Friday 8th May 2015

TheGrimSqueaker · Post by **TheGrimSqueaker** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:52 am

tinyclanger2 wrote:The left are well-meaning but not always very smart. A cross-party strategy to ensure we collectively kicked the Tories out would have given us a good chance to use our collective resources most efficiently to win the starting point we needed to then negotiate on other stuff. Instead what we have will put us back decades. But the answer is not to blame each other for it and divide ourselves further. It is to learn very very quickly from these mistakes, recognise the real enemy and start fighting it off. Let's call ourselves, for example, allies.

How many times have I said that the Left fuck it up by fighting among themselves, both here and Over There? For my pains I've been called an apologist, a tribalist and a Red Tory. I get no satisfaction from knowing I was right all along.

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:53 am

Ed Miliband and Harry Leslie Smith. Thank you both for your valiant efforts. I'm only sorry that we, the electorate, did not give you the outcome you deserved.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:53 am

I can't believe this.
What the hell happened?

frightful_oik · Post by **frightful_oik** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:53 am

RobertSnozers wrote:So if Ed does go.

Do I want to be one of those people who doesn't support the main opposition to the Tories because its leader doesn't entirely fit my politics?

It feels like bloody groundhog day.

Quite. I'm not a member but I gave them donations. We can NOT give up. They've lost the 'all Labour's fault' meme now. They will blame Labour councils for cuts. I wonder what the LibDems will do now.

gilsey · Post by **gilsey** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:54 am

The sun is shining so I will wish you all good morning.

I feel as if I'm living in a parallel universe since 10pm when I saw the exit poll. The turkeys have voted for Christmas.

Where has my country gone? How can we bear it?

I may not read all your posts today but you will be in my thoughts.

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:55 am

frightful_oik wrote:
RobertSnozers wrote:So if Ed does go.

Do I want to be one of those people who doesn't support the main opposition to the Tories because its leader doesn't entirely fit my politics?

It feels like bloody groundhog day.
Quite. I'm not a member but I gave them donations. We can NOT give up. They've lost the 'all Labour's fault' meme now. They will blame Labour councils for cuts. I wonder what the LibDems will do now.

Die I suspect, I can't see any way back for them.

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:57 am

graun blog wrote:The German news magazine Der Spiegel has called David Cameron’s win “bad news for Europe”, reports Louise Osborne in Berlin.

Tonibel · Post by **Tonibel** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:57 am

Thank you Swarthlander. I thoroughly agree with your points and look forward to seeing how Osborne sorts out the new financial crash which I think is inevitable.
I can still remember very well the morning after the 1979 GE and how desolate I felt (I remember sitting in the corner of the roofless cowshed we were converting into a kitchen and bursting into tears). Feel even worse today. Then we suspected what the Tories might do to the country, now we know.
Also I have got 36 fewer years to hope for any change for the better. My main response this morning is to say (present company excepted) serve you selfish stupid bastards right and I hope you get everything that's coming to you.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:57 am

RobertSnozers wrote:So if Ed does go.

Do I want to be one of those people who doesn't support the main opposition to the Tories because its leader doesn't entirely fit my politics?

It feels like bloody groundhog day.

But if Labour returns to Blairism as a result of this, a lot of people *will* leave - thus entrenching Tory dominance for even longer.

I don't think this will happen, mind, for the simple reason that there is almost no desire within the party for it. And our disdain for the MSM is now so intense that their backing would be a hindrance for any candidate, rather than help. That's how I see it anyway......

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:58 am

Hey, why did no-one tell me that Esther McVey lost?

Stunningly good result for labour.

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:59 am

RobertSnozers wrote:
AnatolyKasparov wrote:
RobertSnozers wrote:So if Ed does go.

Do I want to be one of those people who doesn't support the main opposition to the Tories because its leader doesn't entirely fit my politics?

It feels like bloody groundhog day.
But if Labour returns to Blairism as a result of this, a lot of people *will* leave - thus entrenching Tory dominance for even longer.

I don't think this will happen, mind, for the simple reason that there is almost no desire within the party for it. And our disdain for the MSM is now so intense that their backing would be a hindrance for any candidate, rather than help. That's now I see it anyway......
I'm going to have to rejoin so I can have some influence

yep.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:59 am

I went to sleep last night & I come out to what I can't believe.
How in the world could the Tories gained seats?

