Friday 26 May 2017

An interesting election campaign - quelle surpise!

Not really what anyone was expecting a few weeks ago in the UK.


However, Labour's message of hope (er, free stuff for all) versus May's message of woe (less stuff for all) was not perhaps something expected - even if so, it was not expected to work by the media or dare I say Tory Central Office.


Then the terrible atrocity in Manchester has really affected the country as a whole. One would think this would be bad for those weak on security like Corbyn, but he is quite willing now to say whatever he thinks he can get away with - his speech on security today was weird, but much more caveated than anything in the past.


Will it last? For the Tories to get a big majority looks tough from here, the collapse of the Lib Dems as well as UKIP has evened things up for Labour.


With momentum (literally?) behind Corbyn maybe he could win, indeed, it looks like he will win on his own terms of increasing the Labour vote and preventing a Tory landslide.


Definitely an interesting few days left of campaigning - what do you all think it will work out to in the end?

26 comments:

Scan said...

Should we all club together and charter a flight to somewhere/anywhere else?

Nick Drew said...

well I'm in Ireland ... (coming back, though)

(a) polls always narrow during election campaigns, meeja like it that way: Blair had a mega-wobble even during the '97 election (caused him to drag out the Big Lie that Campbell had drafted for him - "the Tories [pause; lower lip trembles] - the Tories are going to scrap the state pension!")

(b) Corbyn, true to form, has gone for broke, and no-one to stop him. Lucky old May (who, one imagines, has been tied to a chair by Crosby and had her fortune read to her)

Sebastian Weetabix said...

May is as thick as mince and has thrown away the opportunity she had for a massive majority.
1. U-turning at the first whiff of grapeshot... so much for strong & stable, she just showed she is not Thatcher
2. Where is the response to the Jihadis? If she'd put detain, intern and deport on the agenda she would walk it.

Upshot? Probably what we have now, but with a low turnout. Everyone in my street is fed up with all of them.

Nick Drew said...

PS

thort(s) for the day

- don't understimate the number of Labour MPs with a big interest in Corbyn losing badly (well, so long as they keep their own seats)

- watch for Sadiq's next utterances : not an MP just now, but a serious playah and devious with it

Bill Quango MP said...

What a shambolic campaign by every party involved.
From the Liberal's dope not hate to May's inheritance tax. Corbyn's extra bank holiday a month to the green's extra day off a week its been appalling.
UKIP adopting the failed Le Pen strategy of heading much too far from the centre.

Its been awful by all.

It certainly looks like they are trying as hard as they can to lose

CityUnslicker said...

well observed BQ - that is the right point, all look to have very amateur set-ups.

dustybloke said...

Has anyone campaigned on one slogan about one person and then dramatically and unequivocally demonstrated that the slogan was untrue on all counts?

If you and your acolytes are going to moronically spout "strong and stable" with mind-bending monotony, for God's sake don't demonstrate that you iare weak and wobbly.

BQ is spot on, all parties seem hell bent on proving the popular view of politicians; that they are pretty thick and live on a different planet.

TM's only hope is that the average punter will have a vision of Saint Jezz as his pencil hovers over the ballot paper, shake his head, sigh and put his X in her box. Ahem. Or something like that.

It shows that Crosby is overrated. Last time the double whammy of Nic and Ed flattered him immensely.

botogol said...

May has had a terrible campaign, and (let's face it) Corbyn has had an excellent one.

May is like Stuart Lancaster - the closer she gets to the big day, the wobblier she gets, and the more suspect her judgement. There is two weeks to go, plenty of time for a new gaffe.

It's going to be very close, I think

Anonymous said...

She'll be fine - people currently don't like admitting to voting Tory, so the polls are skewed away from them.

It won't be the landslide she was after, mainly as this lady does so much turning I'm hoping she'll quickly realise she's more Dancing With the Stars material than Prime Ministerial. She can trot out a decent enough speech, but actions make more of an impact.

Corbyn is slowly learning to be a little more statesmanlike, so unless he does something really dumb he'll be sat comfortably in Opposition.

lilth said...

Corbyn introduced me to a new word today "Impunge": rhymes with "grunge"

E-K said...

Black is the new red, going by the Labour election broadcast.

Sexay !

Scrobs. said...

Wait till you see the whites of their eyes.

Tories are way out in front, and know it! Why, how have they been putting their people up to the press> The BBC would definitely try to knock them and put them down, and by now, almost every Conservative voter has decided, but the Liebours, as usual are in disarray, especially when they see a silly old man like Corbyn shuffling though his notes and wittering on about things he cannot understand.

Done deal! Conservatives a huge majority, Labour fumbling behind a few failed LibDems (remember them), and no greens thank goodness. Brighton hAs enough problems without having that sort of 'membership' piddling about and doing absolutely sod all.

Gorgeous entertainment all round, and drinks and comestibles are all expensively ordered to see the silly obtrusive and not very bright beeboids all squirming on the 9th June.

