General Election 2015

[Pavilionaire]

See post #4581 above. Bold Seagull kindly detailed my thinking.

And I am sure most people will describe the Lib-Dems as left of centre.

Historically yes, but five years in coalition with the Tories and possibly another five years - and all with Clegg as leader - would leave Lib Dems a centre party. The heart of a Tory coalition, the brains of a Labour coalition - that sounds pretty centrist to me.

 

[melias shoes]

I see Ed is having a go over Libya. This from a party that illegally took us into a war in Iraq and one that had no obvious post war planning. Outrageous.

His hypocrisy knows no boundaries.

 

[Hampster Gull]

His hypocrisy knows no boundaries.

Yep. According to John Humphrys on BBC4 this morning he is the opposition leader who has engaged the least on foriegn affairs. At least this is a start, albeit rife with hypocrisy

 

[heathgate]

Jesus. Are you old enough to vote? I'm hoping you're not.

Lib Dems are a centrist party by anybodies measure...

Will you be campaigning at the ground tomorrow Simon?

Correct, this is what I meant. Thank you.

 

[The Birdman]

I thought the greens was a party that worried about the planet not a bunch of raving left wing socialist

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Ed Milliband is going to open the gates to non EU citizens, ie, Pakistan, India and other such countries which the conservatives had blocked but Labour will allow anyone in and even their pets if they've not already killed them.

Where do you think the replacements for all the GPs and hospital doctors who arrived here decades ago from the Indian sub-continent now coming up to retirement age will come from ?

 

[Hampster Gull]

Conservatives move a further 6 seats ahead of Labour in tonights Newsnight poll. Analysis is putting it down to an aversion across the country on the Labour SNP risk. People waking up and smelling the coffee

 

[Machiavelli]

Conservatives move a further 6 seats ahead of Labour in tonights Newsnight poll. Analysis is putting it down to an aversion across the country on the Labour SNP risk. People waking up and smelling the coffee

What are your view on this?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...in-the-general-election-the-pollsters-predict

Based on today’s figures, who, between Ed Miliband and David Cameron, do you think is in a better position with just over a month to election day?

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Alberto Nardelli rounds up this week’s opinion polls and how they translate into seats in the Guardian’s projection
Joe Twyman, head of political and social research at YouGov:

YouGov conducts polls every day and with only two weeks remaining until election day the voting intention data is still broadly where it was at both the start of the campaign and indeed the start of the year: the two main parties are neck and neck, and neither has anything like the share they need to win a majority.

The election campaign has so far failed to generate much excitement for large numbers of people and instead we appear to be left, to use a football metaphor, with Labour and Conservatives grinding out a scoreless draw and now playing for penalties.

However, I would suggest this may represent a risk for the Conservatives. Even if they could get 290 seats and if the Lib Dems manage 25, the existing coalition falls well short of a majority. Then what? A multi-party alliance with Ukip and the DUP?

Labour, on the other hand, could start with 20 fewer seats but then achieve a majority by partnering up with their historical bedfellows the Lib Dems and the SNP – even though they have ruled out a formal coalition with the latter.

Of course it may very well be more complicated than that, but if the Conservatives continue to play for penalties, they might discover they’re up against the Germans. And Ed Miliband could end up in Downing Street. Maybe.


Election 2015: What are the parties offering you?
Read more
Martin Boon, director, ICM:

If we mostly flat-lining pollsters are to believed, this is one hell of a becalmed campaign, and I’m not sure that’s likely to change. Given low expectations of Ed Miliband at the outset, I’d say he is the one who should be most pleased with himself, and a neck and neck vote share outcome will probably work in his favour when it comes to the seats shakeup.

Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos Mori:

Ed Miliband has made the most progress in the last week in personal terms, and the Labour party has edged ahead by a whisker in the national poll of polls. The maths of votes to seats benefits Labour most too. However David Cameron can still rationally hope for a late swing and an incumbency effect to get him over the line in an incredibly close race to most seats in the House of Commons.

Andrew Hawkins, chairman of ComRes:

All the political cross-dressing in this election (Ed Miliband channelling Nigel Farage on defence, David Cameron parroting Labour on the NHS) is simply producing a queasy stalemate with the two main parties mired in polling limbo.

