Tory Party Watch: parts 8245–8249 & 117

[Johnny Yesno]

So currently the Tories+DUP have a majority of two.  Can someone explain why the Tories losing the Brecon seat would cut their majority to one, and not zero?  I mean, the seat doesn't just vanish if they lose it; it's -1 to them and +1 to the opposition, so surely they lose their majority completely?  Happy to be told why I'm being an idiot here.

Edit: or is it that they've already lost the seat because their MP has been given the boot?  Yeah, it's that isn't it.  You can still call me an idiot though.

You're not an idiot. Ash Sarkar explains it here: https://youtu.be/hQ5yxtbes5E?t=1m47s

However, I couldn't make sense of her explanation at all, and neither could many of the commenters, but one of them explains it as follows:

I think the maths is slightly off on this.  There's 311 Tories, plus 10 Doop.  So 321.  And one seat is officially vacant (the election expenses one).

The opposition, collectively, not counting Sinn Fein, have... well 320, but that includes suspended MPs (Including Elphicke)

If there's a recall ballot for Elphicke that Labour win and the LibDems win Davies' seat, that will mean the collective "opposition gain 1 seat and the tories lose 0, as Elphicke being suspended is an independent. So 321 each.

Bercow of course isn't counted, but Deputy Speakers are, and there's 2 Labour and 1 Tory (so like pairing for absence, this punishes the smaller party, but that's neither here nor there at this time.  But deputies don't vote unless there's a tie when they're sitting as Speaker?  So that's -1 Tory, -2 Labour, so 320 and 319...

In fact the actual numbers might be spot on, but an editorial decision was made that it was far too bloody complicated to explain it all fully.  Because it was.  It made my brain ache trying to track who was where

[Johnny Yesno]

Following on from the above video, this is worth a watch too:

How Do You Beat Boris Johnson? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywcAfUnveU

[Mr_Simnock]

I think the maths is slightly off on this

well of course it's off, either that or everyone who said they had a majority of 2 were full of shit and it should have been a majority of 3.

[bgmnts]

So Libs win the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.

Yay... I suppose..?

[Hundhoon]

labour came 4th x

[idunnosomename]

Jo Swinson is a Tory for all intents and purposes, does that help the MATH

[NoSleep]

well of course it's off, either that or everyone who said they had a majority of 2 were full of shit and it should have been a majority of 3.

Makes no sense that this wasn't made plain from the start of this Parliament. It's consistently been reported as a majority of 2 and now, suddenly, this isn't so.

[thugler]

labour came 4th x

Don't know why anyone voted for them since they had no chance of winning. Can't stand the lib dems but I'd be voting for them there without a second thought. It's lucky about 3000 brexit party voters were not stupid enough to get the memo.

[Mr_Simnock]

Maybe the Labour vote got split between Libs and brexit lot? Libs are nutters but better than Tories and anything to get that majority to negative figures. How the hell lolboris will get much past now in parliament is anyones guess.

[Paul Calf]

Libs are nutters but better than Tories

Nope.

[thugler]

Nope.

It's pointless being this puritanical in the current voting system unfortunately.

[Paul Calf]

Puritanical? The Lib Dems are partly responsible for Brexit, heavily responsible for continuing austerity and itching to help the Tories back into government in a coalition where they play the part of battered, jizz-soaked fig lead to the rotting syphilitic 18th-century cock of Tory policy. They will absolutely not deal with a Corbyn Labour government especially with Thatcher Statue leading them.

They aren't better than the Tories and if we forget that, we're going to get fucked again.

[Darles Chickens]

The thing is, the Lib Dems are opportunistic shape-shifters.  I used to vote Lib Dem around the turn of the century, under Charles Kennedy, when they seemed a more left-wing option than Blair's Labour.  Their current incarnation is basically old-skool Tory, like how the Tories used to be before they started condoning incinerating foreigners and kicking poor people in the head.

We do need to be careful as they're being framed by the non-headbanger media as the "sensible" alternative, which just shows you how far right the supposed centre has moved.  Swinson explicitly ruling out cooperation with Labour on her first fucking day, while being notably quiet on any such arrangement with the Tories (in spite of the gulf of difference on Europe) is fairly telling.

