The tories lost worse. Far worse.
But we were being told Labour would lose by 200+ seats, not 56. And they definitely weren’t supposed to win Canterbury or Kensington in the Tory victory plans.
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Labour have been given an opportunity that seemed unlikely to present itself when the election was first called, but the Conservatives actually increased their overall vote share, so it remains to be seen whether they’ll be capable of turning their improvement into electoral success in the future.
Oh there’s no doubt the Conservatives had a disastrous campaign, but they still won, so given they did so badly, and Labour still didn’t win… what does that tell you?
And so did Labour, despite the constant attacks on Corbyn.
It tell me that people still have concerns about Labour, some of them valid. Not all of them are going to vote Conservative though, I voted Green because of my concerns about Labour being authoritarian.
Given a choice between the two, I would choose Labour over Conservative, but that doesn’t mean I agree with them. I will wait to see if my feelings about the Lib Dems improve (they seem to have since Nick Clegg lost his seat), but I don’t think I would choose them over Labour unless another Charles Kennedy was leader. I know, it’s not going to happen 
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They did, apparently, but at what cost? Time will tell i’m sure, maybe a week, maybe a few months before it all collapses like a house of cards. Plus they did lose some staunch tory seats as @the_borderer pointed out. It’s a moral victory surely? I think that carries a lot of weight* because it shows people did not overwhelmingly vote for more austerity, increased surveillance and carte blanche for them to take us out of the EU without any challenge.
*Meaning that i feel more optimistic about the future of the opposition in this country whereas i was feeling totally dejected. So hopefully others do too.
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It’s entirely possible that this is a high water mark for a Corbyn-led Labour party though, they might struggle to get the same high youth voter turnout in the next election for example (it was surprisingly high), so there’s at least as much chance at this point that their vote share will decrease in the next election as it will increase. Also, even a moderate improvement of the Tories’ next election campaign is likely to see them claw back at least some lost votes, and given how much of a shambles this one was it’s hard to see them doing much worse.
It’s far too early to be making predictions though, we have no idea how long the current government will last, what the political climate will be like when it falls, whenever that is, and who will be in charge of the Tories then (my bet is for after Brexit, but a new PM might be able to hang on for the full term for all we know).
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Looks like that was a sign- Farron has gone.
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Maybe with Farron gone now Paddick can return to his role. And maybe LDP supporters will no longer feel compelled to resort to painfully convoluted logic (“calling gay people ‘sinners’ isn’t a criticism!”) to justify their political choices.
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So that answers that. He couldn’t admit to being ok with it to himself for fear of angering his sky daddy, in that case he had to resign and did the right thing. What issues was paddick referring to exactly? The tweet appears to have been deleted.
Paddick is gay.
Paddick shouldn’t have resigned, he had no justification for doing so. Sad that he fell for the smears. It’s funny, if these kind of unjustified smears had been directed at someone like Sadiq Khan I think we’d be seeing a very different reaction from certain people. 
[quote=“caze, post:454, topic:86909”]
Paddick shouldn’t have resigned, he had no justification for doing so.[/quote]
He made it very clear what his justification was for doing so. You think Paddick formed his sense of Farron’s beliefs about gay people from media smears and not from personal acquaintance?
Just because they’re in the same party doesn’t mean they’re personally acquainted. So for all I know he did form his opinion from media smears. Paddick is a peer not an MP, so less chance of them spending a lot of time together.
Paddick was a front-bencher. You don’t think members of the Lib Dem shadow cabinet were personally acquainted with their party leader?
Yes, i did know that but he said various issues so i was wondering what those issues were exactly. Or if he did actually say something questionable about gay marriage.
he wasn’t an MP, so his presence on the shadow-cabinet team doesn’t mean they spent a lot of time together. and even if they did, a professional relationship isn’t by itself enough to guarantee a significant level of personal acquaintedness.
it should also be noted that he made no mention about his personal relationship with him when giving his reasons for resigning, just referred to stuff ‘highlighted during the GE campaign’. if someone was to point out some actual evidence of Farron’s apparently bigoted views from their personal interactions with the man then I might reconsider my view on this, though I won’t hold my breath.
[quote=“politeruin, post:458, topic:86909”]
i was wondering what those issues were exactly[/quote]
I’m sure the vague language in Paddick’s tweet was intentional. When asked about Farron’s resignation, Paddick told the Graun "it is very sad that he feels he cannot be a committed Christian and leader of the Liberal Democrats,” we can reasonably assume they are the religion-related views, eg sexual orientation and abortion.
[quote=“caze, post:459, topic:86909”]
he wasn’t an MP[/quote]
No, Baron Paddick’s a peer. Nevertheless, he was shadow home secretary of a relatively small party, and it is a bizarre reach to suggest he gets his information about his party leader’s views from the media.
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Farron was quite clear on his opposition to abortion, and equally clear on his support for the rights of LGBT folk. We can’t reasonably assume anything about Farron’s views on sexual orientation from Paddick’s comments.
No, Baron Paddick’s a peer. Nevertheless, he was shadow home secretary of a relatively small party, and it is a bizarre reach to suggest he gets his information about his party leader’s views from the media.
It’s not a bizarre reach when it’s the only thing he actually mentions. You’ve been making a lot of assumptions during this whole discussion.
