the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

enough to make you sick, it is

wot's wrong wiv good old-fashioned seaside donkeys, i say

*hoists bosom, sucks on benson & hedges, dies*

All the focus is on K+C and London today obv, but still voted Labour today. Just on the strength that when my candidate recently visited our estate, there was a dead rat on the ginnel. And rather having a photo taken pointing at it with disapproving frown, he got one of his assistants to dispose/eat/burn it or whatever, it was gone! And also he faced off a bunch of ugly-ass Britain First twats outside a mosque a few years back. He's still probably completely corrupt and useless like. But I have developed a probably misplaced liking/electoral loyalty for the fool!

what's his stance on hepatitis?

he is campaigning for daily bottles of hep c for school children, he's one of the good guys!

a rat in every belly, hep c in every bloodstream

30 years ago a child would kick a rat in the street.

I had 2 votes today, normally when that happens I vote Labour with one and Green or some variety of Socialist with the other, but I chucked both to Labour. I looked into the 2 Lab candidates and looks like one is centre-left (but pro-Corbyn) and the other is hard left. That'll do for me. It does seem pretty meaningless but a bad result for Labour will be spun to fuck by the media so they need all the help they can get.

I had 2 votes today

sssshhhh we're supposed to keep our widespread and highly-organised voter fraud a secret

I used my partner's postal vote as well, as she couldn't be arsed voting. But to no great tactical avail tbh, but doing something to stop Tories/LibDems not winning anything is a sort of a win, or making their loss bigger than marginal, if only personally to me.

last sentence didn't make sense, but you know worra mean

yep

Considerably easier to hate the Tories and Lib Dems than love the Labour Party.

'twas ever thus

good luck uk

luv2suppress voters

Voters have been turned away from polling stations in at least two of the five areas trialling the government’s controversial compulsory ID scheme, prompting concerns that some people are being disenfranchised.

Angela Wilkins, the leader of the Labour group on Bromley council in south-east London, one of the boroughs involved in the pilot project, said four polling stations being used for the local elections on Thursday had told her that by 10.30am, they had already turned away five people between them for not having ID.

“By that stage, there had been 25 votes at one of the stations, which could mean just 100 votes cast overall, and already five people turned away,” she said.

“If that turns out to be the case, it’s a much higher rate of people having difficulties than anyone expected.”

grrrrr

I gather it will be another 6-7+ hrs before we can start to expect exit polling and results and the like?

You kidding, it's the UK, it'll take longer than that.

I'm just impatient.

Here's how Home Office officials interpret "hostile environment"

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/03/home-office-official-tells-man-facing-deportation-my-job-is-to-piss-you-off

well, you can't fault the guy's enthusiasm for hostility i guess

I don't think they do exit polls for local elections?

good question, I was too scared to ask!

I just thought there might be this year with historically blue boroughs ready to fall etc.

in London I should add.

I've never been exit polled. There's usually a Lib Dem and a Labour person at the polling station that ask my address so they can cross me off their list, but they've never asked me how I voted.

Wait (furnur here) why do they want your address? Do you give it to them?

It will be private exit polls this year. And a drone sniper shooting anyone who looks like a classic lefty. (facial recognition software used from yesterday's Sun article,yay!)

i never give them my address, some of them go mental. it's beautiful.

I've never been asked my address after voting

why do they ask in the first place? who are these people?

they ask before if they catch you, i think they have a checklist of people who've promised to vote for them or something and they're keeping tabs. this one Lib Dem lady got very unliberal very quickly when I said "no thanks".

Glad it's illegal for party people (lol) to hang about polling stations here. Prob for the best, too, it would get ugly.

I got asked for my polling number today. I often say, "Don't worry, I'm voting Labour, as usual".

I'd never give my address to people asking strangers for their address ffs

Of course not.

I don't quite get this...is this a separate moment to being asked your address when you're given yr ballots?

yeah, this is party activists trying to manage/rally their support

Each time I've voted since moving into my current house one of the polling adjudicators (? not sure what to call them) comments that she lives on my street and has to keep redelivering post to my next door neighbour because of the confusing numbering on my street. Tbf it is pretty confusing, there are 3 number 4s on our street, so ordering pizza can be an ordeal.

I have this bizarre level of respect and admiration for the people who actually volunteer to work at polling stations. Like I've no idea where they come from or what the process is but they always seem to just be random civically minded people rather than political wonks, doing it for no pay or glamour or status or anything else.

Warning from history: when they start bringing in voter ID in these benign smiley volunteers will be at the vanguard of voter disenfranchisement and possibly morph into the UK's own future SS!

I've just realized that I've never been asked my address because every time i voted in a polling station i was in a constituency with a > 10,000 labour majority and so no-one was bothering to check

xxpost, do you mean party activists or the electoral staff as the latter definitely get paid.

I'd imagine they get a price-work deal on how many poor or ethnic voters they knock back in the voter ID "testing" boroughs today.

> when they start bringing in voter ID

They've already started turning away people without id, see above. Limited rollout but they'll expand it if it proves valuable to them.

Xp

(but, again, the only if they wanted from me was the information on the voting card that I'd just given them. Not secure...)

(the only info... Fucking autocorrect)

A 76-year-old man who has lived in Bromley for 40 years told The Independent he was “shocked” to be turned away because he did not have a bank card or passport. “This is a nonsense scheme,” Peter White added.

lol! I think they might not be happy about this type of thing happening re: Voter ID trails

Voter ID trials, even.