the snap general election thread

antrobus

WengerIn wrote: »

RIP UKIP
3 Sept 1993 - 4 May 2017

Given that UKIP have so far, lost all their seats, it might well be the beginning of the end.

In other news, Labour lose control of Merthyr Tydfil. Merthyr, Labour can't even hold Merthyr! Good grief.

System

gfplux wrote: »

People died to give us the vote don't let them down.

Who, for example?

WengerIn

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

Who, for example?

Emily Davidson.

System

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I'm also thinking that this GE, (despite her repeated assurances there would not be one), is a manipulative ploy to politically increase the Conservative majority and provide a mandate to go forward.

.

That's very astute of you to spot that.
Of course general elections are normally called by prime ministers who are hoping to lose their majorities. Democracy has nothing to do with securing an electoral mandate for government policies, has it?

mayonnaise

WengerIn wrote: »

RIP UKIP
3 Sept 1993 - 4 May 2017

Obviously, there's no need for UKIP as its entire political mission has been adopted by the Conservative party.

Tromking

mayonnaise wrote: »

Obviously, there's no need for UKIP as its entire political mission has been adopted by the Conservative party.

The job is done they would argue.
The right unites, in stark contrast to the progressive left who are nowhere.
That said, Corbynite dullards are still trying to convince all and sundry that the country is crying out for their special brand of f***wittery.
As with Brexit, the country has moved on.

martinsurrey

gfplux wrote: »

Looking at Britain from across the Channel I often wonder "where the money goes"
I read, and hear (from friends and family) that Britain has..

Poor infrastructure, roads, rail, airports bridges etc.

we have 20% more rail services than France and 60% more than Italy, we have 2 of the 35 busiest airports in the world

Bus and train travel is very expensive.

True, but its also one of the most efficient in Europe, per person we travel more by train more than most of Europe (and given the size of the country that's amazing, passenger miles per person have doubled in the last 20 years

Educations is underfunded.

UK education is ranked 20th in the world (and a large number of those above are Asian countries where parent pressure makes student days 10+ hours long)

NHS is underfunded.

UK health spending is 9.1% (near the top) of GDP and our life expediencies are also top 20 (and the top 20 are pretty close together)

On the other side of the balance sheet.

Income tax is too high.

has anyone ever complained that they pay too little tax? tax could be 2% and people would complain that it should be 1%

VAT is too high.

has anyone ever complained that they pay too little tax? tax could be 2% and people would complain that it should be 1%

Corporation Tax is too high.

has anyone ever complained that they pay too little tax? tax could be 2% and people would complain that it should be 1%

So I ask myself. "Britain is one of the richest Country's in the World, where does the money go.


Perhaps I am missing something.

you are missing the very lucky fact that most of us live and complain in a bubble, we have it VERY good in the UK, but we, and everyone else, likes a good moan, and we should, to drive things forward, but that doesn't diminish the fact that we are very lucky and have a very nice set up.

Spidernick

Interesting points, but if you think that the rail system is efficient, I would suggest that you don't go on trains that often. If you live in Surrey then presumably, like me, you are 'served' by South West Trains. They may seem efficient compared to Southern (which also runs through my station), but regular commuters wouldn't agree with you and complaints are at (or close to) record levels, I believe.

chris_m

Spidernick wrote: »

Interesting points, but if you think that the rail system is efficient, I would suggest that you don't go on trains that often. If you live in Surrey then presumably, like me, you are 'served' by South West Trains. They may seem efficient compared to Southern (which also runs through my station), but regular commuters wouldn't agree with you and complaints are at (or close to) record levels, I believe.

The problem is that, because services and passenger-miles have increased, the network is close to or at maximum capacity, especially during peak times. There is little "fat" in the system to cater for any problems or delays, which have a serious knock-on effect on later services. We are largely trying to have a 21st century rail service using early 20th century infrastructure.

There was an interesting programme quite a few years ago comparing the British and French rail systems, the latter being viewed as better. The basic reason was that it was our fault - during the 1939-1945 period, the Germans were not too successful at bombing the hell out our railways but we were rather better at doing it to the French ones to stop the Germans using them. The result was that in 1946 our railways were largely unaffected so we simply muddled on with them unchanged and have continued to do so. The French railways were a mess and eventually they got fed up, printed off a shedload of francs and compulsory purchase orders and did something about it. The SNCF spokesman did say that they were fortunate with the timing, they'd never have got away with it in the 80s/90s because NIMBYism had even reached France by then.

We do need new infrastructure to allow the railways to cope with the demand - and that means new lines, not just fiddling with the existing ones.

westernpromise

mayonnaise wrote: »

Obviously, there's no need for UKIP as its entire political mission has been adopted by the Conservative party.

The most extraordinarily skilful thing Cameron did was to detoxify the Conservative party by getting rid of its loonies into UKIP, and then emphasising the fact by dismissing them as loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists.

The hatred for him that then spewed forth from UKIP made it abundantly clear that his party had nothing in common with Farage's lot, and made it impossible for Labour to argue that a vote for Cameron was a vote for UKIP. The deranged UKIP loons online repeating old BNP slogans about "LibLabCon" supported this still further, and clearly hated Cameron even more than they hated Labour.

Cameron then went on to win a majority that clearly did not rely on a single vote from the Faragista hard right. He then held and abided by the result of the referendum; the one the online UKIP loons insisted would never occur.

May has completed the process of destruction by implementing the referendum result and removing UKIP's raison d'etre, which of course the wee-smelling old fools of UKIP are simply too stupid to notice. As a result, the eurosceptic vote has returned to the Conservative fold, the Conservative divide over the EU has ended in total victory for the eurosceptics and we now see the result in the polls of 50% or so for May's party.

The EU referendum was a new Falklands in terms of changing the game. Like in 1982 it has exposed the idiocy and triviality of the other parties. We now have a situation where the threat from the right has melted away and the threat from the left has gone so far off the reservation that we can forget about Labour for at least a decade.