Labour are marginally better placed because they will likely have the choice of two parties with which to govern. The Conservatives’ fortunes, and those of Cameron, depend on only one realistic possible outcome: having enough seats between them and the Liberal Democrats, and even then they will hope Nick Clegg can scrape through to keep his job in Sheffield Hallam.

Michelle Harrison, global head of public affairs at TNS:

Two weeks out, more reasons to be cheerful for Labour (just). If you’d told Labour pre-campaign that Miliband’s personal ratings would be improving, and they would be broadly at parity with the Tories in the polls at this stage, then Labour would be quietly confident given that the electoral maths historically has favoured them.

But then there’s Sturgeon and the SNP, who continue to go from strength to strength. Which creates an almighty headache for Labour, undercutting ambitions to make significant gains, and providing the Tories with their most potent line of attack so far.

For the Conservatives, David Cameron is still grappling with a campaign that hasn’t come alive and a Ukip headache which whilst not as bad as feared, still looks set to cause damage.

The outcome hinges on the crucial marginals and what ultimately wins through – safety first (for the Tories) or Labour’s “get out the vote” ground-war campaign?

Adam Drummond, Opinium:

I think we’re still broadly where we were at the start of the campaign with the big two still in margin of error territory and Ed Miliband slightly better placed in the hung parliament than David Cameron because of the disposition of the minor parties.

The most likely option still appears to be a minority Labour government supported by the SNP and other smaller parties, but it’s an open question whether Labour or the Conservatives will have more seats or what their respective vote shares will be.

In our polls we’ve shown the Conservatives slightly ahead (fuelled by a drop in Labour support among floating voters) which might be margin of error or might be evidence that the Conservative focus on Labour and the SNP is cutting through.

My working assumption at the moment is a Conservative win on vote share but this election has a looser relationship between national vote share and seats than we’ve seen for years. Even if the Conservatives do win more seats, they would have to do so by such a margin to be able to govern that the sort of narrow lead we’re seeing now wouldn’t change the underlying calculation.

Laurence Stellings, an associate director at Populus:

Neither. As I noted last time, the Conservatives have (slowly) closed the gap with Labour, and either could yet end up winning the more seats on 7 May, but unusually that doesn’t tell us who will be the next prime minister.

It would be very surprising if either Ed Miliband or David Cameron secure a majority, and in the days after election day both face a time-pressured and difficult set of negotiations to put together some type of coalition or confidence-and-supply arrangement.

But by virtue of having more potential partners, Ed Miliband stands a better chance than David Cameron of being the next prime minister.

Damian Lyons Lowe, founder and chief executive, Survation:

Ed Miliband. He is no longer a drag on the Labour party. He is now neither helping nor hindering his party.

The campaign has also unpicked Lynton Crosby’s [the Conservatives’ election campaign chief] strategy – only one in 10 voters say that party leader is a critical factor in choosing who to vote for.

The Conservatives may well end up with the most votes and seats, especially if Ukip’s vote softens in those seats where the party is fielding candidates but focusing less of its campaigning efforts, and where one in three Ukip voters could be squeezed.

However, the Tories would need a substantial lead in the polls because the electoral boundaries favour Labour.

 

[Hampster Gull]

What are your view on this?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...in-the-general-election-the-pollsters-predict

Based on today’s figures, who, between Ed Miliband and David Cameron, do you think is in a better position with just over a month to election day?

0:00
/
0:00
Embed
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Alberto Nardelli rounds up this week’s opinion polls and how they translate into seats in the Guardian’s projection
Joe Twyman, head of political and social research at YouGov:

YouGov conducts polls every day and with only two weeks remaining until election day the voting intention data is still broadly where it was at both the start of the campaign and indeed the start of the year: the two main parties are neck and neck, and neither has anything like the share they need to win a majority.

The election campaign has so far failed to generate much excitement for large numbers of people and instead we appear to be left, to use a football metaphor, with Labour and Conservatives grinding out a scoreless draw and now playing for penalties.

