UK General Discussion

[YL]

And another big Ashcroft poll, this time a "marginals" poll.  I guess I prefer this use of his money to bankrolling the Conservative Party...

Anyway, I'm always a little bit dubious about this sort of poll, but the results on the Con/Lab battleground are not particularly surprising, suggesting 93 Labour gains from the Tories, although he says that the swing is a bit lower in the marginals than the national swing.  If you believe the figures, they're not good news for the Lib Dems: he shows a 5% swing from Lib Dem to Con in LD seats where the Tories are second, and a 17% swing from Lib Dem to Lab in LD seats where Lab are second.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Those mostly sound like 'common sense' findings; pretty obvious that Labour have recovered most in Labour areas but have still picked up elsewhere, pretty obvious that the situation in Con/Lib marginals is maybe a little mixed but basically negative overall for the LibDems, pretty obvious that the situation in Lab/Lib marginals is utterly catastrophic for the LibDems.

[You kip if you want to...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=u2bicGi6Kfo

Chuka's starstruck.

[You kip if you want to...]

Ashdown calls on activists to help "win" a second term.

No party that loses 10-15% on their previous election has a mandate to be part of the government. Wasn't that part of the reasoning they had for saying no to Labour in 2010?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21724754

[Benj]

Ashdown calls on activists to help "win" a second term.

No party that loses 10-15% on their previous election has a mandate to be part of the government. Wasn't that part of the reasoning they had for saying no to Labour in 2010?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21724754

They said no to Labour because the two parties didn't have a majority together, so they couldn't form a government, and Labour didn't want to go scrounging for votes from the nationalists and NI parties. But, hey, feel free to believe your own propaganda.

[You kip if you want to...]

Ashdown calls on activists to help "win" a second term.

No party that loses 10-15% on their previous election has a mandate to be part of the government. Wasn't that part of the reasoning they had for saying no to Labour in 2010?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21724754

They said no to Labour because the two parties didn't have a majority together, so they couldn't form a government, and Labour didn't want to go scrounging for votes from the nationalists and NI parties. But, hey, feel free to believe your own propaganda.

That was the primary reason, yes.

[minionofmidas]

Ashdown calls on activists to help "win" a second term.

No party that loses 10-15% on their previous election has a mandate to be part of the government. Wasn't that part of the reasoning they had for saying no to Labour in 2010?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21724754

They said no to Labour because the two parties didn't have a majority together, so they couldn't form a government, and Labour didn't want to go scrounging for votes from the nationalists and NI parties. But, hey, feel free to believe your own propaganda.

No, that's why Labour didn't make an effort either. The LDs didn't because they (their leadership) preferred the Tories anyways and those two parties did have a majority together. They pretended to talk to Labour at all (and spouted stuff along the lines of what's sarcastically spat back in the post above afterwards) because they knew that their voters expected them to.

[Leftbehind]

Ashdown calls on activists to help "win" a second term.

No party that loses 10-15% on their previous election has a mandate to be part of the government. Wasn't that part of the reasoning they had for saying no to Labour in 2010?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21724754

They said no to Labour because the two parties didn't have a majority together, so they couldn't form a government, and Labour didn't want to go scrounging for votes from the nationalists and NI parties. But, hey, feel free to believe your own propaganda.

Even before the election Clegg made it clear they were going to ask the party with the most seats (code for Tories). Even if Labour had the seats he would have went with the Tories, I've seen nothing to suggest it was arithmetic working against his preference (in a way Hughes and Kennedy have made clear since) and plenty to suggest he's more at home with Tories - like the FDP to the CDU.

[You kip if you want to...]

Ashdown calls on activists to help "win" a second term.

No party that loses 10-15% on their previous election has a mandate to be part of the government. Wasn't that part of the reasoning they had for saying no to Labour in 2010?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21724754

They said no to Labour because the two parties didn't have a majority together, so they couldn't form a government, and Labour didn't want to go scrounging for votes from the nationalists and NI parties. But, hey, feel free to believe your own propaganda.

