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Why is there going to be a snap election? In 1966 Edward Heath called a snap election, with a result which went down in history - gaining 96 seats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1966. Theresa May is intending to pull off much the same, but in particular trying to secure a majority in order to make passing Brexit related bills, a tidied up Westminster mostly ousted of traitors and rebels. How long will the election process take? The minimum possible time that an election can be called in advanced is six weeks, due to purdah laws. Currently it's 7 weeks and 2 days until polls open - so it very much is being called a snap general election for a reason! This immediacy plays quite a role in the campaigning style of UK general elections. Where in the US or other nations election campaigning is very regular, formulaic, and regularly funded. This campaign is going to be very rough-shot, on-feet and sporadic. Party candidates Theresa May Has a relatively long history in senior public office. Served numerous minor roles in the shadow cabinet since William Hague (1998) before securing shadow Home Secretary in 2005, becoming outright Home Secretary in 2010, overseeing policing and intelligence service. 'The west's most extreme authoritarian' as I recall Glenn Greenwald put her, being the architect of draconian 'blanket' drug laws and even more draconian mass surveillance laws. All this gives her an iron-fisted, heavy weight appearance despite being totally ideologically devoid. Decade of training in public speaking and being patient, loyal and slimy to the party. All pays off, I guess. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell They are cute! I love these guys, two peas in a pod. I ship them. I can't help but mention Corbyn simultaneously to McDonnell, McDonnell being the loyal right hand man to Corbyn who has pretty formal plans for the economy as an (im)potential Chancellor of the Exchequer. This includes ending quantitative easing for central banks (yay!) and instead have money printed by an infrastructure investing national bank (oh). You can read more of this here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/19/corbynomics-why-we-should-take-it-seriously. I wish these two well, and I hope they will end up resigning (or maybe succeeding) together. Tim Farron Reversing brexit, quite ambitiously. Don't really know more that. Paul Nuttall We're the ones who can really deliver brexit will no doubt be the campaign line, though I don't see anything more compelling than that. He's not an incompetent leader it takes guts to lead UKIP, and he came off as pretty strong when making My predictions George Galloway will be returning to parliament! An perennial independent candidate, having left Labour in 2005, detesting the party line's pro-Iraq war stance. Gorton-by-Election has already been cancelled in lieu of the general election, a by-election he has been standing in and has been campaigning quite successfully. I suspect he can pull this off again, anything is possible. A firmly pro-brexit lefty, I'm sure Theresa May won't mind seeing him on the opposition bench. Conservatives will gain 100 or so seats. An inverse of the 1966 general election where Labour Harold Wilson recovered a majority of 96 from 4. Labour will lose 100 or so seats. Jeremy Corbyn is polling quite poorly. Party in-fighting, entailing figures such as Tom Watson and Hilary Benn who do not deem Corbyn's even mere clerical management of the party to be any good. Claims of 'anti-semitism', etc. SNP will strengthen themselves in Scotland. SNP hasn't even reached peak popularity yet, Sturgeon's popularity keeps growing. Though I suppose Orkney and Shetlands will hold their seat, given Lib Dems recovering popularity. Liberal Democrats will moderately recover a doze seats. Their anti-brexit stance has piqued interest of good portion of the electorate. UKIP will gain zero seats, and will probably hurt them quite a bit. Over all lower votes across most constituencies. UKIP was never suited for Westminister, so it's time they just give up now. Watching UKIPs performance in the House of Commons chamber, for example Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell, is like watching a goldfish in a shark tank. Sure they perform well in the European 'parliament', but the House of Commons is something different. UKIPs short forays into Westminister are quite embarrassing and I will be happy to see this come to an end. Douglas Carswell's westminister career will be finished. Officially, not to say it practically isn't currently. Douglas Carswell is a radical libertarian, the nerdy 'down with central banks!' kind. As a Conservative MP from 2005 to 2014 he wrote good deal of literature on state planning for a Conservative-led post-brexit Britain, of which is now materialising. Indeed the bill which repeals the European Communities Act of 1972, 'The Great Repeal Bill', is a plan and title which was more or less was proposed by him along with Daniel Hannan in 2008. In 2014 he defected to UKIP, maintaining his seat through to the 2015 general election. UKIPs relationship with Carswell became fraught as character assassinations piled up, his libertarianism poorly coupling with the party's hard-borders stance, as well as accusations of undermining the brexit campaign. He became an independent, leaving UKIP a couple of weeks ago. Disowned by every party.