European Election Results

[Strokes]

Anyone got any thoughts on why no news agency has mentioned that UKIP's Scottish MEP who got elected is openly gay?

Just seems a bit weird that everytime I've seen UKIP mentioned the last month they have asked the person being interviewed if they are a homophobe and made umpteen references to a random councillor who made a comments about floods being caused by gays.

Just seems this should be far bigger news than it is?

This carpet is a bit lumpy, I just stubbed my toe.

[MooseBreath]

We haven't even had true socialism since Attlee's era, which certainly wasn't anti-production. As for "limp-wristed", I'm not even sure how to respond.

We haven't, but the french have had a decent go at it, so it's telling that discontent is so high in france that they have lurched so dramatically to the right. It'll be a while before we learn just how damaging france's socialist experiment has been because it will take a while for the full effects to filter through, but even now it's looking like a complete and utter disaster.

[MooseBreath]

Anyone got any thoughts on why no news agency has mentioned that UKIP's Scottish MEP who got elected is openly gay?

Just seems a bit weird that everytime I've seen UKIP mentioned the last month they have asked the person being interviewed if they are a homophobe and made umpteen references to a random councillor who made a comments about floods being caused by gays.

Just seems this should be far bigger news than it is?

That kind of full fact dont get reported by the mainstream media but its out there if you're someome who knows where to look. Independent media charity. Award wins.

[The Doctor]

Fantastic seeing the country turning purple

 

as it is slowly strangled by fascism.

 

 

I thought you had a right hard-on for the military - why then celebrate the success of what they've fought against for years?

[Mark_w]

Aye, look at this bastard, he got elected last night, I'm sure he was in the NF and BNP before UKIP.

 

 

Black people can't be racist Matt?

[ADK]

We haven't, but the french have had a decent go at it, so it's telling that discontent is so high in france that they have lurched so dramatically to the right. It'll be a while before we learn just how damaging france's socialist experiment has been because it will take a while for the full effects to filter through, but even now it's looking like a complete and utter disaster.

 

I don't know much about France's politics, but the BBC were saying that they have massive unemployment which doesn't sound very socialist to me. Maybe it says more about that particular party than socialism itself. Meanwhile in Germany, they have held low unemployment even throughout the crisis and the ruling party won the elections there.

[Strokes]

Black people can't be racist Matt?

Yes they can mark, but who are they and Ukip being racist too?

[Dr The Singh]

Aye, look at this bastard, he got elected last night, I'm sure he was in the NF and BNP before UKIP.

He was at the gay pride event in birmingham with me, he went off for abit and cam be back walking very stiffly

[Mark_w]

Yes they can mark, but who are they and Ukip being racist too?

 

I didn't say they were. They're being xenophobic.

[Dr The Singh]

I didn't say they were. They're being xenophobic.

Is that against the law?

[Strokes]

I didn't say they were. They're being xenophobic.

Meh the whole country are xenophobes to some degree, I wouldn't let it bring you down.

[Mark_w]

Is that against the law?

 

What's that got to do with anything?

[Captain...]

Maybe, but they won't stop, they should have realised ages ago shouting 'racist' over and over does no good. That isn't going to wash when it's clearly a party that seems to attract a lot of ethnic support.

 

Coming away from the one man band might be the hardest thing, in Diane James and Suzanne Jones though they have two fantastic spokespeople who are both capable of taking over from Farage and have made numerous impressive public appearances.

 

I hope they don't hide away all the nutters, the public like a little bit of someone saying something outrgaeous or saying something you don't expect a politician to say, Boris has got elected in liberal London on that, the public don't want to see robots.

 

I think this is a bit of a cop out, the Lib Dems have done badly but it's clearly Clegg that is the problem and thats partly because of the stance he has taken on the EU, I'll bet another thing is that loads of these votes the Lib Dems picked up over the last twenty years in protest they didn't realise just how pro-EU they were as well, hes made sure the whole country knows exactly what they stand for now and they have paid for it.

