General Election June 2017

They also don't exist in two dimensional space. But that's the power of illustration.

Some entertaining poster wars

https://twitter.com/JamieRoss7/status/870171521544847360

Reminds me a bit of that graffiti thing (the battle between the graffiti artist and the council who try to paint over it)

As others have said, I'm not convinced that UKIP votes are going to Labour, particularly in the Northern industrial towns with a large Leave vote.

From what I've seen there's quite a dilemma on which way to vote.
Labour aren't popular as Corbyn is seen as a London-centric, metropolitan elite, free movement of people pacifist (although he's starting to turn that around a little).
Lib Dems aren't popular due to their stance on Brexit.
Tories aren't popular because there are whole communities who were brought up to never vote Tory (mainly related to Thatcher, the mining strikes, trade unions, etc). However, they have managed to position themselves as the party of hard Brexit which is causing some wavering and a fair number of people to contemplate voting Tory for the first time ever.

It's hard to see where it's going to go, maybe non-voters, maybe stick with UKIP, maybe back to Labour, maybe break the habit of a lifetime and vote Tory.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/01/the-snap-what-we-learned-bbc-leaders-debate

Amber Rudd, Conservatives

Key themes: there’s plenty of time to talk about social care caps
after the election. Coalitions are noisy and bad. Corbyn’s “magic
money tree” (repeat to fade).

"His proposals don’t add up. It’s as though he thinks it’s some sort
of game, a game of Monopoly perhaps, where you ask the banker for the
red money to buy the electrics, the green money to buy the railways,
and the yellow money to buy the gas works."

It appears Amber Rudd hasn't ever played Monopoly.

This is scary shit, so short sighted and completely fails to answer the real problems within the NHS

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/naylor-report-tory-nhs-privatisation-healthcare-flog-off-conservatives-theresa-may-election-2017-a7766326.html

Independent do a good piece on it, privatisation here we come!

I was expecting some kind of smoking gun on the Naylor report in the video but it was all a bit crap really. There were some things he clearly misunderstood (he seemed to be under the illusion that it would require £10bn of costs to sell the properties which wasn't what the document said at all) and some leaps of logic.

It's something that needs to be discussed sensibly, there is an argument that the sprawling estates of a lot of hospitals could be used much more efficiently and it is true that the expertise of the NHS isn't estate management (nor would we expect it to be) but a lot of the responses to it are just "Raaaaaa, privatisation" which doesn't really seem to match up to what's in the document where the suggestion that profits, plus public funding, will go back into the NHS.

I'd be more concerned about who is involved with the deals and seeing assets sold off cheaply with grand promises which are not fulfilled than this leading to privatisation of the NHS.

Privatization, in itself, isn't always harmful BUT it really depends on how you do it, what contracts, for what... and the PFI/Tories ways of doing it means, I think, people just don't trust it at all.

The Dutch health service is privatized but with very strict controls, it's a world away from the USA system where you get semi-monopolies and therefore overcharging/people being refused affordable coverage.

Yes some UKIP vote will return to Labour and Lib Dem, but far more of it will return to the Tories.

I'd be interested to meet somebody who switches their allegiances between the Lib Dem and UKIP, how can somebody be that confused !

I'm still of the view that there are allot of leave votes who won't turn out in a general election, surely that's more likely to hurt ukip and the tory's.

There's also nearly 3 million EU national who get to have a say, where will their votes go, its got to be Labour / Lib dem. I would think they will be very motivated to get out and vote.

Yes I'm hopefully clutching at straws

I applied for one on the 5th May and they came back to me on the 8th saying it was unlikely they could get it to me on time.

I then applied for a proxy postal vote to my parents in law. That still hasnt arrived

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The Economist backs the Lib Dems, but mainly thinking of the world past 9 June

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21722855-leaders-both-main-parties-have-turned-away-decades-old-vision-open-liberal?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/thebritishelectionthemiddlehasfallenoutofbritishpolitics

Maybe not to everyone's tastes on here, but for the record

Pollsters still think May will win with an increased majority;

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-01/u-k-pollsters-see-may-increasing-majority-even-as-lead-shrinks

We need young people to vote.

It's The Economist, so no surprises really. They remain ideologically neutral with regard to partisan politics (which is why it's always a pretty good source of news), but ideologically cemented within the global liberal world. Fair points for consistency and honesty. But the piece ignores the key question: why are people (not just parties) abandoning the project they're backing?

To be fair, that wasn't the question they were engaging with, but they spent the majority of the piece attacking (all three!) parties for not supporting it in various ways. If a continuation of the policies started in the 1980s is the way forward the argument needs to address how these policies will start helping those people and things which have suffered due to them.

shit looks like i may miss out. will look in to the postal proxy.

We [EU nationals] can't vote unless we have UK nationality as well.

Those that do no doubt will vote, but some are pretty pissed off with Labour for the handling of Brexit, so there's a risk of vote splitting.

Some deadlines for you:

Deadline to register to vote: midnight on Monday 22 May
Deadline to register for a postal vote: 5pm on Tuesday 23 May
Deadline to register for a postal proxy vote: 5pm on Tuesday 23 May
Deadline to register for a proxy vote: 5pm on Wednesday 31 May
Deadline to register for an Emergency* Proxy vote: 5pm on polling day

*This can be either Medical or 'Occupation, service or employment' related.

Long and short of it: you need to find someone who can get to your polling station for you. Although having tracked back on your requests, I'd suggest giving your council's electoral services team a call, they might be able to help.

In general, my understanding is that the advice for those living abroad is to get either a postal proxy or a normal proxy vote for someone in the UK, as postal votes are sent out 1st (I think) class, and thus go the slowest route to you. This means that delivery won't be guaranteed to be before the polling date.

We [EU nationals] can't vote unless we have UK nationality as well.

I didn't release that, seems messed up, no taxation without representation and all that.

Thanks for that. Will try to sort something

@andyp

We need young people to vote.

On my local FB group, we have offered to drive younger voters to their local polling stations on 8th June in an attempt to curb the 'can't be arsed' attitude.
#notgroomingtho

I missed out on the referendum vote because my ballot papers arrived a few days before the election, I'm proxying via @Digger this time around...

Offer them some sweets to sweeten the deal?

#mightbegroomingthentho

Naylor report

I'm trying to look into it a bit more as well. Of course it will turn on the application, but there are bits in the video I don't quite follow.

For eg the logic of a 2 for 1 necessarily incentivizing under market value sales.

Est. building value = £5 - 10mn
A. Sell for £10mn, receive £20mn.
B. Sell for £5mn, receive £10mn.
Incentive to sell at lowest price = -£10mn

Or am I missing something?

and the Labour/Tories ways of doing it means...

ftfy