UK General Discussion II

[YL]

One of the Tory MPs mentioned as a possible defector to UKIP is Chris Kelly, the MP for Dudley South who recently announced he was retiring at the election.  However, Nadine Dorries says that there is no way he will be defecting because he is her daughter's boyfriend and would never get another roast dinner in the Dorries household if he left.

[YL]

A Freudian slip.

[YL]

MORI poll on Britain's EU membership:

"If there were a referendum now on whether Britain should stay in or get out of the European Union, how would you vote?"

Stay in: 56%
Get out: 36%

I suspect the large margin is a bit of a fluke, but still this is encouraging.

[YL]

Lib Dem wins parliamentary by-election with over 50% of the vote

(And yes, this is utterly ridiculous.)

[YL]

I actually think that, over the course of the last month, Ed has become damaged goods.

The narrative even within the party seems to have gone from 'He means well and could surprise people' to 'When's his next misstep due?'.

The irony in the events of the last month seems to be that Heywood has scared the PLP so much that it's damaged Ed more than Clacton's damaged Cameron. There's a lot in saying that the Tories expected to lose Clacton.

There's a bit of fear that 2010 wasn't Labour's floor. That it could sink further below what it got. The polls themselves don't show a great deal of CON to LAB switchers. There's an over-reliance on Lib Dem 2010 voters leaking back to Labour where it counts and an over expectation that UKIP won't damage them. What you could find is that in traditionally suburban seats like Bolton West that Labour hold by a gnats wing, the Lib Dem voters who have stayed with them from 1997, could leak disproportionately back to the Conservatives, gifting them the seat from Labour. There is also a problem in Scotland, which while it may be fleeting, currently shows Labour performing as badly (and the SNP performing as well) at Westminster as they are at Holyrood, with voting intentions at 2011 levels. While Labour are maxed out in Scotland, they can't really afford to fall back.

The irony of all this is that, back in 2010, part of the reason Ed's campaign got off the ground was exactly because he was supposed to be good at appealing to former-LD/Green/SNP types. He was meant to be the most capable of bringing those voters 'home'...

... because he, almost certainly, was.  (At least as far as LDs and Greens are concerned.)  The fact that Ed Miliband isn't a brilliant leader doesn't mean that he wasn't the best choice out of those available.  Some people mythologise his brother, but I see very little reason why.

I know crossbreaks can be dodgy, but in fact Labour are still getting close to a third of 2010 Lib Dem voters in most polls.  So that's not where the problem really is, and nor is there any evidence in Ashcroft's constituency polling for afleitch's Bolton West scenario: he's had double digit Labour leads there, including one quite recently.

I think there are two real problems for Labour at the moment.  One is Scotland, and again we're unfortunately relying on crossbreaks (which look awful for them) to see how bad it is, but certainly a scenario where the SNP win large numbers of currently Labour seats looks possible.  The other is a more general enthusiasm problem; Labour just aren't making much of a case to vote for them.  I'm still intending to vote for them, but really that's just a negative vote against the current government.  And of course there's UKIP, but they're damaging all three main parties.

[YL]

Norman Baker (Lib Dem, Lewes) has resigned as Home Office minister, with a parting shot at Theresa May and the Home Office's lack of interest in evidence-based policy:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/03/norman-baker-resigns-home-office-minister

(I'd have thought he might have noticed before now, but oh well.)

[YL]

What happens if no one gets close to a majority and the Lib Dems are far too small to push anyone over the top? Minority government? Is a grand coalition possible in the UK? Or would that make about as much sense as a grand coalition in the US?

Well, if the SNP continue to do as well as they are doing at the moment we may well find out.

I think the two main parties are too used to treating each other as enemies for a grand coalition to be likely, and their bases would hate it, so I suspect we'd see a minority government of some sort.  (I don't think either Labour or the Tories will do a formal deal with the SNP, so a cobbled together "rainbow coalition" as briefly proposed after 2010 isn't likely either.)  The SNP will presumably abstain on issues which they don't think affect Scotland, so it might not be as unstable as all that; even so, the next election would be very likely to be before 2020.

The nightmare scenario is Con/UKIP/DUP.

[YL]

Jeremy Thorpe is dead.

Guardian obituary

One for the alternative history fans: what would have happened if he had gone into coalition with Heath after February 1974?

[YL]

A judge says something particularly stupid and offensive:
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/dec/07/judge-resigns-racist-remark-about-victim-richard-hollingworth

[YL]

Remember "We're all in this together"?

Anyway, it's noticeable that a lot of the high tier UKIP target seats are in areas that are brown in that map: Thanet, Tendring (Clacton), east Lincolnshire, Yarmouth.  I suspect these figures might appear in a few purple leaflets.  There are some Labour targets affected too, especially in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire which seem to have taken a big hit for some reason.

[YL]

Is the police really investigating about paedophiles networks in the two Houses? That seems insane.

Edit: actually, it is:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11306575/Five-Westminster-paedophile-rings-probed-by-Scotland-Yard.html

Is this real life?

Basically there are all sorts of stories out there.  Some of them may be true, and if they are and they actually get out before the people concerned die, there's going to be a huge fuss.  But obviously you have to be very careful with them.