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

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Fun little article on the local colours that existed before colour television killed them off here. It includes pictures.

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Needs to be noted that Labour had a very good election in Scotland in 2010 (in contrast to everywhere else) and that even had there not been a fundamental rupture in Scottish political life towards the end of last year, we can be pretty sure that seats would still have been lost. Nowhere near as many of course.

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How big is Alexander Lebedev's mansion again?

A very good question!

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...whereas coalitions of Labour with other parties lack this historical precedent.

Except for Wartime.

There is a solid chunk of the Labour Party that will forever oppose entering into a coalition with any other party.

Two solid chunks really; most of the hard Left and much of the traditional Right. And for the same reason in both cases (distrust of the bourgeois parties).

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Wait, why does the right wing of Labour distrust bourgeois parties (more than the center does, at least)

Key word is 'traditional'. The people who love trade unions but who also don't mind nukes (for want of a better way of putting it).

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no discussion of the bombshell Russell Brand (qualified) Labour endorsement / interview w/Ed Miliband?

Russell Brand is irrelevant in the British political scene. Most Labour voters consider him to be a cockney twat.

if so, why did Miliband agree to the whole scene?

Certainly Brand carries more influence than The Independent these days

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Populus: Labour 34, Con 34, UKIP 13, LDem 10, Greens 5, Others 4

_{Note that Populus made another change to their methodology the other week.}

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It's worth considering how overall vote totals translate into constituency results. A party that polls 30% nationally will not poll over 60% in many constituencies unless its vote is extremely concentrated. Similarly a party that polls 10% nationally will not poll over 20% in many constituencies and will poll over 30% in very few, unless (again) its vote is extremely concentrated.

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And we have another poll from BMG (whoever the hell they are)... Labour 34, Con 34, UKIP 12, LDem 10, Greens 4, Others 6.

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North: 2.5%
Mids: 2.1%
South: 6.5%

LOL

The Great City Babylon aside, that's more or less the opposite of what's widely expected to happen.

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And what is presumably YouGov's final poll of Wales shows... well... exactly what all of their other polls of Wales have shown, more or less: Labour 39, Con 25, Plaid 13, UKIP 12, LDem 8, Greens 2.

_{At this juncture I usually point out that Welsh polling has historically been regarded as tricky at best.}

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And a final poll by Opium Opinium: Con 35, Labour 34, UKIP 12, LDem 8, Greens 6, SNP 4, Others 1.

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Did anybody post about yet another UKIP candidate being kicked, this time for threatening to shoot a Tory opponent?

This one was actually headline news as well. Largely because of the whole 'threatening to shoot an opponent because racism' thing.

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With some exceptions, anyone still intending to vote for the LibDems by this point is either a) a genepool Liberal determined to stick with the party until the bitter end (as it indeed it may be), or b) sufficiently enamoured by their local LibDem candidate that they have decided to vote for them despite everything.

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The SNP have boxed themselves in a bit regarding post election maneuvering anyway (although it could be argued that to maintain landslide numbers they had little choice) as they have been very clear about not putting the Tories in power.

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In case of a hung parliament, does the Queen get to have any actual influence on the next government?

No, although the Crown does. In the case of a Hung Parliament then the will of the Crown happens (by one of those funny coincidences that just sort of happen, you know?) to be exactly the same as the will of the Cabinet Secretary (i.e. the man at the top of the civil service tree). The current incumbent is Sir Jeremy Heywood.

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Can the Fixed Terms Parliament act be repealed with a simple majority?

No parliament can bind its successors.

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Woah, so Parliament can't repeal laws passed by another parliament? That's rather surprising.

On the contrary: Parliament can repeal anything it wants to.*

_{*A technical argument does exist about the Act of Union, but lets not start that one up again.}