The Guardian’s got a picture of the exchange rate plunging as we await May’s announcement – perhaps of a snap election.
Plunging I tell ya. All the way from 1.259 to 1.252 or so.
Film at 11.
The Guardian’s got a picture of the exchange rate plunging as we await May’s announcement – perhaps of a snap election.
Plunging I tell ya. All the way from 1.259 to 1.252 or so.
Film at 11.
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Its higher than last Thursday…
Election it is. Corbyn to the rescue!!
General election it is. Bonus, Spud proves he can’t predict shit yet again.
http://www.**xresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/03/08/the-budget-had-just-one-message-there-will-be-no-general-election-in-2017/
…and back to exactly where it was before the announcement that there was going to be an announcement was made.
Election is it. Never has a Prime Minister been more lucky than Theresa May. Labour has elected a fool. The Lib Dems alienated most of their voters by going into Coalition and have yet to recover. UKIP has imploded.
Basically it is going to be a race to see who can lose by the most.
Not that it matters because whoever wins, we get another Lib-Dem party in power. Either the Lib-Dems pretending to be Tories, or the Lib-Dems pretending to be Labourites (although in fairness to Corbyn he really isn’t but then he is not going to win).
Assuming she can get 433 votes tomorrow, then after the election every Conservative will have been elected on a Brexit ticket. Perhaps there is an opportunity for some reselection.
I can’t see the SNP increasing its holding given the number of seats it has. I wonder who will pick up?
Makes sense to cash in the Corbyn voucher while it’s still valid. No knowing how much longer he’d stay in charge of Labour, and a snap election doesn’t give the New Labourites much time to organise a coup.
You’d be kicking yourself if you didn’t get at least one GE out of him as your opponent.
Though I do hope he survives this.
Tim Farron today:
“If you want to avoid a disastrous Hard Brexit. If you want to keep Britain in the Single Market. If you want a Britain that is open, tolerant and united, this is your chance. Only the Liberal Democrats can prevent a Conservative majority.”
Bless.
Sterling has erased its earlier slide and is now trading at $1.264 against the US dollar – its highest value since early February.
Now $1.265.
I remember the days when the Guardian would condemn those who sold the pound and forced it down when Labour won elections. Funny how times change. They’ve been willing the Pound down since June last year.
And it’s now recovered and is even higher…
I’ve had my doubts about May, but that was some ‘Come & have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ speech.
I love Ritchie
4 December 2014: “This is why he has also has sought to undermine the power of democracy by creating fixed term elections”
Today: “It troubles me because it shows contempt for a decision of parliament to hold elections every five years.”
So what happens to the pro-Remain Tory MPs?
Will Corbyn and McDonnell be able to muster even the slightest feigned enthusiasm for Remain during the campaign?
How much of a surge to the LibDems will there be from pro-Remain Tory and Labour supporters?
If I were a Tory MP, I’d declare my self as anti-Brexit. That way I’d hope to pick up votes which might otherwise have gone to the Lib Dems, without actually risking having to put my words into action.
Remainers, meanwhile, can safely vote LibDem knowing that it won’t have any effect on the outcome. The only question is how big May’s majority will be.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/18/general-election-coup-mps-theresa-may
The weeping, the rending of garments, the jumping over sharks, the cognitive dissonance! Utterly delicious!
“Pro-remain Tories”
If it’s called Soubry (or similar) hopefully de-selected!
“If I were a Tory MP, I’d declare my self as anti-Brexit.”
Again, isn’t there a risk of de-selection, depending on where it is? I suspect only die-hard Conservative Remainers are actively going to go against the referendum result? Most Tory seats are Brexit in any case?
Unfortunately the Lib Dems will probably emerge stronger from this. Though perhaps it’s better to hold an election sooner to lessen the impact of any new grass-roots support they may get.
Ordinarily I’d dread the thought of a law and order type like May getting a big majority. Probably still will, if it turns out that way.
What happened to the 5 year fixed term Parliaments?
Parliament can enact to repeal it or ignore it this time. Labour and LibDems have said they want an election so will have to support government moves to do so. I think the idea at the time was to protect the Tory/LibDem coalition so the Tories couldn’t get the LibDems out by forcing a GE by themselves. Now irrelevant.
“5 year term”
It was the usual incompetence that didn’t simply add a sunset clause to it – as it was only needed to protect that one coalition term.
Charlie Suet
Re May, +1 exactly, but right now Brexit (for me at least) has to take priority.
Cue the inevitable begging email received today from Tim Farron headed “Friend” asking for a donation to the Liberals.
I didn’t ask to be put on the mailing list for this buck-toothed cvnt
Can’t be bothered counting how many GEs I have voted in, never missed on an I’m 60,but I think this is going to be the most interesting by far.
Brexit is going to make the polls even more unreliable, the left are going to start blaming the Russians every time they get bad leak, Corbyn’s going to go round in circles trying to be a remainer and a brexiter, the Guradian and soft left are already in melt down.
Oh what joy.
The only down side is we aren’t going to get a liberal Governement.
Why is Corvid in favour of an election? Is he hoping to stand down after his party is thrashed, posing as a noble party stalwart? Has he lined up a younger loony as replacement?
Tim Farron would be better asking for donations to the Liberal Democrats, though doubtless, the Liberals will happily take any money Tim is suggesting LibDem supporters should give them.
dearieme>
Corbyn’s in favour of an election as soon as possible because the far right does best in times of economic hardship, and his brand of lying about how badly everyone (except the ‘rich’, natch) is doing is facing an ever higher wall of fact as the economy gets better and better.
Everybody assumes, probably correctly, that she called it because of the polls.
I wonder if she got wind that the Remain MPs in her own party (who are the majority) were going to stage a coup at the party conference in the Autumn and she pulled this rabbit to confound them.
If Corbin wins are we allowed to blame the Russians for rigging it for an old, white, crazy, incompetent dude?
No doubt the state of Labour played a big part, but if the only driver was party advantage, Theresa would have been better waiting for the boundary changes to take effect. I’m forced to conclude that it really is about strengthening our negotiating hand with the EU, while avoiding an election in the middle of the process.
Also it covers the “no mandate” flank. Win a thumping majority based on a Brexit manifesto and spike the enemy’s guns. All the wankers who went on and on about Parliament then have to publicly deny the primacy of a Brexit dominated House.
The only unknown is is how many EU supporting Tory voters jump ship. Their only alternatives are Farron or abstaining (effectively the same thing). My guess is not that many. Conservative supporters, despite the hysterical squealing you see in the Guardian, are not ideologues.
If Corbin wins are we allowed to blame the Russians for rigging it for an old, white, crazy, incompetent dude?
That’s beyond even Putin.
Great line from Guido about Labour’s position:
“An astonishing lack of planning from the fans of centralised state planning given that a snap election has been a possibility that Corbyn and McDonnell had been warning of for months.”
I wish we didn’t keep having elections on Thursdays. I know the historical reason for it (said to be the day of the week people went to market so would be going into town anyway) but nowadays it just looks like politicians don’t want their weekends spoiling.