UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[EPG]

A claim that has been made periodically since... what... the 1960s?

Yes. Fundamentally different would include a new official opposition or government party. If Ukip get 120 seats, things really would be fundamentally different!

However, it seems that a lot of fundamental questions were debated since 2010, if not actually changed, like the electoral system, Scottish sovereignty, the West Lothian Question, Lords reform, and of course British membership of the European Union. This seems more dramatic than what preceded it, though mostly the change has been defeated with very few concessions from the victors. One gets the impression that they still comprise pressures on the system, which won't be alleviated until 4% annual GDP growth returns, or something gives.

[YL]

More post-Clacton/Heywood polls:

ICM/Guardian Lab 35 Con 31 UKIP 14 Lib Dem 11
Populus Online Lab 36 Con 35 UKIP 13 Lib Dem 9
Ashcroft Lab 32 Con 28 UKIP 19 Lib Dem 8

Nothing quite as horrible as the Survation poll there, though the Ashcroft poll is good for UKIP.  The Guardian are writing the ICM one up as a UKIP surge and it's true that the figure is quite high for them by ICM's standards, but they are comparing it with a poll which showed an unusually low figure for them.  (The Guardian's reporting of its polls is pretty awful IMO.)

[User157088589849]

just on farage, when the people of thanet elect him, i really hope to see more of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqovTGjYjM4

I am a bad person and I need to quit my trolling shtick

[politicus]

just on farage, when the people of thanet elect him, i really hope to see more of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqovTGjYjM4

What is so great about some upper class twit saying that EU president Herman van Rompuy has "the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk"?

Do you think rudeness improves international relations?

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

The fact that the Conservatives are still hovering at 30% while UKIP is in the mid-teens is amazing.  They're doing what the Canadian PC's couldn't - lose their crazy uncles and still remain the primary center-right party.

[Phony Moderate]

The fact that the Conservatives are still hovering at 30% while UKIP is in the mid-teens is amazing.  They're doing what the Canadian PC's couldn't - lose their crazy uncles and still remain the primary center-right party.

The PCs started the 1993 campaign level pegging with the Liberals...

[You kip if you want to...]

The fact that the Conservatives are still hovering at 30% while UKIP is in the mid-teens is amazing.  They're doing what the Canadian PC's couldn't - lose their crazy uncles and still remain the primary center-right party.

For now.

But must insert usual statements of 'oldest political party on Earth', 'they've survived worse', etc.

[EPG]

Ukip is so polarising that the Conservatives are extremely unlikely to fall behind them. Too many people hate Ukip. An overtaking would require Labour to poach moderate Conservative voters, which under its current leader is, shall we say, unlikely.

[ChrisDR68]

Very unlikely that the Tories will go below 30% in the May 2015 GE.

The three Tony Blair GE's were unusual in that the Tories got 31%, 32% and 32% respectively. Historically those numbers were very low for them.

Other than that the lowest they've been since 1900 was 36% in October 1974 under Ted Heath and also under David Cameron in 2010.

36% is still what I think they'll get next year too despite UKIP's strong opinion poll numbers (who's voters are not all ex-Conservatives by any means).

[DC Al Fine]

The fact that the Conservatives are still hovering at 30% while UKIP is in the mid-teens is amazing.  They're doing what the Canadian PC's couldn't - lose their crazy uncles and still remain the primary center-right party.

The PCs started the 1993 campaign level pegging with the Liberals...

Indeed, here's the first poll of the '93 campaign

37-35-10-8-8

Not all that different from the UK today when you consider that Mulroney's coalition included Quebec nationalists. Of course, I doubt Cameron will poop the bed like Kim Campbell.

[You kip if you want to...]

The fact that the Conservatives are still hovering at 30% while UKIP is in the mid-teens is amazing.  They're doing what the Canadian PC's couldn't - lose their crazy uncles and still remain the primary center-right party.

The PCs started the 1993 campaign level pegging with the Liberals...

Indeed, here's the first poll of the '93 campaign

37-35-10-8-8

Not all that different from the UK today when you consider that Mulroney's coalition included Quebec nationalists. Of course, I doubt Cameron will poop the bed like Kim Campbell.

And Canada-sized swings are a rarity in the UK.

[njwes]

Why is Cameron trying to avoid including the Greens in the debates? I have to imagine that giving the Greens such a high-profile soapbox could only lead to a net loss in voters for Labour.

[Vosem]

The fact that the Conservatives are still hovering at 30% while UKIP is in the mid-teens is amazing.  They're doing what the Canadian PC's couldn't - lose their crazy uncles and still remain the primary center-right party.

For now.

But must insert usual statements of 'oldest political party on Earth', 'they've survived worse', etc.

