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

[bore]

"If you want to control immigration it's a three sided coin" - David Cameron

Politicians are morons

[bore]

So, a generation  = two years, or so, in Scotland.

I mean that's true in parts of Glasgow

[bore]

This isn't at all embarrassing.

[bore]

Scotland is going to be an utter bloodbath.

Basically, Labour have no clue what to do about their Scottish problem.

The best they can hope for this time is to win over plenty of Tory/LibDem tacticals and they'll hold onto about 10 as a best case scenario.

And to think that voting SNP will always mean voting for a Labour government by proxy is, quite frankly, fanciful.

What I'm seeing is a lot of image of people saying "we voted Labour in 2010, etc. and got a Conservative Government - vote SNP to ensure Scotland's voice is always heard".

I think the only way Labour will be able to fight back in Scotland is to support independence (or FFA at least) - but it could be too late for them now.

That is the one of the worst arguments for or against anything that I've ever heard.

[bore]

Scotland is going to be an utter bloodbath.

Basically, Labour have no clue what to do about their Scottish problem.

The best they can hope for this time is to win over plenty of Tory/LibDem tacticals and they'll hold onto about 10 as a best case scenario.

And to think that voting SNP will always mean voting for a Labour government by proxy is, quite frankly, fanciful.

What I'm seeing is a lot of image of people saying "we voted Labour in 2010, etc. and got a Conservative Government - vote SNP to ensure Scotland's voice is always heard".

I think the only way Labour will be able to fight back in Scotland is to support independence (or FFA at least) - but it could be too late for them now.

That is the one of the worst arguments for or against anything that I've ever heard.

In what way?

A majority of Scottish voters want Full Fiscal Autonomy (according to polling) and the only party proposing it (who have a chance of winning a seat) is the SNP. The SNP generally act in the Scottish national interest - unlike the unionist parties (as they have to worry about winning votes elsewhere in the UK).

Maybe it becomes clearer why exactly that argument is so bad if you try and phrase it as a syllogism:

P1 In 2010 Scotland mainly voted for Labour
P2 After 2010 the Conservatives formed a government
C Therefore Scotland should not vote for Labour

It's functionally equivalent to saying the people of Perth should vote for Labour this time, because in 2010 they voted for the SNP and got a Tory government.

Added to that, even if the SNP had won 59 seats in 2010, a Conservative government would still have been formed with the SNP completely powerless to stop it.

[bore]

It's worth noting that it is conventionally assumed that one in ten polls from a given pollster will be 'wrong', due to the unavoidable difficulties of getting a genuinely accurate sample and so on. I mention this specifically because the internals of this one are really screwy: I suspect that they (rather than the odd headline figures) are why ICM have suggested that salt is required before consumption.

I seem to remember every other ICM getting labeled as an outlier...

Maybe they're just really really really really unlucky.

[bore]

Good to see the LIB DEM SURGE!!111!!! is definitely a real thing that's happening.

[bore]

I think my own seat of Edinburgh South is even less likely to fall than Edinburgh North and Leith and may even be one of the last in the country. In 2010 it had the second lowest number of SNP votes in the country after Orkney and Shetland and the major compeitition to Labour last time were the Lib Dems, who are now running pretty much no campaign at all.

For reference, these are the Edinburgh constituency referendum results:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[bore]

To state the obvious, if we're talking about an SNP performance which is short of a clean sweep then the question to answer is whether their vote pattern follows 2011 or 2014.

I think the constituency polls and the fact that this Westminster surge is largely the result of the referendum suggests that the SNP vote pattern will follow 2014, so I can definitely see Labour hanging on at least in South and North and Leith.

The other important thing to note is that even if the SNP vote pattern follows 2011 there are factors in Edinburgh that would still suggest a Labour overperformance. For instance, in Edinburgh Southern the SNP got 29.4% and Labour got 27.4%, but because of Mike Pringle's popularity the Lib Dems got 24.6%.  The Lib Dems will get a fraction of that this time and you'd expect those more of those votes to flow to Labour than the SNP.

[bore]

I'm sympathetic to the argument that if the UK leaves the EU then the facts have changed sufficiently to justify another referendum. That said, the obvious answer as to why the SNP should rule out another vote is because they basically promised to during the referendum campaign. It seems a little rich to castigate the unionist for rowing back on devo max promises if they're going to do the same.

[bore]

I'm fairly certain Labour will win Edinburgh South.

(I'm mostly posting this in the hope I can smugly post it on election night)

[bore]

A substantial number of English voters would rather see the United Kingdom break up than accept a Scottish nationalist role in the Westminster government, according to a new poll.  The Survation survey for the Mail on Sunday found that more than two-fifths (44%) said that they would rather see Scotland given its independence than have a minority Labour government rule with help from the Scottish National Party, against 31% who said they would prefer the UK to stay together.  And more than one-third of English voters (34%) said that an election result which led to Ed Miliband running the UK with the backing of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon would not be "legitimate" - just a fraction fewer than the 35% who said that it would be legitimate.
 

The number of people saying that result would be illegitimate is strikingly similar to the number of people voting tory, and, well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

[bore]

I'll be the one vote for Scottish Labour.

[bore]

Yeah, those predictions seem overly credulous with regard to constituency polling (which makes sense in America where you have multiple tried and tested polls by multiple agencies but less so here)  but otherwise just Conventional Wisdom. I mean it's definitely not a bad guess, but you get the feeling it's just people plugging in a unifrom swing plus some ashcroft polls to a formula.

The one analysis that does seem off is the Orkney and Shetland one:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[bore]

I'm sorely tempted to vote Tory now.

[bore]

Labour - 92
SNP - 91
Green - 89
Lib Dem - 86
Plaid - 84
Sinn Fein - 77
BNP - 46
UKIP - 44
Conservative - 43
DUP - 24

[bore]

No one really knows what will happen in Scotland, but Labour could be losing almost all their seats.

Also I'd be wary about quoting the 538 forecast, firstly because, as I said, no one really knows, but also because it doesn't even seem to be a reasonable prediction (at least in Scotland). Apparently Labour are holding Dunfermline and West Fife by the largest margin, and the Lib Dems will get 22% there, which is just implausible. If Labour are reduced to a rump of 4 or 5 seats, I'm almost certain Dunferrmline and West Fife won't be one of them.