The 2015 General Election

[tonyh29]

What does the PM's office look like?

I don't think I've ever seen it. Is there a desk? What kind of computer?

iPad and candy crash is the word on the street in Cameron's case

[darrenm]

That shows just how out of touch he is then.

[tonyh29]

gadget snobbery in an election thread

Im guessing Ed plays dungeons and dragons what do we reckon Clegg, Sturgeon and Farage play ?

Edited May 4, 2015 by tonyh29

[chrisp65]

gadget snobbery in an election thread

Im guessing Ed plays dungeons and dragons what do we reckon Clegg, Sturgeon and Farage play ?

 

You just know Farage has a room dedicated to his miniature figurines in formations for some 'great' battle. Waterloo, June 1815 or Villa vs Albion, March 2015.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

The Independent has come out and backed another Tory/Lib Dem coalition.

 

Another paper I won't bother reading, then.

[Condimentalist]

The Independent has come out and backed another Tory/Lib Dem coalition.

Another paper I won't bother reading, then.

I think their analysis is reasonably fair. I suspect they'd prefer a Lib/Lab coalition - as would I - but the numbers won't work. Unfortunately the closing line of hoping for a more liberal and less conservative coalition seems like wishful thinking as well, but let's see.

[chrisp65]

To the Independent's credit, they were the only Sunday that didn't have baby pictures all over the front.

[tonyh29]

Bloody republican rag

[chrisp65]

I've been getting the Guardian recently as it's free in Waitrose, but it was nice to switch back yesterday, I like the way it reads.

[Richard]

Tory 15 seat majority is my prediction

[chrisp65]

Really, you see the tories getting 40 plus seats more than every polling organisation including Ashcroft predicts?

 

That's either a late swing of 15% or everyone constantly wrong by 15%.

 

Well that would be an exciting election night, and most things are possible, but how do you get there?

[StefanAVFC]

Can the Lib Dems really call themselves Liberals if they jump into bed with the Tories again?

[ThunderPower_14]

Can the Lib Dems really call themselves Liberals if they jump into bed with the Tories again?

 

In Australia, our currently governing conservative party, which would probably make your conservative party look like the Greens, are called the Liberals.

 

Work that one out.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Interesting read: A Very British Coup

 

 

Cameron has nowhere to go. So instead of winning the election fair and square he's trying to manage the post-election settlement ahead of time. And this has involved creating a narrative. This narrative has three strands. 

1. A Labour/SNP coalition would be illegitimate. 
   This has been the overwhelming message of the last three weeks. No rationale has been given for this absurd claim. The SNP's MPs will be democratically elected. The SNP would no more be holding Labour 'to ransom' than the Lib Dems have held the Tories to ransom. Coalitions mean identifying overlaps and doing deals on policy. Cameron's scaremongering suggests this will lead to the break-up of the Union. But (a) given the No vote in last year's referendum, this does not look like a likely option any time soon but also ( that's just an opinion Cameron disagrees with; he also disagrees with many Lib Dem policies but he's been in Coalition with them, and © ruling out allowing virtually all Scotland's elected representatives from taking part in UK government looks like a de facto break-up of the Union anyway (and that kind of attitude will hasten the actual break-up). It looks likely that the Lib Dems and Tories will have virtually no seats in Scotland this time round, so a Coalition between them would have no representation from Scotland. Is that legitimate? The problem is that this narrative has become so strong that Miliband has been cornered into saying he'll not form a Coalition or even do a deal with the SNP. I suspect Miliband has been forced to declare this because of the pincer movement of the Tory narrative on one side and his own party's visceral hatred of the upstart SNP. I'm hoping these statement can be carefully parsed to permit some kind of agreement on HoC votes, because otherwise Miliband has been suckered into losing the election before a single seat is declared. 
2. The party with the largest number of votes must have the first chance to try to form a government.
   This isn't true. Nick Clegg seems to believe it's true. It's what he said last time. But it isn't true. But the Tories are spreading this rumour around, using the weasel word 'legitimacy' and their friends in the press are repeating it as if it has the slightest constitutional significance. A Tory party with 279 seats would have no legitimacy, no right to rule just because the Tories and Nick Clegg say so. If Labour get fewer seats than the Tories, that has almost no practical significance because they are both a long way short of a majority. Yet the Telegraph think for Miliband to pursue a Coalition with a view to becoming Prime Minister, this would be a 'plot'. Neither the Tories nor Labour would be able to command the confidence of the House on their own. They will have to form Coalitions because that's how our system works.
3. The incumbent must have the first chance to try to form a government before anyone else.
   This is also not true, but I bet we'll hear a lot about this. What is true is that Cameron remains PM unless a new government is formed, but that doesn't mean anything about whether he gets to try to form his Government first. And note, this didn't happen in 2010 - because then the Tories, successfully, put about the idea that Labour had lost the moral authority to govern. If the predictions are correct, the Coalition will have lost 52 seats and will have lost their majority. In a sense, they will have lost the election. Labour and the SNP between them will have gained 55 seats (14 and 41 respectively) and will have overtaken the Coalition. But Cameron will deliberately confuse the distinction between his right to continue as PM until a new government is formed and a fictional priority in all negotiations.

By pushing this narrative at us over the next week, the Tories hope to mount what is effectively a constitutional right-wing coup. The Tories will be rejected by the electorate but they hope they will overcome this minor inconvenience and rule anyway. In this they know they will be supported by a great deal of the press. The model is George W Bush's first Presidential election, stolen by a mixture of Fox News, Democrat indecision, and the Supreme Court.

 

[wazzap24]

Just when you thought the Daily Mail couldn't sink any lower, along comes Littlejohn.....

 

 

 

Trust Labour? I'd rather trust Jimmy Savile to babysit, writes RICHARD LITTLEJOHN


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3068131/Trust-Labour-d-trust-Jimmy-Savile-babysit-writes-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html#ixzz3ZGB184et 

 

He's gotta be up there with the biggest words removed in the universe.

Edited May 5, 2015 by wazzap24

[PaulC]

Tory 15 seat majority is my prediction

The latest polls has both labour and Conservative tied on 33% so can't see anybody getting a majority.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

The polls are tied but there are plenty of undecideds who will choose the incumbent at the last minute.

[Xann]

[PaulC]

The polls are tied but there are plenty of undecideds who will choose the incumbent at the last minute.

not enough to give a majority to either party though.

[tonyh29]

The Marginals are going to be key

 

Latest info suggests Labour have clawed back Grimsby from UKIP  ( at least in terms of where previous polling had that seat going)

 

Peterborough seems likely to stay Tory

 

It still suggests a hung parliament either way ... unless the media have something special up their sleeve for Thursday morning  ..