UK General Election 2010

[Chumblywumbly]

With the pre-election budget out today, six weeks to go, and the polls still indicating a hung parliament is the most likely outcome, what are folks' thoughts on what will be the closest UK election in well over a decade?

[Sionis Prioratus]

I'm glad the Treaty of Lisbon has been ratified and is now binding.

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

It's going be close. Unbearably close.

Either the Conservatives will scrape through and just about about make it, or the Labour Party will cling to power with co-operation from the Liberal Democrats.

Personally, I'm pushing for a Conservative victory. Their economic policies will make life hell for a great deal of people, but if we don't want the country to spiral downward into a shit hole some serious economic reform is required. On the bright side the Conservatives should start to address our numerous social concerns.

Otherwise, I'm just sitting on the sidelines, I'll cast my vote, urge everyone to vote Conservative for altruistic reasons (haha the irony) and leave it at that. It'll be a shit storm no matter who wins.

[My 3rd Floor Flat]

I'm glad the Treaty of Lisbon has been ratified and is now binding.

Fingers crossed that the Conservatives find a way to worm us out that appalling mess.

[Jello Biafra]

Personally, I'm pushing for a Conservative victory. Their economic policies will make life hell for a great deal of people, but if we don't want the country to spiral downward into a shit hole some serious economic reform is required. On the bright side the Conservatives should start to address our numerous social concerns.

Conservatives seldomly address social concerns in a positive manner.

[Tokos]

Conservatives seldomly address social concerns in a positive manner.

I would like to know of a recent government that has.

(if you're voting 3rd party then, okay, you've a point)

[The Archregimancy]

It's going be close. Unbearably close.

Either the Conservatives will scrape through and just about about make it, or the Labour Party will cling to power with co-operation from the Liberal Democrats.

I respectfully disagree.

I think the three most likely outcomes are:

1) A narrow Conservative majority, thanks to Lord Ashcroft's 'strategy' (a euphemism for 'spending very large amounts of money') in target marginals, leading to a larger swing in the latter than across the nation as a whole.

2) A Conservative minority government which - depending on how close they get to a majority - governs with either tacit Lib Dem support (in the form of 'not supporting a vote of no-confidence on') for the budget and Queen's speech, or a combination of tacit DUP and open UUP support.

3) A Labour minority government which governs with tacit Lib Dem support (in the form of 'not supporting a vote of no-confidence on') for the budget and Queen's speech; possibly also supported on some votes by Plaid Cymru and the SNP.


Of these scenarios, I currently consider 1 & 2 the most likely. 3 is the least likely as Nick Clegg has made it clear that the Lib Dems will respect the right of the largest party in Parliament to attempt to govern, which is likely to be the Conservatives. If 2 occurs, we should expect a second election within a year (along the lines of 1974 - the first election year I consciously remember, largely because my mother ran for Parliament in the second '74 election); if 3 occurs, then Labour may throw the Lib Dems a small bone in the form of fixed term parliaments, removing the likelihood of a second election unless the minority government loses a vote of no-confidence.

For precedent, we should all be scrambling to look at the outcomes of the first 1974 election and the 1923 election.

In 1974, Wilson formed a minority government after falling short of a majority. Labour won four more seats than the Conservatives, but both of the latter parties saw a decline in their vote share thanks to a large increase of the vote of what was then still the Liberal Party (from 7.5% to 19.3%). However, the Liberals weren't as good at focussing their vote as their LibDem successors are, and the Liberals only won 14 seats; this wasn't enough to allow either of the larger parties to form a majority coalition government with the Liberals, and Wilson called a second election 7 months later. This returned a Labour government with a tiny majority of 3.

In 1923, Labour won only 30% of the vote and only 191 seats in Parliament; but as the combined opposition seats exceed those of the previous (Conservative) government, Labour was allowed to form a government despite only finishing 1% of the vote and 33 seats ahead of the third-placed (Liberal) party - who had also seen a far greater increase in their vote share than Labour (10% increase v. 1% increase). All three parties were within 8% of each other in the popular vote. Labour formed a minority government that lasted 10 months before the Conservatives won the 1924 election by a thumping majority (largely due to a collapse in the Liberal vote; Labour's vote actually improved to 33%, though they lost seats due to the quirks of our election system).

[Adauchi]

i doubt anything will change and if it does, i imagine that it won't be for the better.

the next government will 'develop' and 'progress' our education system some more, making it more and more inneffective. social issues won't be solved because society is a steaming pile of bull. the economic situation will slowly be 'solved' until about 8 years down the line when we have another bust and people will act all suprised once more whilst politicians yell at one another in an expensive hall.

if conservatives win in any major fashion then public services will be cut more so than under labour, if labour remain in power then it looks like there will be a hung parliament and under the UK system of governance... this tends to be a bad thing. i honestly am not sure i even want to vote anymore heh.

