Obviously this is for me.

The one thing SF do well is get their support out to vote so can you explain how I don't vote apart from that 1 time* 20+ years ago? I can almost spit on the polling station from home and they've been at my door countless times canvassing yet i still dont vote for them.


*to my shame that was for SF lol.

Ruth Davidson man, and to think some people think managers don't matter.

ruth's beatles hairdo > may's old lady thing

theorem stands

It's just waffle ffs. An open brexit with freest possible trade, wtf does that mean? She'll get a talking too and fall in line.

Don't expect DUP to hold any real sway on brexit either as they weren't all that bothered with May taking everything upon herself regarding the UK position and negotiations.

None them ****s get any trust.

I wonder how she'll take a deal with the homophobes?
Given that she said she'd like to marry her Irish partner in Ireland

the time for talking to's was a few days ago

now any small group of backbenchers can bring down the govt and end the PM

may is gonna be on the receiving end of the talking to's from now on

Union comes before everything for both of them. They'll find a way to work together.

we will go again soon. No way this government can meaningfully function.

So my naive American understanding is that the left crushed it the election, and the outcome is that the conservative leader remains PM and there's going to be a hard right policy turn on gay rights, climate, etc. About right?

Something interesting that hasn't been mentioned anywhere. Lots of Labour seats held or won thanks to the student vote, a vote which wouldn't exist in such a great number or at all in many places if it wasn't for the policies of the Blair government.

Conservative and Unionist Negotiating Team to the rescue!
Now there's an acronym for you

What was the deal with the corruption scandal, DUP made like 500m for themselves off a dodgy green energy deal where their friends and family got paid for burning green fuel? Is that still going on, investigation or what, and how will that play now re GFA and tories?

there wont be hard right policies on gay marriage or climate, far too many tory mps would be opposed for it to get through and anyway they are massive vote losers, so even the ideologues within the party that might fancy it have a compelling pragmatic reason to abort mission

'Crushed it' is relative to expectations/fears and any hard right policy turn will be localised to Norn Iron. Also, something something Trump got fewer votes and now leads the free world.

Not really, the Conservatives + DUP won more than half of the seats. The rainbow parties won less than half. (% of votes is a different thing of course). It was a much narrower gap than last time though.

Yes the PM is whoever can get the support of a majority of MPs in parliament. The conservatives may well change their leader though and then the PM changes. That might happen around 2020 I'd guess but could happen much sooner.

We already have gay marriage and that won't change.

They don't care that much about the environment anyway, but if you're worried about the DUP thing, well anti-environmentalism isn't going to be something they're thinking about much when they negotiate.

Theresa May's Dictionary:
Stability
noun
please let me keep my job and don't force another snap election.

Yes, everyone is still getting paid (friends and family lol), I think it's £1.90 return on every £1 burnt. There is an inquiry ongoing now. Initially Foster wouldn't stand down for 4 weeks to facilitate an investigation as she was compromised due to her previous role in charge of the energy policy (minister for trade and enterprise) and here we all are now at the mercy of both tories and dup.

If the dup/con partnership lasts **** knows what concessions the DUP will gain for themselves to restart the assembly, which makes restarting seem impossible to me. GFA set in stone so there'll be lots of haggling but no war.

Worst possible outcome imo as Foster was never a proper partner in the assembly but had been forced to try after the assembly collapsed (even if it was only for the cameras, she did try) but that's out the window now.

No, Labour lost the election and missed an open goal at nine yards.

May is still Prime Minister, as before, and the difference is that her majority, instead of being twelve Tory MPs, consists of ten men, Democratic Unionists from Northern Ireland, who wear bowler hats and sashes and don't believe in climate change or gay marriage or evolution. They can bring May's government down at any time if she does the slightest thing they don't like. But they only care about Norn Iron, not the rest of the country.

In February 1974, Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath failed to get a majority and then failed to do a deal with the Ulster Unionists (somewhat less mad than the Democratic Unionists) or the Liberals, so Labour leader Harold Wilson became Prime Minister of a minority government. That October, Wilson held another general election and got a majority, of just three seats.

By 1977 Wilson had resigned out of boredom and failing health, to be succeeded by James Callaghan, and Labour had lost its majority due to the deaths of MPs and lost by-elections (at one point they were bringing dying MPs from hospital to Westminster by ambulance to register votes), so Callaghan did an electoral 'confidence and supply' deal with the Liberals to stay in power. The deal lasted till 1978, and then Callaghan led a minority government because the Conservatives couldn't organise a majority against him. Callaghan held on till the spring of 1979, when, due to catastrophic public-sector pay strikes over the winter, Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives were able to gain a sound majority at the election.

So, as things are now, the Conservatives could keep scraping by for a while.

talk about p****ing on the bonfire.

This was the most incredible night in British politics since ever. Since the 1980s we have been told the lie repeatedly that a radical left programme is unelectable; Kinnock, Blair and the rest killed the left for good; the end of history yada yada yada. They were all wrong. Corbyn has won the (grudging) respect from his most bitter dissenters, eg rats like Campbell, Douglas, Cooper. The left will now seek to further democratise the party and possibly lead an unprecedented transformation. In an age where the organised left is otherwise a barren wasteland, the trade union bureaucracy a shadow of its former self are just 2 of the internal reasons why your analogy of the 70s is unhelpful imo.

On the other side as you point out, the tories are vulnerable, many MPs won't back May publicly, therefore they can't launch any radical policy changes which will deepen the political crisis of the relationship to the EU, further deepening splits within the tories. Hence there will be an election in the autumn.

It is more accurate to suggest that this *** end of tory rule is in a sense parallel to the end of the Callaghan govt, failing to cope with multiple economic, political and industrial crises which allowed Thatcher to begin a radical programme, re shaping British industry, creating the super rich etc etc..

The battles will start proper when Labour is in office, when the contradictions between the internal Labour factions become unbearable under intense pressure from global finance, markets, the US etc, that's when things get interesting...

For now the message is truly a positive one, for the many not the few, and didn't they do well

We might see DUP corruption on this exposed further as the alliance gets under way which surely wont play well for May.
I read an interesting piece before (obv reading up now on DUP since they're set to be players for the time being which raises more questions about NI in general) about the changed relationship of the British Govt to NI in a de-industrialised economy, ie. there is much less at stake for the UK so NI has become somewhat of an annoyance rather than a strategic asset. Also argued that in a booming economy all was good with the GFA, but since the crash the feuds have become more incessant..?

cynical bonfire pissing:

British gov already said they have no strategic or economic interest in NI and it's a question for the people here. Costs them money and they don't like it lol.

Always us v them but has got worse the last few years, from about the same time Foster became first minister. What a coincidence. ****s are stuck in the past.

Has to be said, if people actually believed that Corbyn was electable, and could win, why are they so jubilant over what is ultimately a defeat.

Im happy because Labour did much better than I expected, if your expectations were higher than mine, why is their no disappointment?

.