UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[You kip if you want to...]

Yeah, the Greens will pick up a lot of the trendy left-liberal middle-class student types who would be backing the Lib Dems if not for the coalition. They are reluctant to vote Labour due to the party's (still) working-class image and they'd eat their own babies before voting Tory or UKIP.

PC way of calling them snobs.

They agreed with Nick last time and got Dave. They'll agree with Natalie and Caroline again this time and swing open the back door of Number 10 for Dave (again).

[DL]

In Canada the typical Green Party voter is either a trust fund kid who thinks he is an activist because they put their food scraps in a composter or some very wealthy semi-retired eccentrics with million dollar solar panels on their roof (aka "Tories with composters). Is it the same in the UK?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is this the point where I make my usual remarks about the need to be wary of constituency polling?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As for the Greens, well we've not yet had a General Election where they've polled 'respectable' single digits (yet), so we have to be careful about generalisation. Brighton Pavilion, as previously noted, skews massively left/alternative (as opposed to left/proletarian) and also has a substantial student population: these are ideal conditions for a high Green vote. They have also had (since the 1980s) a (sometimes occasional) local government presence in some affluent but also rather alternative (at least in part) towns, which has rarely translated into votes in General Elections (but may do this time round).

[YL]

UKIP struggling to make a breakthrough in places they're targeting, where they did well in May last year.

This is quite a big change from Survation's poll of Boston & Skegness released last September, which had UKIP 20 points ahead of the Tories.

There are various things which may help to explain this:
- Dodgy sampling in one or both polls.
- Survation's sample size was pretty small, so they had a big margin of error.
- Methodological differences.  Ashcroft's mystery pollster reallocated some don't knows (not 100%), without which UKIP would have been slightly ahead; Survation didn't.  (As we've seen in Hallam, the choice of what to do with don't knows can make a big difference when looking at a large swing.)  I think the weighting methods, including the handling of turnout, are also different, and Ashcroft's turnout weighting certainly cut the UKIP figure.

Or perhaps UKIP's bubble really has burst a bit there.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

In Canada the typical Green Party voter is either a trust fund kid who thinks he is an activist because they put their food scraps in a composter or some very wealthy semi-retired eccentrics with million dollar solar panels on their roof (aka "Tories with composters). Is it the same in the UK?

The uk greens are definitely on the left of the global greens movement, whereas the Canadian Greens are amongst the most right-wing Greens around outside of Mexico.

[windjammer]

Will Clegg be defeated?
(Crabcake, please, check your PMs )

[Silent Hunter]

It's possible. Last PM to go down at an election was Balfour, BTW - and that was over a century ago.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Balfour was not actually Prime Minister at the time of the election: he and his ministry had resigned to let the Liberals run things as a minority before the elections, because things were different then. The last Liberal Leader to lose his seat in a General Election was Archibald Sinclair in 1945, incidentally.

[YL]

Will Clegg be defeated?

From an article in the Guardian a couple of days ago, about the Lib Dems' internal constituency polling:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Now, this looks to me like the sort of thing they might say if their internal polling (and maybe canvassing) was giving a similar picture to the Ashcroft poll (i.e. a near dead heat or a small Labour lead).  Given the context of the article, if it was saying that Clegg was well ahead, it's pretty clear that they would have told the journalists that.

I wouldn't take much of the rest of the content of the article very seriously.  Even if you trust constituency polls, a party showing some selected findings from their internal ones, several of which are not exactly surprising (yes, we know the people of Westmorland like Tim Farron), to journalists is never going to be a reliable indication of what's going on.  (Supposedly they did over 100; that leaves quite a lot the journalists weren't told about...)

[Silent Hunter]

Balfour was not actually Prime Minister at the time of the election: he and his ministry had resigned to let the Liberals run things as a minority before the elections, because things were different then. The last Liberal Leader to lose his seat in a General Election was Archibald Sinclair in 1945, incidentally.

