2015 UK General Election campaign & aftermath discussion thread.

Where's Geldof, Snow etc now?
2014: Scotland stay and make your strong voice heard in Westminster.
2015: We only meant as long as you vote for the Red Tories.

http://i.imgur.com/RqF9m95.jpg

Repulsive, depressing, moronic. Lynton Crosby, your work is (almost) done here.

#WorstCrisisSinceTheAbdication has been trending on twitter. some crackers too

http://i.imgur.com/Af4pEa7.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/HmtfJMY.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/26/ed-miliband-rules-out-confidence-and-supply-deal-with-snp

Gordon Brown warns over 'chaos and constitutional crisis' of voting SNP

so out of touch its funny
http://i.imgur.com/9JQ9Qhw.jpg

Yeah, like Charlie Reid would shout "Lorraine Kelly" down a bull horn.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/load-up-jocks-drop-edinburgh-5591890

VILE Kelvin MacKenzie sparked outrage on after he said Scots living in England should be shipped back to Edinburgh as "McBoat people".

In a rant in the Sun newspaper, MacKenzie used the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean to take yet another pop at Scotland, or “Jockestan”.

MacKenzie, the Tory paper's former editor, said: “Get those Libyan people smugglers to bring their boats to the Thames and we will load up all the Jocks and drop them off in Edinburgh.”

He said folk down south should send for boats for Scots if the UK breaks up because England votes to leave the EU and Scotland votes to stay in but, true to form for the two-faced paper, MacKenzie's rant is conspicuous by its absence from the Scottish edition of the paper.

Sneering once more at Scottish values, MacKenzie said: “We’re funding them as we do their free prescriptions, free university places, free etc.

“The sooner they are off the payroll the better. If the UK votes to leave the EU (and I hope they do) the Scots say they will stay in.

“On that basis we should then repatriate all the Scots making good money down here."

"repatriate" is dangerous language. Who next?

this has to be the dirtiest , most fearmongering election.... since the referendum

A Scottish friend of mine in London was refused entry in a taxi because he was Scottish. Is this becoming a thing now thanks to the tories/ukip?

http://i.imgur.com/qsdUvHd.jpg

You'll love this one. Hospitals are bad! Governments care about the health of the population of their country! Boo! England paid for this!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3057874/Fury-new-1bn-super-hospital-Glasgow-robots-private-cinema-NHS-England-faces-difficult-year-history.html

This is an absolute disgrace, England has stolen the chip from Scotland's shoulder.

Is there going to be any insight in this thread or is it just going to be a succession of angrily reposted headlines about how beastly they're being to the SNP?

Suspect the level of contempt shown towards Scottish voters here is the main reason why so many of them can't wait to get the fuck away, but this isn't really about Scotland, it's about undermining any non-Tory future minority government, and the voice of people who would oppose any regional redistribution of wealth, whether it was being spent on Scotland or the North of England. Pretty much anywhere other than London or Tory-voting areas really.

I find "Red Tory" rhetoric highly irritating despite the kernel of truth in there. The SNP seem publically pretty desperate to go into government with the Red Tories (although the label is also probably the main reason why they privately don't).

Miliband could have killed this at a stroke by demanding that, as the price of coalition, the SNP hold off on any referendum for the duration of the next Parliament, but he's probably terrified that would scupper any deal. Or he could guarantee more powers that the Tories wouldn't. Given that the alternative is the SNP spending five years voting with the Tories (or abstaining from pretty much everything) he has quite a lot of room for maneuvre here - a vote for the SNP is basically a vote for a Labour-led government, whatever they say - but the anger from the Tory press will be so intense that he'll end up leading an enormously pilloried and quite weak government.

Suspect that what's more likely is a widespread rejection of Tory austerity but the Tories still taking power as largest party, unlikely to be able to get any legislation through, and limping on zombie-like under the fixed-term parliament act for as long as it takes before everyone decides enough is enough.

The idea that the UK govt has to "allow" a referendum in any case is colonial nonsense and at odds with the break-up or cessation of most countries in recent history. Holding aside the rights of wrongs of being able to hold multiple referendums on something with no way back, what's the government going to do if there is a Yes vote in a non-Westminster sanctioned election?

I assumed this was a rolling compendium of headlines that annoyed Cosmic Slop, and that we were still doing the actual discussion over on the other politics thread.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she will never go into coalition with the Tories, so Ed's got a pretty firm footing to deal with her party right there. Trident is going to be the massive sticking-point though, and I can't see a satisfactory resolution which will allow Nicola and Ed to work together in a formal coalition.

this isn't really about Scotland, it's about undermining any non-Tory future minority government, and the voice of people who would oppose any regional redistribution of wealth, whether it was being spent on Scotland or the North of England. Pretty much anywhere other than London or Tory-voting areas really.

Spot on. It's focussed on Scotland because it's easier to focus on Scotland because of the giant swing to the SNP post-indyref. What a lot of commentators are forgetting is that the SNP have been in power here for some time now, and people are voting for them because they are relatively left-wing and progressive and have been largely effective (apart from a couple of misfires - the creation of Police Scotland, the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act) at treating the electorate fairly, not because they're twatting around like Mel Gibson in Braveheart bellowing "FREEDOM!" at anyone who'll listen. The referendum issue was cross-party, indeed I know a past-and-present SNP voter who voted no because they believed the SNP are the best party to govern Scotland at this time but they weren't sure about the ramifications of independence. A ton of YES voters wouldn't touch the SNP with a bargepole. But these people don't exist in simplistic soundbite politics world where it's easy to go "boo, Scotland, stealing all our money", and try to paint Scotland as a weird woad-wearing spear-waving bunch of menks trying to oust poor old Dave while keeping the rest of the country's money hostage to do so.

If the Tories are good at anything, it is divide-and-rule, and nothing would make them happier than to divide left-leaning Scottish voters from same in the rest of the UK.

I think Jim Murphy and Ed Miliband have done a good enough job of that on their own.

Sorry, it wouldn't be Nicola and Ed in coalition, lazily using leaders as shorthand for parties there. Not sure who'd be the SNP leader at WM post-election, I've got a hunch it's *not* going to be Alex Salmond.

But there's a tension there in the eyes of the voters. Are they a social democratic party serving the people of Scotland (and if you believe Sturgeon, benefiting all of Britain) or are they a party whose fundamental goal is to secure Scottish independence regardless of what policies they follow after that point? I suspect that if it came down to social democracy vs embracing neoliberalism to preserve the revenues of an independent Scotland they would go for the latter every single time.

The LibDems are facing oblivion because they put off addressing their own internal tensions (economic liberalism vs socially-democratic social liberalism) until the last possible moment. A similar thing is affecting Labour in a slower way. I can see the same thing happening here.

This is a wider issue post-Blair of parties pretending to be all things to all people (and potentially ending up being nothing to anyone).

is it a case of selective memory or has this whole campaign been quite significantly more weird, stupid, and venal than even the usual low standards? it does make it hard to engage with it by any means other than posting exasperated .jpgs. but it's at least good to have the fact that the tories don't really believe in representative democracy out in the open now.

Again, may be selective memory but it seems to have had much less focus on policy than in any other election i can recall. Labour pulling out potentially huge messages on housing nine days before the election, Cameron's extra billions for the NHS, etc seem fairly ad hoc and of secondary importance. The only core messages are negative - that Labour presents a risk of "chaos" and that the Conservative cuts have been unfairly applied.

Are they a social democratic party serving the people of Scotland (and if you believe Sturgeon, benefiting all of Britain) or are they a party whose fundamental goal is to secure Scottish independence regardless of what policies they follow after that point?

At the moment, they're the former, and I don't see that they would shift policy if they were in power in an independent Scotland.

Well, quite: They would have to disband if they either gained independence, or found that it could never happen.

Why would they have to disband?

I don't see that they would shift policy if they were in power in an independent Scotland

This is the bit I have difficulty believing, especially if they were to get into economic trouble. Not that my opinion matters, particularly, I am just cynical about these things.

If they genuinely are the former, the coalition-building shouldn't be as difficult as it's being made out to be, but they have their own share of the vote to preserve in two weeks' time.

my not quite in the thick of it take is that post-salmond they've shifted away from the somewhat wishy washy populism that characterised still being a single-issue party to a significant extent towards something more firmly grounded in the left of centre, but yeah of course that's not immutable

has this whole campaign been quite significantly more weird, stupid, and venal than even the usual low standards?

If it wins the Tories the election then Lynton Crosby will chalk it up as a job well done. I almost at a loss to adequately explain quite how stupid, unprincipled, short-sighted, dangerous (to the future of the Union) etcetcetc this anti-SNP hysteria is.

Also for 30-something years the Right has assumed it had essentially won the battle of ideas, now it's becoming apparent that isn't the case, they are fighting tooth and nail to hang on.

Miliband is way to the right of where I would like him to be on both welfare and immigration (and is depressingly probably positioned to the right of what he actually believes), but I don't believe he's a neoliberal either.

The stupidity and tossed off popularism of the campaign also reflects the weakness of pretty much everyone that isn't the SNP.

Also the UKIP factor, which is diminishing now that the main parties have lurched in their direction.

The trouble for UKIP, and for the rest of us come polling day, is that vast numbers of the racists, fruitcakes et al are returning to their true home, the Conservative Party. Predictable though.

ICM has UKIP at their strongest since December but i think people are largely guessing at the moment. I'm not sure Cameron has made much of an effort to really win them back in the last few weeks.

Other than pretending to support West Ham.

:)

Also for 30-something years the Right has assumed it had essentially won the battle of ideas, now it's becoming apparent that isn't the case, they are fighting tooth and nail to hang on.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 12:48 (31 minutes ago)

this isn't remotely true, the coalition parties and ukip combined have 57% in the latest icm poll

I'm not claiming the Right (by which I mean generally the neoliberal Right) has lost the battle either, but it's no longer a foregone conclusion that they've won. 57% is down quite a lot on, say, 2005, when three parties commanding c. 90% of the vote were all pledging minimal interference in the market.

