UK General Election - May 7th 2015 (The Official Campaign Thread)

[Simfan34]

Question: is there any indication that there are people in England whose primary issue is Scotland, that is, preserving the Union? If so, what kind of people would they be? I'd imagine they'd be "one nation Tory" types but perhaps I'm projecting- at this point it'd probably be my main concern going into the election.

Would people be willing to vote strategically on this issue- vote for the party that's most likely to keep the SNP out?

[Zanas]

Would people be willing to vote strategically on this issue- vote for the party that's most likely to keep the SNP out?

I don't really get where you're going : if they vote in England, their vote technically cannot "keep the SNP out". There could be some of this kind in Scotland, yes, but I don't see what they could do about it if there were in England.

Or do you mean voters inclined on voting Tory rather than Lab because the Tories won't give in as easily as Labour to SNP ? I doubt there are much of these, most voters are primarily concerned with the economy, and maybe immigration or the EU, not Scotland.

[rob in cal]

On aspect of the Greens that I haven't found much mention of is that in 2010 they only ran about 300 candidates, and were missing in some of the marginal seats.  This year they are running in almost all of the England marginal seats, I believe.

[Oakvale]

Question: is there any indication that there are people in England whose primary issue is Scotland, that is, preserving the Union? If so, what kind of people would they be? I'd imagine they'd be "one nation Tory" types but perhaps I'm projecting- at this point it'd probably be my main concern going into the election.

Would people be willing to vote strategically on this issue- vote for the party that's most likely to keep the SNP out?

I can't imagine many people like that exist as opposed to people whipped up into a state of hysteria about the SNP controlling a Labour government or whatever the Mail is screeching about.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I imagine those that do care very strongly about this are rather unlikely to be Labour voters anyway.

[Silent Hunter]

Yeah tons of people say they're voting green to shake up the system, or because labour isn't left wing enough.

Rule 11: A hundred people on social media doesn’t make a representative sample.

[Lurker]

bar for the SP I think Labour is the leftiest of the European large centre-left parties. anyway green voters would be unimportant if Labour could tear the left side of the LD back in

What is the SP?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Most people in England and Wales don't care much about Scotland (look at a map: why would they?) and their votes will not be influenced in the slightest by the future of the Union or the possible influence of the SNP in a hung parliament or whatever. This leaves us (forgive me for absurd overgeneralisation now) with a few pretty specific groups; a subspecies of old fashioned ultra-patriotic Conservative (the sort who unironically collect coronation mugs), people who are patriotic in the same way as the first group but who are not partisan and yet vote, and people who were born in Scotland but now live in England (needless to say quite a few were pretty apoplectic about the events of last year). The first group are not going to vote for parties to the left of the Tories, the second group are an important bunch of swing voters and the Tories are clearly trying to spook the hell out of them currently, and my experience of the latter group is that they tend to be pretty partisan for whichever party they support (which reflects the fact that a disproportionate percentage have military links or a connection to historic heavy industry) so probably won't be swung much; the Corby Scots don't need an excuse to vote Labour, for instance. Of course those who are more transiently out of Scotland are less likely to be hostile to threats to the Union.

[King of Kensington]

So is Ed Miliband now some sort of "hipster-geek"?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/21/ed-milibands-slow-walk-to-cool?CMP=fb_gu

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Most of the people who will be voting Green this time will have voted for the LibDems (not Labour) in 2010. I'm still not sure how they'll do in actual percentage terms, and it is worth noting that if they poll a solid thousand votes in a lot of places but no more, that could still be a lot of money they'll be shelling out in lost deposits.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I'm sure they'll basically resemble their Canadian counterparts and collapse when people actually go into the booth. I think they stand a decent chance of being second in a handful of seats like Bristol W and Sheffield C, but I highly doubt their 'surge' (if you can call it that) will last.

I think there will be some regional pockets of Green strength that may save a handful of Coalition MP's, like Mulholland and Huppert; but really guessing at this point is a crapshot.

[You kip if you want to...]

Most of the people who will be voting Green this time will have voted for the LibDems (not Labour) in 2010. I'm still not sure how they'll do in actual percentage terms, and it is worth noting that if they poll a solid thousand votes in a lot of places but no more, that could still be a lot of money they'll be shelling out in lost deposits.

I think from the LibDem experience in 2010 and the general demographic of Green voters, there's some chance they're overpolling. A lot won't turn up on the day.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My thinking has been for a while to watch university seats: there could well be some substantial LDem-to-Green movement in many of those, particularly those held by the LibDems. Of course this will mostly be terrible news for the LibDem incumbents, even if not quite as awful as LDem-to-Labour movement. A loss of half a vote (effectively) is better than the loss of a whole vote, but...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I almost don't know why I'm posting this as it's a) by ComRes and b) is a marginals poll (urgh). But because I'm good to you...

This is apparently a poll of UKIP target seats.* Results and changes on 2010 are:

Conservatives 39% (-7.3)
Labour 28% (+1.7)
UK Independence Party 21% (+15.4)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-10.2)
Green Party 4% (+3.6)
Others 3% (-0.8)

As all of these are coastal (well... estuarial in a couple of cases but that's close enough...) there's plenty of salt around to help those numbers go down!

