JJ

The reason I brought up the referendum up here was just the similarity in the swing towards the massive change, due to the inadequacy of the status quo campaign. It's not like I'm saying it has anything to do with it. Just the similarities in the way the campaign went is not only obvious, but something we predicted. People vote on personalities all the time. To me it's the biggest reason Labour under add Miliband got such a spanking last year. It's not right, but our electorate is largely daft. And referendums aren't so much the problem. It's the deliberate attempts from both prominent politicians aswell as the media to keep the public as uninformed as possible on such a big decision. The risk with your suggestion (as much as I mostly agree with it) is that people will then hijack an election and try to turn it into a de facto referendum. Hell, the hardcore Independence folk up here do that. "Both votes SNP it's the only way to get our independence" in the recent Holyrood election, when the SNP don't even have it in their manifesto. It's idiotic. The same will happen with UKIP if there's a Remain vote.

As I said, as a bit of a Euroskeptic naturally, I was pretty much waiting for a reasonable plan of what will happen post Brexit, and then see if I could jump on board. There is no plan. There is very little chance of me having any enthusiasm to vote to stay in the European Union as it is currently constructed, under the idea that "we can only reform it from within" when it is so resistant to change. That's kind of my opinion. This referendum really isn't for me as neither argument fills me with any enthusiasm and the resulting quality of the debate has been so poor in terms of misinformation and scapegoating that it has just made me so pissed off. Both campaigns have sought to keep the electorate as ill informed as possible. That's my biggest frustration. As I said, I probably walk in on Thursday and vote for the least bad option. Aren't you all sick of doing that?

PS David Cameron claims Brexit could cause World War III. So he put a referendum in his manifesto and then carried through with it safe in the "knowledge" that it could cause, in his mind anyway, global conflict. All to satisfy a few rebellious back benchers. What a fuckwit.

I'll name and shame myself as an undecided on the poll. Mainly because while I think Leave is fucking daft, it doesn't mean that I have any enthusiasm whatsoever for voting for this uninspiring, timid, pathetic campaign. I'm sure in the event of a potential Leave vote folk will come out and blame people like me for not turning out and voting for the status quo. Much like how Labour blame the electorate when they bring out xenophobic mugs and have stupid stones carved and then wonder why people can't be arsed to support them anymore. A Leave vote will be more to do with the stupidity of the campaign. I think the Remain campaign has taken a leaf out of Better Together up here. Unable to make the positive case for the European Union, they settle for telling people all the stuff they can't do with a Brexit. The trouble is, the Better Together campaign is seen as a success only because No won our referendum. But they managed to turn a 40-45 point lead at that start of the campaign into a 10 point win. A shambles. They didn't have that margin for error at all in this campaign however. I hate how Farage, Boris et al are painted as Euroskeptics. It's more a semantic argument, but they've made up their mind. I'd class myself as a Euroskeptic more accurately. Always been a little uncomfortable with the European project and how resistant it is to positive reform. I could easily have voted Leave in this referendum, and probably would have but for two reasons. Firstly, there's absolutely no plan for what happens from June 24th onwards. Literally none. And second, the Leave campaign has been an exercise in narrow minded, right wing xenophobic nationalism worse than anything I ever saw up here in 2014. When Leave are losing arguments, they resort to telling people to believe in Britain. Talking about unelected bureaucrats in Brussels while ignoring Britain has the second largest unelected chamber on Earth. Talking about "there's a reason it's called GREAT Britain." Mostly jingoistic bullshit. So yeah, I'll probably walk into the polling station and hold my nose, vote Remain and hate Thursday. Or I might just draw a very detailed and graphic cock and balls on the ballot paper. Fuck knows. Fuck both campaigns. But fuck Leave and it's xenophobic, myopic, mendacious campaign so much more.

