General Election June 2017

Fair enough, but they have 1 local seat.

ONE.

So at which point does the BBC declare irrelevance?

The problem isn't giving UKIP oodles of free advertising now - it's that the BBC have been doing it for years because they're seduced by box-office bad boys.

They can give UKIP all the airtime they want now that they're finished - anything that takes votes off the Tories.

I don't think they have any seats now that Carswell has left.

I'd say after this election then look again at the voting figures. Possibly with the leave vote going through they will be deemed irrelevant but I'm not sure. I'd say they are far more relevant than someone like Plaid Cymru and they will be at the tv debates.

With the leave vote AND with the Tories going full xenophobic, yep, what is the point of the party now?

more relevant than someone like Plaid Cymru and they will be at the tv debates

100% this.

They have helped shape the current state of British politics. Also no one is proposing reducing Labour's airtime by the % of their anti-Semites, or Tories in relation to their homophobes. So saying they're bigots doesn't cut it.

I'm not sure how you can support free speech and genuinely think they should be excluded (although I totally get it may leave a bitter taste).

A lot of people on the left miss that they are often viewed from outside as being anti-free speech and in favour of state coercion / control. Pushing an agenda that seeks to squash views they disagree with doesn't help.

Specifically as to when UKIP are declared irrelevant, if no seats are won, after this election (I hope).

For 'Fox News' obviously read 'Daily Mail' etc

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/world/europe/macron-hacking-attack-france.html

Whoever put that together has obviously never seen Dacre...

A couple of things I noticed with the Macron leaks.

1) They didn't seem to have any influential French amplifiers.
2) The likes of Bellingcat very quickly spotted that there was Russian VBA code embedded in supposedly incriminating Excel documents and that the supposed bank letters written in different countries looked to have been created within a few minutes of each other on the same massively expensive industrial printer/copiers. Oops!
3) Once you discounted the dodgy documents, there wasn't any dirt.

Now, apparently team Macron had been intentionally soaking up the hackers' time by entering fake/decoy information into the phishing sites. Nicely done.

But also, part of the reason the leaks didn't cause any damage is Macron looks to have been clean.

In contrast, there was plenty of mud to throw at Hilary/the Democrats. None of it criminal, but it was damaging enough.

^ on that note - https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/how-the-american-far-right-tired-and-failed-to-hijack-the?utm_term=.gkMG9p3vZN#.afxx40RYpP

Ta

If you dare to try to set up an alliance (relating to Jeremy Hunt's constituency)

Capping energy prices is bad (from 2013)

And some back-in-the-day comments from the usual attack dogs

Oh no, hang on, it's ok now

Summarised nicely in (you guessed it) today's casebook

Corbyn and Labour seem determined to relegate themselves to history and empower the Conservatives until such a time as some other opposition can emerge.

If you're under thirty and don't yet have a mortgage, why are you still in this country? Get to Europe while you can!

Interesting comment on an FT article (paywall obvs) about TM's "electoral tactics" yesterday:

An hour ago or so I saw Mr. May (TM's husband) shopping at Waitrose. I was in two minds but I thought he should hear an opinion. After all they do continuously tell journalists "what I hear all the time in towns and villages across the country....". I apologised about stopping him in public. And then simply told him I was disgusted by his wife's policies.

He walked away visibly angry. But it's what he instinctively told me (as he walked away) that struck me. I quote him exactly: "I never hear that from normal people in normal places."

This was Waitrose this was central London. The message could not have been clearer. London, central London, may pay the UKs bills but its no "normal" place. By mere association with London - after all Mr. May cannot know anything about me - other that, like him, I was in Belgravia, he came to the immediate, gut conclusion that I was not a "normal person".

And he's supposed to be a restraining voice.

So forget "electoral tactics", they don't need them - they represent the vast majority of "normal people"

Yes, for those of us left in the country, our hopes perhaps rest on something new emerging from the ashes of our democracy (maybe a new 'En Marche' type of movement).

But, as you say, for those who can move, opportunity is probably elsewhere (i.e. abroad).

An update on the campaigning graph (including where Tories have taken out local paper adverts)

Clearly, the Tories are working from a position of comfort with regard to their 'base', and are seeking to take over as much Labour territory as possible. Will it work?

It will only work if the electorate are gullible cretins willing to vote for their own prejudices against their own interests.

We're fucked, aren't we?

We are truly fucked.

I've seen my mother vote right wing most of her life, she swallows everything the Sun says. Yet she's suffered from illness, was left out of work, and survived on benefits. She more than anyone should vote left/liberal, but she constantly votes against her own interests.

Why? Because the truth of it is that she is racist.

There's no other way of saying it.

Whereas I would vote the other way, against my interest, in favour of a fairer society with more social mobility and less poverty.

But people who share this view seem to be a minority. A vocal one for sure, but still a minority.

We are fucked, because prejudice beats out economic stability and fairness.

Problem is it's all perfectly normal bias.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5974468/the-most-common-cognitive-biases-that-prevent-you-from-being-rational

Don't give up just yet! You and your Tactical 2017 crusaders are one of our hopes.

@Velocio

Access Denied The website ssl://www.tactical2017.com:443/ has been
deemed unsuitable for browsing and has been blocked. If you believe
this message has been received in error, or the website is required
for a business reason please contact your local service desk. Your
request was denied because of its content categorization: ""

can you categorise it as something inoffensive so it gets through work filters?

There really is no reason why it would be blocked.

We noticed that someone else categorised it as unsuitable, another work firewall. I suspect that a firewall policy is terminating SSL and looking at the text, and then we hit upon an old problem: S*cunt*horpe is one of the constituencies.

I shall investigate, though it would be helpful to know what firewall software has kicked in, in your case.

I'm not giving up.

I'm fighting for my local MP and the hope of any semblance of opposition that we can achieve.

Tories have been puting pressure on the firewall providers? ;)