[Andy McDandy]

Corbyn comes across as weak to many, his tactic of turning the other cheek, Ghandi like, doesn't work here, people like strong leadership, which is a euphemism for being a bit cunty

An effective political leader has to be a bit of a bastard. But here's the thing. People like stylish bastards, magnificent bastards, outright bastards and even apologetic bastards. But not sneaky backroom cunty bastards.

[youngian]

Any sneaky backroom cunty bastard who is good at their job knows their place- in the back room.

[youngian]

Wonder how many of them had heard of Corbyn's "I condemn all violence" nonsense re the IRA.

Our Friends in the North portrayed how trendy lefty Troops Out candidates got trounced by the Tories on this in 1979. Corbyn couldn’t even see a 40 year old elephant trap coming. Corbyn does share with Labour Leave voters an inability to see how peace and security is the EU’s raison d’etre.

[Arrowhead]

Having crunched the numbers from GE2019, we can start to understand what might have happened if, across the whole of England an anti-Brexit alliance had been in place to assist the party that eventually finished 2nd in each seat (Scotland & Wales are excluded because widespread electoral alliances are tricky where nationalist parties are present).

In the rather unlikely scenario of literally 100% of all LAB, LD, GRN & IND votes transferring directly to whichever party ultimately finished 2nd, we would have had:

CON 310 / LAB 238 / SNP 48 / LD 28 / PC 4 / OTH 22 incl Gauke winning in South West Hertfordshire

Whereas the more reasonable assumption of 50% of all such votes transferring we instead get the following outcome:

CON 340 / LAB 218 / SNP 48 / LD 19 / PC 4 / OTH 21

............all of which goes to show that once any one party ticks into the mid-forties in terms of % vote share, they more or less become invincible under our wacky FPTP system. Plus, of course, a similar nationwide pact between CON and BXP may well have resulted in an even bigger rout of the Remain parties instead.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep.

Mid 40s can even get you a majority at Holyrood. Under FPTP it's brutal.

[youngian]

Under Blair's landslide there was an understanding you govern for a nation balancing competing interests. These Tory assholes will fuck over the 54 percent if it sustains the minority that delivers their whopping majority.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some of the Labour Left are just as bad. They reckoned 39.2% in November 1974 was a mandate for "radical socialist change". Strangely enough, it wasn't.

[oboogie]

No surprise to have it confirmed that Corbyn and Swinson's arrogance and sheer stupidity handed Johnson his victory.
From Private Eye.

[Arrowhead]

I'd love to know where on earth the Lib Dems thought these "100+ gains" were expected to occur. Thanks to the nature of FPTP, the most they were ever likely to make was about thirty or so, and even that was being optimistic. They ended up not even retaking Sheffield Hallam FFS.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep. They were far too far behind in most of the seats they wanted to take.

[Tubby Isaacs]

In fairness to Jez and Milne, I didn't see the Brexit Party standing down in so many seats. I thought Farage would want to keep himself relevant by splitting the Kippery vote. It was an odd decision to run only against Labour MPs. Then again, where would he have cost the Tories seats if he'd run? They were just too far ahead.

[Andy McDandy]

I'd love to know where on earth the Lib Dems thought these "100+ gains" were expected to occur. Thanks to the nature of FPTP, the most they were ever likely to make was about thirty or so, and even that was being optimistic. They ended up not even retaking Sheffield Hallam FFS.

Momentum logic? "Last night one of us was elected unanimously to the key post of refreshments officer at Scumbag College Corbyn Club executive committee elections. If this landslide result is repeated across the country, we'll be in power by Tuesday and stay there forever!".

[spoonman]

Might be better mentioning this in the Licence Fee thread, but a broadcast mailing list I'm subscribed to (email, of course) has a notable contributer saying that he no longer supports the BBC or its licence fee funding due to its news reporting in the run up to the general election - claiming it was too heavily in favour of Labour & Corbyn, and that Laura Kussenburg had her head in her hands on Election night muttering in despair! Did I miss something?

[Kreuzberger]

Everyone knows that the BBC is a nest of communist vipers which won't let a dissenting, moderate voice anywhere near the corporation. Only this morning, Charles Moore and his free-market, climate-lying mates were on hand to tell us just that.

TL;DR, it's bollocks.

[davidjay]

As with the BBC, as with John Bercow and everything else the government and its acolytes have set themselves against ever since they realised leaving the EU would be a bit harder than "With one bound they were free". If you're not with them, you're against them, even when doing your job and remaining neutral is the full extent of your opposition.