Since then, Labour has moved slightly to the left in some areas and lurched considerably to the right in others. Obviously the pre-crisis Labour vote wasn't a monolith and much of it was way to the left of Blair and Brown, but the wider fragmentation that is now taking place is a symptom of the breakdown of that consensus. Even some (possibly quite a lot) of the UKIP vote is mopping up unarticulated dissatisfaction with globalisation (and articulated rage against the mass migration that goes with it).

Post-Iraq, loads of Labour left voters didn't bother to turn up to vote in either local or general elections. The lower the turnout, the more likely neo-liberal bollocks is to fill the vacuum.

57% is down quite a lot on, say, 2005, when three parties commanding c. 90% of the vote were all pledging minimal interference in the market.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 14:24 (30 minutes ago)

this as you partly acknowledge relies entirely on conceit that the labour party has constituitively altered itself from a third way party, which it never was, to a social democratic partly, which in sum of its parliamentary cohort it still isn't

the last five years of notional 'austerity' have provided a perfect advert for social democracy and yet parties advertising such programmes have less than 40% support

that some of the of anxiety of the ukip vote might be protectionist rather than xenophobic is of no matter when the party they are voting for is clearly neoliberal in character (else you are verging into a normative false consciousness argument that they ought to be voting for a protectionist social democratic party)

Some of the policies that Miliband has been advocating (specifically rent controls and freezing energy prices) are considerably more interventionist than anything Blair would have countenanced, but it's too early to judge whether these are populist vote-winners or totemic policies that might offer some clue about how he would choose to govern. But it's policies like this that are fuelling the Tory press's visceral horror of him, they might not be fighting a standard-issue Blairite in the same way.

I don't really believe that Miliband or the PLP are particularly left-wing or social democratic, especially given the cowardly and/or morally repugnant stance the party is taking on austerity. This doesn't invalidate my point that a lot of the hysteria is motivated by a fear of left-wing ideas re-emerging into the political mainstream, and they are going hell for leather to stamp that out, possibly counterproductively.

Social democratic parties still comprise less than 40% of the vote, but that's still up on a decade ago, especially given how difficult it is to prise voters away from long-held allegiances and anyone-but-the-Tories voting patterns.

They are of course panicking about press regulation as well.

Social democratic parties still comprise less than 40% of the vote, but that's still up on a decade ago, especially given how difficult it is to prise voters away from long-held allegiances and anyone-but-the-Tories voting patterns.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 15:41

so after five years of people purportedly killing themselves due to arbitrary benefit sanctions, not much less than 60% of the population favour the neoliberal consensus, in what is risibly termed 'the battle of ideas' that has the look of victory about it

a lot of the hysteria is motivated by a fear of left-wing ideas re-emerging into the political mainstream

the hysteria is because the conservative party has irrationally prolonged a political system that structurally favours the ~40% or so who will vote for apparently or actually social democratic parties

the likely electorate if not the population

so after five years of people purportedly killing themselves due to arbitrary benefit sanctions, not much less than 60% of the population favour the neoliberal consensus

A lot of the Labour vote will be kidding themselves that their vote is the only way to end austerity, or voting Labour because that's what they've always done. That doesn't equate to favouring the neoliberal consensus although in practice it means pretty much the same thing.

the hysteria is because the conservative party has irrationally prolonged a political system that structurally favours the ~40% or so who will vote for apparently or actually social democratic parties

Yeah that too, but it's a combination of both. Whether these parties wield their influence through structural issues with the voting system or through wider share of the vote makes little difference if you are Murdoch or Dacre, what matters is that they are not allowed to do so in the first place. Clegg's feeble bleating about the "centre ground" is a similar attempt to police the boundaries of acceptable political thought.

the conservative party is imperilled by its residual burkean stolidity and by its boorish expression of will-to-power that prioritizes its private interest over that of the centre right and economic liberalism as such

they labour under the delusion that a thatcher-like king in the mountain ought to return and win majorities under the current electoral system, they neglect the structural deficit they have under fptp (their votes count less than labour) and the general fragmentation to sectional interest minor parties that renders the majority dream unfeasible

the myth here is that a properly reactionary, unitary anti-eu conservative party is possible, even when most of the city abhors the notion, or that a faragite conservative party wouldn't in turn alienate the one nation lot to the liberal democrats and leave them no more, perhaps even less electable as a majority

if the current weak, inertial leadership made concessions to reality, they might choose between electoral reform which could further the long-run likelihood of concilliatory conservative-led coalitions, or further the cause of either national federalism or scottish independence which might entrench the majoritaran dream at the cost of the imperial one

The neoliberal consensus has largely failed to convince the electorate that it offers any opportunity for substantial national growth or personal advancement. The 40%+ still planning to vote for the coalition seems to be much more motivated by risk avoidance / hard 'realism' than any major commitment to making the market more free. To the extent that there is a battle of ideas, it's much easier to suggest that neoliberalism has lost than to point to anyone actually winning. That's a large part of the reason the Conservative campaign has been so lacklustre. There is no overt ideological argument being made, nothing to campaign on - just safe managerialism. They have trashed parts of the economy reliant on immigration for political capital, for example, but not to the extent that the right of the party would want. They're as far removed from the bulk of the grassroots as Labour is.

The neoliberal consensus has largely failed to convince the electorate that it offers any opportunity for substantial national growth or personal advancement.

― Petite Lamela (ShariVari), Tuesday, 28 April 2015 17:06 (5 minutes ago)

this could have been cribbed from a demos paper for all that it understands about how the world works, neoliberalism has always been an ideology whose tenets and even whose name are largely unknown to the people who prolong it electorally

'just safe managerialism' is exactly why the upper middle and middle classes with property and finance exposure are happy, for most of the rest it operates as a series of normative biases recharacterizing social security as charity, particularizing economic blocs into interest groups and so forth, it's exactly not an appeal that needs 'overt ideological argument' to convince

so it's wishful to write 'it's much easier to suggest that neoliberalism has lost than to point to anyone actually winning' when its exponents are winning the plebiscite if not the election, just because few of those electors are very enthusastic about it

save for perhaps in central europe, a surrendered lack of enthusiasm is the natural disposition of neoliberalism, it's almost an inversion of schmitt's 'political romanticism'

From a market perspective, yes. Politically Neoliberal parties outside of Asia have typically at least attempted to engage the electorate in the idea that there is a benefit to them in deregulation, privatisation, etc.

then what exactly is selling off state housing at huge discounts to tenants, should thatcher's sell off have been conceived as an appeal to deregulation, privatisation as 'idea' to a whole coterie of litle exurban francis fukuyamas

surely it would be better to describe it as clientelism, differing from cameron's version only in that its appeal to personal venality was given a bit more of an aspirational filigree

the sort of policy that its clients could benefit from, while at the same time finding the lack of value received for public assets to be contrary to their native ideology of fiscal conservatism

The fact that a leader of the Labour Party now believes he can make it to Number 10 while promising increased regulation of the housing, energy and financial markets suggests that he believes in a growing voter bloc who no longer feel that neoliberalism is working for them (on top of the people who never believed it was in the first place - even if they wouldn't express it in those terms). The flipside of this is that there is also a very large group who believe the myth of "there's no money left" that has provided the political justification for austerity, not to mention the even larger group who would freak out at the merest sniff of the drop in house prices that would result from any serious attempt to reform the market. And there are enough voters who will believe all of these contradictory things at once.

"Neoliberalism has lost" is possibly too simplistic, but neoliberalism does need a big enough pool of people who feel like they are winning (or are at least comfortable enough to be risk averse) and that pool is shrinking. That said it's still easily big enough to feel the hit to the wallet that would result from even the most modest attempt to reform markets, and the subsequent backlash would likely be enough to justify the next wave of neoliberalism. I very much doubt that Labour are brave enough to risk any contraction in the property market, for instance.

See also the polls showing a majority of people who believe that reduction in inequality is a good thing, while also opposing the sort of measures that might bring it about.

The fact that a leader of the Labour Party now believes he can make it to Number 10 while promising increased regulation of the housing, energy and financial markets suggests that he believes in a growing voter bloc who no longer feel that neoliberalism is working for them (on top of the people who never believed it was in the first place - even if they wouldn't express it in those terms).

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 18:17

the only reason he could conceivably become prime minister is exactly because of the electoral system being skewed, to some extent in favour of labour (something like a 1.4 vs 1.3 multiplier between proportion of votes and proportion of seats in 2010) and vastly in favour of the snp.....projected by tns now to get all but two seats in scotland with only 54% of the popular vote

so a very strong affirmation of the leftwards turn of the snp, with rather minor increase in support for labour and greens (considered together) in england relative to 2010

Xps, that aspirational element is crucial though. The genius of Thatcher / Reagan was their ability to convince a huge swathe of the electorate that by freeing the market they would create an environment in which people could thrive if they tried hard enough. Far more people bought into that idea than materially benefited from it so I'm not sure I'd class it as pure clientelism. Take that aspirational core away and you're left with a platform of "we won't make things any worse for you".

Neoliberalism has clearly won where it counts, give or take some tinkering around the edges Labour is going to be a neoliberal party for the foreseeable future, but in terms of providing a convincing platform to build an economy on, it's tough to see it having any inherent appeal to anyone who doesn't simply benefit from the stability it provides. It isn't delivering housing, it isn't delivering marked economic growth outside of London, it isn't delivering job security, etc.

"Neoliberalism has lost" is possibly too simplistic, but neoliberalism does need a big enough pool of people who feel like they are winning (or are at least comfortable enough to be risk averse) and that pool is shrinking.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 28 April 2015 18:17 (13 minutes ago)

there has been no wage growth for years and yet 57% of people intend to vote for the coalition or ukip, 'the neoliberalism of losers' to adapt the old bebel quote to your terms

The genius of Thatcher / Reagan was their ability to convince a huge swathe of the electorate that by freeing the market they would create an environment in which people could thrive if they tried hard enough. Far more people bought into that idea than materially benefited from it so I'm not sure I'd class it as pure clientelism.

