The General Election Thread

[Bluemanc100]

Blumers Bloomers

While I can see that you are totally fed up and disheartened, I can also see you are wrong in not using your vote.

Your ancestors, from your parents back, have fought in one way or the other for you to have that vote, the least you can do is use it.
I agree the main parties are a bunch of tossers, so how about you take a few mins and look at the other candidates an pick one who at least seems to support some of the things you want, a vote against the main parties still sends a message.

Can we all blame him for not voting when we have a leadership comprising Ed and half of the Crankies too?

 

[law74]

Blumers Bloomers

While I can see that you are totally fed up and disheartened, I can also see you are wrong in not using your vote.

Your ancestors, from your parents back, have fought in one way or the other for you to have that vote, the least you can do is use it.
I agree the main parties are a bunch of tossers, so how about you take a few mins and look at the other candidates an pick one who at least seems to support some of the things you want, a vote against the main parties still sends a message.

Can we all blame him for not voting when we have a leadership comprising Ed and half of the Crankies too?

No.
we can thank him for playing a part in kicking cameron and Osborne out of Downing Street

 

[Bluemanc100]

For those not voting because they don't like Mr x or Mr y. You are voting on the policies they are offering. On the direction their party want's to steer the country. You should look past the individual and vote for the party who's policies you most closely agree with. To not vote is to abdicate from your civic duty. There will be a lot of guff about the popular vote after the election but it will be bollocks if people either don't vote or vote tactically.

Plus as another poster said, not voting is making a mockery of the fight that our ancestors made to get a vote and retain our freedom.

This is a democracy and it is surely therefore the duty of all of us to make a decision....

Make the wrong choice or no choice and the county could be back on the road to ruin and mismanagement in days

 

[Bluemanc100]

Blumers Bloomers

While I can see that you are totally fed up and disheartened, I can also see you are wrong in not using your vote.

Your ancestors, from your parents back, have fought in one way or the other for you to have that vote, the least you can do is use it.
I agree the main parties are a bunch of tossers, so how about you take a few mins and look at the other candidates an pick one who at least seems to support some of the things you want, a vote against the main parties still sends a message.

Can we all blame him for not voting when we have a leadership comprising Ed and half of the Crankies too?

No.
we can thank him for playing a part in kicking cameron and Osborne out of Downing Street

which would be fucking criminal............ God help us then

I have no doubt that given the chance, Milliband will U turn on his "No coalition with the SNP" statements and we'll be royally fucked then

It's a real worry that people will vote for the pig in a suit, thinking that they are doing their bit for the "have nots" instead of waking up smelling the coffee

worrying, very worrying

 

[BigJoe#1]

Blumers Bloomers

While I can see that you are totally fed up and disheartened, I can also see you are wrong in not using your vote.

Your ancestors, from your parents back, have fought in one way or the other for you to have that vote, the least you can do is use it.
I agree the main parties are a bunch of tossers, so how about you take a few mins and look at the other candidates an pick one who at least seems to support some of the things you want, a vote against the main parties still sends a message.

Can we all blame him for not voting when we have a leadership comprising Ed and half of the Crankies too?

No.
we can thank him for playing a part in kicking cameron and Osborne out of Downing Street

Absolutely spot on.... be it the real Frankie's, Laurel and Hardy of Abbot and Costello, any of these would be an improvement on the clowns that are Cameron and Osborne, and Clegg and Alexander.

 

[BlueHammer85]

For those not voting because they don't like Mr x or Mr y. You are voting on the policies they are offering. On the direction their party want's to steer the country. You should look past the individual and vote for the party who's policies you most closely agree with. To not vote is to abdicate from your civic duty. There will be a lot of guff about the popular vote after the election but it will be bollocks if people either don't vote or vote tactically.

Plus as another poster said, not voting is making a mockery of the fight that our ancestors made to get a vote and retain our freedom.

This is a democracy and it is surely therefore the duty of all of us to make a decision....

Mr Damocles has answered this point, our troops didn't fight for the vote, they fighted for having the right to vote, it is not compulsory

Anyway, my political compass is all over the place - Im going to vote Lib Dem

 

[Bluemanc100]

For those not voting because they don't like Mr x or Mr y. You are voting on the policies they are offering. On the direction their party want's to steer the country. You should look past the individual and vote for the party who's policies you most closely agree with. To not vote is to abdicate from your civic duty. There will be a lot of guff about the popular vote after the election but it will be bollocks if people either don't vote or vote tactically.

