2015 UK General Election campaign & aftermath discussion thread.

Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the Lib Dems ending up with 8 seats!

I think I said this would happen (on here) years ago, but not like this - I think I was saying that they were unlikely to hold the balance of power again as they'd win so few seats, but I wasn't imagining a scenario where the SNP won the whole of Scotland and Labour ended up about 100 seats behind the Tories.

It begins
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/snoopers-charter-set-to-return-to-law-as-theresa-may-suggests-conservative-majority-could-lead-to-huge-increase-in-surveillance-powers-10235578.html

Third party per share of vote (where they polled) = SNP obviously.

A friend on FB pointed out that the bitterest ash in the mouths of the Lib Dem faithful must be that a lot of their vote turned to UKIP because they were only ever a protest vote, not the next age of UK political consciousness or whatever the fuck.

Non-FPTP and UKIP: STV or similar is still pretty good at keeping out parties that most of the electorate despises.

St Ives takes ages cos they have to fly in ballot boxes from the Scilly Isles.

Lab losing Scotland for one and now just reminded we'll have Boundary changes on the way too.

With the trend for female leaders we can look forwrad to Teresa May as perfect Thatcher Mk.II material for next PM.

The only thing that can stop this: complete economic and worldwide meltdown. Crisis and the spectre of...well, lets stop there.

St Ives takes ages cos they have to fly in ballot boxes from the Scilly Isles.

same situation in shetland and orkney, but it didn't take them half as long

Smash at this country

Whilst the Silly Isle has voted in a tory govt

or the big part of it at least

Xps I meant 'smdh' but mobile predictive text wins again.

I think I said this would happen (on here) years ago, but not like this - I think I was saying that they were unlikely to hold the balance of power again as they'd win so few seats, but I wasn't imagining a scenario where the SNP won the whole of Scotland and Labour ended up about 100 seats behind the Tories.

Actually, that's not what I said, now I've found it (about a page down from this) in this discussion of how it was being taken as a given that the Lib Dems would always hold the balance of power from now on:
DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

Tim Wigmore @timwig · 19m 19 minutes ago

The BNP got 1,667 votes - drop of 99.7% on 2010

In what way does Scotland actually benefit from this SNP landslide? Sweeping the board in Holyrood I get, they can materially affect things there, but the Tories have no reason or incentive to offer them any concessions at all as far as I can see. And while they'll be grateful to the SNP for killing Labour off there, they could still do something ultra-vindictive there.

Still assuming another Indyref in the next five years is highly unlikely.

In Westminster, not at all. But then that's the whole point of the indy campaign, innit

I suppose it benefits from getting rid of a lot of useless dullard Labour MPs for one.

No idea that this new SNP contingent will be like though.

Could Labour have headed this off by promising DevoMax and saying that a Labour majority in Westminster was the only way to achieve that? Or was the well basically poisoned by then?

Poisoned.

In Westminster, not at all.

Well, they are a bit harder to ignore now there's 50 more of them.

(xp) The Vow was basically Devo Max I think?

Could Labour have headed this off by promising DevoMax and saying that a Labour majority in Westminster was the only way to achieve that?

Yes, though they'd have had to have started in 2012.

Labour blew themselves up when they stood with the Tories as Better Together. They should have stood alone, and fought not a Scottish campaign but a UK-wide one, selling a vision of a new federal UK that only they could deliver. The way they did it instead presented it as a choice between Independence and the status quo, and they stood with the status quo. Scots don't want either, and while independence was too much to vote for, they'll take the safer option of voting SNP over voting for the status quo.

The campaign should have been "Independence, More Tories or new Labour sunlit uplands". Brown understood that, and his final speech was a too-late attempt to pull it off. Blair McDougall (the unmitiated cunt) didn't, and chose to win the battle rather than the war

Lot of cloud cuckoo land stuff from SNP supporters I know on Facebook: "Once the UK votes to leave the EU and Scotland votes to stay in, there will be a constitutional crisis." Errrr, hold on, last I heard voting to stay in the EU was ahead in the polls

the vow wasnt devo max

hold on, last I heard voting to stay in the EU was ahead in the polls

last polls also saw a hung parliament and 2 seats between labour and tories. Opinions can change even on the day of voting.

Yeah, voting to stay in the EU is even more likely.

They also seem to be under the impression that the Tories won't offer them any further powers thus enraging the Scottish people further - and leading them to do what exactly? Throw a tantrum? Of course the Tories will offer them powers while binning the Barnett Formula and slashing funding. (xxp)

I am not even remotely confident that Britain will vote to stay in the EU, especially once the propaganda machine really gets going.

SNP get two questions at PMQs a week as third party. That is a huge gift for Salmond against Cameron. Especially a Cameron struggling to hold it together over Europe.

Will he be the SNP leader in the commons?

I reckon so yes

I am not even remotely confident that Britain will vote to stay in the EU, especially once the propaganda machine really gets going.

― Matt DC, Friday, 8 May 2015 16:43 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It'll be an interesting test - business interest (it's the economy stupid) v press propaganda (tho without perhaps the blanket attacks - presuming The Times and The Independent will be pro europe.

Murdoch surely won't allow the Times to take a pro-European slant. It'll just be more subtly anti while paying lipservice towards balance.

The main movers and shakers in the new government are all in favour of staying in EU aren't they? Gove and IDS are the only ones I can think of that definitely aren't and not sure either of them will even be in the cabinet in 2 years time.

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

― LMAO. GOLD Chrisso. regards, REB (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 28 April 2015 13:28 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this held within a percent or so, just the internal arrangement of it shifted, pandemic quite correct about the feasibility of selling social democracy (ish) in england even with a salesperson of rather better acumen

though i was wrong about the conservative majority dream, which lives another day

paradoxically it was achieved more via chaotic failure than determinism; they would never have got near it had they not miscalculated the balance in scotland prior to and during the referendum campaign, resulting in snp surge and the golden opportunity to cull all three rivals in england with black propaganda

lord hutton's analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G04yBNTnmug&feature=youtu.be

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/hours-after-the-election-the-dwp-says-it-is-looking-to-cut-a-disabled-access-to-work-scheme-10237191.html

start as you mean to go on

How did that 'vote for the Coalition parties and hopefully they will be much less conservative and much less liberal' thing work out, Independent hacks?

ha, much more liberal

can someone please map BBC/channel 4 pundits to their political allegiances for me: david dimbleby, laura kuennsberg, jon snow, paul mason, evan davis, emily maitliss, duncan weldon, allegra stratton...

kirsty wark?

?Mason and Snow are on the left. Wark possibly too? Maitlis and Stratton right. Don't know about the others. All guesswork tbh.

Dimbleby's a Tory isn't he?

has anyone here read Paul Mason's novel?

ive drunk his wine

never been sure about wark. She went to an all girls public school in Ayr

So has Orson Welles.

http://youtu.be/Nvxwf1jxdaM

Xpost

can someone please map BBC/channel 4 pundits to their political allegiances for me

david dimbleby(?), laura kuennsberg, jon snow, paul mason all left. Wark is left - big mates with jack McConnell etc

Allegra Stratton right and I don't know about the others

damn, I had hoped he had gone to Wellington School for Girls.

cant believe dimbleby is is left