daisysmurf
Member
For those interested BBC News currently is airing the last Scottish Leaders Debates it quite interesting.
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May 7th | UK General Election 2015 OT - Please go vote!
- Thread starter Volotaire
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giant_frying_pan
Member
I will eat up all of this coverage, but even I'm a little fatigued after this one!
Ruth has been stellar in this campaign and in the referendum, especially compared to her Westminster colleagues, but calling Jim Murphy a liar was poor form.
[EDIT - And you're wrong about needing 23 more MPs for a majority, Ruth - you need 326 as there are currently no MPs at all.]
Ruth has been stellar in this campaign and in the referendum, especially compared to her Westminster colleagues, but calling Jim Murphy a liar was poor form.
[EDIT - And you're wrong about needing 23 more MPs for a majority, Ruth - you need 326 as there are currently no MPs at all.]
GazzaScotland
Member
"A formula about Barnett". Highlight so far.
CyclopsRock
Member
Stop going on about the Euro; were in it now, and theres nothing you can do about it.
JonathanEx
Member
It's fairly early, but uh, enjoy the Jeremy Vine Green Screen Generator Version 0.
http://breakyourownnews.com/vine/
http://breakyourownnews.com/vine/
So, how do you see it turning out, say in a week's time? Is it going to be three weeks of claim and rejoinder or will it be one of the major parties stiching things up in a week?
I'm asking as you seem to be the most informed person out there on UK politics and you appear to have a deep and broad knowledge of the civil service machinations behind the party politics.
Or shouldn't l ask?
Not being sarcastic by the way.
BossDarkseid
Member
Does anyone think Labour could receive backlash in a similar way to the Lib Dems etc if they have a lot of broken promises?
I don't think anything they are promising is as binary, or has as clear of an affect on peoples pockets, as removing tuition fees.
Might be best to wait until government is actually formed and everyone's chilled out a bit.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Probably best to spin this one out until we've actually got a Government of whatever shape and colour.
EDIT: must learn to type faster
JonathanEx
Member
New UKPoliGAF title suggestions depending on result:
Joseph's Multicoloured Dream Government
Minority Report
Joseph's Multicoloured Dream Government
Minority Report
Futurematic
Member
Well lying about the Vow is about to cost them all their Scottish seats... so, hopefully?
Ding Ding is the guy to ask as he actually works in the civil service. I'm just a happy amateur who is interested in polling.
I don't know, if the polls are correct it'll probably end up a mess. It's not inconceivable a few percentage points either way in the marginals will radically change the landscape. Currently it looks like the anti-tory block will probably just get over the line, but if the Lib Dems hold on better than the polls suggest (or hold on in the 11 Lib/Lab constituencies and fail in the Tory consistuencies) then it could favour the Conblock. (although I'm not sure how the Lib Dems and the DUP could ever share a platform)
I have a sneaky feeling Labour will get in a minority but we'll be having another election this time next year (I know the fixed term parliaments act makes that more unlikely). I doubt the parties of the left bring down Labour before then as everyone who isn't the Tories will need to save up their pennies before another election.
Thanks. Looks like it's going to be one where it's too tough to call before the event. Think Labour have done a decenr job in the last few weeks, but have been weak in the years leading up to it (no firm policy declarations), but the fracturing of the vote will probably have a bigger impact than people expect.
I agree though, l think it's going to be an omnishambles. I don't see anything workable by the Whitsun bank holiday, but l think we'll have another election by the time the year is out - irrespective of the result.
Keep up the good work. It's fascinating.
Not the Government we need, but the one we deserve right now.
Works for pretty much all outcomes.
BossDarkseid
Member
So...have people seen the interview + article where Hague/Clegg refuse to rule out a FURTHER rise in tuition fees? (I guess the next logical point would be...12k per year? >_>)....
I've come to terms with 9k but fuck off with a rise.
I've come to terms with 9k but fuck off with a rise.
Yeah, pretty worrying tbh, as if they haven't pissed off students enough.
Are you referring to this article?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/03/coalition-plans-increased-tuition-fees-11500-university
Possibly £11.5k then.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
So does anyone have an idea how this will all play out? Seems like even the "experts" are baffled.
