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BBC News reports that the Conservatives have defied pre-election polls and all the exit polls to win an overall majority in the House of Commons. The race was thought to be much closer than the final results have shown, with many predicting either another coalition government or possibly a minority Conservative government being formed.
The Conservatives made gains in England and Wales and are forecast by the BBC to secure 331 seats in the Commons, giving them a slender majority. Sources say [Labour leader] Ed Miliband is expected to stand down after Labour was all but wiped out by the [Scottish National Party] in Scotland. [Liberal Democrat] leader Nick Clegg has already said he will quit, with his party set to be reduced from 57 to eight MPs. [United Kingdom Independence Party] leader Nigel Farage is also quitting after he failed to win Thanet South, losing by nearly 2,800 votes to the Conservatives.
The Conservatives have taken 331 of the 650 seats available. However, when Sinn Fein's continued boycott of Westminster is taken into account, along with the four seats they current hold, 324 is enough for a practical majority. An overall turnout of 66% is expected, marginally up on the previous general election in 2010.
Shortly after the results of the exit polls were revealed, Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, stated in a live interview on the BBC that he would "eat his hat" if the predicted losses for the Liberal Democrats came true. The poll showed the Lib Dems losing 45 seats - in the end they lost 47. Lord Ashdown mentioned shortly after he made the statement that he had received through Twitter ten offers of hats if he didn't have one of his own.
For those of us not familiar with UK politics, what are the views of the Conservatives we should be concerned about (if any)? How will their viewpoints affect the world political stage and/or the technology world?
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday May 09 2015, @11:17AM
I'm not British etc., here's my very subjective reactions which can be completely wrong:
- I can understand why people didn't vote Liberal Democrat. They have done nothing much in government with the Tories. This is a good “reward” for that in my opinion.
- I can understand why people didn't vote Labour. They had nothing on offer beyond a widely disliked “leader” and possibly also the worst throwbacks to the seventies (people forget/don't know/deny that it was Labour and those further to the left that helped make Margaret Thatcher so popular). So this result is also a good thing in my opinion and he took quite a few of his own kind with him which is even better. It's telling that voters defect from Labour to UKIP and SNP: sensible in my opinion.
- I can understand why people voted SNP except for one thing: I do understand and sympathize with the independence movement/self-determination but why out of the UK yet not out of the EU? What sort of independence is that? That's awful in my opinion although I think they would discover the error of it pretty fast (that the EU is a monster holding you to political ransom over trade rights etc.). Overall I think this is a great result both for Scotland and for the UK. From a Scottish perspective this election victory could be better than actual independence: it forces things to move forward to a new stage and possibly even a new referendum on Scottish independence.
- I can understand, but only barely, why people voted Tory if they did so in order to push through the EU referendum. Otherwise they can't have any idea what's going on in their own country/countries. Voting for “the conservatives” in the UK is almost identical to voting Republicrat/Democans in the US. Anyway the Tories have no excuses now and have to hold a referendum on EU membership in 2017 (and it better be a fair one). Beyond that the Tories are as scummy as Labour and Lib Dems.
UKIP did good with about 4 million votes (by comparison the Greens got 1 million), even though UKIP only got 1 seat in parliament they'll have plenty of people in local positions now. Farage needs a break anyway even though I wish more people would have voted UKIP. I have no knowledge about the female UKIP representative he suggested as an interim leader until they elect a new one.
Let's see what happens in 2017.
My wish would be that SNP and UKIP could cooperate on leading the resistance to TTIP but I'm a bit unsure if the SNP is actually against it since they like the EU so much.
Another comment on the whole thing is that people (and politicians and political parties) shouldn't believe in polls in the first place: polls are unverifiable, selective, and manipulative.
People (and politicians and political parties) shouldn't believe blindly in elections either: a third of the UK didn't vote for what is most likely all kinds of reasons, many of them understandable.
