General Election 2024

Is there a scenario where this is the last FPP election? The tories get battered in this election, but Labour, after a term in power and seeing they won't get back, finally see sense and change the electoral method using their massive majority before the election after this one?

I probably missed this, but did Suella Braverman find a new seat as I think her old one has disappeared under boundary changes? Probably one for @HousecatHST as he's local.

Definitely, although the difficult prospect for this is that a period of calm governance doesn't look likely to be able to increase living standards to a meaningful degree. It might just temper the decline in some of the worst parts of our economic lives, which as you say is preferable to this clusterfuck, but not sufficient either.

A saying about not trying to eat the elephant whole comes to mind.

I think any party who wins by a majority is not going to look to change the system they benefitted from. I also think it’s unlikely to be brought forward by either of the main two parties, and can only be used as a negotiating tool by smaller parties looking to make a deal to help either of the main two form a government of the time. Here’s hoping it is isn’t banjaxed next time round.

The first past the post system suits the major parties. If Labour have a large majority, they'll have no incentive to change it.

I’m happy for fpp to remain in place until farage and Tice are both pushing up daisies

There'll always be more of their ilk though.

5 years of changing the system to prevent the right from coming back is probably better in the long term than any work to undo the shit the Tories brought in over the last 14 years.

I agree that they need to change the game, but if preventing the right coming back is the primary goal above societal change, we're prioritising electoral success—just the means—above the desired ends of a better system. It's not enough just to win, we need both. The degree to which those goals are at odds, I think, is under explored.

A lot of our problems also pre-date 2010, and in my view undoing the Tories' egregious policy programme of that last 14 years is the minimum we should be thinking about.

To answer my own question, Braverman beat Flick Drummond in the selection contest for the new seat of Fareham and Waterlooville.

I'd put my trust in the voters there to see sense, but having lived in Fareham, it would be misplaced.

but increasing party membership to the become the biggest political party in Europe off the back of a radical left platform probably isn't fuck all compared to the majority of the 650 droids in Parliament.

Does this really mean anything though, what did they do with it? There's an argument to be made that focusing on the membership's wants rather than the electorate as a whole was damaging to the party on a broader scale.

Is it even an argument? Focusing on the concerns of an engaged and ideologically active membership is a recipe for disaster, as the Tories are currently demonstrating. (Brexit was very much driven by the party membership, not the party leadership).

Within a few weeks my wife's father will have sold his home and moved to London permanantly so I will never have to go to Gosport ever again

Ugh. She's not going anywhere then. 2019 notional results for the new seat...

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I don't disagree, but if you're locking half of the elephant in a cage along with the keys, you'll only ever eat one part of it

(Edit: eating endangered animals obviously not advised…!)

And, as someone who was very active in left wing politics in my younger days, the internecine warfare between factions in left wing parties is the primary focus of most of the membership, not the concerns of the people they claim to represent.

At least you never had to live in Gosport and go to school there. Worst year of my life, by some margin.

Who was that absolute whopper Tim Montgomerie? Jesus Christ, he was a total bell.

As you say though, there's a chance they won't move further left. I'd still take it 100 times out of 100 over more of the current shower of cunts.

Here in Oz, before the last election when it was obvious the conservatives would get the boot, we were telling each other how the Labor leader grew up in a housing commission joint with a single mum, and obviously we'd emerge into the sunlit uplands.

Turns out the sleazy fuck is leading the most blatantly sold-out bunch of right wing corporate lapdogs to ever call themselves a Labor government.

Which he can totally get away with after following our worst PM ever... So yeah. Have fun with that Starmer feller, who isn't even bothering to seem slightly leftish. Maybe don't let your hopes get too high...

Not Albo! I haven't been following Aus politics at all since he won, but that is very disappointing news. The whole country (well, just over half) was so hopeful.

o answer my own question, Braverman beat Flick Drummond in the selection contest for the new seat of Fareham and Waterlooville.

I'd put my trust in the voters there to see sense, but having lived in Fareham, it would be misplaced.

Yeah, I'm afraid she got selected, Fareham is total shitshow of boomer tory voter, the local shops have the mail delivered by the pallet.

That being said we got our first ever, as far as I can see Labour counsellor in May and Porchester has 5/6 Lib dems now, so it improving.

Under current polling Labour might run her close if Reform stand against her I can see them eating into her numbers, back in the day UKIP where getting 15K plus votes.

Whatever happens she not going to be my MP, I'm in Titchfield and we're just inside the new Hamble Valley constituency, it might go Lib Dem.

The educational background of the cabinet and shadow cabinet in the UK is virtually identical. Most went to Oxbridge. Rayner must be the only one who didn't go to university currently.
They are fundamentally the same. Any policy differences are performative rather than fundamental.

Who was that absolute whopper Tim Montgomerie? Jesus Christ, he was a total bell.

The guy that set up Conservative Home, he was very much on message last night. I'm really not sure how they get away with having a Tory MP and prominent tory member on the panel... balance

That being said when he's on Time Radio he spends most of his time say how she Sunak is.

Only if you have the memory of a goldfish. I would hope avoiding 14 consecutive years in opposition is an incentive

Gove gone, Redwood, Andrea Leadsom, rats and sinking ships whilst rishi goes to the Titanic quarter.

Sky news being manhandled out of there launch event live on air. Two Tory counsellors posing as workers to ask questions at a biscuit factory.

And now the Mail seems to be a bit confused

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It’s not quite a bacon sandwich but it’s not far off

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