UK Election 2010

[minionofmidas]

A conservative majority seems pretty unlikely actually, although a hung parliament, even a conservative lead, are certainly good possibilities.

[minionofmidas]

Are you sure that the old boundaries might yet get used? Till when would parliament have to be dissolved for that?

[minionofmidas]

Will RESPECT hold its only seat with Galloway retiring?

Might be easier than if he ran again, actually. Although it's Labour's to lose, once again.

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Vote share was declining in 2005, so might be hard.

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Who knows?

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Well. They topped the poll there once again in the Assembly Elections.

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No.

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No.

[minionofmidas]

What happens in the UK if there's a hung parliament?  Could either Labour or the Cons form a minority government, as in the current situation in Canada?  Is there any chance of the Lib Dems forming a coalition government with either of the other two parties?

Anyone want to answer this?  What happens if there's a hung parliament?  Can a minority government be formed?  Would the Lib Dems form a coalition with either of the other parties?

Initially at least, the largest party would form a minority government. What happens next though... no one knows, not really.

[minionofmidas]

Perhaps then, we wouldn't get dunderheads coming up with such gems along the lines of If most of Scotland is orange and most of England blue, how do we get a Labour government? . Well ... A lot of people live in those red bits !

I love that quote, was a gem!

Yep. Very well worded, even though I doubt you were the first to come up with it.

[minionofmidas]

Perhaps then, we wouldn't get dunderheads coming up with such gems along the lines of If most of Scotland is orange and most of England blue, how do we get a Labour government? . Well ... A lot of people live in those red bits !

I love that quote, was a gem!

Yep. Very well worded, even though I doubt you were the first to come up with it.

I recall spotting it it on the 'Have Your Say' comments on the BBC website re-General Election 2005 . The second part would have been my response

Dave

It's nowhere as good without the second part, so if that's your own contribution then hats off to you.

[minionofmidas]

Portillo didn't represent Kensington & Chelsea in 1997.

[minionofmidas]

The Tory M.P for Croydon Central (Andrew Pelling) has been arrested for wife-beating.

That's a marginal.

[minionofmidas]

A turnout battle? A turnout battle with one of the armies not making it to the battlefield, 's more like it.

Which means you're right about Brighton, but may well be wrong about the BNP in Barking. And the 2005 Respect vote will be worth watching, too.

[minionofmidas]

The BNP didn't even come close in Barking in the European elections - if they can't do that they won't be winning it in a General Election.

Ah right. Their people might not turn out either.

[minionofmidas]

Of course the Labour base have basically been staying at home in 2001 and 2005 as well. But just for experiment, imagine the Labour vote everywhere at 2005 levels and the Tory vote at 1997 levels (they'll do better than that, actually) and do a calculation of who wins what.

[minionofmidas]

CON 438
LAB 145
LIB 31
SNP 10
PC 5
OTH 3
NIR 18

Scary stuff

Very scary! Although, i'm already predicting 15-20 years out of office for Labour...

Not to mention, on 31, the Lib Dems would probably even lose Clegg (right?).

Which would be a good thing.

[minionofmidas]

The difference between this and 1997 is that there is no great public enthusiasm for the Tories.

Both sides are going to claim that a Lib Dem vote helps their opponents.

It depends how you measure 'enthusiasm'. If enthusiasm equals high support in opinion polls, winning seats of Labour in by-elections and taking scores of council seats off Labour year after year...then the public are as 'enthusiastic' about the Tories as they were about Labour in 1997.

Eh... not quite. Or rather, aye on the first count, sort of aye on the third though turnouts and therefore predictive values have sunk to much worse joke levels than back then, and quite clearly no on the second count.

92-97 by-elections:
Labour hold 9
LD gain from Con 4
Labour gain from Con 3
SNP gain from Con 1
Random Unionist Factions Event 1

05-10 by-elections (so far):
Labour hold 5
Con hold 3
Con gain from Labour 2
LD hold 1
LD gain from Labour 1
SNP gain from Labour 1
Random Welsh Valleys Local Event 1

[minionofmidas]

Oh, they're in better shape than at any point in between, and would win an election held today. That I think is not a point in contention. But Labour aren't in as bad a shape as the Tories were during their last term in office - even though the Prime Minister is probably less popular than then. (I still grin at the idiots among the Tories who thought Major was a major part of their problem in 1997.)

[minionofmidas]

I guess it might be more accurate to say that while Labour are in about as bad a state as the Tories were in 97,  the Tories today are nowhere as popular as Labour was in 1997.

[minionofmidas]

Jeremy Brown is, as Sir Humphrey would say, courageous. It doesn't matter if like eighty other M.P's have now done the same thing, not does it matter whether it's justified or not (It wouldn't surprise me even slightly if it is). But he was the first to put his head above the parapet and happens to hold a constituency that has swung three times in the past three elections.

Note for future trolls: do more than five seconds worth of research, please. Otherwise it's embarrassing for all concerned...

Haven't been on for three days and haven't the slightest clue what you're going on about here.

[minionofmidas]

I'm fairly sure that's true of a majority of Americans.

[minionofmidas]

Neither can the LibDems.

He said "statistically". I suppose he meant the SNP doesn't run enough candidates to be theoretically capable of winning a majority in the Commons.
Although I suppose in theory they *could* *theoretically* become the largest party.

[minionofmidas]

Ah, but does Plaid Cymru nominally exist outside of Wales? Maybe you should run three or four candidates in England. Heck, the SNP ought to save its deposit in Corby.

[minionofmidas]

I suggest you also attend a debate between the candidates in your constituency.

That's the only person you get to choose anyways.

[minionofmidas]

That would turn the debate 50% Northern Irish.

[minionofmidas]

Current composition
     Labour Party    349
     Conservative Party    193
     Liberal Democrats    63
     Democratic Unionist Party    9
     Scottish National Party    7
     Sinn Féin    5
     Plaid Cymru    3
     Social Democratic and Labour Party    3
     Ulster Unionist Party    1
     RESPECT The Unity Coalition    1
     Health Concern   1
     Independent Labour   1
     Independent Conservative   2
     Independent   3
     Speaker and Deputies   4
     Vacant   1

Note: The Independent Labour and Independent Conservative MPs quit or were expelled from the respective parties, as were one each of the Independents (the third was elected as such). The Speaker and Deputies were also elected as Labour or Conservative. The "vacant" bit appears to be out of date, Labour having won that by-election.

[minionofmidas]

Never underestimate the stupidity or the rightwingness of a center-left career politician, Al.

I have to tell myself that twice a week.

[minionofmidas]

Still holding out for a scenario where the Tories have a majority only if you discount MPs from Scotland.

[minionofmidas]

While playing around with the swingometer map that afleitch posted, I found out that there is not a single truly safe Labour seat in Kent. That sursprised me.
Are the old coalmining areas in Kent not as loyal to the Labour Party as their equivalents in Wales and the North? Or are they just to small and not populous enough to dominate a constituency?

IIRC the Kent coalfield  was actually one of the more "radical" NUM areas in the strike of 1984.

As far as I know the Kent coalfield is just a small part of the Dover constituency - if the Tory rural areas can outvote Dover, Deal and the ex-coalfield then they win.  All the other Kent Labour seats have *very* small majorities.

Exactly: it's tiny.

I think Kent (not counting Kentish London, of course) was all-Tory as late as 1992.