Super-good: things got shaken up a little bit, I think there's much more to come. I don't envy the Tories for being “in power” since I don't think they're capable of changing things for the better.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by theluggage on Saturday May 09 2015, @12:22PM
- I can understand why people voted SNP except for one thing: I do understand and sympathize with the independence movement/self-determination but why out of the UK yet not out of the EU? What sort of independence is that?
Ten years ago, unless you were a dyed-in-the-rule Euro-skeptic, the EU seemed quite a good environment for a small country like Scotland. People would have pointed to the huge success of the Republic of Ireland as an example, and joining the Euro would have been an obvious solution to the currency issue. They'd also have been able to negotiate with the EU on their own terms, rather than be reliant on the rather strained relationship between Westminster and Brussels.
Come 2015, with the Euro a dead currency walking, that nice little dream is quite clearly over. I think one of the failures of the independence camp is that they didn't really come up with a viable plan B - especially on currency.
Another comment on the whole thing is that people (and politicians and political parties) shouldn't believe in polls in the first place: polls are unverifiable, selective, and manipulative.
If you want manipulation: How's this [bbc.co.uk] (warning: perfectly SFW but you may still need the brain bleach after looking at the pictures) - yes folks, Murdoch's best-selling popular newspaper backed the Conservatives south of the border ("Stop SNP ruining the country!") and backed the SNP in Scotland. Sadly I can't read the small-print on the image of the front page of the Scottish Sun, but I don't think "tactically vote Conservative and help our England edition promote anti-SNP hysteria" was listed as a reason.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday May 09 2015, @03:12PM
On Scotland: yes, and that's sort of what I meant by things moving to a new stage or a new level, they have to get serious about these things now.
Besides that I just want to point out that I was a hard-line Euro-skeptic twenty years ago (in the mid-nineties) and still am. It was obvious the EU was a false promise with a fascist/anti-democratic agenda. Twenty years later most people in the EU still do not seem to understand or care about what the loss of national sovereignty actually means: it means you no longer get to decide on your own within a nation, you have to do as your told (that is the whole point with a union in the first place) with at best some minor influence and at worst (and usually) none at all.
Of course there's an immediate short-term profit from joining, of course it looks like winning the lottery, it wouldn't be much of a scam if it didn't and mostly because people refuse to realize the obvious nature of the gradually increasing down-payments that will continue into “eternity”.
It is very reminiscent of many other terrible mistakes that have and are being made.
No I don't want manipulation but regardless that isn't manipulation but pandering. As good as no one decides who to vote for based on any front page, it's just the usual noise aimed at people willing to waste money on tabloids (and they're all tabloids).
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(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Saturday May 09 2015, @07:47PM
Murdoch is a right-wing nut-job. He had the Scottish Sun come out in support of the SNP to ensure the complete annihilation of Labour, thus ensuring a victory for his Tory friends. And by stoking up fear of Scotland breaking away from the UK, he further guarantees support for the Conservatives since England, not wanting to lose Scotland (despite the anti-Scottish feeling last year when the Independence Referendum came about and the fact that all that oil has mysteriously become worthless) unites behind the traditional large party of the Establishment.
What was strange, though, is that the Tories did so well in spite of UKIP. I used to work with a staunch Labour supporter (and party member) who thought that UKIP was wonderful, because it would split the Tory vote. Look how that turned out. It grabbed the ignorant and xenophobic of the left and right, attracted the bigots and the gullible selfish.
One of UKIP's policies was to abandon the equality laws! No more protection under the law against racism! The disingenuous reason given was that we live in a post-racial society. Oh, and you'd be allowed to discriminate too on religion belief!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @11:35PM
As I understand, EU treaties required the UK to pass equality legislation. However, the UK Equality Act, Section 10 [Religion or belief] remains a prospective clause [legislation.gov.uk]. This is not in the spirit of the treaties but it is widespread and applies to most of the other clauses in the act. Therefore, it is legal to discriminate based upon age [legislation.gov.uk], health [legislation.gov.uk], religion [legislation.gov.uk], gender [legislation.gov.uk], marital status [legislation.gov.uk] and other criteria. Sex discrimination only gets protection under previous legislation passed in response to industrial unrest in the 1960s [wikipedia.org]. Race discrimination had similar piecemeal legislation.
