UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[joevsimp]

Why isn't the nationally relevant Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern being invited? Surely they want their say?

they've actually re-formed as the National Health Action Party, they contested the Euros last year.

[joevsimp]

are schoolchildren in Scotland not aware of this through normal RE lessons at school?

[joevsimp]

hopefully not on the same terms that the Jenkins report proposed, total mess and didn't have enough top-up to even out disproportionality

[joevsimp]

the problem with UNS this time is that a lot of the Lab/Con marginal seats will have UKIP doing quite well in them, most of the seats in Essex and Kent obviously but most of the marginals will probably have 10-15% UKIP vote

Sunderland Central, which everyone was touting as they key early indicator last time, had ukip on 23% at last years local elections, its not so much that UNS is unreliable, but that the seats that will predict it through the first half of election night aren't reliable indicators of the swing due to an extra unknown variable

[joevsimp]

So let's say that the Tories get 33 percent to Labour's 32 percent, but Labour ends up with more seats... Do you think a scenario like that would lead to increased demands for electoral reform within the Tories?

I think that would really depend on how permanent the Tories think the situation is. If they think a majority is just around the corner, they won't bother.

Another element is that sticking to FPTP is the conservative option in the UK.  

not necessarily always, this by-election result apparantly brought Churchill out (briefly) in favour of PR, and it was a similar situation in Australia that led to the introduction of AV there, plus a lot of the Conservative party are more of the self interested bent rather than traditionalist

Sheffield Attercliffe by-election, 1909

Party	Candidate	Votes	%	±%
Labour	Joseph Pointer	3,531	27.5	N/A
Conservative	Sydney Charles King-Farlow	3,380	26.2	-20.6
Liberal	Richard Cornthwaite Lambert	3,175	24.6	-28.6
Ind.Cons.	Arnold Muir Wilson	2,803	21.7	N/A

       
Majority    151    1.3    -5.1

[joevsimp]

This cannot be real

that'll go down well...

are the Christian Party not still going then? and the papers don't usually bang on about his music career do they?

[joevsimp]

UKIP's parachuting of George Hargreaves into Coventry South is apparently off, and the original candidate has been reinstated:
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/ukip-scraps-general-election-plan-8670771

That's a shame, could've been entertaining (not to mention damaging:)

[joevsimp]

Fun read here: https://drseansdiary.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/use-your-ed-how-i-put-miliband-into-number-10-just/

Anyone have the 2015 version of the game yet?

nah, not since 2005, I failed miserably as the greens but did quite well as plaid, until i decided to go against foxhunting

[joevsimp]

Historically its been reperesented by very high profile tories though, but who's still looking for a seat this close to the poll?

[joevsimp]

the gif in your sig is more appropriate than ever

[joevsimp]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31742155

I can actually envision Clegg getting a bounce on the basis that he'll come across as the most normal. He'll be facing an uber-posh elitist, a wide-eyed weirdo, a raving xenophobic windbag and an inept environMENTAList. And two secessionists.

that's their main strategy isn't it? I was vaguely impressed by the ppb they had out a few weeks ago, but their pitch of "adding heart to a tory government and spine to a labour one" just makes them look like unprincipled careerist opportunists .