Don't vote Tory

[st dan]

2 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I think Chukka would be perfect, he has the charisma and the likeability, didn't he rule himself out before though?

He did, but after the likely battering Labour are going to take in a few weeks, it's going to be a blank page for the party, and I think he could be convinced to be the man to start a fresh and lead them into the future. 

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, eastynh said:

Who are the thick ones? The lowly educated and poorly paid who felt like they had nothing to lose and voted for Brexit in the hope that their lives would improve, or the supposedly intelligent ones amongst us who failed to convince the apparent thickos that we are better off in the EU?

Nicely put.

It's like the people who said Cameron was the worst PM ever, for him to be followed by May.

And who are now saying that Labour shouldn't have voted for an election - and so proving they actually want May to be PM.

Or banged on about her being unelected, and now criticise her for putting herself up for election.

Or who banged on about tory austerity while criticising them for the increase in national debt.

Etc, etc, etc.

You win by being better, not by being a moron.

[chatty]

I think people tend to forget a lot of voters dont take an active interest in voting. Most people just want to get on with life so can easily be turned by propaganda. They will just do what they think is best for themselves and thats fair enough but most of the time they are misinformed and end up voting against their own interests. 

The majority of Tory voters and I dare say a lot of UKIP voters arent wanting austerity, bans on immigartion, severs with the EU. The majority will be people who are sick of living week by week and see no future under the current climate and thus vote for change anyway they can get it. A huge gamble and one that may end up making things worse but a lot of peopke feel like they have nothing to lose so vote irrationally. 

The Tories/UKIP etc love that as they are easily manipulated. Doesnt mean they are bad people, thick, racists or c**ts. They just arent politically savvy. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

11 minutes ago, st dan said:

That's fair enough and I completely agree, but it was a fantastic campaign by Boris and Nigel in the respect that they won it when nobody thought they had a chance. Nobody can deny that. As was proved, it was a campaign filled by lies and propaganda - but unfortunately that is allowed and people can get swept in by this if they wish. 

The Remain campaign didn't do enough to counter this as they just wrongly assumed the scaremongering by the Leave campaign wouldn't be enough to sway enough voters. They should have been running their own scare tactics (e.g. potential of losing the EU anti terrorism funding, increased cost of holidays to Spain etc). Whilst they may be dumbed down, and (potentially untrue) points, they would have hit home with many 'uneducated' voters. Just like the Leave campaign managed. 

I completely agree with everything you say, but that's why I have sympathy with Russy. Unfortunately the Leave campaign and Trump's victory were won by repeating a few simple phrases and buzzwords over and over and over again until people believed them. The opposition failed in explaining why the status quo was actually a better alternative. It's easy to say we should've explained it better, but it's equally frustrating when repeating basic lies over and over again proves to be effective.

[FuzzyDunlop]

19 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Nicely put.

It's like the people who said Cameron was the worst PM ever, for him to be followed by May.

And who are now saying that Labour shouldn't have voted for an election - and so proving they actually want May to be PM.

Or banged on about her being unelected, and now criticise her for putting herself up for election.

Or who banged on about tory austerity while criticising them for the increase in national debt.

Etc, etc, etc.

You win by being better, not by being a moron.

That one really grinds my gears - a facebook friend, has for 9 months or so been banging on about she was unelected. Trying to explain to him that we don't vote for a president, we vote for a government, was pointless.

Now, he is fuming that there is an election as she has "bigger fish to fry". 

No - he is just worried he is getting what he wished for

Edited April 20, 2017 by FuzzyDunlop

[Untz]

13 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I think Chukka would be perfect, he has the charisma and the likeability, didn't he rule himself out before though?

To be fair to the man he has kept his head down recently, but he certainly didn't have "the likeability" previously. In fact, I'm surprised to see so many people saying they like him here.

He put his name forward for one of the previous leadership contests (the one Jeremy first won?), but stood down because he didn't like the media intrusion into his family and personal life. If that was the genuine reason, I don't see that going away.

[Mr.Tease]

11 hours ago, chatty said:

Not at all. Things arent black and white, there was a massive amount of people in the middle who didnt know what they wanted to vote, never knew much about the topic and were unsure of where to go.

Considering all the opinion polls in the lead up had remain a good seven percentent ahead and it was a huge favourite to win then there was obviously an upturn in opinion and these voters will have been the ones who caused that. 