The most cinical move was a UK 2015 election pledge to force large companies to publish gender pay gap information. Unfortunately, that's been a prospective clause for five years [legislation.gov.uk].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 10 2015, @03:48AM
I don't know about the brain bleach. Murdoch might very well have done an effective job. Scotland did abandon Labor (I refuse to use your Frenchy "u") for SNP, and England voted Tory. You can choose to be disgusted at men like Murdoch for pushing that sort of thing, or you can think of it as the voters' decision to ratify the calls of the demagogues.
Blaming the publisher is taking a supply-centric view: they control the supply of media, but nobody except a certified moron would look at either front page of the Sun and think it anything but horribly biased. Hell, I doubt a paper like that would even be profitable in the US; even Fox is subtler than British papers.
Look instead to the consumer, the demand-side of the equation. After all, they're the ones voting, making the Solemn Decision in the voting booth. They could have rejected Murdoch's calls-to-action en masse. Instead, they embraced them.
At worst, Murdoch is a very efficient, very good orator in his medium. He'd rank up there with Pericles and Cicero, if the British hadn't been so earnest about killing off classical education. Whether you like Mudoch's views is irrelevant: the majority do seem to like them. After all, if you believe that Murdoch is some evil wizard manipulating the voters like sheep through the magic and hypnotic power of media, rather than an orator persuading them, then why do you let the hypnosheep vote? Do you really believe in democracy in that case?
Democratic government is based on the idea of the demand-side: that the media consumers are smart enough to make decisions for themselves, smart enough to elect suitable representatives, and smart enough to be able to consume media without being hypnotized by it. If Murdoch were dangerous, it would be because the people are a fickle mass incapable of exercising sovereignty with prudence, and that would mean that it would be better if HRH took real power.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday May 10 2015, @06:30PM
Please don't defend Murdock (he pays lawyers for that), ever heard of News of the World [wikipedia.org]? Murdock (chaotic idiot) is no Cicero (lawful neutral) and not even a Goebbels (lawful evil). Murdock hated what newspapers were and then he became what he hated /and/ something worse. If you're not careful you'll end up defending Pierce Morgan (chaotic idiot) or —Godwin be damned— Hitler (chaotic idiot). Just don't.
Fewer people than ever read /any/ newspapers because they're all mostly shit. As an example the circulation for something like the Guardian is only about 150 thousand and from the NotW link you'll see they only ever sold a circulation of about 2.8 million and they were something close to the most widely bought paper. It's not a lot.
I refuse to believe most people buy any Sun version for anything much but entertainment value (a page of a topless beauty and then a lot of tits that are more or less entertaining and somewhat popular or “love and hate” or “love to hate” (different things to different people) loudmouths like Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear) any more than I believe most people buy any Sports Today/Weekly/Sunday/whatever version for anything but enjoying a few pretty/amazing boobs and plenty of vulgarity. Brits (and Irish!) like and are good at all kinds of comedy but a lot of it isn't all that accessible at face value or straight away. I challenge you to watch Frankie Boyle if you haven't, a communist teetotaler Scot/Glaswegian and in my opinion a great comedian despite of and because of almost constantly going far off the deep end (and his Antichrist conception joke is especially hilarious, maybe mostly because it's him saying it and there's no way it isn't biographical).