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Fri 08 May, 2015 9:59 am

tinyclanger2 wrote:The left are well-meaning but not always very smart. A cross-party strategy to ensure we collectively kicked the Tories out would have given us a good chance to use our collective resources most efficiently to win the starting point we needed to then negotiate on other stuff. Instead what we have will put us back decades. But the answer is not to blame each other for it and divide ourselves further. It is to learn very very quickly from these mistakes, recognise the real enemy and start fighting it off. Let's call ourselves, for example, allies.

Absolutely!

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:02 am

I can't believe this.
I just read some article in the Guardian about How the Polls got it wrong & it doesn't god damn explain any such thing - it just warbles on about Scotland.
Can someone tell me who the hell voted for Tories 316 seats?

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:03 am

Well, looks like a lot of us here were wrong. Britain is not better than this, after all.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:03 am

Ed Miliband resigning according to the Guardian.
Could someone please fill me in on what the hell is going on?

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:04 am

NonOxCol wrote:Do what you like with the psephology, I just think Britain is full of selfish c***s. I suspected it was true for most of the last five years, now I know.

Not all of us NonOxCol

but yes, plenty enough.

I guess it's what 3 decades of lies, corruption and neoliberlism has done to the country. I think I knew my country was lost when, 11 years ago and heavily pregnant, I went to Tesco to do some shopping (could only just fit my bump behind the steering wheel

). I went to the trolley bay to get a trolley. A man's two young children roughly pushed me etc to get to the trolly's before me. Once upon a time a parent would reprimand their kids for that. The burly man (I'm only 5' 3") verbally abused me and threatened me, flicking me the V sign, while his two young daughters giggled. I know it's only ancedotal (spelling, sorry PF), but it's a little sign of how things were changing. I don't want to descend to hyperbole, but I think our country was lost long ago.

Another little story, about people being ignorant and uninformed. A colleague has a child who will need the NHS for life. I tried telling her what was happening to the NHS under the Tories, and what would happen to it if they got in again. She looked at me as if I was mad. To her the NHS has always existed and always will. There's no comprehension of what life was like before 1945 without it. So, anyway she's smiling and shaking her head at me and totally not taking me seriously at all. She acted as though she was just indulging my whimsy. She then went back to chatting about the new hot-tub they were getting for their garden. I know I'm safe revealing this, as she'll never read this, being totally uninterested in politics or what's happening to the country. Yet her child will need medical care for life.

I despair, I really do.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:04 am

PorFavor wrote:Well, looks like a lot of us here were wrong. Britain is not better than this, after all.

I'm stunned. I can't believe this. I don't believe it.

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:05 am

And Sarah Champion got back into Rotherham with an 8% increased share.

The BNP in one of their only seats got...225 votes. And that was their leader too.

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:06 am

PorFavor wrote:Well, looks like a lot of us here were wrong. Britain is not better than this, after all.

I fear you are right (and have vented on the topic earlier this morning over the privacy of my own kettle); but I hope that we can prove ourselves wrong next time round.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:07 am

The UK wants Dave Cameron as Prime Minister & his Tory friends on the front bench?
Is this it?
After that horrible campaign?

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:09 am

yahyah wrote:I haven't yet ventured to the Guardian.

What are the 'real lefty' brigade saying about the outcome ?
By that I mean the ones who won't sully themselves to vote for Labour because of Iraq, call them Red Tory etc.

Excuse me, but I don't give a flying f*ck! As I'm sure you'll agree.

They'll be congratulating themselves on voting the correct way, and saying it's all Labour's fault for being red-tory (even though Labour actually offered an alternative this time).

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:09 am

I've been trying to catch up on some kip, but I've been crying instead.

Ed is a decent man, and he may choose to resign, but the party should refuse to accept his resignation.
Whether he decides to fall on his sword or they make him go, it would be wrong.
For me, he represents the nearest thing in Labour's upper echelons to a proper socialist.
Without him at the helm, I have no business being a member of the party.

I feel that the public, the people who have chosen to ignore what the coalition has done, are to blame.
5 years ago, they delivered a hung Parliament because they didn't trust any party to govern alone.
Back then they had no idea what the new crop of Tories were capable of.
Cameron finagled his way into power and now the public DO know what to expect.

That's what has upset me so much - they are either so stupid that they believe the crap Cameron spouts and the things they are fed by the mainstream media, or they are so selfish that they choose to ignore the dreadful things that have been done in their name.

