Quite honestly if there wasn’t a family, language and culture thing here in my little bubble I’d be half tempted to head back to Oz and take my chances with the snakes, spiders and sharks. The Aussies are quite soft and cuddly by comparison.
Not all cunts, thank God.
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Good on them!
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My big question about British politics…why do candidates all wear those ribbon-medallions with ribbons dangling from them, seemingly in party-denominated colours.
I genuinely associate those with agricultural fairs, I have no idea where else they are used. First place in Best Heifer, or re-elected to council in Sunderland, your choice.
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They generally only spring up around elections.
With UK having local elections yesterday, that may be way you see so many wearing them at the moment.
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I have quite a few from whippet racing years ago.
I’ve never really thought about it but it is a bit of an odd practice. The best answer I have seen is that in the UK elections are for people rather than parties so the rosette was a way of showing affiliation to a cause in a similar way to military cockades. For as long as I can remember the political party has appeared on the ballot paper.
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Just looking at the Beeb, some gains for Labour but far from spectacular at the moment. Gains for lib Dems and the greens too so far
Interesting to see what happens in areas like the red wall etc.
Think the BBC line is that it’s still very much a Brexit divide? Labour stronger (relative to 2016 elections) in Remain-supporting areas, while weaker in Brexit-supporting areas.
Maybe, which is madness. It’s done, we have to live with it now. Big fixing job required but we’re out, and not going back.
We should be focussed on the cost of living. My heating oil costs have gone bonkers. Pre pandemic they hovered around the 50p / litre mark. In the pandemic it dropped to 16p / litre at one point. It’s now near £1 / litre. All the while Shell and BP are rolling in profits. Some EU countries are looking at restricting those profits I think. UK government is ok with oil company profits (at the moment)
I think it’s more of the psychological alignment that voters have with a particular party, rather than any actual policy. Contrary to what some on here post, for many voters, Brexit is a matter of identity as a Brexit voter, rather than any substantive reason.
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I’m not sure I’m following that. Care to explain ?
I think @redalways means that because they believe in Brexit people feel they need to vote Tory rather than look at what is actually happening and what policies are coming through. A free pass if you like.
The Tory’s are taking a bit of a hit today (down 122 at the moment) but most of those have gone to the lib Dems and greens. it’s not a collapse though.
So you think those ‘red wall’ voters who defected to the Tories are likely to continue voting Conservative just because of Brexit ? (I’m thinking more about the next General Election really.)
Maybe. I haven’t seen anything from that area yet .
Will this Election bring any meaningful changes (not at Westminster)? Doesn’t the central government hold the purse-strings for the local government funds?
It’s more like a big opinion poll
You need to compare this with the results from the the local elections in 2018 which was pre-“red wall” and in which the Labour party did very well. You are seeing the Labour party doing not so well in places like Hartlepool that the Tories have had a foothold in since 2018 but much better in parts of London that they were never very strong in.
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We have basically the same electoral system though, and at no point that I am aware of has any budding Cabinet Minister appeared the same as Biggest Pumpkin. Do other Westminster systems like Australia and NZ have the rosettes, or is it a UK anomaly?
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