United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[Zinneke]

How likely Tories get rinsed in Cornwall, Norfolk, London, and Scotland? Enough to lose any chance of a majority despite 10 point lead?

[Zinneke]

There will be a few amendments that are in the works to lower the voting age, give voting rights to Uk residents who are eu citizens and to cap election spending. I think the former would have the most chance of passing, but it would be opposed by the government.

Sam Gyimah to stand in Kensington.

Will this help Labour or Tories?

[Zinneke]

This is very likely to be the most Brexit-focused election yet, perhaps even more then the EU election.

And sorry, but this is a ridiculous statement.

Those elections were basically *nothing* but a glorified opinion poll on Brexit (this tendency being all the greater due to their essential meaninglessness)

Whatever happens in the coming GE, those hoping for that yet again are likely to be disappointed.

Especially as it seems Johnson's gamble that Remainer Tories would still back him and a Harder Brexit over Corbyn seems to have worked.

[Zinneke]

While we are at the discussion as to the differences/similarities between 2017 and 2019, I remember watching a documentary on the Labour Party of the 2017 vote, the same one that had Stephen Kinnock look shocked as Corbyn clawed his way back and had to receive counselling from the ex-Danish PM (who is incidently also his wife); What struck me the most though was how he and many other Labour MPs effectvely ran a campaign against both the Tories and Corbyn on the doorstep, saying that they knew they would lose but they need a strong voice against Momentum Labour from the electorate. I wager that that kind of rhetoric is no longer in play?

[Zinneke]

It's so hilarious in hindsight there was a 'mania' for that snake oil salesman

Alternative Vote and no tuition fees, plus a staunch anti-interventionist stance towards Iraq. Sounds good to me at the time too.

[Zinneke]

It was a strange crowd - at one point Fiona Bruce picked like 7 Scottish nationalists in a row to ask questions to Corbyn about Scotland. So Swinson getting grief from the more local middle class youth was maybe the least surprising thing - but she's not as effective a campaigner and speaker as she thinks she is. I actually though Boris handled his first part terrible mainly because he just couldn't answer their concerns about Russia and then he rallied well. Sturgeon was forgettable. Corbyn was the best, but apart from the antisemitism the questions were all easily replied within the manifesto's confines.


I really hope Swinson's incompetence and radical message on Remain doesn't cost soft Tories who find a potential Johnson Premiership "unbecoming" . Think her general tone will cost potential upset seats like Esher where people otherwise positive about a LiBDem platform see her and think its a joke party again.

[Zinneke]

Can someone explain why Johnson is specifically avoiding interviews with high profile journos like Neil and Piers Morgan and why exactly its so important for him not to be "exposed"? Is he that much of a ticking time bomb or is there some sort of grudge between him and the fourth estate (that he's a part of himself)?

I'm trying to understand why it generates so much media attention in itself.

[Zinneke]

Note that Unionists have had a sustained campaign to transfer loyalist communities to North Down to radicalise it a wee bit...anyway Lady Sylvia Hermon was popular with the wealthy Unionist people that hate the DUP for a variety of reasons now. The kind of demographic that plays and watches Rugby in Ulster.

[Zinneke]

The "this defeat was all about Corbyn" take has to explain why we got the very different results we did (in strongly pro-Brexit seats especially) two and a half years ago when we *also had him as leader*.

That's simple. There was an assumption that Corbyn would not last the post-election fall out, and many Labour candidates ran their own campaign as a result.

[Zinneke]

I get northeast England (abandoned industry and what not), but why did the Thames estuary vote so heavily for leave?

Filled with upper working class voters, who don't have higher education and own their homes. Furthermore populated by people who left London for either their own home or to leave it's multiculturalism.  Prime constituency for UKIP and working class toryism.

That Blair still made inroads in not that long ago though.