United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Ugh. We can but hope that Al, and presumably the Lib Dems, are right and the Tory polling lead won't be enough to overcome their anemic overall vote share.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And hopefully Labor loses big, so that Corbyn is finally gone and they could (at least in theory) return to Blairism.

Dichotomies To Watch Out For

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Right, can we all agree to behave as adults in this thread? It isn't a game for the entertainment of baboons: some of us have to live here.

Solution
Have a separate thread for the yanks and ban all Americans from the real thread.
Yes, I am including myself when I say all Americans.

Seconded. To use a very American saying, I'm willing to take one for the team.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Speaking of Americans, Michael gets to vote in his first GE. His mind is already blown with it just being an 'x' in a box.

Are you guys going to be voting early/absentee? How does that process work in the UK?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

More developments in NI: UUP reverse their "stand everywhere" policy, standing down in Belfast North in aid of the DUP's Nigel Dodds, in exchange for the UUP given free reign in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

SDLP will not stand in three seats - Belfast East (where they will back Naomi Long of Alliance), Belfast North (where they will back Sinn Fein against Nigel Dodds) and North Down (where they back Lady Hermon.

In exchange Sinn Fein will not stand in three Northern Irish seats: in Belfast South (where they will back the SDLP's Claire Hanna), in Belfast East (where they will also back Long) and North Down (also for Hermon).

Is the SDLP favored anywhere?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In a surreal turn, here we see Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn photographed holding a blu-ray of a fanmade spinoff movie of an obscure Doctor Who villain from the 1980s.

This actually improves my opinion of Corbyn.

I wish this was fake.

I don't.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What is that one area on the southeast tip of England that is labour?

Canterbury. Famous in English song and story for religious reasons but the relevant thing today is that it's a big university constituency.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What in the world is the Mr. Burns map? The European elections?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What makes Catholics in the UK more likely to vote for Labour? I doubt all of them are Irish descendant, right?

They're poorer and more working class. I don't know about this, but I would have to say a overwhelming majority will be of Irish descent.

iirc either a large minority or an outright plurality of practicing Catholics in Great Britain today are of Eastern European descent, although cultural Catholics (sorry, BRTD) are still mostly Irish. They'd thus be doubly inclined against Brexit and shopkeeper-caste English nationalism.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So what are the main agenda items of this newly expanded Conservative majority, that history will remember them for?

Brutalizing prisoners and auctioning off hospitals to yellow avatars from Scarsdale, one imagines.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There were clear increases in tory vote, especially in cosnticuences there wasn't a Brexit party or where the Brexit party was weak.


Most leave labour marginals, Brexit party not a factor

Wallsall North

+4415

Stoke on Trent North

+2061

Dudley North

+5044

Great Grimsby

+3170

Mansfield

+7157

Seems to me like both things were going on, perhaps to different extents in different specific seats. There were some pretty dramatic upticks in Tory vote totals in these types of seats, but also nationwide turnout fell for the first time since 2001 and turnout was generally lower in Leave areas than Remain ones.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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.

Blair's crossover appeal when he was actually running for office was in fact not, primarily, to uselectionatlas dot org slash FORUM user Blairite types.