• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

UK Politics General Discussion

What will be the result of the UK’s General Election?

  • Conservative Majority

    Votes: 3 2.5%

  • Conversative Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 2 1.7%

  • Labour Majority

    Votes: 87 72.5%

  • Labour Biggest Party in Hung Parliament

    Votes: 28 23.3%

  • Other Result (Please specify in your post)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    120
  • Poll closed .
Tories chased their own far right idiots and played the "blame everyone else for the issues facing the country" game.

Unsurprisingly, they got found out purely as a result of their own incompetence and taking the public for idiots.

If they choose Braverman as their next leader? Would say they've learnt nothing.
 
shakey said:
No it is not the same. If you spoil your ballot paper it just gets marked as one of the following and classed as an error...

1. Absence of official mark.
2. Voting for more than one candidate.
3. Writing or mark by which the voter can be
identified.
4. Unmarked or void for uncertainty.

There is a campaign to add "None of The Above" to the ballot paper.

nota-uk.org

None of the Above UK

Campaigning for Real Electoral Reform, Now
nota-uk.org nota-uk.org

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

DiogoJ42 said:
This, so many times.
In my opinion, "spoiling your ballot" is even worse than not voting at all. It does not count as a "protest", It gets counted as "too dumb to work out how to vote".

"None of the above" needs to be an option. Brewster's Millions taught us that.
Click to expand...

What do you think should happen if none of the above wins? Running a count is costly to local councils and I doubt they would just keep going until a winner is found? Realistically I doubt it would ever get enough votes to win unless in a constituency with a lot of ineffective choices as candidates.
 
  • Like
Reactions: D4n
I doubt there'd ever be a situation where that would be the case. But if it did would just go to second place.

Or force them all to work together for once.
 
Benzin said:
But if it did would just go to second place.
Click to expand...
That doesn't solve the actual problem and isn't democratic. If a seat votes for "None of the above" as a majority, then they ought not to have a representative for the rest of the parliamentary session. That's the risk for the constituency to wrangle with. The seat has decided that they don't agree with any of the candidates, or parties. If you're going to ignore the result, in such a situation, then there's no point in having it at all.
 
If "none of the above" wins, kick out all the candidates, ban them from ever standing in any election again, and start from scratch. Take the costs out of the failed candidates pockets.
 
I thought all candidates had to give a deposit and then you loose it if you don’t get enough votes, same could apply.
I think if they made voting compulsory then there is a good chance none of the above would win a majority in parliament.
 
BigT said:
I thought all candidates had to give a deposit and then you loose it if you don’t get enough votes, same could apply.
Click to expand...
Yes, £500. I only know this because I know someone who actually stood on Thursday night because "it's a right laugh" apparently.
 
GaryH said:
Reform are up to 5 seats now.

What I find really scary is this….. given how close some places were with reform coming 2nd place, if Labour screw this up, we could be looking at Farage being PM in the next general election. And we thought Boris was bad. Is the worst yet to come?
Click to expand...
BNP, UKIP, now Brexit/Reform. All parties with constitutional vacuums and memberbase of loonies.

It's not a coincidence that they always implode following moderate electoral gains.
 
Five seats out of six hundred and fifty...less than one percent.
How on earth would a Labour collapse mean Farage could be PM???
There are at least two other party leaders ahead of him in the queue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom
rob666 said:
Five seats out of six hundred and fifty...less than one percent.
How on earth would a Labour collapse mean Farage could be PM???
There are at least two other party leaders ahead of him in the queue.
Click to expand...

Depends if you are looking at seats or vote share as an indication on future elections.
 
Last edited:
Depends if Reform's performance was their peak. Odds are the Tories won't be a complete and utter disaster in 5 years.

Also Farage might go over to the Tories in a bid to be PM. As we've seen in France as well, the appetite for far right populism isn't quite there yet overall. Though I believe there was some very tactical nonsense from the left in that sense.
 
rob666 said:
Five seats out of six hundred and fifty...less than one percent.
How on earth would a Labour collapse mean Farage could be PM???
There are at least two other party leaders ahead of him in the queue.
Click to expand...
Given that reform came second in some many Labour constituencies - next election is a possibility if Labour screw this up.
 
So for one thing, and perhaps controversially to some - I don’t think every single Reform voter is a raging racist. A large chunk are people simply exasperated by the soap opera of politics, and are often just voting for an attempt to shake things up and try and improve their own lives. Blaming immigration is an easy excuse, and much easier to explain than the constant strangulation of local government and NHS funding, or the effects of (say it quietly) Brexit for example. Of course under scrutiny, most of what Reform are offering is unrealistic, but that’s irrelevant to those voting for them when charismatic “anti-establishment” man of the people Nigel says he’ll make everything better.

