UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[136or142]

Wrt the other debate, more on that later but for now... um... some people seem to be forgetting what political life was like in the 1990s. The Major government was a slow-motion trainwreck's slow-motion trainwreck...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/04/tony-blair-vacuum-british-politics-centre-ground

As if right on cue Andrew Rawnsley has written this interesting piece about Tony Blair in the Guardian today. As usual with anything to do with Blair you get the usual snide and spiteful comments from Joe Public in the comments section underneath it.

On Labour disliking coalition as they don't want to share power with a bourgeois party Rawnsley neatly sums this up this type of thinking (although this time on who voted for Blair) in the same article by calling it a tribal ghetto mentality.

Is this a recent thing?  I believe most Labour governments were of the majority variety but I'm aware when they were in a minority in the 1970s they formed a government with the support of the precursor of the Liberal Democrats.  And, they were also part of the coalition governments during the war.

[Phony Moderate]

Wrt the other debate, more on that later but for now... um... some people seem to be forgetting what political life was like in the 1990s. The Major government was a slow-motion trainwreck's slow-motion trainwreck...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/04/tony-blair-vacuum-british-politics-centre-ground

As if right on cue Andrew Rawnsley has written this interesting piece about Tony Blair in the Guardian today. As usual with anything to do with Blair you get the usual snide and spiteful comments from Joe Public in the comments section underneath it.

On Labour disliking coalition as they don't want to share power with a bourgeois party Rawnsley neatly sums this up this type of thinking (although this time on who voted for Blair) in the same article by calling it a tribal ghetto mentality.

Is this a recent thing?  I believe most Labour governments were of the majority variety but I'm aware when they were in a minority in the 1970s they formed a government with the support of the precursor of the Liberal Democrats.  And, they were also part of the coalition governments during the war.

The Liberals gave Labour 'confidence and supply' during the Callaghan years, but it wasn't a formal coalition.

Also, the exact election date is now in the thread title.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is this a recent thing?  I believe most Labour governments were of the majority variety but I'm aware when they were in a minority in the 1970s they formed a government with the support of the precursor of the Liberal Democrats.

They key point there is that a minority government was consistently preferred to a formal coalition (whereas the Tories attempted - unsuccessfully - to hammer out a coalition with the Liberals after February 1974). Should note that a dislike of coalitions in Labour is not a universal tendency, but it is a very common one.

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That was different.

[EPG]

Among the English these days, more so than the Scots and Welsh? Not that anyone likes coalitions per se, but versus the minority alternative.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well if you look at the National Assembly, Welsh Labour have generally preferred to run minority administrations than form coalitions; the latter have only been formed when the situation has otherwise been unmanageable.

[Barnes]

Yeah, the trend for Labour to go with a minority versus a fully-fledged coalition is pretty entrenched. IMO, Wilson had the right idea in March of '74 by daring the opposition (particularly the Liberals) to bring down the government - of course, another election was inevitable, but I think the brovado povided a pretty firm grip on power.

[ChrisDR68]

Yeah, the trend for Labour to go with a minority versus a fully-fledged coalition is pretty entrenched. IMO, Wilson had the right idea in March of '74 by daring the opposition (particularly the Liberals) to bring down the government - of course, another election was inevitable, but I think the brovado povided a pretty firm grip on power.

February 1974 is a tricky example though as adding the 14 Liberal MP's to either Labour's 301 or the Conservative's 297 would not have resulted in a majority in the House Of Commons.

A scenario which may well be repeated in May this year...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Didn't stop the Tories trying though. Probably because they still counted the Ulster Unionists as 'theirs' (as they had been until five seconds earlier, of course).

[Barnes]

Heath handled it about as heavy-handed as you can get - although that was his style. Anyway, my point is, a hung parliament doesn't mean that there automatically has to be unstable and "cautious coalition" government, something Labour strived to point out in both '74 elections.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Finally got round to finishing the series of English constituency base maps. Use in whatever way you see fit:





_{(having said that I need to remember to make a small modification to one of the earlier ones uploaded, but whatever).}

[EPG]

I don't know if the best question is whether Labour likes minority governments - surely every party should prefer small, one-party governments in the British system, where intra-ideology competition is limited and absolute majorities are king. One-party governments control the agenda better and appease more of their own parliamentarians with ministerial jobs.

