2019 UK General Election

[SKB]

Tempted to abandon Conservatives for Brexit Party in December....

[bobp]

Not sure that I trust Boris with anything. but Conservatives probably will get my vote.

[Caribbean]

Well, if you read up on the Revolutionary Communist Group/ Party/ Tendency, you would be unsurprised- they were after all:

Cool, so you're basically "Yey, communism!" at this point.

Opposed to the EU and the subordination of the British Parliament to the European Convention on Human Rights;
Opposed to immigration controls (the Tories talk about migration control, but don't actually do much that restricts legal immigration)
Opposed to non-tariff barriers to trade (the Tories are essentially in favour of free trade);
Had a history of opposition to the environmentalist movement;
Had a history of minimising the impact of the AIDS epidemic to the gay community (to be fair, they thought for the right reasons - most gay rights groups disagreed with them);
Had a history of opposing sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa;
Had a dislike of the Labour movement (too "statist", apparently );

Yes, we can all agree that the ideology of the Revolutionary Communist Party was pretty insane.

There are probably lots of things that they disliked about he Tories, but it seems that they disliked the EU even more. as some ex-members of the RCH are alleged to have connections to the ERG and some are current Brexit Party Parliamentary candidates.

Claire Fox, a current Brexit Party MEP is a former member.

Woosh!

[dmereifield]

Why not, if you want to enable Corbyn to become PM and to cancel Brexit

[Defiance]

It's LibDems for me (in a safe Labour seat)

[jedibeeftrix]

tory for me in a lib-dem/other marginal seat.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Anyone surprised? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-election

We should put this in context:
- Corbyn and the shadow home sec covering his back, on the same motorbike, toured the DDR when there still was a chance. They must have been well advised as that is one of the three European states that I haven't visited (Iceland and Albania are not going to go anywhere?)
- and then someone (Cummings) was in Russia when it was a free-for-all, after the fall of Communism; so what?

Let's concentrate on what happened in the last half decade - and shine some light into it

[SKB]

and shine some light into it

How may we deport the entire current contingent of the Commons opposition, the former Speaker and the minority Remainer camp to the surface of the sun?!

[ArmChairCivvy]

The one behind "the put down" comment may have to stand down; we will see
... but the above is just a more light hearted version from your earlier "take them to Dover, to be shot" if I remember right.

One way of driving the political discourse (perhaps not the best?)

[ArmChairCivvy]

But, upwards and onwards:

As the perennial favourite, Farage, now says that the divorce bill will go up by £30 bn and as the European RESEARCH Group is not quite standing by his side
... who could we turn to, to substantiate these figures?

[ArmChairCivvy]

Pacts are starting to trickle through: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 84491.html
- one, or several seats, moving... in a possibly hung parliament

[R686]

Pacts are starting to trickle through: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 84491.html
- one, or several seats, moving... in a possibly hung parliament

What’s the point when they refuse to attend parliament or vote on bills. Why bother getting elected in the first place

[ArmChairCivvy]

one, or several seats, moving.

These are the seats that will be "occupied" in Westminster
- don't know the constituency level detail, i.e. how many of those (if any) will be a minus towards the DUP numbers... PR implemented for NI (first ) would solve the phenomenon of areas and political parties mapping 1:1 relative to most of the seats "on offer"

[ArmChairCivvy]

Deborah Haynes of Skynews informs of the informed debate that took place in the Lords while the House was too occupied with their ceremonies:
"The government minister rejected the criticism but admitted: "I do realise the subject of this report is of particular public interest and I have no doubt [ducking & diving] the noble lord's comments will not be lost on those in Number 10."

Other peers weighed in behind Lord Anderson in calling for the report's release, including Lord Ricketts, a former national security adviser.

