Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

I guess it's typical of these years that the ONLY party with moderate policies (LibDems) are the ones shrinking in the polls

It's one of the things I wonder about a lot.

Our system is designed to produce strong governments, which it does by favouring a two party system. And at this point lots of people can't abide Corbyn or Johnson. So, given the system, opposition to either party forces you into the other one. So it could be structural. And both parties have changed their internal rules in a way that favours Tory/Labour activists in who leads.

On the other hand May ran a dreadful campaign. I'm not convinced Johnson is a great campaigner. I don't think Corbyn necessarily is, but Labour and Momentum are still excellent at doing a campaign. Swinson is not running a great campaign (and the Lib Dem campaign seems very 2000s old-fashioned). So I'm not sure if it is the campaign, or structural.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Johnson looks like a parody of himself; given that the "Boris" persona is also a confection.........well, there's less there than meets the eyes.

[Sheilbh]

Got a Lib Dem leaflet! I am not massively convinced by their: "The Lib Dems are winning" message....

But still, nice they still have hope.

[Valmy]

Got a Lib Dem leaflet! I am not massively convinced by their: "The Lib Dems are winning" message....

But still, nice they still have hope.

History will look back and think "damn the Lib Dems were right" amidst the tattered remains of a Tory-destroyed wasteland that once was Britain. That is a kind of winning.

[Sheilbh]

The Lib Dems, winning moral victories.

Edit: Also the submissions of the Jewish Labour Movement to the EHRC have been made and are pretty horrendous to read. Very, very grim.

And Johnson's refusing to do an interview with ITV too. The BBC have done this little monologue about him not doing an Andrew Neil interview, after the latest round (I think, Farage):
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1202670854410297344?s=20

"And that concludes our fourth leaders' interview for the general election of 2019. There is, of course, still one to be done. Boris Johnson. The prime minister.

"We have been asking him for weeks now to give us a date, a time, a venue. As of now, none has been forthcoming.

"No broadcaster can compel a politician to be interviewed.

"But leaders' interviews have been a key part of the BBC's prime-time election coverage for decades. We do them, on your behalf, to scrutinise and hold to account those who would govern us. That is democracy.

"We have always proceeded in good faith that the leaders would participate. And in every election they have. All of them. Until this one.

"It is not too late. We have an interview prepared. Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say.

"The theme running through our questions is trust - and why at so many times in his career, in politics and journalism, critics and sometimes even those close to him have deemed him to be untrustworthy.

"It is, of course, relevant to what he is promising us all now.

"Can he be trusted to deliver 50,000 more nurses when almost 20,000 in his numbers are already working for the NHS?

"He promises 40 new hospitals. But only six are scheduled to be built by 2025. Can he be believed when he claims another 34 will be built in the five years after that?

"Can he be trusted to fund the NHS properly when he uses a cash figure of an extra £34bn? After inflation the additional money promised amounts to £20bn.

"He vows that the NHS will not be on the table in any trade talks with America.

"But he vowed to the DUP, his Unionist allies in Northern Ireland, that there would never be a border down the Irish Sea. That is as important to the DUP as the NHS is to the rest of us. It is a vow his Brexit deal would seem to break.

"Now he tells us he's always been an opponent of austerity. We would ask him for evidence of that.

"And we would want to know why an opponent of austerity would bake so much of it into their future spending plans.

"We would ask why, as with the proposed increase in police numbers, so many of his promises only take us back to the future. Back to where we were before austerity began.

"Social care is an issue of growing concern. On the steps of Downing Street in July he said he'd prepared a plan for social care. We'd ask him why that plan is not in his manifesto.

"Questions of trust. Questions we'd like to put to Mr Johnson so you can hear his replies. But we can't. Because he won't sit down with us.

"There is no law, no Supreme Court ruling that can force Mr Johnson to participate in a BBC leaders' interview.

"But the prime minister of our nation will, at times, have to stand up to President Trump, President Putin, President Xi of China. So it was surely not expecting too much that he spend half an hour standing up to me.

"Good night."

[Tamas]

Andrew Neil issues challenge to Johnson to go and get interviewed on the BBC like every other PM candidate for the past X decades:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50679252

[Sheilbh]

People not keen on being taken for fools:

[Valmy]

The Lib Dems, winning moral victories.

Well they haven't had any actual victories since 1910 (or 1918 depending on how you count it) so that is all they have

[Sheilbh]

Interestingly, the most viewed ad this year so far is the Labour/Rob Delaney on the NHS:
https://twitter.com/robdelaney/status/1198159845423243264?s=20

Over 13 million views so far.

[Sheilbh]

The Lib Dems, winning moral victories.

Well they haven't had any actual victories since 1910 (or 1918 depending on how you count it) so that is all they have

Yes. I'm not sure I'd position the Liberals as a great party of moral victories given they're the only party to have had a leader who tried to arrange the murder of his lover

[PJL]

Re the YouGov poll on Boris Johnson doing an interview with Andrew Neil, I think the Tory majority for this is significant, and will ultimately harm Boris if he refuses. By how much I don't know, but it could easily be the difference between a working majority and a minority govt (only 2% of total votes between the two)

[Barrister]

Re the YouGov poll on Boris Johnson doing an interview with Andrew Neil, I think the Tory majority for this is significant, and will ultimately harm Boris if he refuses. By how much I don't know, but it could easily be the difference between a working majority and a minority govt (only 2% of total votes between the two)

I wouldn't count on it.  In polls a majority of Republicans say Trump should release his taxes.

[Sheilbh]

This may be naivete but I feel Tories are still more attached to rules and norms and less nihilistic than the GOP.

I mean the polls still say he'll win - so why risk it. But, despite that, I still think it could be tight.

[The Brain]

The GOP isn't nihilistic. They really do care about Russia's agenda.

[Josquius]

This may be naivete but I feel Tories are still more attached to rules and norms and less nihilistic than the GOP.

I mean the polls still say he'll win - so why risk it. But, despite that, I still think it could be tight.

I am not so sure alas. Whilst the republicans are big on the sanctity of the constitution the tories are looking to really rewrite ours to stop parliament ever frustrating them again.