The UK don’t have preferential voting, so the tactical vote has been a very real thing over there for a long time. First past the post means that you DO have to make that calculation when casting your vote about whether to vote for a minor party that you like more, or a less ideal option that has more likelihood of winning. Splitting the vote is a good way for majorities to lose to minorities under FPTP.
For a very long time Labour has been a beneficiary of this - people whose philosophies match the Lib Dems or Greens have held their nose and voted Labour to try to keep the Tories out, and probably on the other side you’d have UKIP or Reform supporters voting Tory to keep Labour out. Given how hard the Tories cratered before last election, and given how hard Labour are dumpstering themselves now, the logic of tactical voting might be turning on its head. The adherents of traditional major parties, who’ve preached tactical voting to minor party supporters for decades, might be the ones needing to think about taking the leap and voting tactically for Reform or the Greens. Reform are routinely doubling the Tories’ polling these days, and the Greens have edged level with or are nosing in front of Labour, and there’s still years left before the next election for the abjectly incompetent and despised Starmer government to bang more nails into Labour’s coffin.
It’ll be a hard reach for many Tory or labour supporters to accept they’re a minor party now and start to vote tactically. Rusted on is a real thing, and most people don’t change their votes often or easily. What that means could be that the next election is a wild mill of vote splitting on a local level and unexpected candidates falling over the line due to the vagaries of fptp.
The only reason there was a Brexit referendum was because Cameron had to shore up his right and not have votes split at the previous election. If there was preferential voting he wouldn’t have had to do that, and thus not make a referendum a campaign promise.
So, sinking the preferential voting referendum was a major factor in Brexit occurring.
And of course compulsory voting might have sunk it as well.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has likened Britain to East Germany as she lamented an erosion of “free speech” during a recent tirade on the state of the UK. The second instalment of the weekly The Liz Truss Show on Youtube saw Truss spend 54 minutes discussing the “woke” agenda that has overtaken the police and the judiciary and claim that you could now be arrested for “expressing perfectly normal views online”. Truss, who spent just 45 days in office, said that foreigners were “afraid to step onto our shores for fear of being arrested”, and that “hate crime cases and cracking down on free speech” was being prioritised by police “over burglary and rape”. She added: “It’s considered worse to be a racist than a rapist”
In more important news a ‘ hate Speech” case against an American comedian for a joke at the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Festival and for three tweets has been thrown out by the Westminster Magistrates Course. This was a private prosecution case brought by the Charity Against Anti-Seminism and which received strong criticism from the presiding Judge. Then you have Greta Thunberg arrested today in England for holding up an offensive sign in support of eight members of Palestine action who have been refused bail after a July demonstration who have no hope of having a trial until 2027, yet, a Labour MP who has been charged with rape gets bail. Anyway, the bigger picture is that liberal democracies continue to restrict free speech which of course is a major concern.
Betraying farmers. Backstabbing their traditional working class and low income voter base. Raising taxes again and freezing the elderly of their winter fuel pay.
Gawd. The Tories have drawn level in voting intention with Labour at 19%. How bad must Labour be, even given the UK economy is in a rebuild.
The pesky problem is Reform, sitting at 26%. But they are on a slight downward trajectory. “Plenty of time until 29” would be the catch cry in the Labour Committee room.
Tim Smith! The plump, complacent embodiment of useless Liberal party entitlement, who made a career of demanding other people resign for basically any reason whatsoever then tried to laugh it off after getting plastered and putting his car through some kid’s bedroom window. Tim Smith who managed to lose a seat that’s been Liberal party heartland since the first multicellular life oozed from the ocean and immediately demanded a corporate tax cut.
Imagine how hard up you have to be to think this guy is the solution to your problems.
(And he wanted to shoot all my bats at Yarra Bend too. We won’t forget that Tim you bloated pustule…)
