UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[YL]

Michael Ignatieff (yes, that one) saying he expects Labour to win almost by default on Daily Politics today. Kiss of death?

Well, they'll probably get a decent swing from the Lib Dems "almost by default", unless they start adopting policies which drive that sort of voter in to the arms of the Greens, and that might be enough to be the largest party, but to actually get an overall majority I think they'll need to do better than that, unless the purple peril do well and hurt the Tories substantially more than Labour.

[Harry Hayfield]

My feelings are that there will be a minimum 11% swing from Lib Dem to Lab (and by association a 5.5% swing from Con to Lab which is amost what they need anyway to win). According to UK-Elect the effect of an 11% swing from Lib Dem to Lab would be:

Labour 348 Conservatives 257 Liberal Democrats 21 Northern Ireland 18 SNP 5 Plaid 1

which is a Labour majority of 40 or so before you have any swing from Con to Lab

[YL]

Labour have selected one Oliver Coppard as their PPC for Sheffield Hallam, and thus as the most likely recipient of my vote.  A pity about Arsenal.

[Insula Dei]

Labour have selected one Oliver Coppard as their PPC for Sheffield Hallam, and thus as the most likely recipient of my vote.  A pity about Arsenal.

I envy you the chance to vote for him. (or well, against his opponent)

[YL]

Labour have selected Will Straw (son of Jack) as their candidate in Rossendale & Darwen.

Also, from the General Discussion thread, Malcolm Bruce, long serving Lib Dem MP for Gordon, is retiring.

[ChrisDR68]

No-one on this thread has mentioned the effect of Labour having Ed Miliband as leader will have on the result of the next election. Personally I think if his brother David had won the Labour leadership in 2010 and had made Alistair Darling shadow chancellor they would have walked into 10 Downing Street without even needing to campaign during the 2015 general election.

Ed's personal ratings are very similar to Neil Kinnock's.

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Just ask Micheal Foot, Neil Kinnock, William Hague and Michael Howard.

The exception to the rule is Hugh Gaitskell but that was over half a century ago and he unfortunately died less than two years before probably winning power at his second attempt in 1964.

 

[You kip if you want to...]

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Yeah, just ask Thatcher in 1979.

[Leftbehind]

No-one on this thread has mentioned the effect of Labour having Ed Miliband as leader will have on the result of the next election. Personally I think if his brother David had won the Labour leadership in 2010 and had made Alistair Darling shadow chancellor they would have walked into 10 Downing Street without even needing to campaign during the 2015 general election.

Ed's personal ratings are very similar to Neil Kinnock's.

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Just ask Micheal Foot, Neil Kinnock, William Hague and Michael Howard.

The exception to the rule is Hugh Gaitskell but that was over half a century ago and he unfortunately died less than two years before probably winning power at his second attempt in 1964.

 

One of those golden rules that people like to point out that isn't actually all that deserving. Thatcher was uncompetitive with Callaghan on leadership stakes, but the Tories were sailing away and of course won the general election handily. The rest never achieved consistent decisive VI leads (Foot and Kinnocks brief moments came undone with the arrival of SDP and Major respectively). 

[njwes]

What accounts for the Tories' general decline in Scotland during the 60s and 70s?

I assume their demolition after that, in the 80s, was due at least in part to Thatcherism.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The collapse of the ideology of Scottish Unionism¹ as a result of postwar social change², relative economic difficulties in the West of Scotland (everywhere benefited from the 'Golden Age of Capitalism' but some places benefited more than others, and the West of Scotland less than just about everywhere. Structural economic reasons) and the end of the Empire. Something very similar happened in Liverpool.

1. Until the middle of the 1960s the Tories in Scotland were not Conservatives but Unionists and had more in common (ideologically at least) with the Ulster Unionists (themselves still an integral part of the Conservative Party at this point) than with most English Tories. Scottish Unionism was actually a sort of Scottish Nationalism, much as Ulster Unionism is a form of Ulster Protestant Nationalism.

2. Which weakened the sectarian pillarisation of society and led to the surprisingly swift end of the 'Orange vote' (i.e. voting Tory out of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment).

[Lurker]

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Yeah, just ask Thatcher in 1979.

Or Tony Abbot, for that matter.

I still see the point though. Miliband's terrible approval rating could well be a problem for Labour in 2015 - particularly if the Tories succeed in making the election into a "presidential" one, with more focus on the PM candidates than on the parties they lead.

[You kip if you want to...]

