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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spontaneus1

Hamster, damn!
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It’s so incredibly frustrating watching people spout such utter untruths. The wealthy people will be worse off after Brexit and the poorer will be better for it.

Turkeys love voting for Christmas, as always you get the government your country deserves and the Uk will get that on the 12th.
 

SteveJ

all-round nice guy, aka Uncle Joe Kardashian
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Schofield is a terrible, amateurish interviewer. Remember how he handed Cameron a list of suspected paedophiles, a list Schofield said he'd 'found on the internet'?
 

Honest John

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And yet at no point during the six rounds of trade conversations between the UK and US did the UK say it to the US
I will tell you now - and you can quote me, that we will be here in 10 years discussing the Tory plan to sell the NHS by stealth and there will have been no material change to it in that period. I'll leave it there.


Edit: That's if a gammon like me lasts that long. Will probably have karked it by then and been left in the gutter due to lack of health cover.
 
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Raven

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On this I agree with you. I appears to me that journo's are pulling the 'Are you going to apologise for.....?' out of their arses at every turn right now because it always provides a dramatic moment and all the papers pick up on it then next day.

I thought the same when Marr spoke to Johnson on Sunday following the terror attack when he asked him to say sorry to the British public for letting the guy out or something. He'd already reamed BJ good and proper but then decided to stick an apology request in for good measure - which I felt was too far.
It's a bullshit way of questioning people, takes away from the discussion on actual policies as well.
 

Ekkie Thump

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Nice to see you didn't read that one either, unless you think how many freight trains we run is important.
Oh I did, you silly sausage. The difference is that only one of us can accurately process what we read. You see freight comes under the 'intensity of use' metric and has no bearing on the UK's paltry 19th place for service whatsoever.

Another difference is that I'm capable of reading and quoting complete sentences. Bolded is the part of the sentence you appear to have left off.

Great Britain. At 5.4, Great Britain has an excellent rating for safety. However, its rating for intensity of use is only good, owing to a low level of freight utilization, and its quality of service is poor because of high fares and the relatively low punctuality of regional trains.
 

Ekkie Thump

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I will tell you now - and you can quote me, that we will be here in 10 years discussing the Tory plan to sell the NHS by stealth and there will have been no material change to it in that period. I'll leave it there.


Edit: That's if a gammon like me lasts that long. Will probably have karked it and have been left in the gutter due to lack of health cover.
Hopefully you are right.

Edit: Hopefully you are wrong.
 

Ekkie Thump

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Anyone prepared to let the safety rating slip a little, if it means getting the punctuality up a bit?
I reckon so. I'm not certain but I suspect that at least some of the safety stuff is tied to intensity of use and the fact that networks like France and Germany have greater coverage of rural areas. I think mainland Europe also tends to suffer from greater extremes of temperature and weather. I bet it takes a fair bit more than the fabled autumn leaf to cancel services too.
 

11101

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Isnt thet snippet exactly the point he was making? On service (price and punctuality) we are poor.

On safety we are good.
I never said UK trains weren't expensive for the end user. They are, because we don't subsidise them the way other nations do. We didnt under British Rail either.

On punctuality of regional trains we are about the same as similar nations. Like I say, it's high speed rail that makes the difference in surveys, and we don't have that. TGV, Frecciarossa trains etc are given priority on their networks to keep satisfaction and on time performance up.
 

Honest John

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Anyone prepared to let the safety rating slip a little, if it means getting the punctuality up a bit?
I reckon there should be leg-holes in the floor so passengers can lend a bit of 'getaway power' when they're running behind - like the Ant Hill Mob on Wackey Races
 

SteveJ

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I reckon there should be leg-holes in the floor so passengers can lend a bit of 'getaway power' when they're running behind - like the Ant Hill Mob on Wackey Races
:lol:
 

NWRed

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It’s so incredibly frustrating watching people spout such utter untruths. The wealthy people will be worse off after Brexit and the poorer will be better for it.

I don't understand how the interviewer stops himself from screaming.
 

