British Politics Thread

I'm just glad I live in a nice safe Tory seat, so it doesn't matter who I vote for cause it'll be blue anyway.

Edit: Page Topper, so this is in reference to why it's so hard to pick a party for this election.

edited 23rd Mar '15 4:49:53 PM by singularityshot

I'd like Labour to get in, but only for damage-control purposes. Their biggest selling point at present is being slightly less actively malevolent than the Tories, but as a disabled student with persistent and severe mental-health issues, I'll pick anything I can get that's less likely to reduce the odds on me living for another five years.

Seriously, the reforms the coalition has been enacting have been pretty terrifying on a pretty personal level.

As I've mentioned before, my own seat is in a weird position. Highly Tory yet with an incumbent Labour MP who swept in in 97 and who has maintained a large majority through personal popularity that's big enough to transcend party politics. But the SNP are gunning for the seat, and knowing the man indirectly I've heard he's not got the fight in him. It's pretty much even between the three parties for the seat at the moment, so my SNP vote might actually make a difference.

I'll be joining the Greens soon but will tactically vote SNP.

It's certainly the least predictable election in decades.

As for me, I'm in a seat with a Conservative MP — one I'm quite sure is on UKIP's hitlist, since Farage has already visited the area.

News:

The BBC Round-Up:

• Newspaper headlines: David Cameron's 'bombshell' and the 'one-chair' debate

...and so: Senior Tories play down Cameron's 'no third term' vow

• James Landale^note  The one who asked the Question: Has David Cameron opened Pandora's Box?

Other News:

• General election 2015: Labour to pledge not to increase VAT
• UK inflation rate falls to zero in February
• Britain to boost Falklands Islands defences
• Rhodri Morgan: Wales coalition deal led to heart attack

You could always hope for politics to Belgianize, though conditions in the UK aren't nearly as ripe for that kind of political crisis.

I'm fairly sure the only people who have ever hoped for that are either anarchists who like the idea of no government at all, or else secure in padded cells and straitjackets.

And large amounts of the Civil Service, they'd love not having political overloads to answer to.

I think that I'm going to vote Lib Dem again, as I think that they've done enough good in moderating Tory excesses in government to justify my vote. Of course, Clegg needs to go, and Tory-enabling in the first place was a disaster, but they're still the party I most strongly identify with.

I'm going to do a bit of research first, though. If my constituency isn't quite as true-blue as I think it is, I will probably tactically vote Labour.

Could somebody confirm/deny my current hypothisis: safe seat votes will actually matter this time.

Not directly: I think most of the safe seats will stay with the same party. Rather, I think the margin between 1st and 2nd place in many of these areas will be significantly narrowed.

If 2nd place in one party's safe seats keeps going to the same party, do you think that (safe) party will alter their behaviour to court the second party's voters? More particularly: do you think this will occur on a large enough scale to alter the party's behaviour with regards to important things, rather than merely decorative stuff?

OK: I had a play with the Guardian's open data set with regards to the 2010 election results.

Firstly, I judged a safe seat to be any seat where the candidate secured 50% of the vote, so secure under AV (still bitter). The smallest margin of victory in these seats was 9% so that is fairly secure even under a proper two way contest. You could repeat the exercise using a different condition if you wish.

Under these rules we had the following results. There were 215 safe seats

Labour had 75. 27 of those were against the LD, 27 against Tory, 18 against the SNP and 2 against PC and 1 against Blaenau Voice.

Tories had 125. 101 of those where against LD and the remaining 24 were against Labour

Liberal Democrats had 12. 2 against Labour, 9 against Tory and 1 against PC.

The remaining three safe seats were all in Northern Ireland.

My gut feeling from this is going to be no, I don't think safe seats are going to matter, nor do I see the margins in safe seats declining. In fact, I see the opposite happening. As we can see, over half of the safe seat battles have the Liberal Democrats in second place. They are going to get hammered, so I see their vote declining and fracturing in (mostly Conservative) safe seats.

Also, what is missing from this discussion is UKIP. Clacton was a safe Conservative seat with 50% of the vote, with Labour in second place. Clacton is now represented by UKIP.

Safe seats might matter in two different contexts however. Firstly, I see this as a turnout election. I think that it is going to come down to which party can turn out their base. The centre ground has started to disappear, or at the very least has started to become worthless as undecided voters struggle to tell apart the different offers from the major parties. Decided voters however already know who they would vote for: it's just incumbent on the parties to get them to the polling station. If parties go down this route of firing up their bases then that should matter to the safe seats in particular as that is where the bases are strongest.

Secondly, if the SNP do become king makers, we might start seeing some rather stupid comments about "the share of the popular vote" a.k.a. watch how the UK parties suddenly decide that PR is the way forward to keep the SNP at bay. The SNP won't get a large proportion of the popular vote, but that's obvious as they don't have candidates in England and Wales. In this context safe seats matter, as they are bankers for the popular vote.

@Iaculus: I know the feeling, having health-related issues of my own.

