The General Election Thread

[TangerineSteve17]

We need to make not voting a crime to actually get a true government of the people

How about you get paid 50 quid to vote instead.. More implementable.

 

[whp.blue]

We need to make not voting a crime to actually get a true government of the people

Great idea however you may have to tie in being on the electoral register and the right to claim benefits other wise people would just disappear

 

[117 M34]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

 

[Len Rum]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

SNP most seats.
UKIP has ruled out coalition with Labour.
Labour has ruled out coalition with SNP.

 

[117 M34]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

SNP most seats.
UKIP has ruled out coalition with Labour.
Labour has ruled out coalition with SNP.

Cheers.
I can't see conservatives getting enough to win the election outright, but will get more than labour, so I reckon we will get another coalition.

Looking at what you have said, it looks to me that Lib dems would be wanting a labour majority so they could go in to coalition with them whereas if conservatives have the majority, they would likely go with SNP if they have the highest amount of seats of the also rans.

 

[worsleyweb]

My trip to Jodrell Bank today and understanding to a degree how small we are in the universe and how little time we are here has got me thinking! Does it really matter if the refs or blues get in! Just be nice to one another.

 

[Clevers]

We need to make not voting a crime to actually get a true government of the people

Perhaps the people who don't vote don't care who is in power.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

My trip to Jodrell Bank today and understanding to a degree how small we are in the universe and how little time we are here has got me thinking! Does it really matter if the refs or blues get in! Just be nice to one another.

Everything's relative, mate. Same if you're working in an ant colony or running a Galaxy. You can only evaluate things based in your own place in the universe.

Rasc, solid, well thought out response. I'll respond tomorrow, when I'm less...errr....tired.

 

[Gaylord du Bois]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

SNP most seats.
UKIP has ruled out coalition with Labour.
Labour has ruled out coalition with SNP.

Cheers.
I can't see conservatives getting enough to win the election outright, but will get more than labour, so I reckon we will get another coalition.

Looking at what you have said, it looks to me that Lib dems would be wanting a labour majority so they could go in to coalition with them whereas if conservatives have the majority, they would likely go with SNP if they have the highest amount of seats of the also rans.

Taking the polls into consideration I'm not sure the lib dems will have enough seats for a coalition.
It seems to me that either Labour or Conservative get under the duvet with the SNP or they jump the broomstick together.

That's how I see it, unless I'm missing something obvious, that is.

 

[Damocles]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

Numbers

 

[Gaylord du Bois]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

What's the alternatives, Dam? If there's not enough to make a coalition what's next.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

What's the alternatives, Dam? If there's not enough to make a coalition what's next.

Then the Queen will presumably have to invite the leader of the largest party to try to form a government and there will be agreements about items of legislation on a vote-by-vote basis.

The thing is, we were always told that one of the advantages of the 'First Past The Post' voting system was that it resulted in strong governments without the need for the horse-trading that comes with coalition governments. If that's no longer the case, then we may as well have proportional representation as the argument for FPTP will be very weak on Damocles' numbers.

 

[hilts]

In an ideal world the government should run lots of services and run them like a private company with profits going towards reinvestment and workers pay and conditions, unfortunately governments are pretty shit at running anything, i think where there is plenty of competition let it go private otherwise the government should run it but get someone in charge who knows how to do it properly

Public transport should be re nationalised but i would guess the cost would be huge

A government run system will rarely make any profit because in essence the only real worthwhile reason to nationalize is to bring prices down and not run for profit. There is also no real motivation to turn a profit because turning a profit requires increasing prices to pay for everything and that loses votes.

Unfortunately simple economics is always against nationalization. We all want to pay less so profits become less so then investment is less, jobs as a consequence also become less, finally service suffers. Your once good railway/gas/etc system now becomes a bad one.

As with all things you inevitably get what you pay for.

I disagree with this in terms of the profit argument, take first and stagecoach as the main bus operators, they make a nice profit even after investing in the company, if the government took control and ran them in exactly the same manner the profits could be reinvested to provide a better service or even reduce ticket prices probably a mixture of both

The problem is as soon as people start working for a council they no longer have the incentive to run it as a business, managers ease off, drivers have more days off, buses get fixed at a slower rate, the costs to run the service start to eat away at any profits and then the government has to put money in and we are back to square one

It is a daft situation with the buses and rail though that even now after privatisation governments still have to pay these companies

 

[Damocles]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

Numbers

Just rereading that and those numbers didn't make sense to me - seems I made a mistake and took the "lowest probable" seats rather than "average probable". The proper numbers should be Tories at 283 and Labour at 277 which still makes no possible coalition.

UKIP will probably win 10% of the votes and get 1 seat whilst SNP will get 3% of the votes and get 40 seats. This doesn't seem right to me and proportional representation seems fairer.

It's worth noting that unlike our US cousins, UK election polling can be quite inaccurate though never dead wrong.

