General Chat

It is Labour's job to oppose not to make the life of the govt easy. Street marchés have always been part of the socialist movement in the UK and Europe. In part that has been a response to the right wing stranglehold on the media. Marchés are effective on social media.

In any case May's biggest problem is not Labour but her own parliamentary party. She has neither authority nor support. As a result she is retreating again into her no.10 bunker. Despite her weakness nobody wants to bear the poisoned chalice so she is left to run through her fiery wheat fields to inevitable doom.

I would rate the chances of David Davidson resigning at 50-50.

Sic transit gloria mundi

I gather you don't like David Davis .do you know him personally ? I tend to have an opinion about many things .but will not say derogatory remarks unless I am 100% sure of my facts .The labour Party have not got a leader with any plausible answers to run our Country .Corbyn is a joke .no I don't know him .he has money to spend but were will it come from ? people should contribute to prescription charges any age creed or faith .also I would put one penny on income tax every working person ..how much would that create .not much to ask come on Mrs May do our country proud ..let your MP,s do their job IE David Davis !!

David Davis biggest problem is T May.
You may recall that the Tory party rejected DD as leader in favor of D Cameron.
You may also recall that DD sacked himself from brave Dave's govt.
It is Osbourne who first assessed DD as being a bit lightweight but since then his actions tend to bear it out. he seems to be a fully paid up member of the fairies at the end of the garden is true society.
Mrs May's govt will not endure if past experience is anything to go by. Just how why and when it collapses is as clear as mud but like any house built on sand collapse it will. It will be messy and will push brexit into a state of utter confusion.
The Torys have not won an election since John Major in 1992. Labour cannot win without demolishing the SNP, impossible. Thus we will have messy minority unstable govts for a long time. Perhaps some form of P.R. will re emerge.
Fwiw I have met DD twice. He is an extremely charming man. He is also one of those people who bend facts to fit his strongly held convictions. Brexit will break him if he persists with it. The UK has nobody remotely able to take on Barnier. You can only throw all the toys out of the pram once.
If Lab became the largest party on a 2018 election it would be another minority govt. The SNP would never go into coalition with euro sceptic Corbyn esp as they are themselves centre right.
So there you go a forest of unkown unknowns. No wonder that inward investment to the UK has fallen off a cliff. We are sailing merrily along to the mother and father of a sterling crisis. Other than a few sotto voce comments from Mark Carney nobody says anything for fear of frightening the horses.

Osborne thinks DD is a lightweight - ironic, that.

Do you think that we would not be in a back-and-forth spat if, instead of the FPTP system, PR was introduced? I believe it would not matter a jot under the present circumstances.

All I would say is that it would be a huge error to introduce compulsory voting as that would lead to a donkey vote.

Corbyn is, I believe, a dangerous man to have in politics, not least because of his leanings, the attitudes of his fellow Corbynistas and his willingness to lie down in the face of terrorism.

It's odd isn't it, I have always considered myself to be centre-left politically.. my friend thought I was left-left until she became less right-right herself and shifted to the centre-ish ...now I am so far left I have fallen off the edge it seems :-) ...or is that just because there are so many who are so far right that THEY have fallen off the opposite edge? ;-)

I am constantly re-assured that those whom I have always thought to be right-right continue to prove to me that my initial impression of them was correct ;-)

Always go with your gut :-)

Nyx, many years ago I did the political compass test and came out as liberal left .

I did it again early this year and came out in practically the same position.

I wonder what difference Corbyn would make to my attitude if I did it now? :-| :-0

The argy-bargy I can put up with but I feel that TM is not being given a fair go.

One of the iron laws of politics is that those with little money and no great expectations are more than ready to listen to messages of hope whatever the supposed risk.

There is no upside to brexit and never has been. The EU has only hard biscuit on offer even though many suppose the UK has options. As cold reality dawns on the electorate who have been sold a pup anger will be visited on whoever isvthe current tenant of no.10.

T May's doctor's recipe of more of the same is failing miserably. She needs to return to the wheatfields of her youth.

TM was given a fair go but she blew it by calling an election. Rollo is wrong to say that the Tories haven't won an election since 1992 as they won in 2015.

The big problem is that the two major parties have been hijacked by the extreme wings and the prospect of either with a big majority is unpalatable to much of the electorate.

Strict PR would not make things any easier as it would almost certainly ensure minority governments, but it might be a good thing if parties realised they would have to compromise.

I don't think anyone can be said to have had a fair go when stepping into someone's shoes. Now she has been elected (and she did better than anyone else) she ought to be able to get on with it without marches for this that and the other.

I agree, though, the extreme wings of the two major parties are unpalatable to most people.


Just done the compass test again. Still left and libertarian but only just under the authoritarian/libertarian line now.

The Tory win in 2015 should have given Cameron the authority to do what he wantrd to do which was to accept the EU and "get on with it" ie more useful matters. He was unable to so because the "Torys" were in reality two distinct parties. Thus Redmond Rees-Mogg et al got their referendum exploiting a slender majority and cynical opposition. In no way does it count as a normal win.

Both Tory and Labour remain deeply divided more suspicious of the others than the other party. The hatred is such that but for Fptp big tectonic shifts would already be under way.

In any case à house so divided would be well advised to pause Brexit.