UK General Election - May 7th 2015
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CrabCake
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« Reply #575 on: October 19, 2014, 11:51:56 AM »

It makes sense for them to run to try and grab a decent second or third place in some of those seats - they have been routinely winning wards in Sheffield Central (possibly the popular this parliament and they're the second party in Solihull now. Obviously politics are in an enormous state of flux at the moment, so the Greens could conceivably gain seats if everyone manages to split votes from each other. Look at Sollihull, which could reasonably grab a decent amount of Tory>UKIP defectors (it was listed as one of the "long-shot" UKIP seats in the Guardian recently) and have a lot of homeless Liberal voters that will bleed everywhere.

And who knows? If Cameron and the Greens get their way, we could see "Lucasmania" after the debates.

But yeah the Green administration of Brighton has dropped the ball, and will probably be defeated in 2015, so Lucas may get the boot alongside the council. Part of the perils of the national party putting its eggs in one basket.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #576 on: October 19, 2014, 12:32:50 PM »

And who knows? If Cameron and the Greens get their way, we could see "Lucasmania" after the debates.

If only the Greens were lucky enough to still have Lucas as their leader though. Natalie Bennett is a gift to her opponents.
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EPG
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« Reply #577 on: October 19, 2014, 12:58:51 PM »

Let's consider Greens trying to win a seat against Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and Ukip.

To win a five-way marginal (!), one needs 20% and the other votes need to be split in an even manner. One also needs a breakdown in tactical voting and a large percentage of electors who are normally thought of as hostile to Greens. Conservative + Ukip should get approximately 30%.

Remove the Lib Dems from the equation, and it's a four-way split requiring 25% to win. But I think it is fair to say that good Green prospects will have above-average Lib Dem votes, both for demographic and mechanical reasons. 5% is a lot for the Greens. So the goal is 20-25%, about 20% each for Labour and Lib Dems, about 15 +- 5 % each for Conservatives and Ukip.

The smaller the Conservative+Ukip share, the larger the share required to win the Labour/Lib Dem/Green battle. I think that favours Labour as the more popular party at national level. On average, they have the proven ability to motivate voters. So do the Lib Dems, in some places. Furthermore, smaller Ukip shares probably favour Labour in these constituencies. I assume Labour voters are older and more working-class than the national average in deeply-split constituencies, due to Lib Dems/Greens hiving off the young liberals at previous elections.

Therefore, I think there must be a big Ukip share to weaken Labour, if Greens are to win in these places with about 22%, or I think it has to be about 30% if it is just Labour v Lib Dem v Greens. But I think it requires a very special demography in the former case which contains large elements amenable to Greens AND large (but smaller!) elements amenable to Ukip. Not sure where that is to be found. That is why I think the latter case is more realistic. It is most likely to happen where the Lib Dems won last time, and where there isn't a prosperous Tory vote that will resist Ukip (in Solihull, Ukip made very little ground despite winning the EP election).
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #578 on: October 19, 2014, 01:03:08 PM »

The list and the thinking behind it is kind of delusional, but that's to be expected from the Greens.
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« Reply #579 on: October 19, 2014, 01:12:30 PM »

And who knows? If Cameron and the Greens get their way, we could see "Lucasmania" after the debates.

If only the Greens were lucky enough to still have Lucas as their leader though. Natalie Bennett is a gift to her opponents.

Yeah, Bennett was a bad choice. The Greens truly chose the wrong person when Lucas stepped down. However Cameron's idea was for Lucas to be invited and not Bennett, for some reason.
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politicus
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« Reply #580 on: October 19, 2014, 01:15:26 PM »

And who knows? If Cameron and the Greens get their way, we could see "Lucasmania" after the debates.

If only the Greens were lucky enough to still have Lucas as their leader though. Natalie Bennett is a gift to her opponents.

Yeah, Bennett was a bad choice. The Greens truly chose the wrong person when Lucas stepped down. However Cameron's idea was for Lucas to be invited and not Bennett, for some reason.


