UK General Election - May 7th 2015 (The Official Campaign Thread)

[Phony Moderate]

Is there any mainland Scottish seat which anyone feels confident that the SNP won't win?

These are the least likely to be SNP gains (based on % swing)
41   Inverclyde   Labour   14,416   19.22%
42   Glasgow North West   Labour   13,611   19.40%
43   Glenrothes   Labour   16,448   20.31%
44   West Dunbartonshire   Labour   17,408   20.59%
45   Paisley & Renfrewshire South   Labour   16,614   20.90%
46   East Renfrewshire   Labour   10,420   20.96%
47   Motherwell and Wishaw   Labour   16,806   21.48%
48   Rutherglen & Hamilton West   Labour   21,002   22.35%
49   Glasgow South West   Labour   14,671   23.08%
50   Coatbridge   Labour   20,714   24.88%
51   Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath   Labour   23,009   25.21%
52   Orkney and Shetland   Liberal Democrat   9,928   25.71%
53   Glasgow North East   Labour   15,942   27.10%

So if the swing that Ashcroft shows in Glasgow SW (33.5%) is accurate and is repeated in Glasgow NE, the SNP will gain the latter seat with a lot to spare...

[Phony Moderate]

Labour 3 ahead with YouGov, Tories 4 ahead with Opinium.

[Phony Moderate]

John Swinney got absolutely destroyed by Andrew Neil, btw: http://youtu.be/Gl-zTYQzKJM

[Phony Moderate]

LOL

[Phony Moderate]

The upcoming YouGov poll is being hyped up.

[Phony Moderate]

The upcoming YouGov poll is being hyped up.

Tories on 38% apparently.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/590622405162315776

The woozle that wasn't.

Hyped up because it's the first Tory lead with them in a good while.

We'll have to see the next couple of polls by YouGov to confirm the trend. Could this just be margin of error noise?

The same question may as well be asked of today's TNS (a swing to Labour) or yesterday's Ashcroft (a swing to the Tories).

[Phony Moderate]

I will say right now that a Labour defeat would almost certainly not be down to Miliband, the SNP or Lynton Crosby. It would be down to trendy middle-class liberal leftists who obsess about global warming, UKIP and marijuana on a daily basis.

[Phony Moderate]

I will say right now that a Labour defeat would almost certainly not be down to Miliband, the SNP or Lynton Crosby. It would be down to trendy middle-class liberal leftists who obsess about global warming, UKIP and marijuana on a daily basis.

I think you vastly overestimate the influence of hispters on the electorate...

Specifically, I'm thinking of the way such people will vote and why. Nothing against the Greens per se, but I do have somewhat of an issue with those who vote for them because Labour is too working-class or, dare I use this word, 'normal'. I encounter such people on a daily basis, and while they are not bad people, their approach to politics leaves much to be desired. The same can be said of those who jumped onto the Clegg bandwagon in 2010.

[Phony Moderate]

I almost don't know why I'm posting this

To catch up with BRTD?

[Phony Moderate]

Might be worth having a betting market on which pollsters won't be around by the next election.

For the record, 2010's pollster casualties were Angus Reid (well, they stayed around for a couple more years - and actually began to show bigger Labour leads than the others - but they still count), BPIX (most notable for being the first to show the Lib Dems in the lead) and the absolutely hilarious One Poll (which, IIRC, showed Labour on 20% a few days before the election).

[Phony Moderate]

Angus Reid was indeed little more than mastubatory material for the Tory hacks on PB.com.

[Phony Moderate]

YouGov, London: Lab 44, Con 32, UKIP 10, Lib Dems 8, Greens 5

Also, 78% say they are 'absolutely certain' to vote, which is higher than the UK as a whole (around 70%) but below Scotland (over 80%).

[Phony Moderate]

Populus: Lab 35, Con 32, UKIP 14, Lib Dems 8, Greens 5

[Phony Moderate]

So, anyone know what the deal is with Miliband's comments today? It seems to me that he is attempting to bait the Tories and the right-wing press.

[Phony Moderate]

Just watching Election Tonight on BBC Parliament.

The presenter talked about how reliable the opinion polls have been over the last 5 general elections. The one common theme in all of them is that the Conservative vote has been underestimated in all of them (and in 1992 by a large amount).

Could be the shy Tory voter effect or a late swing over the last couple of days before polling day as undecided voters finally make up their mind.

So keeping this in mind expect the Tory vote to be a couple of points higher on election day than the final opinion polls end up showing.

1992 was the last time the Tories were underestimated to a meaningful extent by the final polls, although Labour has been overestimated in all since and including then (with the exception of 2010, when they were underestimated).

[Phony Moderate]

Labour leads by 2 with latest YouGov.

[Phony Moderate]

A bit better for Reckless than I was expecting.

[Phony Moderate]

The royal baby still isn't out yet, btw. If it is born in the last couple of days then that will undoubtably be something that the pollsters can point to if they are wrong, just as they pointed to England's World Cup defeat in 1970.

[Phony Moderate]

I do hope the BBC's election night coverage will focus on, you know, the results this time. Last time it was awful - mostly a combination of Andrew Neil on a boat (interviewing people even more obxious than he) and empty speculation about post-election deals. Oh yeah, and no end of talk about voting problems in Sheffield.

But I feel that it could actually be worse this time.

[Phony Moderate]

YouGov: Lab 34, Con 32, UKIP 14, Lib Dems 9, Greens 6

[Phony Moderate]

A team in red (Arsenal) won the most recent FA Cup, therefore Labour are going to win the election.

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/blogs/thepoliticswire/1557/Sweet-FA.aspx

[Phony Moderate]

Peter Kellner's latest prediction: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/26/tories-pay-price-inept-campaign/

Not sure I agree that there was a last minute shift in 1970, 1974, 1992 and 2010. It could well have simply been a matter of the polls being wrong in all four instances; even the exit polls in 1992 showed a deadlock.

[Phony Moderate]

Any sense out there on what is going to take place in Bradford West ?  Betfair seems to have Galloway as the favorite but all the election projection sites seems to put Galloway in the single digits in terms of vote share with LAB winning by a landslide.  I cannot seem to find any polls on this.   

Putting Galloway in single digits is a somewhat odd way of asking 'who knows?'. He's probably going to hold most of his core demographic (which is a good chunk of the Bradford West constituency, of course) which may or may not be enough to hold on.

[Phony Moderate]

Just read that Farage came out in favor of some type of tactical voting two weeks ago, basically saying that UKIP voters should vote for the Tories in areas of UKIP weakness, and as a way to defeat Labour, saying voters "should use their votes as wisely as they can".   Hmm, maybe UKIP should have used their Party as wisely as they could and not run candidates in Tory-Labour marginals.  This isn't rocket science Nigel.  Just as UKIP isn't running in Scotland, not running candidates in another 75 English districts would hardly have hurt UKIP too badly, IMHO. They still could have run candidates against all sitting Labour members and gone all out to defeat Conservatives in safe Tory seats. 

He (as he often does) backtracked on those comments soon after: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32287095

[Phony Moderate]

Is there any chance the Tories and Lib Dems will try to continue their Coalition government or would they want to avoid such a scenario again?

The Lib Dems will likely hold seats such as Cambridge, Bermondsey and Old Southwark and Birmingham Yardley this time. Were they to enter another coalition with the Tories they would likely lose such seats at the following election.