Election Debates

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's in the news, on the net, on the phone, EVERY FUCKING DAY. Day in, day out, it never stops. Koch Brothers alone are spending near a Billion dollars, and that buys a lot of annoying.

[Sundae]

[quote=Carruthers;927811]Should you be of a particularly masochistic outlook, you might wish to go to the BBC website at 2200BST/1400PST and listen to Radio 4. Eight hours of non-stop coverage of the results await you.[\QUOTE]
Actually the one thing I will miss is seeing the results come in (although we all know Sunderland will win again!) I forgot about Radio 4. I have a plan now - to sleep through what I really want to hear after waiting for it all day. a bit like Round the Horne really...

I'll probably sign off when a landmark decision comes in, like when Michael Portillo lost his seat in 1997, on a night which was starting to look like we'd be stuck with Tories for another term. They were trounced in the end, but it was reasonable to go to bed after some good news. And also to stop one of our friends drinking us completely dry...

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Sundae

I'll probably sign off when a landmark decision comes in, like when Michael Portillo lost his seat in 1997, on a night which was starting to look like we'd be stuck with Tories for another term. They were trounced in the end, but it was reasonable to go to bed after some good news.

I always reserved a substantial repertoire of particularly unpleasant adjectives to hurl at the TV every time Portillo appeared during his political days.
In fairness, I have to say that in his travel programmes (Great Railway Journeys etc), he appears to be a decent and impeccably mannered chap.
It may be that he has changed or quite possibly, as a former politician, he's just a damned good actor.

[DanaC]

Charlie Brooker's Election Wipe:

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Carruthers

It's a difficult one to judge from this distance, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that campaigning in the US proceeds at a relatively civilised rate until fairly near the election.

It's not so much the rate as the pretense. My impression (also difficult to judge from the other side of this distance) is that while American politicians attempt to exude righteous outrage and holier-than-thou stances on everything, UK politicians are allowed/encouraged to get very directly nasty with one another. We have talking heads and pundits who can get bitchy, but for the most part it's a very choreographed dance on both sides.

We're a six-hour opera grinding through the motions, while you are a 30-second MMA fight where everyone's going to bleed.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

It's not so much the rate as the pretense. My impression (also difficult to judge from the other side of this distance) is that while American politicians attempt to exude righteous outrage and holier-than-thou stances on everything, UK politicians are allowed/encouraged to get very directly nasty with one another. We have talking heads and pundits who can get bitchy, but for the most part it's a very choreographed dance on both sides.

We're a six-hour opera grinding through the motions, while you are a 30-second MMA fight where everyone's going to bleed.

Election campaigning can become pretty unpleasant and personal in the UK.
A couple of weeks ago Michael Fallon, Conservative Defence Minister in the outgoing coalition government, accused Ed Miliband of ‘knifing his brother David in the back’.
David M was a capable, and well regarded, Foreign Secretary in Tony Blair’s government and both brothers offered themselves as candidates for leadership of the Labour Party in 2010.
There might have been a kernel of truth in the remark but there was a general feeling that Mr Fallon had gone too far and nothing more was heard from him after that.

It was quite breathtaking to hear Nick Clegg and David Cameron flinging copious quantities of mud at one another in the campaigning when both men had worked closely in the coalition government for five years.
I pondered over the likelihood of a similar result to last time and the two of them having to work with one another again. I think it’s called ‘creative tension’.

Anyway, barring unforeseen circumstances, it’s all over for another five years. Pausing only to consult my copy of Old Carruthers’ Almanack, I see that the new government will either be an outstanding success or fall flat on its face.
Remember you heard it here first.

By the way. This notice appeared outside a church in Edinburgh that was being used as a polling station.
It isn't clear which the anxious voter should do first.

[Lamplighter]

One of our tv stations today was reviewing your (Brits) election,
and said that the campaign was particularly vicious in the press
in that Ed Miliband was photographed while eating (awkwardly).

If you're a politician never, never have your pic taken while eating.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

One of our tv stations today was reviewing your (Brits) election,
and said that the campaign was particularly vicious in the press
in that Ed Miliband was photographed while eating (awkwardly).

If you're a politician never, never have your pic taken while eating.

I'm surprised that Ed Miliband's Press & PR people weren't on the ball enough to warn him of the perils of eating in front of cameras, especially after his brother was ambushed...




David M always seemed to be the sharper of the two, despite his ineptitude with a banana, and I think that today's result might have been different had the Labour party chosen him instead of Ed.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

If you're a politician never, never have your pic taken while eating.

Eating comes only second to kissing babies over here. Many of our career politicians come from the high echalons of society. They went to the same schools, the same Universities. There are only so many things you can do on camera to prove yourself a man of the people. Eating seems to be the only one legal for the front page of the newspapers.
And yes, they get it wrong on a regular basis, because those at the top really do not live in the same world as people like me. The irony being, I could "pass" better at one of their dinners, as long as I didn't talk.