Roll on - I think its Sunderland isn't it?

Then - whey - hey - ...;0)

dearieme said...

Both party leaders to be out of office by ... Christmas?

Steven_L said...

I have a couple of FB friends that share pro-Corbyn / labour meme's. Some of them are actually quite good. Perhaps they are having an effect?

E-K said...

Lilith - impunge rhymes with clunge.

Anonymous said...

So who exactly is going to replace May, and why didn't they step up earlier, as in 9 months ago? (Remember, she didn't have to call the election.)

James Higham said...

Why must there always be a choice between two? Why must the canal boat crash to the left bank, then the right? Why can't a third alternative down the centre be the way?

Anonymous said...


For an old imperialist, Kipling was remarkably prescient






The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control–
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf–
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.

Anonymous said...

@James Higham

Blair's New Labour and May's Conservative are both centre ground parties.

The Social Democrats attempted to form a new centre ground party and failed.

We now have an extreme left Marxist party and a centre party. What is lacking, UKIP having dissolved in squabbles, is a right wing party.

Corbyn, btw, will cling to his position as leader of "Labour" come Hell or High Water.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

Kipling was remarkably prescient in many ways. Another of his poems, well worth reading in present circumstances, is called "The Dykes" -- by which he meant Britain's defences, internal and external. He imagines the sea breaking through the neglected outerworks, and the aftermath:

"Now we can only wait till the day, wait and apportion our
shame.
These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look
to the same.
Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again
we delayed:
Now it may fall we have slain our sons, as our fathers we
have betrayed."

peter soakell said...

have no fear

MyNextName said...

You're all being fooled.

It is as I said it would be https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/conservatives-revise-internal-election-projections/

The aim of this election was to force a hung parliament whereby a govt of 'national unity' is required.
This would spread the damage from Brexit - and damage there will be - across the parties.

Please dont spread some nutella-like shite about free markets and how Britain can 'go it alone'. The Brexit negotiations are going to be a cluster- !@#$%^&*. Within 18 months we will be in the worst recession in a century and it will be because of the wank fantasy of a free-trade-Brexit turns into the reality of a crushed-by-every-major-trading-group-Brexit.

I was aware this would happen and although nominally pro-europe, I voted Brexit.

I voted Brexit to tank the economy and stab the neo-liberal bastardy that is BoE QE policy and house price inflation in the bollox.

I have done so and it is now clearly on its knees.

May does not want to win this election.
Why would you want to win an election where house prices crash and pensioners need to be told their pensions are not actually there?

May is not a politician, shes a stateswoman. I congratulate her on a shockingly 'bad' campaign.
As the title suggests it has been a very 'interesting' campaign indeed; If you were asleep.

Electro-Kevin said...

MyNextName - I think you're right. Sadly.

Electro-Kevin said...

A micro bubble has emerged from the macro bubble. Car loans.

People living in small semis in dirty London areas with gleaming top range 4x4s on the newly paved drive.

OK.

Not much has change except the notional value of the hovel it sits outside. So where has the real money come from ? Well, actually, it doesn't exist.

For these cars to be paid down properly the houses (or the cars) have to be sold and the money realised. Of course, if this happens then the value of both slumps and the debt can't be paid down.

Funny money territory again. We should have taken the big hits in 2008 and we'd be in a better place now.

MyNextNextName said...

@EK - If you really want the shit scared out of you try this;
1. BoE unsecured lending figures are increasing at an annual rate >10%.
2. Wages are increasing by a lot, lot less, ergo debts are mounting rapidly
3. If you really want to understand the volcano of shit that is about to rain down on us chew on this; car loans are not included in those unsecured lending figures figures.

As I mentioned above, when the recession hits next year/18 months things are going to get very bad. Unfortunately it is also likely that sterling will collapse in the event of a hard Brexit, leading to a forced and rapid increase in interest rates and finally to massive levels of default and bankruptcy.

I personally put the blame for all of this on the professional classes who manage the country on a day-to-day basis - the BoE in particular. They caused the boom, failed to reign in bank lending, failed to properly measure inflation (by excluding housing costs) and deliberately inflated asset prices with cheap money.

Brexit has brought it all to a head and its undoing will be merciless.
Britain will be impoverished for a generation.
And it was all so avoidable....

Electro-Kevin said...

"And it was all so avoidable...."

And there we deviate.

The welfare-to-landlord/immigrant-to-fill-incompetence model is defunct and doomed to failure, Brexit or no Brexit. It's the credit bubbles this generates, you see.

The pre Brexit debt/deficit attests to this. We are already broken and the EU offers more sticking plaster.

Additional to Brexit (the subconscious desire) is to give our own waistrels a bloody good kicking and get them up off their arses. As for the waistrels who voted for Brexit ? Turkeys voting for Christmas. Too stupid to see that the EU is the socialist construct that kept them going.

The Brexit vote was far more considered and nuanced than is given credit.

I expect a lot of crime. I expect I'll lose my most precious in this (my dog.) Just look at that face !