A reminder, not that you need it, but please vote this Thursday in the general election…and vote for anybody that doesn’t appear to actively hate humanity and reason.
Yeah, there’s too many places where the exact interaction between lab and LD votes makes the difference, and ditto con/bp, that traditional polling can’t be on top of it. I haven’t seen much polling on whether people consider themselves to be voting tactically or not either, which I’d have thought would be an interesting thing to investigate.
And it’s not been since 1992 that we’ve had so many “undecided”s.
In ’92 it was folk embarrassed to admit that they were voting Tory. This time it may be the same thing.
But yes, the national polls are incredibly unreliable now as a lot of individual seats come into play through tactical voting – hence the very real possibility that Johnson will lose his own seat.
Before the campaign started, I thought the Tories would go down a fraction and end up about ten seats short of a majority. I now think that they will actually get a majority – but it may be only about three. Which may perhaps be worse for them because they will be perceived as having “won” but doing things will be very, very difficult – all votes will come down to who was missing (on either side) than on actual positive outcomes.
But then again, it’s also entirely possible that they will have a majority of thirty. Who knows?
I also think turnout may be down to below 66% as well. And that will have unpredictable effects too, especially if it’s soft Brexit voters who decide that they can’t support either side. (And, likewise, Jewish voters deciding that they can’t support Labour.)
A flatmate showed me this last night. Possibly it’s been everywhere already – I’m quite out of touch. Anyway, it’s just crude abuse, but at least it’s quite cultured crude abuse.
I live in one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, unfortunately. I shall do my bit to undermine it, but I’m not hopeful. (I think the majority was something like 22k, last time, and there’s only one of me.)
I am honestly not happy about the European Union, but the fuck I would ever support a Tory or any of their ilk. A Labour controlled Brexit I might have thought of. A Tory controlled one is a nightmare. And I see Liberal Democrats as Tories who are more careful about their image.
And honestly, European Union comes second for me. National Health Care, nationalization of railways, that’s the stuff that makes a real difference at once. In or out of the EU with the economy bound up in more or less the same international agreements makes no real difference.
Vote for the ones who want to change the politics and take the fight, regardless if they want in or out.
I don’t wholly disagree re the LibDems, but it’s also mostly because the Tory party have left the centre completely now which tends to mean that the moderate Tories are more at home with the LibDems, which gives them a “rightward” tilt, even now.
Functionally, I tend to think that the core part of the problem is essentially that we only have three significant parties (in England, I mean) but a political spectrum that needs at least quadrants and probably more than that. So, for example, there is no coherent home for the “socially conservative but big government” type of voter at the moment (or, more impolitely, the Labour racist) because Labour have shifted to being a much more socially liberal party as more and more graduates have moved into their ranks. And the result is that those “socially conservative” voters are being captured by the Tories despite the Tory economic policy being largely the very reason they are feeling left behind. (Those voters never trusted David Cameron because he was clearly a social liberal; they feel happier with Boris Johnson for some reason… can’t think why.)
I fear for the future of my country if Johnson gets a big majority. But I will understand why, if it happens even if I will find it very hard to forgive those responsible. Because they were quite clearly told what they needed to embrace back in 1997 (regional government) and turned it down flat. And then, a decade or so later, turned down a chance to patch our broken electoral system. And then continue to give the impression that they are looking for someone else to blame.
I would have agreed with you tenyears ago with regards to having too few parties. Not anymore. Sweden has eight parties and a proportional election system, but we have exactly the same problem. All the three most conservative parties (Tories-adjecent) have closely aligned around nationalism, cultural war, hatred against muslims and immigration. Two parties are like liberaldemocrats and there’s no noticeable difference between them. The big difference might be to the left where we are split in a centrist-Labour and a lefwing party a bit to the left of Corbyn.
But again, same problems, same debates, same conflicts. Absolutely as polarized. So I don’t think it is about what parties exist, because parties also change according to current dynamics.
I read an interesting article about human psychology a few years back. A study was made where two persons were put in a room. One person got control over a set of dollars, say hundred dollars. He got to to divide the money between the two in the room. The other person could only accept or deny the deal. If he accepted, both got their part. If said “no”, none got anything. So if the one in control kept 80 dollars and only gave 20 to the other, both would gain money. But if the other refused the deal, none would loose out. What they found was that people tended to refuse deals that they thought were unfair, even when losing money on it. The explanation was that in small villages, it was important to stomp down on unfairness and punish the one responsible, even loosing out. Because most likely you would deal with this person for more than twenty years and it was best to establish limits from the start to get the best deals in the long run.
I think a lot of what see now is this on a larger scale. People voting not to get the best offer for themselves, but to *punish*. Voting to make sure that those on the top would also get hurt, suffer in some way, would get angry. In other ways, they don’t care about if they themselves are hurt as long someone else is also hurt and gets the message. Hurting is the intention.
I don’t think any political system can really handle that.
Looking at the final polling it seems like it’s everything still to play for, except that “everything” doesn’t involve an outright Labour victory. They’re losing too much ground in Brexity seats to make up with gains elsewhere.
I think the very sad lesson of this election will be that a remain-y alliance of some sort would have been the best move.
I’ve got two spare bedrooms here in Canada, but with standing offers of asylum to friends in Brazil, the US, Hungary, Venezuela and Turkey, I might need to start taking reservations.
Camestros Felapton 
17 responses to “If You Are British Please Vote”
Due to a badly timed meeting I’ve had to make a convoluted plan that gets me back in time. My constituency could be a close run thing this election.
