Who are you voting for in the general election 2017?

[Diakat]

Do they just give an interesting exit poll to keep us watching?

 

[Scott-C]

Well, never mind the fate of the country, the most pressing issue for the hours ahead is that when I'm throwing an all-nighter to watch the results, I usually buy a six pack of mini pork pies for the small hours, but, but, but, my local Tesco express has ran out of them! I can see a trip to the 24 hr garage down the road coming on at about 4am.

 

[Alison Campbell]

I've worked in a building on Thursdays for the last 3 years that is also a polling station. Never seen so much traffic of all ages. A win for democracy!

 

[Diakat]

Results so far have swings all over the shop - more swings than a diabetic's blood sugar!

 

[Ian_Laye]

The Queen met Martin Mcguiness. You really are flogging a dead horse here.

what a pathetic thing to say. McGuiness at that time as you well know was the deputy leader in NI and no longer a terrorist. Corbyn and Abbot were supporting active terrorists.

 

[JenniB]

I find it difficult to believe anyone falling for the 'fake news' in the Daily Mail or was it the Express? Either way, any party that can attempt to smear another by tarnishing them with that sort of brush is an utter disgrace and especially in light of recent terrorist attacks. It seems they are playing on the fears of the public - I just hope others feel that too and do not fall for this political smear campaign. Disgraceful.

 

[JenniB]

Not going to comment on the terrorist sympathiser stuff because there's no point - if you don't want to research it yourself you're not going to trust someone online that you don't even know...

But I can't get my head around diabetics voting Conservative? They are open about their plans to privatise the NHS - is noone else concerned about how they will pay for their diabetes care?

I am voting to save my local hospital and so that other pensioners do not have to take 3 buses (or one trains and two buses) to the next nearest hospital. However I feel so strongly about the dirty smear campaign that I would have voted labour just baxsed on that alone and not my hospital.

 

[JenniB]

what a pathetic thing to say. McGuiness at that time as you well know was the deputy leader in NI and no longer a terrorist. Corbyn and Abbot were supporting active terrorists.

YAWN - you are beginning to sound like the Daily Mail- which, I presume, is where this garbage emanated. It is a dirty smear campaign - see beyond the written word in newspapers.

 

[dbr10]

what a pathetic thing to say. McGuiness at that time as you well know was the deputy leader in NI and no longer a terrorist. Corbyn and Abbot were supporting active terrorists.

Now, you are just confused. Did an election wipe out McGuiness' terrorist past?

 

[dbr10]

I find it difficult to believe anyone falling for the 'fake news' in the Daily Mail or was it the Express? Either way, any party that can attempt to smear another by tarnishing them with that sort of brush is an utter disgrace and especially in light of recent terrorist attacks. It seems they are playing on the fears of the public - I just hope others feel that too and do not fall for this political smear campaign. Disgraceful.

I agree. One feature of recent elections is also the role of completely unregulated political advertising on the Internet. If you have enough money, our Democracy can be bought and paid for.

 

[dbr10]

I am voting to save my local hospital and so that other pensioners do not have to take 3 buses (or one trains and two buses) to the next nearest hospital. However I feel so strongly about the dirty smear campaign that I would have voted labour just baxsed on that alone and not my hospital.

Agree. The campaign was based on throwing enough **** at opponents, hoping that some of it would stick.

 

[tim2000s]

Please note that I've done some thread clean up and a few empty posts and those referring to them have been removed.

 

[covknit]

Yeah looks like Cons won't have majority. How many seats do they have now? Did Prime Minister May run in this election? Sorry, I don't follow UK politics much. The Labour Party is like our Democratic Party I take it: tax the rich, increase the welfare benefits, etc. Do they favor Brexit or not?

