UK Politics: Electioneering

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

45 minutes ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

Thank you for putting my point across far better than I could 

And again, if the situation warrants the use of firearms, "shoot to capture/wound" is dangerous to the people who are not attacking others.  Firearms should only be used when you need to kill to make people safe. That is what firearms are designed to do.

[Maltaran]

Diane Abbott going on indefinite sick leave is making it more likely that I will vote Labour 

[Dolorous Gabe]

44 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

And again, if the situation warrants the use of firearms, "shoot to capture/wound" is dangerous to the people who are not attacking others.  Firearms should only be used when you need to kill to make people safe. That is what firearms are designed to do.

And this is still a different debate to that which I was concerned with. It is still a falsehood to claim that Corbyn opposes the use of firearms in dealing with a terrorist threat based on his comments about being "not happy with a shoot-to-kill policy in general".

As I said before, I don't necessarily disagree with your point. I don't have much of an opinion on it. Nevertheless, Corbyn has said he is willing to approve whatever force is necessary in a given situation and I'm happy to go with that. It'll pretty clearly be up to officers to assess the situation and proceed as they see fit. Attacking him on this subject seems pointless.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

And this is still a different debate to that which I was concerned with. It is still a falsehood to claim that Corbyn opposes the use of firearms in dealing with a terrorist threat based on his comments about being "not happy with a shoot-to-kill policy in general".

As I said before, I don't necessarily disagree with your point. I don't have much of an opinion on it. Nevertheless, Corbyn has said he is willing to approve whatever force is necessary in a given situation and I'm happy to go with that. It'll pretty clearly be up to officers to assess the situation and proceed as they see fit. Attacking him on this subject seems pointless.

Then it sounds like Corbyn doesn't understand how to deploy firearms.

[Which Tyler]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Then it sounds like Corbyn doesn't understand how to deploy firearms.

That or there's a difference between being unhappy about something, and refusing to allow/authorise it.

[BigFatCoward]

The Daily Mirror can fuck right off, the whole of the right wing press has incredibly inflammatory language on their front pages.  The Mirror has sold theirs to advertise some fucking TV programme, its not like the Labour party need a fucking hand or anything with their coverage.  

[SeanF]

IMHO, the final result will be something like:-

Con 345,

Lab 225,

SNP 45,

Lib Dem 8,

Others 27

[The BlackBear]

Got a peculiar leaflet from the Tories, no wait sorry they're calling themselves the Scottish _conservative and UNIONIST! Party right now, with the claim 'only a vote for Ruth Davidson's Candidate (like she's some kind of pet) Stephanie Smith can stop the SNP here. With a dubious graph claiming SNP will get 44% Con 33% and Labour 13%. Labour won with 39% of the vote last time the Tories with 17%, YouGov are predicting 43%, 29%, 23%, Lab, SNP, Con. The data is from a Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times Scotland on 23rd of April. And in case you were wondering if it's any less presidential up here, Ruth Davidson has 5 pictures the candidate 1.

[Hereward]

18 hours ago, Werthead said:

You have fewer police operating in the community, gaining local trust and forming relationships which can lead into a feed of intelligence. Rather than members of the marginalised community seeing police as the enemy and the other, who they only see when they stop-and-search them on the street because they look Muslim, they see them as everyday familiar faces and potential allies in an attempt to keep radicals out of their communities (recalling that far more Muslims have died at the hands of Islamic terrorism than any other group).

Robert Quick (assistant commissioner of CT at Scotland Yard 2008-09) and Andy Trotter (former chief constable of British Transport Police) have both cited the loss of community policing as a major blow that has increased the risks of terror attacks in Britain. The budget cuts to the police force have also directly impacted police Intelligence Units, which has resulted in centralised offices rather than there being intelligence units in each area.

