So it looks like we're venturing [or being pushed] further into the perilous quagmire of self-servient domestic politics and having another general election on 12th December. I know that we have quite a few regular UK posters here, and quite a few opinionated non-UK posters. All are encouraged to post.

If you're from the UK - how do you plan to vote - do you plan to vote at all? Have you had enough and would prefer not to, do you think it will make any difference? Have you already decided who to vote for and are willing to fight this one out to the death? Are you sick of the whole fiasco and would prefer a [successful] replay of November 1605?

I'm personally on the fence. The 'first past the post' system is rubbish, and I generally have to tactically vote in elections [for parties I don't like] because in my constituency only one of two parties ever win out. I may not vote at all - but if I don't, I can't really complain about the outcome. Alternatively I may just turn the news off for the next few months and sit in the dark like a mushroom. It would be interesting to see what others have to say.

I'm in a former mining area. You could put a red rosette on a donkey and it would get elected here.

As far as I'm concerned, non of them deserve my vote. If we had a 'Monster Raving Looney' candidate I'd probably vote for them, just to register my disgust. I'm sick of having to choose the least bad option when all the options are equally bad. They never do what they claim/promise they're going to in their manifestos anyway, thus making any choice a false and invalid one.

Mark Twain — 'If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.'


Lets just forget the pretence. Time for another Lord Protector. Where's Richard Harris when you need him?

I will vote for all the good it will do.

I would prefer a rerun of 1605.

I predict a coalition. Johnson and his backers are intent on a hard Brexit, thus far his machinations have failed, so an election is the only way to go. It will be an election for the type of Brexit you want or no Brexit at all.

To quote Churchill :

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

The hidden meaning there, is that democracy actually works for them. The ignorant masses can and historically, always have been programmed by their allies in the news media. People are swayed by populist appeals and fear-mongering. It's more effective as an oppressor than "no democracy at all", where the oppressed fully perceive their position in society and there is the ever present danger of an uprising.

The Brexit referendum was a gamble, but never seen as a very unsafe one - due to the confidence that the masses could be steered by the Conservative party's media allies. The masses were supposed to vote to remain and of course it all went badly wrong and cost Cameron his position. Cameron and Osbourne, two of the privileged Eaton educated old school tie brigade who had presided over crippling austerity and cut backs, mostly affecting the poor, found it inconceivable that those worst hit by their policies would deliberately vote to reject their fear mongering laden anti-Brexit pre-referendum "business, business. business" agenda. But also consider that those supposed "media allies" did not exactly play ball - most notably that infamous brainwashing rag, "The Sun", which though it has always played to flag waving nationalism, for the right price, has shown itself to be the whore of tabloids (e.g. switching to supporting Blair). It pulled the plug on Cameron and co at that critical moment, but being part of Murdoch's News Corp, it's not that difficult to discern the reasoning behind that.

I definitely will vote because, as Lysander66 says, you can't complain if you don't. However, as it's a private ballot I shall keep it to myself.
By the way, the UK does not have proportional representation for its general elections; it's "first past the post" which in the past has prevented coalitions (apart from the disastrous Cameron 1st term). But these days, I'm not so sure.

Sorry, you are completely right - I meant 'first past the post' - I will amend that.

It's sometimes difficult to know what to do. Just look at the headlines of the papers today. The Sun - Back Boris. The Mirror - Remove Boris. The same is probably true for the broadsheets, each playing to their own echo chamber, therefore I find it best to read around and make my own mind up. This is the biggest political turmoil this country has known in my lifetime and even though I'm growing to detest Brexit, the media make it strangely addictive [actually that is the definition of addiction - partaking, against one's better judgment, in something that has negative psychological {or physical} effects]. The reasons for making the British public 'addicted' to this deleterious debacle may not currently be apparent, but may only come to be recorded by historians of the future.

Unfortunately an election has become necessary. We probably have the most incompetent and corrupt parliament since 1680. They have had three and a half years to deal with Brexit and they have got absolutely nowhere in that time. There is no reason to think that more serial extensions will help. Meanwhile, more urgent matters (the social care crisis, law and order on our urban streets, climate change, etc.) are not being dealt with. Our unwritten constitution (if there really is such a thing) provides an automatic reset switch for such occasions and the time has come to apply it.

The trouble is that the UK is more savagely divided than I can remember it ever being before. This is the worst possible atmosphere in which to conduct an election. Sometimes I think we are going through a complete political realignment similar to what happened in the 1920's when the old Conservative/Liberal spectrum collapsed and the Labour party came through to become the new second party. We may all find ourselves voting for parties we would not have considered before.

As per usual, I guess, there isn't a single party worth my vote, the two yo-yoing 'red' & 'blue' never do what the general public want, only what their rich friends seek.

First past the post politics means that a party can govern with only 20% of the general public's vote, the majority doesn't vote for them.

We need proportional representation to acheive anything like public support.