British papers, Hong Kong magazines, Japanese manga (the telephone catalog behemoths of tissue paper as sold in Japan, not the rarefied western prints), and American shock jocks all answer to the same kind of market for throwaway distractions so I'd say you yourself still end up attributing far too much influence to MSM newspapers; there actually isn't all that much demand of any serious nature or at least any such demand surely isn't being met by these things to any significant degree. Also remember that with proportional representation the outcome of the election would have been very different with plenty of seats for both the Greens and UKIP (and that in itself is also a very good argument in favor of both Scottish and Welsh independence or at least much greater political independence than now, and maybe for Northern Ireland as well: even though they already have their own parliaments/assemblies they could all be smothered under proportional representation in the common parliament in Westminster).
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(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:07PM
I do understand and sympathize with the independence movement/self-determination but why out of the UK yet not out of the EU? What sort of independence is that?
Because the political consensus in Scotland is left-of-centre social democracy, and in England, it's right-of-centre individualism and social darwinism.
If you look at the map of the results, you will see a ring of blue (Conservative) around Greater London in the Home Counties. This is where all the well-to-do commuters, millionaires, bankers etc. live. Take a drive down the M3 to get the idea. It's all supercars. London itself is mostly red (Labour) since the people who actually live in London have been hit hard by Conservative policies (housing, benefits, jobs, public sector pay...).
Scotland was traditionally Liberal/Labour with very few Conservatives (some rich farmer types) but the Nationalist movement has united them and given them hope and the possibility to break away from Tory England once and for all.
I'm Scottish, married to an English woman, and working for a large European company. If the UK votes itself out f Europe, we'll have to move, because I'll be out of a job. We will go to Scotland. At least they're looking forward.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday May 09 2015, @05:37PM
Your situation perfectly illustrates the issue of being held to ransom over trade, this is what fuels the EU monster, it is power and it's not yours. Did you ever wonder why China (and now also Russia) is more popular than the EU locally (i.e. not among refugees/modern slaves) in Africa?
I'm aware of them but neither of those two descriptions of respectively Scotland and England are anything at all like the EU which is fundamentally anti-democratic and fascist and only cares about the centralization of power and money (and by far the easiest way to achieve that is to be the one who decides the rules, none of this is by accident). If Scotland/the Scottish think they'll be free to become anything at all like Norway across the sea by joining or even associating with the EU they are in for a nightmare. Norway is struggling to remain that way despite all the political parties in their parliament being in favor of only mildly divergent (a few percentages of change in total as measured in the annual budget) forms of the existing system. Scotland would have the monumental task of establishing it under equal or worse conditions.
All the Nordic countries just like all European countries are in deep shit because of the EU and the centralized megalomania taking place across most if not all topics and that includes Iceland and Norway which aren't EU members but which have become too deeply associated and economically entangled (EFTA [wikipedia.org]) to be able to escape the political dictates out of the non-elected EU apparatus. Pro-EU people can joke about the EU banana myth and so on but examples such as the streamlining of rules and regulations regarding employment and temporary employment in the EU is no joke nor is it in any way worker or union friendly or remotely socially democratic. EU directives that typically does not favor social justice (I mean that in the original non-American meaning that isn't nonsense) nor workers rights nor local accommodations to local contexts nor individual freedoms (at least another example like the EU directive on data retention got struck down by the EU court of justice but that is more of a fluke than anything else, it's not like it won't be back in some form).
By the way individual freedoms aren't contradictory to the rest: all of the “new right” political parties in western Europe want in their own slightly different ways a sensible and measured combination of these things far more than any of the old parties do, in fact even though they are often called and derided as single-issue parties it's the safeguarding and rehabilitation of such systems to the extent they already exist or existed (a lot has been lost already, one UKIP example would be their aim of reintroducing the support for university students that the Tories and Lib Dems removed) in fact such things are their primary political motivation and source of support (not that anyone would know by listening to “news” or political competitors) but such aims demands no EU as it exists now and no free movement of labor nor money (both flow freely right now), otherwise it is impossible. It demands actual national sovereignty.
