I can’t point to any single example, but my experience of growing up in Carlisle (where speaking your mind is a pastime, probably because there isn’t a lot else to do there) combined with recent events in the UK strongly suggests it.
I used to think that things were getting better, and Carlisle was just an isolated backwater, but now I think that I am in a left wing bubble here in Oxford.
I want to be wrong, really!
Do you forget who appoints the Prime Minister? In a hung election, the monarch gets to choose. That’s a powerful position in that right alone. The myth of the monarch being purely ceremonial is just that.
By the way, do you suppose when I say the monarchy is institutionally racist I am not talking about everybody in the country who isn’t in the direct line of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha?
No, it has never happened and never will. We have had minority governments. They can stagger on but they can’t actually do anything. It is not like the US with its appointed executive. The Queen cannot in practice impose a PM on Parliament, because the majority can simply vote everything down.I’m afraid you just don’t understand our system, or lack of one.
We have more than two political parties and so in reality there is never a “hung” election. There is horse trading and a coalition government. The reality of the system is that the monarch has to appoint the person who can command the most votes in Parliament. If nobody can command a majority, another election is needed.
post:88, topic:93400"]
No, it has never happened and never will
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February 1974 general election and the May 2010 general election
If Oxford, the home of right wing lost causes, is now a left wing bubble - we are surely doomed!
Seriously, one analysis of the referendum vote suggested the critical factor is proximity to a Russell Group university. I’m just a short commute from the U of Bath, and anecdotal evidence suggests that this might well be an important factor.
I think most of the right wingers here vote Lib Dem, and have done for quite a while.
I should have specified that I live in the Socialist Republic of East Oxford, where Tories are an endangered species outside The University. We also have Ruskin College here, although they have gone a bit New Labour in recent years.
Oxford as a whole haven’t elected a Tory onto the city council in 15 years (two Lib Dems did cross the floor at one point, then got voted out at their next election) and the kippers are even further away, while we have had a few councillors from the Green Party and the far left IWCA.
Oxfordshire is strongly conservative though, which is why Oxford West and Abingdon has a conservative MP. West Oxford itself is strongly Lib Dem.
I was alluding, of course, to Oxford being the HQ of the Royalists in the Civil Wars of the mid-17th century. Things are different nowadays, but as in my family Fen Poly graduates outnumber Car Factory ones three to one, I can make childish jokes about lost causes without risking my majority.
And you are reinforcing the point about left wing and centrist politics clustering around the Russell Group.
We need an independent State of British Left Wing Bubbles to stay in the EU. We could trade with the people outside…on WTO terms, and while they still had any money. Yes, I am sarcastic.
I can’t believe I misunderstood that! My favourite pub is just around the corner from where the Treaty for the Surrender of Oxford was signed.
It’s always raining, and frequently smells like cowshit in my experience. However, there’s some nice, quirky shops and a few really nice pubs. And they do make some damn fine bacon up that way. You can’t fault Cumbria’s butchers. It does amuse me that the Apple shop is called ‘Stormfront’, mind. You’d think someone in there must have at least been on the internet at one point or another… 
“Judah, would you like to demonstrate for the group what happened to you the other day during training when you didn’t comply?”
I can’t disagree about Carlisle smelling of cow shit, except when it smells of pig shit.
Yeah, those aren’t good Carlisle days either.
I am saving this up just in case my daughter mutters about moving there, again. But post-23rd June I don’t expect that to happen.
The “No it has never happened” refers, as I thought was clear, to the Queen actively choosing a PM. That’s the bit of your post I quoted.
The Queen did not get to choose the PM either time because in both cases one person came forward able to form a government, as in practice has to happen. If you actually read my post you will see that my first para referred to Feb 1974 and the second one to 2010, and to the governments of national unity in wartime.
I’ve concluded that you are deliberately misunderstanding me and misrepresenting my posts, either in order to trolley or because you won’t admit that you don’t really understand our electoral system. I’m simply not prepared to play this silly game any more. It’s off topic.
Never heard the “fen poly” phrase before despite knowing the place reasonably well.
Non-white probably not, but who’s to say a different house doesn’t come into power? The Plantagenets could be hatching schemes in smoky back rooms as we speak.
1970s.
I’d vote for them.
I had heard worrying rumours that companies keep trying to buy the Harry Redfern designed pubs to knock them down and turn them into flats/offices.
I can’t see that going down well with anyone who has connections to the area.
It also amuses me that there is a pub in Carlisle called the Woodrow Wilson, even though I know the reason why.
My parents used to buy meat from the butcher at Great Orton Post Office, even though it was about ten miles away. It was good, they made proper Cumberland sausage that wasn’t like the crap you get from the supermarkets, but I heard that the butcher died a few years ago. I hope it’s still there.
I also like John Watt’s coffee, they do a good medium roast there.
But can they get into power without the support of the Jacobites?
