Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Thats what I used to get my 104 majority claim :D Although I didnt adjust seats.
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Who did you adjust? Which party gained from tatical voting from labour?

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

For Lab/Con marginals I adjusted Con +3 and Lab -3. For Con/Lib it was Con +5, Lib -5 (because at the last two elections the Lib Dems have atracted a lot of disaffected Tory votes, and I don't think they'll last), and for Lab/Lib marginals I adjusted Lib +5, Lab -5. All other boxes were zero.

The total number of seats gained and lost in my scenario is shown in the results page in my link.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

I live in a Labour very very safe seat so my Vote for Conservative or any other party would be wasted. The closest would be one for the Lib Dems which would be a tactical vote to knock Labour out but even then it would take every voter from all other parties to swing behind Lib Dem in order to come anywhere near getting Labour out.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Here's something to really bake your noodle - if you simply reverse the Labour and Tory standing in the polls (leaving Lib Dem and Other as they stand), you get a hung parliament:

http://news3.thdo.bbc.co.uk/nol/shar...CULATE+RESULTS

This is because recent boundary changes bias the result in Labour's favour, according to something I read somewhere on that BBC site. Apparently Labour were rather better at lobbying the Boundaries Commission than were the Tories when these things were being established a few years back.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Massive majorities can be overturned but only if worked upon. Apathy and to some extent tactical voting can delay or make impossible any change.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Thats a lot of presumptions :D 7% away from labour in marignals on top of the 5% already done on the yougov poll. Thats 13% swing away from labour in those seats. Labour may be unpopular at the moment but its no where near that type of swing

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Well, these things are always, as Peter Snow says, a bit of fun. But don't forget we're talking about marginals only - these are localised adjustments. The big problem with national opinion polls is that they don't allow for the fact that different constituencies have different loyalties and a greater or lesser number of swing voters.

Remember at the 1992 election, for example (not that you would, sorry) the opinion polls got it massively wrong, and a predicted Labour victory - based on a swing of up to 10% indicated by the polls - actually turned out to be a Conservative majority of, IIRC, about 7, after the swing turned out to be less than 5%.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

The more I see the less interest I have in the whole process.

I don't want to vote for any of them but feel I should. All I know is I definately will not be voting for the Tories as I watched Oliver Letwin give a news conference and felt an overwhelming urge to throw something heavy through the TV.

Lib Dems might be best as they haven't a hope of getting voting in at my seat so it would be pretty much a protest vote (unless a few thousand other people have the same idea :shocked: )

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

I heard about that. But the same could be applied in the reverse. In that election the swing away from the goverment was over predicted, the same could be said here. On election day isnt there an average rate for 2 to 1 swing voters going for the current goverment?
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Cant you look at your local results from the last election? Then you can decide who best to vote for based on your area. Tactial voting. Theres a 20% Majority for the tory candidate here, its one of the safest seats in the country, and to top it off labour where the nearest party so the swing from labour to lib dem wont help at all. I might vote labour although i know it wont matter

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Hmmm, so safe for the tories so half of them don't bother to vote as it won't make a difference. Ooops, how did we lose that seat? The only true safe seats are the ones where all the voters get off their backsides to make sure that it really is safe.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

As I have previously said, I used to live in a safe Conservative seat (had the oldest MP). In 1997 it was taken by Labour. The Consewrvatives took it back in 2001 but only with a narrow majority. It is now defined as a marginal seat so things can change over time.

I have sinced moved away to another safe Conservative seat! ;)

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Whats so funny about British elections and polotics is its based on one principal alone.

"You can fool most of the people most of the time"

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Considering Labour are supposed to be above all this supposed "fear-electioneering" they are doing a very good impression.

Seen the latest one about the NHS? With Prunella Scales in it? Its the usual class-war rubbish you'd expect from Labour. Anyway, the final screen said "Keep the NHS free", which is blantantly misleading. Its inferring that, it won't be under Tories. That's complete rubbish. The NHS would be as free under the Tories as Labour. The Tories want to fill up as many empty private beds as possible which means queues for the NHS get shorter, and people get seen quicker. The actually price would be the same, i.e. Free. Well, under Labour, the NHS would probably be more expensive, with ever-more bloated NI contributions.

I can't afford to go private, even with half-subsided fees from the NHS (money I paid in for the NHS to treat me), but I am no fool. If the people that can afford to go private, do, then the people at the back of the NHS queue, like me.. Are we going to stay at the back? No, we are going to move forward quicker. Rather than have 1 very long NHS queue, and 1 virtually non-existant private one, you'll get 1 much shorter queue for the NHS and 1 longer for private but much more equal

Aside from that, don't Labour have an obligation to treat as many people as possible, rather than just let people die waiting that could be saved if they get the treatment quicker private?

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

I could point out 2 houses in an area north of Heathrow that have more than a dozen people who should not be living and working in the UK, living in them and working in heathrow hotels. They are people who have come into the country on tourist or short-term student visas from eastern europe and have not gone home. Instead, they have chosen to stay, live here illegally and work, because they can't get in any other way and the money here is just too good to pass up. How do I know this, because I used to go out with a foreign student who knew someone who lived in one of them. She also had a friend who actively recruited foreign students from colleges in London to work through a temp agency in very well known west end shops. Do you call this controlled immigration? I certainly don't.

Re: Vote 2005 week 3, with another new poll
 

Doesnt that create a two teir system? Theres the option to be treated free, or pay extra and get nice private treatment. Its sounds ok because you pay your taxs and then get treated away from the NHS. Although most people cannot afford to go private full stop. This will not bring people who do not go private now to go private. It will simply make those who go private now pay less by taking the money out of the NHS.

Private treatment is very expensive and even with this voucher system it is massively expensive.The idea that loads upon loads of people will go private after this cannot be backed up. Its will come down to £1 Billion pounds taken from the NHS to help pay for peoples private operations without a big dent in waiting times