― Petite Lamela (ShariVari), Tuesday, 28 April 2015 18:36 (1 minute ago)

the unsuccessful clients of clientelism do not become ideologues after the fact

Or, indeed, "The ragged trousered philanthropists" xpost

Lots of good posts in here this afternoon.

Quentin Letts in the Mail writes about the interview and Labour's party election broadcast.

"Gloop alert, Britain. Just when the election was in danger of getting serious with talk of the economy and immigration, Ed Miliband went on an amazing telly offensive last night - amazingly saccharine and yankeedoodle, that is.
"It was so sugary, I felt a little diabetic high coming on."

Michael Deacon's sketch in the Telegraph imagines how some of the conversation might have gone...

Brand: "Forsooth, corluvaduck! Who crosseth o'er the threshold of me 'umble abode? Why! 'Tis Ed Miliband, aspirant perpetuator of patriarchal corporate hegemony! Ed Miliband! Bread Killer Banned, Spread Filly Gland, Red Willy Hand, Dead Silly Brand!"
Miliband: "Now, look. Let me be clear about this, Russell, because I want to be clear about it. Hello, I'm pleased to meet you."

Andrew Smith in the Independent reckons Mr Miliband handled the heat in Brand's kitchen:
"It all went so well that Brand might even be persuaded to vote."

Owen Jones writing in the Guardian believes
Mr Miliband should be praised for having an interview with someone who has resonated with a lot of young disaffected people.

Votes for the silliest review of this? How about we imagine how the conversation went instead of reporting the conversation that is manifestly audible.

Michael Deacon's take on Brand is terrible, but his Miliband is otm tbh.

miliband but it could be blair or cameron or practically any "front bench" politician of the past 15-20 years

lol "let me be clear about this" really is some kind of talk unique to a brit politician, just like an empty prelude.

see also "we've been very clear about this" as meaningful-sounding void and "look" as generic punctuation used to suggest a point or question that won't be addressed is about to be addressed

at least "i'm glad you asked me about that" sounds amusingly sleazy

Unsurprisingly, that MiliBrand interview really isn't worth a front page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDZm9_uKtyo

Q: Within this paradigm there is no choice. That is why people like Nigel Farage when he turns up with a pint on his head.

Miliband says he won’t be putting a pint on his head.

lol "let me be clear about this" really is some kind of talk unique to a brit politician, just like an empty prelude.

― bureau belfast model (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 29, 2015 8:42 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is literally the thing impersonators of obama say the most to let people know they're doing an impersonation of obama

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/14/AR2010011403872.html

that doesn't necessarily contradict LG's point xp

he says it's unique to a brit politician. it's demonstrably and famously not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSbl_uvtNSE

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/video-of-the-day-a-supercut-remix-of-barack-obamas-favorite-idiom/266529/

okay - sorry caek

i mean it's doubtless true it's a tic miliband (and other british politicians) have consciously or unconcsciously picked up from obama

and agreed it's an empty prelude

ffs they haven't picked up from Obama, they've been saying it for years, not sure if Lord Palmerston said it but...

i guess i just seldom hear obama speak really

Same here.

Pretty sure Blair used that phrase a few times also.

It's almost as bad as the passive-aggressive 'Look, ...' all UK politicians seem to start every answer with when addressing an audience

Australian cricketers constantly do that too.

uk politicians and australian cricketers (also england cricketers now) FFS XPOST

look, tom, leave the cricket talk to me in future

irish people do "listen" more than look, i think.

we know our limitations.

Who has been more influential on UK politics, Barack Obama or Ricky Ponting?

... and Welsh say "look you" and the Scots, "See you, Jimmy"

i guess i just seldom hear obama speak really

― bureau belfast model (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 29, 2015 10:13 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he speaks all the time, it is literally the thing impersonators of obama do the most to let people know they're doing an impersonation of obama

i find that hard to believe - i imagine i'd have heard him speak by now if he could

teach the controversy

haw imago you know we scots run the cricket threads here! ;)

but yeah its been around forever

Favourite Obama speech for a while now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z168hPCZuk

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-strikes-kill-1147

I can think of only one suitable place where Bama's nobel peace prize ought to be shoved in a very rough manner...

This year is going to be my first actual vote and what a shitty vote it will be. I wasn't previously a refuse-nik, previous excuses; druggy nihilist apathy and another time I was busy with more important shit and never registered, then there was the other Fuck Blair time. I want to vote for the Green Party for my debut vote but might have to vote for Labour unfortunately. This current lot are fixing to liquidate my family so it is a desperate vote really and one which still may prove to be a mistake.

What a fucking embarrassment, stupid cunt

I would warm to ed if the entirety of his communications were engraved on monoliths

Are any of his objectives on there in any way measurable? Twat.

labour is more of a vibe

like all 2015 conviction politicians i'm sure Ed would dearly love to set out some actual concrete policies that would promote equality and reduce the number of people in the UK living in poverty but unfortunately he has to play the game of realpolitik which means as the leader of a small, unpopular party he can only fudge issues, make vague uplifting noises and continue to serve the agenda of Capitalism

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor...no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location... it increases toward a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEE5kkpWYAAnRvs.jpg

The Labour Party is already a parody of itself.

https://vine.co/v/e7lma2ivQwa

this just seems baffling, how many people would have had to sign off on this terrible idea before we got to the point of Ed Miliband being photographed in front of a giant stone with Labour's campaign pledges carved into it, and somehow it still happened

Who does he think he is, fuckin' Moses?

Today in pointless protest votes - what's the story with TUSC? I chatted a bit with the candidate for my constituency yesterday and she was trying to convince me to vote for them instead of the Greens. I tend to be a bit suspicious of "socialist" parties even though I am basically a socialist, I wouldn't support SWP or Respect, but I noted the TUSC were selling a Socialist newspaper that isn't the Socialist Worker so I assume they're not affiliated.

Really it makes no difference to anything whether I vote TUSC or Green in a safe Labour seat but I figured since it is a safe seat there's no point me voting Labour just to keep the Tories out because it's not like they have a hope in hell in my constituency anyway. I'd just like to support a credible left wing party (wouldn't we all lol etc) even if it is a worthless token gesture.

feel like old school left Labour/Trade Union activists, wd probly vote for them if they stood a candidate in my ward, am sure they are terrible irresponsible gits who haven't properly costed their manifesto pledges and don't see the point of having war crime weapons and such

looks like an electoral collab between the usual suspects: SWP, Socialist Party (old Militant) etc

Founded by Bob Crow! Probably all you need to know one way or another :)

hmm, apparently it was formed out of that No2EU party and does have SWP in it. The Socialist newspaper they were selling is the Militant paper - I was too young to really know what was going on re Militant in the 80s tbh. Local candidate is the daughter of the Militant leader.

I haven't seen one single canvasser from any party round my bit. I wonder if they just assume everyone here is Labour.

yeah nobody called to me at any point, just littered my mailbox with increasingly large pamphlets

i find that quite disappointing, i was looking forward to wheeling out my meagre local man concerns

SNP surely? (xp)

man in one of the flats opposite has got one of those fucking england flags up in his window with an a4 'vote ukip' sign stuck right in the centre of it. it's a really grey and grubby flag though, looks like it's already spent 14 weather-beaten years hanging outside a sports pub on a busy traffic junction. fairly makes my heart sing seeing it every morning

was in Glasgow this weekend and it was pretty wild how many yellow SNP posters i saw, stuck in every conceivable sort of window

Got this through the door yesterday:

http://i.imgur.com/MyRbeXL.jpg

Timing!

nah tom, cant see either hamilton constituency going snp. the one with rutherglen will stay labour according to lord ashcrofts polls and our one (that contains larky and lanark) cant see people in those towns voting snp.
Would make my year if Jimmy Hood was kicked out though.

UKIP's Scottish launch impressively even worse than you might imagine.

Enjoying the lib dem messaging today.

'Tories/Labour can't form a workable government with any of these other parties due to the SNP/DUP/UKIP having actual principles. Luckily, that's where we come in'

'Bored and depressed by this election campaign? Sick of watching the gogglebox people watching party political broadcasts? Imagine having to do it all again! You don't want that do you? We have the physical mass necessary to stop that happening. Vote lib dem.'

the one with rutherglen will stay labour according to lord ashcrofts polls and our one (that contains larky and lanark) cant see people in those towns voting snp.

Pity the DUP aren't putting a candidate up.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/may/05/election-2015-where-should-you-vote-tactically

If you want Ed Miliband to be the prime minister ...

Consider a vote for Ukip in these constituencies:

Boston and Skegness
Castle Point
Rochester and Strood
South Basildon and East Thurrock

"If you want David or Ed to be PM vote Lib Dem everywhere."

Based, presumably, on the idea that Ed'll have a better chance if he has a seat-and-vote lead over Cameron - in reality the Murdoch press will whine on about illegitimate government if he ends up in Number 10 by any means. Rochester's the existing UKIP seat, predicted to go back to the Tories.

Article somewhere (can't find it just now) about how 50% of the conservative-identifying voters in Hallam are voting for Nick Clegg.

What a step outside their comfort zone that must be.

I'm all for this Coalition of Chaos I keep hearing about, sounds colourful.

"If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit..."

... don't let Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon steal it.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/shaun-lawson/polls-and-most-of-forecasts-are-wrong-ed-miliband-will-not-be-next-prime-min

Internet-based polls are almost certainly inaccurate. Ashcroft’s methodology is suspect. A late shift to the status quo almost always occurs, is probably already ongoing, yet is never properly picked up until the results come in. Tory scare stories regarding SNP influence are having an impact. Miliband hasn’t done enough. His party doesn’t want an illegitimate coalition or deal.

I'm all for this Coalition of Chaos I keep hearing about, sounds colourful.

the next uk government:

http://i1.wp.com/batman-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Suicide-Squad-Cast-Photo.jpg

nah, way too diverse

jesus christ @ this fucking cunt:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/robert-blay-ukip-suspends-parliamentary-5641537

:-€

Thing is these arseholes have usually spent most of there adult lives as Conservatives, and will no doubt return to the fold at some point or other, the two parties are indistinguishable as far as I am concerned.