@Silasw: Most Civil Servants simply wish for politicians that don't take advantage of the fact that Civil Servants are so bound by silence and impartiality rules that it's easy for politicians to scapegoat them because they know Civil Servants aren't allowed to defend themselves in the public arena.

Well — General Election 2015: SNP 'could block Tory government'

Items:

• Labour and Tories trade pledges not to hike VAT and NI — Final PMQs.
• MPs 'monitored by Scotland Yard during 1990s'

edited 25th Mar '15 4:05:39 PM by Greenmantle

Wait, you can vote down the Queen's Speech?

Not the speech per se, but the subsequent debate(s) in the House of Commons yes.

Personally I hope they have to roll out Lizzy in full regalia every time a Queen's Speech is attempted, just because it doesn't actually matter what the Speech says. Liz could literally be asked to say "My Government is going to cross their fingers and suck it and see, so please vote in favour cause no one wants to have to fight another election, OK?"

Salmond needs to shut the fuck up and remember he's no longer in charge. His comments haven't gone down well in Holyrood and do not, I think, represent the thoughts of the actual leader of his fucking party. SNP cannot and will not shut down the government nor hold it to ransom.

Westminster are however in a tricky position in that if the SNP do well in the popular vote then Lab Con have no choice but to respect that. They aren't going to give up and go home any more than UKIP are; it would take a crucifixion in next year's Holyrood elections (unlikely) to cripple the SNP.

So wait. Sturgeon would give supply to Labour no-strings-attached if Labour went into minority?

That's...kind of silly. Britain is now a multi-party state, and sometimes that means you gotta build a coalition and trade some horses.

edited 25th Mar '15 6:26:03 PM by Ramidel

I suspect that Salmond is acting the way he is because he plans to become the SNP leader at Westminster should he be elected.

Fellas, are you ready? It's David Cameron vs Ed Milliband LIVE. Broadcast at 21.00 today on Channel 4, Sky News, and on You Tube Live.

The You Tube Live comments are a hilarious mixture of racism, profanity, illuminati logos, and great things, and we've only forty minutes to go.

It's not really a debate as such though as they're not in the same room, more consecutive Q&As.

Not watching the interviews because I know I'm not going to get anything out of it. Thing is, I'm a decided voter, so I'm not the intended audience.

But I am following the Guardian Live Blog, which I think has come to conclusion that on that performance we better settle in and enjoy DC's second term that he promises will be his last.

Miliband has failed. This was his chance to differentiate himself from government. He sounds just like any other professional politician. And when it comes to being a professional politician, DC has him beat. And that is why DC will win.

When will Labour realise that what people want is an alternative, plain and simple. They might like the alternative you offer, they might not. But they want to feel like they are being respected. When the two major parties conspire to offer the same thing (e.g. No VAT from Conservative, no NI from Labour), all that happens is that people feel like that both parties are treating the electorate with contempt.

It's like a car salesperson saying to a customer "We've had a look at who you are and decided that this is the car you need. We aren't even going to show you any of the other cars we have. We will let you decide the colour: Red or Blue?" If I was that customer I would walk out of the showroom and go somewhere else. Sadly that isn't an option in politics, save emigrating to a different country.

I'm feeling pretty despondent right now. This election is shaping up to be one of the most unpredictable elections, but I just want it to be over. Because I've come to the conclusion that the result is already out of politicians hands. I don't think that either party will rally the country behind their vision for the future. In fact, I don't think either party will even try. I think that all the politicians are just hoping for the gaffe free election, and that's it. They are all aiming to not lose the election. No one is actually trying to win it. And that puts our politics in a fairly terrible place right now.

TL;DR: Rant, you can ignore. Nothing that someone else hasn't said before.

That's been a reason behind the rise of parties like UKIP and the SNP.

I think that's the case. The other parties — while not immune from scandal themselves, which will hurt them — will have an effect, but it won't be enough. We may see the Party that leads the next coalition not being the largest in Parliament^note  Which has major legitimacy problems of its own, or even another General Election later in the year.

Can we have more MPs like this, please?

edited 26th Mar '15 4:33:33 PM by Bisected8

Apparently I was a little hasty on castigating Ed Miliband tonight. He did well, apparently. Lots of people saying that its a score draw, which based on where we started the night is a positive one for Ed. He may have broken a few stereotypes tonight, who knows.

Basically, those who were watching Ed expecting for him to fall flat on his face are either disappointed or are now realising that there is more to this man than the caricature he is normally portrayed as. Ed is now losing the "Who would make a better PM?" Q by 8 points or so: normally he loses it by 20+.

I'm still however standing by my previous assessment of Ed having failed. He needed to do more than that. This is a long campaign, but Ed has 5 years of character assassination to overcome.

Maybe it's not the best way to decide on who you'd want as PM, but personally I like Ed more because of the character assassination (compared to the likes of Cameron and Mr. "Here's my beer and what you want to hear").

Choosing the guy who seemed the most charismatic hasn't really worked out the last two times, after all.

Especially since the point of government is not charisma.