Except for Russia (but to some degree even for them) all European political debate is forced into contexts defined by the EU and all that's left after that are non-solutions: it's a tight noose favoring big power, big money, and big corruption (Ireland and Luxembourg being prime recent examples of gigantic local “international tax heavens” for multinational companies like Google and Apple). In some ways it's even worse than the shit that is the US government (US states have far more independence than EU members, members who are nations in name only), but for now at least the EU is a bit less bloodthirsty (but they want this too, the idea of a bigger EU army and so on is pushed for on a regular basis).
Now here's the thing: most politicians are aware of all of this, and those in pro-EU/mainstream parties absolutely love it because it means they can simply be truthful and point at the EU directive and say we have to do this because we are part of the EU/subject to these directives etc. while enjoying their insider advantage to misuse the system. They will at some point have to cut the deficit because of EU deficit rules or they will receive EU penalties which means they incur even more expenses paying the EU monetary compensation for the transgression. Their backs are completely free and since there are no actual solutions within the EU system they can do any nonsense they think of: it's not like it will work anyway, doesn't matter if it will cost more to implement than it pays because a crisis is just another opportunity to spend more money and some of that will grease the wheels and if anyone speaks up there's the threat of running afoul of EU directives. Doesn't matter who's in power among them, they'll all face the same non-choices while gaming the system as they see fit and as long as they mostly obey their master (the EU) it's all fine (for them), after all it's only “loonies” and “fruitcakes” and “racists” that oppose the EU because the EU is “free trade” and jobs and equality and so on. It's not a coincidence that nearly all of the EU members are doing the same “austerity” bullshit, they all get the game, they made it.
(By the way to say the English consensus is social darwinism is a very extreme statement. Social darwinism is pathological psychopathy and/or sociopathy.)
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday May 09 2015, @07:21PM
By the way to say the English consensus is social darwinism is a very extreme statement.
It was an extreme statement. I accept that. I just don't think that people fully appreciate what they have voted for. I don't think they realise how luck they were last time to have the Liberal Democrats in coalition moderating the worst of the Conservative cynicism. I feel very sorry for Nick Clegg.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday May 10 2015, @05:16AM
Yes it will get worse for sure, the Tories started on that only hours (or was it just minutes?) after the results with the proclamation on the new edition/reintroduction of the “Snooper's Charter”. I don't know who/what most Lib Dem voters switched to (if anything in particular) but being a tiny party in a coalition can easily become a recipe for political extinction. It would be strange if Clegg didn't know or wasn't told of that rather large risk, particularly since there was a lot of internal or voter turmoil and disgust with the coalition rather quickly (or at least that's the impression I got).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 09 2015, @11:36PM
Hint: all the Eurosoeptics (what used to be called Nationalist), from UKIP to FN to Jobbik, are funded by Russia. Russia fears a unified Europe (that doesn't include them in a leading role) more than anything else.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday May 10 2015, @03:13PM
And you try to pass such a “hint” to someone who is so-called “far right” (a bit more Pim Fortuyn than Geert Wilders but that's details) and that is also pro-Russian or at least pro-Novorussian and strongly anti-EU and more recently also strongly anti-US? I guess next you'll try to claim no one at all knew Pim Fortuyn was openly gay and had homosexual sex as often as possible, maybe it's too hard to understand that just about no one particularly cares about any of that in western Europe, not even ordinary suckers for big boobs, thin waists, and wide hips like me. It's almost as lame as trying to get people riled up about “anti-gays” in the gayest country in Europe: England, the country where cross-dressing is a Christmas tradition you take your children to watch :D (and yes England is even gayer than the Netherlands, good for them).
