outranks him in terms of count and is only just behind on share, but had to form a minority government

Meanwhile Corbyn got 12.8m when losing to May, beating two of Blair's elections - including another 400-seater. He's lost on 10.3m this election, which is still better than Blair's winning total in 2005...

*I chose 1974 because that was the first post-war election that saw a third party gain more than 10% and retain it for the next election... also in 1974.
**Pro rata to a 650-seat House.

 

[Dotini]

Listening to overnight BBC USA radio, the main takeaways are the landslide victory for conservatives, massive defeat for labour in the industrial midlands, and the looming breakup of the UK with Scotland and Ireland getting voter mandates for separation referenda.

 

[Tired Tyres]

Listening to overnight BBC USA radio, the main takeaways are the landslide victory for conservatives, massive defeat for labour in the industrial midlands, and the looming breakup of the UK with Scotland and Ireland getting voter mandates for separation referenda.

Slight gains for Conservatives vote wise, massive losses to Labour, there is no industrial anything in the UK really and Ireland has been independent for ages.

 

[Hun200kmh]

O tempora! O mores!*

*(short message received from a UK friend last night. Had to look it up, my memory is lacking and my cultural level going down with age … all I could remember was that this was a phrase used by Agecanonix, the old git from the Asterix village and books )

 

[MatskiMonk]

Okay, so, somehwat tree'd by Famine... but,

We, the people, get the government we deserve. That's democracy.

Hmm, not really...

 

[baldgye]

For that matter it's a bit of a reach, and likely part of the result you're seeing, to suggest that Conservative voters are angry aggressive morons. For the last two days my Twitter feed has been full of people hashtagging #VoteLabour, and using literally every insult imaginable to describe someone who'd vote Conservative or consider voting Conservative - ranging from the regular "vote Tory if you don't care about poor people" to "only a **** would vote Tory" (which seems quite angry and aggressive to me and, given the below, faintly moronic). So many famous people too - actists and musicators everywhere - piling into the "**** the Tories" pre-election/voting day social media bubble.

You'll probably not agree with me, but we had three realistic choices. A party that lies to the people (openly), a party without a leader who can lead and then the lib-dems who are a joke. So here we are, as a nation, voted for Brexit, a move that can only see us become poorer while the 1% gets richer.. and here we are again, as a nation, giving Boris a majority... a move that can only see us become poorer while the 1% gets richer...

How can FPF be to blame when all the options where ****? How can anyone else be to blame for this total ****-show than us? And how can you come to the conclusion we are anything but morons?

 

[PzR Slim]

 

[Submerged]

*(short message received from a UK friend last night. Had to look it up, my memory is lacking and my cultural level going down with age … all I could remember was that this was a phrase used by Agecanonix, the old git from the Asterix village and books )

"O tempora o mores is a Latin phrase that translates literally as Oh the times! Oh the customs! but more accurately as Oh what times! Oh what customs!"

Wikipedia link

I had to look it up as I recognised it was Latin but I had no idea what it was actually referring to. In case anyone else was wondering too. It actually kind of makes sense in this case too. I think.

It is seriously going to be a bunch of Interesting Times for the near future for sure.

Also looking at the differences between First Past The Post and Proportional Representation, it seems much more suitable to have PR as the more democratic and fairer voice political voting for something like this.

 

[Tired Tyres]

You'll probably not agree with me, but we had three realistic choices. A party that lies to the people (openly), a party without a leader who can lead and then the lib-dems who are a joke. So here we are, as a nation, voted for Brexit, a move that can only see us become poorer while the 1% gets richer.. and here we are again, as a nation, giving Boris a majority... a move that can only see us become poorer while the 1% gets richer...

How can FPF be to blame when all the options where ****? How can anyone else be to blame for this total ****-show than us? And how can you come to the conclusion we are anything but morons?

Because insulting people for voting for something you want does not make you right or them wrong. Ever. That is the fundamental problem with most of your posts.

It's like saying my vote for the Liberal Democrats is a mistake as it is a lost vote for someone else. It isn't. Either I vote Liberal Democrat or I put a cross in every box. Something I have to do when there isn't a Liberal Democrat standing. As it is, in my constituency losing the deposit was avoided by 1.5% blame first past the post all you like but most people are not technically stupid.

Besides the Conservative said they'd leave the EU. You saying that's a lie? Any chance that Labour had even a remote chance to spend all that money we don't have? That was pure fantasy and I reckon voters recognised that.

 

[baldgye]

It's like saying my vote for the Liberal Democrats is a mistake as it is a lost vote for someone else. It isn't. Either I vote Liberal Democrat or I put a cross in every box. Something I have to do when there isn't a Liberal Democrat standing.

You might want to see someone about that...

Besides the Conservative said they'd leave the EU. You saying that's a lie?

ALMOST EVERY TORY AD DISHONEST, COMPARED WITH NONE OF LABOUR’S, RESEARCH FINDS


Sorry, I'm not shouting that, it's just how the heading of the article was formatted

 

[eran0004]

Well, I'm off to bed... run out of beer.

Not even halfway yet... but this is our democracy in action...

View attachment 872875

Really, it's beyond moronic.

I had a look at the data from the 2017 election to experiment with alternatives to first-past-the-post and came up with a "Regional proportional" system, combining constituencies into greater districts and allowing each district to send as many MPs as there are constituencies, by proportion of votes. The aim was to keep MPs as representatives for a geographical location, while at the same time allowing for local diversity to be represented.

An example of how it works: if ten constituencies are forming a district, and Labour gets 30% of the vote there, then they get 3 MPs from that district.

The districts were formed by sorting constituencies first by area (1-12), then by county and lastly by alphabetical order. I tried to keep the district size between 10-20 constituencies, but gave priority to keeping counties intact and areas separated, so in some cases there are districts with up to 23 constituencies. The average district size is 14.77.

Below is a graph showing the results, based on the 2017 data. The blue column is the number of seats (including the speaker) with first-past-the-post. The orange column is with the regional proportional system and the grey is proportional to the nationwide vote.

SNP and PC share a column because they used the same header in the original data and it was too much work to separate them.
MIN = Minor party candidate
OTH = Other