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Polling: 2017 General Election, Council Elections and Independence


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1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

I'm trying to gauge whether a bunch of Rangers supporters are policing what a Catholic calls themselves.

It was very much my experience that Rangers fans regarded me as Catholic, and they didn't seem too interested in my exact feelings about transubstantiation when they were expressing this opinion. Perhaps when I was getting called a fen**n b**tard I should have replied, "I dunno guys, the whole immaculate conception thing, I don't think I buy it."

Catholicism is a religion, but in this part of the world it's tied up in ethnonationalist identity and culture. I don't believe in God so I'd never call myself Catholic and haven't done since I was about 17 but I'll never be able to change how I was brought up, nor do I want to.

I can't believe anyone is interested in any of this. Is it just manufactured bile from people who seem to have lots of it?

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2 hours ago, GordonS said:

Is that a general question or do you want me to answer? Can someone who doesn't believe in God call themselves Catholic? I don't think so, but the church calls me "lapsed".

Hard to imagine any subject more off topic tbh.

You can call yourself what you want.  I don’t belief in god and I call myself rational.  I also call myself brilliant, witty and sexy.  

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14 hours ago, GordonS said:

Don't be a fud.

I literally know a priest in Lanarkshire that uses that word about some of his own parishioners. He's the priest that married my wife and I. Pretending to find a very boring and normal upbringing "stretching credulity" is weird. I grew up Catholic, I lost my belief in God in my late teens like many/most do, I was a conflicted Celtic fan until I moved to Linlithgow over 20 years ago and found a club I could follow that wasn't a constant embarrassment, that's it. Woo, what an exciting tale.

I said the usual suspects would choose to be bellends about this, and I haven't been disappointed. 

8Mile has had a hard-on for me ever since I started posting on this site, I don't profess to know why, I don't think I've ever even argued with him but it certainly comes across as misplaced anger for some shortcomings in his life. As you quoted him I can see what he said - so in response, I was an altar boy at St Gabriel's on Merrylee Road in the 1980s, never a choirboy, and in my experience the only people who call anyone a know-it-all are people who don't know anything.

The one thing he got right is that I'm pompous. I stopped caring about that a long time ago.

 😂

Pish.

Spoiler

don’tdonateaticket.com

 

Edited by 8MileBU
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15 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

If Stormzy's this offended about a lapsed catholic using the term "bead-rallter", just wait til he hears some of the stuff his fellow Rangers fans say.

I was just drawing attention to it, plenty of other people took offence at the time, I didn't comment on the matter but then again I'm not the one going around calling Gordon a bigot for no reason...

Edited by Stormzy
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You can call yourself what you want.  I don’t belief in god and I call myself rational.  I also call myself brilliant, witty and sexy.  
0/4 then?

[emoji6]

If you were rational you wouldn't be a United fan (or I Dundee one for that matter).

As for witty, brilliant and sexy . . .
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  • 3 weeks later...

The big story there is obviously the Tories losing a seat they've literally never had less than 50% of the vote in before. You doubt it would be repeated in a general election but if the Lib Dems can take that safe a Tory seat they can take pretty much anything in their heartlands.

However, while there's obviously been a significant Labour to Lib Dem tactical vote contributing to such a big majority, that is Labour's worst ever result in a by-election and worst result in that seat. Some tactical voting was to be expected and the Lib Dems (or Liberals) have been second place in that seat in every election other than 2017 since it was created, but coming fourth behind the Greens with less than half of their vote is wild.

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57 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

The big story there is obviously the Tories losing a seat they've literally never had less than 50% of the vote in before. You doubt it would be repeated in a general election but if the Lib Dems can take that safe a Tory seat they can take pretty much anything in their heartlands.

However, while there's obviously been a significant Labour to Lib Dem tactical vote contributing to such a big majority, that is Labour's worst ever result in a by-election and worst result in that seat. Some tactical voting was to be expected and the Lib Dems (or Liberals) have been second place in that seat in every election other than 2017 since it was created, but coming fourth behind the Greens with less than half of their vote is wild.

I'm a Labour member, but I see this as a grassroots "fúck you" to the current Government. No co-ordinated campaign, as far as I'm aware, but just many, many people voting however they had to to send the message that they wanted anything other than a Tory to represent them. 

Once we lose B&S and Starmer gets binned, hopefully whoever takes over looks at this result and sees the future - co-operation, perhaps even to the extent of not standing against other left-leaning candidates in some constituencies.  The situation is too grave to continue to follow the fooballisation of recent years - it should be about the policies, not the colour of the rosette. 

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"Let's get rid of the Tories" doesn't seem to be catching on anywhere else, so is there any particular reason why they got their arses handed to them in this seat?

I'm sure the answer isn't "my, the Lib Dems are looking terribly attractive this time of year".

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3 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

The Lib Dem’s won this by-election with a campaign against HS2 and house building. 

Oh, so NIMBYism? Gotcha.

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14 minutes ago, BFTD said:

"Let's get rid of the Tories" doesn't seem to be catching on anywhere else, so is there any particular reason why they got their arses handed to them in this seat?

I'm sure the answer isn't "my, the Lib Dems are looking terribly attractive this time of year".

