The Theresa May General Election thread (edited)

Fretwired

ToneControl said:

the main thing Corbyn used to be praised for was his honesty
has he lost that claim?

Well he claims the people he met weren't the IRA which is hard to swallow. He should just say it's no longer relevant and move on. I get a sense that he somehow prefers being in opposition - that's what he's always done.

Sporky

rocktron said:

Ah!!!. . . .the Facebook generation who are easily influenced, who want to remain in the EU so that they can travel to European countries. Something they apparently haven't considered is that the rest of the world is not in the EU.

As opposed to the miserable old codgers who make laughable straw-man arguments?

Jalapeno

ICBM said:

ToneControl said:

the main thing Corbyn used to be praised for was his honesty

has he lost that claim?

Every time he refuses to answer a straight question he's at serious risk of it, yes.

For example, when Andrew Neil asked him whether he supported the renewal of Trident - which everyone knows he doesn't - he should simply have said something like "No, and you know I don't. But it's currently Labour Party policy, it was voted for by Parliament, and I accept that." By not answering directly he looked dishonest and like the typical politician he's trying to separate himself from being.

He still comes across as more honest and willing to answer questions than May does by a long way though.

He said "But it's currently Labour Party policy, it was voted for by Parliament, and I accept that.", he then went on to say that there would be a strategic defence review considering use of nuclear weapons - he clearly doesn't accept anything.

Jalapeno

Fretwired said:

Interesting trawl though Facebook ... pretty much wall-to-wall anti Tory and May abuse, with some dubious stats being thrown around. No mention of Corbyn. Same thing on BBC radio this weekend - pretty much anti-Tory rant, especially the comedy. I wonder how much this is influencing people?

Agree - but social media is self-selective, and breeds complacency - the same was true of Remain campaign and look what happened there.

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

Fretwired said:

Interesting trawl though Facebook ... pretty much wall-to-wall anti Tory and May abuse, with some dubious stats being thrown around. No mention of Corbyn. Same thing on BBC radio this weekend - pretty much anti-Tory rant, especially the comedy. I wonder how much this is influencing people?

Agree - but social media is self-selective, and breeds complacency - the same was true of Remain campaign and look what happened there.

Totally agree - I also think the left is better organised. The Tories core support are older people who probably use FB to connect with family if at all. They are hardly going to be campaigning.

ICBM

Jalapeno said:

He said "But it's currently Labour Party policy, it was voted for by Parliament, and I accept that.", he then went on to say that there would be a strategic defence review considering use of nuclear weapons - he clearly doesn't accept anything.

Which I also think is correct, since a new Parliament with new MPs has a mandate to review any decisions of its predecessor. But he should have admitted that he personally doesn't support it - there can't be anyone with an interest in politics who doesn't know that, and it certainly wouldn't have made him look any less honest than avoiding the question did.

Why should he accept anything? He wants to be elected to change things, not to keep them the same. That's the whole point of having an election.

Fretwired

Myranda said:

Arg! 

The UK isn't full. 
Of those 23000 large numbers were probably born her. 
Huge numbers of jobs are done by migrants. 

Angry shouty bullshit isn't truth. 

The BBC are not "traitors",  attacks on the press are for Donald Trump, Mussolini and Hitler... Don't be like them... The press is made up of people and people have opinions.


Elections and politics really bring out the twat in otherwise normal people. 

The UK isn't, but I'd argue parts of England are - the amount of green belt land that's gone where I live is sad. We have to build another 65,000 homes so all the green space between towns will be gone. Just a mass of concrete.

Persons per square KM

Netherlands 497
England 410
Germany 229
Italy 202
Denmark 130
France 121

Source: Eurostat ONS 2012

Myranda

Fretwired said:

Myranda said:

Arg! 

The UK isn't full. 
Of those 23000 large numbers were probably born her. 
Huge numbers of jobs are done by migrants. 

Angry shouty bullshit isn't truth. 

The BBC are not "traitors",  attacks on the press are for Donald Trump, Mussolini and Hitler... Don't be like them... The press is made up of people and people have opinions.


Elections and politics really bring out the twat in otherwise normal people. 

The UK isn't, but I'd argue parts of England are - the amount of green belt land that's gone where I live is sad. We have to build another 65,000 homes so all the green space between towns will be gone. Just a mass of concrete.

Persons per square KM

Netherlands 497
England 410
Germany 229
Italy 202
Denmark 130
France 121

Source: Eurostat ONS 2012

Part of the reason for such huge numbers of houses being needed is down to lack of investment in many areas though... 

And given how many nurse and doctors in the NHS are migrants I think we should be very wary about scaring off migrant workers

Fretwired

Myranda said:

Part of the reason for such huge numbers of houses being needed is down to lack of investment in many areas though... 

