So I slightly disagree: you should have election parties, but it is basically core to have a good time that you have a ruthlessly ideological invite list. What you don't want is a party with anyone even a milimetre to your right or your left. I'm reliably informed that later that night in 2011..
...someone said to me 'Isn't it great? Nick Clegg lost!', and I replied 'you're a dumb [redacted]ing [redacted] and David Cameron is going to be re-elected in four years, you stupid [redacted]ing [redacted]'. Don't be 2011 me!
Who is more rightwing, a Blairite or someone on the old Labour right, the most heated debate in the history of forums, etc etc. (I suppose we should reasonably include our current destinations and say “to my left”.)
Obviously not appropriate now, but i’d love one day to read of your political journey from activist to journalist and how this changed your views/priorities, seeing the sausage factory up close, etc.
Actually not quite true, the SU had put one on for the US election in 2016 but I had despairingly gone to the Learning Commons to try and do some Commutative Algebra work before the punches were thrown and there was an online one in 2020
I went to the Aberdeen politics society one in 2016, and I think the feeling of being very drunk and realising what was happening while a little gang of libertarians at the other end of the room whooped and brayed is going to stay with me forever
My other main (political, as opposed to the search for someone's lost keys etc) memory is knowing we'd regained Vale of Clwyd a few seconds before everyone else (because they did the declaration yng Nghymraeg first) but feeling unable to cheer because no one else was....
A Tory Brexit night results party, so maybe a 70:30 split, had THE WORST atmosphere of any event I have ever been to. Think I left after they announced Gibraltar
If you ever write that tv-drama about what happened to a group new Tories during the 2010s, this results party has to be a (the?) key set piece scene that you keep coming back to
Friends who were at the official Remain do said it was all very jolly except for the one person glumly staring at the telly… as the night went on more and more people joined him until in the end everyone was just gazing at it in silence
See I had the opposite experience because I had read Chris Hanretty's table for what Leave needed to get in each consistuency. That made it clear from the first result Leave was overperforming, so I was left sitting giddy in my front room as the results came in to confirm that
My first campaigning experience. Trying to tell people why AV is better than FPTP and instead being shouted at as an 18 year old by middle aged men about Nick Clegg being a ****. Was wonderful stuff.
Not to sound like a killjoy but the idea of socialising with a large group of people seems to cut against the need to obsessively watch the results including staying up obnoxiously late to get the stragglers live. One or two people on the same wavelength is my limit
You say this but I’ve bad to ask to swap seats in a pub so as to not be caught between Labour activists falling out over the 2016 Democratic primary *on more than one occasion*. If anything, Stephen’s vetting doesn’t go far enough.
Have spent the last 13 years watching people complain about red walls and voting inefficiency and James Cleverly's supporters playing 4D chess and quietly muttering, "This wouldn't have happened under AV".
A party where absolutely everyone at it was so passionate about AV they had spent every waking hour campaigning for it, seems somewhat .... specialised?
I, also, like AV for it's own merits not as a stepping stone or proxy to PR, however, I imagine the 2024 GE would have been nuts under AV, all other things being equal.
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Literally worked for the campaign and our entire regional office was pretty meh about it
It's okay, I don't think anyone noticed