Yup. Though I'm not sure what anyone was expecting. They tax the people that don't vote for them.
Oh don't worry, our vice chancellor (current salary somewhere in the region of £250k p/a) is busy lobbying for £16k a year (for fun, at one point the Conservatives were threatening to open it up to the universities to decide - he wanted them to be £20k p/a at that point). It's a necessity, don't you know.
My main problem with the tuition fee rise (I'll even admit that on a financial level it makes sense) is that it was used by the government to abdicate any responsibility for university courses. The hope so far as I can tell was that it would discourage people from taking less worthwhile courses by letting the free market decide, rather than making proper efforts to define what constitutes a university degree.
Apart from everyone who isn't a student of course.
Students don't start voting Conservative until they start earning the decent bucks though so it doesn't matter.
A Labour attack followed with a Guardian article doesn't really mean anything. It's not at all surprising Clegg won't rule anything out given how it went the last time he made a promise about it.
What are Labour saying they are going to do about the funding 'black hole'? I don't see how lowering the cap helps.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Well, maybe I should be more specific. When I say 'all the parties', I mean Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem, so that's my bad. I have no opinion on the Green Party, as I'm unfamiliar with most of their policy and therefore can't comment.
I wouldn't say I'm anti-establishment, but I don't agree that we should live in a world where many of the legislation in my country is governed by a wider parliament of people who....don't preside over my country. The EU is a great thing in many ways, but to act as if its a completely faultless set up that has no negative effects on this country is absurd. That, would be uninformed.
William Hague also refused to rule it out. That, along with an exact figure appearing leads me to think it's true.
StealthGoblin
Banned
There are too many universities and too many people going to university. Many of the courses aren't worth much.
A lot of the funding actually goes to the uni and the science/research departments. That wouldn't need to happen if the government actually invested in science properly. It is a dodgy roundabout way of funding science that puts millions of people in debt.
For example, my friend did an English literature degree. She had a handful of hours of contact time each week, had to buy all her own books and gave in a dissertation at the end. Not exactly a money sink for the uni eh? I on the other had was using electron microscopes, state of the art microbiology labs and applying to the home office to licenses. Of the two of us, I would imagine my first degree cost the uni a lot of money.
The universities are also having to buy lots of land and houses for all those students. The current housing market doesn't lend itself well to uni students. So millions of pounds a year are spent on land, houses and upkeep. A direct result of decades of under-building by many governments. We are millions of houses short.
A lot of the funding actually goes to the uni and the science/research departments. That wouldn't need to happen if the government actually invested in science properly. It is a dodgy roundabout way of funding science that puts millions of people in debt.
For example, my friend did an English literature degree. She had a handful of hours of contact time each week, had to buy all her own books and gave in a dissertation at the end. Not exactly a money sink for the uni eh? I on the other had was using electron microscopes, state of the art microbiology labs and applying to the home office to licenses. Of the two of us, I would imagine my first degree cost the uni a lot of money.
The universities are also having to buy lots of land and houses for all those students. The current housing market doesn't lend itself well to uni students. So millions of pounds a year are spent on land, houses and upkeep. A direct result of decades of under-building by many governments. We are millions of houses short.
The timeframe for forming the next government is anyones guess. Last time was pretty quick because all 3 parties had virtually the same monetary amounts of cuts planned. It was just the details that were different. Now though the main parties have quite different spending plans, meaning any deal could be difficult to achieve.
I have a feeling that whichever party 'wins' this election, will ultimately lose. A ToryLib coalition will have the smallest of majorities, leaving whips with very little power as every backbenchers vote is vital. I dont think it will be long before the left of the Libs start fighting with the right of the Tories.
Labour though have a problem, with a coalition with the Libs being their best bet. However, if they need the SNP then they have major problems. If the SNP drag Labour left, Blairites in marginal English seats will start rebeling on mass (my understanding is the Blairites have forced Ed's recent tougher stance). However, if they dont move left, the SNP will have them for breakfast. Its even more dangerous when an English only vote comes up. If the SNP gets involved, middle England will turn against them and I doubt Labour will see power again till the 2030's.