You have got the general gist of the shorthand the media use. However when people do the "which party best represents your ideals" type questonnaire the results are frequently completely different. We have a first past the post system. The governing party draws up the boundaries and the person who gets the most votes in that specific area wins. Goodbye everyone else unless rarely they are a darling of the media when you get special cases like UKIP and Farage who get far more media coverage than the support their party actually merits much to the disgust of parties with more support and only tokenism media coverage. There are rules about electoral spending, media coverage and when campaigning is allowable and by whom. For instance the lobbying act prohibits campaign by charities in the run up to an election but the deeper pockets of corporations and the well financed means the rule is a mere inconvenience to them and they will risk the fine. Candidates can only spend up to a ceiling total but again it is merely a matter of how deep the pockets are. For instance in our local Mayoral election in May candidates can only spend a max of £150,000. Most candidates cannot access that amount of money. The winner spent £1million but by starting his campaign early he was not in breach of the spending rule. The ruling conservative party had to watch that as over 20 of their MP's breached the spending rule in their last election in 2015. This election I had 4 letters delivered by post from conservative HQ and every other party did hand deliveries. Those candidates were regularly seen at local shopping centres doing face to face. Not the conservative candidate though as her campaigning was done via the media and hq. It might be unfair but I have often heard it said that whover has the most money wins the American election. That is certainly true in the UK has the Conservatives have a great deal of money from their supporters and have capped the cash going to the main opposition leader who I feel quite sorry for as there has been a horrible smear campaign against him which includes an edited misrepresentation of stuff he was saying in the 70's. Still we Brits like a good war, I have lost count of the number of wars we have had in my lifetime. I would not be surprised to discover that we have not had a day without war in the past 60 years and he is a pramatic pacifist so it is easy to target him on that aspect. It would be something else if they could not get him on that. It is same old same old. In this case the figurehead stays the same and the establishment. I believe in American a new Presidents get to change the key staff in the equivilient to our civil service. Ours stay.

 

[noblehead]

Looks like Con's have done a deal with the DUP and will form a government accordingly, but no matter how you look at last nights results it was a disastrous night for May and the Tory Party and a spectacular night for Corbyn and the Labour Party.

 

[Diakat]

So, if it all falls to bits who is everyo e voting for in the next 2017 election? (Runs for cover)

 

[noblehead]

So, if it all falls to bits who is everyo e voting for in the next 2017 election? (Runs for cover)

It may well come @Diakat

 

[dbr10]

Looks like Con's have done a deal with the DUP and will form a government accordingly, but no matter how you look at last nights results it was a disastrous night for May and the Tory Party and a spectacular night for Corbyn and the Labour Party.

Good, but not spectacular maybe. The import thing is May called this unnecessary election when the previous Parliament still had three years to go. She repeatedly said she wouldn't. Then, she did out of pure political opportunism, not any kind of principle. This is the second time the Conservatives put party interests before the national interest, and it failed completely. She has a duty now to deal with the mess she created; not cut and run like Cameron did - incidently, the day before a damning report on his Libya policy. Hopefully, this makes a less damaging Brexit more likely; and, perhaps now, the Government might care to publish the report on the Gulf States' funding of terrorism it suppressed during the campaign.

 

[dbr10]

So, if it all falls to bits who is everyo e voting for in the next 2017 election? (Runs for cover)

They voted for chaos this time by the looks of it. At least there will be a welcome respite from the vacuous, meaningless phrases we have heard ad nauseam during the campaign. My Sister used to have one if those Tiny Tears doll where you pulled the string at the back and the same repeated phrases came out.

 

[noblehead]

I don't know @dbr10 , given the fact that most people had wrote Corbyn off (including some in his own party)and the right-wing press were never off his back it is a spectacular achievement, I'm no fan of the guy but you have to give credit were credit is due.

 

[dbr10]

I don't know @dbr10 , given the fact that most people had wrote Corbyn off (including some in his own party)and the right-wing press were never off his back it is a spectacular achievement, I'm no fan of the guy but you have to give credit were credit is due.

That is true. I expected him to be toast this morning. Interesting times.