UK General Election 2015

[Teacake]

I think it would be better if their campaign didn't consist almost completely of dissing the opposition at every turn.

PS- This applies to all parties.

This. My single number one grip with politics. In fact, I do have a small bias towards whomever is in power when all the opposing sides can do is take potshots at them. In life I really do believe that people are divided into doers and complainers, and politics always reminds me of that.

I'd also love opposition parties to once in a while say something to the effect of 'We agree with [Party in power] about this policy, we commend them on it and we would not change it if we were in power'. When they are contrarian about everything I don't trust them.

It may not happen as often as it should, but opposition parties (Tory, Labour or other) do support the government on occasion. Sometimes they may broadly agree but disagree about some aspects and the discussion then focuses on those elements, so it may seem like they are being negative when they are mainly in agreement.

I think it is unfair to broadly paint them all as dissing each other during the campaign when the distasteful stuff came overwhelming from one side.

Yes it might be a selection bias, that I am just seeing the juicier stuff the media wants to show.

Out of interest, which side overwhelmingly did the distaseful stuff? Genuine question, I didn't personally get a sense that one partcicular side had more spin than the rest.

Really? Here's a clue:

Click to see full-size image.

which was hugely hugely effective, and not really very negative at all compared to some dirty tricks in past campaigns

came up unprompted on the doorstep, actively made people who had never voted conservative do so

what several said to me after was "if i had known conservative would get a majority i would never have voted for them, but it was going to be a coalition, and i didn't want the snp running things" (paraphrasing the feedback)

And that's why negative campaigning works, the majority of the electorate are basically thick.

[TightEnd]

Peter Kellner: "Labour’s problem this time was not so much that it WAS left-wing but that it LOOKED left-wing" http://bit.ly/1L5oHAP

[DaveShoelace]

No matter what you think of UK politics, at least we are not American.

[TightEnd]

Pollster John Curtice warns Labour a majority in 2020 is 'improbable' http://gu.com/p/4952p/stw

[MintTrav]

Tory broken election promise:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11626949/George-Osborne-and-Lynton-Crosby-kissed-after-Tories-won-a-majority.html

[Kmac84]

A typically fascinating analysis from the IWCA (imo) regarding 2015 general election.

http://www.iwca.info/?p=10247

[neeko]

A typically fascinating analysis from the IWCA (imo) regarding 2015 general election.

http://www.iwca.info/?p=10247

I loved this line:

"The Labour hierarchy is in turmoil over how to respond to this: were they too left wing? Were they not left wing enough? The horrifying answer for them is: both and neither"

If labour go left, then they won't win enough marginals in the south to be able to take power, if they go right the SNP and ukip will crush them in the north.

[Woodsey]

Pretty sure I saw Kmac preaching to the few who would listen on saturday in Glasgow 

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[MANTIS01]

The research completed by Nottingham University caught my eye this week mainly because poverty and food banks were used as sticks to beat the government with itt.

The study concludes....

"Around half of the 2.3 million children living in relative poverty in the UK have parents who smoke".

Dr Tessa Langley at Nottingham's UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies said that smoking cut income available to feed, clothe and care for children.

THIS is the point because we're all stumping up our taxes to pay for the fags and booze of people classed as 'in poverty'. So is there room to make cuts in child credit? You're damn skippy there is. There are people out there in need and it's vital society provide support to the genuinely unfortunate but there are also vast swathes of people who simply take the piss. The way lefties try and paint everyone in poverty as poor victims and those who don't agree as horrid bogeymen is pretty detached from reality. Stop smoking and drinking Fosters out a can so you are able to feed your children!

[arbboy]

The research completed by Nottingham University caught my eye this week mainly because poverty and food banks were used as sticks to beat the government with itt.

The study concludes....

"Around half of the 2.3 million children living in relative poverty in the UK have parents who smoke".

Dr Tessa Langley at Nottingham's UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies said that smoking cut income available to feed, clothe and care for children.

THIS is the point because we're all stumping up our taxes to pay for the fags and booze of people classed as 'in poverty'. So is there room to make cuts in child credit? You're damn skippy there is. There are people out there in need and it's vital society provide support to the genuinely unfortunate but there are also vast swathes of people who simply take the piss. The way lefties try and paint everyone in poverty as poor victims and those who don't agree as horrid bogeymen is pretty detached from reality. Stop smoking and drinking Fosters out a can so you are able to feed your children!

Great post. 

[MintTrav]

Saw an interesting theory about the Conservatives on Newsnight during the week, which was that they were talking tough during the election,  but never expected to have to actually make the level of (unspecified) cuts they indicated,  as they expected that, at best, they would get another coalition and the LibDems would again 'force' them to reduce their ambitions, which they would actually be quite happy to do. Now they are stuck with the extreme position from their manifesto, which they never really intended to go all the way with. Seems to make sense.

[TightEnd]

Saw an interesting theory about the Conservatives on Newsnight during the week, which was that they were talking tough during the election,  but never expected to have to actually make the level of (unspecified) cuts they indicated,  as they expected that, at best, they would get another coalition and the LibDems would again 'force' them to reduce their ambitions, which they would actually be quite happy to do. Now they are stuck with the extreme position from their manifesto, which they never really intended to go all the way with. Seems to make sense.

i gather this is true

they had a few "extreme" policies in the manifesto that they expected to trade in coalition agreements

now they have to implement them....

the one i was told wrt this was sell off of housing associations

[TightEnd]

what an outstanding and imaginative way to bring people back to voting Labour

Click to see full-size image.

[redsimon]

The research completed by Nottingham University caught my eye this week mainly because poverty and food banks were used as sticks to beat the government with itt.

The study concludes....

"Around half of the 2.3 million children living in relative poverty in the UK have parents who smoke".

Dr Tessa Langley at Nottingham's UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies said that smoking cut income available to feed, clothe and care for children.

THIS is the point because we're all stumping up our taxes to pay for the fags and booze of people classed as 'in poverty'. So is there room to make cuts in child credit? You're damn skippy there is. There are people out there in need and it's vital society provide support to the genuinely unfortunate but there are also vast swathes of people who simply take the piss. The way lefties try and paint everyone in poverty as poor victims and those who don't agree as horrid bogeymen is pretty detached from reality. Stop smoking and drinking Fosters out a can so you are able to feed your children!

around half don't either so your point is as usual a load of trolling twaddle

[Woodsey]

The research completed by Nottingham University caught my eye this week mainly because poverty and food banks were used as sticks to beat the government with itt.

The study concludes....

"Around half of the 2.3 million children living in relative poverty in the UK have parents who smoke".

Dr Tessa Langley at Nottingham's UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies said that smoking cut income available to feed, clothe and care for children.

THIS is the point because we're all stumping up our taxes to pay for the fags and booze of people classed as 'in poverty'. So is there room to make cuts in child credit? You're damn skippy there is. There are people out there in need and it's vital society provide support to the genuinely unfortunate but there are also vast swathes of people who simply take the piss. The way lefties try and paint everyone in poverty as poor victims and those who don't agree as horrid bogeymen is pretty detached from reality. Stop smoking and drinking Fosters out a can so you are able to feed your children!

Great post.  

Yup spot on if it's true!