General Election 2015

[peterward]

I am wondering if that is any different to the polls done by the Guardian, then published by them,...... its all partisan, thats the nature of an election.

Actually i dont think it is partisan, the guardian printed a rogue poll with a 6 point tory lead and the sun have printed a youguv poll with a 6 point labour lead. Both rags have vested interests but both printed the polls objectively

if youre into opinion polls (which I sadly am) then all of the polls (+poll of polls) plus excellent commentary on difference between polls (internet v telephone) can be found here;

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

 

[Gwylan]

Isn't that what is occurring under fptp with UKIP and the Greens being vastly underrepresented and therefore the voters for their parties disenfranchised as they are widely supported across the country as opposed to the SNP and liberals who are strong in certain areas?

Yes, that's happening but what Peter Ward said was that he was all for coalition as long as it didn't include nationalist parties. With the current system, no party is excluded from coalition talks.

There seem to be two separate themes to this thread (beyond the posturing by various party supporters). One is that the SNP has too much power, the other is that the voting system is broken and needs fixing so that minority parties can, er, have more power.

I'm not against PR or against coalitions but IMO, for it work in the UK there needs to be a complete change in the way the country is administered. PR works in other countries as they're not as centralised as over here - Germany has laender, France has city mayors with real power and so on. Grafting PR onto the present system could offer specialist regional groups too much power. Imagine a government trying to garner votes and relying on the support of the SNP, SDLP, PC, Cornish Nationalists, the Yorkshire Independent Party and the Sussex Kingdom Movement - think of all the bribes and sweeteners. A more federated approach would work better in such a system but that would mean the main parties ceding power away from Westminster and that's even less likely than PR

 

[peterward]

Yes, that's happening but what Peter Ward said was that he was all for coalition as long as it didn't include nationalist parties. With the current system, no party is excluded from coalition talks.

er... no he didn't. He personally thinks the nationalists are dangerous and not representative of the UK interests.

He absolutely believes that any party has a right to be in government. But the system is deeply flawed when the nationalists in this instance or any other party could get 10x more seats than a party who gets 3x more support who are 3rd in popular vote (UKIP), or 50x more seats than a party with 1% more support (GREEN)

In a coalition, i'm not against the 4th, 5th or 6th largest party being in government if they had the seats that reflected their support, i am against the 6th most popular party getting massively more seats than the 3rd, 4th or 5th largest party as more of the country support those parties than the 6th one.

We dont live in a real democracy, disenfranchisement for many occurs as their voice and vote doesn't count. I personally dont agree with the nationalists politics or UKIP politics or the Greens.

But 4-5 million people do agree with Farage 3rd most popular party
over 2 million agree with the Greens 5th most popular party
and less than 2 million agree with the SNP 6th most popular

but the third, 5th and even the fourth will all have much less representation than the 6th in westminster.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

In that case musical interlude for all the political peeps......22 mins of Kraftwerk Autobahn........pure genius!

would never happen in..........

I recently saw them perform this album in full. It was rather wonderful. If you can catch one, or more, of their "catalogue" shows I highly recommend it.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

er... no he didn't. He personally thinks the nationalists are dangerous and not representative of the UK interests.

He absolutely believes that any party has a right to be in government. But the system is deeply flawed when the nationalists in this instance or any other party could get 10x more seats than a party who gets 3x more support who are 3rd in popular vote (UKIP), or 50x more seats than a party with 1% more support (GREEN)

In a coalition, i'm not against the 4th, 5th or 6th largest party being in government if they had the seats that reflected their support, i am against the 6th most popular party getting massively more seats than the 3rd, 4th or 5th largest party as more of the country support those parties than the 6th one.

We dont live in a real democracy, disenfranchisement for many occurs as their voice and vote doesn't count. I personally dont agree with the nationalists politics or UKIP politics or the Greens.

But 4-5 million people do agree with Farage 3rd most popular party
over 2 million agree with the Greens 5th most popular party
and less than 2 million agree with the SNP 6th most popular

but the third, 5th and even the fourth will all have much less representation than the 6th in westminster.

I see where you're coming from but if the 1st and 6th parties have broadly aligned policies and/or ideology, and crucially a majority, then you can argue that the electorate's views are being reasonably and faithfully represented in government. I.e. the majority of the people has, broadly speaking, voted for that ideology. Where I struggle, and where Bozza kindly reminded me , is when two opposing parties cobble a coalition together. I believe the left wing got more votes than the right in 2010 yet somehow the UK ended up with Cameron in power. That's not right.

 

[Simster]

I think this article sums up perfectly how I feel about coalitions:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/queen-palace-coup-miliband-snp-cameron-huitson-345


I think the FPTP system is dated and unfair. Give me a bit of inevitable political horse-trading over the idea of a government in power thanks to 35% of the vote and implementing policies that the vast majority of the country would never want in a million years.

 

[Hotchilidog]

I think this article sums up perfectly how I feel about coalitions:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/queen-palace-coup-miliband-snp-cameron-huitson-345


I think the FPTP system is dated and unfair. Give me a bit of inevitable political horse-trading over the idea of a government in power thanks to 35% of the vote and implementing policies that the vast majority of the country would never want in a million years.

And that would be 35% of around about 70% of the electorate, making the government even more unrepresentative. The system really has to change, and change properly, full PR not the STV/AV compromise either.