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Yeah, just ask Thatcher in 1979.

Or Tony Abbot, for that matter.

I still see the point though. Miliband's terrible approval rating could well be a problem for Labour in 2015 - particularly if the Tories succeed in making the election into a "presidential" one, with more focus on the PM candidates than on the parties they lead.

They made the last election a presidential one and look how that turned out.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The problem with trying to 'presidentialise' the election would be that Cameron is not popular, and there would then be a risk of the election turning into a referendum on him. Much more likely is a campaign based around personal abuse, ala 1992.

[ChrisDR68]

Getting back to making a prediction of the 2015 election I think there will be another coalition government when all is said and done.

No incumbent government has seen it's share of the vote increase since the Tories did that in the 1955 election after a full term of office so it's likely their's and the Lib Dem's share will both drop.

Labour's share will rise but by not that much due to the public's doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership.

There won't be a single UKIP member of parliament since they need to poll around the same percentage of the popular vote as either Labour or the Conservative before they start winning seats and that's is very unlikely to happen. 

My prediction:

Conservatives ......... 35%   269 seats
Labour ..................... 33%   310 seats
Liberal Democrats ... 17%     44 seats
UKIP ........................   7%       0 seats
Others ....................    8%     27 seats

So despite losing the popular vote Labour will win comfortably more seats than them due to the Tories' desperate weakness in Northern cities, Scotland and Wales. Despite people's major doubts about Ed Miliband he end up getting the keys to 10 Downing Street almost by default.

[DL]

Liberal Democrats ... 17%     44 seats

I find it hard to believe the Lib Dems will do that well. Most polls have them in single digits and I expect them to drop to about 20 seats and 9-10% of the vote at most.

[ChrisDR68]

Liberal Democrats ... 17%     44 seats

I find it hard to believe the Lib Dems will do that well. Most polls have them in single digits and I expect them to drop to about 20 seats and 9-10% of the vote at most.

After seeing Chris Huhne being interviewed on tv on Sunday (yes he of the driving offence fame) he said the Lib Dems were in a similar position in the polls mid-term before the last election. So I did a bit of research.

In October 2008 they were on an average of 15% in the opinion polls. On election day they achieved 23% which is an increase of 8%.

At the moment the BBC poll of polls has them on 11% so I've guessed they'll be able to increase that by 6% by May 2015.

We're a bit in unknown territory though due to their association with the Tories and the tuition fees issue both of which are very unpopular with a lot of people who voted Lib Dem last time.

[DL]

I don't think there is ANY comparison to the LibDems poll position now in comparison to 2015 and where they were at in 2008 vis a vis 2010.

The 2010 was an anomaly in British elections in that it was one of the only elections in 100 years where support for the LibDems (or SDP or Liberals before that) actually ended up higher on election than it was before the election was called...the norm is for the LibDems to do well in between elections in polls when people want to "park" their votes somewhere and then their support fades during an actual campaign when their voice gets drowned out by the big parties.

In 2011 the LibDems gained because there was a brief surge of "Clegg-mania" and they also got their traditional boost from being an opposition party in an election where the ruling party was extremely unpopular. Now Clegg is about as personally popular as an ingot of plutonium and the Lib Dems have lost their entire identity after years of being folded into a coalition with the Tories where 99% of policy is Tory policy and about 1% is Lib Dem policy (if that). There is a long history of junior coalition partners being demolished in subsequent elections across the western world (look no further than the FDP in last months German elections).  

What will the Lib Dem message be in 2015? "Vote for us so we can be Cameron's puppets for 5 more years!"?

[You kip if you want to...]

I don't quite get people assuming a "swing back" from Labour to Liberal. If 2010 Liberals get cold feet about Miliband in 2015, I'd assume they'd sooner not turn up than make Clegg the kingmaker again.

If they couldn't do as well as excepted in 2010 even with all the euphoria around them, I don't see them having many voters being enthusiastic about voting Liberal again.

And in the end, voters who turn up and are happy with the government will vote Tory, voters who turn up and aren't happy will vote Labour (or UKIP, of course).

[minionofmidas]

I don't quite get people assuming a "swing back" from Labour to Liberal. If 2010 Liberals get cold feet about Miliband in 2015, I'd assume they'd sooner not turn up than make Clegg the kingmaker again.

I'd expect they'd follow your username's suggestion and kip.

