To Non-uk People - Should We Re-elect Blair? Options

[Mata]

I think the question says it all.

[ravein]

I don't know enough to make a educated decision.. However based on my political views I am against it for his participation in Iraq if nothing else.

[pgrmdave]

I decided to base my thoughts entirely on the parties' foreign policies, because those are the only policies which have a chance of affecting myself. As such, I had to choose the liberal democrats. Although I think that the Blair had similar, and in many ways better, foreign policies, I think that he is too tied into the misinformation given to the public for the Iraq war. For those interested, I just did a simple google search and came up with these websites:

Liberal Democrats
Green Party
Conservatives

The conservative site only talks about the EU, but as far as I can tell, that is all that their foriegn policy really is at this time.

[CommieBastard]

The conservative site only talks about the EU, but as far as I can tell, that is all that their foriegn policy really is at this time.

Pretty much. The Conservative policy, I believe, is generally not to interfere with other countries unless British interests are threatened - though Michael Howard was and remains behind the invasion of Iraq..

[Mata]

Okay, well it looks like the day is here. Don't forget to vote all you UK people!

[Tigersong]

Liberal Democrat. But who's really surprsied by that? Labour seems a lot like our Liberals. They rule by polls and don't really do a whole lot, while pretending to be on the left. Although the Liberals didn't do the whole Iraq war. So, yeah. Here's hoping the Liberal Democrats do better this time 'round.

OMG Mata! You forgot the WONDERFUL BNP!!

[CommieBastard]

OMG Mata!  You forgot the WONDERFUL BNP!!

Yes, he left out UKIP and Respect too. Seems he only wanted sane parties on the poll...

[Mata]

Dear me, how could I possibly forget them? I didn't put Veritas in there either. What an oversight!

[Calantyr]

Four constituencies have been counted.

And four have been for labour.

(DIETY OF YOUR CHOICE) DAMN IT!

Time to get drunk and think of all of this as a bad dream.

[CommieBastard]

Four constituencies have been counted.

And four have been for labour.

(DIETY OF YOUR CHOICE) DAMN IT!

Time to get drunk and think of all of this as a bad dream.

Those four were always going to go Labour, though, they're all terribly safe. I don't know if you're watching BBC News 24? Because at least from their perspective, it's not looking great for Labour thus far. Some are estimating they'll end up with a majority of less than 60.

[Calantyr]

159 to Labour so far.
18 to Conservative.
13 to Conservative.
6 to others.

It is another Labour landslide.

What do these people need to do to not be elected?

"Oh, I'm Tony Blair. I arse-violate kittens and sacrifice their blood to Satan's goat-children."
"They sound nice, I'll vote for them!"

GAH!

I wish I was drunk. At least then I could pass out and think all this is a bad dream.

And I am using this link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/fl.../html/map05.stm

[CommieBastard]

A disproportionate number of the seats announced thus far have been in safe Labour areas, the north and inner-city areas. At least wait for the end of the night before the doomsaying...

[Calantyr]

Well my constituency of Streatham just went to Labour, and it was a close call between labour and lib-dems.

So no, I'm not holding out much faith.

[CommieBastard]

Hmm, in this late hour it looks like the Labour hold-outs (note that they haven't gained a single constituency) are slowing to a trickle... a higher Labour majority is on the horizon than I'd hoped, though.

[Calantyr]

Well they won.
It's only a question of by how much.

I wish I could say it was a shock.

[Novander]

The Lib Dems gained quite a few seats, which makes me happy. Gordon Brown is still chancellor, and thats not such a bad thing. We've got real Three Party Politics coming up for the first time since before world war 2, apparently. Yay.

Blair is still in charge though. And Blunkett is coming back. Thats not a good thing.

Tories gained lots of seats, also a bad thing.

But the thing I liked most about my first election is that my vote really did seem to count. In my constituency Lib Dem beat Conservative by 0.2%, after two recounts. Tense stuff.

[Jonman]

See, I'm not convinced that the Tory and LibDem gains are anything more than a manifestation of the electorate's disapproval of Blair himself over Iraq.

4 years time, Blair will be gone, and those voters that gained Tory and LibDem seats will float back over to Labour, and we'll be back where we were yesterday.

Still, you can but hope...

[Novander]

true, I may be being a bit optimistic in my libdem loving.

But its not true that they'll all float back. The electorate are a tricky people, and some will probably find that Lib Dem or Tory are better than their old labour MPs. My consitituency was considered a Tory stronghold until a by-election sometime between '97 and '01. Everyone assumed it'd go back to Tory at the 2001 election, but Lib Dem just strengthened their hold.

I'm not saying everywhere will be like this, but I do think some of the lib dem and tory gains will stay. Whatever happens, lib dem are moving towards being the real alternative.

Slight change of topic: Did anyone see George Galloway's speech and interviews after he was elected? He made it quite clear that he'd only won by being an evil sneaky bastard. I realise all politicians need some sneakyness, but GC bordered on using racism and sexism to win. If he'd said that here, he'd probably have got a warning from Mata at the very least.

[Mata]

In my first election the Lib-Dems in my area won by two votes. TWO VOTES!!! This being Britian, and not Florida, we obviously had a revote and the close vote motivated everyone who'd thought 'well, there's no point in voting Lib-Dems' and they won a landslide. It makes you wonder how many people don't vote each time because they figure it won't make any difference.

The stats show that 22% of the country of voting age voted for Labour, which is actually the worst they've done since 1983, but everyone else was even more apathetic about the lack of character in politics so that was enough to win.

On the plus side, there's a far more rational balance of power in government now, so President Blair is going to have more trouble getting things through that are unpopular.

[CommieBastard]

Slight change of topic: Did anyone see George Galloway's speech and interviews after he was elected? He made it quite clear that he'd only won by being an evil sneaky bastard. I realise all politicians need some sneakyness, but GC bordered on using racism and sexism to win. If he'd said that here, he'd probably have got a warning from Mata at the very least.

I didn't see them, but you don't get to be pals with Ba'ath Party ministers without being a bit of a bastard, do you?

[Jonman]

true, I may be being a bit optimistic in my libdem loving.

But its not true that they'll all float back. The electorate are a tricky people, and some will probably find that Lib Dem or Tory are better than their old labour MPs. My consitituency was considered a Tory stronghold until a by-election sometime between '97 and '01. Everyone assumed it'd go back to Tory at the 2001 election, but Lib Dem just strengthened their hold.

I'm not saying everywhere will be like this, but I do think some of the lib dem and tory gains will stay. Whatever happens, lib dem are moving towards being the real alternative.

I think you are being over-optimistic. My constituancy is a Labour stronghold, until the LibDems took it last year in a by-election. But, whaddya know, only a year later, Labour win the seat back (admittedly with a reduced, but still substantial, majority).

[surewhynot]

im not in the uk so i dont know who to say and i nulled my vote

[Mata]

Well, Labour got back in, but on a severely reduced minority. Tories did okay, and Lib Dems made some gains. The LD party are still about one third the strength of the Tories, but they manage to put up a decent enough stand that both parties would quite like thier support.

It's not what I would have liked, but it's actually the near best realistic result I had hoped for.

[Quoth(The Raven)]

You all sound like meself after the last two U.S. elections... In fact, I've only voted for one winner, since starting to vote...

[Mata]

Well, the parties that I _really_ didn't want in power didn't get in, so that's something to be grateful for. I have no respect for Tony Blair at all and think that criminal charges should be pressed for an illegal war, but his party in general isn't as bad as the Tories.