Either way, I think we will have a weak government. That almost always leads to the loser this time, likely to get a majority next time out.
The polls though have a big 'if' against them. Virtually all the polls have a model that takes results from the last election into account. As there are now two main parties with four (not one) parties in play behind, I believe its distorting the polls we are seeing. Which may explain why they all look the bloody same.
My gut feeling (it only a mild rumbling) says the tories scrap through on this one with the libs dragging them just over the line. I just think that with the economy being the number one issue, better the devil you know will come into play.
Uninformed American here, so pardon my ignorance. I've seen the issue of a lack of housing brought up several times. I could understand if local councils didn't want to let someone subdivide an old farm because of how it might fit in with the area, but from the tone of the posts it seems more like a national level issue where almost zero houses are being built. What's the deal here?
Demand is historically greater than supply.
Marc
Member
Where does it say that in their manifesto exactly? Quick google search found this:
"WORKERS RIGHTS
Leaving the EU will not mean workers employment rights
will be removed, simply that they will be adopted into
UK law. Some EU directives, such as the Working Time Directive,
need amending because they actively restrict the British
work ethos and therefore our economy, but UKIP will protect
workers rights."
Your own link shows him saying 'we' need to have a think about it, and that he thinks you may have to go to private insurance. He has since then said the PFI scheme put through by your beloved was a spectacular failure. That privatisation of the NHS has been a waste of time and that they can now conclude that privatisation is not the way forward currently. So what you would prefer to happen is, person A sees alternative to current issues, sees that alternative explored and fail, and instead of concluding that alternative is no longer valid... to what... continue believing it as a potential solution? From what I have seen he quotes himself saying we had to think about it, which he did, and then rejected it as a party. So can you explain the lie in more detail please as I don't follow?
So you don't debate them directly, you make snide comments on them on an internet forum and act as you are above them. You can't even be bothered to shoot those views down here, just mock them and significant numbers of the country. I am very interested in the inference of your quotations, so are you saying that they are actually racist and that labour had nothing to do with the countries problems?
As I keep getting told that isn't happening here.
Depends on how you do it, you could have it that the one with the highest % of the vote gets say 50% of the seats and the next highest gets say 25% of the seats and so on. So you would always get s a majority winner, every single vote could effectively be very important and make voters feel like they can change things. Personally I would prefer something not as weighted and to do away with party politics as it encourages tribalism to stupid lengths. Where you get people voting for parties without actually listening to the current policies and ideas put forth. And you get MP's voting for or against things that they don't agree with, because they were told to. Which would then mean something like a mini-PR where you divide up the country (by population IMO), and whoever gets the highest % within that area gets to be an MP. That way you allow for independents and new parties to form and rise. Could even have a mix of local and national PR, with seats up for grabs for winning on a national scale and the local ones I mentioned for most of them. Then again, I would probably go further and want to see something akin to a technocracy, with MP's acting as mediums to the public and electing the 'technocrat' of their area.
Lots of ways of doing it, none of which were given with that AV shit. I would think the best way would be to set up an independent think tank made up of maths experts to work out different formulas for PR. And an easy guide of pros and cons for each which voters can then consider. Limit to say 3-4 choices and of course the "stay as it is" choice.
Yep, Labour did nothing wrong. And tories would have done the same thing anyway, the same thing that wasn't wrong... so that makes it ok.
Kotetsu534
Member
Our planning laws haven't seen serious reform since the Attlee government (Town and Country Planning Act 1947) and since that Act requires owners to get planning permission from local government before they can start development building homes can be an onerous process. The planning system is one of the most arcane and complex areas of law around too, with its own tribunal service. There are many different groups who can challenge a proposed development on a wide variety of grounds. I think it is far to say that without significant intervention from central government the housing crisis will only get worse as our population rises and more and more (especially young) people have to rent privately.
Similar predictions to the bolded were made before / shortly after the last election, and they were bollocks then too.
The Tories got 5 years to spend hacking at the state, and haven't been punished too harshly by the electorate. The left-leaning Lib Dems didn't revolt, they just fucked off. Labour don't look to be getting anywhere near a majority.