Life is about to get a lot worse for the sick, disabled, unemployed, working poor; it will be harder still for the homeless, abused, accused, prisoners; there will be a nasty vicious mendacious administration that will take every penny and every right from the vulnerable.

When there is no more to take from the poorest, they will come for the next - we will pay for help to buy, for stoking up the housing bubble, for business to get work done for free, for private companies to profit from our NHS, our schools, our court and prisons.

There will be more austerity and the people will believe that it's necessary and sit and watch while more kids go hungry and more people get socially cleansed from the better areas; there will be more deaths and suicides and there will be no asylum for the abused or the sick.

At some point people will wake up - when their elderly are badly cared for because nothing has been done to help them, when their homes are repossessed because the interest on their loans goes up, when their jobs go and are replaced by workfare, when they can't get justice because they cannot afford to pay, when their kids can't go to uni because the fees are beyond reach, when there is no NHS to sort out the cock-ups of the private providers who will inevitably botch routine surgery - and by then it will be too late because all the services they have taken for granted for so long will not be there any more, and they will be paying more for worse and be left wondering how it happened to them.

Are they all asleep? Or are they thick? Maybe they are just utterly selfish. Whatever, they are responsible for what happens next.
And the people who will pay for that first will be people who have no hope as it is; and they, those voters, will be responsible.

I am so angry it's coming out almost like grief. I am losing my country to forces that are intent on dividing us for their own enrichment, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Sorry,

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:09 am

Sorry Citizen, it is indeed very bad news. Many of the new UKIP votes came from Labour. We did not do well in the marginals. Balls lost to a load of UKIP (and Green) votes. The Tories have taken many of the LibDem marginals. The SNP did the rest.

The nation is - on its current showing - at best stupid and at worst selfish (as NOC struggled with earlier). Things will get harder over the next five years, and this time we (the mixed bag of not-Tories) need to genuinely behave like grown ups and just work in the first instance to get the ****ers out.

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:10 am

tinyclanger2 wrote:I was in the US once. Sacramento. Quite a lot of begging. I gave some change to one guy and the American I was with said he never did that because it would just get spent on booze and half of them were just doing it as a scam. My feeling was that a) my employer doesn't tell me what I can spend my income on and that b) I would rather get scammed by someone who didn't need it than not help someone who did.

I think this is a key area of stuck thinking that we need to somehow change.

Consider yourself thanked again TC.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:10 am

tinyclanger2 wrote:Ed Miliband and Harry Leslie Smith. Thank you both for your valiant efforts. I'm only sorry that we, the electorate, did not give you the outcome you deserved.

I ventured on twitter earlier to tweet that I was proud to have voted for Labour, Ed Miliband and Todd Foreman. And I mean it. They had a vision and policies I was happy to support, which is more than I can say of Blair, who I voted for Labour in spite of, not because of.

A one-term recovery after 13 years and a recession was always going to be difficult and with the media out to get Ed for a full five years he did pretty well to keep the Tories guessing right to the end. If the Scottish hadn't bought Murdoch's vote SNP crap, Cameron would have been toast and Labour would have laid some foundations to build on, but it would have been tricky.

The hardest bit for me is the 80s throwback deja vu. I grew up under Thatcher in true blue territory in the south west. It was great to see patches turn orange in 1992 and spreading. Libdem was definitely better than Tory. And now that's been wiped out in a single night. I won't know until the local elections later on if I still live on a little red island oasis in the middle of all that blue, but I blummin' well hope so or I may have to move to Wales!

mbc1955 · Post by **mbc1955** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:11 am

Just at the moment, I can't help giving in to total despair. Last night I watched the country I've lived in for almost sixty years turn into an alien land. This morning I've woken up to realise that I myself am the alien. And it's bloody dark.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:12 am

@ephemerid

I agree. We should keep Ed Miliband and build up from there. The landscape has changed. Ed Balls no longer has to be humoured and indulged.

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:12 am

ephemerid wrote:I've been trying to catch up on some kip, but I've been crying instead.

Ed is a decent man, and he may choose to resign, but the party should refuse to accept his resignation.
Whether he decides to fall on his sword or they make him go, it would be wrong.
For me, he represents the nearest thing in Labour's upper echelons to a proper socialist.
Without him at the helm, I have no business being a member of the party.