[Barringtonia]

I see a re-run of '92, I just don't think people, in the final analysis, are convinced by the Tories despite their utter dislike for Labour,

I think quite a few people considering the Tories will waver when it comes to ticking the box,

A majority for Labour of about 10-15 seats,

[Alasdair I Frosticus]

it looks like there will be a hung parliament and under the UK system of governance... this tends to be a bad thing. i honestly am not sure i even want to vote anymore heh.

On what grounds and precedents do you consider a hung parliament to be a 'bad thing'?

Is this because, in Disraeli's famous words, "England [sic] does not love coalitions"?

Let's look at all UK election results since the 1832 Great Reform act (and acknowledging the looseness of party affiliation prior to the later 19th century):

1832 - Whig majority in popular vote and seats

1835 - Whig majority in popular vote and seats

1841 - Conservative majority in popular vote and seats

1847 - Hung Parliament. Whig majority in popular vote; Conservative plurality in popular vote; no party holds overall majority - but splits in Conservatives over free trade allow Whigs to continue in office.

1852 - Quickly develops into Hung Parliament & coalition. Whig majority in popular vote and initial Conservative majority in seats. But Conservative splits over Free trade soon lead to a Whig-Peelite Tory coalition

1857 - Technically a hung parliament, but realistically a Whig/Peelite majority in popular vote and seats as Peelites move more formally from Conservatives to close affiliation with Whigs

1859 - Technically a hung parliament, but Whig/Peelites/Radical coalition now coalesces as the 'Liberal Party', so can also be considered a Liberal majority in votes and seats.

1865 - Liberal majority in votes and seats

1868 - Liberal majority in votes and seats (Gladstone - hurrah!)

1874 - Conservative majority in seats; Liberal majority in votes.

1880 - Liberal majority in votes and seats

1885 - Hung parliament; Liberal plurality in votes and seats, but government dependent on Parnell's Irish Home Rule party.

1886 - Hung parliament; Conservatives win effective majority in votes and seats as Liberal Unionists split from Gladstone and back Tories, but without joining the latter in a formal coalition.

1892 - Hung parliament; Conservatives win plurality of votes and seats, but after losing a confidence vote, minority Liberal government is formed with support of Irish Home Rule party.

1895 - Conservative majority of votes and seats thanks to formal electoral alliance between the Tories and Liberal Unionists.

1900 - Conservative majority of votes and seats

1906 - Liberal majority of votes and seats

1910a - Hung parliament; Liberal plurality of seats, Conservative plurality of votes. Liberals govern with support from Irish nationalists.

1910b - Hung parliament; Liberal plurality of seats, Conservative plurality of votes. Liberals govern with support from Irish nationalists.

<elections suspended for WWI - Britain governed by a cross-party coalition from 1915>

1918 - Complicated, but a coalition government. The Conservatives win a plurality of votes and a majority of seats, but contest the election in coalition with Lloyd-George's 'coalition liberals'. This leads to a Liberal split and a 3-way split (between coalition Liberals, Asquith's Liberals, and Labour) for the left of centre vote. Liberal wartime leader Lloyd-George remains coalition Prime Minister despite the Conservative majority in the Commons.

1922 - Conservative majority in seats, but plurality of vote (Liberals are still split in half, but Labour now surpasses combined votes and seats of both Liberal factions).

1923 - Hung parliament; Conservative plurality in votes and seats, but Labour form their first government.

1924 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote.

1929 - Hung Parliament; Labour plurality in seats, Conservative plurality in votes.

1931 - Conservative majority in votes and seats - this is the only election since the introduction of more or less universal suffrage (1918) to have returned a party with a majority of the vote. However, despite the Conservative majority, this is technically a coalition government, as small numbers of 'National Liberals' and 'National Labour' join Baldwin's Depression-era government to give it a cross-party gloss.

1934 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in votes; from this stage the remaining 'National Liberal' and 'National Labour' MPs can be considered Tories in all but polite fiction.

<elections suspended for WWII - Britain governed by cross-party coalition from 1940>

1945 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in votes

1950 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in votes

1951 - Traditionally counted as a Conservative majority in seats and Labour plurality in votes. However, from 1951-1959, the Conservative governments would include a number (c.20) remnant National Liberals, some of whom served in the government. While by this date the National Liberals (who had more MPs than the Liberal Party at this point!) are almost always considered Conservatives in all but name, technically 1951 is a hung parliament resulting in a Conservative - National Liberal coalition.

