To be honest it's a decent plan, they're the only people arguing for it, so they can corner the hardcore remain market which will drive votes in a small but significant number of constituencies. I can see them picking up 10-20 MPs in various areas.
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UK PoliGAF |OT2| - We Blue Ourselves
- Thread starter Jezbollah
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To be honest it's a decent plan, they're the only people arguing for it, so they can corner the hardcore remain market which will drive votes in a small but significant number of constituencies. I can see them picking up 10-20 MPs in various areas.
Halph n Halph
Member
Can't we just invade the French one?
Seems like it
It's a brexit election. Unless something major happens in the next 6 weeks, that's all that matters. Labour trying to deflect to the NHS just isn't going to work at all. Like it not ( I don't!), Brexit is the defining issue of our time.
FlammableD
Banned
Lib Dems are historically the closest to the Tories in my constituency (Guildford), and we voted remain, which is the LD platform, so I guess I'll vote for th
for fucks sake, I give up with politics in this country.
for fucks sake, I give up with politics in this country.
JonathanEx
Member
Jezbollah
Member
Lib Dems are historically the closest to the Tories in my constituency (Guildford), and we voted remain, which is the LD platform, so I guess I'll vote for th
for fucks sake, I give up with politics in this country.
Dude is a practicing Christian who has voted pretty consistently in favour of gay rights. Seems a mountain from a molehill to me.
It really isn't as a gay man.
Plus his actual voting record on gay rights was fairly shit before he became leader. It seems like he felt had to moderate his views once he was leader, but not so much that he couldn't bring himself to say we aren't all inherently evil.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
If he was a Tory saying this he'd be getting pilloried.
Would he? May has voted in homophobic manner throughout her entire career.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
1. There's an image going round on twitter about her awful gay rights record.
2. She knows what not to say
May pushed through gay marriage as the cabinet leader and gave a speech on gay bulling to the pink awards this year.
Go back far enough and everyone has a shit record on gay rights generally. The fact there are gay tories on the breakfast shows attacking Farron over this should tell you how it's going down.
(Let's not forget, the lib dem party has always been the least diverse party in parliament in terms of ethnicity and sexuality, whilst the Tory party currently has more LGBT MPs than anyone else).
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
It's the SNP, actually (7 from 54), followed by Labour (13 from 229), followed by the Conservatives (12 from 330). No other party is represented at present.
Unless you mean in total numbers rather than proportion, in which case it's Labour, then Conservatives, then SNP - but still not the Conservatives.
Unless you mean in total numbers rather than proportion, in which case it's Labour, then Conservatives, then SNP - but still not the Conservatives.
Hmm, a few years ago it was definitely the tories with the most LGBT. That may have been the coalition government I guess, and labour has improved since then.
In one respect it's a shame as I always enjoyed teasing my die hard labour gay friends about that fact... ;-)
Cheers crab.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
IIRC, we do actually have the gayest legislature in the world, proportionately - 32 of 650, which is actually significantly higher than the proportion of the public that identifies as gay.
CyclopsRock
Member
I'm confused and excited by the fact you have those figures at your fingertips, Crab.
Also, let's not forget all the Tories who, like Keith Vaz, shag rent boys like it's going out of fashion but don't want to get blanked in the village post office so keep it schtum.
Also, let's not forget all the Tories who, like Keith Vaz, shag rent boys like it's going out of fashion but don't want to get blanked in the village post office so keep it schtum.
It's less than 5% LGBT, which depending up where and how you ask the question seems fairly inline with the overall population though I'd suggest?
I mean, I live in Clapham. Put a disco ball up in the local Sainsbury's on a Friday night and you'd have a gay disco, so my perception may be a bit warped. But even back up north in rural Lancashire there seem to be gay people everywhere nowadays.
Still, 'gayest legislature in the world' is a damn good line! ;-)
QuicheFontaine
Member
If Eric Ollerenshaw retakes Lancaster and Fleetwood then the Tories will be tied for the lead again
My brother goes to uni there, will be interested to hear how things are looking on the ground.
Also, George "Many Jobs" Osborne is quitting as an MP. Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
QuicheFontaine
Member
It's an interesting constituency - the uni is sort of balanced by the inclusion of Fleetwood. I think it's going to be close but Eric will take it if some of those UKIP voters go to the conservatives. UKIP had 1,000 in 2010, 4,000 in 2015, and I can't see them getting that many this time around. Cat Smith's majority is 1,200. One to watch!
As in a lot of constituencies, the pattern of turnout will be the crucial thing. I buy the general case that this will be a fairly low turnout election due to fatigue/forgone result, and the question is if turnout will be uniformly depressed or if you'll have variations. I think you can make a case either for the older, more strongly leave vote turnout holding up better or for the younger, angrier, pro-remain vote holding up.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Only 3.5% of the UK public self-identify as gay (obviously varies a bit from survey to survey - National Census has it at 1.5%!), whereas it is 4.9% in Parliament. Yes, it's probably true the real number of gay people in the UK is higher than that because of those who experience same-sex attraction but don't chose to actively identify as gay... but that's probably true of Parliament as well. You and I can both probably name one rather prominent Labour MP who is constantly rumoured to be gay but doesn't admit it for fear of harming his political ambitions. So the UK Parliament is really good at representing gay people, to be honest. Always more that you can do, but proportionately, women face a much bigger problem, and the working classes face an even larger problem than women.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
This isn't just a Parliament thing. IIRC gay people are over-represented in pretty well any job that requires long solitary hours away from home, something about children being a severe disincentive to that sort of career. I remember seeing stats for this for politicians and CEOs (*), and I guess it would apply also to missionary churches and military.