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I would imagine opinion polls are particularly unreliable for this election. It could go in any direction.
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Yeah, there’s too many places where the exact interaction between lab and LD votes makes the difference, and ditto con/bp, that traditional polling can’t be on top of it. I haven’t seen much polling on whether people consider themselves to be voting tactically or not either, which I’d have thought would be an interesting thing to investigate.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And it’s not been since 1992 that we’ve had so many “undecided”s.
In ’92 it was folk embarrassed to admit that they were voting Tory. This time it may be the same thing.
But yes, the national polls are incredibly unreliable now as a lot of individual seats come into play through tactical voting – hence the very real possibility that Johnson will lose his own seat.
Before the campaign started, I thought the Tories would go down a fraction and end up about ten seats short of a majority. I now think that they will actually get a majority – but it may be only about three. Which may perhaps be worse for them because they will be perceived as having “won” but doing things will be very, very difficult – all votes will come down to who was missing (on either side) than on actual positive outcomes.
But then again, it’s also entirely possible that they will have a majority of thirty. Who knows?
I also think turnout may be down to below 66% as well. And that will have unpredictable effects too, especially if it’s soft Brexit voters who decide that they can’t support either side. (And, likewise, Jewish voters deciding that they can’t support Labour.)
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A flatmate showed me this last night. Possibly it’s been everywhere already – I’m quite out of touch. Anyway, it’s just crude abuse, but at least it’s quite cultured crude abuse.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I live in one of the safest Conservative seats in the country, unfortunately. I shall do my bit to undermine it, but I’m not hopeful. (I think the majority was something like 22k, last time, and there’s only one of me.)
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Vote really intensely 🙂
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I am honestly not happy about the European Union, but the fuck I would ever support a Tory or any of their ilk. A Labour controlled Brexit I might have thought of. A Tory controlled one is a nightmare. And I see Liberal Democrats as Tories who are more careful about their image.
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And honestly, European Union comes second for me. National Health Care, nationalization of railways, that’s the stuff that makes a real difference at once. In or out of the EU with the economy bound up in more or less the same international agreements makes no real difference.
Vote for the ones who want to change the politics and take the fight, regardless if they want in or out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t wholly disagree re the LibDems, but it’s also mostly because the Tory party have left the centre completely now which tends to mean that the moderate Tories are more at home with the LibDems, which gives them a “rightward” tilt, even now.
Functionally, I tend to think that the core part of the problem is essentially that we only have three significant parties (in England, I mean) but a political spectrum that needs at least quadrants and probably more than that. So, for example, there is no coherent home for the “socially conservative but big government” type of voter at the moment (or, more impolitely, the Labour racist) because Labour have shifted to being a much more socially liberal party as more and more graduates have moved into their ranks. And the result is that those “socially conservative” voters are being captured by the Tories despite the Tory economic policy being largely the very reason they are feeling left behind. (Those voters never trusted David Cameron because he was clearly a social liberal; they feel happier with Boris Johnson for some reason… can’t think why.)
I fear for the future of my country if Johnson gets a big majority. But I will understand why, if it happens even if I will find it very hard to forgive those responsible. Because they were quite clearly told what they needed to embrace back in 1997 (regional government) and turned it down flat. And then, a decade or so later, turned down a chance to patch our broken electoral system. And then continue to give the impression that they are looking for someone else to blame.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I would have agreed with you tenyears ago with regards to having too few parties. Not anymore. Sweden has eight parties and a proportional election system, but we have exactly the same problem. All the three most conservative parties (Tories-adjecent) have closely aligned around nationalism, cultural war, hatred against muslims and immigration. Two parties are like liberaldemocrats and there’s no noticeable difference between them. The big difference might be to the left where we are split in a centrist-Labour and a lefwing party a bit to the left of Corbyn.
But again, same problems, same debates, same conflicts. Absolutely as polarized. So I don’t think it is about what parties exist, because parties also change according to current dynamics.
I read an interesting article about human psychology a few years back. A study was made where two persons were put in a room. One person got control over a set of dollars, say hundred dollars. He got to to divide the money between the two in the room. The other person could only accept or deny the deal. If he accepted, both got their part. If said “no”, none got anything. So if the one in control kept 80 dollars and only gave 20 to the other, both would gain money. But if the other refused the deal, none would loose out. What they found was that people tended to refuse deals that they thought were unfair, even when losing money on it. The explanation was that in small villages, it was important to stomp down on unfairness and punish the one responsible, even loosing out. Because most likely you would deal with this person for more than twenty years and it was best to establish limits from the start to get the best deals in the long run.
I think a lot of what see now is this on a larger scale. People voting not to get the best offer for themselves, but to *punish*. Voting to make sure that those on the top would also get hurt, suffer in some way, would get angry. In other ways, they don’t care about if they themselves are hurt as long someone else is also hurt and gets the message. Hurting is the intention.
I don’t think any political system can really handle that.
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Looking at the final polling it seems like it’s everything still to play for, except that “everything” doesn’t involve an outright Labour victory. They’re losing too much ground in Brexity seats to make up with gains elsewhere.
I think the very sad lesson of this election will be that a remain-y alliance of some sort would have been the best move.
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Apropos of nothing, how does one volunteer for a Mars colony mission?
Absent that opportunity, perhaps I’ll start looking into emigration again.
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Arglebleugh
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(I may not be up to coherent thought yet)
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Big hugs to everybody
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I’ve got two spare bedrooms here in Canada, but with standing offers of asylum to friends in Brazil, the US, Hungary, Venezuela and Turkey, I might need to start taking reservations.
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