2015 UK Politics Megathread

[Greater vakolicci haven]

This poll is as hung as Britain's Parliament...

However, pretty sure UKIP is probably over represented because of the small but vocal ultra conservative types from the U.S.

Yeah be interesting to have two UKIP options, UKIP and UKIP (none British person) or something along those lines.

I doubt there is that many UKIP British voters here.

I think their could be 1...and that's it.

[Herargon]

Good luck with voting, people!

[Barrera]

For the foreigners:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix_i7l_Xhog

That was really informative. Thanks for sharing!

It actually changed my mind, too. (Though I'm not eligible to vote, so the poll will have to count!)

[Steamtopia]

I'm back. Quick hop and a skip to the polling station, which was empty at this time of day. Filled out two ballots. Lib Dems oddly missing from the local elections.

[The Archregimancy]

Come to think of it, Nick Clegg is the only party leader with an archaeology degree...

Social anthropology.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/04/10/jo ... eadership/

The degree is formally in anthropology, but at Cambridge this required him to study both archaeology and anthropology.

And anyway, I have an anthropology degree too.

[Shamhnan Insir]

Managed to evict a group of SNP supporters who were jeering outside the polling station. That's my good deed for the day.

[Steamtopia]

You can tell I live in a Tory stronghold because the only people outside the polling station were a Tory councilor and some random UKIP member who were measuring turnout.

[Shamhnan Insir]

You can tell I live in a Tory stronghold because the only people outside the polling station were a Tory councilor and some random UKIP member who were measuring turnout.

I live rural, apart from the supporter mob that I moved, there was a pick-up full of sheep, I'm not sure who they will be voting for.

[Herargon]

You can tell I live in a Tory stronghold because the only people outside the polling station were a Tory councilor and some random UKIP member who were measuring turnout.

I live rural, apart from the supporter mob that I moved, there was a pick-up full of sheep, I'm not sure who they will be voting for.

Plaid Cymru, maybe?

Edit: Now a more serious answer;from what I know, farmlands tend to be more conservative, except if these are poorer; then it tends to be more social democratic.

[Steamtopia]

You can tell I live in a Tory stronghold because the only people outside the polling station were a Tory councilor and some random UKIP member who were measuring turnout.

I live rural, apart from the supporter mob that I moved, there was a pick-up full of sheep, I'm not sure who they will be voting for.

I'm in a small suburb. It was completely empty, but I expected that at 8AM in a Tory stronghold.

[Shamhnan Insir]

I live rural, apart from the supporter mob that I moved, there was a pick-up full of sheep, I'm not sure who they will be voting for.

Plaid Cymru, maybe?

Edit: Now a more serious answer;from what I know, farmlands tend to be more conservative, except if these are poorer; then it tends to be more social democratic.

Unless they are voting tactically perhaps? I'm in the west of Scotland, no Plaid Cymru here. Maybe they went for the Green party....

[The Archregimancy]

Two things.
First, you are mistaken when you say "Even with Nationalist support, a Lab/LibDem coalition would have been four seats short" What you mean to say is "even with Scottish nationalist support..." Lab/Libdem/SNP/PC/SDLP would have had 327 seats which is a majority. As was said in the previous thread; maybe a Lab/Lib/nat agreement would have been politically difficult (some might argue) but it was arithmetically possible. The Libdems chose a coalition with the Tories, they didn't have to do that. It can be argued it was the best choice but it was still a choice.

Also, what many people are angry about is, not just that the Libdems couldn't implement everything in their own manifesto, but that they enabled the Conservatives to implement the unpopular things in the Tory manifesto, and even some unpopular things not in the Tory manifesto.

"We had to" is no excuse. "We stopped the Tories from being as bad as they would have been" is no excuse. The Libdems deliberately allowed the Tories to do things people don't like. That is why your party deserves a bad election tomorrow.

I was deliberately excluding Northern Ireland parties from the equation - and I note you left out Naomi Long

More seriously, while there was a choice of sorts, the fact remains that a coalition involving 363 seats and a majority for two parties was inherently more workable than a coalition involving a minority government of 315 seats propped up by informal support from two nationalist parties (each - rightly - with their own agenda) with 6 and 3 MPS respectively, 3 SDLP MPs, and 1 Alliance MP. I remain genuinely surprised that anyone thinks the latter would have proved viable in the political climate of May 2010, and in a period pre-dating the new fixed-term parliament dispensation.

Also, I'm not sure if it's widely realised the extent to which the Labour - LibDem negotiations were deliberately sabotaged by some senior figures Labour - by Ed Balls in particular. Balls denies it (he would, wouldn't he?), but it's a genuine belief in LibDem circles that Labour were so divided over the desirability of a coalition - even if the numbers could be made to work - that several senior Labour figures went out of their way to make sure the negotiations failed. Other senior Labour figures might have been sympathetic to a deal, but genuinely believed that they had lost the election and therefore had no moral right to govern.