I feel that the public, the people who have chosen to ignore what the coalition has done, are to blame.
5 years ago, they delivered a hung Parliament because they didn't trust any party to govern alone.
Back then they had no idea what the new crop of Tories were capable of.
Cameron finagled his way into power and now the public DO know what to expect.

That's what has upset me so much - they are either so stupid that they believe the crap Cameron spouts and the things they are fed by the mainstream media, or they are so selfish that they choose to ignore the dreadful things that have been done in their name.

Life is about to get a lot worse for the sick, disabled, unemployed, working poor; it will be harder still for the homeless, abused, accused, prisoners; there will be a nasty vicious mendacious administration that will take every penny and every right from the vulnerable.

When there is no more to take from the poorest, they will come for the next - we will pay for help to buy, for stoking up the housing bubble, for business to get work done for free, for private companies to profit from our NHS, our schools, our court and prisons.

There will be more austerity and the people will believe that it's necessary and sit and watch while more kids go hungry and more people get socially cleansed from the better areas; there will be more deaths and suicides and there will be no asylum for the abused or the sick.

At some point people will wake up - when their elderly are badly cared for because nothing has been done to help them, when their homes are repossessed because the interest on their loans goes up, when their jobs go and are replaced by workfare, when they can't get justice because they cannot afford to pay, when their kids can't go to uni because the fees are beyond reach, when there is no NHS to sort out the cock-ups of the private providers who will inevitably botch routine surgery - and by then it will be too late because all the services they have taken for granted for so long will not be there any more, and they will be paying more for worse and be left wondering how it happened to them.

Are they all asleep? Or are they thick? Maybe they are just utterly selfish. Whatever, they are responsible for what happens next.
And the people who will pay for that first will be people who have no hope as it is; and they, those voters, will be responsible.

I am so angry it's coming out almost like grief. I am losing my country to forces that are intent on dividing us for their own enrichment, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Sorry,

Know exactly how you feel. Am especially sorry after all your hard work. You deserve better.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:12 am

And where were all these Milifandoms? There were even less youngsters coming in to vote yesterday, than last year for the Euro elections.

Sorry. But they only have themselves to blame. And I shall get really angry the next time I see or hear a youngster moaning about the old being a drain on society. They had a really good chance to make a difference and they didn't bother, at least they didn't here.

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:13 am

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:
yahyah wrote:
PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Morning!

Not that good

@pk1 yes bad news from Colne Valley - but not all bad

Jane increased Labour's vote by several thousand to nearly 20,000 - which was more than enough to be elected in 2001 and 2005 for Labour.

Unfortunately the Tory increased his vote by a similar amount.

The Lib Dems on the other hand slumped from around 17,000 to around 4,000.

It feels to me that one of the stories of the night is that the Lib Dems did too badly! I always thought they would hold on to their orange book true Liberal types, but clearly not.

Enough. I haven't cried yet and it can't be far off...
Shoulders and tissues are here Paul.

I know we nearly fell out about the Nats, but I'm sorry, it seemed step too far to like them when they are clearly out to destroy Labour and stick two fingers up to those who need help in the rest of the nation.
We didn't fall out though did we and we won't.

Solidarity! We need to stick together.

Consider yourself thanked too, Paul.

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:14 am

tinyclanger2 wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng- ... ts-in-full

The map says it all

OMG! Wished I'd not looked at that now.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:15 am

There was no better party campaign than Labour's - no finer people & policy. There was nothing that could have been done better. This is about the worst news I've ever heard. I'm not okay. I'm crying & I'd like to know what the hell happened.

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:16 am

citizenJA wrote:Ed Miliband resigning according to the Guardian.
Could someone please fill me in on what the hell is going on?

No. We don't know whether or not Ed is offering his resignation. We don't know what the hell is going on. All we know is that we didn't win enough seats to keep the Conservatives out. Turnout was nowhere near as high as expected. Too many people voted Conservative. Not enough people voted Labour. Lots of people voted UKIP, putting them in second place in quite a few constituencies. SNP is a moot point because, even if Labour had won all the Scottish seats, it still wouldn't be enough to outpoll (clearly) the Conservatives who are on track for a working majority. The LibDems are almost wiped out. And Danczuck thinks we should welcome a leadership election.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:16 am

ohsocynical wrote:And where were all these Milifandoms? There were even less youngsters coming in to vote yesterday, than last year for the Euro elections.