Not saying it was this alone but it certainly had an effect. I saw plenty of people calling leave voters alsorts of names and anyone who was in the middle would and were swayed by that. When the result is one pwrcent difference then you can attribute any area of failure to swinging the vote and this was most definitely one of them. To thibk otherwise is to just put your head in the sand. 

Not buying it at all- they can accept responsibility for their own actions rather than say the naughty people made them do it by calling them names. Amazing how the narrative since the vote has been that brexit is because of everyone other than the people who voted brexit. At the end of the day people voted brexit because they either believed in it (fair enough, I don't, but at least those people thought about it and own their decision) or they couldn't be bothered to do basic research or put any basic thought in to.

Someone voting on such an important issue and basing their decision on whether some one called them a name- beyond pathetic! 

[Untz]

8 minutes ago, chatty said:

I think people tend to forget a lot of voters dont take an active interest in voting. Most people just want to get on with life so can easily be turned by propaganda. They will just do what they think is best for themselves and thats fair enough but most of the time they are misinformed and end up voting against their own interests.  

This is a good point, and it applies to voters of all sides.

The one thing I saw that annoyed me during the Brexit campaign was people complaining that they had to vote and that couldn't MPs make the decision as that was what they were elected for as if having a greater say in how the country is run is a bad thing.

Though, all that said, politicians have been breaking election promises for so long is it any wonder that people don't think it's worth paying that much attention to policy ideas that might not even make it into law anyway.

[Mr.Tease]

15 minutes ago, Untz said:

To be fair to the man he has kept his head down recently, but he certainly didn't have "the likeability" previously. In fact, I'm surprised to see so many people saying they like him here.

He put his name forward for one of the previous leadership contests (the one Jeremy first won?), but stood down because he didn't like the media intrusion into his family and personal life. If that was the genuine reason, I don't see that going away.

Agreed, he's very much in the Tim nice-but-dim vein (like Tristram Hunt)  and isn't popular. He announced for leadership then the press soon found something on his personal life that he didn't want to get out so he withdrew. He's posh and reasonably good looking - for some people that makes someone great, because that's their archetype of a 'good leader', but if you actually watch him in interviews or hear him speak you realise there is nothing else to him.

And that's part of the problem with Blairites in the PLP- they forget that Blair was also very savvy and persuasive, charismatic kdifferent from good looking), qualities a lot of the heralded Blairites completely lack. 

Edited April 20, 2017 by Mr.Tease

[Mr.Tease]

12 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I completely agree with everything you say, but that's why I have sympathy with Russy. Unfortunately the Leave campaign and Trump's victory were won by repeating a few simple phrases and buzzwords over and over and over again until people believed them. The opposition failed in explaining why the status quo was actually a better alternative. It's easy to say we should've explained it better, but it's equally frustrating when repeating basic lies over and over again proves to be effective.

It works because a large chunk of voters aren't particularly invested in the process so they don't think too deeply about it or research stuff.

It's like if you had a lot of money and needed to get a mobile phone, but up until now don't really like them and don't know much about them. Some people would research every one out there,  talk to shop assistants, read reviews etc. However most would just base their decision on roughly what they've heard over the months while not paying full attention- "oh, don't Samsung ones explode?" "I hear apple are good". Others will base it on a whim- "oh I like the look of that one".

For voters who don't want to think too deeply or don't know where to start, they're more likely to go with what emotionally resonates with them and take that match (the politician is voicing what they feel is real or is how they see things) as confirmation that it's right and true. You're kind of screwed in trying to undo that, so you'd better hope you catch these voters before the other side does. 

[eFestivals]

14 minutes ago, Untz said:

To be fair to the man he has kept his head down recently, but he certainly didn't have "the likeability" previously. In fact, I'm surprised to see so many people saying they like him here.

He put his name forward for one of the previous leadership contests (the one Jeremy first won?), but stood down because he didn't like the media intrusion into his family and personal life. If that was the genuine reason, I don't see that going away.

they've all been keeping their heads down.

First one out of the woodwork has been Mrs Balls and she's probably the leader in the competency & experience stakes, which i think is going to be a big factor post-Jezza.

She's also female (you might have noticed? :P), and I've seen it said a number of times (tho I don't know how true it is) that Labour will go for a woman.

