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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Then it would depend on which constituencies, I guess?

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The position of the Labour Party is always that the Labour Party does not like or trust other parties (understanding full well that other parties do not like the Labour Party) and would rather rule a) alone and b) unfettered or at least as unfettered as it can be. Labour would (of course!) rather ran a minority government without a formal arrangement with a small party than with one. If this comes as a genuine surprise to you, then you have not been paying attention.

I'll also point out (again) that not all hung parliaments are alike (which means that intensive speculation before we have any results is pointless), and that the Convention governing government formation is not what a lot of people in the media seem to assume it is.

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Just for reference (again!) the constitutional Convention that orders government formation is very simple, but is quite different to how such things are done in foreign parts (and to how the media seems to assume it is done). There is no requirement for a would-be Prime Minister to establish that he has a majority before he kisses hands, there is no formal vote in the Commons on the appointment of the Prime Minister. The Crown simply appoints the person who is most likely to be able to form a government as Prime Minister. When it is not certain who this is, the Palace waits the situation out until it is clear. If there is a Hung Parliament then a defeated Prime Minister can technically hang on until he is formally defeated in the Commons, but this is archaic and is unlikely to happen (although of all recent Prime Ministers, Cameron seems unusually disposed to maybe considering this). In practice (and all that ever really matters with the British Constitution is practice) incumbency gives no advantage.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

(And also remember that even if you trust the sampling, there's still a margin of error, as conventionally defined, of about 6 percentage points for the lead.)

Indeed. If accurate (usual speech here) then Battersea is beyond us, but we already knew that. The Croydon poll looks a bit disappointing, but otherwise its a fairly encouraging picture. Stourbridge being basically on the line fits, anyway.

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Grand coalition?

Impossible.

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Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what are the main differences between the UUP and the DUP...

Ian Paisley founded the hardline and fundamentalist Protestant Unionist Party in 1966 in order to oppose the liberal polices of the well meaning but ineffectual Terence O'Neill at the ballot box. The party was renamed as the Democratic Unionist Party in 1971 when Paisley joined forces with Desmond Boal - a populist politician based in the Loyalist Shankill district and who had been associated with Paisley in the early 60s - in order to extend his political reach beyond the small towns of rural Antrim and into the Loyalist districts of Belfast. The new party adopted a platform that combined opposition to any and all concessions to the Catholic minority with fierce social conservatism and (this motivated largely by an admittedly brilliant but entirely cynical calculation) a broadly socialist attitude towards the economy. The aim was to create an electoral alliance of rural fundamentalists and working class Loyalists. By the late 1970s this package had won over the support of a large minority of the Unionist electorate. After the Good Friday Agreement (which the party opposed) the DUP was able to supplant the UUP as the Unionist party, largely because the ramshackle UUP was unable to find its arse with both hands and proved entirely incapable of dealing with actual political responsibility. When given the opportunity of real political power, the DUP dropped its opposition to political compromise at an amusingly rapid pace. Unlike the UUP (which started life as the Ulster wing of the Conservative Party, even if it used to have some members of a more leftish stamp as well) the DUP has never felt any loyalty (residual or otherwise) to any of the mainland parties, and its main priority at Westminster these days is to demand more money often and loudly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This seems to give the Palace a fair amount of agency in this situation, no?

No, the Palace has no agency in such a situation. Firstly, because it is also the Convention that the political leaders should establish amongst themselves who is the most likely person to be able to command a majority (which does not mean that there must be an agreement: after the February 1974 election Wilson was appointed simply because he had the most seats to command), and secondly because the Palace understands that its longterm future rests on not being political and therefore does whatever Whitehall tells it to do suggests that it does. Which, yes, does mean that the Cabinet Secretary has a fair amount of agency in such a situation...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As always seems to happen, yet more candidates who weren't going to win anyway have found themselves in trouble for doing/saying stupid things.

