Starmer's vision quest

[briantrumpet]

Trump has shown - in the most visible, graphic, horrific way - what "protest voting" leads to.

I'm convinced that voting for "least worst" is the adult thing to do. Even when it feels painful!

Protest voting: "Oh, everything's terrible, it couldn't possibly get worse!"

Hmm, let's see how that's going for the people with brown & black skin who voted for Trump.

 

[CXRAndy]

Are you really that stupid?

Oh, wait........

Says the irrational Trump hater

 

[cookiemonster]

Says the irrational Trump hater

Nothing irrational about hating a fascist fraudster, liar and peadophile.

 

[Pross]

If you really think there is no least worse option, don't vote.

I personally think that is better than protest voting.

(Not that I am suggesting that you are one of the intellectual puddings who does that "I voted for Reform because Lab/Con/Lib are shjt" types, just that think that there are unfortunately a lot of British puddings.)

I'm not a nationalist but Plaid would at least be sensible although they are probably a bit more left leaning than I would like. They're probably the best of the realistic contenders. They were a very distant 4th last time but then Reform got less than 400 votes and the political climate has changed massively since.

 

[secretsqirrel]

It'll be an interesting test to see if Glasman & McSweeney are still driving the "We've not been Reformy enough yet, let's do it even harder" Labour bus. Or if, possibly, someone twigs that that tactic is going to leave them with just a few people who really want to vote Reform but can't quite admit that they are racists. The voters of Caerphilly have sent a clear message that they didn't want a Reform MP, and the chose the candidate who was closest to to their views who could do that. Oh, Plaid is pro re-joining the EU too.

Chris Mason must be sad this morning.

I always voted Plaid in the Euro Elections, I liked the idea of a more local voice in such a big organisation.

 

[matticus]

Labour are screwing that up thinking they can relentlessly chase the Reform vote without pissing off those who are generally on the L side. I think they would get a pretty big bump in polling if they ditched aping Reform.

I sinceraly hope - with my optimist hat on, obvs - that they will at least hear something about Polanski's recent PR successes (no, not that PR), and perhaps learn from it ...

 

[CXRAndy]

Nothing irrational about hating a fascist fraudster, liar and peadophile.

Yeah, wake up Dorothy 👍

 

[briantrumpet]

I'm not a nationalist but Plaid would at least be sensible although they are probably a bit more left leaning than I would like. They're probably the best of the realistic contenders. They were a very distant 4th last time but then Reform got less than 400 votes and the political climate has changed massively since.

At least with a by-election, there's some decent consituency-level polling to inform the choice about who the is most likely least-worst contender to stop the worst. General elections it's harder, as was very much the case in my constituency, where because of boundary changes and a very strong local independent not standing, it was guesswork, which in the end let the Tory scrape though despite a very convincing anti-Tory vote being apparent in the result.

Of course, PR or ranked voting would negate the need for such tactics.

 

[briantrumpet]

I sinceraly hope - with my optimist hat on, obvs - that they will at least hear something about Polanski's recent PR successes (no, not that PR), and perhaps learn from it ...

Yup - though Polanski wouldn't be my cup of tea, at least his left-leaning populism is demonstrating that there are votes to be had on the left without resorting to Reformy populism. There will be several Labour MPs feeling the heat in their constituencies, though they still have to pierce through the Glasman-McSweeney forcefield to get a hearing from Starmer, let alone policies that reflect their position.

 

[cookiemonster]

Yeah, wake up Dorothy 👍

 

[First Aspect]

But not voting is how the wreckers get in (e.g. Trump). I can't think of a scenario where there wouldn't be a least-worst option (or less-worst, if only two parties). Not voting seems like a cop-out of having to make a really hard choice.

To be clear, for the hopelessly dissollusioned, I'm advocating voting for the least worst option, followed by not voting, distantly followed by voting for a populist to give a middle finger to whoever is the source of the disillusionment.

If people do that, they are giving the middle finger to themselves (try not to visualise that) because on average the people who vote for populists are the group most likely to lose out under their policies.

 

[Ian H]

Yup - though Polanski wouldn't be my cup of tea, at least his left-leaning populism is demonstrating that there are votes to be had on the left without resorting to Reformy populism. There will be several Labour MPs feeling the heat in their constituencies, though they still have to pierce through the Glasman-McSweeney forcefield to get a hearing from Starmer, let alone policies that reflect their position.

At least one occasional member of this group joined the Greens just to vote for Polanski (not me, though I am sympathetic to the view).

 

[Pross]

At least with a by-election, there's some decent consituency-level polling to inform the choice about who the is most likely least-worst contender to stop the worst. General elections it's harder, as was very much the case in my constituency, where because of boundary changes and a very strong local independent not standing, it was guesswork, which in the end let the Tory scrape though despite a very convincing anti-Tory vote being apparent in the result.

Of course, PR or ranked voting would negate the need for such tactics.

We're getting some form of PR that I don't really understand for the Senedd election. No idea if this will be good or bad

https://senedd.wales/senedd-now/sen...ting-system-work-at-the-next-senedd-election/

 

[briantrumpet]

At least one occasional member of this group joined the Greens just to vote for Polanski (not me, though I am sympathetic to the view).

As we've discovered with Farage, you don't actually have to be elected to have a considerable influence on politics: he'd probably had as big an impact on the UK's political direction as Thatcher did, even before he became an MP.

 

[Stevo 666]

The news here is the complete pasting that Labour got (even if they did suffer from some tactical voting). Welsh nationalist party winning in Wales isn't really news.