[Mr.Tease]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

they've all been keeping their heads down.

First one out of the woodwork has been Mrs Balls and she's probably the leader in the competency & experience stakes, which i think is going to be a big factor post-Jezza.

She's also female (you might have noticed? :P), and I've seen it said a number of times (tho I don't know how true it is) that Labour will go for a woman.

But compare her to Sturgeon or the Tory leader in Scotland, or even May- I don't like any of them politically, but they're on a different level completely to her or anyone else the party can muster at present. 

[Untz]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

they've all been keeping their heads down.

First one out of the woodwork has been Mrs Balls and she's probably the leader in the competency & experience stakes, which i think is going to be a big factor post-Jezza.

With all the work she's been doing with refugees, she's probably the one who's been most active and in a way that might put off certain parts of the electorate (Labour or otherwise).

Though she might get on the news, chat about her husband's dance moves and everything will be fine.

[arcade fireman]

Had we voted Remain then someone like Chukka would've been fine. Business as usual. But he is massively out of step with the voting public now.

Cooper is too tarnished by the past in the eyes of both members and the electorate - didn't come close to winning in 2015 so won't stand much of a chance this time round.

Starmer is arguably the smartest person on the Labour front bench. He's the best equipped to hold the Tories to account and at least one upside of the A50 vote is that he might convince leave voters he respected their vote. He has the potential to make the Tories look incompetent and it will be a lot harder for them to land punches on him. Only problem is he's not the most engaging speaker - neither is May though - so partnered with a more media savvy deputy like Dan Jarvis would be good. That said I doubt the Labour membership would vote for Jarvis in a month of Sundays.

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

But compare her to Sturgeon or the Tory leader in Scotland, or even May- I don't like any of them politically, but they're on a different level completely to her or anyone else the party can muster at present. 

nope, Cooper is waaaaay better than May, and far less likely to box herself in with her own guff as Sturgeon has done (mainly, perhaps, because Cooper wouldn't have to rely on guff the way Sturgeon does).

In the few moments where she's had a little publicity in Jezza's time (she's tried hard to stay in the background) the contrast against Jezza has been utterly astounding, much as it was yesterday. 

She exudes a charisma that the likes of Starmer will never manage, too. If either of those were Labour leader now I'm very confident that Cooper would get a higher vote for Labour than Starmer would. There's perhaps better candidates than her for going forwards, but right now i reckon she's the leader who'd get Labour the biggest vote.

[waterfalls212434]

you should be bashing the tory party but your all to busy bashing corbyn.......and that is why the tories will win the election if any, because of stupid people who follow the media agenda and spend all their time ranting and raving about corbyn rather then `you know` the people actually fucking up the country.

But no im sure its corbyns fault in some way, lets blame him, and god dont vote for him no dont do that! but we still hate the tories we promise and we`ll whine and whine and whine when they get elected while we were to busy sat discussing the merits of Jeremy corbyn to bother challenging them in any meaningful way.

Listen, im no fan of corbyns brexit stance, and im no fan of his apparent lack of want of allying with the other anti tory parties but if you can show me how a country with Jeremy corbyn in charge would be somehow worse for people to live in then a country with a right wing tory party with a renewed majority would be to live in then Ill eat my glastonbury ticket.

The simple answer is it wouldn't, not by a long way, have you seen labours pledges? if even some of them came to fruition it would improve lives massively in this land, so cut the fucking vendetta, cut the personal issues get off your complaining `woe is me we`re all doomed` arses and vote against the tory party. THEN  you can give corbyn stick if he doesnt follow through on his promises eh? 

 

[chatty]

1 hour ago, Mr.Tease said:

Not buying it at all- they can accept responsibility for their own actions rather than say the naughty people made them do it by calling them names. Amazing how the narrative since the vote has been that brexit is because of everyone other than the people who voted brexit. At the end of the day people voted brexit because they either believed in it (fair enough, I don't, but at least those people thought about it and own their decision) or they couldn't be bothered to do basic research or put any basic thought in to.

Someone voting on such an important issue and basing their decision on whether some one called them a name- beyond pathetic! 

Thats not the full scope though. It might be alright for people who can sit and spend hours doing research into every political argument but many people have to work 40/50/60 hour weeks, have families they need to care for, bills that need sorting, school runs etc etc Its not viable for everyone to have the time to fully research every detail so they will just run with the papers or what they hear on the news. 

