UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80

How do you intend to vote in the 2019 General Election if eligible?

  • Brexit Party

    Votes: 30 4.3%
  • Conservatives

    Votes: 73 10.6%
  • DUP

    Votes: 5 0.7%
  • Green

    Votes: 23 3.3%
  • Labour

    Votes: 355 51.4%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 58 8.4%
  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 3 0.4%
  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 9 1.3%
  • SNP

    Votes: 19 2.8%
  • UKIP

    Votes: 6 0.9%
  • Independent

    Votes: 1 0.1%
  • Other (BNP, Change UK, UUP and anyone else that I have forgotten)

    Votes: 10 1.4%
  • Not voting

    Votes: 57 8.3%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 41 5.9%

  • Total voters
    690
  • Poll closed .
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Buster15

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As usual you are perfectly correct. Politics has become like a so called reality show.
All about personalities and emotions with next to zero reliance on facts and integrity.

I recently heard someone praising Boris for being like Donald Trump. He was saying that Trump is quite right to run the USA like a business and Boris should do the same.
What rubbish.
Running a country is nothing like running a business.
A business does not have to provide public services.
A business does not have the to provide and maintain a military or foreign policy.
But then, that is precisely the way someone with right wing beliefs sees things.
Money, profitability and short term stock value.
 

Honest John

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I had one of those once....The RAC and the AA and Green Flag grew tenfold during the Government's ownership of BL.

What is really strange is that whenever the UK tried nationalised industries and companies, it never worked out happily. No idea why.

Unlike other countries in Europe whose nationalised companies thrived and prospered to the extent that they now own most of the TOC's in the UK ; most of the famous ' Red Buses ' in London ; VW became the world's largest and most profitable car manufacturer ; and there are plenty of other examples.

I think failure of state owned companies and industries in the UK was a particularly UK problem, and I don't really consider state owned infrastructure something to be avoided at all costs. It just needs to be done properly with the State as investors and owners but absolutely not as day-to-day managers.
Unions played a big part. Unions love nationalised industries because it is generally the Labour party that does it and the unions have always held massive sway over Labour. In the 70's they'd strike at the drop of a hat and often held the whole country to ransom. Read about Red Robbo - 500 strikes called by him in 30 months.

I would be more in favour of at least having a conversation about nationalising 'some' services if the Labour/Unions tie up was not currently getting back to 70's levels along with talk of undoing every law that limited union power.
 

Classical Mechanic

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On reflection, what I would say is that it chimes with the FT article I posted earlier which waned against ideologically driven economic decisions and the potential inherent in them for folly. Different ideology to Labour of course but a disregard for the expertise and testimony of the people working within the sector can lead to long term issues that become hard and expensive to rectify.
 

Abizzz

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The objective was to give everyone ultrafast internet access but is a combined operation between all the providers like Orange, SFR, Bouygues, Scopelec etc. then by 2021 5G - and by the time 2030 arrives 5G and fibre will probably be out of date.
But it's not free.
Sounds pretty sensibel.

No one seems to worry that our Marxist overlords will be using the provision of free broadband to spy on our every move?
Infrastructure is already there for them to do it anyway, what's the harm in them paying for it?
 

Maticmaker

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Sounds like Jeremy's in the process of suggesting another 'free at the point of delivery' service with his fast broadband ideas? You think the problems we have funding and running the NHS would have curtailed any more 'Quixotic' ideas.
 

EwanI Ted

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No one seems to worry that our Marxist overlords will be using the provision of free broadband to spy on our every move?
I sure am, or at least I think it opens the door to overlords of any political persuasion spying on us.
 

sincher

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Tories - Crap. Crap leader. 'Get Brexit Done' is a lie unless you want the disaster of no deal in December next year. Priti Patel is home secretary ffs.
Labour - Crap. Crap leader. Policies to tax big companies won't work. Wrong targets for nationalization. Second referendum unlikely to resolve Brexit. Diane Abbott would be home secretary ffs.
Lib Dem - Crap. Crap leader. Dodgy campaign tactics. Even if you think remaining is the right answer, just ignoring leave voters is a terrible idea.
 

Grinner

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Unions played a big part. Unions love nationalised industries because it is generally the Labour party that does it and the unions have always held massive sway over Labour. In the 70's they'd strike at the drop of a hat and often held the whole country to ransom. Read about Red Robbo - 500 strikes called by him in 30 months.

