Understatement

*braces self in fetal position*

Either way, Corbyn is finished. He either fights and loses or he refuses the fight and is kicked out by his own side. In fairness, he lasted far longer than I expected.

Same can be said for Trump

MPs have to support it as a two-thirds majority. Shouldn't be too difficult at the moment.

I'm honestly pretty happy about this. I know the tories will win a majority overall, but the Lib Dems probably win back my constituency, and considering how the Conservative who got in last time doesn't seem to care about anything here that's a big plus.

I don't know... For a lot of Labour MPs it will be a case of Turkey's voting for Christmas.

As opposed to eternal Thanksgiving?

Quick one for Jamie when he comes back.

I work in the public sector and for the first time ever there seems to be overwhelming support for the Tories. Conversations have been along the lines of "I don't like the Tories but" and "Theresa May is actually not bad...". This is from a traditionally Labour supporting office and an overwhelmingly Remain voting office.

Is this a quirk of Bristol or is it repeated in your part of the world too?

It must be a quirk. The Tories are soundly hated up here.

Where is 'up here' - South Yorkshire seems to be changing

(I'm not just saying that because it's my own view - I'm not hearing many of my public sector colleagues having anything positive to say about either the Conservative government in general, or Mrs May personally. The general feeling is she's been making a mess of the Brexit situation and creating a great deal of uncertainty.)

"Up here" in my context is the North East - County Durham specifically.

Labour support is holding up in some parts of the country, then? Good, a complete rout would be bad for democracy. If Labour still has a good stock of safe seats it will give those MPs more freedom to vote for an election.

Any idea if the boundary changes will be in play?

That is an interesting question, Octavious.

My assumption is that they won't be - and that this election would be on the existing boundaries - because the Boundary Commission haven't presented their final plan yet, so it'd be a bit of a rush to do it on the proposed new boundaries... I'm not 100% certain of that though.

As for Labour support... well not necessarily. Labour support is still fairly strong here - the North East has always been a Labour heartland of course. However some Labour voters are shifting, I think - it's just that they're not all shifting to the Tories. The Lib Dems are slowly creeping back into existence, and most of their activists around here seem quite young, interestingly. UKIP etc are still kicking about too, gloating about Brexit mostly.

(And of course I'm hoping the Greens will get some of them. We stand a chance of getting at least one or two Green councillors in Durham for the first time...)

Lab/Lib marginals were always a scarce thing. If the Tories win by the expected landslide then there will be very little scope for a Lib Dem revival because they're up against Conservatives in almost all places they'd have a shot.

Labour on the other hand... really need to hope Corbyn can do well at TV debates. Or something. Anything.

At least this election should sound the death knell for UKIP.

The Tory swing is largely against Labour, though. I'd be surprised if the Lib Dems don't win back a decent number of their former safe seats that vanished in their disaster last time.

The best thing that can happen to Labour is for them to agree to an election only if it takes place around November time, and for Corbyn to resign so they can fight it with a new leader.

You never know... it might happen :p

Or not... apparently Corbyn is going to agree to June and battle it out...

I guess this what watching the charge of the light brigade was like. Magnificent courage...

It's all a cunning ploy. The Blairites won't allow a Corbynista onto the ballot for his replacement, and the hard left don't have enough MPs to make the threshold. But the hard left MPs are mostly in very safe seats; whilst the Blairites are not. So if Labour get crushed, the threshold gets lowered (as it's a percentage) whilst the Left stays the same size... Allowing the Left to put another radical socialist in charge of the party :)

Clive Lewis, that's who the next Labour leader should be. I like him.

Was he the one fired as a BBC political reporter because he failed a basic political general knowledge test?

Well, why not? He can't be any worse than Corbyn :p.

Yeah, but how does this affect Murica?

I wouldn't worry, Hauta. The backwaters of the New World are unlikely to be impacted to any noticeable degree. You can carry on picking cotton, pulling tractors, and dancing in barns... or whatever it is you former colonial types do.

A) didn't think there was a legal way to do it like this anymore, like Oct said
B) LIB DEM COMEBACK!!

With a 2/3 majority you can still do it - and Labour will vote for it.

522-13

Y'all ready for election season?

Who were the 13 cowards?

Most of them were from Labour.

https://commonsvotes.digiminster.com/Divisions/Download?divisionId=264