On the other side though, as funny as it may be - chucking milkshakes at him doesn’t help. Seven people repeatedly shouting “racist!” in his press conferences, doesn’t help. This is a party that now has seats and a voice in parliament won under a legitimate election rather than defections, so simply constantly shouting insults at them does not help. It only serves to amplify media coverage off the back of the protests, and suffocate any actual questioning of their policies. Instead they should be challenged on those policies, just as any other party is. We’re in a world where media is consumed in short bursts. If you’re a Reform voter, seeing the bloke you want to vote for having a milkshake chucked over them only hardens your stance that he’s standing up against everyone else who is “bringing the country down”. Sure, they only got 5 seats in the end, but doesn’t mean their existence should be ignored on the assumption that it’ll simply disappear - especially considering their vote share and the fact they were very close in a lot of other constituencies.

The media also need to move out of this obsession of living for the drama, and actually get back to properly questioning and scrutinising politicians. Stop the gotcha questioning to nab a soundbite and get back to some sensible questioning and scrutiny of all party policies. Actively fact check their claims, cut off the pre written press release style answers and actually get back to challenging all politicians. Politicians have been left for too long to just appear on TV, parrot out the latest attack/campaign line repeatedly and not actually receive any sort of proper scrutiny. I’m hoping that’ll now finally change.

I do agree Labour need to show that they’ve made strides to improve people’s lives by the time the next election comes around. However, I don’t think this election’s results are directly transferrable to the next and would result in the country moving toward the right if they didn’t. For one, what’s left of the Conservative and to an extent Reform’s voting base are, to put it bluntly - dying. The Tories will likely move back toward the centre by either reinventing themselves, or they’ll split with the right side heading over to Reform, or a newly rebranded right leaning party led by Farage. What we shouldn’t ignore is that we’re also seeing an increase in more progressive parties gaining more seats like the Greens, not forgetting the Lib Dems massive gains too. So despite the Reform vote this time round, I don’t think there’s the overall appetite across the country for them to get into power.

My gut feeling worst case scenario at present is that if Labour completely failed to improve people’s lives this term and didn’t get a majority next time round (I think they’ll manage to do so personally), is that we’d see some sort of coalition government between Labour and the Lib Dems off the back of a hung parliament. 5 years is a long time in politics though, and with the voting public seemingly having their eyes opened to tactical voting this year, I don’t think we should count anything out, including it working against the left next time round.
 
Three days into Starmer's Britain, and I am very pleasantly surprised and impressed by many of his cabinet appointments, especially James Timpson as Prisons Minister, and Richard Hermer as QC.

These are well-respected, progressive individuals with specialist knowledge on the issues they're going to be forced to deal with. I typically prefer to see MPs access promotions, but it cements the impression that Starmer wants to reward and work with people who actually know what they're talking about, with ideas and responses able to gain momentum quickly.

I concur with @Craig the real test here being whether the party can deliver tangible difference to people's lives, and relatively quickly. And while there are of course a disconcerting number of voters who are dedicated to nationalist, isolationist policies, there are many millions more who are currently willing to see how things play out. It feels somewhat poor taste to perceive any upshot to the way the Tories have treated the public this past decade or more, but the sense I get is that it should at least be an open enough goal for the current iteration of Labour.
 
Last edited:
Labour are very much going with the ‘grown-ups are back in the room, we’re ready to go and wasting no time’. They will have had their first few days in office planned for weeks probably, winning was no shock to them and more or less every shadow Cabinet minister moved across to the relevant Secretary of State so they should certainly be across the brief.

It’s going to be a rough and probably hellish ride, but it’s nice to feel a bit relaxed and dare I say it semi-optimistic about politics, even if it only lasts for a week or so.
 
I am quite impressed with how quickly Starmer appears to be moving. Health Secretary Wes Streeting is already talking to the British Dental Association about increasing the number of dental appointments, and he’s also going out and talking to the junior doctors this week.

Starmer has also vowed to begin work on making the planning system more lenient, and to begin work on Great British Energy.

In general, it does seem like the new government has not wasted any time in getting cracking with things!
 
Benzin said:
Think after 14 years of Tory nonsense it feels like a breathe of fresh air that things are actually being done (or at least things are being put into place).

Bring on the mediocrity and stability.
Click to expand...
This is what I've thought for years. After the chaos of the last few years, I'll take boring-but-competent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top