You just know Cameron never succumbed to a Greggs Steak Bake because he had enough money in coppers and his hands were cold and it would fill him up all day. He may eat real pasties with Samantha in Cornwall, but not chips on the front in Blackpool. And (the British version of) BBQ - no David, no. One does not eat a hotdog with a knife and fork.

The rest are the same. Except real man of the people Nigel Farage (because no-one is impressed by the public school he went to, and he went to work in the City, as a commodities broker, not to Uni). So he gets away with holding photo ops in pubs and sipping from the top of pints while defending his party's racist attitudes by saying they have one full black and one half-black candidate. Because everyone talks like that.

Female politicians don't need to eat in public, because people can see what they've done physically if they have children.
Women who work in politics and have no children are obviously so unnatural anyway, you wouldn't want to see them eat. Because it would probably be live rodents...

[be-bop]

Scotland at one time was a Labour bastion and the SNP were always minor players in the game of things, but over the years the labour party in Scotland took the electorate for granted year after year they expected blind loyalty and gave very little in return.

Even when the Scottish Parliament was set up we had three Labour First Ministers along with the Lib Dems in coalition but the lot of the average Scot changed very little, the Scots had had enough and a minority SNP government was voted in, things slowly changed, then an SNP government with a majority was voted in and things got a bit better, ( this was never meant to happen as the way the parliament was set up should have excluded the SNP from getting a majority )

When the Independence referendum come about many Labour supporters were insulted that their party officials took to the same stage as the Tories and were hand in glove with what was always perceived as the enemy.
Add to this that many labour supporters were not as unionist as the party hierarchy thought they were and many actually voted yes, so I was not surprised that Labour got wiped out in Scotland, yes many votes will be a protest vote but the swell for self determination has not gone away the battle last year for independence may have been lost but the war is not over, the genie is out of the bottle in Scotland and it's not for going back in.

The Unionists promised change and more powers for Scotland we got a "vow "which were as usual empty words and as soon as the result was known the back tracking started, we were told by the UK establishment that we were full partners with an equal voice in the Union, well the election rhetoric by the two major parties put paid to that, the SNP were portrayed as the Antichrist incarnate. Only this morning I heard an ex Tory minister on the radio complaining about pandering to the bloody Scots.

Sundae asked about another referendum I don't think its on the cards at this time however if the SNP win in the Scottish Parliament in 2016 and wipe out Labour then all bets are off and then I think they'll push for it .
The Tories think that the SNP in Westminster are an irrelevance and if they have that attitude it will be a big mistake David Cameron and the Tories are in for a bumpy ride

Alba gu Brath

[Sundae]

Looks like my vote was needed after all.
Leeds North West was one of the few seats the LibDems held onto.

Aylesbury was carried by the Conservatives as expected, but UKIP gained. Shame it looks like they're only going to have one seat in Parliament country-wide and be torn apart by the loss of the only know UKIP face, Farage. Hahaha.

But the Labour losses in Scotland - and the SNP gains - are really going to be significant.
Another referendum, Nicola? After the one which was supposed to settle the question once and for all?

Clod - I hadn't seen it that way myself. I was always amazed by the adverts I saw from American campaigns which focused on the voting history of candidates. Here I always thought it was more about the record of the party. Like you (and Carruthers) say, it's like comparing apples and oranges when you live in a different country. We probably only get to see the extremes.

[Griff]

Wow, the Scottish Nationalists really did it to Labour. 20 year old Mhairi Black becomes the "youngest lawmaker since 1667."

[DanaC]

The wrong brother won.

I'm sure he's a lovely man. I know people who know him and they say he's lovely. I'm sure he's a clever bloke as well. He has some good ideas and some good analysis of some important issues.

He has no leadership qualities. None. No charisma, no gravitas, nothing to inspire confidence.



His selection was the result of internecine warfare within the party. The Labour Party is divided more or less down the middle between the modernisers and the traditionalists: Old Labour and New Labour (a continuation and evolution of the 1980s divisions over the militant tendency).

Half the party membership were voting according to who they thought would be the better leader - the other half, at a minimum, was voting according to their factional loyalties.

In some ways that's healthy - people having agency over the fundamental shape of the party. In other ways it's toxic. It's become tribal, and bitter. At times the two sides hate each other far more than they hate their political opposition. And they will each happily cripple their party in order to stop the other side gaining control.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by DanaC

snip--

In some ways that's healthy - people having agency over the fundamental shape of the party. In other ways it's toxic. It's become tribal, and bitter. At times the two sides hate each other far more than they hate their political opposition. And they will each happily cripple their party in order to stop the other side gaining control.

This sounds much like the current state of the GOP (the Grand Old Party, the Republican Party). There's a great deal of infighting to appeal to the voters, and the clash between the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party and other various sub-species of conservatives provides an unending source of the conflict you describe. There's even an epithet for those who are deemed unworthy or false Republicans, RINO (Republican In Name Only). It is more exhausting than entertaining.

[Sundae]

If I lived in Scotland I'd have voted SNP, I admit.