I've been against the EU for over twenty years, and twenty years ago I was a military officer in a NATO country. Well I still am strictly speaking, if I say Browning, Glock, H&K MP3, H&K G3, Rheinmetall MG3, M72 LAW, and Bofors recoilless cannons then someone who knows a little about European (well not Browning obviously, but M72 actually is although the US has a license for production just like Turkey has for the MG3) military small (and not so small) arms might notice that I'm ever so slightly dated :)
As far as I can tell it's the US (and likely CIA) that's trying to buy themselves friends on the “new right” but they suck at being subtle and don't realize what kind of people they're dealing with so all they're left with are people who incorrectly think it's /not/ obvious that they're on the take. I've called people out on it as you might expect.
The reason why just about all “new right” political parties are pro-Russian is because all the US and EU anti-Russian propaganda is pure bullshit that doesn't make the slightest sense on any level. The only ones who seem to “believe” in the US government are idiot “journalists”, some NATO brass, politicians etc. I mean god damn its funny that the US doesn't realize what kind of reputation lizards like Carl Bildt and Jens Stoltenberg (NATO Secretary General? Awesome joke) have and the instant alienation of sizable groups of people in Sweden and Norway against anything those creeps support (to people like me —and plenty not like me as well— they're worse than what Tony Blair is to most Brits). So yes of course it's noticeable if a person on the “new right” suddenly somehow supports them.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Nuke on Saturday May 09 2015, @01:13PM
I can understand why people voted SNP except for one thing: I do understand ..h the independence movement/self-determination but why out of the UK yet not out of the EU?
Good question. Alex Salmond gave an "answer" I saw in a TV interview when he was the SNP leader. It went like :-
"We [Scots] don't want to be governed from London because it is too far away to understand Scotland's problems. So we want to be governed from Brussels instead."
I am paraphrasing just a bit, but that is the essence of what he said. Looking at a World atlas will probably not help you to understand his point.
While you have the atlas open, take a look at just how small Britain is, smaller than many provinces in other countries, and wonder why it is sensible to split it into two nations (or will it be three?).
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday May 09 2015, @07:13PM
Well how big do you think Belgium is then? :)
Sorry for going into James May/“auto-correction” mode but in Europe (Great) Britain isn't that small, as far as I know (and it's an unfair comparison to begin with) there are not even any republics, okrugs, or oblasts in the European part of Russia (a federation) of the same individual size as Great Britain, or maybe you were thinking about Russan Federal districts which are larger combinations (I don't think any other country has anything similar to that additional Russian political/organizational level, Russia is huge). There are much bigger ones in Asian Russia but it's still not particularly meaningful to compare it. In the rest of Europe all the subdivisions on the province level are smaller and usually much smaller. However if you go down to the size of Scotland or Wales then there are plenty of roughly the same size all over Europe including in European Russia. Remember that Germany is a federation and Spain is a kingdom of several autonomous entities, everything in France is smaller (hah!), and so on.
The UK already is four countries divided into Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England [wikipedia.org] so that wouldn't be anything new on its own.
Anyway yes Salmond's answer is a non-answer and he knows it or he's being daft. The only ones that can fully understand Scotland's problems as well as advantages and strengths are those living in Scotland. Either that is adequately allowed for in the UK or it isn't and here we are: a lot of people think it isn't.
One interesting thing about all of this is that UKIP got more votes than SNP, While SNP is third largest in parliament UKIP is actually the third largest party in terms of voters. Imagine the outrage if they all moved to Scotland and dispersed themselves evenly for the next election :D
I wish Mock The Week was running now, I'd love to hear Dara Ó Briain and/or Ed Byrne and all the rest mocking the election (they could even Get Frankie Boyle back!), hopefully they'll be back in a month or so :3
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(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Saturday May 09 2015, @07:38PM
Anyway yes Salmond's answer is a non-answer and he knows it or he's being daft.
No, he was using a metaphor. He was trying to explain that London is too far away from Scotland politically, and that Scotland is closer in terms of politics to continental Europe.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Sunday May 10 2015, @04:42AM
Oh, I completely missed the point there (guess I'm the daft one), thank you for clarifying what he meant. At least this way the statement makes much more sense from his perspective on things.
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