Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Admiral Yi]

Is Ferrero Rocher something special in America or Britain? It's just another not particularly fancy type of chocolate here.

I've never seen it being consumed.  They run plenty of ads here, especially around the holidays, which try to impart an upmarket image.

[Richard Hakluyt]

They ran a much-loved and much-ridiculed advertising campaign here in the UK where the chocs were handed out at grand diplomatic functions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P-nZZkQqTc

I don't think anyone was fooled, but producing them at parties and get-togethers is a chance for some ironic amusement.

[Zanza]

Is Ferrero Rocher something special in America or Britain? It's just another not particularly fancy type of chocolate here.

I think it is a little more costly, at least than typical chocolates. I'd think on part with Lindt though. So nicer but nothing amazing.

Ok, they have a similar market position here.

[celedhring]

I don't think anyone was fooled, but producing them at parties and get-togethers is a chance for some ironic amusement.

It's the same angle they play in Spanish advertisement. We stopped making those jokes at some point in the early 2000s though.

[Admiral Yi]

It's the same angle they play in Spanish advertisement. We stopped making those jokes at some point in the early 2000s though.

Outcooled by the dagos.  That's gotta sting.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I don't think anyone was fooled, but producing them at parties and get-togethers is a chance for some ironic amusement.

It's the same angle they play in Spanish advertisement. We stopped making those jokes at some point in the early 2000s though.

Yes, but UKIP want to go back to the 1950s so Ferrero Rocher jokes are at the cutting edge of modernity for them.

[The Brain]

I don't think anyone was fooled, but producing them at parties and get-togethers is a chance for some ironic amusement.

It's the same angle they play in Spanish advertisement. We stopped making those jokes at some point in the early 2000s though.

Yes, but UKIP want to go back to the 1950s so Ferrero Rocher jokes are at the cutting edge of modernity for them.

Do they have any Grey Poupon?

[Josquius]

Today's news: Richnond bielection. Lib Dems win tory safe seat due to campaigning on a specifically anti brexit platform.
And this is in spite of ukip and the tories not running a candidate in favour of supporting Zac Goldsmith in his anti Heathrow independent run.
The Greens followed suite and backed the lib dem. Labour still ran, a potential lib dem spoiler, but they came to nothing.

[Richard Hakluyt]

"Full result:
Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrats) - 20,510
Zac Goldsmith (Independent) - 18,638
Christian Wolmar (Labour Party) - 1,515
Howling Laud Hope (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party) - 184
Fiona Natasha Syms, (Independent) - 173
Dominic Francis Stockford, (Christian Peoples Alliance) - 164
Maharaja Jammu and Kashmir (One Love Party) - 67
David Powell - 32
Turnout = 53.6%
Ms Olney was elected with a majority of 1,872 votes, compared to a Conservative Party majority of 23,015 at the 2015 General Election."

Extracted from the BBC.

[Tamas]

Let's hope the LibDems take the hint and run on a full anti-Brexit platform in the elections which, well, I thought would be coming next year but maybe not after seeing this result.

I wonder how long the Tories can remain a single party.

[celedhring]

Seems that IDS has caught some butthurt over this. It's a small pleasure in a year of so many political tragedies, but I'll take it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/02/richmond-park-by-election-lib-dems-claim-victory-zac-goldsmith/

Mr Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said Mr Verhofstadt should "mind his own bloody business".

He told The Telegraph: "The honest truth is these guys are unelected, so how dare an unelected apparatchik comment on an election first and foremost.

"Secondly I assume this means he is prepared to stand by the result of the EU referendum which means that we are leaving, so he should stop moaning and carping and trying to damage this."

[Josquius]

Let's hope the LibDems take the hint and run on a full anti-Brexit platform in the elections which, well, I thought would be coming next year but maybe not after seeing this result.

I wonder how long the Tories can remain a single party.

Yep.
Considering labours decision to go all vichy and switch to the brexit side  the lib Dems could really do quite well at hoovering up the remain vote vs the split leave vote.
Fingers crossed.

One interesting comment I read said that the lib Dems losing on the brexit ref could do for them what the SNP losing on the Scots independence ref did for them....

[Richard Hakluyt]

If we'd had more Lib-Dems in the Commons then the snooper's charter might have been forestalled.

[Agelastus]

So a constituency that has a disproportionate number of residents who work in the City, that had one of the highest percentage of remain votes in the country in the referendum, where Zac Goldsmith was running as a "Tory in a cloak" (ie. despite his opposition to Heathrow's third runway it was obvious that he would toe the Tory line in everything else so his opposition to the third runway was worthless), and where the turnout was 20% below that of the general election...goes to a Liberal Democrat campaigning against Brexit (and the Third Runway.)

Not overly surprising when put like that; yet this is supposed to be the sign of a big change coming (at least occurring to Tamas and Tyr.)

Despite the national polls consistently giving the Tories one of the healthiest leads  they've had in 2 or 3 decades (with the Lib Dem vote below UKIPs in all bar a couple of polls for the last few months.)

And despite the fact that if the next general election was fought between just two parties, one pro-Brexit and one pro-Remain, you'd need the percentage voting remain to move both by a large amount and in the right places to gain a pro-remain majority.

Something like 400-425 of the UK's constituencies probably voted majority Brexit in the referendum - that's a Tony Blair "the Tories are dead forever" level majority. Remainers have the same issue Labour does - their votes are piling up making safe constituencies safer.

However...

(1) Polls a month before the bye-election gave Zac Goldsmith up to a 25% lead, so one can make a valid argument about just how accurate the other polls showing a major Tory lead across the country are (not that May's going to run for an election yet.) Things may have changed and we're just not seeing it.

(2) Labour's vote pretty much collapsed from that of the general election, even given that this was a bye election and probably a classic protest vote type one at that. I'd be very worried on both wings of the party.

And

(3) As is obvious, the Tories were not "dead forever" in 1997; so the UK's electoral calculus is subject to change, often quite significant change, over very few electoral cycles.

[Zanza]

Verhofstadt is a MEP, Smith is an MP. They seem to have a similar democratic legitimacy.