UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80

How do you intend to vote in the 2019 General Election if eligible?

  • Brexit Party

    Votes: 30 4.3%
  • Conservatives

    Votes: 73 10.6%
  • DUP

    Votes: 5 0.7%
  • Green

    Votes: 23 3.3%
  • Labour

    Votes: 355 51.4%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 58 8.4%
  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 3 0.4%
  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 9 1.3%
  • SNP

    Votes: 19 2.8%
  • UKIP

    Votes: 6 0.9%
  • Independent

    Votes: 1 0.1%
  • Other (BNP, Change UK, UUP and anyone else that I have forgotten)

    Votes: 10 1.4%
  • Not voting

    Votes: 57 8.3%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 41 5.9%

  • Total voters
    690
  • Poll closed .
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Homes should absolutely have free broadband, with the ability to upgrade if required. I’d say I’m surprised this hasn’t been done sooner but we’ve had 9 years of conservative rule.
 

I assumed that was a parody account. It is laughable. But does it actually work? Is your average Leave voter missing the days when every football team was 11 British and Irish with names you could pronounce? Like some of Trump’s stunts, that video might resonate with enough voters in swing areas while we all laugh at it like we did with Jon Olivers’ gags in 2016.
 


We broke it so trust us to fix it :wenger:



On ITV they interviewed a couple of people after the waiting time figures came out (near an A&E with waiting times of up to 6.5 hours).

Interviewer: "Who do you trust to look after the NHS?"
Person 1: "Conservatives."
Interviewer: “Why is that?"
Person 1: "I think they'd make a better job of it overall."

------

Interviewer: "Do you think the NHS will help determine who you vote for in this election?
Person 2: "I think it will for a lot of people, yeah, definitely. Because if people want to save the NHS they're going to go for parties that want to save it but I don't think the Tories do to be fair. I think they rather sell it off to be honest."
 
I assumed that was a parody account. It is laughable. But does it actually work? Is your average Leave voter missing the days when every football team was 11 British and Irish with names you could pronounce? Like some of Trump’s stunts, that video might resonate with enough voters in swing areas while we all laugh at it like we did with Jon Olivers’ gags in 2016.

I can assure you every football fan as we all are on this forum, wants their team to have the best players and the best possible chance of winning games and trophies. I can’t see that resonating with anyone and he’s being mauled in the comments. You just need this to get a bit more traction because it’s going to alienate a lot of people. United, kids, wife in that order as one man once said...
 
10 years to get free broadband to everyone seems a fair time scale when you consider some of the more remote areas. Actually it seems quite optimistic. An interesting policy though providing a social good. No surprise to see the Tory bunch frothing at the mouth then.
 
What a cracking argument, two ls and an o.

Even if you could it’s not an argument. BT acts like a government monopoly but in the for profit private sector. Only in the last few years it has severed Openreach in name only from its group. It is solely responsible for delivering the fibre project around the UK and its slow as feck because they don’t want speeding up investment to eat into their profits. They just want grants to do everything despite reaping the rewards of the monopoly for 35 years. Nationalising Openreach is a sound argument if we want to deliver superfast broadband to every home in the UK as soon as possible.
 
I can assure you every football fan as we all are on this forum, wants their team to have the best players and the best possible chance of winning games and trophies. I can’t see that resonating with anyone and he’s being mauled in the comments. You just need this to get a bit more traction because it’s going to alienate a lot of people. United, kids, wife in that order as one man once said...

Negative comments - sure, it’s moronic. But does it resonate with the elderly Tory voters whose point of reference is the 60s or 70s (when nearly everyone playing football was white) and who don’t read Twitter?
I hope you are right but, after Trump in 2016, I am very concerned.
 
I get it could be argued that broadband is a basic human need in the 21st century and so should be free, but if that is the case then why shouldn't we get water, food and heating for free too?
 
10 years to get free broadband to everyone seems a fair time scale when you consider some of the more remote areas. Actually it seems quite optimistic. An interesting policy though providing a social good. No surprise to see the Tory bunch frothing at the mouth then.

Its optimistic if the target is 100%, that would be quite unrealistic given the challenges of getting it timo remote and rural locations etc.. I assume they would aim for 90-95% which would be achievable in even shorter amount of time. The remaining 5-10% would benefit from new mobile technologies developed in the coming decade so it shouldn’t be an issue to get faster connections for them either. We’re so behind on this it’s ridiculous.
 
I get it could be argued that broadband is a basic human need in the 21st century and so should be free, but if that is the case then why shouldn't we get water, food and heating for free too?


Absolutely correct.

Surprised we haven't had a rerun of free / reduced Student Fees and writing off Student Loans.

How come it was such an important policy ( and absolutely not an attempt to bribe all half million or so students in the UK to vote Labour ) less than two years ago and now isn't important enough to be mentioned again ?

I think the answer is probably related to the fact that there are probably more than half a million gullible people with broadband who could be bribedthis time.

Maybe the Tories will counter with an offer of free Sky and BT Sports.

