2015 UK General Election campaign & aftermath discussion thread.

This is the first one I haven't stayed up for.

a key question is not what can Labour do to win a majority in England, but what can the Tories do to lose it?

So, will ukip give up now? They have not exactly surged..

this might be the most satisfying possible outcome. let the people have what they want, let them have it in fucking shovelfuls, let's have another 10 years of untrammeled English Conservatism.

To lose it? Fail to deliver their promises or, conversely, deliver a booming economy and the electorate go "Ok, where's my share?'

I want some Lib Dems, party of progressive politics, to explain why so many of their voters have decided to vote Tory, handing them seat after seat. Can we assume that Lib Dem supporters have liked what they've seen of the Tories in coalition? Has the Lib Dem campaign been, to borrow a phrase from earlier, 'too left wing'? Have they always been Tories in disguise (yes).

Jessie Rae!!! Standing in Berwickshire!!! Someone mentioned him in ILM the other week.

People vote on the economy. It should never be a surprise but always is. There are millions of people on what would be considered an ok wage who have gone through at least one redundancy process since the crash and worry about job security or who can pay for a mortgage at 3% but would struggle at 4%, etc. Any change to the status quo is scary, particularly when the Labour case for making it is so limply presented. There will be another downturn at some point, there will be inflation and there will be unemployment and when that happens the Tories will feel it. Until it happens, I think they will probably rule.

Though I think a lot depends on internal Tory politics. If they start pandering to the 1922 Committee, they could end up in trouble sooner.

what could Labour have done differently?

cos in their own narrative this was a bold, radical manifesto.

bbc not letting us hear caroline lucas' acceptance speech, cutting to a george osborne interview

cunts

xp

seems like most of you guys have been banging on about wanting labour to be be much further 'left' than it is currently. can't see any evidence that this would garner them more votes in england

so what should they do?

I was wondering that myself and I genuinely don't know whether the gains they would have made from building a properly aggressive platform on housing, employment rights, etc, would have offset any losses. They had five years to build a case for the Tory "economic miracle" being illusory and the cuts being ideological and pretty much failed, though.

stay centre right and hope the tories move further right? or is that what happened this time and people like further right

I can't believe this. Are there any silver linings? Probably will leave the EU with this electorate, BBC and NHS not looking good either.

Why can't people vote for more than self interest or even supposed self interest?

Are there any silver linings?

Nope.

The only good thing about the EU situation is that radical change there would massively upset the picture of stability and it doesn't look like people are willing to make even the mildest gambles on the economy then it comes to the crunch. That and the fact the Tories could go back to biting lumps chunks out of each other when it does become an issue.

NHS will probably be ok. BBC license fee risky though.

Lumps chunks? Idk

The one thing Labour could've done from 2010 onwards is dispel the lie that the economic crash was caused by spending on public services etc.

After the Referendum, nobody dreamed that Cameron would come back to the result with 'OH HAI, English votes for English laws' instead of saying 'hey, thanks for sticking with the Union, Scotland!' and that's probably the thing that sealed the fates of both Labour and the SNP. Divide and rule, peasants - Tories do this better than anything, including actually running a country.

The BBC are currently suffering with an almighty case of Stockholm syndrome: why prop up arseholes who are actively working to destroy you?

How totally depressing

I genuinely thought that Labour would be able to form a centre left coalition

bleak doesn't even come near - closest thing to what I feel:

this might be the most satisfying possible outcome. let the people have what they want, let them have it in fucking shovelfuls, let's have another 10 years of untrammeled English Conservatism.

― vote yay! for constitutional monarchy (Noodle Vague), Friday, 8 May 2015 06:12 (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and yes, tory party as party as economic stability had rep to shake (idiotically they were borderline economically illiterate in the coalition). But I really do think the most hysterical, panicked and widespread right wing media campaign I can remember had a huge part to play.

I went to bed after my supposedly marginal SW London seat was held by the Tories by an even greater margin than last time. Torn between despairing that the toxic right-wing narrative (and the press was even more hysterical than usual, seemed to combine right-wing desperation with clickbait desperation) actually WORKED on this terrible island, and the usual failure of Labour to provide even the hint of a SNP-style anti-austerity platform. Not sure it's comforting that both are probably to blame. Obviously it's less mourning a Labour loss and more being appalled that after the past five years and that campaign that people went out and voted for more of it.

Turns out there is indeed room amidst despair for schadenfreude though, hahahaha @ the Lib Dems

ha, xp

The BBC are currently suffering with an almighty case of Stockholm syndrome: why prop up arseholes who are actively working to destroy you?

prob cos the people working there are tories

i'm honestly just sickened by this. what the fuck is wrong with people?

Has Ashdown eaten his hat yet? Another Lib Dem lie.

People mostly like untrammeled english conservatism though surely, and have done for decades, unless it massively and clearly screws up the economy in which case they reconsider.

cold light of day apparently comes with a nuclear winter setting

It was my wife's birthday last night and I made the decision to ignore everything before and after the exit poll and I was entirely vindicated in that decision.

There is a gigantic bunfight coming down the line over Europe, I think Cameron might struggle to control his party with or without a majority.

Balls out - by about 300 votes!

edless & castrated

Most Tories wouldn't see Cameron as bringing untrammelled conservatism. The one positive is that they might shut up about shifting to right for a bit.

It really won't.

Kinda expecting Rupert Murdoch to just expire now, like Bert Cooper watching the moon landing.

Possibly not but a key part of their message was that he is a liberal wet blanket who can't win elections. He has capital now. Xp

What, as in 'my work here is done'? Xpost

i'm honestly just sickened by this. what the fuck is wrong with people?

I really hate electorate blaming... I'm pretty sure that people do want an alternative to the Tories and are ready to vote for it - if only they can believe in it. Ed M and co. couldn't and didn't pull together a convincing vision of that alternative.

voting for tories does not equal wanting an alternative. i don't believe that at all.

You have to blame Labour really, their strategy and policies were all wrong from the start. Their problem is that they are losing seats for all sorts of different reasons, a simple shift either to the left or right won't solve their problems.

Still astonished they looked at Jim Murphy and went 'yep, that's the guy for us' though.

More people might have bothered to vote if there was a reason to vote, i.e a credible anti-austerity party that had the momentum of a hopeful and inspiring campaign behind them. This is what's happened in Scotland - engagement and turnout is higher because there's more chance that the vote might actually count for something. We might have rejected independence but we're not accepting the current set-up, and I think if voters outside of Scotland felt there was a genuine choice of values then this run-up might have felt more exciting and the results more optimistic.

hard to say that labour going more anti-austerity wouldn't have lost them as much as it gained.

is what's happened in Scotland unprecedented for a separatist movement? decades of working towards a referendum...and defeat in it resulting in such overwhelming support for the movement

xp think you underestimate just how many people in england are in favour of austerity

Labour completely failed to articulate the argument AGAINST austerity though

It was my wife's birthday last night

Matt DC married, how come no-one told me?

"wouldn't change a thing about Osborne's budget" - they pandered to austerity as much as they could

No coherence or confidence from Labour this election. Really hoping for a clearing away of the dead wood now. New leader, new purpose, new Labour oh wait

oh god the next leader will be chuka umunna won't it

Anti-austerity Labour would be spun as "would spend too much, can't be trusted with the economy", pro-austerity, well we now know what we get there. There isn't really a quick fix here and I don't think the Labour Party have even begun to comprehend the scale of the problem here.