British GE - Powerswitch decides

[PS_RalphW]

I am voting green because my constituency would return a Tory if the candidate was a dead dog, so I may as well vote for the only party that pretends to care about the environment even if they are more socialist than realist.

[Potemkin Villager]

If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain

Gosh, what bollox! VT, you can be a card sometimes.

Yes VT's ironic comments are almost on a par with LB3 on occasion!

[Lord Beria3]

That's more like it lads.

A proper Labour victory.

Proud of you!!!

[AutomaticEarth]

If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart. If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain

Gosh, what bollox! VT, you can be a card sometimes.

That's a bit harsh E.

VT's right. When you get to a certain point in life, and you amass considerable wealth, you need to conserve it, hence the vote for conservatives.....

Myself, I've done very well under the Tories, so will continue to vote for said party.

[vtsnowedin]

It certainly doesn't feel like a 100 active members on this forum.

Normally the forum is virtually dead other than a few regulars.

The fact that only a small number have "voted" is testament to the number of genuinely active members.

Anyway, my point stands. I am (pleasantly) surprised by the depth of the Tory support on PS.

If you sort the member list by number of posts you only need 450 to be in the top 100. With 4000 I'm number 16 but of course didn't vote in the poll as I don't know enough about your political parties to have an informed opinion.

"number of active members" is a bit subjective, but in my view "active" could mean more than say about 200 posts, of which at least a few dozen have been made in the last few months.

I think that is a reasonable definition. Of course you may have some that are "lurkers" for lack of a better term, that read what is new here on a regular basis but don't feel the need to contradict or argue with anyone except on rare occasion.

[vtsnowedin]

Gosh, what bollox! VT, you can be a card sometimes.

That's a bit harsh E.

VT's right. When you get to a certain point in life, and you amass considerable wealth, you need to conserve it, hence the vote for conservatives.....

Myself, I've done very well under the Tories, so will continue to vote for said party.

The quote is old and has several variants with the one I quoted being attributed to Winston Churchill which he did not claim as an original thought.
I think it is a valid point and accurately reflects the the maturing thought patterns of intelligent people.
You can want everything to be sweetness and light but if you don't pay the bills there will be no sweetness and no lights. (That one I will claim as originally mine as I just came up with it. ).
So the desires of youth get tempered by the realities of what can be obtained on a sustainable basis.

[PS_RalphW]

At 17 I was annoyed I couldn't vote for Maggie and kick labour and the unions out. Since I have got older, and gained experience money and responsibility I have become progressively more left wing , or at least politics has dramatically shifted right wing. The only question is if greed and stupidity will destroy civilisation before environmental systems collapse.

[Lord Beria3]

When I was a student I was more liberal, pro-European and embracing of multicultural Britain.

Over the years I've become more jaundiced about the realities of our modern society which strikes me as often isolated, silo like with ethnic communities living separately from each other.

I've also become more and more disgusted with the antics of our business and political elites and have become more attracted to populism... both the right and left sense of the words. Big business/banks need to be reigned in and strict controls placed on immigration.

Hard Brexit will do wonders for both - controlling our borders and shoving away some of the City to Europe.

[Potemkin Villager]

Dare I say that we should expect the unexpected!

[vtsnowedin]

Dare I say that we should expect the unexpected!

You should at least list a few things you think are immanent so we know what you have in mind instead of the random 50 /50 chance any unexpected or expected occurrence has.

[PS_RalphW]

Opinion polls in recent elections have underestimated Tory vote supposedly because people do not want to admit to voting for the nasty party, but did so anyway because they felt they personally would have more money and less taxes under them. This time maybe the dementia tax u turn has scared them into thinking this time it's my turn to get sc**wed and it's time to vote for the local alterative.

[UndercoverElephant]

Opinion polls in recent elections have underestimated Tory vote supposedly because people do not want to admit to voting for the nasty party, but did so anyway because they felt they personally would have more money and less taxes under them. This time maybe the dementia tax u turn has scared them into thinking this time it's my turn to get sc**wed and it's time to vote for the local alterative.

Yes, very possibly. There may also be a tendency among that group of people to not want to admit they've turned to the (marxist) "dark side". They may not want to admit to voting for the loony party.

[clv101]

I was talking to a 20 year old today - who's voting Corbyn (pretty safe Tory seat). Also said, all his mates, basically everyone he knows are doing likewise. This is a bunch of people (not these same people, but the demographic) who weren't at all interested in latter stage Blair, Brown or Miliband. I wonder how polls are capturing or modelling how the shape of turnout may well be different this time.

[Potemkin Villager]

If a lot of disaffected yoof actually came out and voted Labour it could really upset the apple cart.

Another impact could be the over 65 Tory voters who are rather underwhelmed by the proposed dementia tax.....

At one point during the leaders non debate last night the audience heckled May and laughed at her and you could see it really got on her tit.

[RenewableCandy]

I'm switching parties for this one.

Our Man has stood down to give the Labour Lass a clear run.

Last time I had red posters in the window was 1983.

I could live without the NHS now but it's the principle of the thing.