General British politics discussion thread

Seems to be a lot more protest votes in England, especially up north and in the Midlands than anyone was expecting. If you look at the various polls reported over the last few days, nobody thought the Lib Dems would gain as much as they had. Shocking to see Labour down by more than the Tories in those areas too.

There is really only two parties votes that matter in general election and a vote for the Lib Dems and the Greens is going to be a vote for Boris Johnson, especially considering the fact that the Lib Dems have form for propping up the Tories.

Labour's problem is in the midlands and up north, sadly it seems that the attitude of 'He got Brexit done' still prevails in many of these areas in terms of Tory popularity, it seems that it is all that matters to these people, which tells you the state of politics in the UK.

It's a bad night for the Conservatives but it could have been worse so no worse than a bad night. For Labour it's a mixed set of results, they've done well in the South and particularly in London and made some progress in the East, Scotland and Wales. But if they have any hope of winning an election they need to do far better in the Midlands and the North where their performance was poor.

I acknowledge that in these set of local elections the Lib Dems have book votes away from the Tories, I'm not doubting that whatsoever. That's not always been the case in past GE though.

I know that the wishy washy appetite of Labour to Brexit meant that Labour voters traded their votes for Lib Dems in the past as a proper remain party. There were also some more centrist voters as well which would never vote Tory, but also felt they couldn't vote for Labour under Corbyn. I know many people like that. Maybe it's just the circle of people I work with, socialise with and am friends with, but that is generally where they would position themselves. The above analysis still continues to show that the Tory party are strongest in the highest leave voting areas and the Lib Dems are doing better in the least leave voting areas.

I'm not quite sure why you feel I am gaslighting because I voted Labour in an area that was previously Labour and I hate the Tories with a passion, but the simple fact is the last poll I saw on Sky suggests that the Tories will just about be ahead on seats in a GE and it would be a hung Parliament. To get a Labour majority Government Labour are going to need to improve in the North and the Midlands, they're doing well in the South and in London, totally, but the North and the Midlands are going to need to fair better in a GE to get a majority Labour Government. I know the Tory seat count will collapse, but the UK needs a strong Labour government, not a weak one, and to get a strong Labour government they need to fair better up North and in the midlands.

I'm not saying that you are wrong and the voting patterns you see might well be reflected in many parts of the UK in terms of Tories lending their vote to the Lib Dems, it's just from my personal experience I've known far more Labour people to do it. I hate the Tories with a passion, I'd rather vote for anyone but them, so please don't think I'm out to defend them.

Also you're claiming that Labour are doing well, but also acknowledge that there is a lot of votes being lent from the Tory backers to the Lib Dems. What happens at a general election? You would have to imagine that some Tories who vote Lib Dems in a local will go back the Tory party in a general, which would push the seat count up of the Tories. Therefore that means Labour are going to need to get some more seats to be the largest party, let alone have a majority. There's no way they can do that without improving their showing in the North and the Midlands, it's basic arithmetic. I'm afraid you need to take the red tinted glasses off on this one.

The idea that Labour are on course for an election win right now is rather fanciful. The results overall are fairly good news for Labour and they are heading in the right direction overall, but the job isn't over and they need to use last night as something to build on to deliver a strong, Labour government to reverse all the damage that the Tories have done over the years. The country really needs it. What it doesn't need is an instable coalition of chaos or a minority government. The damage that the Tories have done to the UK means that the country needs a strong and stable Labour Government.

As stated up thread, if he was to resign, that wouldn't necessarily work out favourably for the Tories if Johnson doesn't go as well as Labour could paint themselves as the party of taking responsibility for their actions when found guilty and the Tories of the party who don't. This is especially the case if Starmer comes out and says that he will resign before the verdict is reached by the Police.

Not withstanding that though, it is amusing to see Tories saying Starmer should resign if he said one thing that was incorrect, having spent months backing up their own leader of doing many many more things and much worse.

Fools gold in the Tory press tomorrow, as since my earlier post things have got worse for the Tories, looking like approx. 450 losses now and probably will be closer to 500 by the time that everything is said and done. which is far in excess of anything that the Tory press were predicting over the past few days.

The Mail reckoned that a loss of anything more than 350 seats would be a disaster and they look like they're going to beat that by some margin. All the more amusing is the Mail tomorrow which is now claiming it wasn't a bad night for the Tories (even though by their own metrics it was!), but it's the Daily Tor...sorry Express who are clearly on the kool-aid who believe that it was a better than expected result for Boris, who is now 'back on track.

I still maintain Labour didn't do as well as they might have done, but anyone who reckons that the Tories did well is seriously deluded. The losses they have struck up are worse than what most commentators were expecting and even the Tory media themselves, so for much of the same media to come out saying it was a good night is laughable. They may as well just admit they're full-on Tory propaganda outlets.