As someone who has campaigned against TTIP for the past two years, don't think for a second that the Tories don't want it. We went to Holyrood and allowed every MSP to sign a pledge board to exempt the NHS from TTIP last year. SNP, Labour and Greens were no problem. Tories and Lib Dems wouldn't. Lib Dems said nothing. Tories told us we were all idiots for thinking the NHS was under threat from TTIP. We spent 2 years in my area badgering David Mundell about it, who amazingly still speaks to me despite giving him loads of grief. We were all over the media one day in 2014 talking about it in Scotland, and Mundell felt the need to appear on everything telling us (and me as I was on the TV being awesome ) we were all confused idiots. Telling us he had a letter from Jean-Luc Demarty of the European commission telling them it was no threat to TTIP. A letter we then badgered and badgered them to see. Which we never saw. Then we wrote to Demarty for a response, who never got back to us. It's not like the Tories didn't know you could use a veto on an area either. America used it to veto their own financial services, and the French used it for media before then getting even more suspicious and threatening not to sign it at all as they are now. Other groups around Britain badgered Cameron, Jeremy Hunt, and basically anyone in the cabinet to pledge to an exemption from TTIP for the NHS. It's only in the last few weeks that Cameron, frightened of losing an EU referendum as well as a backbench rebellion in his own party on TTIP, has actually shown signs of finally admitting what they have been denying for the last few years to be true. Of course, if the UK wants to become part of the EEA after a Brexit, then it would by default have no say on TTIP, apart from making exemptions. Thus being in the exact same position we'd be in if we voted Remain, or indeed, if this referendum wasn't happening at all.

:lol: Relegation was almost worth it for this thread.

The thing they don't get is it's the outcome that Charnley et al absolutely deserve. He can say whatever the hell he wants about the fans, but I don't think there's a single fan out there who thinks we've been unlucky, and that's on the useless twats in charge.

And I don't blame anyone at all for that. Like I say, I paid for the library. Plus for the first time last night, the live feed collapsed for a lot of people just before the Breese-Nakamura fight. It was down for a good 10 minutes. It went down during the tale of the tape, and didn't come back till there was about 2 minutes left in the 2nd round. Like I say I've never had that problem before, but a bad sign when it couldn't handle the most traffic it's had, and they're trying to make it even bigger.

They're pushing so hard to really get people to buy UFC Fight Pass. Bisping vs Silva was easily the biggest fight they've ever had live on Fight Pass. I've had it for a while, but mostly for the video library. Card was mostly dull last night. Mousasi vs Leites would have been the worst co-main event in a long time if it hadn't been for Kimbo Slice vs Dada 5000 a couple of weeks ago. Main event redeemed the show. It was fucking fantastic.

http://ukgeneralelection2020.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-66-labour-mps-who-voted-for.html Can't dress it up. Fucking disappointed by that.

The Krankies are starring alongside the Hoff in panto in Glasgow this Christmas. Peter Pan. Fucking hilarious.

Abolish the House of Lords. Replace it with a fully elected (and smaller) second chamber. There really isn't a need for over 800 people in the House of Lords. It's antiquated, far too large, and a slap in the face of democracy. The American Senate is essentially their House of Lords. It has 100. And it's elected. Imagine the Yanks doing democracy better than us! I'm pleased they're putting the buffers on the Tories tax credit plans, but it is a colossal waste of money.

It's quite amazing that the Tories still have the reputation of being the party of fiscal responsibility. I know a compliant media is half the battle (if not all) but it's getting ridiculous.

Thought Corbyn did fine. Made Cameron try something different from his usual sneering tactics. It's not like he's going to do the same thing every week (I personally think it's a gimmick he'll dip into maybe once every few months). If he goes in and gives a weak performance in his first week the media will crucify him (like they are doing anyway regardless) whereas if he went out and played a blinder today there would be criticism when he can't do it every Wednesday. Eased his way in today. Asked Cameron some tough questions. Didn't get any real direct answers, so in that sense not much has changed.

