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UK Politics General Discussion
No shakey, you just don't understand the generations.
Most 16 year olds would vote opposite to what their parents tell them.
All night mate.
Done it many times.
Fall asleep at random for the odd hour, but relish it all.
Then...
Dance on the lawns naked, by moonlight or in the pouring rain, and rejoice.
This is not the golden ticket awards.
Things won't get any better in the long run mind.
Edit...confused myself double posting...again.
Early apology, no whip required.
shakey
TS Member
Fair point . My son always does the opposite of what I tell him !
Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
Plastic Person
TS Member
This snap general election might prove even more crucial! Let's take a look at some of the parallels..
Europa Park - Labour.
Dollywood - Conservatives.
Valhalla winning World's Best Water Ride for the twentieth year in a row despite being closed at the time of ceremony due to a cost-cutting exercise disguised as a refurbishment - Reform.
shakey
TS Member
Strangely you are old enough to procreate at 16, but cannot watch it till you are 18.
16 year olds cannot work full time unless it is part of an apprenticeship or traineeship.
For me I still think 18 is a more suitable age to be allowed to vote.
They will be letting women vote next !!!
GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
They would still be earning enough to pay income tax and national insurance, even with a part time job.
Or geese. 🪿
Matt N
TS Member
This happened in the village where my grandparents live, as well! Although I have my suspicion that it was just someone who didn’t want people voting Labour, as all of the Green Party signs mysteriously stayed untouched…
Matt.GC
TS Member
I've done this before and loved it. To get a flavour, overnight coverage from exit poll to maiden speech of past elections are on YouTube. The 1997 one is a great watch!
Interesting bits for me:
At 10 when the exit poll comes, it's normally followed by a politician from the projected loosing party being interviewed about their pending loss and they always answer "well let's wait and see until all the votes have been counted" even though they know damn well they've been hammered.
Sunderland declares before 11 usually. You get to see if they've beaten their record or not and it's the first visibility of a potential swing.
For the next couple of hours, it's mainly the Labour safe seats that come in as the constituencies tend to be geographically small. Most of the commentary before around 1 is still about the exit poll and what the swings in the early declared seats relate to on the "swingometer", with house of commons projections and target seat lists being updated every few seats that come in. The last few elections, the BBC had some Number 10 paving slabs gimmick, and this time round Sky have some sort of Virtual Downing Street thingy.
After that is when the real fun starts in the early hours. Probably around 2am depending on how the counts are doing so if you're tired, get your sleep between exit poll and around this time. From then until morning, you start finding out all the surprises, which big beasts have lost their seats, and the national picture is pretty much revealed by early breakfast. Members of the loosing party start going on camera to slag their colleagues off, it's great fun.
Gutted that I'll have to get some sleep on Thursday night. Promised the kids I'd take them to Thorpe Park on Friday.
Tom
TS Member
Always a possibility. As I say, the Unions will need to get their rears into gear and start properly lobbying on immigration & wages.
Labour will be able to pull quite a few populist left wing policies out the bag once they are safely over the line. Dangerous to talk about it too much before the win is in the bag. But if they aren't savvy in power then yes, there is a potential for their own massive wipeout by 2029.
Away from the headlines, most of what the "far right" is promising in France is economic left wing populism but heavy on authoritarianism.
Labour will be able to pull quite a few populist left wing policies out the bag once they are safely over the line. Dangerous to talk about it too much before the win is in the bag. But if they aren't savvy in power then yes, there is a potential for their own massive wipeout by 2029.
Away from the headlines, most of what the "far right" is promising in France is economic left wing populism but heavy on authoritarianism.
Matt.GC
TS Member
From what I've read about Starmer and Reeves, particularly looking in to Reeve's Mais Lecture, and reading between the lines of the manifesto, I'm cautiously optimistic that they have quite radical and controversial plans to shake things up a bit in terms of investment to stimulate growth. It'll be controversial, but the way we've run things for 40 years, as if the economy is like running a household budget, isn't working.
The traditional conservative style of opposition won't really be there to oppose, and would look out of date anyway if things start to improve. The left and the unions have been kept in check with a few carryover policies in the manifesto.
This could, of course, be a New Labour style con though. If we end up with a steady-as- she-goes continuation of the current Order, with living standards and growth not improving, and immigration remaining as it is, then we're in trouble.
However, I have a theory about Populism in the UK. I think it's had its day. We've had a referendum on Scottish independence, we've had Brexit, and we've had Boris Johnson. I think we've largely been through the motions and the lies have been seen through. Even the current government could have partially recovered from the Johnson corruption had they not gone further down the rabbit hole of crazy and outdated fringe ideology with Liz Truss immediately afterwards. We've tried Populism and got stung. Greece and Spain went through this as well, now they've largely returned to the centre (right) bar a few hangovers. I think the only reason Reform are doing so well, above and beyond their core base which will always exist, is anti-tory sentiment.
France has been through the motions of destroying it's traditional party political establishment order, but what it led to is Macron rather Populism. Similar in many other western countries. They haven't flirted enough with it yet.