 

[Damocles]

Current poll of polls:

 

[hilts]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

Numbers

Just rereading that and those numbers didn't make sense to me - seems I made a mistake and took the "lowest probable" seats rather than "average probable". The proper numbers should be Tories at 283 and Labour at 277 which still makes no possible coalition.

UKIP will probably win 10% of the votes and get 1 seat whilst SNP will get 3% of the votes and get 40 seats. This doesn't seem right to me and proportional representation seems fairer.

I think the whole system needs changing especially now devolution is the next thing coming our way, the system is old and outdated, to me we should scrap the house of lords, reduce parliament to 100 mp's voted on by Proportional representation, and have mayors who seek election for different areas of the country

we would probably get 30 odd tories and labour mp's and a mix of the others, having mayors free from party control would be much better for democracy

The people of manchester could then get a left wing mayor and see how this compares to other parts of the country, the way we are going we are just getting more and more politicians

The only ones who can change it won't though

 

[Lucky13]

First it was "weaponise" and now he's a " happy warrior " Beaker has got suppressed masculinity problems.

 

[whp.blue]

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

Numbers

Just rereading that and those numbers didn't make sense to me - seems I made a mistake and took the "lowest probable" seats rather than "average probable". The proper numbers should be Tories at 283 and Labour at 277 which still makes no possible coalition.

UKIP will probably win 10% of the votes and get 1 seat whilst SNP will get 3% of the votes and get 40 seats. This doesn't seem right to me and proportional representation seems fairer.

I think the whole system needs changing especially now devolution is the next thing coming our way, the system is old and outdated, to me we should scrap the house of lords, reduce parliament to 100 mp's voted on by Proportional representation, and have mayors who seek election for different areas of the country

we would probably get 30 odd tories and labour mp's and a mix of the others, having mayors free from party control would be much better for democracy

The people of manchester could then get a left wing mayor and see how this compares to other parts of the country, the way we are going we are just getting more and more politicians

The only ones who can change it won't though

If Manchester were ever to get a Left wing Mayor with any real power it would be a disaster for the region.
If this ever became even remotely possible I would close my business, putting at least 30 people out of work, sell my house and move.
One term of a left wing Mayor would put the region back 50 years. Left wing ideology doesn't work in the real world.

 

[EalingBlue2]

Just rereading that and those numbers didn't make sense to me - seems I made a mistake and took the "lowest probable" seats rather than "average probable". The proper numbers should be Tories at 283 and Labour at 277 which still makes no possible coalition.

UKIP will probably win 10% of the votes and get 1 seat whilst SNP will get 3% of the votes and get 40 seats. This doesn't seem right to me and proportional representation seems fairer.

I think the whole system needs changing especially now devolution is the next thing coming our way, the system is old and outdated, to me we should scrap the house of lords, reduce parliament to 100 mp's voted on by Proportional representation, and have mayors who seek election for different areas of the country

we would probably get 30 odd tories and labour mp's and a mix of the others, having mayors free from party control would be much better for democracy

The people of manchester could then get a left wing mayor and see how this compares to other parts of the country, the way we are going we are just getting more and more politicians

The only ones who can change it won't though

If Manchester were ever to get a Left wing Mayor with any real power it would be a disaster for the region.
If this ever became even remotely possible I would close my business, putting at least 30 people out of work, sell my house and move.
One term of a left wing Mayor would put the region back 50 years. Left wing ideology doesn't work in the real world.

That is so untrue and narrow minded. Even many Tories will admit that loony left ken Livingstone made some changes that worked wonders for London and especially on transport he made London a better city

 

[cibaman]

Which of Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP is likely to win the most seats?

Would any of them not go in to a coalition with labour / conservatives?

Here's the ridiculousness of it.

SNP are currently polling that they'll get around 600,000 voters and win around 40 seats in Parliament. UKIP are looking at around 4,000,000 votes and are predicted to win 2 seats.

Current poll of polls data suggests that there will be a hung Parliament with a very slight Conservative win and no potential for a coalition Government. To be honest, the way it's being forecast then a coalition Government is a million miles away. They need to get 326 seats and Tories are predicting 240 and Labour 230. The next biggest would be SNP with 40.

A Labour swing but not enough to win the election. Sounds about right to me just judging off of popular social media.

Numbers

Just rereading that and those numbers didn't make sense to me - seems I made a mistake and took the "lowest probable" seats rather than "average probable". The proper numbers should be Tories at 283 and Labour at 277 which still makes no possible coalition.

UKIP will probably win 10% of the votes and get 1 seat whilst SNP will get 3% of the votes and get 40 seats. This doesn't seem right to me and proportional representation seems fairer.

It's worth noting that unlike our US cousins, UK election polling can be quite inaccurate though never dead wrong.

The UKIP v SNP outcome is because the SNP are only contesting a small number of seats and are likely to hoover up votes in those seats. Under a proportional representation, constituency based, system the outcome would be much the same. It would only change if you abolished the concept of constituencies and had one big vote to determine the number of MP's. Assuming you did and UKIP picked up 10% of the vote and 65 MP's, who would those MPs represent?