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[Frumple]

... seriously though, anyone closer to the ground know anything about what happened/is happening in north ireland? Apparently the first minister and some number of 'is subordinate critters resigned, leaving things a bit of a mess. Also seem to be continuing to have problems with the IRA, though m'fairly unsure if that ever actually stopped to begin with.

[Grim Portent]

Interestingly the party who lost the most votes to UKIP was actually Labour, they targeted a similar demographic. Most of the Conservative voters who'd polled in favour of UKIP switched back to Cons for the actual vote, tactical voting and all that.

EDIT: Labour's actually spent a lot of time in the past few GEs campaigning for the votes of middle class people in England, which are traditionally Conservative voters, presumably because the core Labour vote had no other viable options to vote for since the Conservatives don't appeal well to working class people and the Lib Dems are usually insignificant, resulting in Labour ignoring basically all of Scotland, Wales and Northern England for about two decades.

Then along comes UKIP which primarily targets the working class and, much like the BNP before it, uses pretty basic nationalist concepts to draw popular support among the working class, which swallows up a lot of the neglected Labour voters in England but ultimately fails to do anything important other than split the non-Conservative vote.

Meanwhile in Scotland the SNP has been eroding Labour support largely by being more similar to old school Labour than Labour is, resulting in a huge swing away from Labour to the SNP due to general left wing sympathies of Scotland.

The weird thing is that Wales hasn't really changed it's voting pattern much despite being consistently screwed over by basically every government of the UK from Thatcher onwards, what with the local economy getting mangled by the shutting down of industry and bugger all investment being thrown their way. Plaid Cymru has made surprisingly little gain compared to the SNP and NIs local parties.

[Loud Whispers]

Interestingly the party who lost the most votes to UKIP was actually Labour, they targeted a similar demographic. Most of the Conservative voters who'd polled in favour of UKIP switched back to Cons for the actual vote, tactical voting and all that.

They didn't target a similar demographic, labour dropped the working class; a deliberate strategy that would inevitably end in failure. Also don't forget the libdem slaughter was a massive source of UKIP votes, just slightly above how many they got from labour. Though the tactical voting was real and the UKIP draw was real labour's wipeout came mostly from Scotland.

[notquitethere]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

According to the test I align with the Welsh lefties or Norn Ireland lefties
How bout that

The political compass is an awful test, but this does tell me that compared with most other young people, you're really illiberal.

[Grim Portent]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

According to the test I align with the Welsh lefties or Norn Ireland lefties
How bout that

The political compass is an awful test, but this does tell me that compared with most other young people, you're really illiberal.

Most attempts to actually categorise political parties and ideologies are pretty awful.

Not the worst thing to use as a litmus test of sorts though, so it's better than nothing as long as you take it with a grain of salt.

[Sinistar]

Left-wing socialists with a keen edge for social justice that literally describe themselves proudly as progressive. What would you call them? Quacks like a duck, labelled a duck, looks like a duck, tastes like duck, is actually a duck - I'll call it a duck. Call it what you want.Not a bad song either. Rational means rational, progressive means progressive.

Fair enough. In all honesty sometimes when I'm not completely clear on some terms I just assume they mean what my give-a-damn-at-the-moment mind tells me to think, progressive used in this context was one of them.

My local thing? If it was localized and not spread around Europe I'd be much less concerned. If I put a leg in all their faces I'd be left with no legs.

Hey hey, I did put a question mark at local and all and such. But as said, not familiar with such views, more familiar with those "muslim-->bad" I've already mentioned. Guess I'm on the other side of the fun scale? Theeeeeen again, I really didn't make much effort to try and find any local people with different views. I should probably start going outside my circle in search for different opinion. Thinking of it, I honestly don't know much about any sort of alternative views being held in my country. But I'd guess if the song of my people teaches me anything the current overall mood is apathy, as always.

I also do not see how my vision of future Europe is all that grim;

Well... I guess misunderstanding on my part then, again? Apologies. Sometimes, your posts are very... colorful and I have difficult times figuring what is meant in serious jest and what is meant to be hilarious truth.

[Grim Portent]

Interestingly the party who lost the most votes to UKIP was actually Labour, they targeted a similar demographic. Most of the Conservative voters who'd polled in favour of UKIP switched back to Cons for the actual vote, tactical voting and all that.

They didn't target a similar demographic, labour dropped the working class; a deliberate strategy that would inevitably end in failure. Also don't forget the libdem slaughter was a massive source of UKIP votes, just slightly above how many they got from labour. Though the tactical voting was real and the UKIP draw was real labour's wipeout came mostly from Scotland.

I suppose it would have been better for me to say UKIP targeted Labour's former demographic, though the working class did/do still vote for Labour a lot out of political inertia.

[notquitethere]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

According to the test I align with the Welsh lefties or Norn Ireland lefties
How bout that

The political compass is an awful test, but this does tell me that compared with most other young people, you're really illiberal.

Most attempts to actually categorise political parties and ideologies are pretty awful.

Not the worst thing to use as a litmus test of sorts though, so it's better than nothing as long as you take it with a grain of salt.

The thing is, political ideologies can be categorised, but you can't arrive at someone's political position by adding up the arbitrary number you've attached to the answers to a bunch of questions.

[Loud Whispers]

The political compass is an awful test, but this does tell me that compared with most other young people, you're really illiberal.

Ah you can't say that though, you already know I'm really illiberal!
Also I feel this test is drifting me the wrong direction:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Politics by numbers doesn't work so well since according to the compass I'm so left wing I'm beginning to radiate microlenins

Sometimes, your posts are very... colorful and I have difficult times figuring what is meant in serious jest and what is meant to be hilarious truth.

Not even I know anymore, parody is life now

The thing is, political ideologies can be categorised, but you can't arrive at someone's political position by adding up the arbitrary number you've attached to the answers to a bunch of questions.

Bingo; there is a nice political test that is more accurate (but also specific to Britain) that measures which party you're most alike according to policy and not numbers though, which is more accurate.

[Grim Portent]

Bingo; there is a nice political test that is more accurate (but also specific to Britain) that measures which party you're most alike according to policy and not numbers though, which is more accurate.

Out of curiosity, can you provide a link?

Much like the 'what famous historical person are you?' tests this sort of thing vaguely interests me, if only for how generic they tend to be.

[Kot]

beginning to radiate microlenins

[Loud Whispers]

Bingo; there is a nice political test that is more accurate (but also specific to Britain) that measures which party you're most alike according to policy and not numbers though, which is more accurate.

Out of curiosity, can you provide a link?
Much like the 'what famous historical person are you?' tests this sort of thing vaguely interests me, if only for how generic they tend to be.

https://uk.isidewith.com/political-quiz

Post your results in that thread, not this one

[Helgoland]

There's a similar thing for every federal and Land-wide German election - and even for the Turkish election, since we've got a large Turkish diaspora. It's called the Wahl-O-Mat, and is fairly accurate.

[Frumple]

... you call it wallmart. Just. Heavily accented. That.

Lost so much respect for germany just now.

[Antsan]

It doesn't sound like "Wallmart" at all. The "O" is not silent and all the vowels are long.
But you can loose respect for Germany for any other reason you like. It's not like there's a shortage.