The views that Phil Woolas expressed in 2010 are instructive here as they combine both views in a single short quote from a single senior Labour figure:

"I am not going to join a terrible marriage or go into a government with Chris Huhne. We have not got a moral mandate to govern. We might have been able to run an arithmetical government, but it would not be a real government. The Liberal Democrats in my part of the world are surrogate Tories, and if you speak to the Labour MPs that is the view of two thirds of them."

So if there was a choice, the choice was far more circumscribed than your panglossian view of the only remotely viable alternative might suggest, at least in part because Labour were unsure about what they wanted. Pardon the cliche, but it takes two to tango.

And I repeat, in any coalition government in any normal European country, the junior coalition partner will find itself being forced to help pass policies it disagrees with. That doesn't remotely mean that the junior coalition partner should be absolved from responsibility for those policies - on the contrary, the coalition is collectively responsible for its programme in government, and the LibDems will indeed pay a price for that collective responsibility - but it does mean that the junior coalition partner shouldn't be held to be somehow uniquely or disproportionately culpable.

[Steamtopia]

Oh good god. The Times screwed up and used the hashtag "GE0125". Now it's trending.

[L Ron Cupboard]

So the UKIP candidate for mayor of Leicester is called Willem 'Dutch' Veldhuizen ... keep those immigrants out Dutch, keep those immigrants out.

[Bittermanistan]

POLLS ARE OPEN HYPE MODE ACTIVATED

FINGERS CROSSED NIGEY

WE CAN DO IT

VOTE UKIP

[Steamtopia]

POLLS ARE OPEN HYPE MODE ACTIVATED

FINGERS CROSSED NIGEY

WE CAN DO IT

VOTE UKIP

No. Nigel won't even win his seat. UKIP will be lucky if they win their maximum prediction of 3 seats.

[The Archregimancy]

well i voted lib dem, not clegg specifically

Right, but I have reason to suspect that most LibDem voters in 2010 voted for the party because of the short lived Cleggmania.

LibDem share of the vote in 2005: 22%

LibDem share of the vote in 2010: 23%

Average LibDem polling figures in the 9 days between Brown calling the election and the first televised debate: 19.64%
(figures for latter personally derived from data here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_po ... ction#2010)

Conclusion: final impact of 'Cleggmania' on 2010 LibDem voting share was actually fairly marginal; it certainly didn't represent 'most LibDem voters in 2010'.

[Steamtopia]

So the UKIP candidate for mayor of Leicester is called Willem 'Dutch' Veldhuizen ... keep those immigrants out Dutch, keep those immigrants out.

Reminds me of the Monster Raving Looney's 2010 candidate for the constituency I'm moving to in a month's time.

Baron von Thunderclap.

[Teemant]

I live rural, apart from the supporter mob that I moved, there was a pick-up full of sheep, I'm not sure who they will be voting for.

I'm in a small suburb. It was completely empty, but I expected that at 8AM in a Tory stronghold.

Because they are working people.

[Steamtopia]

I'm in a small suburb. It was completely empty, but I expected that at 8AM in a Tory stronghold.

Because they are working people.

I'm in one of the richest parts of Surrey. Everyone's either retired and rich, so they're sleeping, or working and rich, so they're working. And then there's me, who has a flexible schedule.

[Teemant]

Because they are working people.

I'm in one of the richest parts of Surrey. Everyone's either retired and rich, so they're sleeping, or working and rich, so they're working. And then there's me, who has a flexible schedule.

How much turnout will be there in your opinion? Will it be at least like 60% or how has it been in previous years?

[Steamtopia]

I'm in one of the richest parts of Surrey. Everyone's either retired and rich, so they're sleeping, or working and rich, so they're working. And then there's me, who has a flexible schedule.

How much turnout will be there in your opinion? Will it be at least like 60% or how has it been in previous years?

Turnout is expected to be higher than 2010. By what degree, it's unclear.

[Teemant]

Maybe newspapers will reveal exit polls later in the day (if they do these in United Kingdom).

I'm not UK citizen but I wouldn't know who to vote right now. I would support Conservatives but I'm not against EU - I think there might be people in UK with this dilemma. Or people who would support Labour but don't want to be part of EU.

[Steamtopia]

Maybe newspapers will reveal exit polls later in the day (if they do these in United Kingdom).

After the voting, possibly. Not during.

I'm not UK citizen but I wouldn't know who to vote right now. I would support Conservatives but I'm not against EU - I think there might be people in UK with this dilemma. Or people who would support Labour but don't want to be part of EU.

Pro-EU Tories tend to vote Lib Dem. Anti-EU Labourites tend to vote UKIP.

[Charlotte Ryberg]

Maybe newspapers will reveal exit polls later in the day (if they do these in United Kingdom).

I'm not UK citizen but I wouldn't know who to vote right now. I would support Conservatives but I'm not against EU - I think there might be people in UK with this dilemma. Or people who would support Labour but don't want to be part of EU.

Exit polls are revealed at 22:00 in London (17:00 EDT).