Where I am (Ireland) is going to be a casualty of Brexit with or without a deal. England ATM is nasty. America in 2020 is going to be nastier. What used to be the Anglo-American Alliance that was the foremost power has engaged a self-destruct sequence. I have long given up hope of seeing man provide good Government. I believe man incapable of the task of Governing himself. The difference is, I don't expect better.

I don't believe in democracy, but since we have one I shall naturally do my duty and vote. The district in which I live is solidly Conservative, but the constituency as a whole is marginal and we currently have a Labour MP of the sort described by W.S.Gilbert: "I always voted at my party's call, and never thought of thinking for myself at all". There's a lot about the Conservatives I don't like, but being old enough to remember all the disastrous Labour governments from Wilson to Brown, I can't think of anything more dangerous than a Corbin premiership. If we got one, perhaps I could flee to Ireland…

Precisely. The papers know their market and play to that market. But bear in mind that apart from the Mirror and the Guardian (Observer), the vast majority of them are run by / support the Tories and push some form of Tory agenda.

If you dare to have that "conversation with the average voter", you will find that their opinion has been guided by some form of news media - and usually a paper such as "The Sun" (gutter journalism) or the infamous "Daily Mail". The latter has always circulated by playing to right wing xenophobia, nationalism, war mongering sentiments, etc.

Labour is admittedly a mess however - it has sought to transition back to pre Blairite/New Labour and move further to the left (as Blair's Labour, was not far off "alternative Tory"), but has not been successful in removing the relics of that time and in establishing a clear focus. The Tory media have attacked it relentlessly every step of the way, how they have attacked Corbyn has been nothing short of vile. Corbyn has been assessed as being a threat and much of the critique of Corbyn you will hear, is second hand b/s copied and pasted straight from the Mail/Times/Telegraph/Sun/etc. The "average" voter doesn't even know what Corbyn stands for, they only know what has been written about them in Tory newspapers.
The current system benefits the Tories greatly, who hold sway in many affluent rural / semi-rural constituencies, particularly in the south.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn are the only two politicians with any hope of getting a proper parliamentary majority after the election. Of course neither of them may achieve that, but certainly nobody else has a chance. So, if we want to break the present parliamentary deadlock, the choice is between those two: anything else is a wasted vote.

I personally quite like Corbyn and I think Johnson is a rogue! But I could never vote for the present Labour party, which has become a nest of antisemites. I don't think Corbyn is personally antisemitic but he tolerates those people in his party because they are his strongest supporters and that is despicable. So it looks as if I will have to hold my nose and vote conservative.

I'll be voting Brexit unless Farage and Johnson come to a deal.

I don't believe Johnson is really pro-brexit any longer, if he was he wouldn't be trying to push through a new treaty that's Brexit in name only.

Unfortunately the constituency I live in is a 100% guaranteed Conservative safe seat so it won't make any difference but you've got to vote your conscience.

Just to clarify -- the only democratic vote that the UK has had in the last 15 years or more was on the EU.
We do not live in a democracy -- we live in a country controlled by the people who pay 3 parties and 3 parties only. We cannot vote for any other party than the 3 who are paid the most.
This whole thing was caused because the UK is not a democracy and people took the chance of an actual democratic vote to do just that.
Edit: I may be wrong but it might be over 40 years since the last democratic vote:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975...hip_referendum

People saying how they're going to vote will divide people on this thread as deeply as England is divided. I don't ever vote. I don't want to give any human government a mandate. George Bernard Shaw Wrote: I've no vote in what is for me a foreign election, and am into hospital tomorrow to have my femur decapitated, and have an extended length total hip job. I heard the surgeon order a Tritanium hip ball, and some super undislocate-able socket. I knew titanium, and it's good settling in human tissue. I looked up tritanium, and the only thing I found was on Wikipedia, where it's listed as a joke metal used in Star Trek Technobabble

i didn't expect to see this post on linux questions . The way i see the UK (Gt Britain) is from a historical perspective. Civilizations would seem invincible at one point in time and then fade out(Roman Empire, Ottoman etc )

Thus the British Empire even if you say it was built on the backs of slaves etc was at one point one of the best managed entities ever.

The Uk to me as a have been empirically observing has major issues including lack of high caliber leadership
a down trodden and low spirited population worn down by the gig economy and removal of civil liberties such as legal aid for the common man.


The NHS i have had some interaction at various points such as witnessing a newly qualified Doctor i knew to be left in charge of a 20 floor block at a hospital. Also i was volunteering at one point in a stoke ward same hospital and saw that issues presented were not even acknowledged never mind addressed. Over the last 3 years between the civil service and MP's complete lack of planning and suicidal policies. You get rid of bursaries and wonder why there are no nurses . You put in negative polices and wonder why consultants are thin on the ground.

My wife being recently ill has exposed lack of quality of doctors. Now bringing back ICT and A.I into the equation its total madness to think you put in data and get a diagnosis for patients.


In terms of integrity and national interest parliament is populated by pigs with heads in trough.