Fluctuation0161

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I will tell you now - and you can quote me, that we will be here in 10 years discussing the Tory plan to sell the NHS by stealth and there will have been no material change to it in that period. I'll leave it there.
It's already progress from zero private contracts to somewhere between 7% and 25%.

I suggest you look into the implications of the health and social care act from 2012.

"...axed the government's responsibility for the NHS. It has devolved responsibility to Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). The CCGs have no legal obligation to provide you with anything beyond emergency care - this may not be the case at present but it means that there is no legal guarantee that they will continue to do so."
https://www.independent.co.uk/voice...tion-the-uk-no-longer-has-a-nhs-a6923126.html
 

P-Nut

fan of well-known French footballer Fabinho
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I reckon so. I'm not certain but I suspect that at least some of the safety stuff is tied to intensity of use and the fact that networks like France and Germany have greater coverage of rural areas. I think mainland Europe also tends to suffer from greater extremes of temperature and weather. I bet it takes a fair bit more than the fabled autumn leaf to cancel services too.
The leaves get crushed by the train which leaves a film on the top of the rail. That film then allows the train to go undetected, which I am sure you can understand is crazy dangerous.
 

Ekkie Thump

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The leaves get crushed by the train which leaves a film on the top of the rail. That film then allows the train to go undetected, which I am sure you can understand is crazy dangerous.
I didn't know that and it does sound dangerous. To be honest I was just speculating and using that example as shorthand for my belief that it takes more for services to be suspended in, say, Germany than it does for a suspension over here. I'm not really asserting this with any level of confidence though.
 

Lynty

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It’s so incredibly frustrating watching people spout such utter untruths. The wealthy people will be worse off after Brexit and the poorer will be better for it.

A group of middle aged Caucasians is such a poor 'sample' group, especially considering it's Birmingham - almost seems as if they've been hand picked.

I don't understand how people can talk with such conviction on matters they know so little about. There are so few people that seem able to say "actually I don't know enough about this to have an opinion".
 

owlo

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All that happens with nationalised industries is their investment budgets have to compete with other budgets like schools or the NHS and they end up becoming underfunded as a result. The whole point of privatisation was to bring new money into industries that lacked it.
Yet it costs the government a lot less to borrow that money than the private sector. The problem with public ownership is efficiency and political interference, not a lack of funds. (See central banks for example. Most publicly owned these days, but some like Japan and Switzerland are private, though still receive statutory instructions). Privatisation is an efficiency drive. Different markets need different solutions. (Eg You don't want private schools, and you don't want public supermarkets)

Governance, competition, and public interest are the differences.
 

Buster15

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I was hoping you'd retort with that one. In that report the UK does come out 8th (Below France, Germany and even more amusingly Switzerland) but then that's solely because of its record on safety. For service (price and puncutality) it comes in joint 19th. That's joint 19th. In Europe.
Despite the massive investment and significant price rises..
 

Buster15

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I've been thinking about it and it seems that lying is a clear and blatant strategy by the entire Conservative party during this campaign.

I mean they know that they will very rarely get called on it (see that story on the BBC and calling out lies) and even if they do it doesn't matter because mud sticks. In the same way the likes of The Sun can print some absolute nonsense on it's front page and then write a retraction in a small column on Page 7, two weeks later. By then the damage is already done.
Exactly. And that is why we should all treat the media with scepticism and contempt.
The papers in particular lie as a matter of normality. The vast bulk is made up rubbish and I for one never buy a paper.
The cost savings are well worth that.
If anyone remembers Spitting Image, they characterised reporters very well - as pigs with Trilby hats.
 

Ekkie Thump

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On punctuality of regional trains we are about the same as similar nations. Like I say, it's high speed rail that makes the difference in surveys, and we don't have that. TGV, Frecciarossa trains etc are given priority on their networks to keep satisfaction and on time performance up.
Again, that's not what the report that you cited says. The service section is split into 4 equal parts; one of which solely assesses the 'punctuality of regional trains.' It is this area that is specifically cited, along with price, as a factor in the UK's godawful 19th place in service performance.
 

