UK General Election - May 7th 2015

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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.

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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!"?

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They key question has to be what happens to the LibDem vote in marginal Tory/Labour seats where there is a significant 3rd place LibDem vote. Let's say that in riding X in 2010 the Tory took 40%, Labour took 35% and the Lib Dem had 22% - seems to me that in a seat like that its likely that the LD vote will collapse to single digits and the vast majority of the collapsed LibDem vote will flow to Labour.

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It's quite intresting how that has become the norm in politics these days. No party today would for example tolerate, as was the case with Niel Kinnock, losing an election and then go on as leader for the next election as well. 

The context is everything. Kinnock took over as leader of Labour after they had suffered their worst defeat of all time in 1983. He was widely hailed as having saved the party from total collapse and getting it onto the road to recovery. While he clearly didn't win his first election in 1987 - he did gain ground and he was widely viewed as having run a good campaign and as having been an asset to the party. For that reason he was seen as having earned another kick at the can. In 1992, he was seen as having blown what should have been an easy win and he quickly resigned after the election. I think parties will keep leader after a loss if that leader is viewed as having run a good campaign and gained ground - no one seriously expected Labour to win outright in 1987 after having been reduced to 200 seats in 1983.

There have been cases in the UK of leaders being dumped before they even led their party through an election campaign - remember Ian Duncan Smith who the Tories picked and then forced out a year and a half later?

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If the Labour Party under Michael Foot managed to win 209 seats in 1983 with the manifesto they had at the time I doubt Labour was ever heading for oblivion.

A very long period in opposition yes but oblivion no.

Don't be too sure - in 1983 the Labour party was only 2% ahead of the SDP/Liberal Alliance and at the time it seemed like a very strong possibility that the Alliance would gain more momentum and Labour would dissolve into internal chaos and division and that the Alliance would become the new main non-Tory party. Its easy to scoff at all this now - but in 1984-85 this was seen as a serious possibility.

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Didn't the Centre Party in Sweden used to be called the Agrarian party or the Farmer's party or something like that? i know that the Moderate Party in Sweden used to be called the Right Party.

I know that in this day an age people think that winning elections is all about new imaginative campaign slogans and flashy websites... but no one really cares about that. People will vote for Labour if they agree with their policies, think they have a competent leadership, and hate the Tories. Calling them the Progressive Party, or the Blueberry Party, or We-Hate-The-Tory-Party Party, would make zero, zilch, nada difference. None what so ever! If any affect, it would be confusing a few pensioners who'd be wondering what happened to the party they were planning to vote for.

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France has been very big on name changes - especially on the right. I think the so-called Gaullists have gone from UDR to RPR to UMP and maybe some other acronyms in between!

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The old Liberal Party under Jo Grimmond only achieved 7.5% of the popular vote in the 1970 general election. Then a combination of the incompetent Heath government and Labour's slide to the left in the early 70's produced a surge in support under Jeremy Thorpe by the time of the two elections of 1974 which has largely held firm during all subsequent general elections.

True but look at how spectacularly inefficient the Liberal vote was in those days. In Spring 1974 they took 19% of the national popular vote and that got them just 14 seats!

PS: Jeremy Thorpe became Liberal leader in 1969 and was also the leader in the calamitous 1970 election.

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I'm not so sure that would happen. You are basically describing what happened to the Labour government 1974-1979 which only had a 3 seat majority after the October 1974 election...but that government actually survived for 4.5 years! If a Labour gov't lost its majority a couple of years into its mandate chances are that at least one of the minor parties (ie: SDLP, Sinn Fein, SNP, PC and LibDems) could easily be bought off since they would likely all be averse to a snap election that might bring the Tories back to power. No one expected that Tory-LibDem coalition to last a full term - and yet it appears that is exactly what will happen. Remember that the minor parties (with the exception of the Ulster Unionists and anyone elected for UKIP) are all ideologically much closer to Labour than they are to the Tories so at least one would be willing to make a deal. We could end up with another Lib/Lab pact like in the late 70s etc...

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English devolution or only English MP's voting on English only issues is a massive trap for the Labour party.

Apart from exceptional elections like 1997 and 2001 the Tories generally have a majority of MP's in England.

Actually there have only ever been two elections where the Tories won in England/Wales but lost the election - the two elections of 1974.

According to a big survey by YouGov only 5% of voters say that "constitutional issues" are of any importance to them in the upcoming election - so it may be a case where the Tories take a popular position on an issue no one cares about.

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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.

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What is the stereotype of the types of people who vote LibDem in the UK. I tend to see them as having a voter base kind of like the FDP in Germany (also known as "the party of doctors and dentists") meaning that they get support from people who see themselves as being "too rich to vote Labour and too smart to vote Tory".

Am i getting close?

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I gather that including the SNP in any sort of post-election coalition or agreement would be as problematic as what we had happen in Canada when the Bloc Quebecois was still a factor and was making it almost impossible for a non-Conservative government to be created. Now thankfully they are a dead party!

