April 05, 2005

• Bollocks it is! It's going to be about the country not having a viable alternative to the pricks and cunts already in office.
• Wait, wait... are people voting for Prime Minister in this election? And the sitting PM decides when the election is? Sorry for my ignorance, but can someone explain this to me? What if he just decides to never have an election??
• You have a five year term (maximum), but the government can call an election whenever they want within that time.
• I sent a donation to the Independent Working Class Association to support their contesting the Oxford East seat. I'd met Stuart Craft who's an Oxford councillor for them now a few times back in my days in various small union things and he's a sound bloke (was involved in the campaign to close down Campsfield detention centre I think). I'm of course pretty out of touch now as a long-time ex-pat but looks like a good initiative to me. They've had some accusations of being soft on racism but one of their main movers Gary O'Shea of Red Action and AFA has written very cogent stuff on re-involving white working class communities in the political process in ways that don't mean the BNP are the only ones listening to our grievances. As for the rest of it I hope cynicism isn't the main winner. As an anarchist I'm dogma-bound to say that voting only legitimises our flawed democracy but actually I think you should pick the best option available but just keep aware that we need a whole lot more. A bit of reformism in the meantime until we can tuck into that pie in the sky.
• I can vote, due to an antiquated law for Commonwealth countries. Somebody tell me who to vote for.
• By virtue of my dual citizenship, I can vote too. I have the same question as Alnedra.
• vote for me
• Also, it depends on which constituency you are voting in. My advice (in that I dislike Labour, but like the Conservatives even less) is to vote tactically - vote for the Liberal Democrats in general, but vote Labour if the seat is between Labour and the Conservatives. I will be voting Liberal Demcocrat, unsurprisingly, although I can't say I like them much either. (which is the problem with British politics, obviously - they're all quite shit, really)
• I second what dng says: check out how the local candidates did in the previous election and cast your vote where it will have most effect (at keeping the tories out). I, unfortunately, live in a true blue constituency ...
• dng has put his finger on it with his last sentence, I think, but I draw a different conclusion. I suggest you forget the parties and vote for whichever individual candidate seems least personally repellent or dishonest
• Here's hoping the LibDems become the Opposition at least (likely), and the spectre of George W. Bush ending the reign of Tony Blair (unlikely).
• ending → end
• (which is the problem with British politics, obviously - they're all quite shit, really) See, America and the UK really ARE alike! Is there any country that actually has good qualified people running for office? That would be a miracle.
• I suggest you forget the parties and vote for whichever individual candidate seems least personally repellent or dishonest. I suspect a lot of people will be doing just that in this election. TheyWorkForYou and PublicWhip are pretty good tools for finding out roughly how personally repellent the sitting MP is. Mine's shit. She's in one of the safest seats in the country. Hey ho. Oh, lord, there's a month of this shit to go. I can't take it, I swear...
• seems like you Brits are in for a dose of what we Aussies had to deal with last year - the options are shit, the issues are shit, the candidates are shit and the voters are the shittest of all. the day i can become a nuclear power in my own right is the day i make the world a much better place.
• Vote for who you fancy. They come round and 'do' you for free if they get in. *Little-known British political fact #554]
• This is the country that voted for Thatcher. Britons generally elect the person they hate the most. They believe, subconsciously, that to have the most awful bastard as their PM is the way to go, because only the meanest bastard can rule a country of thugs, unionised slackers and hooligans. See: Churchill.
• Thanks for the insight. So nice of you to tell me why I vote for who I do. And then to slag off the entire country. And the guy who held the country together while we fought the nazis. He may have been mean and not particularly great peace-time politician, but he was one of the deciding factors why we stood like we did back then. You may be futious, but you're also ill informed and making sweeping generalisations. Go and have a nice cup of tea.

• Wait, wait... are people voting for Prime Minister in this election? And the sitting PM decides when the election is? Sorry for my ignorance, but can someone explain this to me? What if he just decides to never have an election??