Plus as another poster said, not voting is making a mockery of the fight that our ancestors made to get a vote and retain our freedom.

This is a democracy and it is surely therefore the duty of all of us to make a decision....

Mr Damocles has answered this point, our troops didn't fight for the vote, they fighted for having the right to vote, it is not compulsory

Anyway, my political compass is all over the place - Im going to vote Lib Dem

It's all over the place because the lead up to the election is a hate campaign, if we insisted on coalition as other countries do then we may see some real policies and dare I say it, honesty

If the parties knew that they had to work in partnership then it would surely remove the vitriol.....

 

[Damocles]

<a class="postlink" href="http://may2015.com/ideas/why-winning-back-ukippers-wont-necessarily-save-the-tories/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://may2015.com/ideas/why-winning-ba ... he-tories/</a>

Why winning back Ukippers won’t necessarily save the Tories

“It’s time to come home,” the Prime Minister recently implored Ukip voters, and he has been joined by Boris Johnson. Tory strategists hope this ‘vote Ukip, get Miliband’ message will scare enough people that it transforms purples into blues and hands Cameron an election victory on Thursday.

But I’m unconvinced. The alchemy doesn’t work. Only if Ukip almost disappears would a combined Tory-Lib Dem coalition win, assuming Clegg is willing to renew his marriage vows.

Tories presume Ukip voters are natural Tories whose ranks are plentiful enough to tip the balance of seats Cameron’s way. Well we can test this by seeing what might happen if Ukip collapsed in the UK’s marginal seats, as measured by the 130 whose pulse has been taken by Lord Ashcroft’s constituency polls.

If Ukip fade, who benefits?

I took a look at this for May2015 a few months ago. That research showed how Ukippers were most likely to have voted for Cameron in 2010, but many also voted for Blair in 1997. The Tory plea for Ukippers to ‘come home’ paints too simplified a picture.

Let’s look again at how Ukippers voted in 2010. We have two useful sources for this: Ashcroft’s nationwide polls, which provide a breakdown of respondents’ 2010 recalled vote, and the British Election Study (BES).

A rough guess of Ukippers’ second preferences: three ex-Tories for each ex-Labour voter.

By using Ashcroft’s national polls we can gather together 1,500 people intending to vote Ukip from the 19 surveys he conducted between September 2014 and late April 2015. Among these 1,500, we find that of those who voted for the three main parties, 45 per cent are former Tories, 29 per cent ex-Lib Dem and 26 per cent ex-Labour.

Next I used data from the BES, which was collected in three ‘waves’ throughout 2014. Its advantage is sample size: it surveys 24,000 people per wave. That’s mean we have around 4,000 Ukip voters per wave – 12,000 in all.

Two findings stand out. First, there’s very little difference across the three waves when it comes to the 2010 vote of Ukippers. Second, they overwhelmingly backed the Tories in 2010: 63 per cent for Cameron, 15 per cent for Brown and 21 per cent for Clegg.

The 4:1 Tory-Labour slant is twice as big as in Ashcroft’s numbers. This is a surprisingly large gap, but one which mainly reflects the different methodology and sample size of the two surveys. Averaging BES and Ashcroft gives a rough guess of Ukippers’ second preferences: three ex-Tories for each ex-Labour voter. We also account for Ukippers who didn’t vote or voted for minor parties.

What happens if Ukip fall to 7 per cent?

Now consider the most daring of plausible ‘Ukip demise’ scenarios: its 14 percent of the vote halves to 7 percent. As Caitlin Milazzo and Matthew Goodwin note, this could be the case if the half of Ukip voters who say they are not ‘highly certain’ to vote for the party defect to their second preference.

If we use the vote split data from Ashcroft’s national polls – a 2:1 Tory:Labour split among Ukippers – a halving of the Ukip vote gives the Tories five more marginal seats than suggested by Ashcroft’s seat polls: Thurrock, Torbay, Rossendale and Darwen, South Ribble and Norwich North. (It also puts them further ahead in Pudsey, where a recent Ashcroft poll put the Tories ahead by 1.)