Aren't they usually considered to descend from Robert Peel, while the American Democrats are handed down from Andrew Jackson? Making the Democrats older. Though one could argue both Jackson and Peel rebranded something existing rather than starting something new.

[tpfkaw]

Shouldn't it be the Lib Dems who are the oldest political party anyway, since (no matter what date you put it at) the Tories/Conservatives split from the Whigs?

[YL]

Why is Cameron trying to avoid including the Greens in the debates? I have to imagine that giving the Greens such a high-profile soapbox could only lead to a net loss in voters for Labour.

He isn't.  His statement said he thought the Greens should be in.

[You kip if you want to...]

Jeremy Browne stepping down in Taunton Deane. Don't think many saw this coming and it's one less candidate in a LD leadership election next year.

I'll be shocked if this isn't a Tory gain.

[You kip if you want to...]

I imagine any form of 5+ leader debate would remove any air available to build another Clegg-style surge.

[ObserverIE]

Jeremy Browne stepping down in Taunton Deane. Don't think many saw this coming and it's one less candidate in a LD leadership election next year.

I'll be shocked if this isn't a Tory gain.

How could they tell the difference?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A Tory win in Taunton would count as a swing to the left...

[njwes]

Why is Cameron trying to avoid including the Greens in the debates? I have to imagine that giving the Greens such a high-profile soapbox could only lead to a net loss in voters for Labour.

He isn't.  His statement said he thought the Greens should be in.

Ok sorry I misinterpreted a post a couple pages back then.

[Gary J]

Shouldn't it be the Lib Dems who are the oldest political party anyway, since (no matter what date you put it at) the Tories/Conservatives split from the Whigs?

The history is quite complicated. I will try and summarise it, but you will appreciate that many books have been written about aspects of the history. I am just attempting my own summary of what I have read without citing particular sources in this post.

1. Tory and Whig parties came into existence during the Exclusion bill debates in the 1680s. The Whigs wished to exclude the catholic Duke of York (later King James II of England) from the succession to the Crown.

2. King James II was eventually overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688/89. Members of both parties accepted the new situation, apart from the Jacobite wing of the Tories.

3. From the Glorious Revolution until the Hanoverian succession in 1714, comparative cohesive parties competed for royal favour and in the frequent general elections of the period.

4. King George I distrusted the Tories. From 1714 until 1760 just about any politician who aspired to executive office had to associate himself with a Whig faction. There were still Tories in Parliament, but the old disputes gradually became irrelevant.

5. When King George III came to the throne in 1760 politics was organised around faction supporting prominent political leaders. Some, like Lord North, might be from families with a Tory tradition. Others like the Duke of Newcastle might regard themselves as Whigs but it no longer mattered. People from both traditions belonged to each faction.

6. Politics began to again re-crystallise into parties, more significant than mere factions, in the late 18th and early 19th century. During the Revolutionary War, most politicians supported William Pitt the Younger. Pitt's followers, at the time, were known as the Pittites but in retrospect were the core of what became known as the Tory Party. Ironically some prominent Pittites, like Pitt himself and the Duke of Portland, called themselves Whigs.

7. The small number of opponents of Pitt, led by Charles James Fox, became the core of the 19th century Whig Party.

8. There continued to be factions created, in the early 19th century, but they increasingly tended to be distinctly Tory or Whig. By about 1820 the two parties were fairly cohesive. There were some factions swinging between the two parties until the late 1850s. In the 1830s and 40s the Tories came to be called the Conservative Party and the Whigs (and associated groups) were informally described as the Liberal Party. The Whigs, joined with Peelite Liberal Conservatives, Radicals and some Irish Opposition politicians to create a formal Liberal Party in 1859. The Protectionist wing of the Conservative Party then became the only organisation claiming to be the heirs of the Tory tradition.

9. The Whig aristocratic families mostly broke from the Liberal Party over Irish Home Rule in 1886. The Liberal Unionists, including the few remaining Whig Unionists, formally merged with the Conservative Party in 1912. The 1859 Liberal Party eventually merged, in 1988, with the SDP to create what is now the Liberal Democrats.

10. The continuity between the 17th century Tory Party and the modern Conservative Party and the 17th century Whigs and the Liberal Democrats, are both dubious. However if the Conservatives can claim succession from the Tories, I do not see why the Liberal Democrats are not the political heirs of the Whigs.

[Phony Moderate]

If the polls are still displaying roughly the same picture on May 7th 2015 as they are now then will anyone really bother doing an exit poll?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Given that the exit poll at the last GE was more accurate than the campaign period polls, presumably.

[DL]

If the polls are still displaying roughly the same picture on May 7th 2015 as they are now then will anyone really bother doing an exit poll?

In 2010 the final polls all had the Lib Dems significantly higher and Labour significantly lower than the exit poll and the final results.

[EPG]

Turnout's usually less than 70%. So which voters actually voted matters a lot.