Sorry. But they only have themselves to blame. And I shall get really angry the next time I see or hear a youngster moaning about the old being a drain on society. They had a really good chance to make a difference and they didn't bother, at least they didn't here.

Ohso, what happened? What the hell happened?

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:18 am

TechnicalEphemera wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:I am very upset about Balls.
Me slightly less so. I am largely unconvinced that he was a force for good in the Labour Party. The problem is that is one more Tory seat.

Yeah, I can't really get upset about him. Like TE said, unfortunately it means another Tory gain.

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:18 am

daydreamer wrote:
tinyclanger2 wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng- ... ts-in-full

The map says it all
OMG! Wished I'd not looked at that now.

North-South; rural-urban (more so). How do we use this nightmare to organise better and get real change. Beyond the vile influence of the MSM.

(and thank you for your earlier thanks).

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:19 am

By 2020 you will have to be 63 years old to have voted for a Labour leader who won, who wasn't Tony Blair.

We need to win. Criticising the electorate or the press is pointless.

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:20 am

LadyCentauria wrote:Balls is making me cry by being such a gentleman, praising the new Conservative MP for fighting such a decent campaign but expressing concern for the future of the Union and of the EU

I do, however, applaud him for his dignity in defeat.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:20 am

ephemerid wrote:I've been trying to catch up on some kip, but I've been crying instead.

Ed is a decent man, and he may choose to resign, but the party should refuse to accept his resignation.
Whether he decides to fall on his sword or they make him go, it would be wrong.
For me, he represents the nearest thing in Labour's upper echelons to a proper socialist.
Without him at the helm, I have no business being a member of the party.

I feel that the public, the people who have chosen to ignore what the coalition has done, are to blame.
5 years ago, they delivered a hung Parliament because they didn't trust any party to govern alone.
Back then they had no idea what the new crop of Tories were capable of.
Cameron finagled his way into power and now the public DO know what to expect.

That's what has upset me so much - they are either so stupid that they believe the crap Cameron spouts and the things they are fed by the mainstream media, or they are so selfish that they choose to ignore the dreadful things that have been done in their name.

Life is about to get a lot worse for the sick, disabled, unemployed, working poor; it will be harder still for the homeless, abused, accused, prisoners; there will be a nasty vicious mendacious administration that will take every penny and every right from the vulnerable.

When there is no more to take from the poorest, they will come for the next - we will pay for help to buy, for stoking up the housing bubble, for business to get work done for free, for private companies to profit from our NHS, our schools, our court and prisons.

There will be more austerity and the people will believe that it's necessary and sit and watch while more kids go hungry and more people get socially cleansed from the better areas; there will be more deaths and suicides and there will be no asylum for the abused or the sick.

At some point people will wake up - when their elderly are badly cared for because nothing has been done to help them, when their homes are repossessed because the interest on their loans goes up, when their jobs go and are replaced by workfare, when they can't get justice because they cannot afford to pay, when their kids can't go to uni because the fees are beyond reach, when there is no NHS to sort out the cock-ups of the private providers who will inevitably botch routine surgery - and by then it will be too late because all the services they have taken for granted for so long will not be there any more, and they will be paying more for worse and be left wondering how it happened to them.

Are they all asleep? Or are they thick? Maybe they are just utterly selfish. Whatever, they are responsible for what happens next.
And the people who will pay for that first will be people who have no hope as it is; and they, those voters, will be responsible.

I am so angry it's coming out almost like grief. I am losing my country to forces that are intent on dividing us for their own enrichment, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

Sorry,

My friend, my dearest friend, I agree with you. I'm staggered. I'm shocked like I've never been shocked before.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:21 am

LadyCentauria wrote:
citizenJA wrote:Ed Miliband resigning according to the Guardian.
Could someone please fill me in on what the hell is going on?
No. We don't know whether or not Ed is offering his resignation. We don't know what the hell is going on. All we know is that we didn't win enough seats to keep the Conservatives out. Turnout was nowhere near as high as expected. Too many people voted Conservative. Not enough people voted Labour. Lots of people voted UKIP, putting them in second place in quite a few constituencies. SNP is a moot point because, even if Labour had won all the Scottish seats, it still wouldn't be enough to outpoll (clearly) the Conservatives who are on track for a working majority. The LibDems are almost wiped out. And Danczuck thinks we should welcome a leadership election.