It was a Remain voting constituency, so the flag shagging bollocks won't work there, unlike the other by elections and much of the council votes. Even if you look at the 2019 result in seats London and commuter belt seats like Chesham and Amersham, the Tories didn't add much and sometimes lost vote share in their 'safe' seats. These seats are where Labour and Lib Dems need to be looking to in the future, and just completely ignoring the north.

Edited by sparky88
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4 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

It was a Remain voting constituency, so the flag shagging bollocks won't work there, unlike the other by elections and much of the council votes. Even if you look at the 2019 result in seats London and commuter belt seats like Chesham and Amersham, the Tories didn't add much and sometimes lost vote share in their 'safe' seats. These seats are where Labour and Lib Dems need to be looking to in the future, and just completely ignoring the north.

Christ. What a world it is in which we live.

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36 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Oh, so NIMBYism? Gotcha.

I'd have to look it up but the Lib Dems heavily campaigned against HS2 and the proposed planning reforms by the government.  When Johnson visited the constituency he made comments that indicated a rearguard action on these things - saying that they were going to make some of the constituency a national park and that any development would be done on brownfield sites not greenfield.  It obviously didn't cut through.  I saw some of the LD leaflets posted on social media and they were very NIMBYish.

Quote

It was a Remain voting constituency, so the flag shagging bollocks won't work there, unlike the other by elections and much of the council votes. Even if you look at the 2019 result in seats London and commuter belt seats like Chesham and Amersham, the Tories didn't add much and sometimes lost vote share in their 'safe' seats. These seats are where Labour and Lib Dems need to be looking to in the future, and just completely ignoring the north.

I think that there are factors that are going to push the Tories but not necessarily in favour of Labour.  You have pressure on the Tories from existing wealthy homeowners, opposed to planning reform etc - are they really going to vote Labour?  I don't think Labour can convincingly pivot to that position.  The Lib Dems could certainly piuck up votes there.  Younger voters in these constituencies are more likely to favour planning reform, housebuilding etc but that's probably too small a constituency to make the difference.

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chesham-and-amersham-byelection-lib-dems-hope-hs2-will-derail-tories-3kkdkk6t6

Quote

Sarah Green, 39, the Lib Dem candidate, has vowed to be a “thorn in the side” of HS2, despite her party campaigning in support of the £106 billion project at the last election. 

Quote

 

Fleet is facing the tricky task of distancing himself from his party’s planning reforms, which will make it easier for developers to build houses in areas where there is opposition. Under government targets, 10,000 plots of greenfield land are marked for development in Buckinghamshire, the Campaign to Protect Rural England says.

Boris Johnson sought to head off criticism on a visit to the seat, when he suggested that he could designate the Chilterns a national park. Fleet says that the comments were “very serious”, adding: “Tory MPs do not support building over green spaces and over the green belt. I certainly don’t. There’s been a huge amount of scaremongering going on about a bill which is not published.”

The Lib Dems sense an opportunity, and are appealing to the local sensitivities of traditional Tory voters. Green has put conservation at the centre of her campaign. She describes Buckinghamshire as “stunning”, saying the local woods were covered in “carpets of bluebells” in the spring.

“This is an educated electorate, they know what these planning reforms mean and they are quite outraged by the idea that they won’t have a say in developments that happen in their area,” she says. “I’d like to see more affordable homes but these planning laws don’t guarantee the right sort of housing the community needs.”

The constituency is on the London Underground but the area is renowned for its landscape of ancient woods, cricket pitches and village greens.

Quentin Chases, 75, lives in the medieval centre of Amersham and drives a 1924 Bentley. A Tory voter, he says he appreciates the pace of life, which allows him to get into central London on the Tube while also enjoying countryside walks in the Chilterns. “We’re all nimby here, we’d love the houses to be built elsewhere,” he says.

Elizabeth Okey, 71, is a retired special needs teacher and is a Liberal Democrat voter. “HS2 makes me very upset,” she says. “They have destroyed an ancient wood which has lots of rare species of bat.”

Jill Morgan, 75, has lived in Amersham since 1981. She is a longtime Conservative supporter who is thinking about voting Liberal Democrat for the first time because of concerns about congestion on the roads and trouble parking in town. “HS2 is a big problem,” she says. “Amersham should be kept as it is without it becoming too built up.”

At last month’s local elections, the Conservatives made gains in traditional Labour areas in the north of the country.

But across the “Blue Wall” of southern England, there were signs of a stirring in the Tory shires amid disquiet about planning reforms, with the Liberal Democrats picking up a handful of council seats in Surrey, Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

Although Buckinghamshire as a whole voted overwhelmingly for the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats took Amersham town council.

Jim Conboy, chairman of the Amersham HS2 Action Group, says the result could be a sign of things to come. “It seems to me that the Liberal Democrat takeover of Amersham town council may indicate a very much reduced Conservative majority,” he says.

 

From pre-election.

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This stunning by election result bought on the back of anti HS2 campaign in the area is a contradiction for the Lib Dems given that they have supported the HS2 project since it was first proposed stating that they would make the HS2 rail link a priority.

So well done to the locals for stating their priority at the ballot box.

 

 

 

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