Halving the Ukip vote isn’t a significant enough impact for Cameron.

If we use BES data – and assume a 4:1 Tory advantage – the Tories another: Halesowen & Rowley Regis (and shore up their slim lead in High Peak). So the Tories’ net gain on Labour is 5-6 seats.

May2015’s current election prediction is 273 Tory, 268 Labour. Because May2015 moves national polls every day in-line with changes in national polls, two of the seats the Tories would gain have already moved into the Tory column.

If we add the other four – Thurrock (from Ukip), Torbay (from the Lib Dems), Norwich North and Halesowen & Rowley Regis (both from Labour), the Tories rise to 275, with Labour falling to 267.

This isn’t a significant enough impact for Cameron. To reach the mid-280 mark he needs, he will either need a greater national poll win than May2015 currently predicts, or a greater first-time incumbency effect than Ashcroft has found.

One reason for the limited impact of a Ukip demise is that a significant minority of Ukip’s current voters did not vote for a main party in 2010 and, according to BES, do not list a main party as a second preference. So even if they leave Ukip, they do not affect the race.

Only if UKIP were wiped to zero does the Tory bloc win.

Only if UKIP were wiped to zero, which delivers a Tory gain of 16, Labour loss of 11 and Lib Dem/Ukip loss of 5 relative to Ashcroft’s polls, does the Tory bloc win, and then by a slim 325-319 margin.

The demise of the Lib Dems means the Tories have exchanged a seat-rich coalition partner for a seat-poor one. This could produce a Canadian-style divided right in which conservatism is out of power for a generation. (Or perhaps Boris will become leader, win 40 per cent and have a majority.)

The danger for the system is that centre-right and right-wing voters, if we include the centrist Lib Dems, may make up 55-60 per cent of the electorate but hold a minority of seats. The only cure for that is proportional representation – an unlikely prospect.

Good article. Poll of polls for today:

[bigimg]http://i.imgur.com/op5GuI8.png[/bigimg]

I've just seen a Scottish polling company say on Twitter that they have an "interesting" poll coming out today so it might change this a little.

 

[without a dream]

Can we all blame him for not voting when we have a leadership comprising Ed and half of the Crankies too?

No.
we can thank him for playing a part in kicking cameron and Osborne out of Downing Street

which would be fucking criminal............ God help us then

I have no doubt that given the chance, Milliband will U turn on his "No coalition with the SNP" statements and we'll be royally fucked then

It's a real worry that people will vote for the pig in a suit, thinking that they are doing their bit for the "have nots" instead of waking up smelling the coffee

worrying, very worrying

He has no need to form a coalition with them. If he puts up a left wing budget they have no choice but to vote it through or they'll get annihilated at the next election. The Tories would support a bill on trident, so he could quite feasibly get everything he needs as a minority government.

 

[Damocles]

Thought this was brilliant too:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/miliband-nasty-bad-man-2015050698064" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/ ... 5050698064</a>

Miliband nasty bad man

ED Miliband is a bad, nasty man so you no vote for him.

Clever men prove Miliband make bad prime minister and do horrid thing to lovely Britain.

Professor Cleverman, from Best University Ever, say: “If you no vote Tory then Labour make everyone cry with tax and muslims.

“If you no vote Tory, evil Russia man blow up your your telly.

“If you no vote Tory, tiny Scottish people raid your fridge and eat your cheesy things.”

Brian, a person like you, say: “I hear clever man so me clever too. Miliband man do bad nasty. Me vote Tory.”

Professor Cleverman say: “Well done Brian. Have a cheesy thing

 

[denislawsbackheel]

"Career defining" day tomorrow.

Let's kick the careerist out.

 

[Damocles]

[video]http://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2015/05/05/150505cassetteboy_desk.mp4[/video]

 

[SWP's back]

The current system is a joke and gives the SNP a far far greater say in the affairs of the UK than is even remotely fair.

The SNP with 4% of the vote compared with UKIP's 13% will get 46 seats to UKIPs 0

And we laughingly call this democracy.

For the article

<a class="postlink" href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/t ... e1jDbYPFgb</a>

 

[Bluemanc100]

The current system is a joke and gives the SNP a far far greater say in the affairs of the UK than is even remotely fair.