With a second terrorist now revealed to have been firmly on British intelligence's radar for several years, rather than being an attacker completely out of the blue, this is no longer a single lone actor slipping through the nets but a clear pattern of failure. The question now is if this is due to a foundational problem - the number of UK-based jihadi sympathisers and potential terrorists has risen more dramatically than previously believed and outstripped the ability to counter them - or if there is a more serious shortfall in our intelligence-gathering capabilities which has taken place under Theresa May and Amber Rudd's watches as Home Secretary, and what those shortfalls are.

I concede your first point. The loss of police intelligence units at divisional level is a different matter. Police intelligence has little or nothing to do with CT. They look at patterns of crime, particularly organised crime. As far as CT is concerned, that function is performed by MI5.

16 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Well I guess if you ultimately want to be able to deploy the army to respond to terror incidents and possibly other forms of socially disruptive crime, the first step would be to weaken the police force.

So, you're seriously suggesting that the Tories are planning a coup. OKKKKK.

5 hours ago, Isis said:

Did you see that TV series recently (maybe in the Autumn) about people who wanted to be tested to become 'spies'? Super lols at all the ones saying that they applied because they wanted to do something (i.e. a career not a TV show*) they would be remembered for.

*not that they could really do the job after literally being seen on TV

Yes, I saw a bit. That's one of the major problems with recruitment. The vast majority of people who are desperate to do the job are unsuitable for that very reason. Never being able to tell anyone, even your own family, that you do the job is inconsistent with the mindset of those sort of people.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, The BlackBear said:

Got a peculiar leaflet from the Tories, no wait sorry they're calling themselves the Scottish _conservative and UNIONIST! Party right now, with the claim 'only a vote for Ruth Davidson's Candidate (like she's some kind of pet) Stephanie Smith can stop the SNP here. With a dubious graph claiming SNP will get 44% Con 33% and Labour 13%. Labour won with 39% of the vote last time the Tories with 17%, YouGov are predicting 43%, 29%, 23%, Lab, SNP, Con. The data is from a Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times Scotland on 23rd of April. And in case you were wondering if it's any less presidential up here, Ruth Davidson has 5 pictures the candidate 1.

This is a national leaflet that was sent out on a sort of find-and-replace basis with the local candidates' faces and names. The poll on the front is a national Scottish poll, presented with language as if it were a local poll - leading to absurdities such as the leaflet here implying that the Lib Dems would get 5% in North-East Fife (Ming Campbell's home turf). If you pay attention, and a lot of voters won't, the leaflet admits this is a national poll but the presentation is definitely 'only Ruth Davidson's candidate (X) can stop the SNP in this particular constituency, see? this poll proves it'.

And yeah, they're all 'Ruth Davidson's candidate', like she hand-selected them from her extensive list of pals. Not 'the Conservative candidate'. The Tories are convinced that Ruth is such an incredible vote-winner that they've limited mentions of their party to the small print at the back.

Policies? Well, we're against IndyRef 2. You want more detail? Er, here's another photo of Ruth.

It's pretty pathetic stuff, even as these things go. But it'll work.

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

And yeah, they're all 'Ruth Davidson's candidate', like she hand-selected them from her extensive list of pals. Not 'the Conservative candidate'. The Tories are convinced that Ruth is such an incredible vote-winner that they've limited mentions of their party to the small print at the back.

 

This isn't just a Scottish thing - my Lib Dem mate counted up certain phrases in the Birmingham leaflet and found it said Conservative 4 times, Theresa May 8 times, and Strong and Stable Government 11 times

[Slick Mongoose]

Predictions for tomorrow anyone?

I'll go for a 60 seat majority.

[Hereward]

I'll go with 45.

[Fragile Bird]

Between your election and televised US hearings I see I'll be spending a lot of time in front of the computer and watching tv over the next couple of days.

<runs off to buy popcorn>

[Slick Mongoose]

I should also make a prediction for my constituency, Bath, which is that the Conservative MP gets fewer votes than last time, but Labour split off a large enough chunk of the Lib Dem vote to keep him in.

[Sir Thursday]

I got polled today, that was exciting. Ipsos Mori gave me a ring. Enormous volume of demographic questions compared to the actual political questions asked, but I guess that makes sense given how much weighting they have to do to try and get these things right.