However, I would suggest this may represent a risk for the Conservatives. Even if they could get 290 seats and if the Lib Dems manage 25, the existing coalition falls well short of a majority. Then what? A multi-party alliance with Ukip and the DUP?

Labour, on the other hand, could start with 20 fewer seats but then achieve a majority by partnering up with their historical bedfellows the Lib Dems and the SNP – even though they have ruled out a formal coalition with the latter.

Of course it may very well be more complicated than that, but if the Conservatives continue to play for penalties, they might discover they’re up against the Germans. And Ed Miliband could end up in Downing Street. Maybe.


Election 2015: What are the parties offering you?
Read more
Martin Boon, director, ICM:

If we mostly flat-lining pollsters are to believed, this is one hell of a becalmed campaign, and I’m not sure that’s likely to change. Given low expectations of Ed Miliband at the outset, I’d say he is the one who should be most pleased with himself, and a neck and neck vote share outcome will probably work in his favour when it comes to the seats shakeup.

Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos Mori:

Ed Miliband has made the most progress in the last week in personal terms, and the Labour party has edged ahead by a whisker in the national poll of polls. The maths of votes to seats benefits Labour most too. However David Cameron can still rationally hope for a late swing and an incumbency effect to get him over the line in an incredibly close race to most seats in the House of Commons.

Andrew Hawkins, chairman of ComRes:

All the political cross-dressing in this election (Ed Miliband channelling Nigel Farage on defence, David Cameron parroting Labour on the NHS) is simply producing a queasy stalemate with the two main parties mired in polling limbo.

Labour are marginally better placed because they will likely have the choice of two parties with which to govern. The Conservatives’ fortunes, and those of Cameron, depend on only one realistic possible outcome: having enough seats between them and the Liberal Democrats, and even then they will hope Nick Clegg can scrape through to keep his job in Sheffield Hallam.

Michelle Harrison, global head of public affairs at TNS:

Two weeks out, more reasons to be cheerful for Labour (just). If you’d told Labour pre-campaign that Miliband’s personal ratings would be improving, and they would be broadly at parity with the Tories in the polls at this stage, then Labour would be quietly confident given that the electoral maths historically has favoured them.

But then there’s Sturgeon and the SNP, who continue to go from strength to strength. Which creates an almighty headache for Labour, undercutting ambitions to make significant gains, and providing the Tories with their most potent line of attack so far.

For the Conservatives, David Cameron is still grappling with a campaign that hasn’t come alive and a Ukip headache which whilst not as bad as feared, still looks set to cause damage.

The outcome hinges on the crucial marginals and what ultimately wins through – safety first (for the Tories) or Labour’s “get out the vote” ground-war campaign?

Adam Drummond, Opinium:

I think we’re still broadly where we were at the start of the campaign with the big two still in margin of error territory and Ed Miliband slightly better placed in the hung parliament than David Cameron because of the disposition of the minor parties.

The most likely option still appears to be a minority Labour government supported by the SNP and other smaller parties, but it’s an open question whether Labour or the Conservatives will have more seats or what their respective vote shares will be.

In our polls we’ve shown the Conservatives slightly ahead (fuelled by a drop in Labour support among floating voters) which might be margin of error or might be evidence that the Conservative focus on Labour and the SNP is cutting through.

My working assumption at the moment is a Conservative win on vote share but this election has a looser relationship between national vote share and seats than we’ve seen for years. Even if the Conservatives do win more seats, they would have to do so by such a margin to be able to govern that the sort of narrow lead we’re seeing now wouldn’t change the underlying calculation.

Laurence Stellings, an associate director at Populus:

Neither. As I noted last time, the Conservatives have (slowly) closed the gap with Labour, and either could yet end up winning the more seats on 7 May, but unusually that doesn’t tell us who will be the next prime minister.

It would be very surprising if either Ed Miliband or David Cameron secure a majority, and in the days after election day both face a time-pressured and difficult set of negotiations to put together some type of coalition or confidence-and-supply arrangement.

But by virtue of having more potential partners, Ed Miliband stands a better chance than David Cameron of being the next prime minister.

Damian Lyons Lowe, founder and chief executive, Survation:

Ed Miliband. He is no longer a drag on the Labour party. He is now neither helping nor hindering his party.