But its not just about Scotland in that narrow sense - the Scot-bashing by the Tories swayed many voters in *England*.

Part of me almost wishes that they had voted "yes" last year and could show those down here still bovinely in thrall to the MSM there is, after all, a better way. Then I remember that the SNP would be in charge and they would only make a pigs ear of it anyway

tinyclanger2 · Post by **tinyclanger2** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:22 am

RobertSnozers wrote:A friend just posted this on Facebook

Dispiriting and depressing as today's result is democracy is not just something that happens every 5 years by ticking a box. If you're not happy with the result you don't have to wait 5 years for another go.

There are civic bodies up and down the country that need bright, rational, thoughtful, innovative people to join them - it might be city/town/parish councils, it might be school governing bodies, maybe local charities and civic organisations - go and get involved, make a difference. You don't need to join a party if you don't want to (I don't) but you will need to assert yourself in the face of apathy and inertia if you want to truly do something worthwhile.

Too many of our civic bodies are dominated by inertia, entitlement, cliques, and ideologues. We need more people without that fear of change, that complacent entitlement, or zealotry in our politics. If people saw people like themselves in their politicians we'd have a lot more trust and understanding and a lot less disconnection and dissatisfaction. That means that more of us need to be politicians.

Indeed. This is what we need.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:23 am

RobertSnozers wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:By 2020 you will have to be 63 years old to have voted for a Labour leader who won, who wasn't Tony Blair.

We need to win. Criticising the electorate or the press is pointless.
As is selling our souls.

Well said.

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:23 am

Labour need to stay strong. I realise there's scope for a lot of navel gazing but there needs to be pressure applied to the Conservatives on any and every vote.

1992 was followed by a period of Tory self-destruction. The in out referendum is the power keg to make this possible once again.

On another note, what becomes of the traditional south West Lib Dem voters?

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:23 am

yahyah wrote:Am too upset now, going off for a bath and to freshen up.

But if anyone here is closer to the Labour HQ than they let on...please tell Ed there's a woman in Wales who thanks him from the bottom of her heart.

He's shown courage, and remarkable resilience.
He was the sort of man this country needs.

I'm utterly beside myself.

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:23 am

tinyclanger2 wrote: Beyond the vile influence of the MSM.

Leveson - who's he?

Won't change the media now - all going in their direction so they won't change a thing. It;'s actually worse now that the Indy seems to have veered right with their dodgy Russian.

A Russian, an Australian/American, an owner living in France, two owners living in a tax haven, and a global leader in privatizing eduction for our media owners.

How utterly fucked up is that?

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:24 am

citizenJA wrote:
ohsocynical wrote:And where were all these Milifandoms? There were even less youngsters coming in to vote yesterday, than last year for the Euro elections.

Sorry. But they only have themselves to blame. And I shall get really angry the next time I see or hear a youngster moaning about the old being a drain on society. They had a really good chance to make a difference and they didn't bother, at least they didn't here.
Ohso, what happened? What the hell happened?

I don't know. I really don't know. I suspect we've slipped too far back as a nation to recover. The rot started with Maggie and it's been downhill pretty much ever since. We levelled out a bit with Blair, and if it hadn't been for that bloody war who knows. But it happened and it's overshadowed any good Labour did during those years.

Ed put feet on the ground. He gave millions of people a connection with politics. He was truthful. He was decent.

I just don't know.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:25 am

RogerOThornhill wrote:
tinyclanger2 wrote: Beyond the vile influence of the MSM.

Leveson - who's he?

Won't change the media now - all going in their direction so they won't change a thing. It;'s actually worse now that the Indy seems to have veered right with their dodgy Russian.

A Russian, an Australian/American, an owner living in France, two owners living in a tax haven, and a global leader in privatizing eduction for our media owners.

How utterly fucked up is that?

What - on a scale of 0 - 11?

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:26 am

Have the Tories stolen this election? Have they cheated?

daydreamer · Post by **daydreamer** » Fri 08 May, 2015 10:27 am

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Blaming the Greens is pointless, tbh.

Their (almost entirely anti-Labour) positioning pre-election was idiotic and opportunistic, but that will hopefully change with a grown up (Lucas) back in charge.

(as will surely happen)

Really AK, Wasn't Lucas also one of the 'Labour promise 30billion worth of cuts,' liars?

Apologies, if I stand corrected.