Labour candidate in Wellingborough disendorsed for defrauding a railway company, UKIP candidate in West Lancs. disendorsed for being an appalling bigot on the internet, with one 'highlight' being this:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In that scenario, I guess that the Lib Dems and/or DUP would cross and support Miliband in the name of stability instead of supporting Cameron which is probably both parties' preferred option.

The DUP's preferred option is whoever offers Stormont the most money. But parties are free to abstain on Confidence votes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Grand coalition?

Impossible.

If that happened, I would cut up my Labour membership card on the spot.

Can you imagine someone trying to get a Grand Coalition through a Special Conference? LOL

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Which party will benefit from this ? The Tories because stuff like this helps the incumbent party ?

No one will benefit because (in actual fact) stuff like that never benefits anyone. If the polls are wrong to the advantage of the government then (as has already been suggested) polling firms will quite probably use it as an excuse, but that is not the same thing at all.

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For reasons know only to themselves no doubt, Plaid have commissioned a YouGov poll of Wales. It shows the same pattern as all other YouGov polls of Wales: Labour 39, Con 26, Plaid 13, UKIP 12, LDem 6, Greens 3, Others 2.

A supplementary question with rather tortuous wording asking how people would vote in their specific constituencies produced a slightly higher Plaid score (15) which they are directly comparing with standard voting questions from older polls and are proudly trumpeting around the internets as proof of a surge or something, because Plaid are like that.

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Of course, the polls might be wrong but they don't necessarily have to be (the baby-bounce could be real).

And for all I know you and the rest of the forum are elephants who have evolved the ability to type on keyboards. I've never met any of you personally, so who's to say that isn't true?

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Discussion of government formation has to take account that the traditional conventions have been modified by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011.

Indeed; it's not as easy to get a quick dissolution now. But the fundamentals hasn't changed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is there anything in the British law that would prevent something like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis

Yes; the supremacy of the Commons over the Lords. The Australian Senate is a vastly more powerful institution than the House of Lords.

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Labour Unhinged are are a bunch of bitter lying whingers. You would be better off investing in a Greek bank than believing anything they publish.

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Opium Opinium produces the usual: Con 35, Labour 34, UKIP 13, LDem 8, Greens 5, Others 5

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And another poll from Com(edy)Res(ults)... Labour 33, Con 33, UKIP 13, LDem 8, Greens 7, Others 6

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Are Carswell and Farage the only UKIP candidates with a semi-serious chance of winning?

The candidate in Thurrock.

Also in Castle Point. Although that looks slightly less likely.

Constituency polling appears to indicate - and insert all of the usual caveats about constituency polling here - that they are doing substantially better in Essex and Kent than elsewhere.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Will Simon Hughes lose?

It depends on whether his personal popularity will be enough to counteract the general wreckage, which is very hard to tell.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is quite possible that 'at the mercy of' would not be exactly or entirely accurate. Though until we have the actual results in, speculation is a little pointless.

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Farage has today claimed that some opinion polling companies are engaged in a conspiracy to make it look as though UKIP are not doing well. I present this without comment.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Adding a moment of sudden surreality to this most bruising of General Elections is to be praised, surely?

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Full figures on last night's YouGov: Con 34, Labour 33, UKIP 13, LDem 8, Greens 5, Others 7

Rather oddly the Sun on Sunday also has a YouGov poll, though completed a little earlier: Labour 35, Con 34, UKIP 12, LDem 9, Greens 5, Others 6

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Via UKPollingreport, an additional detail from the one YouGov poll:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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Northern Ireland blank map.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyone have a summary of the polls?

UKPollingreport and Wikipedia are both good at listing all the polls.

But because a summary summary is useful sometimes, here's one. Let's take the 25th of April as our starting point, because why ever not. Polls conducted since that date have shown Labour between 36% and 30% with almost all being either at the middle or the top of that range with the Tories at between 36% and 31% with most being towards the middle of that range. The figures for the LibDems are between 11% and 7%, but actually almost all polls have them on 9% or 8%. There is more variety regarding the other parties: UKIP's range is between 17% and 10% and the Greens is between 3% and 8%.