Choosing Bennett would be counterproductive if he wants to actually damage Labour.
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EPG
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« Reply #581 on: October 19, 2014, 01:22:25 PM »

The list and the thinking behind it is kind of delusional, but that's to be expected from the Greens.

It looks like a list of where activists in each region will be sent. Live in Bradford? Sent to Sheffield. Cardiff people canvass in Bristol. Etc. It's also a public relations exercise in the sense that it garners headlines, as the Greens attempt to look like a recycled-paper tiger.
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #582 on: October 20, 2014, 10:17:36 AM »

Ashcroft has the LibDems in 5th.

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« Reply #583 on: October 20, 2014, 11:00:10 AM »

And still Clegg appears to be safe in his job, with only half a year to go until the general election.

I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't even been a leadership challenge. I realize that choosing a new leader won't solve the Liberal-Democrats' problems - but it's not as if things can get much worse for them, right?
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« Reply #584 on: October 20, 2014, 11:43:48 AM »

I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't even been a leadership challenge. I realize that choosing a new leader won't solve the Liberal-Democrats' problems - but it's not as if things can get much worse for them, right?

Well that's exactly the point. Who'd wanna trigger a leadership challenge, only to come out with 20 seats in May anyway? Best bet for any leadership candidates is to wait until after the election.

Similar thing with Labour in the last parliament.
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ObserverIE
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« Reply #585 on: October 20, 2014, 11:51:02 AM »

I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't even been a leadership challenge. I realize that choosing a new leader won't solve the Liberal-Democrats' problems - but it's not as if things can get much worse for them, right?

Well that's exactly the point. Who'd wanna trigger a leadership challenge, only to come out with 20 seats in May anyway? Best bet for any leadership candidates is to wait until after the election.

Similar thing with Labour in the last parliament.

I remember an "orthodox" Lib Dem on politicalbetting.com (Yellow Submarine) talking after the 2010 election about the Clegg/Orange Book party leadership having a "Project FDP" in mind - the Lib Dems permanently in government as a market-liberal junior partner under some form of PR. That term is looking worryingly prophetic by now.
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« Reply #586 on: October 20, 2014, 12:18:59 PM »

I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't even been a leadership challenge. I realize that choosing a new leader won't solve the Liberal-Democrats' problems - but it's not as if things can get much worse for them, right?

Well that's exactly the point. Who'd wanna trigger a leadership challenge, only to come out with 20 seats in May anyway? Best bet for any leadership candidates is to wait until after the election.

Similar thing with Labour in the last parliament.

I remember an "orthodox" Lib Dem on politicalbetting.com (Yellow Submarine) talking after the 2010 election about the Clegg/Orange Book party leadership having a "Project FDP" in mind - the Lib Dems permanently in government as a market-liberal junior partner under some form of PR. That term is looking worryingly prophetic by now.

Well exactly.

That might've worked if the electorate had felt anyway included in the post-election manoeuvrings by the parties, but they didn't. I think the way the Liberal Democrats sort've think they deserve to be in government post-election (even if they do fall from 24% to, say, 8%) is quite offensive to the electorate.

The LibDem result is going to be more of a rejection than 1997 way for the Tories and definitely more than 2010 was for Labour.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #587 on: October 20, 2014, 12:22:41 PM »

They're currently polling at less than half their vote from the last election. That's kind of unprecedented.
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ChrisDR68
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« Reply #588 on: October 20, 2014, 12:32:13 PM »

Of course the Lib Dems stubbornly defending all things EU just makes their plight worse. Listening to their spokespeople on tv it's as if the Euro crisis never happened and everything in the EU garden is currently all beautiful and rosy.

Their pro-EUness is slightly ironic as their voters (and currently ex-voters) in the West Country tend to be quite Eurosceptic.

Incidentally Iain Dale who predicted 35 Lib Dem seats at the next election in March is now predicting they'll win 28.
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« Reply #589 on: October 20, 2014, 12:38:29 PM »

Of course the Lib Dems stubbornly defending all things EU just makes their plight worse. Listening to their spokespeople on tv it's as if the Euro crisis never happened and everything in the EU garden is currently all beautiful and rosy.

