UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[afleitch]

Portsmouth South is going to be a bunfight.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm trying to work out a difficult question. Were Handcock (Еди́ная Росси́я - Портсмут) to save his deposit, would I be amused or horrified?

[afleitch]

The pollsters hate us all right now. After a 4 point Labour lead with YouGov, ComRes have a 4 point Tory lead, their biggest since 2010.

[Phony Moderate]

As per usual in the run-up to an election, there is clearly some attention whoring and making-up-of-numbers going on. It's a shame ICM do not poll more frequently.

But going on the basis of the European elections it is clear which of YouGov and ComRes is the more reliable. ComRes had some geniunely hilariously numbers during that campaign (UKIP on 38% stands out).

[Phony Moderate]

Labour might be getting the vote of...wait for it...Peter Hitchens

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2015/03/is-slippery-salmond-secretly-trying-to-get-dave-elected.html

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

love when Hitchens writes about what's happenning in his alternative dimension

[afleitch]

We have a London poll and a Welsh poll today. We also have Populus

CON 34 (+3)
LAB 34 (+1)
LIB 8 (-1)
UKIP 15 (-1)
GRN 4 (-1)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unfortunately the new London poll is by ComRes, so there's little point in posting the figures as they might as well have been generated via a dartboard (alas: they are quite pleasing).

The Welsh poll is part of the regular YouGov series and shows: Labour 40, Con 25, UKIP 14, Plaid 11, LDem 5, Greens 5.

[Phony Moderate]

Cameron just returned from visiting the Queen and formally announced the dissolution of Parliament and the election date...then he followed up with an impressive collection of bland soundbites.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Too bad there's no proportional representation with a threshold. I really wish to see LibDems to follow the FDP path.

[ChrisDR68]

Too bad there's no proportional representation with a threshold. I really wish to see LibDems to follow the FDP path.

Why because you only see merit in a binary choice which is more or less what they have in the United States?

Speaking personally that's a revolting thought

[Clyde1998]

The Scottish Greens have announced their manifesto today

http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/greens-launch-manifesto-an-economy-for-the-people/

Includes supports for £10 minimum wage, the renationalisation of railways and more powers to be transferred to Scotland.

[Phony Moderate]

Ashcroft has the Tories ahead by 2 with both parties rising and the Lib Dems and UKIP slipping.

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/03/ashcroft-national-poll-con-36-lab-34-lib-dem-6-ukip-10-green-7/#more-11140

[You kip if you want to...]

The Scottish Greens have announced their manifesto today

http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/greens-launch-manifesto-an-economy-for-the-people/

Includes supports for £10 minimum wage, the renationalisation of railways and more powers to be transferred to Scotland.

What's the relationship between the SNP and the Scots Greens like? Surely they can't be happy about this Green E&W/Plaid/SNP entente.

[Torie]

As we all know, the GOP has an advantage with House seats because Dems tend to be packed in urban districts, leading to a vote waste that swamps whatever the lower turnout may be (particularly in Hispanic seats).  My impression is that the Tories do not have such an advantage in the UK. What is the Reader's Digest version as to why, assuming my assumption is correct?  Is the key the role of the Liberal Democrats?

[Boston Bread]

As we all know, the GOP has an advantage with House seats because Dems tend to be packed in urban districts, leading to a vote waste that swamps whatever the lower turnout may be (particularly in Hispanic seats).  My impression is that the Tories do not have such an advantage in the UK. What is the Reader's Digest version as to why, assuming my assumption is correct?  Is the key the role of the Liberal Democrats?

Urban Labour seats have lower turnout (poorer/more immigrants), so Labour's vote total ends up being lower than what would be expected. But unlike in the US, the margin of victory in Tory seats are about the same as Labour, so the Tories don't have that advantage. Just look at how the Labour advantage in London is only 8-10 points, so Labour won't have many overwhelming victories in urban areas.

Scotland is one place where the Labour vote *used to be much more efficiently spread out, so that's one place where Labour had a vote efficiency advantage.
*until the SNP came along

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The Scottish Greens have announced their manifesto today

http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/greens-launch-manifesto-an-economy-for-the-people/

Includes supports for £10 minimum wage, the renationalisation of railways and more powers to be transferred to Scotland.

What's the relationship between the SNP and the Scots Greens like? Surely they can't be happy about this Green E&W/Plaid/SNP entente.

Uneasy, but the Scots Greens largely have been riding the Yes campaign's coattails, so they can't complain too much.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

DCam just said he wants to travel to all four countries of the UK. Has he forgotten Norn or what?

Also, these generic 'lol I hate politics bcuz they all lie' vox pops on the Beeb make we want to throw something at the screen.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Full Ashcroft/Rubber Ball figures are: Con 36, Labour 34, UKIP 10, Greens 7, LDem 6,

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As we all know, the GOP has an advantage with House seats because Dems tend to be packed in urban districts, leading to a vote waste that swamps whatever the lower turnout may be (particularly in Hispanic seats).  My impression is that the Tories do not have such an advantage in the UK. What is the Reader's Digest version as to why, assuming my assumption is correct?

Broadly speaking Tory and Labour vote patterns relate to class, patterns of which are always going to be more geographically diffuse than urbanity. Additionally the increased regional polarisation since the 1970s means that it's harder for the Tories to win substantial numbers of seats in Northern England than was once the case. If we're comparing to America it also has to be noted that there's no electoral equivalent of 90% D voting black districts in Britain.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Given that most of their seats were once reliably (if maybe not safely) Conservative, its hard to deny that they're a factor, sure.

[Torie]

Thanks guys. I suspected as much. After drawing a host of maps in the US where one just follows county lines and whatnot, it is amazing just how screwed the Dems are now. In a gerrymander free world, they would pick up less than 10 seats net from non-partisan lines - maybe as few as 5 seats.

[Clyde1998]

The Scottish Greens have announced their manifesto today

http://www.scottishgreens.org.uk/news/greens-launch-manifesto-an-economy-for-the-people/

Includes supports for £10 minimum wage, the renationalisation of railways and more powers to be transferred to Scotland.

What's the relationship between the SNP and the Scots Greens like? Surely they can't be happy about this Green E&W/Plaid/SNP entente.

The Greens weren't too happy that the SNP wouldn't agree to a "Pro-independence alliance" for this election - but they could understand it. The SNP would only agree if those elected in the alliance took their whip.

Generally, however, the relationship between the SNP and Scottish Greens is quite good. Especially since Sturgeon has taken over as SNP leader - she's been more open to collaboration between parties than Salmond.

Patrick Harvie (Scots Greens leader) said that he enjoyed working with Sturgeon during the referendum campaign, also.

[afleitch]

YouGov, sensing a false start on their Milibounce have pulled it back to 35-35.

[Ebsy]

Are the UK pollsters just making stuff up now?

[politicus]

Are the UK pollsters just making stuff up now?

They seem to have been doing that for a while..