The only exception to my theory is the USA. That's something I can't fathom. They had the Populist in chief for 4 years, it was a disaster, and he's degraded himself even more since. Yet he still remains popular? I'm theorising that it probably has something to do with the 2 party electoral system, and the amount of power that is devolved away from the federal governor towards individual states in the US maybe? A future that has Le Penn on one side of us, and Trump on the other, is a scary prospect indeed.
The traditional conservative style of opposition won't really be there to oppose, and would look out of date anyway if things start to improve. The left and the unions have been kept in check with a few carryover policies in the manifesto.
This could, of course, be a New Labour style con though. If we end up with a steady-as- she-goes continuation of the current Order, with living standards and growth not improving, and immigration remaining as it is, then we're in trouble.
However, I have a theory about Populism in the UK. I think it's had its day. We've had a referendum on Scottish independence, we've had Brexit, and we've had Boris Johnson. I think we've largely been through the motions and the lies have been seen through. Even the current government could have partially recovered from the Johnson corruption had they not gone further down the rabbit hole of crazy and outdated fringe ideology with Liz Truss immediately afterwards. We've tried Populism and got stung. Greece and Spain went through this as well, now they've largely returned to the centre (right) bar a few hangovers. I think the only reason Reform are doing so well, above and beyond their core base which will always exist, is anti-tory sentiment.
France has been through the motions of destroying it's traditional party political establishment order, but what it led to is Macron rather Populism. Similar in many other western countries. They haven't flirted enough with it yet.
The only exception to my theory is the USA. That's something I can't fathom. They had the Populist in chief for 4 years, it was a disaster, and he's degraded himself even more since. Yet he still remains popular? I'm theorising that it probably has something to do with the 2 party electoral system, and the amount of power that is devolved away from the federal governor towards individual states in the US maybe? A future that has Le Penn on one side of us, and Trump on the other, is a scary prospect indeed.
Matt N
TS Member
In this particular election, it could have something to do with Joe Biden arguably being a very unpopular opponent. There’s a prevailing view that Biden is simply too old to run for the second term, and despite Trump being only a few years younger than Biden, he arguably gives off a much “younger” impression and seems a bit more physically capable of being president.
I don’t agree with Trump in the slightest and definitely would not vote for him if I was American (I’d 100% vote Biden if I was American), but when you look at many of Joe Biden’s mishaps, particularly his performance in the recent debate against Trump, I can sort of see why some Americans might see Trump as the lesser of two evils. That’s not a perspective I agree with at all, but I can see why some might think it.
If the Democrats had not let Biden run again and had gone for a more popular candidate, I don’t think Trump would be polling as highly as he currently is.
Granted, he does have a cross-section of die-hard fans who still believe the election was stolen from him in 2020 and believe conspiracy theories like QAnon, but I get the impression that the majority of floating American voters went off him after his presidency, and particularly the whole saga following the 2020 election, and are only supporting him now because they, rightly or wrongly, see him as a lesser evil than another Biden term.
Gary Neville can do one.
Plastic Person
TS Member
To loosely connect the challenges of populism in the USA and France to the UK's political situation (which suddenly unexpectedly feels preferable!), I think it is a good example of how entitled the centrist liberal 'elite' still feel. Biden is far too old to be running for president, as has now been brutally proven, with 72% of US votes allegedly thinking he shouldn't bother following last week's disastrous debate. Even before that, plenty of people legitimately opposed him for other policies, a dissent that has grown generationally since the events following October 7th, and yet even now, we're told by some that he stands as the best, safest choice. Meanwhile, in France, Macron is cocky enough to pull the rug out from under the country to either prove he can still rule, and if not, to cement his narrative and show the vast swathes of FN voting countrymen just what a government leaning towards fascism will feel like.
Meanwhile, the Tories are getting turfed out for similar complacency, but it has taken far too long, enough time for them to do seismic vandalism. I am not excited to be voting for Labour, but in context, I will take Starmer and conjure some optimism to perhaps feel pleasantly surprised, ahead of what's happening with our close and distant neighbours.
Meanwhile, the Tories are getting turfed out for similar complacency, but it has taken far too long, enough time for them to do seismic vandalism. I am not excited to be voting for Labour, but in context, I will take Starmer and conjure some optimism to perhaps feel pleasantly surprised, ahead of what's happening with our close and distant neighbours.
shakey
TS Member
American politics is bonkers.
If the democrats stood any other competent candidate up against trump, they would win by a land slide.
But for some reason Biden thinks he is the best man for the job when he is clearly losing the plot.
Trump probably can't believe his luck that he is up against such an incompetent opponent
But both of them would be utterly destroyed if they were in British politics. Could you imagine Biden or Trump handling prime ministers questions or being constantly grilled by media interviews like British politicians do ?
For all the faults of the UK system, we still live in a country with largely moderate views from all the major parties, and politicians are for the most part, very competent . And even Reform sit to the left of the American Republican party (granted that is not difficult).
Picking my ballot box up today, then I am ready to go. Looking forward to it, although I will be shattered by then end of everything come the early hours of Friday morning.
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