Even before the election Clegg made it clear they were going to ask the party with the most seats (code for Tories). Even if Labour had the seats he would have went with the Tories, I've seen nothing to suggest it was arithmetic working against his preference (in a way Hughes and Kennedy have made clear since) and plenty to suggest he's more at home with Tories - like the FDP to the CDU.

Things'll get dicey if there's another hung parliament in 2015. Labour will at least want Clegg's head (in the same way they demanded Brown's and then still said no) and even then, the rank-and-file will struggle to stomach it after 2010-15.

But this is interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/20/miliband-clegg-relationship-improving

On another topic, all eyes were on Theresa May today. It's being seen as a bit've a warning shot at the PM, of sorts. Don't see how she'd play with the public as leader, she comes off as abrasive to me and she always seems to be bested by Yvette Cooper.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-speech-leaves-tories-in-no-doubt--shes-after-the-top-job-8527924.html

[Silent Hunter]

This whole idea of pulling out of the ECHR disturbs me. How many dictatorships would cite our example in response?

[You kip if you want to...]

This whole idea of pulling out of the ECHR disturbs me. How many dictatorships would cite our example in response?

Just goes to show that UKIP holds more sway with this government than the Liberals ever have.

Truly disturbing.

[Silent Hunter]

Huhne and Pryce both get 8 months, which means they'll probably be out in 3 or 4.

[You kip if you want to...]

Erm, Dr. Fox, your crazy is showing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/11/tories-reverse-socialist-coup-liam-fox

[Leftbehind]

He's just promoting the same capitalist propaganda the vast majority of the media and politicians do.

[You kip if you want to...]

Reading this pretty interesting article about Yvette Cooper and Theresa May and the leadership talk that follows them both around these days.

Just the right kind've "that'll never happen" that gets backbenchers going.


What I don't understand though is this "if Yvette had ran in 2010, she would've won" train of thought that's developed over the past year. I think people forget how she was simply "Mrs. Balls" for the first 13 years of her parliamentary career. Since opposition on the other hand...

[You kip if you want to...]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/12/cameron-pleads-for-unity-_n_2863056.html?1363124134&utm_hp_ref=uk

This is probably the most open admission we'll get that Cameron's worried...

[You kip if you want to...]

Just updated my charts of the YouGov/Sunday Times polling. Worth a look with the budget coming up, I suppose.

[Silent Hunter]

What I don't understand though is this "if Yvette had ran in 2010, she would've won" train of thought that's developed over the past year. I think people forget how she was simply "Mrs. Balls" for the first 13 years of her parliamentary career. Since opposition on the other hand...

With a recession that bad, no Labour leader would have won.

[You kip if you want to...]

What I don't understand though is this "if Yvette had ran in 2010, she would've won" train of thought that's developed over the past year. I think people forget how she was simply "Mrs. Balls" for the first 13 years of her parliamentary career. Since opposition on the other hand...

With a recession that bad, no Labour leader would have won.

I mean the leadership election.

[Smid]

Sorry to be a pain, but when you next update them, would you mind putting some zeros or blanks for the months prior to September 2010 for Miliband? Just make it easier to compare with the charts above and below, not that it really makes much of a difference, just a friendly request.

[You kip if you want to...]

Sorry to be a pain, but when you next update them, would you mind putting some zeros or blanks for the months prior to September 2010 for Miliband? Just make it easier to compare with the charts above and below, not that it really makes much of a difference, just a friendly request.

Done!

[morgieb]

How are all the leaders so unpopular?

[minionofmidas]

How are all the leaders so unpopular?

They suck.

[You kip if you want to...]

How are all the leaders so unpopular?

Very much a "plague on all your houses" feeling amongst the public as a hangover from the expenses scandal.

David Cameron's seen as an out-of-touch Etonian who can't control his party and last year's budget was a disaster and blatantly proved what people think about him, Ed Miliband's seen as an economically incompetent union-funded Brownite with the charisma of a leather boot who has problems with the party because he's not the one "they" picked and Nick Clegg's just... Nick Clegg.

The first approval poll (ever, I believe) for Farage was out today actually. He's got a +9 net. How disgusting.

[Sol]

As something of a British politics novice, why is Clegg so hated?