given how easily a professional pol like miliband worked him that would be a terrible idea
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
May 7th | UK General Election 2015 OT - Please go vote!
- Thread starter Volotaire
- Start date
- Status
given how easily a professional pol like miliband worked him that would be a terrible idea
anonymous_abc
Member
More seats or votes?
Going to be hilarious if the results are like this.
CyclopsRock
Member
Seats. Votes would be a boring boring imo as you expect it to be roughly in line with the polls.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Thank you
Not just for reform's sake no. But there are problems, some of them I've had personal experience of, some second-hand.
In particular, doctors are not necessarily the best people to have an opinion on the NHS, nor teachers on school education, nor academics on tertiary education. Every one of them publicly funded and not voting for Christmas.
Depends what the alternative is. If the alternative is is not changing it at all then yes, I've got a problem.
They may be Labour priorities, but I've not seen any policies to back them up, apart from chucking money in,
That's a narrow one of course, but I've got a downer against a party that doesn't understand why a company has to pay dividends (heck, half my income is in dividends) and would not accept me as a parliamentary candidate because I am a director of a small bead shop (and incidentally, earning something like half the "minimum wage").
anonymous_abc
Member
In that case the graph is just silly, because seats are not really correlated to polling numbers.
That is just barely (as in, mathematically but not realistically, since there would be a backbench rebellion) enough for a CON-LIB-DUP deal, assuming the DUP take their predicted 8 seats.
That's enough for a CON-LIB-DUP government, right?
anonymous_abc
Member
Would the LIBs touch DUP though?
I honestly don't think that the Lib Dem leadership could whip their backbenchers into joining the DUP. A Tory government reliant on both would just not last in my opinion, they're far too far apart to be able to work together, particularly in a situation where they're dependent on every single MP for a majority.
CyclopsRock
Member
I'm not sure - I think a lot of Lib Dems would actually be pretty happy with 32 seats right now, given how they've been polling this cycle. I think if the Lib Dems can get a fairly decent showing like > 30, then Clegg will be safe and if Clegg is safe, I don't think there's much realistic chance of them throwing their lot in with Labour.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Sorry for double response, but for comparison consider the legal profession. Every one of them against the cuts in legal aid and against the recent massive increases in court fees in civil cases, but every one of them equally against even partial deregulation of the legal profession.
We've been here before in the 1860s. History works. What actually needs to happen is opening up the legal stuff (so that anyone can be represented by anyone else who is marginally more educated/fluent/knowledgeable than they are), but the establishment is of course against it, as are the insurance companies.
Same with doctors/pharmacists/nurses. Same with teachers.
323 seats, which is technically enough when Sinn Fien don't take their seats. Oh could probably count on UKIP not to vote out a Tory PM if they get their referendum as well.
I don't see such a government lasting long though. The LDs and the Cons ran out of things they agreed on a couple of years ago.
idk literally the front of the lib dem manifesto is a list of stuff they've worked out they can trade with cameron for the votes on his eu referendum (that he has to give his party) and obviously supporting the rest of his government. they want it pretty bad.
i don't think they have a single plan to work with labour
CyclopsRock
Member
Also, I don't want my dreams to be crushed by checking if this is real or not and would rather live on in the (possibly mistaken) belief that it's real, but this is just the best thing:
I would suggest it wouldn't be nation wide PR. Instead you would make clusters of around 10 current seats and use A Single Transferrable Vote system to elect 10 MPs for the larger constiuency.
That is how Scotland is split up for the Additional Members system for the current Scottish parliament.
Kellner's projection are completely at odds with what Kellner's polling is saying. He even admits this himself, he's another expecting the Tories to outperform their polling by 2% on the day, just because. He saying he's got data saying that the Tories are holding up better in the marginals (although Ashcroft's constituency polls show a greater swing to Labour than the national average, as does YouGov's own nowcast and the ComRes marginal poll last week), but he's not releasing that data which is arguably in contradiction to his obligations as a member of the British polling council
*the pollsters have spent the last 23 years accounting for shy tories and longer accounting for incumbency with their allocation of DK's based on the voting in the previous election. It's meant to be already factored in the polls.
CyclopsRock
Member
I would suggest it wouldn't be nation wide PR. Instead you would make clusters of around 10 current seats and use A Single Transferrable Vote system to elect 10 MPs for the larger constiuency.
That is how Scotland is split up for the Additional Members system for the current Scottish parliament.
We already have that set up, really, for the European Elections. Could quite easily segue that into a Westminster election process. Except it's not STV, just straight up PR based on a list system. This has its flaws too, though, because it does mean that you can't really boot out a bad egg if they're at the top of the party you support's list.
anonymous_abc
Member
Seeing as there is no perfect system I don't see the problem. It's just a PR is shit too so lets stick with FPTP argument
CyclopsRock
Member
It's mean to be but, eh, unprecedented circumstances often lead to unprecedented outcomes. This is, arguably, the election which is "least like the others" we've had since the establishment of the Labour party, if you ignore the war years. Even in 74 it was pretty much a Blue vs Red set up. We're in uncharted waters here - which isn't to say that his going off piste is a good idea, but there is reason to think that we're out of the realms of standard, model'able results and into something else here.
