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

[Joe Republic]

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

[Joe Republic]

Question:  Does today's Conservative Party still like to talk about the days of Thatcher with misty eyes, a la the Republicans with Reagan?

[Joe Republic]

Forgive my ignorance as a Canadian about UK politics. What is the Liberal Dem platform about ? Are they a more left wing socialist party than Labour ? Or are they moderate heroes ?

That's been my understanding.  The party was born out of a merger between a splinter party of right-wing Labourites and the (classical liberal) Liberals.  Their voter base today appears to still be spiritually inherited from both of those.

Other than constitutional and electoral reform (which is mostly self-serving) and being firmly pro-EU (which I don't know if that's a modern thing, or another policy going all the way back to the pre-SDP and Liberal days), I really have no idea what else they stand for.

[Joe Republic]

^ Makes sense.

So tell me, is there still any SDP ancestry left in the Lib Dems' voter base?

And is their support for the EU a recent thing?  Or could you trace that back to the pre-Alliance days as well?

[Joe Republic]

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?

[Joe Republic]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ukip-voter-says-my-buttocks-5528390

[Joe Republic]

It looks like the Tory tactic to paint Miliband as a womanizing badboy has backfired.

are you a #milifan?

This is terrible news for Ed Miliband.

[Joe Republic]

Um...

So that's what happened to the Natural Law Party.

[Joe Republic]

One thing I have learned is never to try talking to real British people about the election (outside of this forum, o/c), as it turns out that I actually know more about it than they do.  One person today claimed that UKIP were poised to win, and any other party's victory meant that the UK was "guaranteed" to join the Eurozone within the next few years.  I thanked them for helping a stupid American understand these real truths.

[Joe Republic]

So what exactly is going to be Miliband's line when he inevitably goes into a coalition with Sturgeon?

[Joe Republic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5wPhauCSc

[Joe Republic]

https://uk.isidewith.com/political-quiz

97% Liberal Democrats
92% Labour
89% Green
73% Conservative
56% UKIP

Fair enough, I guess.    That's who I supported in 2010.  I still won't be upset when they are delivered a good thrashing this time, however.

[Joe Republic]

The most frustrating thing about this campaign is not the consistently tied polling leading us to have no idea what will happen tomorrow, but rather Torie's habitual misspelling of the word 'Labour'.

[Joe Republic]

The most frustrating thing about this campaign is not the consistently tied polling leading us to have no idea what will happen tomorrow, but rather Torie's habitual misspelling of the word 'Labour'.

The American spelling is shorter, and well, I'm American. Sensitive chap aren't you?

As are about half the posters in this thread.  But hey, I'm sorry your fingers don't have the energy to make a pit-stop half-way between the 'o' and 'r' keys.  Old age must suck.