The 2017 UK General Election Thread - Voting open today from 7am - 10pm

[BID0]

I think the main Green party aim this year is to double their seats, with a push for Bristol West.

You think they can overcome the mighty Thangam Debbonaire?

I have no idea, I got that from browsing their site earlier. That seems to be where they're hoping to pick up votes.

It was quite close here last time, but that was mostly due to the Lib Dem collapse.

2015: Labour (35.7%), Green (26.8%), Lib Dem (18.8%)

2010: Lib Dem (48%), Labour (27.5%), Conservative (18.4%), Green (3.8%)

So all they need now is a Labour collapse....

Wow, what a chance for the left to advance!

[Glowy69]

Someone pls announce reversal of Article 50 (if thats possible) and I vote for them.

[Godzilla]

I hope the BBC announce a debate too and if May doesn't turn up then just do what they did on Have I Got New For You when a guest didn't show and replace them with a tub of lard. Or in May's case a lepoard skinned handbag filled with the tears of a generation.

Hopefully none of the channels will allow a deputy to take her place and just run it with an empty space. She will change her mind faster than she shifted to pro brexit once the pressure grows.

[Errkal]

Someone pls announce reversal of Article 50 (if thats possible) and I vote for them.

Lib Dems have been very vocal about being anti Brexit up until now, i would be surprised if that suddenly changed.

[Meep]

Someone pls announce reversal of Article 50 (if thats possible) and I vote for them.

Not politically possible right now. The upside is that by 2022 the damage will be clear for all to see and referendum on re-entry will be a major vote winner.

[Glowy69]

Someone pls announce reversal of Article 50 (if thats possible) and I vote for them.

Not politically possible right now. The upside is that by 2022 the damage will be clear for all to see and referendum on re-entry will be a major vote winner.

So we have got to go through with leaving the EU? There is no u turn available?

[Meep]

Well, firstly, we have not truly experienced the fallout and a lot of people only learn through experience. Secondly, people do not like admitting they are wrong about anything. I remember before the Iraq war amongst the people I knew there was about a 50/50 split on the issue. A few years later it was impossible to find anyone who had ever thought invading Iraq was a good idea. I imagine Brexit will be the same kind of affair. By 2022 or 2027 a lot of leave voters will have mysteriously vanished as the real world implications of tearing up your international relations and rewriting them from scratch become clear.

FYI, to any Brexit supporters, I'm not saying that leaving could not potentially have any upsides but these if they do occur will be very long term whilst the damage in the short term will be felt very quickly. So even if Brexit were a good idea it is not going to look like that it in the early-mid 20s. If I were you I'd be prepared to make some very persuasive arguments to get people to stick with it.

[more heat than light]

Someone pls announce reversal of Article 50 (if thats possible) and I vote for them.

Not politically possible right now. The upside is that by 2022 the damage will be clear for all to see and referendum on re-entry will be a major vote winner.

So we have got to go through with leaving the EU? There is no u turn available?

No-one really knows for certain, but if that's what you want then voting Lib Dem is your best chance of it happening.

[Errkal]

Someone pls announce reversal of Article 50 (if thats possible) and I vote for them.

Not politically possible right now. The upside is that by 2022 the damage will be clear for all to see and referendum on re-entry will be a major vote winner.

So we have got to go through with leaving the EU? There is no u turn available?

No-one really knows for certain, but if that's what you want then voting Lib Dem is your best chance of it happening.

The dude that wrote article 50 said it is possible.

[Meep]

Legally the UK can stop the process right up until the two year period up and they official leave. However, that is not going to happen so that's the point in even discussing it? The people who could be convinced of the merits of the EU by argument already were, therefore only experience could change opinion the other way.

I'm not sure rejoining would be such a great idea anyway. It would mean having to adopt the Euro and other measures that we currently have convenient opt outs on. Currently we have a very sweet deal, which a lot of other member states complain about, but we will not be offered the same terms if we come back with our tail between our legs. I don't know if I would honestly vote for that in a future referendum and I'm pretty pro-Remain.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Legally the UK can stop the process right up until the two year period up and they official leave. However, that is not going to happen so that's the point in even discussing it? The people who could be convinced of the merits of the EU by argument already were, therefore only experience could change opinion the other way.

I'm not sure rejoining would be such a great idea anyway. It would mean having to adopt the Euro and other measures that we currently have convenient opt outs on. Currently we have a very sweet deal, which a lot of other member states complain about, but we will not be offered the same terms if we come back with our tail between our legs. I don't know if I would honestly vote for that in a future referendum and I'm pretty pro-Remain.

Yeah what meet says is correct. They only thing I don't know is if we did a u turn before we've left whether we could just carry on with our current deal or not. Definitely after leaving we would have to take on the Euro etc if we wanted reentry.

I believe the current position of the lib dems is that they would go for staying in the free trade are if they were in power so soft Brexit. Although they would rather not leave the EU at all. That's based on someone from the lib dems I heard on the radio earlier.

[Qikz]

http://www.conservatives2017.com/

[Moggy]

Legally the UK can stop the process right up until the two year period up and they official leave. However, that is not going to happen so that's the point in even discussing it? The people who could be convinced of the merits of the EU by argument already were, therefore only experience could change opinion the other way.