... and let's not forget that.

who amongst us has not wished death on the odd Tory here and there?

http://i.imgur.com/u6gFseC.jpg?1

Impressive mixture of 'keep class warfare zealot out of office' and 'GP waiting times to quadruple if nothing is done' from the Mail.

http://i.imgur.com/RzYeYhq.jpg?1

The Sun going with 'oh has anyone noticed that guy's Jewish?' again.

Tempted to vote Labour out of spite.

Haven't seen much good analysis of the impact of a low turnout on the results but i wouldn't be surprised if it was in the 60%-65% range and that played into the hands of the Conservatives. 5/6 on Cameron forming a government seems like ok odds.

for the first time in my life i can relate to reading about all those people or celebs or whatever who leave the country when the tories get back in. (i guess only my second election living in the uk, but god, if i didn't have to live somewhere where english is the main language...)

The press have had little to no effect - so much for Murdoch, right wing press etc. Everyone is pretty much at the same stage as when they started the campaign (apart from SNP but I think the collapse of the Labour vote was already a fact by the time the campaig started).

Everything tells me Ed has the nerve to push for a minority/locking Tories out arrangement. 10-20 seats here or there will decide.

The press's influence is definitely on the wane, but I wouldn't underestimate it particularly with certain demographics in swing seats.

I don't expect UKIP to win many seats but no one seems to have much of a clue whether they'll pull more votes from Labour or the Tories and where, they could still tilt the balance even if Farage loses/they lose both their existing MPs.

I don't think enough people will believe the press has had any effective outcome on enough seats in this election to swing one way or another.

If anyone does then show your working please.

Think this election largely hinges on Labour doing much better in Scotland than predicted. The 'shy Labour' vote coming out perhaps.

can we stop this show your working please now please

no, everything must be proven beyond reasonable doubt or else invalid.

yes that's fine of course but the turn of phrase it is bad

If anyone does then show your working please.

A'ight, I think the yoking together of Labour and the SNP, the extent to which this has been successfully leveraged as an issue in England, is mostly due to the heavy lifting of the press. Also, the right wing press lining up behind the tories will, I think, have an effect of depressing the Ukip vote. I don't think the press will have inspired any Lab-Tory switching of any importance, most people had made their minds up on that long since (although that raises the question of the longer-term effects of letting these papers set the news agenda for the last... X years).

Think it was always fair game to speculate on the SNP's agenda so soon after the referedum. This is an issue for Labour - the collapse of very dependable number of seats - as much as anybody else.

I don't think the press was needed to depress the UKIP vote, they are capable of doing that themselves - how many suspensions have they gone through now? Plus Europe is not as big a deal in a general election.

18 UKIP Councillors (including 2 council group leaders), 17 Candidates, 1 National Secretary, 1 Youth Secretary, 1 UKIP Scotland Chair, 1 Spokesperson, 1 entire local branch, 1 local committee & 3 MEPs have been suspended from the party solely during this Parliament.

impressive!

Plus Europe is not as big a deal in a general election.

Europe no, immigration (and any social problems blamed on it) yes.

The UKIP vote is vastly more sensitive to what the press says than that of virtually any other party, so it does and will make a difference. Some of the Lab-Tory swing vote might have been as well, but that side has mostly been with the Tories (or even the LibDems) for some time now, possibly the entire duration of the parliament. A lot of UKIP voters will be morons and not particularly sensitive to stupid things their candidates say or do.

Europe is half of their manifesto.

I don't know why the morons who vote UKIP wold listen to the press as they form part of the elites UKIP is supposedly fighting against.

Same reason they listen to Farage. Whether you're part of an elite or not is irrelevant, it's presenting yourself as outside of one that counts, and that's what the Sun and the Express in particular specialise in.

ILX's own Stirmonster has made a rather excellent "why I used to vote Labour but no longer " post and said It was ok for me to post it here

I became a Labour supporter at the age of 15, my political awakening coming during the Miner's strike in 1983. I first voted for Labour in the 1987 general election and then again in 1992, 1997 (the big one!), 2001 and with great reservations in 2005, for what will probably prove to have been the very last time. Over that period I also voted for them in several local, European and Scottish elections.

I lived through the entire Thatcher era and can totally understand why an unelectable Labour party had to reinvent itself as New Labour. I convinced myself that Tony Blair's, to my mind traitorous, scrapping of Clause 4 was simply a sad but necessary step to make Labour electable, which of course he did in the 1997 election, a night I celebrated with great gusto. The day after that election that saw Labour returned to power after 18 years, Mr. Blair made a speech in which he talked about the huge mandate the British people had given him and how people were going to be shocked by how radical Labour was going to be. He certainly kept his word even if it wasn't the kind of "radical" most of us were expecting.

In 1997 I genuinely and naively believed we were at the dawn of a New Jerusalem. I clung onto the idea that Labour were making the best of a difficult situation until in 2003, I along with hundreds of thousands of others marched to protest UK involvement in the Iraq war, something Mr. Blair completely ignored as apparently God told him to go ahead and do it.

Since then my regard for the Labour party has spiralled downwards exponentially. The current party does not seem to care for the "labour" of this country and definitely not for anyone who should happen to be on benefits, as Labour's Rachel Reeves recently stated. Her quote - "We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work" seems to me beyond despicable. It appears they only care about their own electability basing all their core policies on focus group led findings, constantly kowtowing to mainstream press opinion and are mainly concerned with what voters in key marginal seats might think.

In hindsight it is easy to see that Labour were prone to spinelessness long before this. One example: In 1969, the great Labour matriarch, Barbara Castle proposed in a white paper called "In Place Of Strife" that Trade Unions should be forced to call a ballot before a strike and that an Industrial Board should be established to enforce settlements in industrial disputes. The Labour leadership, perhaps in fear of the Unions who held such powerful sway over the Labour Party didn't have the stomach for it and it was dropped. Had they embraced it as policy, the war on the Unions that Thatcher fought throughout the 1980s might never have happened and the political climate of this country might have been very different today with the unions remaining a lot less emasculated than they ended up being. As an aside, Thatcher's war with the National Union of Miners had very little to do with her claims that coal mining was "uneconomic" (an incorrect and meaningless term), but was simply an all out act of revenge for the NUM's humiliation of Edward Heath's previous Conservative government.

Anyway, I digress. Of course there are still a small handful of good people in the Labour party trying to do good things and many dedicated activists still drawn to the party who believe in the true Labour ideals and still cling to the hope the party will act on them. I even think Ed Milliband is sincere in his beliefs but they just seem too weak, too neo liberal.

The West of Scotland has been a Labour heartland for decades but the cracks here had begun to show long before the referendum. The referendum did however lead to a level of political debate and awareness Scotland has probably never seen before which opened a lot of people's eyes to what the Labour party had become. That Labour would do the Tory's dirty work and conspire with them in a united front to push for a no vote has irrevocably tainted them in many people's eyes. That the very poorest parts of Scotland voted Yes with the most determination, that these former bastions of Labour support ignored the wishes of the party many had voted for for decades is very telling and helps explain what to many might appear to be an irrational loathing for Scottish Labour. Labour should have been the party of these people. It should have sided with the notion of home rule just as the first ever Labour MP elected to Parliament, Keir Hardie had over 100 years previously. I don't believe that Labour were in favour of preserving the Union for any other reason than their own self interest; the number of Scottish MPs who would have lost their jobs and the impact losing all those Scottish MPs would have on future chances of Labour being in power. Gordon Brown's hollow "vow" was for many a final nail in the coffin and it would appear they are going to lose most of those MPs anyway. Lose, lose!

The UK media has gone batshit mental over Scotland's role in this general election and I know many people south of the border who find it reprehensible that the Scots not voting Labour might lead to another Tory government, something the bulk of the Scottish population have voted against since the 1980s. Yes we fear a Tory govt, particularly as they are prone to treat Scotland with particular contempt for having deserted them eons ago and will no doubt be out to punish Scotland further this time round, but it's no longer enough to blindly vote for the second worst option that is a Labour party we no longer believe in. To quote a friend of mine "We're not idiots. We're doing what we think is best, out of hope rather than fear, for the first time in a long time".

I particularly hope to see the end of Labour's stranglehold on Glasgow as they truly don't deserve the votes of the people here who had supported them through thick and thin and been taken for granted for so long. Then there is the Labour controlled Glasgow city council who have ruled this city almost as long as the Communist Party ruled the Soviet Union. Apart from a brief period in the late 60s / early 70s when the now defunct Progressive Party was in control and an odd period in the late 70s when the Conservatives led the council, Glasgow City Council has been controlled by Labour for 63 years going way back to 1952. The result of such an entrenched Labour control over the city is a completely out of touch, corrupt, incompetent, self serving council with constant allegations of cronyism. One only has to walk around Glasgow to witness an endless series of ill thought out planning disasters the council can claim credit for but beyond this, they are hopelessly out of touch with the needs of Glasgow and its place as a modern 21st century city. And why should they care? They knew they were safely in power, able to do whatever they liked, to pass on positions of power from generation to generation and that every few years so few people would turn out to vote in council elections that they would safely be returned to power, able to abuse their position. I feel confident the next local elections here will see a seismic change in the council make up too.

I am not aligned to any party anymore but will vote to keep Labour out in my constituency. I will vote SNP for the first time in my life. As recently as a year ago I would have thought it unimaginable that I would ever even consider voting for them but a year is a long time in politics and has been akin to an epoch in Scotland. I was a late but passionate convert to independence, will never be a nationalist but see no contradiction with being anti nationalism yet wanting independence. I certainly don't think the SNP have all the answers. I am deeply sceptical of all political parties but the SNP do appear to be the most progressive option likely to win seats, at least talk the anti-austerity talk and are anti-Trident and pro-electoral reform which along with the unacceptable need for foodbanks in our communities are some of my biggest personal concerns.

