Democracy Has Spoken

[DDIL]

Good morning,

Well the people of the UK have spoken and Labour has won whilst taking several scalps.

It has been interesting reading some of the comments on The Answerbank this morning.

It would seem to me that Labour cannot do anymore harm to the UK than The Conservative Party has over the last 14 years.

[ynnafymmi]

A Tory wipeout,a SNP wipeout.Whats not to like?😉

[Stableford]

Oh dear.  Another one who can't remember what Labour do when they get into power.  Ah well, give it 6 months and lets see how Keir and the dream team are faring.

[ToraToraTora]

"It would seem to me that Labour cannot do anymore harm to the UK than The Conservative Party has over the last 14 years." - Hang on to that thought and perhaps look up what happened under the last real Labour government.

[DDIL]

Good morning Stableford,

Thank you for your compliment. But I am old enough to remember and not too old not to remember.

[davebro3]

Labour didn't get many (or any) more votes than previously. They won because previous Conservative voters stayed home.

[DDIL]

Good morning davebro, as is their right, they chose protest instead of voting.

I know several Tory supporters who could not bring themselves to vote.

[ynnafymmi]

Sorry dave,the Tories have had 14 years to solve the UKs problems.They failed to.They were getting tired,stale and increasingly useless.Lets hope a Starmer government will change things for the better.Surely worth a try?

[youngmafbog]

Lets get this correct.

It is a TINO wipeout.

[Deskdiary]

Strap in and hang onto your hats - the next five years are going to be horrible.

[Untitled]

less than 34% of votes cast by the british public were for labour. Labour received only slightly more votes than it did under Jeremy Corbyn... it actually received a smaller proportion of votes last night than Corbyn did in 2017!! 

meanwhile reform UK gets 4 million votes and a tiny number of seats. i despise them but this is simply wrong.

our system is a joke. it is not a democracy if some votes count for more than others. 

[ynnafymmi]

Never mind Untitled.At least you will have your hero Corbyn back in parliament promoting the Palestinian terrorist cause,just like i will have my MP Flynn doing likewise.Bah,humbug.

[Deskdiary]

Untitled at 7.52 am - with PR, and ignoring the also-rans, the rough numbers would have been...

Labour - 221

Conservative - 156

Reform - 91

LD - 78

Green - 44

[Khandro]

 Might turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory though ? ;

https://www.politico.eu/article/labour-election-victory-weaker-than-you-think-keir-starmer-nigel-farage/

[10ClarionSt]

I don't think it was Tory voters staying home that cost them. It was the switch to Reform and LD. Labour held their support with, probably, a slight increase in their vote. John Curtice said it was the Tories wot lost it, not Labour wot won it.

Our constituency was shown as a Lab Hold, when in fact it was Lab Gain. One other result I was really pleased to see was Bolsover going back to Labour. 

If the Tory vote had held up, it would have been a lot closer but I still think Labour would have won due to the gains in Scotland and reclaiming all the "red wall" seats.  

[Old_Geezer]

Starmer won for similar reasons Thatcher did years before. Not so much because they are the popular choice but because all were thoroughly cheesed off with the alternative. One hopes the new lot don't manage too much damage during it's term.

[Hymie]

I haven’t forgotten the 13 appalling years of Labour, when we had record low NHS waiting lists, record satisfaction with the NHS, our national debt (as a percentage of GDP) stood at around 70% (compared with now at around 100%), net annual migration stood at around 250k (compared with now at around 750k), there are now around ¾ million more children living in poverty under this Tory government – where virtually no one was using food banks just to get by.

I’m looking forward to 13 appalling years of Labour (see above).

 

 

but I don’t remember people having to rely on food-banks just to get by during the last Labour government.

[Untitled]

that would be a much fairer outcome deskdiary and one that would reflect the desires of the UK population as a democratic system should

[sandyRoe]

If "the last real Labour Government" is a reference to Callighan and the winter of discontent, that's looking back quite a while.  44 years, in fact.

I think those afraid of what the commissars and aparachicks of SKSs government might do are worrying unnecessarily.

This present version of Labour looks to be more emollient than those of the past.

No need to worry.

[naomi24]

Really?  Hang on to your hat, DDIL.  You ain't seen nothin' yet!

[Deskdiary]

I entirely agree untitled. The argument has been levelled in the past that with PR we'd have farcical outcomes as we've seen in Italy in the past, but the above numbers bely this. Rather, I'd suggest it is farcical that Labour's share of the vote has produced such a disproportionate outcome.