UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[DC Al Fine]

UKIP beats the Lib Dems in the popular vote. but gets 1 seat at best. Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

[DC Al Fine]

UKIP beats the Lib Dems in the popular vote. but gets 1 seat at best. Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

Why would it?

Key word is hope. I'm not confident it will at all.

[DC Al Fine]

The polls right now are showing a 10% swing give or take. That would have the LibDems losing 30 something seats. Another factor to consider is how the UKIP-Tory Split will play out. The Lib Dems will probably get bailed out in some seats due to UKIP playing spoiler.

[DC Al Fine]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Labour is wedded to the electoral system that could grant them a majority on 35% and maybe less. While the Conservatives won't budge. The big-two don't want minor opposition parties in Parliament to their left and right respectively.

I tend to agree. If it took our conservatives 3 massive vote splits to agree to merge, it will take a while to get the UK's right wingers taking.

[DC Al Fine]

How do you rate Naomi Long's chances of retaining her seat?

A good deal less than 50:50, thanks to Fleggate and the efforts of Loyalist paramilitaries in cahoots with the two main Unionist parties to get rid of her. It's the one seat in Northern Ireland which is likely to shift next time.

Only possible fly in the ointment would be if TUV were to stand as a fleggier-than-thou spoiler.

Fleggate?

[DC Al Fine]

Stranger things have been known, but right now it seems likely that UKIP only have a reasonable chance of gaining seats where they had substantial leads in either the 2013 or 2014 locals; I think the only Labour-held seat where that's the case is Grimsby.

A historical polling tendency - not a 'rule', just a tendency - to be aware of: it has usually been the case that the percentage of people expressing support for non-'mainstream' parties declines as the General Election gets closer.

Do you see Lib Dems improving as the election gets closer? (Probably a first )

[DC Al Fine]

Do you see Lib Dems improving as the election gets closer? (Probably a first )

On the contrary, the general tendency was always for them to improve their polling figures in the runup to an election. Admittedly this was entirely because their share of media coverage also tended to improve in the runup to an election... and even more during it, due to rules about broadcast 'fairness'.* Of course their current polling woes are because they are unpopular and not because of a lack of coverage...

_{*UKIP may well run into trouble with this because although all parties are guaranteed coverage, minor parties - note here that UKIP have no MPs - are not alloted much.}

Ok... That seems counter intuitive. I recall stories of SDP doing really well in the early 80's for example, only to disappoint come election time. I assume this trend reversed itself at some point?

[DC Al Fine]

These figures show only two seats where LibDem have a higher than 10 pt lead : Orkney and Shetland, of course, and Sheffield Hallam. I would be worried if I were Clegg.

Also, the figures for Buckingham are hilarious, and I didn't know why. I went and learned that the Speaker is uncontested in general elections, which is yet another moronic aspect of tradition in British politics. The thing where an MP is unable to resign and has to be appointed to one of two obscure fake offices of Stewards is another one that I just recently learned about for Clacton. Seriously, why can't the British just implement a real constitution and stop this bullsh**t ? Nobody takes them seriously...

Still, I don't think Plaid Cymru or the SNP will run in Buckingham, so these figures look bizarre.

Implementing a 'real constitution' would make things even more dull than they already are...

Why mess with success? There's no need to muddle through 5 Republics to get it right.

[DC Al Fine]

Can't wait for the TV debates. Will the Greens be invited I wonder? 

Cameron's trying to dodge them, apparently. But the Tories are apparently pumping for an Ed-Dave debate, then a Lab-Con-Lib-UKIP-Green debate.

I don't see the point in inviting the Greens personally (although, it'd do the Tories well if they were). Where's the line? They gonna invite George Galloway for Respect as well?

They do that in Canada and it doesn't create good debates. Lots of leaders squabbling and the public is forced to watch small leaders blather on about things they don't care about  (e.g. The Bloc Quebecois always got invited to the English debates).

I think Ed-David or Ed-David-Nigel-Nick are the only reasonable ways to go.

[DC Al Fine]

I see it being like a reverse Canada, with the upstart populists being spread too thin and winning few seats and the establishment conservatives having the favourable geography.

[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.

[DC Al Fine]

I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Do you have a link one of those surveys. Seems like it'd be a pretty interesting read.

[DC Al Fine]

YouGov puts the Greens ahead of the Lib Dems for the first time: Lab 34 Con 31 UKIP 17 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4

(Tables here.)

Ha!

[DC Al Fine]

So how far does Sinn Fein not participating in parliament go? Do they still do constituency work, or do they sit on their arse and collect their paycheque?

[DC Al Fine]

so does the French "terrorist attack" open some space for UKIP?

Nigel Farage: 'people holding our passports that hate us'

If it's going to help any party, Front National is the best candidate.

[DC Al Fine]

Any theories on why the Green Party is polling so well compared to their past GE results (as far as I can see, their best showing was 1,04%, in 2005)?  Do they have any nationally known politicians/spokesmen?

Leftish protest voters need somewhere to go now that the Lib Dems are tarnished.

[DC Al Fine]

Here's the thing: there's a none too unreasonable chance that the greens will multiply their 2010 vote by more than six times and simultaneously lose their only seat.

FPTP, don't you love it !!

It makes elections a hell of a lot more interesting.

[DC Al Fine]

Or it quickly becomes a game of 6 vs. 1.

And fair enough to the Greens, but why SNP and Plaid? 85% of the country can't even vote for them.

They had separate Scottish, Welsh and NI debates last time. What's wrong with that?

Yes, there will be more people critical of Cameron, though they will also criticise Labour. However, there will be weak coherence of each participant's critique and it will be less convincing than a sustained argument from one or two leaders. It is noteworthy that with the Greens, Plaid and SNP each represented, the proposed format will give strong representation to left-wing critiques of the UK government.

SNP have won more votes and MPs than the Greens at every general election and were therefore chosen by more British people when it mattered - perhaps the question I should be asking is how "choosable" they were. There the SNP do worse, but nonetheless in 2010, a majority of the country couldn't vote for the Green Party of England and Wales.

My experience in Canadian politics is that separatist parties make for crappy debates.

[DC Al Fine]

Poll shows hardly anyone knows about UKIP & Green policies in key areas.

How does that compare with the major parties?

[DC Al Fine]

So let's say that the Tories get 33 percent to Labour's 32 percent, but Labour ends up with more seats... Do you think a scenario like that would lead to increased demands for electoral reform within the Tories?

I think that would really depend on how permanent the Tories think the situation is. If they think a majority is just around the corner, they won't bother.

[DC Al Fine]

Are there not enough immigrants in Scotland to make "Born Outside the UK" a viable polling option?