I believe the people of the UK deserve better than the current kaput system has to offer. The system is deeply undemocratic. We need to have electoral reform; proportional representation, an elected second chamber, regional assemblies, MPs not being allowed any outside financial interests (if they can't live on an MP's salary they shouldn't become MPs) and a total reappraisal of lobbying and particularly lobbying by big businesses. That's just for starters!

Ultimately, in this information age I don't think any political party can reflect the myriad viewpoints of people in this country in large enough numbers to be said to democratically represent the people. I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the political party system which will no doubt be prolonged ad infinitum by the sheer fear of the main political parties to accept this and to ever consider relinquishing their stranglehold on power in this country.

In the meantime, whatever the outcome of this election hopefully some positives will arise. Scottish Labour will almost certainly be forced to reinvent themselves, and perhaps face up to where they went so ghastly wrong which can only be positive for the future of any Labour movement nationwide. The times they are a changin - scary, uncertain and invigorating, but always there is hope.

http://www.optimo.co.uk/blog/index.php

I highlighted my fave part.

Not sure how big a factor UKIP will be. Lots of places in their Kent / Essex / East Anglia heartland they're polling relatively strongly (15%+) have massive Tory leads so there's no real prospect of vote splitting. There are a few (like Waveney) where they might cost the Conservatives seats but i suspect there'll be more cases of them pushing Labour into 3rd than contributing to the Tories coming second.

Plus Europe is not as big a deal in a general election.

Europe no, immigration (and any social problems blamed on it) yes.

I don't think UKIP's positioning itself as a "respectable" BNP has helped much for the same reason the BNP have not had much parliamentary electoral success.

On the Today programme this morning Gus O’Donnell (or Lord O’Donnell, as he is now), the former cabinet secretary, made it clear that there is nothing illegitimate about the second largest party in the Commons forming a government provided it can command the confidence of the Commons. Tories are challenging this idea, and it is due to become a central issue of debate after the election.

O’Donnell said that David Cameron himself had signed off on the rules that say the government does not have to be led by the largest party.

The question of whether it's legal (it is and always has been) and whether it's legitimate (a matter of opinion) are different but it does highlight how ridiculous it is that there's no formal constitution that can be referred to. Vernon Bogdanor will make out like a bandit in interview fees either way.

^^ Papers won't care about legality as long as they can insinuate.

UKIP's positioning has been helped by the massive amount of screen time lavished on them by the BBC, for example. They don't mind the 'BNP in Blazers' as long as they keep the blazers on.

As a sidebar, the UKIP website only mentions the BNP in passing, relating to the expulsion of two UKIP members who were existing BNP members. The BNP website has a length explanation of why you should stick with them instead of going UKIP, which amusingly includes the fact that UKIP are free marketers, whereas the BNP has the most sweeping series of nationalisation plans of any major party (+the BNP).

thing is for both parties that the set of racists and EU-haters is much smaller than the set of people who let those passions determine their votes

The BNP have virtually disappeared from political discourse over the last few years, although support for extreme RW parties usually drains away during periods of Tory government, or the early years of one at least.

YouGov's Anthony Wells make his prediction

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9377

As it is though, my personal best guess is Conservatives around 277 seats, Labour around 267, the Lib Dems around 29 and the SNP around 52. I’ll revisit those once we have the final polls.

xp

UKIP have v deliberately focused on immigration rather than the EU per se tho, which is where I draw the connections

SNP wont get more than 40. Tactical voting is in play up here to keep them out. (never thought id see the day tory and labour voters combining but then again after the last 2 years we saw the true colours)

The fact they might still get 40 shows the anger against the Scottish labour party and how they are seen as red tories.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/three-charts-show-scotland-should-stop-whining

Nice non-inflammatory headline here.

UKIP's traditional poor communications mean that their pivot away from the EU has failed to trickle down to, er, Nigel Farage.

(xp) open season on Scots basically, left, right and centre, makes you proud to be British!

In Basingstoke today. There's a UKIP 'shop' in the town centre. The local UKIP candidate also runs an antique shop around the corner and recently handed in his son to the police for stealing antiques from him. The son is also a member of Basingstoke and Dean Council.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2990572/Ukip-candidate-hands-son-police-discovering-stock-antiques-shop-stolen.html

UKIP are a remarkably spivvy group, aren't they?

I'm not really receptive to all this SNP-bashing, but I feel like "last time I got all caught up in a massive landslide it turned out my expectations were naive" is not really the best way to begin explaining why you're voting SNP this time round.

Not sure what that's in reference to, but I think that factor probably hurts the Greens far more than the SNP.

That widely-anticipated Green Party landslide, yes.

My disappointment with Labour peaked under Blair but I stuck with them because I like my local MP. I can't imagine only turning away from them now, when the leader is more left-wing than the previous two. But then I don't have the SNP as an option.

The SNP aren't that left wing either, btw this Red Tories thing is like 'Tony Bliar', annoying and stupid.

You hear that quite a lot, but the party membership has been swollen beyond all recognition by the influx of much more left-wing Scots, and while some of them might drift away, the numbers are so huge that some of them will get into positions of power in the party and a lot of them will vote at conference and I think it's quickly becoming a firmly left-wing party.

Wish someone would try the same trick with the Tories. They have so few members we could probably take them over with ILXors alone.

another prediction, by a bunch of academics under the banner "Polling Observatory"

including:

Dr Robert Ford, Senior Lecturer in Politics
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/rob.ford/personaldetails

http://may2015.com/ideas/separate-academic-forecast-tories-will-win-vote-by-2-3-points-but-miliband-most-likely-pm/
Polling Observatory is Robert Ford, Will Jennings, Mark Pickup and Christopher Wlezien.

Tory — 274 (251-305)
Labour — 272 (244-295)
SNP — 54 (46-58)
Lib Dem — 24 (18-29)
Ukip — 2 (1-4)
Others — 6
Northern Ireland — 18

there are another 5 sets of different predictions @
http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/

bbc newsnight are using:
http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/
3 academics
Chris Hanretty, University of East Anglia
Benjamin Lauderdale, London School of Economics
Nick Vivyan, Durham University

twitter: https://twitter.com/Election4castUK
they normally update at midnight, so a final prediction to come

miliband plank

while they're not that left wing i've been a bit taken aback lately to see that some ppl still use "tartan tories" as their go-to snp insult, like it's just a generic epithet detached from any etymology

The SNP are able to look more left-wing than they generally have been because of the extent to which British politics (and what is ludicrously still called the "centre ground") has drifted so far to the right.

You do get a general sense of a desperate widespread need to *believe* in a political party, that just doesn't exist in England right now, but also makes me wonder how a credible anti-austerity party would fare in England. But there's no infrastructure for that to happen right now, Scotland has been lucky to have an established, well-funded vehicle for that momentum sitting there already.

Ah right Matt, you meant Labour, sorry - I thought it was a reference to the Clegg Mania last time.

Labour doing a lot better there than almost any other prediction I've seen of late. So if a lot of auld yins shuffle down to the polling booth to burst SNP's bubble (or partially deflated it), as they did in the referendum, Labour should be the largest party?

I can't take SNP seriously as a left-wing alternative until they give that creep Brian Soutar his million quid back.

also makes me wonder how a credible anti-austerity party would fare in England

or a left-wing Brexit party

Every poll has been saying SNP = 50. In the last day or two people have been saying there is no way they will get this much. Does seem to be just a feeling..

Ladbrokes now calling it for Cameron

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/06/boris-johnson-guardian-readers-vote-tory-general-election-conservatives

Johnson, who is standing for election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, has been deployed daily to at least 20 tight seats

*snicker*

re: or a left-wing Brexit party

an attempt was made a few years ago by Professor Alan Sked, to form a new party, called New Deal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_(British_political_party)

but the leader had an illness and the project was placed on hold.

the cabinet manual that cameron signed off seems pretty sensible, the griping of clegg/right-wing press seems like hot air, there is surely no mechanic or authority they cld appeal to

ed balls
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEWgltVWMAAXsIc.jpg

According to The Times our Queen is gonna sort it.

Final polls. Tories look fucked but its about seats:

SV: CON 33 LAB 33
YG: CON 34 LAB 34
CR: CON 35 LAB 34
ICM: CON 35 LAB 35
PB: LAB 33 CON 31

more on...

Final Polls
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9403

If this plays out as widely expected we are about to experience the most monumental collective hissy fit in recent memory.

Doesn't anyone think the UK should follow France and others in banning opinion polling after an election date has been announced?

I thought about this today, but there's some good comes of it, isn't there? You can see it spurring "oh shit this is really tight I need to vote"-type thinking, as well as giving a good steer for tactical voters.

But on the other hand it would have been a hilarious surprise if the SNP had swept all the Scottish seats when nobody had really been expecting it.

Definitely! But of course the polls themselves are driving it to a large extent.

Election results would be very different without polling in the month leading up to them. I'm 100% for banning them.

i was expecting something more along the Kinnock/ lightbulb lines for Ed in The S*n this morning. i guess yesterday's bacon sandwich thing was the best they could muster. arseholes.

They're saving the worst until after the election.

yeah, the big push will be for destabilizing any non-Tory government that attempts to form next week

having said that, i feel a Tory government coming on

Opinion polls are a useful counterweight to a tabloid press telling us what the voters think. Banning them would lead to a different kind of confirmation bias I feel.

France also has two rounds of voting, which makes it a significantly different case.

I think that's probably right.

I grudgingly voted for Labour at 7am but have a similar feeling to NV. I think low turnout + reliability of the crotchety pensioner vote + over-prediction of LD collapse + awfulness of Scottish Labour + fear of instability will give the Tories an approx 40 seat lead over Labour and just get an unstable coalition over the line. My other half (who is much closer to the insider talk) thinks the Tories will have a single-digit lead over Labour and Miliband will be PM.

Very nearly gave the 'Cannabis is Less Harmful Than Alcohol' candidate my vote, but had to go SNP in end.

Will there be low turnout? I'm thinking it might well be higher than the last couple.

