2015 UK General Election campaign & aftermath discussion thread.

voting for tories does not equal wanting an alternative. i don't believe that at all.

You have to blame Labour really, their strategy and policies were all wrong from the start. Their problem is that they are losing seats for all sorts of different reasons, a simple shift either to the left or right won't solve their problems.

Still astonished they looked at Jim Murphy and went 'yep, that's the guy for us' though.

More people might have bothered to vote if there was a reason to vote, i.e a credible anti-austerity party that had the momentum of a hopeful and inspiring campaign behind them. This is what's happened in Scotland - engagement and turnout is higher because there's more chance that the vote might actually count for something. We might have rejected independence but we're not accepting the current set-up, and I think if voters outside of Scotland felt there was a genuine choice of values then this run-up might have felt more exciting and the results more optimistic.

hard to say that labour going more anti-austerity wouldn't have lost them as much as it gained.

is what's happened in Scotland unprecedented for a separatist movement? decades of working towards a referendum...and defeat in it resulting in such overwhelming support for the movement

xp think you underestimate just how many people in england are in favour of austerity

Labour completely failed to articulate the argument AGAINST austerity though

It was my wife's birthday last night

Matt DC married, how come no-one told me?

"wouldn't change a thing about Osborne's budget" - they pandered to austerity as much as they could

No coherence or confidence from Labour this election. Really hoping for a clearing away of the dead wood now. New leader, new purpose, new Labour oh wait

oh god the next leader will be chuka umunna won't it

Anti-austerity Labour would be spun as "would spend too much, can't be trusted with the economy", pro-austerity, well we now know what we get there. There isn't really a quick fix here and I don't think the Labour Party have even begun to comprehend the scale of the problem here.

A leader with some charisma would help as well.

Wasn't Umnna was one of the few Labour MPs to increase his majority last night

rushanara ali in my constituency, bg/bow massively increased her majority, by about 20k votes.

actually about 14k

Stella Creasy did too, fwiw

Ben Brawdshaw's majority in Exeter has gone from 2721 in 2010 to about 7,500 if the figures Google are giving me are correct.

Bradshaw.

seems a p impressive person

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rushanara_Ali

despite lack of canvassing.

I'm now quite looking forward to watching the Tories try to win the EU referendum. Brexit would fuck us (and be catastrophic for their biz pals) and they know this.

But thumping the tub for Europe is toxic for them, hopefully pretty much as toxic as thumping the tub for the UK turned out to be for Scottish Labour.

^^^ That is definitely going to be the big theme of the next Parliament, Cameron will have to give his MPs free reign on that issue, they'll destroy him if he doesn't.

The Tories have made a lot of contradictory pledges on tax, spending and borrowing, in anticipation of having to water them down in minority/coalition government. Not sure how they're going to deal with that with a majority.

Miliband about to resign btw.

Charles Kennedy lost his Ross, Skye and Lochaber seat. He was so pissed on qt recently I forgot he was actually still a functional (sort of) mp.

the handwringing on twitter is hard to take, and the stupid jokes or memes to try and raise the mood have the opposite effect.

Started a Chuka Ummuna Obama Hope poster, lost interest during making it. But I bet you see one before the end of the day.

*Umunna*

I haven't read this whole thread yet but agghhhhh.

Now I'm going to read this whole thread (since 1am when I gave up and went to bed) and cry inwardly or possibly outwardly instead of doing any work.

Guh.

a Chuka Ummuna Obama Hope poster

my son is going to be 11 before these fucks are gone.

I was 19 before they were gone last time

I turned 18 about 10 days after the 97 election. Nora's going to be at least 5. I have no confidence in Labour being electable under the current electoral system any time soon.

Seeing this as Cameron being quite lucky in the end and not really the case of economy stupid at all. More about Nationalism and Scotland. The referendum 'awakened' all to 30%+ swings north of the border (70%+ turnouts, a 20 yo being elected, so plenty of young people voting too). Unprecendented and the kind of engagement we all want to see south of the border.

The Lib Dem voters in England then reacted by voting tactically to UKIP or tories which took away the few % points that were needed in the marginal seats for Labour to win them.

At least that's what I saw up to the early hours last night.

I was 18 and voting for the first time in the 1992 election when the polls and result were pretty much like this and it felt at the time that Labour would never get elected again. But 'events, dear boy'. Less than a year later they were miles behind Labour in the polls and stayed there for more than a decade. Not saying this will happen again - things look fucking bleak right now - but nobody knows what's around the corner.

At least I heard of 70% is what I heard last night. xp

xyzzzz is broadly right about the mechanics, I think. but there are underlying truths that shd've been apparent years ago, and one positive of this election might be to convince a few more people of those truths. the Labour party as is offers no hope for radically changing economic policy in this country. the electoral system as is offers no hope for radically changing economic policy in this country.

what people choose to do next, other than to make special "Don't Forget It's Important to Vote" gifs for 2020, well it'll be unfun finding out

Not worried about ref. on Europe. See a fairly comfortable win and it would take Euro crisis ++ during any campaign to see that threatened in any way.

xp

bye nigel

never been so happy to see a conservative win a seat

a former ukipper no less

Farage not winning but if you put a pretty face on this they have become effectively the third party with a role to play in future elections. Sorry.

electoral reform and lowering of voting age please

oh god the next leader will be chuka umunna won't it

If it's not Yvette Cooper I'll eat what's left of Paddy Ashdown's hat. Female leaders are officially a 'thing' now, and political morons will jump on whatever bandwagon's trundling by them. Plus,sorry but wtf is the big deal about Nicola Sturgeon?

Not even Farage failing can lift my spirits tbh.

Electoral reform? When UKIP got 3.5million votes? Scary prospect.

but there are underlying truths that shd've been apparent years ago, and one positive of this election might be to convince a few more people of those truths. the Labour party as is offers no hope for radically changing economic policy in this country. the electoral system as is offers no hope for radically changing economic policy in this country.

You're such a softie NV w/the people will see it in the end :-)

Frankly we'll need more crisis, evictions, 'small government' for people's attitudes to even start to change. Syriza only came up when Greece was on its knees.

SNP supporter, guy I've known since he was 16, saying on Facebook that, " It's all good for us, because if thing's get really bad we're more likely to get independence". There's yer Nationalists for you.

no there's a guy on facebook you've known since he was 16

latest bbc forecast: tories get 331 seats