Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

A decent LibDem performance in local elections doesn't strike me as particularly unusual and they tend to follow their own rules to some extent but that does look like a complete collapse in support for the two main parties.

Not the Reading result.

I was talking about the Northampton one.

Sure, but the Reading result doesn't bear out a complete collapse.

A complete collapse in Northampton.

It doesn't make any sense to draw many UK-wide or even England-wide conclusions from anything right now.

noh.

so many local factors influence council elections. the greens got booted out here basically because they didn't sort out the dustbins.

thanks to our glorious FPTP system I just have to vote for Anyone Who Isn't The Tories so it would be really nice if the parties could make it clear who has and hasn't collapsed by the time of the next general election so I know who that should be, thx

but yes, too early to tell and council elections always hard to draw any wider conclusions from

I tried to vote for 'anyone who wasn't the Tories a couple of generals back. Lib dems the alternative here. Got a Tory government. Never again.

tbf in my 4 general elections I have never voted for the party that has won my constituency anyway so I don't know why I bother arsing with "tactical voting", but vote splitting in the face of perpetual Tory govt makes me sad

this was a Lib Dem seat until the boundaries shifted in 2010 and the Tories won by <200 votes - post-coalition LDs lost 13% of the vote here but I suppose if they can win any seat back it might be this one as it's in a fairly strongly pro-Remain area. Labour or Greens don't have much hope here, at least not on past performance

I think my constituency, even going back to to older version a century ago, has never returned a labour mp. I don't know if that's unique in Scotland, maybe the borders are similar.

It's not true (as seems implied above at times) that voting Lib Dem is as bad as voting Con, or that getting a Lib Dem / Con coalition is as bad as getting a Con government.

One example: a Lib Dem / Con coalition elected in 2015 would probably not have held an EU referendum.

If your choice is voting Lib Dem or Con you should always vote Lib Dem.

The problem is you have no idea which way the Lib Dems would swing in the event of being kingmakers in a coalition. If you vote for them and they end up propping up a Tory government that otherwise wouldn't be in power, you have in effect voted for the Tories. They had few public qualms about rubber stamping the dismantling of the welfare state under the last lot, and if they hadn't propped the Tories up we would probably still be in the EU today.

A vote for a party that could make up the numbers in either a Corbyn or May-led government is in effect a complete shot in the dark.

Those are good arguments, though I am still not sure voting Lib Dem = voting Con as LD would claim to moderate what the Cons do.

I think that there are or have been decent Lib Dem MPs and activists.

If LDs had done better in 2015 (eg vs Cons in the SW) they might be in another coalition and then the referendum wouldn't have happened, though other bad things would happen.

In that sense the collapse of the LD vote has not been a good thing.

We have never had a Lab / Lib coalition in recent times. It would have been interesting to see.

If a Tory or a Lib Dem are the only realistic winners in your particular constituency then ending up with the Lib Dem is always better.

2010-2014 >>> 2015-2019

Figured the Trident decision was postponed entirely in the hope of a Tory majority although with such support for it from Labour anyway any hope of LDs being against it enough to delay it another 5+ years probably just wishful thinking.

The LDs didn't need to go in coalition at all, I think a minority Tory govt would have done less damage, the decision seemed entirely about the party

We have never had a Lab / Lib coalition in recent times. It would have been interesting to see.

Well, we had one in Scotland. But yes, i couldn't see another GE then, it would have been a minority government, which wouldn't have been able to hurt us so much.

I was wondering about a straight Lib Dem govt not a coalition. Thinking that Labour might still be in disarray if there was a sudden election some time this year and wondering if Lib Dem might be any less bad than Tory.
So standing on their own are they altogether Evil?

Also, the fact that we had a lab/lib coalition is kind of the point. Where they were competing with labour they were firmly left of centre, anti-Tory. So if you voted for them you ended up with the south east version of the lds which is centre right.

The chance of that happening is virtually zero, but Tim Farron does seem to have moved them back into the Charles Kennedy zone of slushily vague social democracy with added business-is-great, but hardly anyone is paying him any attention even now.

Right, but they were kind of slushy lovey-dovy liberals before - then they got a chance at power and joined up with the Tories. It's understandable why some folks like myself wouldn't consider voting for them again (I'm fairly hard left, and I've voted lib more often than lab)

Yeah I made that point a few posts up. I wonder whether they might just ditch the whole LibDem 'brand' altogether at some point, it's been pretty comprehensively toxified and it's not like it has a long and noble history.

it's a bit of an awkward name but I think there are still a lot of old people out there who 'vote liberal'

Clegg was pushing the party significantly towards the right before the opportunity for coalition occurred. Farron was actively pushing in the opposite direction. He's definitely more centre-left than Clegg was but idk how badly his religious convictions are going to, unfairly perhaps, impair positioning as a social liberal.

