UK Elections
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Not sure if it's garnered much news attention over there, but we're in the election season over here right now, with the vote in about 3 weeks (May 7th).
Looks like to be a roughly even split between labour (Ed Miliband) and the tories (David Cameron), around 35% each. After that, you have a group of other parties - UK Independence Party, Scottish National Party & Lib Dems - that are garnering anywhere between 5-15% of the vote depending on your poll.
Brief overview of the parties:
Conservatives - are conservative, but more central than republicans. The whol civil rights thing isn't an issue here.
Labour - socialist, unionist, "working man's" party. After a successful period of 'new labour' under Blair, with more central policies, ending at the last election, have reverted back to full on unionist mode
Liberal Democrats - Traditionally the third party, for the first time in recent memory got a large part of the vote in 2010, formed a coalition government with the conservatives, quite successfully IMHO. Opinions seem to have gone down though, people seeing them now as 'just another version of the main two'
UKIP - only real policy is UK out of the EU. Hate foreigners, especially any that want to work in the NHS for some reason. Amusing side note - leader's wife is German, and by his own policies, his kids would be at risk of deportation.
Scottish Nationalist Party - basically labour, but the scottish independence version. Scotland out of the UK, UK nuclear weapons/submarines out of Scotland.
A couple of other runners like the greens and the welsh party, with obvious priorities, but not likely to get more than 1-2%.
Looks like we're set for another hung parliament - the question is who forms a coalition, and with whom. Both UKIP and the SNP have very clear agendas, that they will not flinch from in terms of making deals. I suspect that if the Lib Dems do not get enough votes to form a coalition with either party, we're set for a hung parliament and minority government.
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I'd split my vote between UKIP and the Scottish Nationalist Party.....
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I'd split my vote between UKIP and the Scottish Nationalist Party.....
I'd split my vote between UKIP and the Scottish Nationalist Party.....
While I'd rather see the UK stay intact, we'd be better off economically without Scotland. For example, medical prescriptions and college tuition are free there - not in the rest of the UK. It's a real socialist place.
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yeah I always wondered why the Brits kept hanging on to the old commonwealth. Let the scots ride, William Wallace will smile in his grave. lol
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Thank you for that Chris. It certainly seems to me that with 3 real parties, not to mention the fringe ones, you're always going to have a majority of people who don't like the party in power. I can't speak to how it is there but I think job number 1 is to keep your party in power and your own employment secure. So here it isn't really about ideology, except for some of the voters and rhetoric. I would guess we are all humans so it couldn't be much different there?
WSS
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Thank you for that Chris. It certainly seems to me that with 3 real parties, not to mention the fringe ones, you're always going to have a majority of people who don't like the party in power. I can't speak to how it is there but I think job number 1 is to keep your party in power and your own employment secure. So here it isn't really about ideology, except for some of the voters and rhetoric. I would guess we are all humans so it couldn't be much different there?
WSS
Thank you for that Chris. It certainly seems to me that with 3 real parties, not to mention the fringe ones, you're always going to have a majority of people who don't like the party in power. I can't speak to how it is there but I think job number 1 is to keep your party in power and your own employment secure. So here it isn't really about ideology, except for some of the voters and rhetoric. I would guess we are all humans so it couldn't be much different there?
WSS
It's really two major parties - the lib dems have only had any real say in the last election. I think because people have become disillusioned with the two major parties to a degree, and also people losing faith in labour under Brown, but not being able to bring themselves to vote tory.
Now we're back to two main parties, with three fringe parties.
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Labour getting in now after all the hard work done by the coalition will be an utter disaster.
If not for the immigrant vote Labour would be dead like the Lib Dems, especially in the South of England.
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Interestingly, this has popped up in the conservative party manifesto:
Prime Minister David Cameron leads the Conservatives and the party's manifesto says: "We will support new sports in the UK, in particular through greater links with the U.S. National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, with the ultimate ambition of new franchises being based here."
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So this is today. Voted on my way to work this morning, and am now definitely in favour of requiring ID to vote (and that ID being supplied by the government). Walked in, gave them my name and address, they crossed me off the list and gave me a ballot sheet.
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So this is today. Voted on my way to work this morning, and am now definitely in favour of requiring ID to vote (and that ID being supplied by the government). Walked in, gave them my name and address, they crossed me off the list and gave me a ballot sheet.