[NoSleep]

I think they were always old school Tory but we didn't know that until they got a taste of power. Let us not forget what they did with it.

[phantom_power]

Of course the Lib Dems are better than the Tories. They may be shit but they aren't ultra mega super fucking shit. They aren't intent on no deal Brexit for a start, and I genuinely believe that a lot of the Lib Dem politicians have their hearts in the right place, whereas Tory politicians have a stinking black mass of puss and shame in its place

[Replies From View]

Of course the Lib Dems are better than the Tories.

That's not good enough.  A lot of work now needs to go into undoing everything the Tories have been building up over the last few years, and the Lib Dems have no interest in making those changes.

As far as I'm concerned any party that will simply put the current Tory project on ice while the Tories are out of power, allowing them to continue where they left off when they get back in, may as well be a Tory now.  It's reaching that point of no return and politicians are either onboard with the Tories' goal of taking our public services towards a US-inspired profit-for-millionaires system, or willing to speak the truth about this and promise to put us back where we should be.

[pigamus]

But if Corbyn's short of a majority then what's he supposed to do?

[phantom_power]

That's not good enough.

I wasn't saying it is good enough and I would never vote for them unless it was tactical

[imitationleather]

I'm afraid it's going to take more than just stating it as though it's a fact to convince me that the Lib Dems actually are better than the Tories. I get the impression they are basically almost exactly the same at this point, except the Lib Dem MPs didn't have the benefit of the old boy network to give their political career a leg up at the beginning and so had to plump for a party where it'd be more difficult to get elected.

[olliebean]

I wasn't saying it is good enough and I would never vote for them unless it was tactical

I suppose I should feel relieved that the Lib Dems are so far behind Tories and Labour in my constituency that voting tactically for them isn't a remotely sensible option.

[Cold Meat Platter]

I'm sure there's a term for wanting people to experience terror...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49213743

[imitationleather]

I'm sure there's a term for wanting people to experience terror...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49213743

Yeah let's further sever the connection between the police and the populous by empowering the OB to do whatever they want to anyone with zero consequences.

Do these cunts want riots or something?

[bgmnts]

These people are fucking scary aren't they?

I wonder if Priti Patel has read Les Miserables.

[idunnosomename]

Priti Patel is really just about the closest to a fascist in the tory party. Death penalty as a deterrent. Absolutely no focus on the causes of crime, just brutalising people into submission. she's seriously unhinged. and she'll do unhinged things to get what she wants, like fucking meeting with Israel in the Golan Heights on the sly. madness

[Paul Calf]

Time to change the honorific for Cabinet members from 'The Right Honourable...' to 'Disgraced Former...', eh lads?

[Fambo Number Mive]

If as Priti Patel says the Tories are the party of the police why did they cut so many of them in the past 9 years? And how have her comments on the death penalty been taken out of context?

[Replies From View]

If as Priti Patel says the Tories are the party of the police why did they cut so many of them in the past 9 years?

Well, quite.  A lot of papers are leading with "20,000 more police" whilst omitting the crucial "...which is still less than the number cut since the Tories took power".

And how have her comments on the death penalty been taken out of context?

Doesn't matter; most people won't check.  Tory voters will take her as a good egg.

[Fambo Number Mive]

NHS hospitals are being forced to choose between "fixing the roof or paying their nurses" due to a Tory raid on vital resources.

The stark reality of the NHS funding crisis is laid bare today with new figures which show a staggering £4.29 billion has been cut from capital budgets to prop up day-to-day spending.


It comes after 76 hospital trusts reported incidents due to building failures in the last year, including sewage and water leaking onto hospital wards, broken lifts and ceilings collapsing.

One hospital trust reported faeces seeping through the floor in an ultrasound corridor...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/hospitals-choose-between-fixing-roof-18819602

[olliebean]

Priti Patel is really just about the closest to a fascist in the tory party. Death penalty as a deterrent. Absolutely no focus on the causes of crime, just brutalising people into submission.

It's your basic Tory approach to anything involving the "lower orders": all stick, no carrot.

[BlodwynPig]

Tory raid? Like Assault on Precinct 13?