(*) No I can't remember where I saw it, it was years ago.
As CCS says, we're overrepresented politically because we've been subverting the system for decades to try and improve our lot.
In terms of business CEOs though, I'd have to disagree. Apart from Lord Brown and Tim Cook I can't name another out business leader. In fact Lord Brown said only a couple of days ago that gay people were significantly underrepresented in the board room. Similarly for the military, none of our top ranks are openly gay.
In terms of business CEOs though, I'd have to disagree. Apart from Lord Brown and Tim Cook I can't name another out business leader. In fact Lord Brown said only a couple of days ago that gay people were significantly underrepresented in the board room. Similarly for the military, none of our top ranks are openly gay.
That's not that surprising. It was technically verboten in the military until 2000. Given the average age of an admiral or General is >50 and they're normally lifer's you really wouldn't expect any real representation at the top ranks for another 7 or 8 years.
Of course - although you'd be surprised at the number of gay people who joined the military when it was illegal. For a lot of confused young people, it seemed a good option as it might 'straighten them out'. There was however an article from a couple of years ago from the wife of an anonymous gay male military officer, and she was saying that the military is still extremely homophobic and anyone who wants promotion is going to be hiding it.
Note that this doesn't hold true for the police, fire and prison service when it comes to female gay people. All three services have a much higher than expected number of lesbian officers. Not sure why - possibly an environment more accepting of women in non-traditional roles?
Note that this doesn't hold true for the police, fire and prison service when it comes to female gay people. All three services have a much higher than expected number of lesbian officers. Not sure why - possibly an environment more accepting of women in non-traditional roles?
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
There's a difference between being gay and being out of course. The thing I remember was an anonymised survey so may have been more accurate than just looking at who's out and who's well-known enough to even be noticed.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I find it depressing how few people take about how classist parliament is. 33% of MPs went to fee-paying schools, compared to 7% of the general population. 25% of all MPs previously held a job in politics, compared to a negligible fraction of the general population. 23% of MPs went to Oxbridge, compared to a negligible fraction of the general population. 15% of MPs have a background in finance, compared to 3% of the general population. 3% have a background in manual labour, compared to 18% of the general population (driver is counted in manual labour, if that seems higher than you expected).
Women are about half as well represented as they should be. The working classes are something like a sixth as well represented as they should be. But you very rarely hear about the latter (I mean, not to disparage the former, just as a point of comparison).
Women are about half as well represented as they should be. The working classes are something like a sixth as well represented as they should be. But you very rarely hear about the latter (I mean, not to disparage the former, just as a point of comparison).
Oh absolutely - crab is very right when he says the class and sex breakdown in parliament is appalling. It's not helped that labour no longer has a huge working class number of members, as they've been replaced by the cloned, toned and utterly personality free PPE brigade from oxbridge.
I just dont know how you even begin to tackle that issue though.
I just dont know how you even begin to tackle that issue though.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Mandatory working-class short-lists. Temporary moratorium on all Oxbridge candidates and PPEists (except me, I can stay).
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Some of this is down to the amount of time it takes to fight a few losing campaigns, then to find and nurture a constituency. Anyone who relies on working to live won't be able to do it.
Some also is the annoying habit national parties have of parachuting in candidates over the heads of sensible local people. And the candidates they parachute in are the people they know - "people like us". Or worse, their sons and daughters.
I rather liked Cameron's idea of running open primaries for Tory candidates, but that seems to have vanished into the party machine.
QuicheFontaine
Member
The bolded seems like a good thing though. Surely we want smart people running the country?
As for the "previous job in politics" one, I mean that's hardly surprising now is it? What's it meant to show?
Um, suggesting that the brightest people go to oxbridge is definitely not correct. It also reduces our MPs to an incredibly unrepresentative bunch of people - MPs should be like the people they represent, not a bunch of people who all went to the same school, have the same friends and go to the same parties.
Bony Manifesto
Member
It's surprising to me that it's so low. I would have thought those whose very first job in the 'politics industry' was as an MP would be pretty small.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
The parties do all technically do primaries already, though. You go along to the local hustings for your party and vote for those who put their name forward (although they all get cleared by party HQs). They're not open, in that I can't go vote in the Conservative primary because I'm not a member, but I think open primaries would be pretty terrible for our politics - if all the same people can vote in all the primaries, all the candidates will be the same.
The trouble is, as you say, party HQs exert too much grip and yeah: it is incredibly expensive to fight a general election. The UK has managed to avoid the worst excesses of lobbying, in the way that the US suffers, but with no state support, meaning our system is woefully underfunded and the cost born by the candidates themselves. State funding for elections (beyond short money, which is a piss in an Olympic-sized pool) would do an enormous amount for working class candidates.
QuicheFontaine
Member
I'm not really suggesting that they're the brightest necessarily, but you've got to be pretty smart to get into Oxbridge right? They have high entry requirements.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Honestly? Only to a very limited extent. Politicians don't really invent policies. They couldn't possibly. The world is enormously, enormously complex. Expecting one person who happens to be in charge of the Health Department or whatever to be able to reinvent the Health Department by themselves is just barmy. Policies are what think tanks and pressure groups are for. Politicians just decide between policies based on the values they promote; they don't figure out that A causes X and B causes Y, someone else figures that out and politicians decide whether they prefer X to Y. Representation is more important than smarts - especially when the smarts is kind of irrelevant. Why is someone who did English Literature at Oxford in a better position to know how much funding the social care system needs than someone who did nursing at Oxford Brookes?
It didn't used to be that way. Hansard keeps a track of this stuff and as late as the mid-80s, that figure was at 6%.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Do they these days? My offer from Oxford was two grade E at A-level, but that was a long time ago.
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