The result

My sister had no intention of voting at all ( she never does) JanaNana so wouldn't apply for a postal vote .

(sigh) I wish people understood money flow.

I don't give s stuff what anyone thinks of me or my posts GG I am who I am. I have no agenda I support no political party . I certainly don't seek your approval .

We also have every right to post pictures because guess what ? Gransnet make it possible . Why not try and get them banned if they upset you so much?

I think the postal votes are taking into the count, opened there. The tear-off section is then used to check people off the register.
The envelope with vote is then opened. Ballot papers from different boxes and postal votes are mixed up to preserve the secrecy of the vote.

They are then counted.

I think that is how it works anyway, although I have not been involved since postal votes were introduced.

taken, sorry, not taking

i admit that i read the first page of this thread and then went straight to the last - nothing has changed except that we've now got a hung parliament [as i understand it]. we're still going to be robbed blind and the sick and disabled are going to be hounded. the nhs will still be going from bad to worse and everything else too.
however, this would have happened whatever party got in.

I think that the tear off section is used when they arrive at the Council offices to tick people off the list so that they don't vote twice.

WW it was I indeed a great achievement. But equally I don't think it's spin to recognise that Labour came second place by a significant margin. They lost, albeit by far lower a margin than originally predicted - 40% for Labour against about 48/49% for the Tories. What we have now is a total mess. Nobody can put together any form of reliable Government, just when we need one more than ever.

lupatra the fight starts now- this government can't force through all their evil policies because they haven't got the support in Parliament. Keep faith, ignore the filth from the gutter press which will surely come, continue your argument encourage the young and women and we will win the day come the next election, which can only be a few months away.

fitz May can't do a thing in parliament, her nasty wings have been well and truly clipped. Labour finally was able to cut through all the filthy gutter press and people listened and liked what they heard. The thrust is away from the Tories and towards Labour, it will be very difficult to stop.

Why does my first indication of a Gransnet forum thread come in at 09.25 today when it's already 22 pages long? I've noticed this before - why am I always tail end Charlie????

WW you could be right re another election in a few months. But my thinking is the most likely result would be another hung Parliament.

Can anyone tell me why we are forced to listen to the utter irrelevance that is ukip

fitz in which case we need a national unity government

If you ask for 100 messages per page it is only 6 pages long grammargran - same number of messages though !

May beginning to form a cabinet later, blimey I wouldn't touch her government with a barge pole if I was a Tory

WW: UKIP - change channels!
Govt. on national unity - gets my vote but could they ever find a compromise?

grammargran, you've probably clicked on the Last hour tab up at the top, so you only get to see the most recent posts.

fitz I did and guess what

I think they will have to if there is a hung parliament next time

dd says: (sigh) I wish people understood money flow.

Richard Murphy attempts to put it very simply here:

But the big issue is greater than any of those demands. As quickly as possible Labour has to get its economic messaging right. You can talk about equality and its merits forever but if people don’t believe we can afford social justice and that it will really pay for them the Tories will still block a Labour government. And so far it is clear that not enough people are persuaded of this.

That is because of the profound misunderstanding of economics that has been deliberately fostered by right wing economists and think tanks. This suggests that the economy is a household and that it must live within its monetary means, which it is deliberately suggested are finite.

Both these suggestions are lies, of course. The economy is not at all like a household, of course, precisely because a household has a distinct income and expenditure, but in the economy as whole one person’s spend is another person’s income. This transforms the way we have to get people to think because in this case cutting spend simply cuts someone else’s income and negates any benefit as a result. What is more, there is no limit to the amount of money there can be in the economy: the state has the unique right to make it from scratch.

He's not saying this because he is 'left wing'; he's saying this because this is how a nation's economy actually works.

It's also common sense. Restricting the supply of money in the economy by cutting government spending means that there is less money available to be spent and taxed. People become poorer. Businesses fail because their customers can no longer afford to but their products. Personal debt increases and there is definitely no money tree available to ease that. At some time the whole fragile structure comes tumbling down. As it did in 2007. Disaster was only averted because the government suddenly discovered that it could create money, as Richard says. How many £billions were conjured up to rescue the banks?

Just heard that Paul Nuttall's resigned - about time too!

Nuttall has quit.

It's done, they all have to move on now and I have to go to the supermarket and will miss all the pundits yakking.
Potatoes are on the list but not a kitten. Nor a holiday.
Life, as they say, goes on.

but in the economy as whole one person’s spend is another person’s income. This transforms the way we have to get people to think because in this case cutting spend simply cuts someone else’s income and negates any benefit as a result.

which is why putting up taxes on small businesses is a mistake because it inevitably puts up the price of the goods they produce, fewer people may purchase them resulting in loss of income and job loss.

After all those threats of a Tory landslide, this morning feels fantastic. This is a very important result for a few reasons, as well as for cutting away the ground from under Theresa May's feet. Hopefully she will have to re-think her plans (if she hangs on to her job.)

Jeremy Corbyn fought a good fight, based on issues not insults, whilst enduring a barrage of abuse. That included outright lies by the Tories, the Sun, the Mail, etc. Proves that people will listen if you can make yourself heard over the noise.

The involvement of the young is very heartening. So what if they were voting for free education? I expect a lot of oldies voted against the "dementia tax". And how many people voting Tory aren't motivated by their own economic interests?

Most of all, in an era plagued by the rise of the far right, this result shows the left is alive and kicking. We're always told that socialist ideas are crazy, unelectable, wildly idealistic....but clearly the young don't agree, and I'm guessing that plenty of us old ones feel the same way. After all, our parents' generation voted for the government that created the Welfare State....and what a crazy, wildly idealistic, brilliant idea that was!