_{*South Thanet, Boston and Skegness, Thurrock, Forest of Dean, Great Yarmouth, North Thanet, East Worthing and Shoreham, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, South Basildon and East Thurrock, and Castle Point.}

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

My feeling is that so much of the uni vote has been lost for good (even before the Green rise) for this election, the only thing that will save them is anti-coalitin voters to be split between different parties. That's why I'm almost starting to feel that Clegg is in a weaker position than more ... generic Lib Dems like Mulholland. The DPM is such a disliked figure amongst students that I doubt many students would bother wasting their vote, but perhaps a more neutral figure will end up with students casting votes for Greens instead.p

My thinking has been for a while to watch university seats: there could well be some substantial LDem-to-Green movement in many of those, particularly those held by the LibDems. Of course this will mostly be terrible news for the LibDem incumbents, even if not quite as awful as LDem-to-Labour movement. A loss of half a vote (effectively) is better than the loss of a whole vote, but...

Thing is, the Greens are probably gonna save some uni seats for the LibDems - Bristol, Leeds NW ie.

Thing is, uni seats are only a very small minority anyway and aren't hugely important in the grand scheme  of things. I highly doubt the Greens will make an impact on the Tory-Lab marginals where the election will be won.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

LMFAO a Young Tory in his twenties tried to start a Cameronettes fandom claiming to be a  thirteen year old girl. You can't just beat that grassroots Milifandom Tories,

[You kip if you want to...]

LMFAO a Young Tory in his twenties tried to start a Cameronettes fandom claiming to be a  thirteen year old girl. You can't just beat that grassroots Milifandom Tories,

Tory Future are an interesting bunch.

[Oakvale]

LMFAO a Young Tory in his twenties tried to start a Cameronettes fandom claiming to be a  thirteen year old girl. You can't just beat that grassroots Milifandom Tories,

What's his username on here?

[YL]

I almost don't know why I'm posting this as it's a) by ComRes and b) is a marginals poll (urgh). But because I'm good to you...

This is apparently a poll of UKIP target seats.* Results and changes on 2010 are:

Conservatives 39% (-7.3)
Labour 28% (+1.7)
UK Independence Party 21% (+15.4)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-10.2)
Green Party 4% (+3.6)
Others 3% (-0.8)

As all of these are coastal (well... estuarial in a couple of cases but that's close enough...) there's plenty of salt around to help those numbers go down!

_{*South Thanet, Boston and Skegness, Thurrock, Forest of Dean, Great Yarmouth, North Thanet, East Worthing and Shoreham, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, South Basildon and East Thurrock, and Castle Point.}

This does not look very good for the purple peril at first sight, but surely those constituencies are too heterogeneous for this to be a sensible poll, even if the sampling is competent?

[Phony Moderate]

I almost don't know why I'm posting this

To catch up with BRTD?

[You kip if you want to...]

I almost don't know why I'm posting this as it's a) by ComRes and b) is a marginals poll (urgh). But because I'm good to you...

This is apparently a poll of UKIP target seats.* Results and changes on 2010 are:

Conservatives 39% (-7.3)
Labour 28% (+1.7)
UK Independence Party 21% (+15.4)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-10.2)
Green Party 4% (+3.6)
Others 3% (-0.8)

As all of these are coastal (well... estuarial in a couple of cases but that's close enough...) there's plenty of salt around to help those numbers go down!

_{*South Thanet, Boston and Skegness, Thurrock, Forest of Dean, Great Yarmouth, North Thanet, East Worthing and Shoreham, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, South Basildon and East Thurrock, and Castle Point.}

This does not look very good for the purple peril at first sight, but surely those constituencies are too heterogeneous for this to be a sensible poll, even if the sampling is competent?

http://news.sky.com/story/1324855/ukip-poll-reveals-12-most-wanted-seats

They're all the Tory seats that UKIP named as targets last year.

[Harry Hayfield]

I almost don't know why I'm posting this as it's a) by ComRes and b) is a marginals poll (urgh). But because I'm good to you...

This is apparently a poll of UKIP target seats.* Results and changes on 2010 are:

Conservatives 39% (-7.3)
Labour 28% (+1.7)
UK Independence Party 21% (+15.4)
Liberal Democrats 5% (-10.2)
Green Party 4% (+3.6)
Others 3% (-0.8)

As all of these are coastal (well... estuarial in a couple of cases but that's close enough...) there's plenty of salt around to help those numbers go down!

_{*South Thanet, Boston and Skegness, Thurrock, Forest of Dean, Great Yarmouth, North Thanet, East Worthing and Shoreham, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, South Basildon and East Thurrock, and Castle Point.}

UK-Elect says all of them would be Con HOLDS. Best result is in Castle Point (30%), worse reslt is in Thanet South (18%)

[Diouf]

Regarding the discussion of which seats the SNP might not win

http://may2015.com/featured/election-2015-these-are-the-13-scottish-seats-the-snp-could-struggle-to-win/

Two fairly likely SNP gains
Dunbartonshire East (Lib Dem-held)
Glenrothes (Labour)

Four Labour seats where the SNP are slight favourites
Renfrewshire East (all Labour-held)
Edinburgh South
Paisley and Renfrewshire North
Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill

The four most closely fought seats
Dumfries and Galloway (Labour-held but a Tory and SNP target)
Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Labour-held)
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (Tory-held; their sole 2010 seat)
Dunfermline and West Fife (Labour-held)

Three seats where the SNP are likely to fall short
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Lib Dem-held; a three-way marginal between them, the Tories and SNP)
Glasgow North East (Labour-held)
Orkney and Shetland (Lib Dem-held)

[Vosem]

So is Charles Kennedy going to lose then? I don't see his seat on that list.

[ObserverIE]

Prediction: Yougov's poll tomorrow will show a 3 point Labour lead, thus returning us back to the beginning.

Con 33 (-2), Labour 34, UKIP 14 (+1), LDem 7, Greens 5, Others 7 (+1)