 

[Gwylan]

er... no he didn't. He personally thinks the nationalists are dangerous and not representative of the UK interests.

He absolutely believes that any party has a right to be in government.

When you said "The nationalists is a different kettle of fish, they are not a UK party and they wont act in the best interests of the UK," I took the phrase "a different kettle of fish" to mean they should be treated differently from the Lib Dems and you were suggesting they should be excluded. As you make it clear that's not the case, I apologise for suggesting otherwise

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

I see where you're coming from but if the 1st and 6th parties have broadly aligned policies and/or ideology, and crucially a majority, then you can argue that the electorate's views are being reasonably and faithfully represented in government. I.e. the majority of the people has, broadly speaking, voted for that ideology. Where I struggle, and where Bozza kindly reminded me , is when two opposing parties cobble a coalition together. I believe the left wing got more votes than the right in 2010 yet somehow the UK ended up with Cameron in power. That's not right.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

2 polls which offset the two from last night.


YouGov CON 33% LAB 35% UKIP 13% LD 8% GREEN 6%
Populus CON 32% LAB 35% UKIP 14% LD 8%

 

[glasfryn]

35%+2 steady as she goes landlovers

 

[somerset]

I believe the left wing got more votes than the right in 2010 yet somehow the UK ended up with Cameron in power. That's not right.

results surely speak for themselves..... or do you think not?

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

 

[thisistips]

I think this article sums up perfectly how I feel about coalitions:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/queen-palace-coup-miliband-snp-cameron-huitson-345


I think the FPTP system is dated and unfair. Give me a bit of inevitable political horse-trading over the idea of a government in power thanks to 35% of the vote and implementing policies that the vast majority of the country would never want in a million years.

This is my view too. Having two coalitions in a row will hopefully lead to a greater acceptance of the idiocy of FPTP and the need for a move to a more fair and representative model, as most of our European partners have. The single best thing that the public can do to bust the 'tired professional politician' model that we have is to keep voting for the party that they want to represent them, rather than the one that they think will beat the Tories.

This election is more interesting because the 'big parties' are bust. We must remember though, that if the SNP weren't doing so well we might get a Labour majority. The SNP will get the vast majority of seats for Scotland, without majority support.

 

[somerset]

This is my view too. Having two coalitions in a row will hopefully lead to a greater acceptance of the idiocy of FPTP................

There certainly room for some imaginative rehash of this system for sure,... but a PR system will end in more coalition scenarios than you can shake a stick at, it will be a house of commons with plenty of checks and balances, but where hardly any real policies/bills get voted through without an almighty fight and plenty of horsetrading.

 

[Bold Seagull]

results surely speak for themselves..... or do you think not?

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

I'm pretty sure he means, that if you accept that Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Green & Plaid Cymru are all left of centre political parties, and Tory, UKIP, BNP, DUP are right, then you could say the 2010 election result was (excluding the 'others'):

Left = 16.3m votes
Right = 12.4m votes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

There certainly room for some imaginative rehash of this system for sure,... but a PR system will end in more coalition scenarios than you can shake a stick at, it will be a house of commons with plenty of checks and balances, but where hardly any real policies/bills get voted through without an almighty fight and plenty of horsetrading.

What do you mean by "real policies/bills?" Do you mean the endless ideological reforms we currently endure? Just imagine if the health and education reforms of the past 20 years had some checks in place, or the numerous sell-offs of public utilities and rail were over-looked by others and not just the Tories? There's a lot to be said for the common ground....it's a bit more stable for starters.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I'm pretty sure he means, that if you accept that Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Green & Plaid Cymru are all left of centre political parties, and Tory, UKIP, BNP, DUP are right, then you could say the 2010 election result was (excluding the 'others'):

Left = 16.3m votes
Right = 12.4m votes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2010

Correct, this is what I meant. Thank you.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

There certainly room for some imaginative rehash of this system for sure,... but a PR system will end in more coalition scenarios than you can shake a stick at, it will be a house of commons with plenty of checks and balances, but where hardly any real policies/bills get voted through without an almighty fight and plenty of horsetrading.

And where do you get this idea of "an almighty fight and plenty of horsetrading?"

Germany gets by incredibly well with coalitions; do you see Deutschland hamstrung by a hung-parliament? Debate (which is surely a good thing) yes, almighty fight no.

 

[Pavilionaire]

I see where you're coming from but if the 1st and 6th parties have broadly aligned policies and/or ideology, and crucially a majority, then you can argue that the electorate's views are being reasonably and faithfully represented in government. I.e. the majority of the people has, broadly speaking, voted for that ideology. Where I struggle, and where Bozza kindly reminded me , is when two opposing parties cobble a coalition together. I believe the left wing got more votes than the right in 2010 yet somehow the UK ended up with Cameron in power. That's not right.

The Conservatives were the largest party, the Lib Dems were the third largest party, the Lib Dems chose to enter into coalition with the Tories and you can't describe Clegg as left-wing. The coalition parties had 363 of the 650 seats so 55.8% of parliament and they polled a combined 59.1% of the vote. Hardly "cobbling a coalition together".

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

The Conservatives were the largest party, the Lib Dems were the third largest party, the Lib Dems chose to enter into coalition with the Tories and you can't describe Clegg as left-wing. The coalition parties had 363 of the 650 seats so 55.8% of parliament and they polled a combined 59.1% of the vote. Hardly "cobbling a coalition together".

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.