Square Eyes wrote:That's the predicament for Labour.
Too far left for England, too right wing (Tory-lite) for Scotland.
I disagree. The problem is they have no focus. What does a vote for Labour mean today? They've spent the entire election (and most of the last 5 years) telling people what they aren't. When you've got the Tories standing for continuity, UKIP standing for the populist vote and SNP standing for getting Scots a voice, Labour needed more of a aim than "we're not the Tories, but we'll keep doing some of their policies so as not to upset the economy, we're not UKIP because we like foreigners, but not that much and we're afraid of how many there are, and we're not SNP because we want to give Scotland a voice, but not that big of one".
It's needs somebody, with a vision, and a clear idea of how to achieve that vision, with enough presence to actually get that message across to the public. Milliband is not, and never was, that person.
Gavin Scott wrote:At the risk of provoking a groan, is it possible that the answer is the dissolving of the political union of the UK so that we can live and trade side by side with separate governments which speak appropriately to the people of each country?
The Independence referendum was such a close call. I get the feeling that had they done a rerun yesterday, it would've been a Yes this time. But with Scotland gone from the UK, that would make things worse for Labour, as the Conservatives would need 29 less seats to get a majority. It would effectively kill democracy in England (at least under First Past The Post, which it wouldn't be in the Tories' interest to get rid of!).
Well I don't think anyone saw that coming - least of all the tories themselves, the hung parliament looked so certain. Best performance since 1992 for the tories, worst Labour performance since 1987 and worst Libdem performance in the history of the party, not that far off the depths the old Liberal Party had sunk to before the merger. Despite UKIP returning only 1 MP in the end, the number of constituencies in which they came 2nd or 3rd (along with coming in a comfortable 3rd in the popular vote) was a bit jaw dropping.
It will be interesting to see what significance (if any) there is in having 56 SNP MPs in Westminster given the majority result - the significant factor before the election was that it was assumed they'd be able to wield some power by propping up another party, now that's not necessary will they actually have any clout despite their numbers?
Incidentally, several hours after the results were in only Labour and UKIP have updated their websites to reflect them. Conservatives, Lib Dems and SNP haven't bothered yet.
Gavin Scott wrote:At the risk of provoking a groan, is it possible that the answer is the dissolving of the political union of the UK so that we can live and trade side by side with separate governments which speak appropriately to the people of each country?
So if we accept that Scotland will always have political interests completely at odds with the overall result for Britain (which I don't believe a single General Election can provide conclusive evidence for), and for that reason grant Scotland independence - surely we should also be looking to sether off the North of England, where a significant majority of the constituencies return Labour MPs and have done consistently for decades?
Appetite for the Tories up/down here in Sheffield is no higher than it is in Glasgow.
Gavin Scott wrote:At the risk of provoking a groan, is it possible that the answer is the dissolving of the political union of the UK so that we can live and trade side by side with separate governments which speak appropriately to the people of each country?
So if we accept that Scotland will always have political interests completely at odds with the overall result for Britain (which I don't believe a single General Election can provide conclusive evidence for), and for that reason grant Scotland independence - surely we should also be looking to sether off the North of England, where a significant majority of the constituencies return Labour MPs and have done consistently for decades?
Appetite for the Tories up/down here in Sheffield is no higher than it is in Glasgow.
As you pose the hypothetical, what is your take on that yourself?
I wish people would stop banging on about PR. We don't vote for parties, we vote for candidates. You can see that illustrated perfectly in the polls done for Sheffield Hallam - Ashcroft's poll found less support for "LIB DEM" than ICM's poll found for "NICK CLEGG". It's not 1 big election, it's 650 little ones.
There's an ideal comparison in the world of football - when you win a game you get 3 points, whether you win by 1 lucky goal or by 9 screamers. You still just get the three points. (Counting goal difference is a relatively recent innovation). The game is the same whether you play in the Premier League or in the Conference. You can't change the rules to suit smaller parties to penalise bigger parties.
The Greens, UKIP, Kidderminster Hospital, Respect, Blaenau Gwent Peoples' Voice, SNP have all proved how small parties can survive and thrive in our democracy, as indeed do the Northern Irish parties.
UKIP can whinge about finishing second across the board, but to finish second is to be the first of the losers. As such, UKIP can quite rightly claim to be a party of losers.
robschneider wrote:I think UKIP will do much better than the polls are suggesting. It's just that people aren't admitting to voting for them because the mainstream media have given them this "racist" tag, particularly since the demise of the BNP. Mark my words, they will do very well next month.
Alexia wrote:All the polling websites are as useless as each other. May2015.com is particularly bad. UKPollingReport (run by Anthony Wells) has been around for AAAAAGES so is not any older than election2015.co.uk for example. As it is, anyone who is predicting the election this far out is a fool, a nutter or just plain stupid.
A very shocking and IMO disappointing result - it's certainly not how I thought the election would turn out. David Cameron got into an argument with a Newsbeat presenter last week who said he couldn't get a majority and how it would be a hung parliament, and at the time I thought Cameron was being almost naive to think he could end up with a majority. However, it turns out Cameron was correct, and I'm sure Radio 1's Chris Smith is glad that he didn't take him up on his offer of a £100 bet!
The main reason I didn't expect the Conservatives to do particularly well was because Cameron did not have a good campaign. He didn't win the debate, was mocked for not turning up to any further ones, and Ed Miliband seemed to be greatly improving in the run up to the election, as he came across well in a number of interviews and he generally seemed to be getting more popular. In fact, by the end of the campaign I thought Cameron seemed quite desperate, because some of his speeches began to sound quite angry, and not in the passionate way I think that will have been intended. Either way, we have our result and we'll have to live with it for the next five years!
Lots of people on election night talked of electoral form, and that's something I'm split on. On the one hand, a move to a PR system will massively advantage UKIP, with my favourite thing about FPTP being that UKIP only ended up with a single seat as a result of it. Additionally, most forms of PR mean that we lose our constituency MPs, which is something I'd like to see stay. However, the system is ultimately not representative of the actual vote, and that isn't acceptable - something needs to change.
On the bright side, Russell Brand has taken a blow to his self esteem that will hopefully reduce his involvement in politics from now on. He thought he had some sort of power to help decide who would govern by suddenly jumping behind Miliband, but ultimately he changed nothing, and it just seems a bit embarrassing for him.
Gavin Scott wrote:At the risk of provoking a groan, is it possible that the answer is the dissolving of the political union of the UK so that we can live and trade side by side with separate governments which speak appropriately to the people of each country?
So if we accept that Scotland will always have political interests completely at odds with the overall result for Britain (which I don't believe a single General Election can provide conclusive evidence for), and for that reason grant Scotland independence - surely we should also be looking to sether off the North of England, where a significant majority of the constituencies return Labour MPs and have done consistently for decades?
Appetite for the Tories up/down here in Sheffield is no higher than it is in Glasgow.
As you pose the hypothetical, what is your take on that yourself?
I think it would be rather harsh on my friends and family in The Midlands and London.