I stand corrected.

[Phony Moderate]

Fun read here: https://drseansdiary.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/use-your-ed-how-i-put-miliband-into-number-10-just/

Anyone have the 2015 version of the game yet?

[joevsimp]

Fun read here: https://drseansdiary.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/use-your-ed-how-i-put-miliband-into-number-10-just/

Anyone have the 2015 version of the game yet?

nah, not since 2005, I failed miserably as the greens but did quite well as plaid, until i decided to go against foxhunting

[politicus]

Fun read here: https://drseansdiary.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/use-your-ed-how-i-put-miliband-into-number-10-just/

Anyone have the 2015 version of the game yet?

nah, not since 2005, I failed miserably as the greens but did quite well as plaid, until i decided to go against foxhunting

LOL

[YL]

This week's YouGov polls:

17 Feb: Con 32 Lab 32 UKIP 16 Green 8 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
18 Feb: Lab 34 Con 33 UKIP 15 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
19 Feb: Lab 34 Con 32 UKIP 14 LD 8 Green 6 SNP/Plaid 4
20 Feb: Lab 33 Con 32 UKIP 15 LD 9 Green 6 SNP/Plaid 5
22 Feb: Lab 34 Con 33 UKIP 13 LD 8 Green 6 SNP/Plaid 5

That must be the best Lib Dem week in YouGov for a bit.

[YL]

George Galloway finally has a Labour opponent in Bradford West, Amina Ali, a Tower Hamlets councillor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/21/george-galloway-amina-ali_n_6727514.html

[Hnv1]

George Galloway finally has a Labour opponent in Bradford West, Amina Ali, a Tower Hamlets councillor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/21/george-galloway-amina-ali_n_6727514.html

How do you rate the odds of him taking over that tosser?

[Bacon King]

Fun read here: https://drseansdiary.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/use-your-ed-how-i-put-miliband-into-number-10-just/

Anyone have the 2015 version of the game yet?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

best political simulator

[politicus]

George Galloway finally has a Labour opponent in Bradford West, Amina Ali, a Tower Hamlets councillor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/21/george-galloway-amina-ali_n_6727514.html

How do you rate the odds of him taking over that tosser?

Her.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amina_Ali

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who knows? Respect have (already!) fallen apart in Bradford somewhat (for the usual reasons), but the so-called party is rather less important to Galloway's appeal than the loathsome half-genius himself.

[Phony Moderate]

Can/will Jim Murphy survive (as leader of the SLP that is) if Labour gets wiped out (or anywhere close to it) in Scotland?

[You kip if you want to...]

Can/will Jim Murphy survive (as leader of the SLP that is) if Labour gets wiped out (or anywhere close to it) in Scotland?

Well, who else do they have? He'll be there until the Holyrood election at least, I'd think.

[Phony Moderate]

Can/will Jim Murphy survive (as leader of the SLP that is) if Labour gets wiped out (or anywhere close to it) in Scotland?

Well, who else do they have? He'll be there until the Holyrood election at least, I'd think.

Either of two candidates he defeated? They need someone who is to the left of the SNP, but still staunchly unionist.

[You kip if you want to...]

Can/will Jim Murphy survive (as leader of the SLP that is) if Labour gets wiped out (or anywhere close to it) in Scotland?

Well, who else do they have? He'll be there until the Holyrood election at least, I'd think.

Either of two candidates he defeated? They need someone who is to the left of the SNP, but still staunchly unionist.

Personally, I don't think dancing to the SNP's tune would work. It's not that easy. Ed defeating his brother hasn't stopped the rise of the SNP or this rise in support for the Greens.

[Blair]

SNP problem isn't about left or right, the SNP are actually too the right of the current labour party (Ed M) They just seem to attack New labour. If labour came out in favour of rail nationalization, no auserity and scrapping Trident the cybernats would still accuse labour of betraying Scotland by siding with the tories,

The SNP situation is ing messed up