RugbyRebels

Zhivago wrote:Tories putting party interest before national, as usual

Sandydragon wrote:

Digby wrote:I would like May to explain why this decision wasn't taken a month back so it could've been wrapped up with the elections on the 4th May. It's not maybe much of a point but we're are paying now for two polling days rather than one, and what really has changed? About the only thing which might have changed is we're triggered article 50 and the EU has been unwilling to discuss a new trade deal until the divorce has been sorted, so is this a concern that EU talks will run much longer than David Davies and his hopes for concurrent talks on leaving and the new trade deal, and not not going into an election in 2020 saddled with delays and a deal emerging which may piss just about everyone off, and too not going into 2020 with the millstone of how much money we pay the EU in the divorce? This way May can campaign on getting Brexit done, and then agree to hand over a large sum of cash without a big election to follow.

Still though even if that last is true, what has changed since a month back that the snap election couldn't have been rolled up into the existing polling plans?

I suspect that the realisation has dawned that the EU will want to play hardball and the resultant negotiations won't end as happily as some suspected. Personally, I think I would have preferred a GE to be called prior to Article 50 being triggered as 2 years is short enough without buggering about with party politics more than normally. May inherited a poor situation and she ideally needs her own mandate, and preferably a larger majority so the right wing can't hold her to ransom too much. A GE might also help to settle the question over what sort of Brexit the public wanted, although I suspect it largely won't.

Sandydragon wrote:

Zhivago wrote:Tories putting party interest before national, as usual

You could argue that. But I don't think that going into the Brexit negotiations with a thin majority is going to help the national interest either.

Zhivago wrote:Apparently May won't be taking part in TV debates. What an unaccountable cowardly move that would be.

Zhivago wrote:Apparently May won't be taking part in TV debates. What an unaccountable cowardly move that would be.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

Zhivago wrote:Apparently May won't be taking part in TV debates. What an unaccountable cowardly move that would be.

Or what a quite accountably un-American move it might be.

In the United Kingdom we do not elect party spokespeople on the strength of their ability to show-boat on television; we elect our own local representatives and then let them lose to (hopefully) fight our corner in the House.

Zhivago wrote:Bet we get a hung parliament.

canta_brian wrote:

Zhivago wrote:Bet we get a hung parliament.

That could be best case scenario. I can't see labour holding enough seats to see this happen. They were sort of pro remain but some of their traditional strongholds were very pro leave. Can't see them reconciling these two positions. I suspect Corbyn will bang on about the nhs and building a society together, forgetting that most British people are only really interested in their own self interest

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

Zhivago wrote:Apparently May won't be taking part in TV debates. What an unaccountable cowardly move that would be.

Or what a quite accountably un-American move it might be.

In the United Kingdom we do not elect party spokespeople on the strength of their ability to show-boat on television; we elect our own local representatives and then let them lose to (hopefully) fight our corner in the House.

Zhivago wrote:
Name me a country that don't do TV debates.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

Zhivago wrote:Apparently May won't be taking part in TV debates. What an unaccountable cowardly move that would be.

Or what a quite accountably un-American move it might be.

In the United Kingdom we do not elect party spokespeople on the strength of their ability to show-boat on television; we elect our own local representatives and then let them lose to (hopefully) fight our corner in the House.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

Zhivago wrote:Apparently May won't be taking part in TV debates. What an unaccountable cowardly move that would be.

Or what a quite accountably un-American move it might be.

In the United Kingdom we do not elect party spokespeople on the strength of their ability to show-boat on television; we elect our own local representatives and then let them lose to (hopefully) fight our corner in the House.

Stones of granite wrote:But that doesn't matter as PMTM is clearly a string puppet as evidenced by the weird way she moves and the stilted way she talks. Sometimes when the light is just right I imagine I can see the strings.

Digby wrote:In theory perhaps, in practice huge swathes couldn't come close to telling you who their MP is, and certainly not who their rivals at the local level are, and they simply vote a party or perhaps a party leader.

SerjeantWildgoose wrote: Perhaps if more prospective MPs dressed up in rhino costumes like Justin, then the electorate would know who they were and our democracy would be enriched?

Digby wrote:

SerjeantWildgoose wrote: Perhaps if more prospective MPs dressed up in rhino costumes like Justin, then the electorate would know who they were and our democracy would be enriched?

A republican in name only eh, that'll never stand to electoral scrutiny

SerjeantWildgoose wrote:

Zhivago wrote:
Name me a country that don't do TV debates.

Somalia.

Or South Sudan - I don't think they've got TVs in South Sudan.

TV debates do not add to our democratic process. If May were televised alongside the other candidates for the Maidenhead seat, then it might add to the democratic process in Maidenhead (As long as it didn't clash with Eastenders or TOWIE), but its feck all use in exposing the relative merits or deficiencies of the candidates in the other 649 constituencies of the UK.

We'll be stuck with this shower for another 5 years so it can't all be about fecking BREXIT.