He said ministers could take their time in responding but "there is a clear public interest in the national security implications of Russia's adversarial conduct".
- playing it safe and not spilling the beans: adversarial does not (necessarily) translate to meddling. All and any parts of the report are secret, until released

[Pseudo]

Deborah Haynes of Skynews informs of the informed debate that took place in the Lords while the House was too occupied with their ceremonies:
"The government minister rejected the criticism but admitted: "I do realise the subject of this report is of particular public interest and I have no doubt [ducking & diving] the noble lord's comments will not be lost on those in Number 10."

Other peers weighed in behind Lord Anderson in calling for the report's release, including Lord Ricketts, a former national security adviser.

He said ministers could take their time in responding but "there is a clear public interest in the national security implications of Russia's adversarial conduct".
- playing it safe and not spilling the beans: adversarial does not (necessarily) translate to meddling. All and any parts of the report are secret, until released

The problem for the government is in saying that they'll release it after the election they're encouraging the impression that there was/is meddling and that the contents of the report would have an impact on the election that would damage their electoral campaign. The undeniable logic being that if withholding the report gives that impression then there has to be a reason not to release it before the election campaign has kicked in to gear, and it's probable that the reason is that the report confirms those impressions.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Reminds me: what to do with parliamentary procedure?
- either ignore it, and delay implementation,
- or examine it to see how much leeway it provides and if the intent can be confounded.

This whole story is like an advertisement about the Gvmnt (if brought back) intending to pursue that line also in the future.
- the alternative explanation, as per the previous post, with all the probabilities and logic in it, is that in the report (even when redacted) there is something really damaging to those (counting in those close to them) who are sitting on it

[ArmChairCivvy]

"Donations by Russian businessmen to the British Conservative party surged from £350,000 (€407,000) in the previous year to £489,850 between November 2018 and October 2019, according to an investigation by OpenDemocracy, a UK news website"
- small beer, and all of it came from folks who had already paid for their "Golden Visas", to settle

[ArmChairCivvy]

Quite a range here with John McDonnell saying he would spend £400 billion on tackling climate change and social deprivation, and Sajid Javid tearing up the government's fiscal rules and promised a £20 billion spending boost.
- exceptionally both are in line with IMF's and ECB's recommendations that stimulus should be moving from monetary policy (alone) to broader shoulders with fiscal policy, and infrastucture projects included within it so that it does not become a "spend, spend, spend" game
- McDonnell may have overdone it, but hey! They have to get the eyes off "Brexit alone"

[ArmChairCivvy]

Electoral Commission handbook (p.31) shares this:
At the 2015 general election, spending by campaigners on digital advertising was 23.9% of totalcampaignspend. This increased to 42.8% at the2017general election.

But it is still somewhat muddled in its guidance, p.32:
Digital campaign material must have an imprint saying who is behind the campaign and who created it.

So micro-targeted messaging can state the party and the creative agency, but omit the lobbying organisation who paid for it?

[ArmChairCivvy]

General election, or fiction... read this:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... ccounter=1

[SKB]

(ITV News) 11th November 2019

The Brexit Party has announced that it will not contest candidates in the 317 seats won by the Conservatives at the 2017 general election.

[ArmChairCivvy]

The choreography has been well arranged... in advance. A dog and pony show? Would that be fitting?

Who cares about the manifestos; anyone seen any ?

[Caribbean]

Who cares about the manifestos; anyone seen any ?

I believe they are due to be published on or around next Monday (the week commencing the 18th November), one week before voter registration closes (25th November).

[SKB]

Got my poll card in the post today...

[ArmChairCivvy]

HuffPost has picked up why we will need the (hard ) Brexit thread once this one will have been passed to the archives:

on "Newsnight[’s] Nick Watt last night. Asked what Trump would think of his decision to step aside in Tory seats, the Brexit Party leader relied: “His big fear which he expressed to me the other week was if we go down the route of alignment, it virtually wipes out the prospect of a trade deal with the USA.”

‌

“And now Boris is kind of saying we go in for a Canada-style trade deal and so he’d be very, very pleased to hear that. And pleased to think that with a bit of help from me his [Trump’s] position looks markedly better.”
- well, by the time we get to July (decision time for transition that is) perhaps Trump's "position" will look, err, different