It has been 59% - 65% for the last three elections and i'm not really getting a sense that it's likely to be much more than that. It's been an uninspiring, low-key campaign without vast amounts of policy differentiation. I think there will be a proportion of disaffected returning / first-time voters but a lot of them will be gravitating towards UKIP and won't have a huge impact on the results. I'd like to imagine that the toxicity of the Conservatives will motivate a strong Labour turnout but i'm less confident of that now than i would have been a couple of years ago.

idk, it's all guesswork, but i have a fiver on it being in the low sixties.

If this plays out as widely expected we are about to experience the most monumental collective hissy fit in recent memory.

this is honestly going to be hell. "coalition of the losers" etc etc. it's going to be the most unseemly few weeks. is it too much to ask just to have some decent local system to vote in, based on issues you care about in your area, and abandon this farcical personality contest?

Good luck UK.

Decided I didn't want to vote for a party that included the SWP so I voted Green. If Stella Creasy loses by 1 vote I may regret that but n/m.

Graun piece nicely bleak about the "coup" http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/06/tories-coup-legitimacy-democratic-ed-miliband-government-labour

TUSC ended their pamphlet with a hearty 'FREE PALESTINE', thus cementing my Green vote

I am hoping/suspecting it will be too close to really pull that one off though. Single digit lead, say. Xp

In America, higher turnouts favour the left so I wonder if the same applies here?

Guardian were reporting a potential higher turnout than normal based on their polling, where 73 per cent of respondents said they were 10/10 likely to vote. Also, looking at Scotland's high turnout might have inspired people? /idealism

I'm mostly basing my (complete finger-in-the-wind) prediction on the fact that the smaller parties are considerably more prominent than they used to be, no idea if that will actually play out though.

The "coup" talk that has sprung up is ridiculous. If the numbers are there hissy fit or not there is nothing anyone can do.

it's completely ludicrous and undemocratic. if your party is a toxic bunch of pricks that nobody wants to work with, and you can't get a majority, here's a tip, maybe dilute some of your poison.

They've tried that, they're just fundamentally incapable of doing so.

(don't need to tell anyone here this but) I like these increased prominence of smaller parties but it's pretty frustrating that all those votes go in the bin under FPTP and it feels like there's no way we will ever get a better system.

Wonder if even the Lib Dems support electoral reform now or if they've worked out that a sizeable chunk of their votes this time round are from people who'd rather vote for a smaller party who hasn't betrayed them but voted for a status quo party as the only chance to keep ___ out locally, while knowing that their vote would happily prop up whoever ___ is if it comes to it anyway

will whoever wins not try and change the system now? i read a few articles saying that's why this election is so pivotal, that the winner will either try and open things up or in the tories' case, reduce the number of mps to gerrymander their way towards more power.

UKIP getting 15% of the vote and ending up with one seat might give the right-wing press the impetus to back reform.

xps: But also argue with what that piece contends, that there are any moves to provoke a quite comfy "very British" coup -- more Agatha Christie than Allende or something. Yes the right-wing press will try and distabilize but from what I can tell if an anti-Tory coalition gets quite a few seats over the line then its all huffing and puffing. If its like a seat over then its unstable anyway.

The "coup" is also reliant on Cameron really staying at all costs but if the Tories poll below 280 seats...he is shameless, but he has also looked tired.

A lot of the press barons have been really rattled by this election. I've actually been partially pleased by the headlines as the viciousness looks desperate.

If this is all bad, and the morning (and few weeks after) will be even worse then get ready to do this more often. There could be an election in July. Even then I don't think whatever government emerges would survive the full-term anyway. I'd say get ready to do more often.

Maybe the Queen will sort it out.

xps I'm just a bit gloomy about the chances of any real progress happening when whichever party leads the govt has been favoured by the two-party cycle of FPTP for so long.

If it's a Labour-led govt I suppose there's some small chance of progress; not so keen on the Tory gerrymandering option, obv, especially as my local seat already had the student wards shaved off it and replaced by more right-leaning villages last time round.

xxp "UKIP getting 15% of the vote and ending up with one seat might give the right-wing press the impetus to back reform." true I guess. maybe I shouldn't be so keen on reform after all!

I'm all for PR, though my one fear is a system that would allow endless hilarious facebook campaigns to make zippy off rainbow PM etc

ha oh god i have seen the future and i wish to go back to bed, forever

the winner will either try and open things up or in the tories' case, reduce the number of mps to gerrymander their way towards more power

Extremely unlikely they'd be able to do this without a majority, the LibDems have already shot down one gerrymandering attempt in the last five years.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/resources/images/3734588.jpg

Daily Express beating the drum for patriotism, but not that sort of patriotism. Also free mugs.

"the worlds greatest newspaper"

how is that even allowed ?

plus that tatty rom-com book that was popular 5 years ago for a quid. Real England.

xpost
In the same way that the Rolling Stones are the world's greatest rock'n'roll band, or Fantastic Four is the world's greatest comic magazine

plus that tatty rom-com book that was popular 5 years ago for a quid.

initiating a price war with oxfam there

no sure about this photo, Jim

http://www.thenational.scot/processed/article_images/0/2711/large/eex089mz9j45w1muybj93fssfk62p6.jpeg

what the hell

LOL, Glaswegians: have your choice of murdery killer or Red Hand of Ulster.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEZK3i9W0AAV4SB.jpg:large

meanwhile in tower hamlets

wonder is that islamic fundamentalists or racists, or lutfur rahman on a triple bluff

is it me, or have such hand/paint pics become more of an election meme this time more than before, or, have i just never noticed them before ?

http://i.guim.co.uk/media/w-700/h--/q-95/c6944a093e9698489d7dbb1956c344de0434f46b/0_262_3500_2099/1000.jpg

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/4/26/1430069672129/Nicola-Sturgeon-at-the-Ju-007.jpg

love the "Do Not Stick In Prohibited Places" warning there, which surely completely contradicts everything written below

allah leaves the minor admin tasks for his subjects

he's more into the big stuff

has farage done any posing with children at all? can't remember seeing any such photos, assume most parents would be up in arms if he turned up at their school

I'd imagine his odour (fags, stale beer, wank) would make most children weep

They let Boris near their kids and I shudder to think what he smells like.

The last few polls are showing Labour a point or so in the lead, which in practice probably means the Tories will have more seats but with a much narrower lead.

And yet it was taken as read that FPTP, with the current boundaries, favoured Labour and disadvantaged the Tories. However that was before Labour contrived to lose all their seats to the SNP.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEZoYLmW0AIgr9J.jpg

Can someone Photoshop a gunfinger onto that one?

Darlington constituency have apparently omitted one or more of the parliamentary candidates.

.. from the ballot paper

tory weather in much of the midlands :-(

i live abroad & despite applying months ago and receiving a confirmation letter, i never received my postal ballot. fuck you tower hamlets

If they eventually decide to end FPTP then I'll have to think about actually voting, have managed to avoid having to bother up until now due to the constituency I live in.

Very nearly gave the 'Cannabis is Less Harmful Than Alcohol' candidate my vote, but had to go SNP in end.

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler),

Wait a min, is someone really standing on that ticket (you must live in the west end then?) or was it just something he said personally?

i live in an easy tory seat (polls = well over 50%), so umm'ing and ahh'ing re tactical voting options.

We had a 'Cannabis is Less Harmful Than Alcohol' candidate, too (Islington South and Finsbury).

I also got to vote in Hampstead and Kilburn, proxy voting on behalf of a friend living in Berlin and not trusting the postal vote system (probably with good reason, based on tpp's post and other things I've heard).

I'm in the East End of Glasgow (and I should've called them the 'Cannabis is Safer Than Alcohol' party)

We've got one of them in Paisley & Renfrewshire North as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_Is_Safer_Than_Alcohol#Scotland

i live abroad & despite applying months ago and receiving a confirmation letter, i never received my postal ballot. fuck you tower hamlets

saw many people complaining about this on twitter - it's par for the course. tower hamlets council doesn't respond to contact of any form - i mean literally, you can't phone them, they don't answer emails, they just send letters and absorb your responses into the void.

London-based folk: any suggestions on good (non-partisan) communal places to watch the results come in? I don't have a TV at home and the radio doesn't quite cut it. Availability of alcohol (or indeed cannabis) not essential.

Non-partisan? Christ, can you imagine being in a pub with Tories if they're winning?

quite impressed by how many candidates the cannabis is safer than alcohol party have managed to put forward, maybe by the next election they'll be the ukip of the left

They certainly wouldn't get my vote, I detest that puritanical anti-drinking "My high is better than your high" line of argument. Fucking hippies.

Folk acquainted with Paisley will not be surprised to hear that our Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol candidate is a resident of Ferguslie Park.

Our LibDem never put his address on the ballot paper. Our Tory has been imported from the Borders.

One single canvasser outside the polling station, a really smiley Nat. Labour left a sandwich board. Nothing from any the rest of them.

https://twitter.com/RuthDavidsonMSP/status/596286509629763584

She hasn't provided any proof has she?

saw this on twitter

http://i.imgur.com/038gKiO.jpg

I'm voting for the 'Losing a little toe is safer than losing a little finger party'

hmmm
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/07/protest-oust-david-cameron-tories-occupy-downing-street-election

what 'certain party' is she referring to? xps

good luck uk

political folk song of the year

Sack Esther McVey - Alun Parry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9XM-GtPhI

hopefully "The wicked witch of the Wirral's had her day"

She would be my #1 choice if i could choose which tory lost a seat (assuming someone else picked IDS)

done the deed.
feel a bit dirty now.
also, found out on that our 'local' labour candidate lives 100 miles from here.
probably has never even visited out little town.
guess that just indicates that labour have no interest in fighting for this bluer than blue area.

Actual IRL LOL: our local Cannabis Party candidate is named Artificial Beast.

I almost voted for him, solely because of that. (But no, he wasn't even local.)