CyclopsRock
Member
Oh no, I don't think we should stick with FPTP (my system's far better - where you choose a random vote) but imo this is a problem. Not a fatal one, but not one to be ignored either.
I think STV is slightly better than party lists but it still has problems for a party system where they would need to optimise the number of standing candidates so that votes don't go to waste. It is also a threat to parties because it makes it easier for independents to be elected. STV is also much harder to understand how it is counted.
I honestly can't tell if you're joking on this one...
CyclopsRock
Member
TBH nor am I. It would allow us to have a practically PR system but with the smallest amount of change and the total retention of local representatives. There aren't many downsides to it. I keep sort of imagining that there must be some obvious flaw that I'm missing which is why I say I'm not sure if I'm joking or not. But I dunno what it is.
Jezbollah
Member
So Con/LD: 315, Lab/SNP: 311?
Holy shit if this happens... There will be so many both in the Tories and Lib Dems who wouldn't want this to happen..
Also, didn't Russell Brand endorse the Green Party last week?
He said they were decent honest people, the sort of people parliament needs, but with the current voting system they simply can not make a difference, so labour it is
But Brighton should definitely keep Caroline lucas
I think Labour will do a bit better than that but it could go either way. Right now we're looking at 3 seats (!) on the above changing the government.
Does highlight the issue of Scottish Labour and SNP possibly letting some seats in Scotland turn blue.
giant_frying_pan
Member
The most the Conservatives can realistically hope for is two; retaining Dumfriesshire and gaining Berwick. In the former, the SNP has been steadily increasing its lead in the polls. In the latter, it's pretty much a three-way dead-heat between Conservatives, Lib Dems and the SNP.
I think you'll have tactical voting in Berwick in favour of either the Lib Dems or SNP, but I'm not sure who. Probably Lib Dems if I had to call it.
[EDIT - Dumfries and Galloway is the only other (not coincidentally, the other border constituency) that they even have a outside chance at, but I think Labour will hold that despite SNP pressure.]
Mr. Luchador
Member
As a former LD voter, I felt totally betrayed that they formed a Government with the Cons. I won't be voting for them again.
Do you think things would have gone better with a Conservative government over the last few years? I get where you're coming from, and I agree that the LDs should have been more assertive.. but I still feel they tempered the edge.
Visualante2
Member
I think all these allusions to a second coalition with the conservatives is pissing on people like yourself and then telling you its raining.
Yeah they will shave a little off the proposed 12 billion in welfare cuts and call it a job well done.
MilkyJoe
Member
I was conservative last go round, but just done a who you should vote for quiz and found the most important things I totally disagree with them on every count. Looks like a Labour vote this year, and Russel Brand is going that way and he's a bit of a maverick, so I can get on board for a laugh.
Mr. Luchador
Member
Perhaps, but then it just felt like a kick in teeth regardless. Now it feels like any vote I give them is just voting for Cons. I know that's now how it really works, but you know...
Exactly!
I don't know if they were SNP protesters, there are some fringe groups attached to the independence campaign mostly far left socialist groups who like to chant "Red Tories" at anyone with a Labour rosette and generally act like dicks. They're the ones who were protesting outside Tollcross Leisure centre when Ed was up on Friday.
I've been out swimming all afternoon so I haven't seen it.
Well there has been some theoretical research done into this. And iirc the ancient greeks did this in some form. A very good political system is one where each region is represented by a random member of that region's population, and they then have to be in government regardless of whether they want to or not.
Remember the independence rickshaw guy? Pretty sure he turned up and people started chanting Red Tories at Jim.
The media definitely made it seem bigger than it actually was, calling it "total chaos" was hyperbole to the extreme.
There probably were some SNP supporters there but I think the main thrust is by a far left group, can't mind the name.
They're ran by a guy called Sean Clerkin who just so happened to go to school with Jim Murphy. Same class and everything.
CyclopsRock
Member
that sounds like our system now, if you replace "whether or not they want to or not" with "whether or not we want them to or not".
nelsonroyale
Member
Not really it's a statement of fact, the last time it didn't happen was 1924.
Actually what really happens is the sitting PM always gets to try to form a Government. It's just in a two party system if the opposition has won a majority then it's usually apparent that the sitting PM has to resign.
We don't vote for a Government, we vote for the House of Commons who then decide the Government. Essentially the HOC system is poorly constructed if you actually want the nation to elect an executive. We all just vote for individual representatives who then decide the Government.
scotcheggz
Member
We should and I'm pretty sure we will. Everywhere round here has "re-elect caroline lucas" signs in their windows, (including me, yeahhh!), seen a few for labour, nothing for anyone else. Just tons and tons of green posters.
Seems like a reasonable balanced source.
JonathanEx
Member
Of course. It's got red lines and everything on it.
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Locked