1955 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1959 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1964 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

1966 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

1970 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1974a - Hung parliament; Labour plurality in seats, Conservative plurality in vote

1974b - Initially Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote; however, by-election losses eventually lead to a Labour minority government propped up by Liberal support in the 'Lib-Lab' pact, which allows for the Liberals to be consulted on major legislation without forming an official coalition.

1979 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1983 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1987 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1992 - Conservative majority in seats and plurality in vote

1997 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

2001 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote

2005 - Labour majority in seats and plurality in vote - but no party wins more than 36% of the vote.

The upshot of which is that Britain has enjoyed unusually stable governments since the 1945 election, with the exception of the blip of 1974a and the end of the period after 1974b (best not to get too fussy about 1951), but that before 1945 hung parliaments were a fairly common feature of the British parliamentary system.

Would you care to claim that Britain was poorly governed from 1847-1849, 1885-1895, and 1910-1931? The British Empire doesn't seem to have been the poorer for the phenomenon.

[The Archregimancy]

On what grounds and precedents do you consider a hung parliament to be a 'bad thing'?

Is this because, in Disraeli's famous words, "England [sic] does not love coalitions"?

Let's look at all UK election results since the 1832 Great Reform act (and acknowledging the looseness of party affiliation prior to the later 19th century)

Whoops - logged on with my older nation by mistake. The above post was by me, for what it's worth.

[Karsol]

I'm voting for labour, whilst I am lib dem, I will not stand to have the country turned into a neo-maggie thatcher wet dream.

[SD_Film Artists]

I'm voting for labour, whilst I am lib dem, I will not stand to have the country turned into a neo-maggie thatcher wet dream.

I'm one of those Lib Dems who would rather Clegg support the Conservatives if he is to act as a 'king maker'. Labour is still too connected with the unions.

[Karsol]

I'm voting for labour, whilst I am lib dem, I will not stand to have the country turned into a neo-maggie thatcher wet dream.

I'm one of those Lib Dems who would rather Clegg support the Conservatives if he is to act as a 'king maker'. Labour is still too connected with the unions.

HA!!!
Like the unions like him. After all he's done anyway.

[SD_Film Artists]

I'm voting for labour, whilst I am lib dem, I will not stand to have the country turned into a neo-maggie thatcher wet dream.

I'm one of those Lib Dems who would rather Clegg support the Conservatives if he is to act as a 'king maker'. Labour is still too connected with the unions.

HA!!!
Like the unions like him. After all he's done anyway.

I should hope they don't.

[Chumblywumbly]

[A Labour minority government which governs with tacit Lib Dem support] is the least likely as Nick Clegg has made it clear that the Lib Dems will respect the right of the largest party in Parliament to attempt to govern, which is likely to be the Conservatives.

Oh, missed that.

All I've heard from Clegg is caginess, especially regarding any sort of power-sharing with the Tories.

---

A majority for Labour of about 10-15 seats,

That would be a major shock in my books.

The Tories, the pollsters, the fourth estate and every serious political pundit would have to have been seriously mistaken for the past six months.

---

I'm voting for labour, whilst I am lib dem, I will not stand to have the country turned into a neo-maggie thatcher wet dream.

Again, unless there's a major upset, the Tories simply won't have the political power for such change.

[Adauchi]

it looks like there will be a hung parliament and under the UK system of governance... this tends to be a bad thing. i honestly am not sure i even want to vote anymore heh.

On what grounds and precedents do you consider a hung parliament to be a 'bad thing'?

Would you care to claim that Britain was poorly governed from 1847-1849, 1885-1895, and 1910-1931? The British Empire doesn't seem to have been the poorer for the phenomenon.

tell that to the child (and slave) workers of the time.

i don't want this to threadjack btw (i'm also not keen to discuss it ha) so let it drop or make your own thread about it if you wish.

[The Archregimancy]

it looks like there will be a hung parliament and under the UK system of governance... this tends to be a bad thing. i honestly am not sure i even want to vote anymore heh.

On what grounds and precedents do you consider a hung parliament to be a 'bad thing'?

Would you care to claim that Britain was poorly governed from 1847-1849, 1885-1895, and 1910-1931? The British Empire doesn't seem to have been the poorer for the phenomenon.

tell that to the child (and slave) workers of the time.

i don't want this to threadjack btw (i'm also not keen to discuss it ha) so let it drop or make your own thread about it if you wish.

'Not keen' to discuss it, or can't? The precedent of past coalition governments is, given the possibility of a hung parliament, entirely germane to the present discussion and by no means a threadjack.