Spoiler

The SNP with 4% of the vote compared with UKIP's 13% will get 46 seats to UKIPs 0

And we laughingly call this democracy.

For the article

<a class="postlink" href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/t ... e1jDbYPFgb</a>

Why don't we use Proportional Representation? It would surely be fairer. Did we all vote for the electoral process we currently use?

 

[Bluemanc100]

[video]http://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2015/05/05/150505cassetteboy_desk.mp4[/video]

Off topic but who is the day walker in the montage before our eyes get burned by Kay the Witch Burley? She's rather nice

 

[Damocles]

And now the REALLY important shit for you last minute swing voters - what do the parties say on football?

Lib Dems

The football authorities have not heeded the warnings that they needed to reform. The Liberal Democrats support legislation to give fans a veto over the decisions that affect the heritage of their clubs like the name of the team, or the kit colour, or where they play. We would also strengthen the fit and proper test for owners and ensure a proportion of tickets are at an affordable rate.

Labour

We will give fans a voice on the board of every professional club and the right to buy shares up to a cap of 10% when the club changes hands. The proposals that were drawn up between The FA, Premier League and Football League did not address the deficit that exists in grass roots involvement and cemented the power of the professional game at the expense of the rest. We want to see The FA restructure itself so that it becomes more representative of all parts of the football family.

Tories

Despite the tough economic circumstances in the last government, we ensured more money was released for grassroots football through Lottery funding. We have consistently worked with the Premier League to get more support for grassroots sport. And this is no more evident than in our pledge to build 150 sports hubs throughout England and deliver more 3G pitches. We are doing this in partnership with the Football Association and the Premier League,

Greens

At local level we would like to see more done to make business rate relief for amateur and community clubs more uniform across the country and not at the gift of local councils. Within the music industry we have investigated the introduction of what has been nicknamed a Beyonce Tax whereby any music artist playing in a locality will pay a small additional tax sum on concert income to be ring fenced for local arts projects and perhaps the same could be investigated within football. The Green Party believes that tax is a progressive form of funding for local provision and so introducing tax breaks simply reduces overall income for expenditure on facility.

UKIP didn't respond to FCBusiness (who asked the question).

Safe Standing Support:

Tories: Yes
Lib Dems: Yes
Greens: Yes
Labour: No.

PDF here:

<a class="postlink" href="http://fcbusiness.co.uk/cms/thesite/public/uploads/uploadsbank/1429264142_788.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://fcbusiness.co.uk/cms/thesite/pub ... 42_788.pdf</a>

Also, not to influence your vote or anything but John Leech is the Sports Secretary for the Lib Dems. This was his answer to the question of safe standing:

As a 31 year season ticket
holder at Manchester City, and
having stood on the Kippax for
many years before the
introduction of all-seater stadia,
I believe that fans should have
the choice to stand in safe, railseated
terraces. Standing at
football has never gone away,
and never will, but currently
fans are standing in areas that
are designed for seating, which
is less safe than introducing rail
seating and allowing people to
stand.
The Liberal Democrats have a
manifesto commitment to allow
clubs to introduce safe standing
areas. 90% of fans support
having the choice at games, and
fans groups like the FSF and
Supporters Direct support the
move. It would improve the
atmosphere at games, help
reduce prices and improve
safety for fans standing up

 

[SWP's back]

Labour saying no to safe standing?

Cunts.

 

[Damocles]

Labour saying no to safe standing?

Cunts.

My local Labour MP is the guy who was the "champion" of the Hillsborough families and he'll trounce everybody round here based on it. Labour's excuse for not supporting safe standing is essentially "but Hillsborough!!" and they won't piss off Liverpool

 

[Bluemanc100]

Question Damocles, would Labour not even vote for safe standing if we insisted that those standing carried emergency candles?

 

[urmston]

Why don't we use Proportional Representation? It would surely be fairer. Did we all vote for the electoral process we currently use?

PR has its drawbacks. As with referendums PR gives people what they vote for, and that isn't always desirable because usually the people don't know what's best. They are mainly simple souls who don't understand the issues properly and are easily influenced by evil press barons because they take everything in newspapers as the gospel truth.