Then you can say they shouldnt vote but one of the major things people have griped about is poor turn outs in voting and pitting that to certain demographs with an aim of enticing them into voting. 

You can change the argument both ways to suit an agender and both those issues were clear before the referendum. 

So again, were back to a tipping edge of having the undecided voters being the deciders of a vote that is massively close, so how do you thibk chucking muck at them is helping anyones cause to win. 

Of course it isnt the only factor but if you think petulent name calling helps then theres nothing much I can say as your obviously not willing to look at the negative effects those type of actions have. 

At the end of the day the right sided sections of society are outnumbering and outvoting the left and centre so its up to the left and centee to change its approach or accept defeat because the last fifteen years has shown that it just doesnt cut it. 

[RichardWaller]

1 hour ago, eastynh said:

Who are the thick ones? The lowly educated and poorly paid who felt like they had nothing to lose and voted for Brexit in the hope that their lives would improve, or the supposedly intelligent ones amongst us who failed to convince the apparent thickos that we are better off in the EU?

This whole sorry episode has just highlighted how selfish we are in this country. Those shouting racist and thicko are only interested in themselves, just as the ones who voted for Brexit are.

No such thing as the greater good in this country.

The remainers have had their noses put out and instead of trying to address the route cause they just chuck out insults. 

For the record I am pro Labour and pro EU.

The only time I've ever agreed with Michael Gove Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove

Nobody likes a know it all or a told you so. I think on the whole, we're getting more and more untrustful as a society. MPs present themselves as experts and they're chronic liars, and you can get any expert to back anything up if it suits you. And yeah, we are a selfish country, often find myself thinking oh if so-and-so says this is a good thing, it's a good thing for them and not for the majority. 

I voted Remain too, doesn't mean I think the EU is perfect by any stretch. Just didn't feel like sending a fuck you to our neighbours, which is the main crux of it really. 

1 hour ago, chatty said:

I think people tend to forget a lot of voters dont take an active interest in voting. Most people just want to get on with life so can easily be turned by propaganda. They will just do what they think is best for themselves and thats fair enough but most of the time they are misinformed and end up voting against their own interests. 

The majority of Tory voters and I dare say a lot of UKIP voters arent wanting austerity, bans on immigartion, severs with the EU. The majority will be people who are sick of living week by week and see no future under the current climate and thus vote for change anyway they can get it. A huge gamble and one that may end up making things worse but a lot of peopke feel like they have nothing to lose so vote irrationally. 

The Tories/UKIP etc love that as they are easily manipulated. Doesnt mean they are bad people, thick, racists or c**ts. They just arent politically savvy. 

We've got mayoral elections here in Manchester in a few weeks. Liverpool's first elected mayor managed it with half of a 30% turn out. Whopping 45% turnout for London mayor last year, and that's London, the capital city and home of Parliament, mayor's a much bigger deal there than here.. Wouldn't be surprised if we're looking at 28% here.

This is one of my politics pet hates, words like misinformed, misled. They make lies sound like accidents. I can completely understand people being disengaged with politics, I go through phases myself when I feel like the last thing I'd wanna do is watch Question Time, there's enough cynicism and negativity in the world without focussing on politics. I can understand why people think they're all as bad as each other too, the way politicians conduct and present themselves... well, they're actors and I think, the right in particular depend on people not really understanding them, so they can, as you say, be manipulated.

1 hour ago, FuzzyDunlop said:

That one really grinds my gears - a facebook friend, has for 9 months or so been banging on about she was unelected. Trying to explain to him that we don't vote for a president, we vote for a government, was pointless.

Now, he is fuming that there is an election as she has "bigger fish to fry". 

No - he is just worried he is getting what he wished for

We had the same shit with Gordon Brown and I didn't get it then. I dunno, maybe there are people sat in Islington thinking they're gonna vote for Theresa May and people in Maidenhead thinking they're gonna vote for Jeremy Corbyn...

[RichardWaller]

I wish we weren't so obsessed with charisma, it's not the X Factor.

[chatty]

1 minute ago, RichardWaller said:

The only time I've ever agreed with Michael Gove Britain has had enough of experts, says Gove

Nobody likes a know it all or a told you so. I think on the whole, we're getting more and more untrustful as a society. MPs present themselves as experts and they're chronic liars, and you can get any expert to back anything up if it suits you. And yeah, we are a selfish country, often find myself thinking oh if so-and-so says this is a good thing, it's a good thing for them and not for the majority. 