The whole "David Milliband would have won in 2015" narrative will be repeated in 2020 if the Tories win again with "Andy Burnham would have won in 2020." It's self fulfilling prophecies of stuff that can't be proved wrong. Would David have been a better option? Perhaps. But Labour have just come off their second general election in a row where they got less votes than the Tories did in 1997 when they were completely demolished. It's not like he'd have made all the difference.] At least we might get a coherent message with Corbyn in charge. Ed Miliband tried so hard to appeal to everyone with such mixed messages he ended up appealing to no-one. Even with Labour's pathetic number of votes for the size of the party, how many of those voted Labour as "the only way to keep the Tories out?" Sure, Corbyn's Labour Party may turn off voters like Renton. And I'm by no means calling Renton a Tory here, but I've said before, Labour's strategy over the past 5 years has been to ignore the 10 million or more voters who are so uninspired they won't bother voting to concentrate on a couple of hundred thousand voters in marginal seats who may vote Labour or may vote Tory. It's been an abject failure. Now as someone living in Scotland I don't personally think Labour will begin to make massive inroads in Scotland with Corbyn in charge, mainly because the left wing voters have jumped on the independence bandwagon, and won't be tempted back by a party who remains in direct opposition to that. But there is a disillusioned left in England who has been voting Green, voting UKIP or most likely, not voting at all. Just because most of the Parlimentary Labour Party in recent years haven't come across as good social democrats, doesn't mean the majority of their voters aren't exactly that. Look at the people who were throwing their toys out the pram at this result. Rachel Reeves, Tristram Hunt, Chris Reeves and others. The majority who were part of the problem and had no chance of being part of the solution. At least I learned who Jamie Reed is today I guess. We will have a real opposition for the next few years. I hope the days of Labour traipsing through the halls to support toxic Tory policies are now over. If you don't think Corbyn can be Prime Minister in 2020 that's fine. But don't pretend Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper or Liz Kendall had any chance either. Labour could continue sleep walking into complete irrelevance, using buzz phrases like "we need to listen to the electorate" and other empty meaningless phrases. They could continue to bleat about Tory austerity while supporting it themselves. They could continue to make noises about tory immigration policies while producing "controls on immigration" mugs. Or they could try something different that may reasonate with the electorate. The next few years will be very interesting. Thank Christ the Westminster consensus has a chance to be broken up. I welcome the change.

59.5% of the vote in the first round. Piece of piss.

Hard to do. Let's hope so.

Happy birthday Alex. This thread took a great turn.

Let's take this bit by bit. Labour's biggest problem is that they haven't talked enough about 2008. They're too busy running away from it and allowing the Tories to set the narrative. Every Labour budget from 1997 till the crash was backed by the Tories, and you know as well as I do that the exact same financial catastrophe would have happened regardless of who was in charge. Labour need to be bold and honest about what happened. Nationalising railways is supported by at least 70% of the country when polled. Even Tory voters show and (albeit small) majority in favour of renationalisation. Very similar numbers when it comes to energy companies. Can you not see how stupid it is that for instance the Dutch public sector can run the railways in Scotland, but our public sector can't? We're the only country in the EU that doesn't own our own national grid. We're that obsessed with privatisation. You say raising income tax thresholds like it's across the board. The idea is to only raise the top rate back to 50p. You can't pretend that's not popular. Scrapping tuition fees is quite popular. It's extremely hard to do, but there is absolutely no reason for the £9,000 fees with the possibility of raising to £11,500. While I agree with Corbyn on Trident and NATO, I can grant that he's not on the popular side of the debate on that one. As I've said a million times, Labour can either chase the over 10 million disenfranchised people who don't bother to turn out for an election and elect Corbyn, or they can continue their failed plan of trying to appeal to a couple of hundred thousand voters in marginal seats in middle England and continue to be Tory-lite, begging the question "why vote for the fake Tories when I can vote for the real thing?" You argue that they risk falling into complete irrelevance if they elect Corbyn. I argue that by electing one of the other three talking heads they ensure they never recover from their current malaise.

Possibly. Which is exactly (though not my only) my argument for Scottish independence, and as most know here, I'm not an SNP voter. The Scottish electorate wants something completely different from the English electorate, but we get what England chooses. That's not sour grapes. It's just population maths. Labour's only argument in Scotland at the election (which resonated with most of their voters) was "don't vote SNP, you'll get the Tories." A good portion of the Labour vote agreed with the SNP's anti austerity agenda, but chose Labour because they know no matter how pathetic and impotent the Labour Party is, the Tories should not be given the keys to the castle. I'm completely fed up of living in a political landscape where the best argument for Labour is that they're not the Tories, yet Labour are so desperately trying to be the Tories so as not to alienate middle England voters.

Could just keep abstaining from everything important, thus enabling the Tories to get through their worst policies, and then kid themselves that working class people didn't vote for them because they weren't pro business enough, like Ed Balls thinks. That should fix everything. People can assume that Labour actually trying to be Labour again in electoral suicide, but no-one can pretend that what they are doing right now is anywhere close to successful.

She also suggested yesterday that if Jeremy Corbyn wins the right of the party will break off and start a new party in alliance with the Lib Dems and the Greens. She's off her head.