The campaign has also unpicked Lynton Crosby’s [the Conservatives’ election campaign chief] strategy – only one in 10 voters say that party leader is a critical factor in choosing who to vote for.

The Conservatives may well end up with the most votes and seats, especially if Ukip’s vote softens in those seats where the party is fielding candidates but focusing less of its campaigning efforts, and where one in three Ukip voters could be squeezed.

However, the Tories would need a substantial lead in the polls because the electoral boundaries favour Labour.

Shock horror the Guardian publishes a mildly pro Labour article. I try and stick to the BBC poll of polls (conservatives now slightly ahead having overturned a signifcant gap only a couple of months ago) and the Newsnight guestimation. Both heading in the right direction

 

[Southy]

Sorry to disappoint you Hampshire but according to the poll of polls which is the only one to take seriously (published tonight in the Telegraph), it has Labour polling 2 points ahead of Tories. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...ies-lead-by-4pc-Labour-by-2pc-in-another.html

 

[peterward]

Sorry to disappoint you Hampshire but according to the poll of polls which is the only one to take seriously (published tonight in the Telegraph), it has Labour polling 2 points ahead of Tories. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...ies-lead-by-4pc-Labour-by-2pc-in-another.html

Nope wrong again, ukpollingreport run by Anthony wells of youguv, incorporating every poll from every polling company + lord Ashcroft has the definitive poll of polls and has the 2 big boys on 33 tied. Labour short by 30 seats on 296.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

 

[Hampster Gull]

Sorry to disappoint you Hampshire but according to the poll of polls which is the only one to take seriously (published tonight in the Telegraph), it has Labour polling 2 points ahead of Tories. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...ies-lead-by-4pc-Labour-by-2pc-in-another.html

Looks like there are lots of polls of polls! Anyway, I'll keepwih the Beep, conservatives 1% ahead. Super tight though, but edging the right way

 

[Chicken Run]

Not long to go now people - Conservatives and Labour Tied [Election 2015]

I have heard three senior members of the Labour Party now, state very clearly they have no intention of forming a coalition with the SNP. My question is who will they form a government with or are the Labour supporters on here hoping for a small majority?

 

[drew]

I have heard three senior members of the Labour Party now, state very clearly they have no intention of forming a coalition with the SNP. My question is who will they form a government with or are the Labour supporters on here hoping for a small majority?

Well if they were the largest party they could try and have a minority government. Also, if they were the largest party, they could also do a deal with the Libdems who have intimated that they wouldn't do a deal with the second largest party.

 

[Juror#13]

All you hear on the news is that only the Labour party can save the NHS says Ed Miliband

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[Herr Tubthumper]

I have heard three senior members of the Labour Party now, state very clearly they have no intention of forming a coalition with the SNP. My question is who will they form a government with or are the Labour supporters on here hoping for a small majority?

It will be a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP.

 

[Hampster Gull]

I have heard three senior members of the Labour Party now, state very clearly they have no intention of forming a coalition with the SNP. My question is who will they form a government with or are the Labour supporters on here hoping for a small majority?

they should be honest with the country and state that the will in this scenario they will work hand in hand with the SNP. They shouldnt be ashamed. It will give people a better understanding.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

All you hear on the news is that only the Labour party can save the NHS says Ed Miliband

[yt]ibi67hzoqHg[/yt]

I'm anything but pro-Ed but I wouldn't call that a mauling. That said the NHS is as safe / unsafe in either of the two main parties hands.

 

[drew]

All you hear on the news is that only the Labour party can save the NHS says Ed Miliband

[yt]ibi67hzoqHg[/yt]

As someone else pointed out, that was hardly a mauling and, only tells part of the story. Hard to comment on whether individuals were at fault or if it was down to the policy of that particular trust. Would be interesting to know whether that caller took up the offer to discuss the matter further, most probably in private.

 

[drew]

they should be honest with the country and state that the will in this scenario they will work hand in hand with the SNP. They shouldnt be ashamed. It will give people a better understanding.

I take it you believe the Tories should also come out and say who they would do deals with if they were in a position to run as a minority government? Sauce for the goose and all that!