Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ross
  • 13,443 comments
  • 767,957 views

How will you vote in the 2024 UK General Election?

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Labour Party

    Votes: 14 48.3%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other Parties

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 8 27.6%
  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
Famine
They seem to be a largely single-issue party with a very small number of candidates, a small number of members and an extremely small number of votes, going hand-in-hand with no serious intent to be elected.
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None of which is a joke. Otherwise I'd consider the majority of independents and the TUSC a joke as well.

They may have little serious or realistic intent of being elected, but neither has the Green party for much of its history.
 
Liquid
*Looks up Pirate Party on Wiki*

940px-Map_of_Pirate_Parties.svg.png


Orange - National seats
Red - EU Parliament seats
Purple - Local seats
Dark Blue - Registered for elections
Light blue - Registered in some US states
Teal - Unregistered but active

Iceland and Czechia actually have Pirate Party members in their national chambers. Huh.
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Hey I didn't know we had a Pirate Party. Just did wiki search, read the first paragraph and figured it must have something to do with PirateBay. An odd basis for a political party but I guess it's all free publicity for PB.
 
ExigeEvan
None of which is a joke.
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Setting up a party with no serious intent to get a single elected official in any election is the literal definition of a joke party...
ExigeEvan
They may have little serious or realistic intent of being elected, but neither has the Green party for much of its history.
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The current Green Party has only been around since 1990 - founded from the ashes of the Greens that took 15% of the European Parliament vote in the UK in 1989 - and it has held 1% or more of the UK General Election popular vote since its first election in 1992! It may have had little hope of being returned to power, but it has always held reasonable and earnest - if hopeful - intentions to have some members elected. It's had MEPs since 1999, and councillors on local government since at least 1997 (I can't find any earlier results easily).

It's essentially been the 4th party in the UK since as long as I can remember.
 
Famine
The current Green Party has only been around since 1990 - founded from the ashes of the Greens that took 15% of the European Parliament vote in the UK in 1989 - and it has held 1% or more of the UK General Election popular vote since its first election in 1992! It may have had little hope of being returned to power, but it has always held reasonable and earnest - if hopeful - intentions to have some members elected. It's had MEPs since 1999, and councillors on local government since at least 1997 (I can't find any earlier results easily).

It's essentially been the 4th party in the UK since as long as I can remember.
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Your average viewer of televised news in Britain would be forgiven for not knowing that. They have been largely ignored over the years.
Whereas UKIP seem to be mentioned every time I see a news broadcast.
 
haitch40
Only recently. I remember picking up a UKIP flyer in about 2008 and thinking who are they?
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I remember UKIP from back when Robert Kilroy-Silk - former MP turned TV presenter - decided to go back to the life of being a barely concealed racist in private rather than at 10am on ITV and joined the fledgling party.
 
Famine
joined the fledgling party.
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Serious open question; what has changed since the party's formation by Euroskeptic Tories and middle class bigots in 1993 and, via Kilroy-Silk's patronage in 2004, to them now being considered a 'threat' in 2015's election?

How has such a party garnered so much attention? Starve the beast and it will die, but I don't think simple media (over)exposure or a self-fulfiling prophecy of giving it the publicity it wants is the answer.
 
Liquid
Serious open question; what has changed since the party's formation by Euroskeptic Tories and middle class bigots in 1993 and, via Kilroy-Silk's patronage in 2004, to them now being considered a 'threat' in 2015's election?

How has such a party garnered so much attention?
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Kilroy-Silk.

Once they got that celebrity on board - even though he didn't last a full year with them and left by proving he is a complete wang - they got others, including big-name donors. And with a celebrity figurehead (even though he wasn't in charge of anything) they got all the publicity they could want. Kilroy buddied up to all his old TV mates and got air time on the biggest chat shows...

That kinda got the ball rolling.
 
I took the quiz on the Torygraph website to find out which party is most suited to my views. Your typical "answer x questions to find out party y" but it was more in depth than other quizzes.

I was given Plaid Cymru. Not a major shock, to be honest. I had to choose Wales as my constituent country beforehand so it would have been interesting to know which party I matched up with apart from them.
 
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Does it not come up with percentage bars afterwards? I quickly did one and got 68% UKIP and 62% Conservatives. Goes against the local ratings (35% Labour, 15 point lead), but that's no surprise when you think of the local population...
 
Famine
Kilroy-Silk.

Once they got that celebrity on board - even though he didn't last a full year with them and left by proving he is a complete wang - they got others, including big-name donors. And with a celebrity figurehead (even though he wasn't in charge of anything) they got all the publicity they could want. Kilroy buddied up to all his old TV mates and got air time on the biggest chat shows...

That kinda got the ball rolling.
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Dunno about Kilroy-Silk - think he was as much of a curse as a blessing. I think much of their popularity is down to Farage being seen as the bloke in the pub/anti-politician.
They clearly feed on a pretty distasteful racist vote but are smart enough to know they can't actively campaign on this basis. But there is a constant stream of "quoted out of context" remarks subsequently denied which register with racist bigots nonetheless.

Dangerous & to be avoided, I would say.
 
Well of course, if it weren't for Poles taking physically demanding jobs then the native British would be more fit! /s
 
MatskiMonk
Yup, the reason why kids don't pay football in the street anymore is because these days Football consists of throwing yourself to the ground and rolling around holding your face or shin a lot. That actually hurts on tarmac.
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Now there's an idea for the World Cup. The great equaliser.
 
KSaiyu
Britain worry not! UKIP knows why your kids don't play football in the street anymore!

Can you guess what it is?
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And here they blame falling hockey registration and less kids playing road hockey on immigrants playing soccer :lol:
 
Liquid
I took the quiz on the Torygraph website to find out which party is most suited to my views. Your typical "answer x questions to find out party y" but it was more in depth than other quizzes.

I was given Plaid Cymru. Not a major shock, to be honest. I had to choose Wales as my constituent country beforehand so it would have been interesting to know which party I matched up with apart from them.
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Link? I would like to try it.
 
My results, pretty close as it happens. Was pretty sure it would churn out a Conservative option, but no... it turns out I'm a pansy racist :lol:

63% Lib Dem
61% UKIP
59% Conservative
52% Labour
 
78% Green.
78% Labour
53% Lib Dems
29% Tory
27% UKIP

Now guess which one I joined. :p
Talking of which am I the only person on GTP to be a member of a political party?
 
TenEightyOne
And we have a winner. An unsurprising winner, if I may be so bold :D
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The Daily Telegraph: Proving I hate myself and everyone else.

Incidentally my Maltese neighbour is going from Labour to UKIP this year and I'll probably show up to register a "none of the above" vote. Our constituency has been Labour since before I was born so voting anything else is an exercise in futility.
 
Unsurprisingly I scored no more than 50% for any one party.

That's because I'm largely with the Conservatives' fiscal policy and the Libdems' social policy, but very much disagree with things the other way about. And with Labour wholesale. And while I'm aware that UKIP are trying to present themselves as conservative libertarian, they are in fact nothing of the sort.

I think that Greens managed about 30% - like the Libdems they have a passable handle on liberal social policies, but then they muck it all up with the occasionally mental social policy and a pretty punishing fiscal policy.

But again, I won't give a mandate to do things I don't like so I won't vote for any party whose manifesto does not agree with me 100%. I also object to the ridiculous structure of UK elections and the bloated centralised parliament (oddly, the Greens are right on the decentralised bandwagon. Good for them, the nutters) and will register the only vote I can - for no-one.
 

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