[YL]

It's reasonable to assume that there are some voters in Lib Dem/Tory battlegrounds who aren't currently saying they'll vote Lib Dem but will end up doing so on lesser of two evils grounds, but that's not going to be enough to get them up to the high teens.

If Labour do too many things which annoy me between now and May 2015 then I'll either hold my nose and vote for them anyway or vote Green.  I can't see myself voting Lib Dem again short of some fairly major changes in the party, and in particular the replacement of their candidate in my constituency (one N. Clegg).

As DL says, junior coalition partners can run into trouble, especially when they haven't been seen as getting much of what their voters wanted.  The Irish Greens are another example (and Irish Labour may be heading the same way).  So I think the situation is very different from the run-up to 2010.

[ChrisDR68]

Even though I predict a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party in 2015, perhaps if that happens the Lib Dems should opt for a supply and confidence arrangement with them instead of a full coalition.

Daniel Finkelstein wrote an interesting article in The Times recently explaining why:

A brief extract:

“(In a coalition with Labour) … it is certainly not to argue that the Lib Dems would feel uncomfortable. In fact, quite the opposite. They would feel so comfortable that one would wonder what the point was.

Let me go a little further. On Monday, at the Times fringe meeting here, Paddy Ashdown said that he felt Labour hadn’t begun to understand coalition politics, implying that it might be hard to do a deal with them. Yet I think it would be relatively easy and that the Liberal Democrats’ real problems will begin if they succeed.

It is the contrast with the Conservatives that gives Nick Clegg’s party definition as a centre party. They resist some welfare reform, water down changes to public services, insist on raising taxes on the rich and so on. What is the contrast with Labour? A short-term difference of opinion about deficit targets will not be enough.

In government with Labour, as things now stand, the Lib Dems would quickly lose their identity. They would quickly become fairly pointless. In achieving what many of them would want they might make themselves redundant, leaving slow long-term merger with Labour as the only alternative. They might embark on this while hardly noticing.”

[Leftbehind]

Basically what you'd expect from Finkelstein; the Lib Dems have already lost their identity and it's really only right-wing Tories like him who actually believe they've delivered on a restraining agenda. Radical right-wing government, looking to privatise everything from the NHS to the fire services to the Royal Mail (but they're watering down changes to public services!), and they're insisting taxes are raised on the rich so much corporation tax has plummeted to the lowest tax rate of any major economy in the world, the 50p tax has been cut (whilst simultaneous regressive rises in VAT and slashes in council tax subsidies for low earners) and their mansion tax is only mentioned once, without fail, at their conference each year simply to top up their faithful's false hopes.

I could go on, but I'd rather not - in short, "Lib Dems can only be centrist whilst supporting Tories"(!).

[YL]

Updated feelings, with just under a year to go (amendments in bold):

It's still quite a long way off, and all bets could be off if Scotland votes for independence (I don't really think that'll happen, but I'm still a bit wary of underestimating Alex Salmond).  But here are my current guesses:
- Labour the largest party, with a small majority or just short but at the moment I'm not optimistic about them getting a majority;
- Lib Dems suffer big losses, but do worse in terms of votes than seats, with their local campaigning allowing them to hold on to about 30 seats;
- UKIP do considersably better than in 2010 but not as well as current polls suggest, and struggle to gain seats; they might win one or two where they have good organisation and/or a high profile candidate (perhaps Boston & Skegness or one of the Thanets);
- Greens hold Brighton Pavilion but don't win anywhere else;
- George Galloway holds probably loses Bradford West;
- Little change for Plaid, but they might win Ceredigion back from the Lib Dems;
- SNP performance hard to predict before the referendum (a big No vote would presumably be bad for them, but a narrower one might not be) but I'll guess they might pick up a couple of seats from the Lib Dems;
- Basically no change in Northern Ireland.

[Phony Moderate]

My feelings:

Tories largest party with about 295-305 seats with Labour in the 280s and Lib Dems between 30 and 40. Another Tory-LD coalition is formed, lasts less than two years.

UKIP manage 10-12% of the vote but fail to win a single seat. In the aftermath of the election they become staunch advocates of electoral reform.

Caroline Lucas loses Brighton Pavilion by about 3,000 votes.

George Galloway holds on in Bradford West by about 1,000.

Plaid hold steady.

SNP make gains due to an unexpectedly close No victory in the referendum.

Probably little change in Northern Ireland.

[joevsimp]

do either of you (or anyone else for that matter)  think that Plaid are as likely to lose Arfon to Labour as they are to gain Ceredigion from the LibDems?