Artifical Beast is his DJ name apparently. Any fucking money he's a psytrance DJ.

https://yournextmp.com/numbers/parties

some of the fringe parties on here are brilliant, if i wasn't already too giggly and excitable i'd be polling this shit.

three words: Vapers in Power

Beer, Baccy and Scratchings ftw

Beer, Baccy and Scratchings Are Not Safer Than Cannabis

Come on you reds

We will also push to end the dangerous situation whereby 5V chargers and 4.2V chargers can be used interchangeably

http://www.mydochub.com/images/pippa-middleton-bum.jpg

so this looks like the usual MRA whining but the pledges under "As well as..." did me make me laugh out loud at work this afty

http://static.wixstatic.com/media/36eaa6_ada7ebc5e3fc45a389cfaa3efa482816.jpg_srz_p_375_489_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_jpg_srz

Capitalizaton of It is a neat touch.

Most crazy candidate standing in the election, meet..

Susan-Anne White's Biblically Correct Independent Manifesto
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/04/27/criminalise-homosexuality-ban-abortion-and-punish-adultery-susan-anne-whites-biblically-correct-independent-manifesto_n_7152856.html?1430150232

Crazy Ultra Conservative Christian manifesto by Susan-Anne White standing in Northern Ireland

read the details of a stir crazy mix manifesto of... back to the trad social conservative 1950s + B-N-P + UKIP get out of Europe + US Christian Fundamentalists inc. No Abortion, No Adultery + Putin's Anti-Gay Russia + Britain First Anti-Islam + climate change deniers + Woman stays in the Kitchen / Home, Man is the Breadwinner

I'm interested in the idea of building a 1960s housing estate in the 21st century, has a sort of town planner Pierre Menard vibe.

Then put new road signs up. XD

t/s - religious bigotry or trivializing mental illness

quite impressed by how many candidates the cannabis is safer than alcohol party have managed to put forward

Actual lols in the voting booth.

What did the hamlet of Dean ever do to Bobby Smith?

(i assume the sad answer is that his evil ex lives there, but who knows?)

Was going to say, I can guess what family lawyers have done to him.

£7 an hour pay cap still made me lol

useful later? http://principalfish.co.uk/election2015/live/

Will be if there's none of these left when I pop out: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206892407567317&set=a.3105108545281.159477.1191270660&type=1

Trying that again: https://igcdn-photos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t51.2885-15/11226676_786658638114686_1522245739_n.jpg

Folk acquainted with Paisley will not be surprised to hear that our Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol candidate is a resident of Ferguslie Park.

why is he standing in Paisley North not Paisley South? Granted, we don't even have a Green candidate here, but still...

some anecdotal suggestions that turnout has been good?

My local polling station was mobbed (relatively).

Mine said when i went after 2 that turnout had been good but way down on the referendum(95% voted there last year) but he said still a good turnout based on previous ones plus it would get really busy later on when people finish work.

i saw two other people voting in govan which is a better turnout than i've ever seen here

71% had voted at my polling station with an hour to go.

betfred paid up on tories getting most seats an hour ago. Assume there must be an exit poll

Jesus, BBC exit poll:

Tories 316
Labour 239
SNP 58
Lib Dems 10

... garbage surely?

how wrong can it be?

What the fucking fuck?

Thought it would be a big lead but not that big.

o_0

FUCK

guys i may have to go and hide all the sharp things in the house

Idk why people are saying 326 is the requirement when Sinn Feinn don't take their seats.

Labour, you're and embarrassment, get tae fuck.

323 is more like it, Tories at anything like 300 + can form a workable enough coalition

Not even the annihilation of the Lib Dems can lift my spirits.

as much as it pains me to say this,

but given my straw poll via FB/pub/friends etc, the tories have it.

of course i do live in a very blue groove area, but still my FB feed has been full of mail/express/telegraph media fed bullshit ..

hence tonight i am getting drunk.

tomorrow is going to be unpleasant.

(i will be in the pub for the day .. either way it goes, it seems appropriate)

agree with Tom, this is souring what shd be a glorious evening

that exit poll could be completely wrong of course... maybe it could even worse :(

Single figures would be better tbf (xp)

poor Nick Robinson already cheered himself hoarse

i feel bad enough to watch Al Murray on Dave right now

oh good counting races what fun

Tom Newton Dunn ‏@tnewtondunn 4m4 minutes ago

Breaking: YouGov exit poll - CON 284 MPs, LAB 263, LIBS 31, SNP 48, UKIP 2, PLAID 3, GREEN 1

^ that's more like it

Uhhhh, that's quite a difference.

BBC, you're an embarrassment, get tae fuck.

sixth formers scurrying around with ballot boxes

i needed that Yougov poll

Well, one group of pollsters is for the high jump after this.

yeah, rooting for the yougov lads & lasses here

Come on Yougov, you can do it!

i liked the game young ones running the ballot boxes as lovingly narrated by fiona bruce, i want more of this

come on you gov xp

can someone explain to me under what scenarios the Tories don't come out as the ruling party

Yougov sample size is less than a third of BBC and idk about its methodology.

xp

broadly speaking - if between them and their possible coalition partners they don't have somewhere in the region of 320 seats

They could probably govern on their own with 316, tbh.

Definitely.

yeah sure

their possible coalition partners is not many, whatever happens

starting to wonder whether smashed Lib Dems and Tory gov isn't better than unsmashed LDs and more fragile Tory gov, if those are the two most likely outcomes

They could probably govern on their own with 316

ok well since they seem well short of 316 I guess I'm asking who their coalition partners would be. I know the UKIP are insane racist rightwingers and the Greens are obviously on Labour's side but I'm not familiar with the allegiances of the Lib Dems and SNP

xp

They've been in coalition with the Lib Dems for the last 5 years.

A lot depends on Clegg. If he loses his seat, the reformed LDs will go to Labour, I think. YouGov poll does give coalition a slim majority, mind

the BBC exit poll gives the Tories 316. UKIP will maybe get 2 seats and wouldn't go into formal coalition with them. The Northern Irish Unionist parties wd be likely to broadly support them on most issues

Nate Silvet dubious about that exit poll.

Silver

i don't believe whoever's left in charge of the Lib Dems will be able to deliver all their surviving MPs to the Tories

The BBC one I mean

bbc exit poll from last time round was bang-on, sadly, iirc

Hmm, I think I will not be watching the results roll in tonight, no point.

Might get up early to see that Farage didn't win his seat

if the bbc poll is accurate, what happens next for labour?

(xp) Was hoping for Clegg, Farage and Alex Salmond to fail, it'll probably only be Farage :(

not sure if that poll is right that Labour are way off expectations, bar a bigger thrashing in Scotland than predicted, so either write off Scotland or stop being right wing cunts, i dunno, they've been dead for 20 years

The methodology was a lot easier last time; they've had to pick new stations and new marginal seats to poll this time xp

when are we getting results?

It goes on slowly throughout the night and into tomorrow morning.

never before understood the appeal of drinking alone but that bbc exit poll gave me the immediate desire to get a bottle of wine doon me

lol i nearly ran to Tescos

I did 30 minutes ago. Fuck, Andrew Marr, Tory wankers out in force tonight.

cd've sworn Marr was a Blairite oh wait

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEbwb1AWMAAlgHw.jpg

Oh Jeremy, you can do wit but you can't do jokes...

YouGov Exit poll

labour / social democrat tally - anti-tory

Labour 263
SNP 48
Plaid 3
Green 1

315

more
SDLP 3? 2?
Respect 1?

with the lib dems as kingmakers? which way though ?
with the tories make 315
with the labour / social democrat / left 349/350 ish

liberal democrats don't want to join dup / ukip in a tory coalition - numbers fall short

however they also said no to joining labour with snp in any deal?

therefore no government outcome ? on yougov exit poll

Could we see Scottish Lab breaking away following this - five years to shift left and recapture Nat votes then formal coalition with nu Lab?

Wasn't an exit poll, sadly

Yep. Just got back in touch with 6k people they had previously polled to see if they changed their mind.

the yougov exit poll has a sample size of 6000 compared to the bbc's 22,000.

;_;

and it's not even an exit poll

Paul Nuttall's only 38?

i'm worried Yorkshire First mayn't win their target seats now

electoral calculus who had the best exit poll in 2010:

con = 280

lab = 274

lib dem = 21

snp = 52

Exit polls are usually pretty accurate, so now might be a good time to start despairing.

that Lib Dem guy did a great face

solid 5th place for the Lib Dems there

John Curtice seems like a very nice man so it is with sadness that I find myself hoping that his career comes to an ignominious end after tonight.

the fact that the BBC's front of house election team are all Tories leaves us with the faint hope that whoever did the exit poll got carried away in a surge of blue patriotism

unrepresentative sample, I pray to you

haaa, tom

lost deposit, start as you mean to go on lib dems

Kirsty trying to cheer me up there by saying Danny Alexander and Douglas Alexander are likely to lose their seats.

BBC suggesting Balls out.

that so-called yougov poll wasn't true then?

this is maybe the first time i've ever seen alistair campbell appear and felt slightly comforted

YouGov ‏@YouGov 32m32 minutes ago

YouGov has not done an exit poll. A re-contact survey today simply gave us no reason to change our final numbers from yesterday.

???

OK GOD I WILL TRADE ANOTHER 5 YEARS OF THE TORIES FOR ED BALLS LOSING HIS SEAT

and here I was going to live on coffee for the next 18 hours..