I've also been getting some campaign literature recently. I live in Emily Thornberry's constituency, and it looks like the Lib Dems are making a bit of a push - got a rather large leaflet highlighting Thornberry's stance on Brexit and how the Lib Dems would be more likely to keep freedom of movement. Makes sense given the constituency voted remain at 73%. Received fairly generic messaging from the Tories - a Vote for May flier and some info on the local Tory candidate (which didn't really provide much beyond "I live here, vote for me").

Thornberry has a majority of about 13000 from the last election after Lib Dem support collapsed (in 2010 it was only around 3500). Can't see her losing her seat but I suspect the majority might be down slightly this time around.

[The Marquis de Leech]

1 hour ago, Slick Mongoose said:

Predictions for tomorrow anyone?

I'll go for a 60 seat majority.

40 seat Tory majority.

If it's a Hung Parliament, I'll laugh my head off at May.

[Fez]

I don't know enough to make a prediction, but I've seen that you can get 1/10 odds that the Conservatives will have the most seats after the election. Not that they'll have a majority, just that they'll have the most seats.

That seems like incredibly easy money just sitting there.

Meanwhile, the odds of UKIP or the Greens having the most seats are only 1000/1. Its obviously throwing away your money no matter what, but that's an absurdly low payout for an almost literal impossibility.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Slick Mongoose said:

Predictions for tomorrow anyone?

I'll go for a 60 seat majority.

I think that's reasonably on the money. The big surprise factor is the youth vote, but I've not seen any major groundswell of opinion amongst young people that would excite them into voting in the numbers required.

It is clear there was a major swing towards Labour once the media became (somewhat) less biased and started focusing on policies, and on that point key, systemic weaknesses in the Tory programme were readily identified. Unfortunately, people don't get excited by the fine details so a lot of vital information (like the fact that the Tories had slightly buggered up their sums, leaving a significant gap in their costings compared to Labour) flew under the radar. There was also a lot of other major news stories going on, at home and abroad, that drowned out what could have been bigger news stories in the election race (Amber Rudd forcibly shutting up an opponent enquiring about her government's position on Saudi Arabia should really have gotten much more play and demanded more questions about this government's collusion with that state). The biggest surprise, I think, was that Brexit was much less prevalent as a topic than the Tories tried to make it at the start: in the event, they had to focus more on education, the NHS and policing and poor performances on all three fronts saw their lead halved.

The less-biased sections of the media also behaved appallingly. All this horseshit about the non-existent "garden tax" was a woeful attempt to drive attention away from the very-real dementia tax and the selling-off of NHS hospital facilities to private companies, and this was partially successful. The Daily Mail's behaviour throughout the election was both disgusting and blatant, with Dacre's deal with May for positive coverage in return for the dropping of Leveson (now that the public outrage about phone hacking is a few years gone) jaw-dropping in its brazen corruption. The Times achieved a better mix of being (somewhat) pro-Tory without going completely insane over it.

Strategically, the Tories may win a reasonable majority but they may also have stored up more trouble for 2022. In particular, the realisation that even a wounded Labour could have won if campaigning had gone on for a few more weeks and that Corbyn will likely now stay, with increased authority, unless their victory is overwhelming should give the Conservatives pause on how they approach the next five years.

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, SeanF said:

IMHO, the final result will be something like:-

Con 345,

Lab 225,

SNP 45,

Lib Dem 8,

Others 27

I'll go for Con 334, Labour 235, Lib Dem 12, SNP 49, Green 1, UKIP 0

It's difficult to know what to expect here in Cambridge (other than that it'll remain an island in a big sea of blue constituencies). I think at the start of the campaign the Lib Dems probably had high hopes of regaining the seat (I think it's the smallest majority they'd have to overturn) given how strongly Cambridge voted for Remain. However, Labour's apparent resurgence in the polls is making me suspect they might manage to hold on here.