No surprise - mid term by-elections always seem to be "a surprise" (everyone revolts) but this one does show how weak Labour are. Opposition? No. Nobody thinks the LibDems (who I voted for most of my life) have anything to offer nationally, though I did feel that Jeremy Thorpe and Nick Clegg could both have been decent PM's.

Yes worse result for Labour expected for Tories. But all part of the goodbye to Boris that is now in process...There is no way back for him.

Happy to see Boris go but cannot see any replacement except, perhaps, Hunt who is, at least, a Charterhouse boy. Starmer ghastly. Ed useless. Democracy no longer works. I think I'd
probably hand it all back to King Charles who seems like a decent man and is old enough (and unambitious enough) to run the UK well - starting by rejoining the EU, opening our borders and planting more trees. Then King William can take over. Billions saved by scrapping silly Parliament. Devote the money to looking after refugees, boosting the NHS and tightening up the Judicial system by dumping incompetent cops who waste tax monies on smart phones to snap selfies with corpses or use warrant cards to rape and kill women or make false arrests to kill off pensioners.

Priti and Rishi will be going head to head. Keir will be grovelling on the door steps of poor people. I can imagine him being like Danny Baker in the Daz adverts or like a beggar.

The UK needs another GE election.

JK2006 wrote:
Happy to see Boris go but cannot see any replacement except, perhaps, Hunt who is, at least, a Charterhouse boy. Starmer ghastly. Ed useless. Democracy no longer works. I think I'd
probably hand it all back to King Charles who seems like a decent man and is old enough (and unambitious enough) to run the UK well - starting by rejoining the EU, opening our borders and planting more trees. Then King William can take over. Billions saved by scrapping silly Parliament. Devote the money to looking after refugees, boosting the NHS and tightening up the Judicial system by dumping incompetent cops who waste tax monies on smart phones to snap selfies with corpses or use warrant cards to rape and kill women or make false arrests to kill off pensioners.

It's Britain's ghastly first past the post system so even in the by-election mentioned, the Greens/Tory/Labour vote almost equals the Lib Dem vote.

Britain always has a minority elected government. Even the Labour "saint" Tony Blair who the Centrists carry on like he is God was an unpopular PM. More people voted against him & Labour than for them and it's been that way ever since.

New Zealand has an exceptionally fair system as does Australia with rigid proportional representation and preferential voting where electors put their favorite after their No 1 vote in order and the preferences flow downwards so that one party may not receive the biggest vote in an electorate but after preferences the win will rpresent what the vast majority want.

So even if a party receives a stunning majority seat win they may have only just received a little over half the votes.

Keeps them on their toes, governments basically represent what the vast majority want and 5 years is too bloody long..3 is enough...first year doing their worst..the second coasting along and the third dishing out bribes to all including pensioners like moi.

And compulsory voting..gives a turn out of always over about 92%. Britain, especially in by-elections gets a woeful turn out so even the eventual winner may have been elected on a minority.
I won't mention any particular incident but BREXIT comes to mind.

hedda wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
Happy to see Boris go but cannot see any replacement except, perhaps, Hunt who is, at least, a Charterhouse boy. Starmer ghastly. Ed useless. Democracy no longer works. I think I'd
probably hand it all back to King Charles who seems like a decent man and is old enough (and unambitious enough) to run the UK well - starting by rejoining the EU, opening our borders and planting more trees. Then King William can take over. Billions saved by scrapping silly Parliament. Devote the money to looking after refugees, boosting the NHS and tightening up the Judicial system by dumping incompetent cops who waste tax monies on smart phones to snap selfies with corpses or use warrant cards to rape and kill women or make false arrests to kill off pensioners.

It's Britain's ghastly first past the post system so even in the by-election mentioned, the Greens/Tory/Labour vote almost equals the Lib Dem vote.

Britain always has a minority elected government. Even the Labour "saint" Tony Blair who the Centrists carry on like he is God was an unpopular PM. More people voted against him & Labour than for them and it's been that way ever since.

New Zealand has an exceptionally fair system as does Australia with rigid proportional representation and preferential voting where electors put their favorite after their No 1 vote in order and the preferences flow downwards so that one party may not receive the biggest vote in an electorate but after preferences the win will rpresent what the vast majority want.

So even if a party receives a stunning majority seat win they may have only just received a little over half the votes.

Keeps them on their toes, governments basically represent what the vast majority want and 5 years is too bloody long..3 is enough...first year doing their worst..the second coasting along and the third dishing out bribes to all including pensioners like moi.

And compulsory voting..gives a turn out of always over about 92%. Britain, especially in by-elections gets a woeful turn out so even the eventual winner may have been elected on a minority.
I won't mention any particular incident but BREXIT comes to mind.

If voting was was compulsory and was law, I would still spoil my papers with tic-tac-toe or colouring the boxes in and fold paper over 5 times.

Priti Patel? Come back Boris. All is forgiven.