P-Nut

fan of well-known French footballer Fabinho
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I didn't know that and it does sound dangerous. To be honest I was just speculating and using that example as shorthand for my belief that it takes more for services to be suspended in, say, Germany than it does for a suspension over here. I'm not really asserting this with any level of confidence though.
Services are usually suspended due to a fault, no more no less. We have more faults due to our tolerances being lower than most, but they are usually set after massive incidents like Severn tunnel (see trains going missing) and Ladbroke Grove
 

RedChip

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People think voting for this man as PM is a good idea :houllier::houllier:

My favourite is the , 'Please leave my town'.
It’s so incredibly frustrating watching people spout such utter untruths. The wealthy people will be worse off after Brexit and the poorer will be better for it.

Well, that's depressing. And infuriating: working class people already severely impacted by austerity wilfully ignoring the facts to vote for the tories.
 

Rafaeldagold

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So fellow remainers. It’s looking very likely we’re going to have 5 more years of Tories & a hard brexit being forced upon us. (With probably a no deal one in Dec 2020)

Whsts your plans? Is anyone thinking of leaving? Or just accepting it? Part of me wants to fight this but another part thinks if the country is this stupid then is it worth the stress fighting this? Try a new start elsewhere.

Any one else feeling the same & if they are thinking of moving- where?
 

sebsheep

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Train drivers get pretty good pay. £50k - £65k for a 35 hour week with a final salary pension scheme. The subsidy is for the network which is pretty much state owned anyway. I'm not fussed about that, it's infrastructure like the roads.
But the network is only owned by the state because private companies failed and it had to be re-nationalised. The general ideas behind privatisation aren't even working when it comes to trains.
 

Hal9000

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So fellow remainers. It’s looking very likely we’re going to have 5 more years of Tories & a hard brexit being forced upon us. (With probably a no deal one in Dec 2020)

Whsts your plans? Is anyone thinking of leaving? Or just accepting it? Part of me wants to fight this but another part thinks if the country is this stupid then is it worth the stress fighting this? Try a new start elsewhere.

Any one else feeling the same & if they are thinking of moving- where?
I've put in a request to move to our office in Cape Town.
 

Ekkie Thump

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I've put in a request to move to our office in Cape Town.
Granted it's a decade ago but Cape Town is one of the most heinous places I've ever worked. Live it up in Camps Bay then drive the elevated motorway above the Cape Flats without ever needing to notice for a second the misery engendered below.

Sickening.
 

RedChip

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I tend not to read links from people who dont post anything with them.

But anyway, here's another one for you that goes into far more detail. As i keep saying, the UK is pretty much middle of the road:

https://www.bcg.com/publications/20...-2017-european-railway-performance-index.aspx


I've already explained this upthread but high speed rail lines are the flagship projects of most big state railways in Europe. They're excellent and lead to impressive statistics. We don't have one, and that's not changing any time soon. As soon as you remove them from comparisons and look into non high speed and regional services, there is very little difference across the major countries. They're all subject to the same problems and delays regardless of who owns them. Nationalisation will make next to no difference, just as privatisation didn't back in the 90s. The most likely outcome of bringing them back under state control is that it will just cost more.
Your own link says, 'performance correlates with public cost', which for sure doesn't support your argument.

Also, don't judge the (lack) of quality of UK trains until you attempt regular journeys on Northern.
 

Buster15

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So fellow remainers. It’s looking very likely we’re going to have 5 more years of Tories & a hard brexit being forced upon us. (With probably a no deal one in Dec 2020)

Whsts your plans? Is anyone thinking of leaving? Or just accepting it? Part of me wants to fight this but another part thinks if the country is this stupid then is it worth the stress fighting this? Try a new start elsewhere.