 

Lib Dems were polling around 7-12% for the last couple of years, well before they became the party of "in" they were down around 7% in some polls, Cleggs recent poor showing in the debates may have pushed them to the lower end of what they have been polling for this election, along with UKIP's strong showing taking votes of all parties but being pro Europe hasn't done them anywhere near as much harm as forming this coalition.

[Rincewind]

I agree with that.

[Harry - LCFC]

Meh the whole country are xenophobes to some degree, I wouldn't let it bring you down.

 

I take your point about everyone being somewhat xenophobic but I find it rather ridiculous to say that mild xenophobia justifies more extreme xenophobia. Surely we can distinguish between 'very xenophobic' and 'slightly xenophobic' and realise that both views would produce very different societies?

 

To give you an example, would someone saying "we're all educated to some degree" convince you that further education isn't worthwhile?

[brockmyster]

So you agree the freedom of movement act is unsuitable?

 

Honestly its an issue I cant decide upon to a certain extent, however people seem too forget it does work for us i.e. British citizens can just as easily move away from the UK

[MooseBreath]

I don't know much about France's politics, but the BBC were saying that they have massive unemployment which doesn't sound very socialist to me. Maybe it says more about that particular party than socialism itself. Meanwhile in Germany, they have held low unemployment even throughout the crisis and the ruling party won the elections there.

High unemployment is exactly what to expect from socialism as soon as the government realises it doesn't have an endless supply of money and can't just pay for everyone to have token jobs that don't produce anything. Don't then expect people accustomed to living on socialist handouts to want or have any idea how to get back to work.

[C-man]

I am terrified about the prospect of an EU In/Out referendum. I still think it's a fair way away but I genuinely think enough people are stupid enough to vote 'out' on the back of the promise of closing our borders alone.

The implications on our international trade would be fvcking disastrous. I'm no expert but starting to put up trade tariffs and restrictions with your biggest importer and exporter is asking for trouble, isn't it? Particularly when you have the biggest trade bloc in the world sat on your doorstep.

[bovril]

I don't think it's just immigration and the financial crisis that has tipped Europe to the right. We live in an age where almost all information is at our fingertips and we can easily spend a long weekend in a European city, yet our European leaders are so remote and out of touch. People know who Farage is, they know Le Pen is, yet I couldn't name more than 2 members of the EU commission. 'Better the devil you know' - when faced with an almost infinite choice of arsehole politicians you'll probably vote for the one that speaks your language and drinks the same beer as you.

 

Fvck knows where we're going in the next five years. Ukraine shows how fragile much of Eastern Europe still is. We need to make sure first and foremost that the current generation of young Europeans at least feel they have some kind of future otherwise dark times lie ahead I feel.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Scottish independence is a certainty now.

[Alf Bentley]

Lib Dems were polling around 7-12% for the last couple of years, well before they became the party of "in" they were down around 7% in some polls, Cleggs recent poor showing in the debates may have pushed them to the lower end of what they have been polling for this election, along with UKIP's strong showing taking votes of all parties but being pro Europe hasn't done them anywhere near as much harm as forming this coalition.

 

Completely agree with that last point. The Lib Dems have been the most pro-EU party for years and haven't done too badly, including in European elections.

 

The Tories aren't losing votes to the same extent because, apart from UKIP defectors, most natural Tory voters largely approve of what the coalition is doing, but a hell of a lot of Lib Dem voters don't.

 

Although Lib Dem voters certainly can't be categorised as centre-left en masse, more are centre-left than centre-right. There was a poll before the last election that asked Lib Dem voters which party they preferred between Labour and Tory - about 2/3 preferred Labour, 1/3 preferred the Tories.

 

Once upon a time, Matt used to praise Clegg's self-sacrifice in forming the coalition to ensure national stability in difficult times. I partly agreed with that, as Labour didn't seem to want to do a deal after the election. On the other hand, Clegg, like Danny Alexander, has always been someone who's politically more comfortable hanging out with Tories - he's like a Tory wet in his politics, a Ken Clarke, if you like. Cable, Hughes and Farron would clearly be more at ease in coalition with Labour, being old-style social democrats (Cable, who was once a Labour member) or old-style Liberals (Hughes, Farron).