  We don't vote for Prime Minister, we vote for an MP in the constituency in which we live... the party with the greatest number of MPs returned gets to form the next government (and if they don't have a majority of seats in Parliament they have to bash out some kind of coalition - this happens extremely rarely though). The leader of this party becomes Prime Minister. The unspoken deal this time round is that Tony Blair won't be around for very long after the election and that Gordon Brown (who is rather more popular IMO) will take over. Those who are anti-Blair can therefore take comfort that they can still vote Labour. The Conservatives won't win this time, memories of how things were last time are too fresh. [Abiezer_Coppe: I voted in Oxford East last time round, and the time before in Oxford Central on May 1st 1997, when all of (academic) Oxford had been celebrating May Day all night - surely the drunkest electorate ever? Large queues at the polling stations at 7am consisted of people who had been up all night drinking. In any case, the Tories were routed in Oxford that day and replaced with the Lib Dems.].
• Furious, obviously, but the above typo's resemblence to Fatuous almost legitimises Freud again...
• They come round and 'do' you for free if they get in. *Searches feverishly for previous threads with information about emigrating to Canada* I don't know about furious, but you are coming across a little jaundiced, Mr F? On your theory, Michael Portillo should now be set to sweep to power, shouldn't he? It's difficult to assess Mrs Thatcher objectively because of the intensely annoying quality of her personality. I suspect she wasn't really as brutally effective as both she and her opponents like to think, but relied to a surprising degree on luck and the kamikaze strategies of people like Arthur Scargill and General Galtieri. Candidly, I think that although people have got a bit sick of Blair, he really represents what a huge swathe of the country secretly always wanted - Tory policies without the embarassment of having to vote Tory to get them.
• I like your explanation, altolinguistic. Blair is on record as saying he intends to serve a full third term as PM. Interestingly, he's also on record as saying he'd resign if he became an electoral liability. (Whereupon every standup comedian in the country went "What? Are you still here?") The well-oiled marketing machine that is New Labour currently has a majority of 160 seats. The Tories (ghastly freakshow) and Lib Dems (my personal faves, but only because they haven't had a chance to fuck things up yet) are both polling stronger than expected. Polls seem to suggest that Blair's image is putting off both potential and traditional Labour voters. My theory (and private hope) is that these voters won't be able to bring themselves to vote Tory, and will thus create a sizeable swing to the Lib Dems. Labour will probably retain its majority, but if it loses enough seats to shrink that majority significantly, then Blair may well be shamed into resigning. In which case, we'll have to come up with a whole new list of reasons to loathe Gordon Brown. On your marks, get set....
• ...Of course, I'm typing this from a safe Tory seat. And, as a dirty foreigner, I don't have a vote either. Bollocks
• how come you never come to london meetups, O pallas with the shining eyes? Everyone's been asking about you - odysseus, perseus, that weird snake chick who wants her head back - everyone!
• I am an ignorant American. So if you elect MP's, who in turn form the government, then they can choose who they would like? So can Labour win and then choose someone other than Blair?
• The leader of the victorious party either has to stand down or have a vote of no confidence thing happen, it's not as simple as 'choosing'. That happens at a party level. The leader then becomes PM. This may not be constitutionally accurate, but is the general gist.
• Vote SNP!
• They can choose who they would like? kitfisto is right that it's a bit more complicated, but the short answer is still 'Yes'. Blair could win the election and yet be replaced immediately (in theory). Each party has its own rules about how you get to be leader, but the underlying reality is that if you haven't got the support of your fellow MPs, you can't function. Vote SNP If they put up a candidate in my constituency, I promise I will.
• They can choose who they would like? they could also choose someone from the house of lords if they wanted to (ain't going to happen, though). my dream is that labour and the tories get a roughly equal number of seats, giving the lib dems the balance of power. they agree to get into bed with labour only if proportional representation is brought in during the first year. this is something else that won't happen, but it would be very good in general for u.k. politics.
• Has the party in power ever removed the Prime Minister or changed the Prime Minister against the wishes of the Prime Minister? If Blair is so unpopular and the Tories have no real chance, then why doesn't Labour do that now?
• Has the party in power ever removed the Prime Minister or changed the Prime Minister against the wishes of the Prime Minister? Gosh, yes - Thatcher for example. I don't think Blair is perceived as that unpopular. He still represents an amazinngly good run of election success for Labour: it's just that the success was achieved on the back of policies which are drastically at odds with the party's traditional stance.
• O quidnunc of the well-turned phrase-- well, last meetup I was busy sorting out some chick who thought she could beat me at tapestry weaving. And the time before, that lout Poseidon decided he wanted to claim my city, so I was all like "Dude, which do you guys want: cold clammy salt water or lovely olive trees which are a vital ingredient in making ciabatta bread?" ...um, does "being crap" count as an excuse? I'll try and make the next one, honest...
