2015 UK General Election Thread

[denphone]

Labour lead falls as Greens hit 20-year high in Guardian/ICM poll.

Conservatives, Lib Dems and Labour record lowest-ever combined total as UKip falls but SNP and Greens make gains

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...e-lib-dem-ukip

[Jimmy-J]

I voted for "other" because there isn't an option for "none of the above / spoiling vote"

[MalteseFalcon]

Poll question is about who will have the most seats, regardless of a majority not who you are voting for.

Originally Posted by denphone

l think the majority of us are sick of it already and there are still 108 days to go before the damn thing.

[Dave42]

Originally Posted by denphone

l think the majority of us are sick of it already and there are still 108 days to go before the damn thing.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Indeed, let it happen tomorrow i can make my spoiling vote against Cameron and then get on with my life.

I wonder if this election will spark electorate reform, especially a move to proportional representation of some kind. It's possible in the aftermath to have many parties (UKIP, Greens) where they voter share doesn't translate to many seats at all. You could have, theoretically at least, a situation where the majority of the parliament is made up 600+ seats are assigned according to 60% of the vote whereas the other 40% gets a handful.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by MarkC1984

Poll question is about who will have the most seats, regardless of a majority not who you are voting for.

The majority will be with the 'not voted' camp as it has been since the 1950's iirc

Originally Posted by Damien

I wonder if this election will spark electorate reform, especially a move to proportional representation of some kind. It's possible in the aftermath to have many parties (UKIP, Greens) where they voter share doesn't translate to many seats at all. You could have, theoretically at least, a situation where the majority of the parliament is made up 600+ seats are assigned according to 60% of the vote whereas the other 40% gets a handful.

We have had a referendum on electoral reform. It didn't go well for the reformers. Given that PR would result in endless coalition, and we have just experienced five years of coalition, I find it hard to see where the arguments are going to come from that might change everyone's mind on the issue.

[Osem]

Can't say I fancy another 5 years of bickering and inertia.

Originally Posted by Chris

We have had a referendum on electoral reform. It didn't go well for the reformers. Given that PR would result in endless coalition, and we have just experienced five years of coalition, I find it hard to see where the arguments are going to come from that might change everyone's mind on the issue.

I think the arguments will come when the outcome of the election shows a wide discrepancy between votes cast and seats awarded. It's one thing to advocate first past the post in a two party system where 70% to 80% of voters have voted for one of two parties. It's another when only around 60% voted for them and the remaining 40% see but a handful of seats allocated to them.

If you take current polls and assume a uniform swing then the Liberal Democrats will win 8% of the vote but get 18 seats whereas UKIP with a projected vote share of 15% will win anything between 1 to 4/5 seats. The Greens will increase their vote share about 10 fold from 0.9% to 10% (again on current polling) but could well lose their only seat to win 0 seats for that share.

I don't think you can sustain the argument that FFTP is better when people are being allocated twice as many seats or more than parties that won far more votes. It's absurd that the Liberal Democrats can get less votes than the Green Party but get 18 seats to their none. The Conservatives can get twice as many votes as UKIP but UKIP will be award a handful of seats whereas the Tories would be given orders of magnitude more seats.

It seems to me that this system only works when the majority of votes goes to one of the two parties. When the vote share is more evenly spread then people are voting for coalitions anyway and all FFTP does is cause a big inequality to the process. You suggest that coalitions are a unfavorable result but for the second time running it seems that is what the electorate will choose. The arguments will come from the that we might as well make sure that the coalitions better represent the voters themselves.

Finally I suspect that a minority Labour/Lib-Dem/SNP coalition will make a referendum on this a condition of any agreement and insist the Labour leadership campaign for a Yes vote. This time they'll also have the support of likes of UKIP and the Greens in additional to the Lib-Dems and SNP. The electoral landscape has changed a lot in 5 years.

I think voters sick of the two-party system and more open to voting for minority parties will win that the vote for electoral change will be a lot closer than last time.

You sound like a Scottish nationalist. They're also fond of claiming that the reasons why they lost their referendum no longer apply.

Nobody voted for a coalition in 2010. All the parties made a pitch for outright control of the Commons and I doubt many people who voted Lib Dem, Tory or Labour, did so in order to influence the structure and nuances of the resulting government, but rather to state which party should have the job, or else (in the case of the Lib Dems) to make a principled but futile stand against the rest.

I'm not sure which polls you're reading to suggest people may deliberately choose a coalition this year by opting to support minor parties. British electoral arithmetic is well understood. There can't be many people who actually think about their vote, who don't understand the likely consequences of voting for a party that has a thin sheen of support across a nation of 65 million people, but almost no depth of support in any one place.

Originally Posted by Chris

You sound like a Scottish nationalist. They're also fond of claiming that the reasons why they lost their referendum no longer apply.

Their referendum was a few months ago though.

Originally Posted by Chris

I'm not sure which polls you're reading to suggest people may deliberately choose a coalition this year by opting to support minor parties. British electoral arithmetic is well understood. There can't be many people who actually think about their vote, who don't understand the likely consequences of voting for a party that has a thin sheen of support across a nation of 65 million people, but almost no depth of support in any one place.

I don't think anyone is actively choosing a coalition but that their support for a minority party shows that the prospect isn't sending them to Labour or Tories. They may switch back at the last moment as we saw with the Lib Dem collapse 5 years ago but if they don't then they're at best ambivalent about the idea of it.

I mean a lot of UKIP and SNP support is voters who want them in a coalition to pressure one of the main parties into whatever policies they want enacted.

[denphone]

Labour extends lead over Conservatives despite attacks from business.


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...liband-cameron

[denphone]

ITV to air first party leaders’ TV debate on 2 April.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ate-on-2-april