So this is today. Voted on my way to work this morning, and am now definitely in favour of requiring ID to vote (and that ID being supplied by the government). Walked in, gave them my name and address, they crossed me off the list and gave me a ballot sheet.
Glad you see the light. People need ID to open a checking account, buy cigs/booze, get on an airplane, etc. Voter fraud is much to easy without official id.
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So this is today. Voted on my way to work this morning, and am now definitely in favour of requiring ID to vote (and that ID being supplied by the government). Walked in, gave them my name and address, they crossed me off the list and gave me a ballot sheet.
Glad you see the light. People need ID to open a checking account, buy cigs/booze, get on an airplane, etc. Voter fraud is much to easy without official id.
Glad you see the light. People need ID to open a checking account, buy cigs/booze, get on an airplane, etc. Voter fraud is much to easy without official id.
What I'm *not* in favour of is people being 'priced out' of voting. Require ID - for sure. Make certain, then, that everybody has some ID. One free at 18, then freebies every 10 years (new picture etc). It doesn't need much information even, but it also serves as proof of ID in other circumstances, like buying booze. Not everybody drives (and so has that license) and not everybody has a passport, because they're scared of other countries
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Hahahahaha conservatives with the clean sweep
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I must have missed the joke?
Anyway, yeah, conservative majority it looks like. Can't say anybody, even the tories, expected that. Lib dems decimated, split roughly between labour and tories; SNP have taken 56/59 in scotland, on the main policy of separation from the UK, even though they lost a referendum on that last summer, which has crippled labour, who actually gained ground in England.
Cons - up 25 seats
Labour - down 25 seats
SNP - up 50 seats
Lib Dem - down 50 seats
UKIP have so far won one seat, for those interested.
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Ed Balls lost his seat
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I must have missed the joke?
Anyway, yeah, conservative majority it looks like. Can't say anybody, even the tories, expected that. Lib dems decimated, split roughly between labour and tories; SNP have taken 56/59 in scotland, on the main policy of separation from the UK, even though they lost a referendum on that last summer, which has crippled labour, who actually gained ground in England.
Cons - up 25 seats
Labour - down 25 seats
SNP - up 50 seats
Lib Dem - down 50 seats
UKIP have so far won one seat, for those interested.
I must have missed the joke?
Anyway, yeah, conservative majority it looks like. Can't say anybody, even the tories, expected that. Lib dems decimated, split roughly between labour and tories; SNP have taken 56/59 in scotland, on the main policy of separation from the UK, even though they lost a referendum on that last summer, which has crippled labour, who actually gained ground in England.
Cons - up 25 seats
Labour - down 25 seats
SNP - up 50 seats
Lib Dem - down 50 seats
UKIP have so far won one seat, for those interested.
Admittedly not extremely knowledgeable when it comes to UK politics, but am I correct in
thinking that what Americans consider "conservative" these days is not comparable
to what is considered conservative in Britain?
-
I must have missed the joke?
Anyway, yeah, conservative majority it looks like. Can't say anybody, even the tories, expected that. Lib dems decimated, split roughly between labour and tories; SNP have taken 56/59 in scotland, on the main policy of separation from the UK, even though they lost a referendum on that last summer, which has crippled labour, who actually gained ground in England.
Cons - up 25 seats
Labour - down 25 seats
SNP - up 50 seats
Lib Dem - down 50 seats
UKIP have so far won one seat, for those interested.
Admittedly not extremely knowledgeable when it comes to UK politics, but am I correct in
thinking that what Americans consider "conservative" these days is not comparable
to what is considered conservative in Britain?
Admittedly not extremely knowledgeable when it comes to UK politics, but am I correct in
thinking that what Americans consider "conservative" these days is not comparable
to what is considered conservative in Britain?
The UK is generally less extreme than the US, particularly on the right, so the conservatives are less conservative than republicans, the liberals are less liberal than the democrats. On the other end, labour are more left (socialist) than the democrats.
As a prominent former politician recently said, if you run a traditional left-wing part against a traditional right-wing party, you get the traditional results, ie a right-wing win. Labour this time was a traditional left wing party, and lost.
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Stuart said:
Conservatives won?
God save the Queen.
They did indeed.
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Reasonable, moderate, common sense having conservatives to be fair
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