Their pro-EUness is slightly ironic as their voters (and currently ex-voters) in the West Country tend to be quite Eurosceptic.

Incidentally Iain Dale who predicted 35 Lib Dem seats at the next election in March is now predicting they'll win 28.

I'm currently predicting 25-30, but I wouldn't be shocked if they did worse than that. Going to be some very odd results across the country in May, especially so in LD seats.
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ObserverIE
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« Reply #590 on: October 20, 2014, 12:55:31 PM »

I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't even been a leadership challenge. I realize that choosing a new leader won't solve the Liberal-Democrats' problems - but it's not as if things can get much worse for them, right?

Well that's exactly the point. Who'd wanna trigger a leadership challenge, only to come out with 20 seats in May anyway? Best bet for any leadership candidates is to wait until after the election.

Similar thing with Labour in the last parliament.

I remember an "orthodox" Lib Dem on politicalbetting.com (Yellow Submarine) talking after the 2010 election about the Clegg/Orange Book party leadership having a "Project FDP" in mind - the Lib Dems permanently in government as a market-liberal junior partner under some form of PR. That term is looking worryingly prophetic by now.

Well exactly.

That might've worked if the electorate had felt anyway included in the post-election manoeuvrings by the parties, but they didn't. I think the way the Liberal Democrats sort've think they deserve to be in government post-election (even if they do fall from 24% to, say, 8%) is quite offensive to the electorate.

The LibDem result is going to be more of a rejection than 1997 way for the Tories and definitely more than 2010 was for Labour.

My recollection is that the dramatic fall in their support came after the first Osborne budget, when it became obvious to their voters what the leadership had signed up for. (Yellow Submarine, to be fair to him/her, was a "Project FDP" skeptic.)
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Junior Chimp
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« Reply #591 on: October 20, 2014, 01:08:45 PM »

I'm a bit surprised that there hasn't even been a leadership challenge. I realize that choosing a new leader won't solve the Liberal-Democrats' problems - but it's not as if things can get much worse for them, right?

Well that's exactly the point. Who'd wanna trigger a leadership challenge, only to come out with 20 seats in May anyway? Best bet for any leadership candidates is to wait until after the election.

Similar thing with Labour in the last parliament.

I remember an "orthodox" Lib Dem on politicalbetting.com (Yellow Submarine) talking after the 2010 election about the Clegg/Orange Book party leadership having a "Project FDP" in mind - the Lib Dems permanently in government as a market-liberal junior partner under some form of PR. That term is looking worryingly prophetic by now.

Well exactly.

That might've worked if the electorate had felt anyway included in the post-election manoeuvrings by the parties, but they didn't. I think the way the Liberal Democrats sort've think they deserve to be in government post-election (even if they do fall from 24% to, say, 8%) is quite offensive to the electorate.

The LibDem result is going to be more of a rejection than 1997 way for the Tories and definitely more than 2010 was for Labour.

My recollection is that the dramatic fall in their support came after the first Osborne budget, when it became obvious to their voters what the leadership had signed up for. (Yellow Submarine, to be fair to him/her, was a "Project FDP" skeptic.)

Well their fall in the polls started on day one, mostly because many saw them as a safe option - Diet Labour. I have fond memories of #DontDoInNick trending on Twitter in the days after the election, before he entered government. I think that's part of their problem they've struggled to address and will probably never be able to.

The Cleggasm turned from a blessing into a curse. If there'd been no debates, no Clegg surge, the last four years wouldn't have been so difficult for the Libs.

For many of the voters who've left them, merely the act of selected David Cameron as Prime Minister was enough for them to leave the party forever. What must voters in seats like Barnsley, Bradford and Redcard have thought of that.

The decline, of course was accelerated with the budget, CSR and then the tuition fee protests/riots.
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« Reply #592 on: October 20, 2014, 01:28:21 PM »

Surely these 25-30 seat forecasts are why there has been no Lib Dem leadership challenge. They expect to do badly in seat terms, but better than they have through most of the 20th century, including the Alliance and '92 elections: to be humbled after being in government, but not rent asunder. Votes, they'll lose lots. But as has been suggested, millions of their voters didn't really want anything meaningful (they implicitly wanted a Labour government, but didn't vote for Labour. Go figure). Who cares if you go from 22% to 1% in some Midlands seat you'll never win. An MP doesn't care, at least.

