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

[Silent Hunter]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

So they're predicting with 90% confidence that 324-236 or 244-325 could happen.  How helpful.

That's the problem with these estimates, they're less a ball park and more Hyde Park.

[Silent Hunter]

Only caught the last quarter of this (prior engagement, namely a dress rehearsal for a Passion Play), but very hard to call that one.

Sturgeon is leading in the YouGov poll so far (with half counted), with Farage second and Miliband third.

[Silent Hunter]

You Gov Debate Result: Sturgeon wins

 Cameron: 18% Miliband: 15% Clegg: 10% Farage: 20% Bennett: 5% Sturgeon: 28% Wood: 4% 1117 GB adults

So, the 'winner' isn't standing in over 90% of the seats...

[Silent Hunter]

Looks like the polls really show a 4 way tie between Cameron, Miliband, Sturgeon, and Farage.  In that sense this should be seen as a victory for Sturgeon and Farage.

And an utter defeat for Wood and Bennett.

[Silent Hunter]

Come 8 May, some pollsters are going to look very stupid.

[Silent Hunter]

YouGov: Con 34, Labour 33, UKIP 13, LDem 10, Nats 5, Greens 4

Now, I'm a YouGov member myself, but their daily tracker is all over the map!

[Silent Hunter]

Exactly. Worth remembering British nuke development began under Labour.

[Silent Hunter]

It's a stupid question re Blair. Of course most people will 'think' its a bad thing because most people 'think' TB is unpopular when in fact he's a good opposite of Miliband. I know Blair is a warmongering tory according to most labourites but he's still a voice of reason on the EU

Nearly all of the people who won't vote Labour because Tony Blair turned up weren't voting Labour anyway. That ship not only sailed, its been scrapped under the SDSR.

(It was estimated in 2005 that Iraq cost Labour 3% and 3% only)

[Silent Hunter]

Ashcroft (and the pundits who are riskily taking his word/polls as gospel) could wake up with plenty of egg on their faces on May 8th if the (former) Lord hasn't pulled it off properly.

I'd say his constituency polls are better than nothing and I've used them in my own predictions, but the jury is still out on that first part.

[Silent Hunter]

If you take them all, then on average the Tory vote is only down 0.3% on 2010, with Labour up 3.6. That's a swing of less than 2%.

With the Lib Dem collapse that's more than enough to ensure Cameron needs to think about calling the movers in.

[Silent Hunter]

If you take them all, then on average the Tory vote is only down 0.3% on 2010, with Labour up 3.6. That's a swing of less than 2%.

Exactly the same as the national share changes in 1992 compared to 1987...

In 1987, the Tories won a landslide; in 1992, they barely got a working majority. In 2010, they didn't even get a majority.

Also, the thing with polling averages from polls with widely varying methodologies is a bit like Amir Khan and Vitali Klitscho having a boxing match; interesting but produces no meaningful result.

[Silent Hunter]

I thought The big 3 don't organize in NI? since when did that policy change

In the case of the Conservatives in the late 1980s (see ObserverIE's post) although before 1974 the Ulster Unionist Party was technically the NI wing of the Conservative Party. That particular weird little project basically folded by the middle of the 1990s

Didn't the UUP help prop up Major's later years after his majority dwindled to nothing?

Also, a bunch of Tories got the whip withdrawn temporarily over Europe.

[Silent Hunter]

George Galloway runs for a seat, it gets ugly

[Silent Hunter]

UKIP have a problem in that their only national figure of note is Farage. If he had died in that plane crash on the polling day last time, they'd be a much smaller party.

And there's no guarantee he'll win Thanet South this time, which is his personal requirement to stay leader.

[Silent Hunter]

However, the right-wing media will of course go crazy if Ed forms a government despite the Conservatives being the largest party. Even if there is no real possibility for Cameron to gather a majority.

Of course they will; I can imagine some possible civil disobedience if that happened.

[Silent Hunter]

Is there any mainland Scottish seat which anyone feels confident that the SNP won't win?

A good number of the Glasgow ones.

[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.

[Silent Hunter]

Galloway will be reelected.

And if he is, Labour will probably take it to court over 'false statements' made about that the arranged marriage.

[Silent Hunter]

How's everyone voting then?

Labour, of course.

[Silent Hunter]

Jack Bauer was in the UK last year... should have called him then.

[Silent Hunter]

Grand coalition?

Impossible.

If that happened, I would cut up my Labour membership card on the spot.

[Silent Hunter]

The words "Too close to call" sum up this election entirely.