2015 UK General Election

[FreeTony]

The Green Party sticks to their founding principles. Only thing I really disagree with is their stance on power generated by Nuclear Fission because newer reactors are so much more efficient and safer.

That seems to be a bit problem with Green Peace as well. They support some worthy causes, yet also some where the science doesn't support their viewpoint e.g. GM food.

Not that other parties are any more scientifically literate.

[Pyrrho]

...

Sadly some new versions of research such as stem cell and growing live (but not sentient) tissue to experiment on have been blocked in America at least because they are "unethical". What they really mean is "ungodly and icky" as they are actually completely ethical, and would replace a dubious-at-best testing on animals system. ....

You Brits are amateurs when it comes to batshit crazy.  We in America are NUMBER ONE!!!!


And remember, we have a lot of nuclear weapons, too, and are the ONLY country to ever have used them in war.  Sweet dreams!

[downbeatplumb]

You're right, I was being over simplistic. My apologies.

I would like to talk to some UKIP supporters and see if they are aware of some of the insane shit they are trying to pull. I can't believe it wasn't brought up at the debate.

As David Mitchell puts it UKIP is the party for nasty people.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...-nice-ukip

One of the problems facing the nasty is that they don't agree about anything – which is probably why Ukip has proved so ungovernable. Some are rich and believe they should pay no tax, others fiddle their benefits. Some hate foreigners, some hate black people, some hate white people, some hate gay people, some hate women, some hate men. They're all out there, bickering about what's horrible, motivated to exercise the franchise, but no politicians want to know. Just last week, Tory Treasury minister Nicky Morgan said: "If we talk about what we hate all the time, we're not talking about what we like." But that's not true: what if what we like is hatred? There's a significant bile-spouting section of the community – just look online.

I almost admired our political class for ignoring those with reprehensible views until I asked myself "Who will those who agree with what David Silvester says about gay people vote for now?" and I realised the answer is almost certainly Ukip. Even though Ukip has disassociated itself from that opinion, the very fact that it had to do so suggests it's a party that homophobes are drawn to.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

The thing is, we have to face some uncomfortable truths in the UK.

We have a 'political class' (I'm against sorry to use such inaccurate terminology but allow me this for now) that is divorced from large swathes of us in society. We don't have anything in common with SPADS and they don't have anything in common with us. Say whatever you will about Farage, but his appeal is that of the 'everyman'; the man on the street saying what most others are (or think they are) saying about things like Europe and immigration.

People like David Mitchell can label them, accurately or otherwise, as a party of haters (or nasty people), but it doesn't detract from the fact that, in my opinion, that UKIP get a third of the votes in this election. You can't 'ignore' views, reprehensible or not. You can't brush under the carpet large percentages of society who, again, rightly or wrongly, feel they have no voice and have been ignored for a long time again on topics like the EU and immigration.

People are divorced from national politics here, and I don't need to post the dreadfully low voting percentages over successive elections to evidence that. People don't know anything about, for example, the economy, the defecit, the funding of the NHS. They think they do but they don't, and UKIP speaks to those people. 'Saying it how it is'. Whether it's actually like 'that' is actually irrelevant. You can post all the stats in the world that show, overall, the net effect of migration to the UK is a positive thing economically. But people don't care about that. They care about seeing their streets changed irrevocably by the influx of migrant labour, and the pent up frustration that they are not socially mobile enough to be able to move out of these (poor) areas in places where their peers are moving (in the past this was called white flight, now it's social mobility and variants therein).

In short, people care more about their own perceptions of the political, economic and social landscape than the reality, and this is where I think the mainstream parties will increasingly fall down. They can't speak on those terms because they either don't know how or won't. This again evidences why the SNP are doing well in Scotland.

Hey, did you know that under the SNP, the number of students from poorer backgrounds going to University has actually gone down, whilst under the new £9k/year tuition fee regime, the number of poorer students in England & Wales going to university has actually gone up?

http://blogs.ft.com/off-message/2015/05/...-students/
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/fe...07.article

The SNP paints themselves as progressive, but are actually doing worse than the Tories in some areas of the Scottish economy when it comes to enabling social mobility. Facts don't matter to people, perceptions of those facts do. IT doesn't matter if Farage is a loon and not an 'everyman', the perception of him is such that people will still flock to UKIP. If people want to confront this issue, they need to stop dismissing him and his party and actually start engaging them. Nobody is willing to do that, so we will see what happens next week.

If you want to talk to UKIP voters about why they will vote UKIP, I suspect their answers will be almost as varied as the people themselves, but ultimately they will revolve around the points I've made above. Disenfranchisement, ignorance of the political and social landscape of the UK, fear (warranted or not) of the net influx of migrants and the disassembling of certain social institutions under the strain (NHS as an example).

[Regina]

I don't live in the UK anymore and don't plan to again in my life

I wouldn't vote UKIP but otherwise that's exactly my sentiment right now. I'm leaving at the first opportunity I get, although it still probably won't be for a while yet.

[FatAndFaithless]

I'm woefully ignorant on UK politics, but is there a British equivalent of the Tea Party in the UK? Hyper-libertarian, very religious, nearly-anarchist nutty people?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'm woefully ignorant on UK politics, but is there a British equivalent of the Tea Party in the UK?  Hyper-libertarian, very religious, nearly-anarchist nutty people?

Oh definitely:

http://www.omrlp.com/

Just before everyone dismisses them, worth remembering that the cornerstone of some of the big party manifestos have been stolen from the MRLP. eg. Passports for animals, 24hr licensing.

I love the MRLP. Every single member who stands pays out £500 (you need 5% to recoup your deposit), and to date I don't think any of them have (checked WIKI, they haven't). That's dedication for you.

[Saxmoof]

Does anyone take Miliband at his word when he says he won't go into government with the SNP? I believe him, i don't think he would explicitly promise he wouldn't if he intended to go back on it, people wouldn't let him live it down. It can't be a last ditch attempt to convince Scottish voters to vote Labour because if the opinion polls are to be believed they'd need to win about 20-30 seats in Scotland to be able to form a coalition without the SNP which he can't possibly believe will happen

So if neither of the main parties will do a deal with the SNP then unless the opinion polls are drastically wrong it's impossible for either of them to be able to form a government and it's hard to see how that will ever be the case even after a second election unless the voting system changes or Scotland stops voting SNP which won't happen until they get independence

Are we gonna be like Belgium after this election where we just don't have a government for a while until the first past the post system is changed?

I stopped paying attention to Question Time last night after Miliband said that, the campaign rhetoric and promises are all pointless if no-one can actually get elected

[robvalue]

I'm not too up on that particular topic, but I don't trust milliband in general. Especially after this recent attempt to attack free speech with his complete misunderstanding of "islamophobia". I actually find him less believable and trustworthy than Cameron and that's saying something.

I can see this election being the closest yet and I wouldn't rule anything out.

To be honest I don't understand how English parties teaming up with Scottish ones actually works or what it means.

[Regina]

I'm not too up on that particular topic, but I don't trust milliband in general. Especially after this recent attempt to attack free speech with his complete misunderstanding of "islamophobia". I actually find him less believable and trustworthy than Cameron and that's saying something.

Ooh I didn't hear about this, but it doesn't surprise me. It's very Labour-ite

I trust him more than Cameron, but only marginally, and definitely more than I ever trusted Gordon Brown. Cameron and Brown are snakes.