I'm not sure rejoining would be such a great idea anyway. It would mean having to adopt the Euro and other measures that we currently have convenient opt outs on. Currently we have a very sweet deal, which a lot of other member states complain about, but we will not be offered the same terms if we come back with our tail between our legs. I don't know if I would honestly vote for that in a future referendum and I'm pretty pro-Remain.

We haven't left yet so there'd be no "rejoining".

We can apparently cancel at any time before we leave. That'd require parliament to agree it and the EU to ok it. I don't think there'd be much of a problem with the EU, but you'd need a hell of a swing towards the Lib Dems for that to happen.

More likely is that Brexit is going to happen but we restrict the damage it does and keep our place in the single market. That'll need a Lib/Lab coalition.

[Qikz]

Code: Select all

Results
VOTES
SHARE %
+ / - %
Conservative   , with candidate Oliver Dowden, have the following results:
29,696 total votes taken.
59.3% share of the total vote
+3.3% change in share of the votes
Labour   , with candidate Richard Butler, have the following results:
11,235 total votes taken.
22.4% share of the total vote
+3.7% change in share of the votes
UKIP   , with candidate Frank Ward, have the following results:
6,383 total votes taken.
12.7% share of the total vote
+9.1% change in share of the votes
Liberal Democrat   , with candidate Sophie Bowler, have the following results:
2,777 total votes taken.
5.5% share of the total vote
-11.8

Looks like I need to vote Labour. I voted Lib Dems last time, but I'll tactically vote for anyone to oust Cruella Deville and her goons.

[Alvin Flummux]

538 makes the case for the election being slightly riskier for the Tories than they might think, due to the UK's piss poor polling record:

On average, U.K. polls this far out have missed the final margin by 6 percentage points. And they don’t get all that much more accurate as you go along — the final polling average has missed the result by 5 points. The experience in Brexit last year — when the polls missed the final margin by 4 points according to the Huffington Post polling average or 6 points according to the method I described above — wasn’t a big outlier by U.K. standards. The same goes for the previous U.K. general election in 2015, when they underestimated Conservatives by around 6 points. Polls in 2010 were quite good in diagnosing the Conservative-Labour margin, although they considerably overestimated Liberal Democrats’ performance.

May’s Conservatives do have a massive lead, with recent polls showing them 9 to 21 points ahead of Labour and their unpopular leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Also, while the polls in the U.K. haven’t been very accurate, they’ve tended to underestimate Conservatives rather than Labour in the past. (See also: the Shy Tory Factor.)

But if polls are missing election outcomes by 5 or 6 points on average, that means the margin of error (or 95 percent confidence interval) is very large indeed. Specifically, a 6-point average error in forecasting the final margin translates to a true margin of error of plus or minus 13 to 15 percentage points, depending on how you calculate it.

Much more at the link: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... -it-seems/

[Cuttooth]

538 makes the case for the election being slightly riskier for the Tories than they might think, due to the UK's piss poor polling record:

On average, U.K. polls this far out have missed the final margin by 6 percentage points. And they don’t get all that much more accurate as you go along — the final polling average has missed the result by 5 points. The experience in Brexit last year — when the polls missed the final margin by 4 points according to the Huffington Post polling average or 6 points according to the method I described above — wasn’t a big outlier by U.K. standards. The same goes for the previous U.K. general election in 2015, when they underestimated Conservatives by around 6 points. Polls in 2010 were quite good in diagnosing the Conservative-Labour margin, although they considerably overestimated Liberal Democrats’ performance.

May’s Conservatives do have a massive lead, with recent polls showing them 9 to 21 points ahead of Labour and their unpopular leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Also, while the polls in the U.K. haven’t been very accurate, they’ve tended to underestimate Conservatives rather than Labour in the past. (See also: the Shy Tory Factor.)

But if polls are missing election outcomes by 5 or 6 points on average, that means the margin of error (or 95 percent confidence interval) is very large indeed. Specifically, a 6-point average error in forecasting the final margin translates to a true margin of error of plus or minus 13 to 15 percentage points, depending on how you calculate it.

Much more at the link: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... -it-seems/

It's not the best argument because the piss poor polling almost always gives Labour / Lib Dems more credence than what actually results. I actually think Brexit might have dampened that whole shy Tory thing to an extent, so these opinion polls are more likely to be accurate.

[KK]

I hope the BBC announce a debate too and if May doesn't turn up then just do what they did on Have I Got New For You when a guest didn't show and replace them with a tub of lard. Or in May's case a lepoard skinned handbag filled with the tears of a generation.

Hopefully none of the channels will allow a deputy to take her place and just run it with an empty space. She will change her mind faster than she shifted to pro brexit once the pressure grows.

While it would make a great visual, none of the channels are sticking an empty chair, lectern or podium on screen. It would look like a political statement and could breach Ofcom guidelines. BBC wouldn't want that controversy anyway, the papers would be all over it. "The Tories were invited but declined our request" at the top of the show will be it. May will receive enough criticism from the politicians anyway.

It would be a very Channel 4 thing to do though, were this still the 80s/90s.

[Moggy]

[KK]

twitter.com/hendopolis/status/854805144705404928

First of what Newton Dunn (The Sun) was saying and believes last night...many Brexit concessions.

[Lagamorph]

Tomorrow's Mail