not a bad move from tories really, only had 2 year guaranteed before the snap election , now got another 5!

got to love UK politics . lose by 57 seat and claim victory, lose a third of your SNP seat and claim victory, lose the majority government and claim victory!

As opposed to Labour PM with actual links and support for terrorists

be careful what you wish for!

Just a false narrative though. Corbyn is/was fiercely anti-violence and was talking with Sinn Fein publicly while the government negotiated behind closed doors.

The paramilitary wing of the DUP bombed a kids school as recently as 2001.

One byproduct of the election which most people seemed pleased about, was the collapse of the snp vote. That's put the independence whining to bed for the foreseeable future.
You would have a heart of stone not to laugh at salmonds downfall, especially as several weeks ago he was bragging that no Tory would take his seat. Also mr smugness himself angus Robertson , another one to bite the dust.

Yes, he'd have cheerfully sat by and watched hundreds massacred on the bridge with a no "shoot to kill" policy. He's an imbecile.

There's some truth in that. But at least he forged a narrative things could be better. May's 'it's , but there's nothing that can be done' approach relies on fear, and any sign of that diminishing is a cause for a smile in my opinion. There'll be few enough opportunities in the coming months I... fear.

Also the only reason she can't shake the magic money tree, is because she and her ilk are owned by its owners.

To answer your question.
Mrs May, the "leader" of the UK, on the flimsiest of reasons decided to go against the Tories own rules and call a snap election, despite having said on numerous occasions that she wouldnt.
The "reason" for this was to show how "strong" our government was and to "improve" our bargaining position with the EU.
She spectacularly failed to improve her majority in Parliament and is now left doing deals with the Unionist movement in N. Ireland (having already criticised Corbyn for doing deals with "terrorist" organisations).
By her own definition she has weakened Britain's negotiating position with the EU and she has lost all of her already weakening authority, both within her own party, plus the UK and the wider world.
She is hanging onto the cliff edge by her finger nails and she should step aside and allow someone with better leadership credentials to take the Tories and the country forward.

As for getting over it, I've nothing to get over.
I'm shocked that we have a hung parliament and for my personal views, a softer Brexit deal, which is now somewhat more likely, suits me just fine.

I will finish with a question for you though.

Do you think that Mrs May will be

a). leader of the conservative party in 5 years time or
b). leader of the conservative party at the end of 2017

With less than 2 years to conclude Brexit, "we" could lose a few months valuable negotiating time for a Tory leadership vote and possibly even more time if there needs to be another general election.
As I'm sure you are aware, trying to run the country as a minority government usually lead to an early election.

On paper, May is best placed to lead the UK. Which is not to say well placed. The problem is she'll be fending of the sharks in her own party (and given it's the Tory party that is a lot of sharks), while trying to negotiate brexit and appease her deeply unimpressed press baron patrons and DUP props.

Hammond's got less charisma than her, Johnson is a clown, and any moderates would be torn apart by their hard right nut job element. So David Davis it is then. Poor .

Meanwhile a Labour Party for whom obituitaries were being written has a chance to get its poop together. Which it really, really needs to do, I admit - but at least now there is hope.

Fantasy politics? Non-tuition fee higher education is the norm across most of Europe, and is common on every continent. Even Greece and Estonia have it!
Renationalising the railways wouldn't cost a thing. Not to mention the fact that most of the rail franchises are currently owned by the Chinese, Qatari, and French governments.
Renationalising the national grid, and water industries wouldn't add to the public debt because the cost is contra'd by the value of the gained asset.

The fact is, 7 years of austerity has created a zombie economy with falling productivity, stagnating wages, slowing growth, and failing public services. The 'recovery' has essentially been fueled by a HUGE increase in consumer debt, and when private debt is so high generally this causes private debtors to deleverage on their debts, thus reducing demand within the private sector. This is what's happened in the wider economy in the last 7 years, but the service sector has helped paper over the cracks, unfortunately rising inflation will mean consumers will likely have less money to spend within the service sector, hence the gloomy economic forecasts being made at the moment. So, when the private sector can't stimulate growth, the public sector has to fill the void.
It seems to me that many people think that the public and private sectors of the economy operate independently from one another, but they are both part of one economic ecosystem, and both fuel growth.

Non tuition may be the norm in other countries, the problem was he was trying to introduce this at the same several free things along with big spending on numerous other things at the same time as hoping to hammer the rich and businesses AND brexit. That's why it was fantasy, it was all too much and too unrealistic. People saw 2/3/4 things that they agreed with and didn't add all the things up and realise it was OTT vote grabbing nonsense. Don't give me fantasy give me realism.

Whilst I didn't want Labour/Corbyn to win THIS election I really do hope they get their act together and really threaten to win next time. But I'm already worried that they're acting like they won and will get complacent. At the end of the day they are still plenty of seats behind and it's hard to imagine the Tories being as bad next time. The Tories I think already know where they went wrong, as good as people think Labour did they still turned some off as seen by responses on this thread alone but already the attitude seems to be to dismiss those criticisms as slurs or slander of poor sweet innocent Jezza instead of things they should listen and learn from.