I have to applaud you for coming up with a form of PR that manages to be worse than our current FPTP system, I genuinely don't think I've ever seen anyone manage that before.
Thanks. The only story I know about was that guy who built a very nice looking home and hid it behind hay bales. Heard it will be torn down, which seems odd when it clearly wasn't an eyesore and I think it was his land.
STV works perfectly fine in NI and ROI, and while I'm not an expert, AMS seems to work fine in Wales and Scotland. I do hope PR is something that results from this election.
I also hope if Labour are the minority government they can push through their plans to reform the House of Lords.
I think you are missing an important factor this time out. Last government the Tories had over 300 seats and the Libs close to 60. They had breathing space for a minor backbench rebelion and yet would still be able to get a bill through parliment. This meant that the whip still had power.
With the Libs looking like they would lose at the very least 20 seats and the Tories likely to lose seats as well, if they get in the next majority will be waffer thin. Even the smallest of rebelions would lose the government the vote.
This coupled with the issue that most likely alot of MP's will be sitting in marginal seats, will mean the power of the whip will be diminished.
It's in a big post on the previous page, directly quoted from ukip. And don't refer to Blairs labour as my "beloved", I've pointed out to you before that I only started voting Labour after Blair left.
Not sure how many seats they will get, but the first warning shots about labour gambling on their polices not being voted against
Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood said she was "staggered" that Labour believed it could count on their support and that of other parties in such a scenario.
"If Labour want our support to run a government effectively they need to take on board some of the things that we are saying. It's arrogant of them to just assume that they can just take our votes without giving anything back in return," she told Radio 4's Today programme.
She added: "We would be prepared to vote down a Budget by Labour if it was pushing, putting forward, more cuts on the backs of the poor."
Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood said she was "staggered" that Labour believed it could count on their support and that of other parties in such a scenario.
"If Labour want our support to run a government effectively they need to take on board some of the things that we are saying. It's arrogant of them to just assume that they can just take our votes without giving anything back in return," she told Radio 4's Today programme.
She added: "We would be prepared to vote down a Budget by Labour if it was pushing, putting forward, more cuts on the backs of the poor."
PJV3
Member
killer_clank
Member
House building by private developers is simply a buy the land and get permission type deal, and plenty of that goes on (well, after the worst of the financial crisis it does), but generally those houses are fancy, expensive and out of reach of first time buyers and less well off people. That's where social and council housing comes in, which is what there's a massive shortage of. The national government technically isn't repsonsible for building these either, but building houses is expensive and local governments never have enough money to do it so the national govt generally comes in and offers them 'unique funding mechanisms' so they can build some houses.
I think NIMBYism hurts the house-building process as well. I don't think any party wants to prod the subject too much for the fear of upsetting voters in swing seats.
killer_clank
Member
This is why the fixed term parliament act is a game changer, and only the SNP, Plaid and the Greens really understand what they can do with it. I'm sure if Labour presented a duff budget that couldn't get the support of the SNP or Labour, the tories either scream bloody murder about "ALL THIS UNCERTAINTY" they'd either water down the budget even more to get Tory support, or play into the SNP and give them what they want. Either way its win win.
Nimbyism is strong in the UK as it is pretty tightly packed in urban areas already, the only places we can build into now is green field sites or brown field sites no one wants to live on.
The only way to encourage brown field housing is to make them cheap but no one wants to build cheap houses when demand for more lucrative housing is so high.
Labour used to insist that a large proportion of new housing estates were dedicated to social housing and sold to the councils for next to nowt. That worked well... Developers were left trying to sell £300k houses next door to the local smack heads who hadn't figured out that there is other places for bags of dirty nappies than by the front door and that window cills aren't actually an ashtray.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
To be honest if Miliband ends up 12 seats behind the Conservatives yeah, he should probably resign. He can pin the blame on losing Scotland on the uselessness of Scottish Labour but losing the English marginals from a very favourable position would be on him.
Of course that's incredibly unlikely to happen, you can tell by the fact it's Murdoch scaremongering... which is why I think barring a major collapse he'll lead Labour into the next election as well.
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