UK General Election 2015

[TightEnd]

if you had to go over or under 68.5% turnout in the UK in 2015 at evens

over or under?

[redsimon]

under

[TightEnd]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/05/election-death-of-the-union-snp-let-scotland-go

[redsimon]

Did Iain Dale say where he thought 5 UKIP MPs will come from? I can count Carswell and (probably) Farage, who else?

[TightEnd]

Did Iain Dale say where he thought 5 UKIP MPs will come from? I can count Carswell and (probably) Farage, who else?

he has forecasted every seat on www.iaindale.com

he's well connected and a decent commentator

without going back to check

carswell, farage, thurrock, great grimsby and another i forget. he has an opinion that they will win a seat from albour too (dudley north?)

i think it is 3 or less, fwiw (not a lot).

[redsimon]

Skegness, which Nate Silver suggested the Conservatives will win easily. Be interesting to see who's right (my money's on Nate)

[TightEnd]

@LucyMPowell (manchester candidate and VC of labour's campaign) on Edstone - fact promises "carved into stone" doesn't mean "absolutely not going to break them".

i mean, that is just laughable isn't it?

what is the point of the headstone if what is written on it is not worth the stone its written on?

--

all this promising, from all parties, when we all welll know few of the pledges can be met just assumes we are mugs who will lap it up unquestioning. Complete bollocks

[TightEnd]

Skegness, which Nate Silver suggested the Conservatives will win easily. Be interesting to see who's right (my money's on Nate)

Nate is using http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/

not his forecasts, they are out-sourced

i too would back them (with methodology and rigour) over a single person's views.

[bookiebasher]

under

[mulhuzz]

@LucyMPowell (manchester candidate and VC of labour's campaign) on Edstone - fact promises "carved into stone" doesn't mean "absolutely not going to break them".

i mean, that is just laughable isn't it?

what is the point of the headstone if what is written on it is not worth the stone its written on?

--

all this promising, from all parties, when we all welll know few of the pledges can be met just assumes we are mugs who will lap it up unquestioning. Complete bollocks

nothing's ever worth the stone it's written on these days...

[Doobs]

Milband said this yesterday - thoughts?

"‘There was a financial crisis – and the financial crisis drove the deficit upwards. The debt and the deficit before the financial crisis were lower than those we inherited and that’s clear.’"

The GDP one is here

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/psa/public-sector-finances/july-2013/chd-1--story.xls

So probably true, but not massively clear and excludes PFI and unfunded pensions.  Including unfounded pensions would reverse that for instance.  I haven't checked the deficit one but I'd be surprised as that was falling when Blair took over.  I guess he must have checked though.

I am not sure it is right to just exclude inconvenient things that make you look bad and claim you are winners.  Just makes you look looks sore losers.

Pension liabilities have never been included and barring a soylent green exercise, I'm not quite sure what Labour were meant to do about demographics.

PFI arguable, but then again that was a John Major invention enthusiastically embraced by Blair.

I didn't say the pension scheme liabilities had been included previously, but they are very real and very much should be.   As should PFI.  If the official position was a tiny bit better than they inherited just before the crisis, then there is little doubt that the real underlying position was a lot worse.

The parties of whatever colour should be very aware of demographics.  If they were, then they wouldn't be sat there complacently saying we should have carried on spending these past few years.  Just because some economist has realised that it was safe to carry a certain level of debt in the past doesn't mean we can in the future.

The debate was Labour's debt accrual in comparison to what they inherited, so in that context unfunded pensions are irrelevant.

In the wider debate you could argue that (as Greek pensioners have discovered) unfunded government pensions are not liabilities, merely another facet of government spending funded through taxation and can be cut if required.

This was the post I answered.

Milband said this yesterday - thoughts?

"‘There was a financial crisis – and the financial crisis drove the deficit upwards. The debt and the deficit before the financial crisis were lower than those we inherited and that’s clear.’

The deficit was bigger before the crisis, than when he took over.  See here

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/deficit-debt-government-borrowing-data

The Debt was also bigger

What Miliband could argue is that he was talking about them compared to GDP.  But he didn't say that and hence his statement wasn't clear at all.