As to your point about 'child (and slave) workers of the time', I don't dispute the presence of either in the period in question. Perhaps you'd like to read some of my published work on the international comparative archaeology of 19th-century material culture? You might also find my doctoral thesis on the international comparative analysis of the material culture of the rural poor in the 18th and 19th centuries to be of interest, though I regret it's a bit dated now.

Given your claim that hung parliaments are a 'bad thing' under the 'UK system of governance', I reiterate that it's worth noting that in the 45 year period from 1885-1931, when Britain was at the zenith of its imperial pomp and power, Britain was ruled by hung parliaments and coalition governments for at least 20 of those 45 years.

This does rather suggest that neither hung parliaments nor coalitions are, in the broader sweep of British electoral history, inherently bad things.

Which is, again, entirely germane to a discussion of the possible result of the 2010 election.

[New Entropia]

Labour is still too connected with the unions.

Hence why it's called the Labour Party.

I wont be voting because I can't for another 10 months, but if I could I'm not sure who I'd vote for. The reason being that despite being a socialist, voting Labour is a waste in the constituency where I live, which only manged to elect a Liberal in 97 and has been Tory in every other election since the dawn of time. Even with boundary changes that added strong Labour areas, Labour never comes higher than third.

Nationally I think the Conservatives will get the most seats, but if they get a majority it will only be a small one. I doubt that all LD MPs would be happy to back the Tories though if it is a hung parliament.

[The Archregimancy]

[A Labour minority government which governs with tacit Lib Dem support] is the least likely as Nick Clegg has made it clear that the Lib Dems will respect the right of the largest party in Parliament to attempt to govern, which is likely to be the Conservatives.

Oh, missed that.

All I've heard from Clegg is caginess, especially regarding any sort of power-sharing with the Tories.

Clegg's in a bit of a bind since the more likely a hung parliament becomes, the more likely it is to be virtually the only issue he's asked about in interviews.

However, while other LibDems have occasionally been off-message, Clegg and Cable have been fairly consistent: that the party which gains the largest number of seats in Parliament should be given the opportunity to form a government. In interviews this is presented as following the principle that the voters should decide the government rather than the politicians.

What Clegg hasn't, to my mind, addressed is what happens if the party that wins the most seats is then unable to govern. Then we're potentially in the same territory as 1892 and 1923.

The Whitehall mandarins have been polishing their statements on constitutional precedent, and having quiet words with the LibDems on the side (so The Independent reports on the latter), just in case.

What everyone agrees on is that the monarch will not be placed in a constitutionally difficult position - the party that wins the most seats will be asked to form a government first. This is presumably the purely practical reason for Clegg taking the line that he has; it's wholly in keeping with the assumed constitutional forms.

[Jordaxia]

I crave a hung parliament. David Cameron is an absolute bastard, and I want him to win with a minority so slim that he can achieve absolutely nothing throughout his term, and he ends up ousted and replaced with someone far less threatening to anybody that isn't a white, middle/upper class christian. Though I'd also like for Nick Clegg to undergo major spine reinforcement and make it clear that he's not going to do anything whatsoever to support either of the 2 larger parties should the aforementioned scenario to occur. The last thing I want for the next few years is -government- to happen, because the entire UK political system needs a good reminder that it's an absolute mess and won't be permitted to function in its current state.

[Dehn]

Think it'll be hung with Labour clinging to power by the skin of their teeth, have got a bet on there being a fresh election within a year, personally hoping for a hung parliament though one that survives a term. Working hard to get the largest group of SNP MPs yet, not that pointless mark, but a good solid 12 or 14

[Ifreann]

BNP in shocker landslide victory, apocalypse ensues.

[SD_Film Artists]

Labour is still too connected with the unions.

Hence why it's called the Labour Party.

It's also called New Labour, being supposedly a different animal than what it was traditionally.

I wont be voting because I can't for another 10 months, but if I could I'm not sure who I'd vote for. The reason being that despite being a socialist, voting Labour is a waste in the constituency where I live, which only manged to elect a Liberal in 97 and has been Tory in every other election since the dawn of time. Even with boundary changes that added strong Labour areas, Labour never comes higher than third.

Nationally I think the Conservatives will get the most seats, but if they get a majority it will only be a small one. I doubt that all LD MPs would be happy to back the Tories though if it is a hung parliament.

That sounds like the constituency I'm in, only it became a Lib Dem seat in 2001.

[Tokos]

I'm voting for labour, whilst I am lib dem, I will not stand to have the country turned into a neo-maggie thatcher wet dream.

Says Labour voter.