But May's campaign was based on the premise that she's going to lead a game-of-chicken positional negotiation against enemies that wish us ill. And win.

Either you believe that is a cynical fantasy to grab the votes of people who don't really understand the situation, or you believe that is her real strategy? Which wouldn't make it in the least realistic.
Or maybe there's a sensible and internally consistent third option that I'm missing?

I'd agree with that, although why anyone thinks Johnson would be a good prime minister is beyond me. Sure, he's got that 'cuddly buffoon thing going for him, but underneath it all is basically a posh Donald Trump with a list of gaffs longer than John Holmes' kicking game.

Yeah, I think May was lulled by the gushing praise she got in some quarters of the press, while labour and Corbyn learned how to deal with the brickbats.
In an unlikely re-run with the same leaders, May would have the benefit of experience but would receive a much harder time. Corbyn couldn't be so easily be dismissed.

The lessons of last time might not be that much use next time. May might make a Corbyn-sequel recovery, but at the moment a painful, protracted political demise looks like a win for her. Still it's all about performance relative to expectation I guess!

Tbf, nearly half of US voters thought Trump would be a good President! Or better than H. Clinton, at least.

There are similarities between Johnson and Trump. They're both self-aggrandising gaff-prone blustering hypocrites and I wouldn't trust either of them an inch. However, in partial defence of Johnson, he seems to have a tiny bit of self awareness and a loose grasp of how some aspects of the world work. Wouldn't leave him in temporary charge of a small green grocers, never mind a major city or nation, personally though. Of course he'd look amusingly rueful among a chaos of fruit and veg when you returned at least.

Yeah I couldn't take Boris seriously as PM. I like him in a fun character way but that doesn't mean I'd want him as PM. Every time I see him I just picture him playing that game of rugby against school kids and trampling over one of them.

I see her right & left hands have both fallen on their swords.

She's damaged goods now & will have to go.

The country is in turmoil all thanks to Dave & Co.

This election was pretty much a question of policy (Labour) vs stable leadership ahead of Brexit (Conservatives). The latter has been blown apart by this result, as has the demand for a second Scottish referendum which is what caused the unusual result there. If another election was called it would have to be fought strictly on policy, Labour vs Conservative, the Tories would have to try and shake off the stink of incompetence that they now have and find policies which would appeal to the wider public more than Corbyn's Labour manifesto while maintaining their Conservative values and somehow not alienating the right wing vote which would quickly abandon them if they softened their position too much. Really difficult position for them to be in and I could see them taking a heavy defeat next time unless Brexit drastically changes things.

Ah yes

There's also this...
Or this...
Or this

That's how I imagine him entering the Brexit negotiations

Boris should not be under estimated - he has a tremendous intellect, he has run one of the biggest cities in world.

He may appear a fool but compared to Corbyn he is an intellectual giant. What has Corbyn ever done outside of politics?

Unlikely she will have as many sharks as Corbyn had in his party - how many shadow cabinet ministers resigned giving him a vote of no confidence?

One thing is for certain - the Tories will run a different campaign next time and they will know what to expect from Labour also Burnham will be a different proposition. You can't run a US type campaign fronted by somebody who simply doesn't really want to engage with anyone.

She's in the Tory party, they're all sharks.

Labour's problem, which goes back at least a generation, is whether it is primarily a socialist party or social Democratic Party. Disloyalty to the leader, whether the left's towards Blair or Blairites towards Corbyn is born of a different political philosophy. It remains a huge challenge, as a successful party has to be a broad church, while still setting out a single clear and coherent vision.
They're politicians, so they play the game, brutally sometimes, but winning is, usually at least in part, a means to another end.

Recent and prospective Tory PMs just seem to want the crown for itself. It comes to something when Simon Schama, the David Attenborough of history, questions whether May even has any political convictions. Seriously, I'm struggling to come up with a couple of principles that May or Johnson stand for. Not just an aspiration to something desirable, but a philosophy - or even just a concept or medium-sized idea.
Any advances on 'free market capitalism' and, erm... 'Pragmatism'.
Austerity I'd count as a policy and fiscal responsibility is a behaviour.

And the Labour party is what? Depends which union is paying their wages?

It is difficult to see where the Labour party go from here. They offered everything to everyone, they can up against a shambles of an opponent and they still couldn't win?

What more can they offer as a bribe next time?

This depends on where you see balancing the deficit - is it even important? If you believe it is then you either increase revenue or you cut costs? Their doesn't seem a will to increase personal taxation for the majority so what do you do to balance the books?

I actually think the majority do better under the Tories than under Labour. Capitalism has its faults but it does appear to be the only wealth generating option. Socialism/Marxism/Communism simply do not work so what is the alternative?

Johnson is a typical right winger - support business and that will solve your problems provided the cost of the state is controlled.