NV = evil personified, but, with a valid reasoning.

pray that you're getting rid of a total cock, turns out you've lost your balls instead

I'm not british, and I pretty much expected the worst. Elections in UK are always the worst. I'm still going to get a beer right now. Ugh.

yeah so yougov were just sticking with their previous poll. but this means that every single polling company has got this election drastically wrong.

ok so can anyone tell me what is the first result that could give an indication as to whether the exit poll is right?

nope, you need a marginal seat

ok Ashdown's just offered to eat a hat, this evening's hotting up

That happened a while ago, NV

for the first result:

EXIT POLL numbers:
Lab 59%
Con: 20%
UKIP: 16%
Green: 3%
Lib Dem: 2%

ACTUAL numbers:

Lab 55%
Con: 18%
UKIP: 22%
Green: 3%
Lib Dem: 2%

so looks accurate and labour might be doing even worse

xp must have missed it first time while i was locking up the kitchen knives

I'm fucking shellshocked here. A Tory government propped up by the DUP is just about the worst outcome that was considered even remotely plausible before the exit poll.

http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/mass-tactical-vote-uk-history/3663

yeah so yougov were just sticking with their previous poll. but this means that every single polling company has got this election drastically wrong.

or possibly that the British public are liars

or that the Telegraph's sweat-drenched 1am e-mails are incredibly effective

one weird - or new - thing is that there still seems to have been high turnout in marginals - this doesn't historically favour the Tories

idk what is happening a woman is walking on a giant multicoloured uk.

useful link

declaration times
http://democraticdashboard.com/explorer/declaration-times/

solid 5th for the Lib Dems there

It will be interesting to get a a sense of the demographics. I have a suspicion that they might have done much better than normal with 18-35s who would have been put off by the harder social conservatism of previous incarnations.

nothing is going to make me feel any better right now is it

UKIP and SNP are really going to have been fucking with the exit poll modelling he hopes, clutching at straw.

From the 2nd result: swing from Tories to UKIP. Lab slightly up.

Open invitation to the North East of England to join Scotland when Scotland becomes independent, i.e. sometime in the next 5 years.

Is there a chance that people lie about UKIP voting, even in exit polls?

That's my straw and I'm clutching it

When is the first marginal coming in?

only Jeremy Vine in a cowboy hat can lift our spirits now

Exit polls are anonymous :(

Cleggy Cleggy Cleggy out out out. Cleggy out. Cleggy out.

just imagine being such a morally empty shitbag that you're ashamed to admit who you voted for

FiveThirtyEight pointing out that the exit poll Lab-Con margin was off by an average of 39 seats from 1974 to 1997

Tories to be propped up by red faced (and handed) Ulstermen.

yeah some nice straws to clutch at in this

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/what-the-uk-exit-poll-will-tell-us/

John Curtice, president of the British Polling Council and a FiveThirtyEight contributor, helped design the exit poll. He has said to “prepare for disappointment.” In other words, we might be heading back to the 1974 to 1997 era of major exit poll errors.

this gives a list of marginals to watch for
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9377

however the website is buckling under heavy demand

Solid 5th place for the Lib Dems there

:D

that TUSC guy sticking it to the electoral process in a shocking pink t-shirt = why I didn't vote TUSC

Lab +2%
UKIP +16%
Con -3%
Green +3%
LD -14%

So from LD to UKIP.

they've lost all their deposits so far. they could be financially wiped out here.

Labour are firming up their line on the exit poll. A party source says:

We are sceptical of the BBC poll. It looks wrong to us.

sure, it looks flat on the page, but what you have to consider is the deliv

ignore 538

the group they've partnered with for this are fine, but ilx posters know more about UK polling than nate silver

watching this in new york, guess i'm going to be up when it finishes for the first time ;_;

they've lost all their deposits so far. they could be financially wiped out here.

Bless you for trying to cheer us up.

I'd take Ed Balls as PM over 5 more years of this.

i am so staying up for Balls Out

Exit polls are anonymous :(

i am imagining them imagining themselves stepping into consciousness/publicity/the glare of an all-seeing-eye once they leave sanctity of the primary school gym and fill in the exit poll ballot

I'm not optimistic

thin fucking straw to grab

i keep wanting to switch this off given i can't change it

it won't be 5 more years of this, the gloves will be off. the people have spoken. let them enjoy it.

bless that DUP ghoul trying to make Cameron work for it

Sammy Wilson, the Red Face of Ulster

I feel a bit sorry for some of the Lib Dem old-stagers in the north. I had a crushingly melancholy lunch with one from Jesmond last year.

MAKE IT STOP

if the tories do get in, it'll be a p weak government, right?

Tottering from one crisis to another

with only massive funneling of public money into tax havens to keep them going

with the DUP one would think its a few years. maybe not a full term, but maybe enough to 'finish the job'.

feel a bit demob happy, if the BBC poll's right i give my job 12 months

Working with the Lib Dems is hardly preparation for trying to work with the DUP, those guys will have their nuts in a vice and have no compunction about applying pressure.

Off the Lib Dem leash, with a claim to the backing of the public for their programme and requiring everyone including the DUP to work together to vote them down - they could be much bolder this time.

I do look forward to them having to wheel half dead MPs on hospital beds through for key votes like the Major years though.

what is the situation with sinn fein and still not attending? i kind of assumed they would be attending by now?

half-dead Tory MPs, i love how everybody's trying to cheer us up tonight, it's like the Blitz

They will never attend. They do not see it as a legitimate seat of power. Xp

XP slogan isn't "might surrender eventually"

So with 310 they'll govern, lose the odd vote (as Peter Kellner is saying) but you know 'finish the job'.

Yea, that's the faint bright spot about the exit poll: as Labour are trying to say, the majority has vanished. It'd be wheeling in beds from hospitals again territory. Labour, plus the rump of the Libs and the SNP, would be able to play a pretty strong opposition.

Kellner's a Tory wank. The odd votes they'll lose will be the doozies.

but a much tighter majority?

xposts, yeah that's what i was wondering.

The only votes I can see them losing are ones where there are Tory rebels - I would guess around Europe.

what is the situation with sinn fein and still not attending? i kind of assumed they would be attending by now?

there's an oath of loyalty to the queen

every time they try to memorise the oath they keep failing it

gerry adams has sworn that no member of sinn fein will ever remember the oath of allegiance, as long as he lives

Christ I always hate this hot air talk between 12-2am broken up by results from NE.

am pondering how aggro Neil will get if the poll starts to revise below 316 Tories

Hope you're all right - proper coup by "the losers"

Galoloway Out

So it'll take the DUP to dismantle the NHS in England? What was all that about legitimacy?

Fuck I hate the Tories.

^

sitting here in q gloomy stupor. what is this "popular vote" bullshit. oh fuck off boris.

i like the way labour are dismissing the poll as if positivity can change the already-cast votes

I still believe that conservative-Labour marginals are going to be more in favour of labour compared to the bbc exit poll, and surely the lib dems want be as low as 10

maybe the margin of error could be 20 / 30 seats down for the tories

tory dinosaur, michael fallon on tv doesn't understand labour + snp combined will vote against the tories

ed balls didn't look like he was dismissing it. he looked and sounded defeated.

i took the oath but i meant Queen Medb

http://cdn.web-savvy-marketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Stages-of-Grief1.jpg

he only knows what we know about exit polling so of course he sounds defeated

ed balls didn't look like he was dismissing it. he looked and sounded defeated.

SO IT's NOT ALL GLOOM

^party colours apt there lol xxp

Danny Alexander rumoured to be losing his seat too?

there's an oath of loyalty to the queen

Did this actually happen or am I going mad? I have this vague recollection of Adams and McGuiness heading to the Houses of Parliament (maybe in 1997?) and claiming some kind of office (a literal office, i.e. a room) that they were entitled to, but never actually taking up their seats. And something about taking an oath, but having their fingers crossed?

nah, i think Willy Hamilton (sp?) or one of the old guard actual left wing Labour MPs crossed his fingers once

Amazingly Fallon is actually Scottish, so we've had him, Andrew Neil, Marr and Gove on tonight. Need Fraser Nelson and/or Niall Ferguson to complete the set of right wing Scottish wankers.

and Gordon Brown

would things have been different with david or steve rather than ed?

i think there was some shit about adams and mcguinness using the gym at westminster wasn't there, some minor scandal?

you didn't have to say the oath to use the hydrotherapy spa, rain room, or get a hot elemis stone massage

Danny Alexander rumoured to be losing his seat too?

he was miles behind in recent local ashcroft polls - on just 21%

Are you the *actual* djmartian?

wow peston and robinson loathe each other

hello peston, business hates uncertainty you say, novel

business euphoria.

well tbf peston was rejecting the idea that the business community like the convervative party per se rather than stability/status quo, which is what robinson was pushing

Are you the *actual* djmartian?

yes, the same one that started on ilxor in september 2000, and music blogger on blogspot through the 00s,

hoping that my outburst of solidarity-in-despair twitter favs and facebook likes will somehow effect change

what a blast from the past - and tonight of all nights dj xp

well tbf peston was rejecting the idea that the business community like the convervative party per se rather than stability/status quo, which is what robinson was pushing

yes and the point that for many businesses uncertainty over europe is disastrous.

yes exactly and then he gave robinson a death stare and they cut away

Scottish turnouts look to be pretty high again

it's weird it's like if you offer people a genuine alternative to Tory austerity they get all excitable and vote for it

yes, the same one that started on ilxor in september 2000

I can't remember you posting for years and years and years

Robinson wrong to project his own views on the Conservative Party onto the entire business community.

there are many members of the business community who don't have a party preference as long as the party behaves like the Tories

^ Labour manifesto commitment 1997-2015

my step dad was a small business tory. nice person if you ignored that. literally nothing (eg QE money going nowhere near small business, tory big business favours only) wdve shaken him in his belief that tories favoured the little businessman.

Fuck a business community tho, right, brothers and sisters?

hate doing this so you can kill me if u like:

Lord Ashcroft ‏@LordAshcroft 3 minutes ago

33% of voters made up their mind how to vote in the last week. 11% decided today.

xpost, occasional appearances on ilm end of the year polls this decade, return to ilm since last december on selective threads, your right not on ile for a long time

local tv people getting their moment in the sun, there's something for the next few hours

djm - I hear Blur have a new alb out. have you heard it? xp

always nice to see Bedworth on national TV

lol

Apparently Farage may finish third in S.Thanet, so there's that!

sorry, no Blur

Interesting pedantry from constitutional lawyer Carl Gardner on Twitter. Ed doesn't have to strike any deal to become PM. Essentially, Cameron has to try to pass a Queen's Speech. If he can't get it through, Ed automatically forms the next government. With 310, it's pretty dicey to think he can pass a QS.