I certainly see your point there. I'd also say however you need to look at the overall policies of each party. It's not like any political parties will represent your exact views so it's who covers as much of your views that you can stomach voting for. I'd also argue that ousting the incumbent party could be a worthwhile exercise down the line - if the seat moves from safe to marginal or switches control (with a much smaller majority) then there will be more interest in contesting the seat all round at the next election. This is the first general election for a while where there is actual clear water between the major parties as opposed to variations on a theme so even if it doesn't go the way you want you could look at a bit of tactical voting as nudging things in the direction of travel you want.Whether the clear distinction actually last is the big question I guess.

So was mine - a great communicator, always took the time to reply, setting out his reasons for voting a certain way in the house etc..

He's just had to step down, after publicly stating that homosexuality was a danger to society.

A well educated bigot from the conservative party - stop the press.

You and me both.

General election 2017: Two million apply to register to vote - BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/39987278

Sweet Jesus, don't let them be Tory voters... I don't care if they vote to the right of Hitler, just so long as they don't strengthen that clueless fcuking witch and the real evil lurking in the shadows behind her.

More than likely not, given what we've seen so far. The media have been pretty much all been saying it's going to be a Tory landslide (despite what the party themselves are trying to get across) and that doesn't exactly encourage people to bother to register just to vote tory, really. Whereas the various opposition parties have pretty much all got on the 'didn't votes was actually to the biggest party last time, so if you get out and vote you COULD make a difference' line at one point or other.

I know, but those council elections... And anyone who makes policy pledges that would normally be utterly taboo now... The Tories seem supremely confident. And no wonder with that opposition!

So, it looks like the Tories have splashed some cash on attack adds on YouTube. Pretty sure they wouldn't be permitted on TV.

As for voter registration I'd expect a lot of new registration to be younger people. Certainly there's a big push on getting younger voters to register. Hopefully recent events have shown them what happens if they don't vote.

Demographically more younger voters = more votes for left of centre parties. However we have a massive factor in the UK which is while the right of centre voters have pretty much one choice - UKIP are pretty much dead and votes for far right parties have always been miniscule numbers in any real sense - left of centre voters are possibly divided among at least three parties - labour, lib dems and now greens, who got millions of votes last time but one MP. If all the green voters decided to tactical vote to keep the tories out, labour would win the election by some margin. If you consider all the votes cast for parties who came third or lower as 'wasted', there are a LOT more left wasted votes than right wasted votes. This is why the Greens (particularly) have been trying to build what they describe as a 'progressive alliance', to basically band together the left of centre vote into one the way the right of centre vote is naturally. The Parliamentary labour party, being the cavalcade of clowns that it is, has actually been expelling local party officials for getting involved in that alliance, even though it is the only realistic chance they have of getting into power.

Strong and stable, that's the thing, unless it's your 'we're definitely sticking to this' policy on the dementia tax:
Theresa May ditches manifesto plan with 'dementia tax' U-turn

It is an impressive bit of salesmanship presenting the Maybot as strong and stable. Every time something looks like there's resistance to something she's definitely behind she caves in and switches position after a couple of days. How this can be present as someone who will provide strong leadership in complex and difficult negotiations is beyond me.
Say whatever else you like about Corbyn but he at least knows his own position and is consistent about it even if it doesn't match whatever the 'popular' view at the time is.

It really does begin to sound like a version of the classic Marx Brothers quote - "These are my principles! And if you don't like them, I have these other ones..."

It doesn't look good when she can't be arsed to turn up for a TV debate - good reasons or not.

Was the reason that she thought she'd lose badly?

I'm really starting to wonder how much longer Mrs May is going to last as PM. If the Tories don't increase their majority or it's only a marginal increase I suspect her colleagues will be sticking the knife in pretty quickly.
If they end up without an overall majority or lose outright she's gone the next day.
Even if they do win and increase their majority her performance in this campaign has been pretty dismal and despite her refrain of strong and stable her track record is more along the lines of cave at the first sign of trouble - hardly what you want going into complex negotiations against people you've gone out of your way to p!ss off.

Edit:
Just seen this slogan:

I agree but you normally find the party / person ahead in the polls only sees it as a risk whereas the "others" have nothing to lose

Almost certainly that is what her advisors thought but as it stands as a result she had five people on national television all calling her a coward. That would be something they could brush off possibly, but they've made basically their entire campaign about Therersa and about how Theresa is strong and indefatigable and won't be pushed around by the EU during the Brexit negotiations, whereas Jeremy is feeble and would be a pushover. Then when the time comes to demonstrate that fortitude and character, she either can't bring herself to do it or can't be arsed.

Let's face it, last night was her time to walk the walk rather than just talk the talk, and she didn't. As it turns out she may have had little to gain, but she actually had a heck of a lot to lose.

I don't think of itself this would be enough to cause fatal damage, but the opposition already had ammunition on this with the Budget debacle and the Manifesto turn around. The best line from the show on Monday night was when Jeremy Paxman called her 'a blowhard who will run for cover as soon as the gunfire starts'. Last night was her chance to kill that image stone dead - if she'd turned up and bossed the show, nobody would think about that any more. By not turning up when everyone else did - and make no mistake, this is exactly why Corbyn turned up despite previously saying he wouldn't - all she's done is reinforce the impression that Paxman had it right.

This is entirely the mistake the Tory campaign have been making all along - they've not matched the image to the message. And this is why Corbyn has gone from 22 points behind to apparently within margin of error in the polling. The public will believe a line if you sell it properly, Theresa just hasn't been able to.

And now apparently she's refused to appear on Woman's Hour as well (which every party leader has previously done) which isn't exactly a crucible of ferocious questions at the best of times. Justine Greening will be substituting.

It's not about appearing weak or strong any more, it's just patently obvious she's utterly terrified of appearing anywhere that's not 'managed' to within an inch of it's life. It's showing contempt for democracy and the electorate, and is therefore contemptible rather than pitiable.

Owen Jones tweeted this yesterday.


https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/ ... 5359410176

He asked CCHQ a few more questions about why the May is pulling from BBC local radio interviews, but had no reply. Later:


https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/ ... 0329835520

So, the question we do have to ask is why? Why is May only happy to appear in carefully controlled situations? She’ll gleefully walk around with minders present, shielding her from the public, she’ll talk to small groups of her own supporters, but won’t appear in situations where she can show she can think on her feet. The Andrew Neil interview was, for her, an unmitigated disaster.

Tories are bending over backwards to spin a story that makes this look right, but you can see that they are repeating a line that’s not got much substance to it.