So they lose half their seats, then they toss Clegg aside and go into opposition, because despite what the Lib Dems say, every party likes to scratch that itch and enjoy being the shootist rather than the target. Then they hope to rebuild. Maybe Labour wins and everything goes a bit Hollande, or maybe Ukip remains a presence and interferes with Conservative hopes to consolidate the south-west.

They might have overthrown Clegg already but he hasn't infuriated Lib Dems as much as Labour loyalists. Activists from the centre-left faction who could incite the groundswell look like they've quit the party. The democratic structures make the Lib Dem leadership look pathetic when their activists pass motions about too much competition in football at conference time, but do bind the membership to leaders' actions more than the larger parties.
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EPG
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« Reply #593 on: October 20, 2014, 01:41:37 PM »

The Cleggasm turned from a blessing into a curse. If there'd been no debates, no Clegg surge, the last four years wouldn't have been so difficult for the Libs.

Interesting alt-historical scenario! Before the debate, I think they were bobbing along below their 2005 score, around 16-22% depending on whom you asked. Given the Conservatives' strength and the fact that most Lib Dem seats were and are won on not-very-big majorities against the Conservatives, they might have ended up on 35-40 seats instead of 57 with the Conservatives strong enough to govern with Unionist support. If they ended up in opposition, they might have indeed bounced back to 60 seats or so. But that's conditional on something they didn't know: that Ed M would be dire and fail to mobilise opposition to the government around Labour. And it doesn't really leave them much better-off than they started anyway, unless they eventually do get into government, and then they betray one side or the other of their support anyway...
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« Reply #594 on: October 20, 2014, 02:04:43 PM »

The Cleggasm turned from a blessing into a curse. If there'd been no debates, no Clegg surge, the last four years wouldn't have been so difficult for the Libs.

Interesting alt-historical scenario! Before the debate, I think they were bobbing along below their 2005 score, around 16-22% depending on whom you asked. Given the Conservatives' strength and the fact that most Lib Dem seats were and are won on not-very-big majorities against the Conservatives, they might have ended up on 35-40 seats instead of 57 with the Conservatives strong enough to govern with Unionist support. If they ended up in opposition, they might have indeed bounced back to 60 seats or so. But that's conditional on something they didn't know: that Ed M would be dire and fail to mobilise opposition to the government around Labour. And it doesn't really leave them much better-off than they started anyway, unless they eventually do get into government, and then they betray one side or the other of their support anyway...

I don't think Ed would've won the leadership had the Libs not been in government. The momentum behind his campaign was, in part, a response to the LibDems entering government.

A more interesting alternative scenario is Cameron winning a small majority/going for a minority, and Nick Clegg becoming the Nigel Farage anti-establishment character.
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EPG
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« Reply #595 on: October 20, 2014, 02:19:35 PM »

I think there is still a big gap for Ukip there. Lots of Ukip voters genuinely are sick of immigrants and, like their European brothers, want to do something about it. Nick Clegg wasn't going to win those votes.
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« Reply #596 on: October 20, 2014, 02:24:05 PM »

I think there is still a big gap for Ukip there. Lots of Ukip voters genuinely are sick of immigrants and, like their European brothers, want to do something about it. Nick Clegg wasn't going to win those votes.

Chicken or the egg. Are people saying they're sick of immigrants because UKIP's on the rise, or are UKIP on the rise because people are sick of immigrants?

Nick Clegg surged after the debates because he was the 'trendy' option. UKIP is surging now because they're the 'trendy' option. Similarly, the Greens are doing well amongst young people because they're a 'trendy' option.

Labour and the Tories are just seen as out of date and stale. If the Tories were able to get an out-and-out populist like Boris leading them, it'd help them a bit. Same goes with Labour.
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« Reply #597 on: October 20, 2014, 04:09:05 PM »

I think there is still a big gap for Ukip there. Lots of Ukip voters genuinely are sick of immigrants and, like their European brothers, want to do something about it. Nick Clegg wasn't going to win those votes.