• OK, so here are the candidates for what I take to be Alnedra's constituency: Andy Reed, Labour/co-operative, the sitting MP. His record, according to one of the sites kindly suggested by Flashboy. Nicky Morgan, for the Conservatives. Graeme Smith for the Liberal Democrats. He has started a genuine blog. The only other candidate is Bernard Sherratt, from UKIP, who does not appear to have an on-line prescence of any kind. What do you reckon? Do you think if I e-mail them and explain that this hugely influential community blog is taking a special interest in them, that I'll get a reply?
• Right, I've e-mailed the Tory and commented on the Liberal's blog. The Labour man, who apparently has a 'Westminster Dairy' rather than a blog, says he doesn't want any e-mail unless you can give him an address to show you're a constituent - so if you want to try him, you'll have to ask him yourself, Alnedra.
• Pallas: groovy. I had assumed you had been swallowed in-utero by your father, and then had to beat your way out of his head or something.
• Plegmund, thank you so much for the effort. I'll definitely have a look at them, and I will write to Andy Reed myself if I have to. But considering that he's the incumbent, there should be sufficient stuff online on him.
• Plegmund, the Labour candidate has a dairy? Tell him we'll exchange votes for cheese and/or yoghurt. Quid, the head thing was ugly.... Zeus kept taking Advil. I had to stay in there for weeks.
• Well, he shoulda known nothing good comes of eating children. Didn't work for Cronus, didn't work for Zeus, didn't work for Michael Jackson.
• Monkeyfilter: The Labour candidate has a dairy Sorry.
• SNP? But aren't they insane and irrationally prejudiced against the English, despite the fact that 1/2 of Scotland has been Anglo for 1500 years, just as long as the other 1/2 has been Gaelic? Frankly, any party with "Nationalist" in its name is just damn, damn creepy - I'm not Godwinning, I just really hate this idea that different ethnicities can't live together happily in one state. If you have a problem with how the state is being run, try to change the state, don't rip it apart on some spurious grounds that because your language/pigment/religion/favorite pcinic food isn't exactly the same as another part's.
• Graeme Smith said... The only thing I would suggest is that she looks at our rather lovely new website, which is all things Liberal Democrat in Loughborough. She can then contact me through the site for more info if she wants any ... http://www.loughboroughlibdems.org.uk I was secretly hoping for an explicit pledge on bananas, but there you go.
• The SNP aren't too bad, jb. They want independence for Scotland, which is a fair and honourable aim - it doesn't make them racist. I want to vote plaid cymru as they're the only socialists left, but they're too damn Welsh to bother having candidates anywhere else. Lazy bastards
• Election Maps - a new service from Ordnance Survey. Interactive, but a bit fiddly.
• Plegmund, you are amazing. The Election Map was a bit useful. I'm in the Storer Ward, not surprisingly. So many students stay in the Storer area that the university has liaison officers just for us and regular email notifications (trash collection, crime waves and stuff). Looks like LibDems have my vote. The Conservatives are a little scary and I don't think I'm keen on Labour again, especially since Reed seems moderately in favour of the Iraq war (toeing the party line, I guess).
• Who Should You Vote For? looks helpful, possibly.
• Make your own tory poster.
• ...interesting...
• What's the word on the ground in Britannia? Is Blair toast in Sedgefield? Help a poor news-starved yank out, will ya?
• "Look, he's reading the Queen! . .. that's an 'in' joke you know" /Hard_days_night
• People are saying that Reg Keys is picking up unexpected momentum in Sedgefield, but I think that belief is really engendered by the desire for something interesting to start happening. Having the Prime Minister as your own local MP is such an attractive prospect, people never throw them out, let alone in such a solid constituency. jb was asking about the immigration/asylum policies of the parties in another thread - there's a handy guide here.
• Go, Monster Raving Loony Party! Heard of them since the early 80s, and was quite tickled that the UK system allows such a party.
• Canada used to have the Rhinoceros Party.
• (less impressive costumes)
• What county is Blair's riding in?
• Tony Blair's constituency, Sedgefield, is in County Durham. In England, only Yorkshire is divided into ridings, and they are of purely historical significance. I hope that makes sense.
• Sorry - I was using riding in the Canadian sense, which is exactly the same thing as a constituency. Constituency always sounds like the fancy word for "riding" to me.