I voted Remain too, doesn't mean I think the EU is perfect by any stretch. Just didn't feel like sending a fuck you to our neighbours, which is the main crux of it really. 

We've got mayoral elections here in Manchester in a few weeks. Liverpool's first elected mayor managed it with half of a 30% turn out. Whopping 45% turnout for London mayor last year, and that's London, the capital city and home of Parliament, mayor's a much bigger deal there than here.. Wouldn't be surprised if we're looking at 28% here.

This is one of my politics pet hates, words like misinformed, misled. They make lies sound like accidents. I can completely understand people being disengaged with politics, I go through phases myself when I feel like the last thing I'd wanna do is watch Question Time, there's enough cynicism and negativity in the world without focussing on politics. I can understand why people think they're all as bad as each other too, the way politicians conduct and present themselves... well, they're actors and I think, the right in particular depend on people not really understanding them, so they can, as you say, be manipulated.

We had the same shit with Gordon Brown and I didn't get it then. I dunno, maybe there are people sat in Islington thinking they're gonna vote for Theresa May and people in Maidenhead thinking they're gonna vote for Jeremy Corbyn...

I used misled because I think its actually a valid issue. A lot of people will get info through second hand ways such as work convos or when discussing with friends. Obviously a lot of lies and propaganda are at work so that filters out. So you get voters who are voting on issues they think are genuinely true from second/third etc hand sources that arent. I would say that misled than corruption. 

You can argue the cirruption started it but it does filter out into different issues. 

[RichardWaller]

2 minutes ago, chatty said:

I used misled because I think its actually a valid issue. A lot of people will get info through second hand ways such as work convos or when discussing with friends. Obviously a lot of lies and propaganda are at work so that filters out. So you get voters who are voting on issues they think are genuinely true from second/third etc hand sources that arent. I would say that misled than corruption. 

You can argue the cirruption started it but it does filter out into different issues. 

I dunno, I think if you repeat a lie, even if you think it's true, it's still a lie.

[eFestivals]

36 minutes ago, waterfalls212434 said:

you should be bashing the tory party but your all to busy bashing corbyn.......and that is why the tories will win the election

No, the tories will win the election because Corbyn is shit, and that's why he's being bashed.

Don't go thinking that huge numbers don't wish it was different.

37 minutes ago, waterfalls212434 said:

but if you can show me how a country with Jeremy corbyn in charge would be somehow worse for people to live in then a country with a right wing tory party with a renewed majority would be to live in then Ill eat my glastonbury ticket.

he can't even lead his own cabinet. He doesn't even know who they are some of the time.

People used to say that Cameron was the worst PM ever, and now we have May who most would agree is much worse. Don't go thinking that a Labour PM couldn't be even worse, because they're just as able to fuck everything up as any tory.

He's 20% behind in the polls (Miliband 'the failure' was ahead at this point before a GE). It'll take a miracle for that to change, and if there is that miracle it won't be Jezza's doing, it'll just be the luck of events.

The mistake was putting Corbyn as leader in the first place, and just as the tories are not beyond criticism neither are Labour. 

[eFestivals]

12 minutes ago, RichardWaller said:

I wish we weren't so obsessed with charisma, it's not the X Factor.

May doesn't have any charisma, and she's streets ahead of Corbyn.

I think that proves it's not about charisma.

It's about competence and leadership, and no matter how badly you (or I) might regard May to be, the simple fact is that far more of the country think Corbyn is worse.

All these things were pointed out long in advance. Some people say they shouldn't count - but they'll count on 8th June, make no mistake. 

[RichardWaller]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

May doesn't have any charisma, and she's streets ahead of Corbyn.

I think that proves it's not about charisma.

It's about competence and leadership, and no matter how badly you (or I) might regard May to be, the simple fact is that far more of the country think Corbyn is worse.

All these things were pointed out long in advance. Some people say they shouldn't count - but they'll count on 8th June, make no mistake. 

What are you getting out of the continuous Corbyn bashing? You're part of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I'm sure May's grateful.

[Diva Sam]

I just want everyone to know that this olive and pistachio cake that I am eating really is to die for.