The Theresa May General Election thread (edited)

Fretwired

TheBigDipper said:

Fretwired said:

Diane Abbott pranked ...

Ms Abbott was caught out by an email prankster who sent her a message purporting to be from Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s director of communications. She apparently said in a response: “Do you still want to add colour to the illness story? If so maybe we should speak.” In reply to a second email from “@Sinon_Reborn”, she said: “I am not sure what colour I can add . . . I am worried about telling untruths about my health which are easily disproved”.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4578646/Diane-Abbott-fooled-Seumas-Milne-email-prankster.html?ITO=1490

Just to play devils advocate here. I've no love for Ms Abbott, but I'm disturbed by this...

Assume she really is ill for a second. Her reply to email one could merely be a sick person refusing to go along with a PR embellishment and wanting a conversation about it instead. Her second reply is possibly saying "I won't lie about the details of my illness, and it would be easy to get found out even if I agreed to it". 

What people will will remember from this is that she isn't ill and is lying. That could be true, but the selective bits of these emails don't prove anything. 

Another new low...

Er .. that's right .. she was pranked .. not sure anyone's called her a liar, although it does suggest that's she is probably tired and worn out rather than seriously ill as she doesn't want to go along with any embellishment of her condition. She's done a lot of campaigning.

Paul Mason did worse to May on TV when he said was she was ill and not fit to be PM.

Budgie

Thanks Fret.... there's a few blue strongholds here indeed. My constituency has been Tory since 1950 (previously West Derbyshire)  so no hope of any change here but it's still important to go and vote.

ICBM

stickyfiddle said:

The german system is very good. IIRC you get 2 votes; one for your local MP, and another for the national level (ie the party/person you want to be in charge). Each winning local gets a seat based on the total of #1 votes in each constituency, then extra parliamentary seats are added from a "reserve MP list" until the ratio matches the makeup of #2 votes, and the winning party at the national level gets to have its leader in power.

This is a slightly better version of the Additional Member system used for the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, with a proportionality element.

Interestingly the German system was devised by the British after WWII, exactly to prevent an elected minority government taking unrestrained power… I wonder why . But although this system was thought to be the best, for some reason the logical step of applying it in the UK was not followed.

Fretwired

fields5069 said:

Newport West please.

Moss

Oxford West and Abingdon if you don't mind @Fretwired

Fretwired

LoFi said:

Could you do Winchester please? Used to be LD, heavily Con last couple of times, but all of the likely Lab voters I've spoken to have said they're voting tactically for LD.

Fretwired

Emp_Fab said:

@Fretwired ...before you end up being asked to do the entire country! - could I ask you to do Gower please - it is the most marginal constituency in the country (as well as mine!).  We've been Labour for 90% of the past century with a couple of Liberal MPs waaay back, but only went Tory by 27 votes for first time ever in the last general election.  Ta.

Fretwired

Moss said:

Oxford West and Abingdon if you don't mind @Fretwired

fields5069

Fretwired said:

fields5069 said:

Newport West please.

Hurrah! I caught Paul Flynn ripping in to Trump on US TV, it was magnificent. I can't believe the guy is 82.

Moss

Fretwired said:

Moss said:

Oxford West and Abingdon if you don't mind @Fretwired

Well, that's rather depressing

fields5069

Oooh, Gower really is marginal.

Ro_S

My election result prediction:   Tory majority of approx 75 seats.  

Sporky

Could you go Wellingborough Castle and Pingsbury Harbour please?

chillidoggy

What about Margate? Why hasn't anyone mentioned Margate?

Emp_Fab

Today's SUN....



Fuck me, what a shit rag it is.   I would be saying that if they had made May a target in a similar disgraceful manner.  Talk about trying to influence the vote by telling numb nuts retards how to vote.

TheBigDipper

Fretwired said:

TheBigDipper said:

Fretwired said:

Diane Abbott pranked ...

Ms Abbott was caught out by an email prankster who sent her a message purporting to be from Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s director of communications. She apparently said in a response: “Do you still want to add colour to the illness story? If so maybe we should speak.” In reply to a second email from “@Sinon_Reborn”, she said: “I am not sure what colour I can add . . . I am worried about telling untruths about my health which are easily disproved”.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4578646/Diane-Abbott-fooled-Seumas-Milne-email-prankster.html?ITO=1490

Just to play devils advocate here. I've no love for Ms Abbott, but I'm disturbed by this...

Assume she really is ill for a second. Her reply to email one could merely be a sick person refusing to go along with a PR embellishment and wanting a conversation about it instead. Her second reply is possibly saying "I won't lie about the details of my illness, and it would be easy to get found out even if I agreed to it". 

What people will will remember from this is that she isn't ill and is lying. That could be true, but the selective bits of these emails don't prove anything. 

Another new low...

Er .. that's right .. she was pranked .. not sure anyone's called her a liar, although it does suggest that's she is probably tired and worn out rather than seriously ill as she doesn't want to go along with any embellishment of her condition. She's done a lot of campaigning.

Paul Mason did worse to May on TV when he said was she was ill and not fit to be PM.

I'm not saying she'd been called a liar, and certainly not by you, but already - on other places I frequent - there are people who've only seen the headlines from the paper, maybe done some speed reading of the key phrases without thinking it through and drawn that conclusion for themselves. Which is why the paper ran the story, I expect. 

TheBigDipper

Fretwired said:

<big snip>


Paul Mason did worse to May on TV when he said was she was ill and not fit to be PM.

I'm not going to defend him. 

I've never believed that a bad action by one side means the other side can reciprocate and say "look at what they did, so this is OK". Playground logic, to me, that should stay there. 

LoFi

Many thanks, Fret (though rather blows my "Lab voters voting tactically" experience out of the water...)

chillidoggy

Emp_Fab said:

Today's SUN....



Fuck me, what a shit rag it is.   I would be saying that if they had made May a target in a similar disgraceful manner.  Talk about trying to influence the vote by telling numb nuts retards how to vote.

Yeah, but you have to admit "We are not afraid" is a nice touch.

Heartfeltdawn

It's funny how this stuff goes. The Sun being all anti-Muslim and protective of Israel. I presume that's the same Israel that had a former terrorist leader as Prime Minister who did attack British targets back in the day. Different scenario, I know, but the whole terrorist versus freedom fighter cliche comes to mind. 

http://efp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Thatcher-Begin.jpg