Any one else feeling the same & if they are thinking of moving- where?
Your scenario may well be correct but I have no intention of leaving.
Why. This is my country and I prefer to take my chances here.
In my view, the outcome of Brexit is going to be nothing compared to the very clear threats posed by Climate Change.
That is the real challenge and not the Tories.
But that is another thread.
 

Rafaeldagold

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Your scenario may well be correct but I have no intention of leaving.
Why. This is my country and I prefer to take my chances here.
In my view, the outcome of Brexit is going to be nothing compared to the very clear threats posed by Climate Change.
That is the real challenge and not the Tories.
But that is another thread.
It’s a fair point. Just interested how other remainders feel or any plans. I just feel like life will be worse off for something I 100% disagree with & voted against yer we’re all going to be screwed. Not just those who voted brexit & Tory
 

11101

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Your own link says, 'performance correlates with public cost', which for sure doesn't support your argument.

Also, don't judge the (lack) of quality of UK trains until you attempt regular journeys on Northern.
I'm not really arguing whether the railways are underfunded in the UK, they have been for decades. I'm solely saying that it will make no difference to the service we get if we nationalise them again. On this board everybody seems to think if we nationalise them we'll all of a sudden be able to run them like the Japanese.
 

Ultimate Grib

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It’s so incredibly frustrating watching people spout such utter untruths. The wealthy people will be worse off after Brexit and the poorer will be better for it.

When I see shit like this after 6 hours of campaigning and canvassing its fecking depressing and it makes me want to give up but on the other hand this is the precise reason why I cannot.
 

WR

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I've said this before but I'm a single child and I stand to inherit TWO houses. One in the UK and one in Australia. Both quite big - four bedroom in the UK and a villa in Australia - and quite frankly I feel that Labour's plans don't go far enough.
Same here. I’m a single child and I stand to inherit TWO colonies, one in the UK and one in Australia. Quite frankly I don’t feel Labour’s plans go far enough.
 

sun_tzu

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Still waiting for the Youthquake
So fellow remainers. It’s looking very likely we’re going to have 5 more years of Tories & a hard brexit being forced upon us. (With probably a no deal one in Dec 2020)

Whsts your plans? Is anyone thinking of leaving? Or just accepting it? Part of me wants to fight this but another part thinks if the country is this stupid then is it worth the stress fighting this? Try a new start elsewhere.

Any one else feeling the same & if they are thinking of moving- where?
Let it go to ratshit for 5 years... Hopefully at that point labour have seen sence and got a more electable leader and they spearhead a rejoin movement
If not then hope the remain version of farrage pops up and be a pain in the bum for whoever is in power till be get a rejoin referendum
 

F-Red

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When I see shit like this after 6 hours of campaigning and canvassing its fecking depressing and it makes me want to give up but on the other hand this is the precise reason why I cannot.
It's clear from their first answer that the reason they're not voting Labour is down to leadership. I would be surprised if any person campaigning and canvassing could change their approach or point of view.
 

Oo0AahCantona

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So fellow remainers. It’s looking very likely we’re going to have 5 more years of Tories & a hard brexit being forced upon us. (With probably a no deal one in Dec 2020)

Whsts your plans? Is anyone thinking of leaving? Or just accepting it? Part of me wants to fight this but another part thinks if the country is this stupid then is it worth the stress fighting this? Try a new start elsewhere.

Any one else feeling the same & if they are thinking of moving- where?
I'm going to take a hyperbolic approach here with regards to "fighting" brexit as its something I've thought on somewhat in the past, but the issue ive long talked about with my family/friends is that, if you take the country at the roughly 50/50 remain/leave split, regardless of how accurate the opinions are, the unfortunate reality is the types of people who vote leave are far more likely to be physically effective in situations of civil unrest. Something my dad said once was lets say the options were to completely cancel brexit vs a hard leave, the reality is the pro brexit voter is far more likely based on demographic and socioeconomic factors to go out and riot as opposed to remainers probably signing a few petitions for parliment.

If you have the means, get an irish passport or migrate to canada, another 5 years of tory rule will lead into 10 and this country is going to be as far right as pragmatically possible.
 
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