And given how many nurse and doctors in the NHS are migrants I think we should be very wary about scaring off migrant workers

I have an ethical problem with 'stealing' medical people from other countries, especially the third world. The problem in the UK is the government refuses to fund training. Thousands of people are turned down every year (with the right entry level qualifications) for medical training due to stupid budget limits. There's a cap of 6,000 students a year who can train to be doctors.

Drew_TNBD

octatonic said:

Fretwired said:

Scales of the terror threat .. from the Times

Huge scale of terror threat revealed: UK home to 23,000 jihadists

Intelligence officers have identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living in Britain as potential terrorist attackers, it emerged yesterday.

The scale of the challenge facing the police and security services was disclosed by Whitehall sources after criticism that multiple opportunities to stop the Manchester bomber had been missed.

About 3,000 people from the total group are judged to pose a threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations being run by police and intelligence services. The 20,000 others have featured in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing a “residual risk”.

The two terrorists who have struck in Britain this year — Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, and Khalid Masood, the Westminster killer — were in the pool of “former subjects of interest” and no longer subject to any surveillance.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, told The Times that the existence of a database of thousands of potential attackers was a stark illustration of the magnitude of the threat. “This reveals the scale of the challenge from terrorism in the 21st century,” he said. “Never has it been more important to invest in intelligence-led policing.”

MI5’s capacity to investigate is limited to about 3,000 individuals at any one time. People are added to and removed from the group of “live” suspects depending on assessments of who poses the greatest risk. When an investigation is closed, the people identified drop into a growing group whose risk is seen as reduced.

Sources say that the pool of “former subjects of interest” has swollen to 20,000 during the years of Islamist threat since 2001.

There is concern that the intelligence agencies have been poor at detecting former subjects of interest who return to extremism.

Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said that the figures were “disturbing but not surprising”. He added: “For many of these people, the jihadist ideology never leaves them — it is very deeply ingrained.”

Anthony Glees, head of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said: “To have 23,000 potential killers in our midst is horrifying. We should double the size of MI5, as we did in World War Two, and expand the number of intelligence-led police by thousands. We can’t go on as if this wasn’t happening.” Last night Ariana Grande, the American singer whose concert was targeted by Abedi, said she planned to return to Manchester to stage a benefit concert for the victims. Liam Gallagher will donate profits from his first solo gig next week to victims.

That's so ridiculously dumb and reductionist. I'm surprised at you Jim. 

Heartfeltdawn

rocktron said:

Ah!!!. . . .the Facebook generation who are easily influenced, who want to remain in the EU so that they can travel to European countries. Something they apparently haven't considered is that the rest of the world is not in the EU.

Sigh. 

octatonic

Drew_TNBD said:

octatonic said:

Fretwired said:

Scales of the terror threat .. from the Times

Huge scale of terror threat revealed: UK home to 23,000 jihadists

Intelligence officers have identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living in Britain as potential terrorist attackers, it emerged yesterday.

The scale of the challenge facing the police and security services was disclosed by Whitehall sources after criticism that multiple opportunities to stop the Manchester bomber had been missed.

About 3,000 people from the total group are judged to pose a threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations being run by police and intelligence services. The 20,000 others have featured in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing a “residual risk”.

The two terrorists who have struck in Britain this year — Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, and Khalid Masood, the Westminster killer — were in the pool of “former subjects of interest” and no longer subject to any surveillance.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, told The Times that the existence of a database of thousands of potential attackers was a stark illustration of the magnitude of the threat. “This reveals the scale of the challenge from terrorism in the 21st century,” he said. “Never has it been more important to invest in intelligence-led policing.”

MI5’s capacity to investigate is limited to about 3,000 individuals at any one time. People are added to and removed from the group of “live” suspects depending on assessments of who poses the greatest risk. When an investigation is closed, the people identified drop into a growing group whose risk is seen as reduced.

Sources say that the pool of “former subjects of interest” has swollen to 20,000 during the years of Islamist threat since 2001.

There is concern that the intelligence agencies have been poor at detecting former subjects of interest who return to extremism.

Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said that the figures were “disturbing but not surprising”. He added: “For many of these people, the jihadist ideology never leaves them — it is very deeply ingrained.”

Anthony Glees, head of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said: “To have 23,000 potential killers in our midst is horrifying. We should double the size of MI5, as we did in World War Two, and expand the number of intelligence-led police by thousands. We can’t go on as if this wasn’t happening.” Last night Ariana Grande, the American singer whose concert was targeted by Abedi, said she planned to return to Manchester to stage a benefit concert for the victims. Liam Gallagher will donate profits from his first solo gig next week to victims.

That's so ridiculously dumb and reductionist. I'm surprised at you Jim. 

I'm pleased I can still surprise you.

ICBM

It's interesting to look at the 'poll tracker' on the BBC. If the current trend is extrapolated to June 8th, the percentages will cross over and Corbyn will win with about the same poll lead over May as is currently the other way round.