I don't think the suggestion that they were a "moderating force" would cut much mustard by those hit the hardest by austerity, or would have with those who are no longer available for comment.

hey the Tories are on their own might have killed even more people, thumbs up Lib Dems

Looks like they're finally gonna do something about Britain First and that one weird kid who tried to shoot Trump

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-uk-government-introduce-mandatory-deradicalisation-scheme-746303354

"We will also be introducing a new deradicalisation scheme, which will be mandatory where the law allows, for those who are further down the path to radicalisation and who need a particularly intensive type of support"

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OADfGS3c3rI/Vpo7g2T-CDI/AAAAAAAAm_A/Z5s82jFmLsY/s1600/ClockworkOrange_196Pyxurz.jpg

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n15/john-lanchester/brexit-blues

I've just read this, apologies if it's already been posted somewhere

The Jeremy Grantham's commentary on Brexit has been making the rounds of other forums I frequent, and I think its fairly spot-on. Among other thoughts on income equality fostering social cohesion, and the pernicious role UK tabloids, it points out the vision of a Europe widely open to others faces "intractable" mathematical problems, which would inevitably come to threaten Europe's liberal traditions. Brought me to reread Garrett Hardin, too.

Marr to Paddy Ashdown on this More United rinse: "It does sound very similar to the Lib Dems...

Great minds think alike:

https://mobile.twitter.com/laurevans311/status/757177054886555648

More United's twitter account is amazing, it almost seems like a mean-spirited parody of vacuous, platitude heavy liberal smugness:

https://twitter.com/MoreUnitedUK

Caroline CriadoPerez ‏@CCriadoPerez 5h5 hours ago
Many of us are tired of tribalism. We just want to see change happen & we will work with whoever shares our goals: http://www.moreunited.uk

Caroline CriadoPerez ‏@CCriadoPerez 4h4 hours ago
The political system in this country leads us to tribal extremes. We believe we have more in common than our system suggests. #MoreUnited

Caroline CriadoPerez ‏@CCriadoPerez 4h4 hours ago
This isn't about left or right. This is about a common, internet generation purpose to make the UK a more progressive country. #moreunited

Caroline CriadoPerez ‏@CCriadoPerez 5h5 hours ago
You can join @MoreUnitedUK if you are a member of any party or no party. The only requirement is that you want change & to get stuck in.

there are some proposed policies on the website tbf, but this also includes a lot of bromides. keeping Britain in the EU, some sort of voting reform and phasing out fossil fuels seem to be the most clearly defined goals:

http://www.moreunited.uk/policy-details

fucking liberals man

there was a sick-making Smith profile on R4 that I had to switch off before I'd end up putting a lump hammer to my radio. It included such gems as someone saying that Smith's stint as a lobbyist for big pharma gave him a "wider experience of life that other politicians lack" or words to that effect.

Also his having lived in Surrey. He actually said that.

ha, bunch of Labour MPs have been retweeting this

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoCrDsUXgAAaQGo.jpg

I mean, who on earth is that supposed to convince?

finally the truth about crypto-tory jeremy corbyn can be told

all you'd have have to do is post a few links to the PLP's record of voting with the Tories or standing off + abstaining to debunk this nonsense. They don't seem to have any self awareness of how bad constantly keeping the dialogue with the electorate so dishonest and infantile is, like they are addressing gullible children and nobody will notice or remember how appalling their behaviour has been.

That might work in a big election where a proportion of gullible uninformed so-and-so have a vote but I assume most of the Labour membership are much more informed and are electing Corbyn precisely because they know things like his working record in some detail - which comes from things like having unwavering values (which can be made a fetish of etc.)

Smith has to run on competence - but he is such an unknown quantity who hasn't had the setting to prove that, has no (or little) cabinet or shadow cab experience. I really have v little memory of anything he has done.

Burnham and Cooper might have run him closer this time and I wouldn't be surprised if either of them tried before 2020. They are very compromised by their past though - and were laughable last year.

sitting in one's seat and voting as one is told to vote now constitutes valuable experience?

they have to stand up at some point too

The point of Parliament should be to hold the government to account, just sitting down and doing as you're told is one of those things that is admirable only to idiots.