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I believe the intention of that law was to protect the LibDems from Cameron calling a snap early election if he thought he could get a majority - it was an insurance policy given to Clegg in the coalition negotiations. But isn't it kind of a bogus law since the Crown has reserve powers of dissolution so any PM can simply ask the Queen to dissolve and there is no way that a toothless law can prevent that.

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Stupid law, let's hope it's repealed.

Imagine February 1974 Parliament remaining for five full years.

The law doesn't have to be "repealed" - the PM's ability to ask the monarch to dissolve parliament cannot be superseded by a simple act of parliament. I realize that Canada and the UK are not identical 9to say the least) but we have the same parliamentary system and monarch and in 2006 PM Harper passed a law calling for fixed election dates every four years - two and half years later he thought he could get a majority so he simply ignored his own law declared parliament "too dysfunctional" and called an early election in Oct. 2008 - while he did not get his coveted majority in that election - he did gain ground and no one made much of an issue of him breaking his own fixed election law.

If Cameron or any other PM wanted to call an election in less than 5 years - they might have a political problem in justifying it - but they would have no "legal" problem since NOTHING can stop the PM from requesting that the monarch dissolve parliament and it is virtually inconceivable that the Queen would refuse a PM's request for a dissolution since it would politicize the monarchy.

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FWIW we had a period in Canada in 2007-2008 when the so-called Green party was often polling as high as 12 or 13% - interestingly most of those people did not even think the environment was the number one issue - it was largely just "none of the above" vote parking by Liberal voters disappointed with their leadership.

When the voted were counted the Greens got 6% - no where near what polls had been saying.

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IMHO, UKIP is less likely to be squeezed than the Greens. They have shown they can win seats, they have money and they have a unique selling proposition being the only party that is anti-EU and anti-immigration. The Greens have to compete on the left with Labour and the LibDems and they don't have much of a unique selling proposition beyond just being a parking place for Labour voters with qualms about Miliband and LibDem voters mad at Clegg for the coalition.

I see the Greens as a negative option "Im fed up with everyone" while UKIP actually stands for something - much as we might dislike what they stand for.

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Ipsos-MORI:

Labour - 36% (+2)
Tories - 34% (+1)
UKIP - 9% (-2)
Greens - 7% (-1)
Lib Dems - 6% (-2)

So UKIP may be showing signs of decline, but it doesn't seem to be helping the Tories.

One poll. No one else is showing this.

Still no maj for Labour though.

Actually a lot of recent polls have shown UKIP declining bit by bit...some of that would be anti-Tory voters going back to Labour

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Notice that at the constituency level support for the Greens falls to low single digits

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Notice that at the constituency level support for the Greens falls to low single digits

Uhh it's already on low single digits in the standard voting intention...

Some national polls suggest the Greens are as high as 7 or 8 percent. This suggests they are more like 2 or 3%

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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?

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Its interesting that the conventional wisdom is that UKIP mostly takes votes from the Tories and yet in the last few weeks polls that have UKIP lower do not seem to have the Tories any higher - if anything Labour is often a bit stronger when UKIP drops a bit...I have a hypotheses that there are a couple of "tranches" of UKIP support. When UKIP is down at 10-12% its support is almost entirely rightwing disaffected Tories. When UKIP goes up to the high teens that extra layer is often more of a mix of soft Tories and working class Labour voters attracted to UKIP's populist style and message.

For Labour the "sweet spot" is for UKIP to be around 12% - that way they do maximum damage to the Tories and are less likely to eat into the Labour vote.

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What seats in Wales would change hands with a uniform swing in Wales like that?

Another poll of Wales (usual caveats apply, blah, blah) done by YouGov for ITN:

Labour 39, Con 25, UKIP 14, Plaid 10, Greens 6, LDem 5

Compared to the last YouGov poll of Wales.

Lab - Up 2
Con - Up 2
UKIP - Down 2
Plaid - N/C
Green - Down 2
Lib - Down 1

Good to see UKIP continue to fall.

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... and, to summarise:
"Near certain" hold 2
"Likely" hold 9
"Lean" hold 17
"Lean" loss 10
"Likely" loss 13
"Near certain" loss 6

Don't take too seriously.

So they could poll around the same level that they did in the 1970 general election according to what most opinion polls are showing at the moment (8.5%) but instead of winning just the 6 seats they won in that election they could end up with the 28 you've worked out here.

Extraordinary

In 1970 the Liberals had only a dozen incumbent MPs seeking re-election. The LibDems now have over 50 seats and its a lot easier to hold onto seats when you have incumbents running for re-election some of whom have a local following and organization.

[DL]

So then do you oppose head to head US presidential debates? There are typically about 50 odd people actually on the ballot - why not let them all have equal time on stage with the Democratic and GOP nominees?