Obviously it's nowhere near as simple as that, but it does really show how the wheels are coming off the Tory bus. If it happened I think it's fair to say it would be the biggest upset in British election history, and Corbyn the most unexpected PM.

We're in a different world now, and almost anything is possible. Ask Hillary Clinton...

Fretwired

ICBM said:

It's interesting to look at the 'poll tracker' on the BBC. If the current trend is extrapolated to June 8th, the percentages will cross over and Corbyn will win with about the same poll lead over May as is currently the other way round.

Obviously it's nowhere near as simple as that, but it does really show how the wheels are coming off the Tory bus. If it happened I think it's fair to say it would be the biggest upset in British election history, and Corbyn the most unexpected PM.

We're in a different world now, and almost anything is possible. Ask Hillary Clinton...

I think it's going to be hard for May to recover. Women have deserted her in their droves .. she took people for granted and thought it would be easy. She's forgotten that the Tories are still toxic in parts of Britain. Her only hope is to get back onto Brexit to win back lost UKIP votes.

Corbyn needs to keep Abbott off the TV.

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

ICBM said:

It's interesting to look at the 'poll tracker' on the BBC. If the current trend is extrapolated to June 8th, the percentages will cross over and Corbyn will win with about the same poll lead over May as is currently the other way round.

Obviously it's nowhere near as simple as that, but it does really show how the wheels are coming off the Tory bus. If it happened I think it's fair to say it would be the biggest upset in British election history, and Corbyn the most unexpected PM.

We're in a different world now, and almost anything is possible. Ask Hillary Clinton...

I think it's going to be hard for May to recover. Women have deserted her in their droves .. she took people for granted and thought it would be easy. She's forgotten that the Tories are still toxic in parts of Britain. Her only hope is to get back onto Brexit to win back lost UKIP votes.

Corbyn needs to keep Abbott off the TV.

Which is what the Conservative have done. Check their Twitter page. 

https://twitter.com/Conservatives?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

Just about every single tweet issued today is about Brexit. 

The only one to not mention Brexit is about business taxation and says that Corbyn will hike rates on small businesses. I imagine a few small businesses would tell her to fuck off about making claims of that nature given the business rate changes some faced last month. 

Heartfeltdawn

Fretwired said:

Corbyn needs to keep Abbott off the TV.

And perhaps Crosby needs to keep May off the TV. And will. 

Fretwired

Heartfeltdawn said:

Fretwired said:

Corbyn needs to keep Abbott off the TV.

And perhaps Crosby needs to keep May off the TV. And will. 

She'll lose if she becomes anonymous. She should come clean and be honest and say she's made some mistakes, but she listens. Corbyn for all his faults is seen as an honest man.

I think U-turns will become more common in the social media age - the public has an opportunity to let politicians know what they think that wasn't around in Thatcher's day.

ToneControl

ICBM said:

It's interesting to look at the 'poll tracker' on the BBC. If the current trend is extrapolated to June 8th, the percentages will cross over and Corbyn will win with about the same poll lead over May as is currently the other way round.

Obviously it's nowhere near as simple as that, but it does really show how the wheels are coming off the Tory bus. If it happened I think it's fair to say it would be the biggest upset in British election history, and Corbyn the most unexpected PM.

We're in a different world now, and almost anything is possible. Ask Hillary Clinton...

you can't extrapolate like that

the latest polls on the BBC have a conservative lead of:
26th May = 12%, 14%, 7%
25th May = 5%, 10%, 6%

in 2015 they led by 1%
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/poll-tracker

I'd be very surprised if the tories don't win by a large majority

Fretwired

ToneControl said:

ICBM said:

It's interesting to look at the 'poll tracker' on the BBC. If the current trend is extrapolated to June 8th, the percentages will cross over and Corbyn will win with about the same poll lead over May as is currently the other way round.

Obviously it's nowhere near as simple as that, but it does really show how the wheels are coming off the Tory bus. If it happened I think it's fair to say it would be the biggest upset in British election history, and Corbyn the most unexpected PM.

We're in a different world now, and almost anything is possible. Ask Hillary Clinton...

you can't extrapolate like that

the latest polls on the BBC have a conservative lead of:
26th May = 12%, 14%, 7%
25th May = 5%, 10%, 6%

in 2015 they led by 1%
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/poll-tracker

I'd be very surprised if the tories don't win by a large majority

The pollsters say they are better at forecasting these days .. we'll see in a week and a bit.

holnrew

I think it's possible for there to be a few closet Labour voters, the reverse of 2015, and I wouldn't discount the young vote. They seem a lot more motivated, in Corbyn there's a politician that finally speaks for them. I don't think it's enough for Labour to win, but it's possible for there to be a reduced Tory majority.