But seriously....Promising free Broadband for everyone while at the same time as bitching about foodbanks and homelessnes and children in poverty, etc....
 
Absolutely correct.

Surprised we haven't had a rerun of free / reduced Student Fees and writing off Student Loans.

How come it was such an important policy ( and absolutely not an attempt to bribe all half million or so students in the UK to vote Labour ) less than two years ago and now isn't important enough to be mentioned again ?

I think the answer is probably related to the fact that there are probably more than half a million gullible people with broadband who could be bribedthis time.

Maybe the Tories will counter with an offer of free Sky and BT Sports.

But seriously....Promising free Broadband for everyone while at the same time as bitching about foodbanks and homelessnes and children in poverty, etc....
Please never come back to England.

And of course my condolences go out to the people of France.
 


Actually this offers a good example for why ending free movement is a bad idea. It can be argued that european footballers are the main contributers to making the PL the biggest and best domestic league in the world and a massive contributer to the UK economy, and without free movement of people many of those players would never have been allowed to play here in the first place. For example Fabregas would never have gotten a go at Arsenal, Kante wouldn't have gotten a work permit etc etc.
 
While free broadband sounds great on the face of it would the government then be in full control and decide to block any content that they don't like? Many institutions now offer free broadband but they control the content.
I certainly don't want any government involved in deciding want I can and can't access but if it is just a guarantee that anyone despite their circumstances can access all content for free then it's a great idea.
 
While free broadband sounds great on the face of it would the government then be in full control and decide to block any content that they don't like? Many institutions now offer free broadband but they control the content.
I certainly don't want any government involved in deciding want I can and can't access but if it is just a guarantee that anyone despite their circumstances can access all content for free then it's a great idea.

But the tories have been trying to do exactly that for 2 years and are just too incompetent to get it done... (Porn)
 
But the tories have been trying to do exactly that for 2 years and are just too incompetent to get it done... (Porn)
Of course they have and that's why any government involvement would worry me.
I'm all for renationalising core structures but anything which could lead to censorship should be vehemently opposed.
I'm not saying Labour's policy will lead to this but it is something worth bearing in mind imo.
 
While free broadband sounds great on the face of it would the government then be in full control and decide to block any content that they don't like? Many institutions now offer free broadband but they control the content.
I certainly don't want any government involved in deciding want I can and can't access but if it is just a guarantee that anyone despite their circumstances can access all content for free then it's a great idea.

Absolutely. Government control of broadband would mean government control of content. At the moment competition means that we'd just change provider of they tried to implement restrictions. Customers can vote with their feet.

That's before even thinking that government broadband would be a victim of peaks and troughs in investment and short term strategies changing dependant on government. If this were actioned by 2030 I can guarantee we'd have the worst internet in the western world by 2040.

A lack of competition would also cause complacency which would cause inefficiency, which would cause an ever ballooning tax burden on society.

It's truly a horrible idea.
 
Absolutely. Government control of broadband would mean government control of content. At the moment competition means that we'd just change provider of they tried to implement restrictions. Customers can vote with their feet.

That's before even thinking that government broadband would be a victim of peaks and troughs in investment and short term strategies changing dependant on government. If this were actioned by 2030 I can guarantee we'd have the worst internet in the western world by 2040.

A lack of competition would also cause complacency which would cause inefficiency, which would cause an ever ballooning tax burden on society.

It's truly a horrible idea.
It depends on the implementation, if it's just to ensure that everyone no matter their circumstances can access full content and services then it's a good idea. If it's to grab full control of content and services then it's a massive worry.
Really need to see the full details of the policy tbh.
 
It's a great policy, our telecommunications infrastructure is years behind that of most other more developed countries, largely because the government has kept it at arms length and left it to the private sector for decades. We've moved into a world now where internet is a necessity, at least for those of working age. The paucity of coverage is a driver of the lack of opportunities outside of big cities and the death of rural areas and puts the country at a huge competitive disadvantage.
 
The government doesn’t need to provide you with something in order to be able to censor it, they can do it via legislation. The tories have been trying to censor the internet and failed spectacularly because they’re idiots who don’t understand it. Labour as the party of freedoms has been vehemently against censorship.

This policy isn’t new it has been introduced since 2016. This is an excerpt from Corbyns speech back then on democratisation of the internet:

To protect us from unwarranted surveillance, and to protect our individual and collective freedoms, the next Labour government will introduce A People’s Charter of Digital Liberties, following a public consultation with people and parties across the political spectrum.
 
Absolutely. Government control of broadband would mean government control of content. At the moment competition means that we'd just change provider of they tried to implement restrictions. Customers can vote with their feet.


1. GCHQ/five-eyes data collection means no matter your ISP, the govt gets your data - currently. You can vote with your feet to send your data to the govt via a different cable.

2. Estonia has free public internet and is rated as the least restricted internet in the world in terms of government censorship.

3. The Labour plan came with a digital charter of rights, giving you more privacy rights than the current privatised system.

There is an entire real world beyond Econ 101.
 
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