Election Time Again

[andrewducker]

I get to vote tomorrow! Again!

As I haven't been on the winning side in a referendum or general election since 2001, I expect it to go horribly horribly badly.

Not locally, where it seems remarkably likely that the SNP are going to walk it*. But overall, despite YouGov getting all excitable, I fully expect the Conservatives to increase their majority, and us to plunge headlong off of the Brexit cliff. Because frankly the only thing that could save us right now is a surge in the number of young people voting, and all of my past experience tells me that...they won't.

My _ideal_ results would be a massively hung parliament, followed by Labour, SNP, LibDems, Greens, and Plaid Cymru being forced into an uneasy alliance, reforming the horrifically broken political system**, and then fumbling their way through the next few years until we can have a new election on proportional-ish grounds.

However, this was also my ideal result in 2015. And we all know how that went.

At the moment my best hope for the future is that after May completely fucks up Brexit and the country stares into the abyss, the SNP are able to run a campaign of "Let's get out of here, because the alternative is perpetual Conservative rule in a rights-free wasteland." and get independence. Which is not, frankly, how I would have wanted to achieve it.

But then I don't get much say in how the country is run.

Here, have a picture of Kimball, who is no longer a puppy:

and one of him with Uther:



*Not that I'll be voting for them, but they're a lot better than some of the alternatives.
**Where I know far too many people who are voting against something awful rather than for something good. This is one of the many curses of FPTP.

Comments

[rhythmaning]

I feel the same, though I think the Tory majority still not be the landslide May anticipated, and she'll be out by the autumn. And we can have another election in a year's time!

I have some personal hopes, with the LibDems ending up with 18-20 MPs, and more specifically four in Scotland, adding Edinburgh West, East Dumbartonshire and either Argyll & Bute or North Fife to Orkney & Shetland. (I still get angry about Alistair Carmichael's behaviour, but I also like him and really hope he gets back in!).

And I hope Labour now get their opposition back in gear!

[andrewducker]

I have some hope it's not going to be the landslide that May thought it would be.

And more Lib Dems would be good.

(I'm still angry about Carmichael, and unlikely to stop being so, I'm afraid.)

[theandrewhickey]

I really, really, *really* hope you're right about the Lib Dems. I'm suspecting fourteen, and wouldn't be surprised at four. I've already written off this election as a disaster because of both major parties being wedded to the utter destruction of the country just to spite foreigners, but doubling the number of Lib Dem seats would mean that there might be hope for the future, one day...

[rhythmaning]

Oh god I hope you're wrong. But yes, we could be annihilated.

[theandrewhickey]

UNS suggests seven, plus or minus five. I'm erring on the optimistic side because people are more willing to vote for us tactically than in 2015 and we've been doing a much better job of targeting this time. But I've seen sites that base their predictions on universal national swing which suggest we only have a 50/50 shot of keeping *Westmoreland and Lonsdale*.
Eighty-five percent of people are voting for one of the three Brexit parties. How depressing a thought is that?

[rhythmaning]

Depressing!

Roll on independence... :(

[theandrewhickey]

I really want an independent Scotland. But only if it invades Manchester so me and my disabled bisexual immigrant wife aren't trapped in Brexitland.

[andrewducker]

We'll come down and rescue The North as soon as possible.

[theandrewhickey]

Frankly you don't want most of the North. Just get the good bits. Liverpool and Manchester are both great, Bradford has the Media Museum, and you might as well get Calderdale, Leeds, and York while you're down that way. But you don't want any of the North-East, or all those crappy bits of Lancashire north-east of Manchester like Bury, Burnley, Rochdale and all them. The Lake District's good too though. It'll require a precision team of cartographers.

[andrewducker]

A quick nip and tuck, fold a few bits of space through the 4th-through-7th dimensions, and we can have all the good bits in one contiguous block.

[rhythmaning]

I'm hoping an independent Scotland would extend down to Dover myself...!

[dewline]

Well, there's ambition for you: the United Kingdom of Greater Scotland, anyone?

[theweaselking]

If there's a Tory majority, why would there be another election in a year?

Tory minority, sure.

Interesting thing! I looked up the etymology of "tory" today and learned that it's derived from a Middle Irish word that means "brigand, robber, or thief". And while that's, well, ACCURATE, it seemed odd that a political party would call themselves that.

It turns out it dates back to the English Civil war - the "Tories" supported James succeeding Charles II and were called Tories by the Whigs because they were trying to "steal" the throne. It was a pejorative term that they adopted - the equivalent of the 2400s having an American "Deplorable Party".

(Their opponents? "Whig" was a pejorative applied by the Tories, meaning "cattle driver" aka "hillbilly uncivilised lowborn hick". Which they adopted. So *both* parties named themselves after an insult applied by their opponents.)

[theandrewhickey]

I can see a genuinely good possible option from what sounds like the worst possible set of possibilities.
Tories get back in with a mildly increased majority. May gets stabbed in the back, front, and sides simultaneously for not getting a landslide, and Boris ascends to the leadership. Boris, in an "only Nixon can go to China" style, as former Leave campaign head, goes for ultra-soft Brexit, and calls for a new election to give him a mandate and shut the raving backbenchers up.
Labour replace Corbyn with Clive Lewis, who agrees a temporary progressive alliance with Lib Dems, Greens and SNP on the basis of no Brexit plus a new voting system. The goodies win in May 2017, and everyone stops being fascist dicks.
Yeah, not going to happen. But it'd be nice.

[rhythmaning]

My guess is that the Tories will win, but not by as much as they would hope. May has run a dreadful campaign - laughably bad - and will be defenestrated.

And her replacement would, like her, feel the need to legitimise their premiership. Hence another election.

[dewline]

Okay, that explains a few things about Canadian Conservatives' sticking with that nickname...

[calimac]

The Spectator, I think it is, is still predicting a Tory majority of about 70, and the Lib Dems at 3. Three? ?

[coth]

Me neither. Though at least locally for the last 20 years I have lived in a constituency held as a safe seat by one of my preferred parties. That's no use if it's another lot running the country.

I'd like to see a hung Parliament, to reflect the confused state of the nation and continue arguing. Here's hoping for interesting news on Friday morning.

[doug]

They're good dogs, Andrew.

[dewline]

Anyway, my other comments aside, best of luck. May sanity prevail, whoever provides it.

[porridgebird]

What gorgeous dogs!

[cmcmck]

Voted just now and it wasn't for la belle May.

Shame there was no Orkney and Shetland independence candidate locally!

[birguslatro]

Your prediction was wrong, but you may be getting your ideal result!

[andrewducker]

Sadly, not quite!

Still, better than it could have been.