Why do the Conservatives resort to full coalitions when minority government is not only socially accepted but much more compatible with the British constitution? The answer is probably that the Conservatives are less trusted than Labour to implement the other parties' demands and refrain from tactical manouevres, and these problems can be mitigated by taking seats at cabinet.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Nah, its because the Tories seem themselves as basically non-partisan really and always acting in the best interests of The Nation.

[You kip if you want to...]

Already since the new year, we've had a flock of seat predictions in from the media.

I'm willing to punt that most will be pretty different to the final result. UKIP are being underestimated, as usual.

[Phony Moderate]

First YouGov of the year: 34/31/14/7/8

Also, it seems that the official campaign has begun, and it will be four months long. Yet another argument for the repeal of that idiotic Fixed Terms (aka Americanization) bill.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

First YouGov of the year: 34/31/14/7/8

Also, it seems that the official campaign has begun, and it will be four months long. Yet another argument for the repeal of that idiotic Fixed Terms (aka Americanization) bill.

Why is it Americanisation? Most countries have fixed terms. Why couldn't it be Germanisation, or Swedenisation?

[YL]

First YouGov of the year: 34/31/14/7/8

Also SNP/Plaid 4.

No sign of anything very different from before Christmas.

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I'm not convinced it was ever going to be any different.  None of the recent election dates have exactly been a surprise this far out (except for the month's delay in 2001 because of foot and mouth disease).

IMO it was right to move to Parliament needing to vote to dissolve itself rather than it just being the PM's choice, but I don't agree with some of the other details, and if we were going to go for fixed terms it should have been 4 years (as for all other fixed terms in the UK except MEPs' ones) rather than 5.

[You kip if you want to...]

Wait, official campaign?

You mean we won't have the actual campaign period when Cameron has to go to the Queen and dissolve parliament and it all gets serious?

[Simfan34]

The Guardian are reporting about the possibility of a "national coalition" - between the Conservatives and Labour to prevent a "full-blown constitutional crisis". (https://archive.today/ww2Yf)

They really are rubbish... I was thinking about this and dismissed it out of hand as absurd.

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...

[Simfan34]

The problem now being short of a majority, it's having to cobble together a coalition. We 'know' that the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have had continuing talks about what's on the agenda for 2015-2020 should they need to team up again, so much so that it's quite possible to rule out a Lib Dem coalition with anyone else. It's just there's no one else left. Labour, and I'm being half serous, half not here, would much rather go into a coalition with the DUP than the SNP; they detest each other. A deal with the SNP allows what's left of Labour in Scotland to wither and die and also sow seeds of resentment in England. Which suits the SNP. The secret is, and it should hopefully be obvious now, is that independence for Scotland will not happen by another referendum but by mutual consent at a parliamentary level; Scotland may have to allowed to drift off in order to restore some resemblance of normality in the rest of the UK if things continue as they are now.

Shades of the IPP.

[afleitch]

Jim Murphy is a glorious train wreck. Even if it doesn't last for much longer, the last two days have been wonderful.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Modified Yorkshire/Humber basemap.

[Phony Moderate]

So when are we going to hear more on debate proposals? Will it be a 4/3/2-way deal as suggested by Cameron? Hope not.

[Barnes]

My proposal for the debates would be to drop them all together.  Of course, that's not going to happen, especially since the 2010 exercise has been heralded as a "landmark" event in British politics.

[Vega]

My proposal for the debates would be to drop them all together.  Of course, that's not going to happen, especially since 2010 exercise has been heralded as a "landmark" event in British politics.

Agreed. They're not meant for the UK.

[EPG]

Why is it Americanisation? Most countries have fixed terms. Why couldn't it be Germanisation, or Swedenisation?

Suez.

Shades of the IPP.

To historians of Irish republicanism, the Scottish "desire" for independence must look very weak-sauce.

Agreed. They're not meant for the UK.

But the UK is the country where politicians are judged by their performance on Insult Wednesdays!