Even compared to GDP the figures the numbers are much more marginal than he suggests, and the numbers are flawed for 2 reasons

1) He is ignoring the bad figures for no reason other than because if we include them Labour's recod looks worse.
2) The official debt figures ignore 2 very big numbers PFI and unfunded pension scheme deficits, both of which were undoubtably much higher before the crisis than when Labour took over.

So when Milliband says A and B are true, "that's clear", it absolutely isn't clear at all.

Just hold your hands up and say we fucked up, the country is in a right state, we need lots of people to pay more taxes.  

[TightEnd]

Under AV, Cons win 311 seats, of which 128 off the back of transfers from UKIP voters http://bbc.in/1R9i3OP

[MintTrav]

I think under our system, a coalition that can form 320 seats has legitimacy even if it doesn't have the winner involved.  However, Miliband will get accused of lacking legitimacy in the press at every turn if he gets in by finishing distant 2nd, especially if things start poorly.  This won't make things easy for him.

I also think it would harden the vote for the "winner" that ends up in opposition significantly next time around.

A legitimate government is one which can generate enough support in the House and that is all that counts. We will need to get used to that if coalitions and minority governments are here to stay.

In Ireland, Fine Gael formed a coalition government with Labour many times without ever having as many seats as Fianna Fail.

After the Council elections in Portsmouth last year, there were 19 Lib Dem,  12 Conservative, 5 Labour, 4 UKIP and 2 Independent Councillors. Since then, the city has been run by a minority Conservative administration, as the Labour and UKIP groups have guaranteed them support in the Chamber in order to keep the Lib Dems out (local politics - the Lib Dems were in charge for the previous 10 years). No-one, including the Lib Dems, has questioned the legitimacy of the Conservative twelve-member administration and it has got by fairly successfully and without any major trauma.

[BigAdz]

I will be glad when its all over now.

Each day, I tell myself not to read this thread. Each day I can't help myself.

Of everyone that has posted on here more than a couple of times, it is so clear which way everyone bar about one person actually votes, and each seem to pick angles/articles to justify their standpoint, and very few here have even opened themselves up to other views. All totally acceptable, but still quite tilting.

As ever, polls are quite interesting. FWIW, I have no idea which way it will go but I suspect despite all the mocking of UKIP here, and in most areas of scrutiny, they will get a massive turnout, maybe not reflected in seats, but certainly in votes.

I live in one of the strongest/longest Tory seats in England, yet all I hear are ground swells of support for UKIP, not just in my constituency, but as I travel round. It's not popular or sensible to wear the ideology openly, but I suspect far more may vote that way.

As an employed person, with a F&C house, and other sources of income, i doubt the whole thing will effect me much whichever way it goes, but I do hope it doesn't all result in the bloody Scots having the balance of power.



Wouldn't be right to not have a little bet, and the 11/10 offered by Hills for both Farage and Clegg to win their seats looks worth a nibble to me, if the Tory tactical vote in Sheffield happens, as thought.

Im also slightly tempted by UKIP at 9/4 to win more seats than Plaid C.

[redsimon]

I will be glad when its all over now.

Each day, I tell myself not to read this thread. Each day I can't help myself.

Of everyone that has posted on here more than a couple of times, it is so clear which way everyone bar about one person actually votes, and each seem to pick angles/articles to justify their standpoint, and very few here have even opened themselves up to other views. All totally acceptable, but still quite tilting.

As ever, polls are quite interesting. FWIW, I have no idea which way it will go but I suspect despite all the mocking of UKIP here, and in most areas of scrutiny, they will get a massive turnout, maybe not reflected in seats, but certainly in votes.

I live in one of the strongest/longest Tory seats in England, yet all I hear are ground swells of support for UKIP, not just in my constituency, but as I travel round. It's not popular or sensible to wear the ideology openly, but I suspect far more may vote that way.

As an employed person, with a F&C house, and other sources of income, i doubt the whole thing will effect me much whichever way it goes, but I do hope it doesn't all result in the bloody Scots having the balance of power.



Wouldn't be right to not have a little bet, and the 11/10 offered by Hills for both Farage and Clegg to win their seats looks worth a nibble to me, if the Tory tactical vote in Sheffield happens, as thought.

Im also slightly tempted by UKIP at 9/4 to win more seats than Plaid C.

whats a F & C House?