Chicken or the egg. Are people saying they're sick of immigrants because UKIP's on the rise, or are UKIP on the rise because people are sick of immigrants?

Nick Clegg surged after the debates because he was the 'trendy' option. UKIP is surging now because they're the 'trendy' option. Similarly, the Greens are doing well amongst young people because they're a 'trendy' option.

Labour and the Tories are just seen as out of date and stale. If the Tories were able to get an out-and-out populist like Boris leading them, it'd help them a bit. Same goes with Labour.

Honestly, I think people (some people, not a majority) are sick of immigrants. I don't think people see Farage and say, there's a man I trust with running the government, let me find an issue on which I agree with him to justify my feeling. I think they say, if I vote for this man, it will tell the government to get rid of them and to leave more of Britain for us.

I think this because similar political movements are doing well in many other European countries, particularly the ones not badly hit by the euro crisis (where economic issues are the stronger cleavage). Perhaps it's coincidental that Ukip is on the rise at the same time as the Front National, the Swedish Democrats, PVV, and pals. But I don't think so; I think it's connected to the very large waves of migration within and to the EU since 2004.

Ukip aren't trendy in the same sense as Lib Dems or Greens. They are popular among old people, the working-class, and other untrendy groups, which is partly a difference between Ukip and the aforementioned xenophobes who are more popular among the young. Normally, old people don't change their minds as much, and cleave more strongly to traditional party systems on traditional class or regional lines. That support base is another reason why I don't think being out-of-date is the problem with Labour or the Conservatives. These voters aren't usually whom you associate with the pursuit of vanguard novelty.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #598 on: October 20, 2014, 07:01:57 PM »

'Trendy' is not a word that has ever been knowingly associated with the LibDems.
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« Reply #599 on: October 20, 2014, 09:55:11 PM »
« Edited: October 20, 2014, 10:18:36 PM by PoshPaws68 »

I think this is an exaggerated simplification of Ukip.

There has been British hostility to the EEC and EU since the beginning, at first as anti-Common Market factions in both main parties back when they really were the be-all and end-all of English and Welsh politics, later dissipated all across the British political spectrum in a more broad and shallow manner, but strongly localised among the Thatcherite Conservatives and a few straggler Labour members. It is not a new phenomenon that explains why Ukip is now a meaningful entity.

Ukip itself has existed for over two decades. Yet European integration didn't give it even a shadow of its current position. The UK hasn't subscribed to a major article of European integration since the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009. The next year, Ukip won just 3% at a general election and made a material difference to results in a handful of seats. The UK has agreed to practically no integration in the interim, nor has it been pushed to do so by a European Commission focused on economic, euro-based topics intensely controversial in the euro area but irrelevant in the UK.

So what changed? Ukip has been catapulted to current success by a few factors: the proportional, list-based European Parliament electoral law, almost uniquely designed to favour small anti-EU parties; an ability to attract former Conservative donors to fund its activities; above all, rapid EU immigration since 2004. They know it. And any interested observer of UK politics should know it, too. Like any political party, it is an avatar of its current voters rather that the issues that brought it into existence, otherwise the Corn Laws would be more relevant than they are today. And every study I know of suggests that Ukip voters' priority is to extract foreigners from their fields of vision.

Well that explains why UKIP are relatively popular at the moment but doesn't explain why there is a UKIP in the first place.

From their Wikipedia entry:

UKIP was founded in 1993 by Alan Sked and other members of the cross-party Anti-Federalist League, a political party set up in November 1991 with the aim of fielding candidates opposed to the Maastricht Treaty. The nascent party's primary objective was withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

The crucial part there was mention of the Maastricht Treaty. That was the treaty that set the seal on the introduction of the Euro and changed the name of the European project from the EEC to the EU.

The reason John Major had such trouble getting that treaty ratified was because it was clearly a major step in the direction towards a European superstate. Something that was and continues to be an anathema to many (and not just to Eurosceptic Conservatives).

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