I would be more in favour of at least having a conversation about nationalising 'some' services if the Labour/Unions tie up was not currently getting back to 70's levels along with talk of undoing every law that limited union power.

Why did they nationalise the British car industry in the first place?
 

Buster15

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Tories - Crap. Crap leader. 'Get Brexit Done' is a lie unless you want the disaster of no deal in December next year. Priti Patel is home secretary ffs.
Labour - Crap. Crap leader. Policies to tax big companies won't work. Wrong targets for nationalization. Second referendum unlikely to resolve Brexit. Diane Abbott would be home secretary ffs.
Lib Dem - Crap. Crap leader. Dodgy campaign tactics. Even if you think remaining is the right answer, just ignoring leave voters is a terrible idea.
Don't disagree with any of that.
So. Who would you vote for assuming you will vote.
 

sincher

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Don't disagree with any of that.
So. Who would you vote for assuming you will vote.
I will probably slightly reluctantly vote LibDem as the best chance of beating the Tory in my constituency. The local candidate seems alright as well (as does the Labour guy).
 

Grinner

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Shamwow

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But the Thatcher govt. was also responsible for ensuring that there were computers in classrooms very early on. I remember a well-stocked computer lab in my school in 1981.
Probably the same stock as when I started school and we had a BBC micro or whatever they were called! That was in 1999.

Edit: wait no how old am I. It was 199something anyway.
 

Grinner

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Well they kept it going rather than letting it die a death, I suppose. There was nothing much wrong with the cars, in themselves, it's just that they were put together by people who's only interest was going on strike.

That's not true. The industry was getting caned by companies with better manufacturing and design processes.
 

FlawlessThaw

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I will probably slightly reluctantly vote LibDem as the best chance of beating the Tory in my constituency. The local candidate seems alright as well (as does the Labour guy).
That's pretty much what it comes down to for me, I agree a lot with the sentiments on the parties you have raised but essentially you have to vote for whoever is best at beating the Tories in your constituency.
 

Buster15

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I will probably slightly reluctantly vote LibDem as the best chance of beating the Tory in my constituency. The local candidate seems alright as well (as does the Labour guy).
Entirely understandable. I am thinking about doing that as well, with a heavy heart though.
 

EwanI Ted

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That's pretty much what it comes down to for me, I agree a lot with the sentiments on the parties you have raised but essentially you have to vote for whoever is best at beating the Tories in your constituency.
What if its a shootout between Labour and the Lib Dems?
 

Honest John

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Why did they nationalise the British car industry in the first place?
The government were instrumental in the tie-up of the Leyland companies. The individual car companies involved were not that keen but the government pushed for it. Those companies at the time were hopelessly inefficient. Bad management had had much to do with it as anything else. Also they were heavily unionised and plagued with walkouts. In a captured market of the empire days you could get away with crap product and union protectionism. But once we went into the EU the British car industry ran smack into the Italians, French and Germans. Leyland could not live with competition from Europe or eventually from Japan. The government nationalised to try and save it but failed.
 

MikeUpNorth

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Labour just can't help themselves. They wanted to bail out Thomas Cook with taxpayer money for feck's sake. A travel agent... in 2019!
 

711

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YoOu can not deny that the cars were poorly put together and the assembly workers were more interested in going on strike.
And yet when Japanese, Korean and Europeans started managing the car business those very same workers with the same unions suddenly became the best in the world. Yes there were changes in union laws, but they didn't make strikes illegal, better management made them unnecessary. Along with a host of anti-discrimination and workers rights laws which meant many wrongs that previously required strikes to right are now settled in the courts instead.
 

Sassy Colin

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And yet when Japanese, Korean and Europeans started managing the car business those very same workers with the same unions suddenly became the best in the world. Yes there were changes in union laws, but they didn't make strikes illegal, better management made them unnecessary. Along with a host of anti-discrimination and workers rights laws which meant many wrongs that previously required strikes to right are now settled in the courts instead.
BL was brought under state control, a Labour Government, don't forget. Surely they should have been speaking from the same hymn sheet. Didn't seem to stop the unrest though did it?

I am not aware which car plants were in Sunderland before Nissan, but I am happy to be enlightened.
 
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