 

The Lib Dems are in a near impossible situation now. They surely can't change tack and put the coalition in peril at this stage - they'd lose all the little credit they've got for acting responsibly over the last 4 years. Would the Tories even accept Cable or Farron as Deputy PM at this stage if they ditched Clegg? If not, the Lib Dems would end up going into the election with a record of 4 years supporting the Tories and 1 year plunging the country into political chaos! I reckon their only option is for Clegg to stay, at least until the election, for them to stay in the coalition but to be more aggressive about differentiating themselves from the Tories: picking a few fights with the Tories without bringing down the govt, promoting distinctly Lib Dem policies.

 

After the election, if they do badly (very likely), then they'll have a leadership decision to take. If Labour are the biggest party, then I'm sure Clegg will go in favour of Cable or Farron (interesting that the Lib Dems topped the poll in Farron's seat, while Cable could lose his). If the Tories are the biggest party, but have no majority, would the Lib Dems be happy for Clegg to stay and form another coalition, even if they've lost loads of seats....doubtful. So, one of the results of the Euro elections could be that the Tories will need a majority (or an alliance with the Ulster Unionists) to form the next government, assuming that UKIP get very few seats next year, which I still do assume.

[Captain...]

I don't think it's just immigration and the financial crisis that has tipped Europe to the right. We live in an age where almost all information is at our fingertips and we can easily spend a long weekend in a European city, yet our European leaders are so remote and out of touch. People know who Farage is, they know Le Pen is, yet I couldn't name more than 2 members of the EU commission. 'Better the devil you know' - when faced with an almost infinite choice of arsehole politicians you'll probably vote for the one that speaks your language and drinks the same beer as you.

 

Fvck knows where we're going in the next five years. Ukraine shows how fragile much of Eastern Europe still is. We need to make sure first and foremost that the current generation of young Europeans at least feel they have some kind of future otherwise dark times lie ahead I feel.

 

A very interesting point that, would the main party leaders and politicians be better off distancing themselves from the european elections and have a european party leader, DC, Millipede and Cleggster have other things to worry about, Farage has been, more or less, solely focussing on the European elections and benefitted from it. Another face, another personality, a different figure head could generate a lot more interest in the Euro elections.

 

There is also an argument for not running as the UK parties, but rather running as the MEP voting block, at the moment not a single UK candiate in the European elections stood for European People's Party, which was the majority party.

 

If the elections were split by European voting block we could have had Joseph Daul over here debating with Farage, rather than Clegg who isn't even an MEP and wasn't even contesting the election. I daresay that might have won Farage even more votes, but it would have been more relevant.

 

The European Parliament Elections never feel very European, normally it is the same blokes arguing over the same shit that we get at every other election, we vote for the same parties for the same reasons as we always do, and then stuff happens in Brussels that most of us don't really understand, none of the people we vote for have any real influence over it, as none are in the majority EP voting block. To be honest I'm surprised that turn out was as high as 30%, probably have to thank Farage for that.

[WhatsHisName]

Do you think that the lib dems have learnt from these election results ? With Clegg still there so I don't think they have.

[Captain...]

Do you think that the lib dems have learnt from these election results ? With Clegg still there so I don't think they have.

 

What is there to learn? Nobody likes them, they fvcked up massively in joining the coaltion and going back on a promise to never vote for a rise in tuition fees.

 

They can't go back in time and stop themselves becoming a laughing stock, they either need to throw Clegg to the wolves or those that still have some credibility left need to form their own party.

 

It is ridiculous how badly they messed it up so publicly, they had the power, they were king makers, a real chance to influence policy put their stamp on things and now they are at their lowest ebb for decades.

[Feed The Yak!!]

High unemployment is exactly what to expect from socialism as soon as the government realises it doesn't have an endless supply of money and can't just pay for everyone to have token jobs that don't produce anything. Don't then expect people accustomed to living on socialist handouts to want or have any idea how to get back to work.

No more than in other countries. Take China for example, an economic (and socialist) powerhouse. In fact, as it's politics have moved further to the right in recent years, its unemployment has increased.