Hard News: #GE2015: Proper Mad
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All final polls now in:
1 2pt Lab lead
1 1pt Lab lead
5 ties
4 1pt Tory leadsDead heat, although seat allocations vary more widely.
See you in the morning!
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Fark.
The Telegraph's editor sends every one of its a readers an email beseeching them to vote Conservative. This is getting embarrassing now.
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Anyway, I've voted in Tooting, a marginal Labour electorate in London.
The MP, S Khan, Labour, had a close run in 2010, but it seems he feels safe in 2015. Tooting/SW London seems to be slowly trending Conservative, but in 2015, Labour is strongly ahead across London and so it seems that the Conservatives have largely given up on Tooting. Apparently the party decided last week to focus on Conservative marginals like Battersea and Croydon Central and pulled out most of their activists (assuming they obeyed orders).
I'm going to be watching both electorates, if they go Labour then I think the Conservatives are in for a rough night
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Hebe, in reply to
Fark.
The Telegraph’s editor sends every one of its a readers an email beseeching them to vote Conservative. This is getting embarrassing now.
Tories' internal polls on the UK Wednesday must have shown they were in trouble. Desperate. One picture of Cameron exiting the polling station shows him looking strung out to the max.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
In the 2012 referendum, 2/3 voted against electoral reform, but here we are.
It was 2011, and the question was: "At present, the UK uses the "first past the post" system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the "alternative vote" system be used instead?"
That is, 2/3rds voted against changing from FPTP to AV, NOT against electoral reform per se. It might seem like a pedantic distinction, but I think the meme that 'the electorate doesn't want reform' is damaging.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
Is that Sun cover trying to remind people (pork, bacon, Milliband's face pulling) that Ed is a yid?
Given the number of people who have commented on that, you really do have to wonder, as Russell says.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
which means, at the very least, that the NHS will be gone by 2020
It's that kind of hyperbole that puts me off the progressive movement. I will cheerfully bet you my life savings that even if the Conservatives win by a crushing landslide and Cameron rules by fiat, your prediction will not come true.
Since the foundations have been put in place for the sell-off already, and we're so far down the road that one half-decent shove by a re-elected Tory government will complete the job, I think you should probably do a bit more homework before making foolish bets. I'll leave you your house and pension, but feel free to send over your beer fund.
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Anyway, some thoughts that aren't replies:
- Apart from what's already been said, I think we're going to see a substantial rise in the green vote. There's a lot of very disgruntled ex-labour, ex-libdem champagne socialists out there.
- I live in the UKIP heartland of east england. It's very disquieting seeing the rise in support for them amongst the locals.
- having voted in three elections in NZ under MMP, I now take the slightest of opportunities to proselytise wildly and at length to anyone who'll listen/not get out of the corner quickly enough. It's notable how little understanding there is of the benefits and problems with any of the alternatives, even amongst those who are 1) smart and educated, and 2) in favour of reform.
- every single major party (with the exception of the SNP if you count them as a major party) has run a really, really shitty campaign. Pissups, breweries, etc.
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Back to newspapers, I understand the Evening Standard (arguably London's regional newspaper) today led with a front page exhortation to vote Conservative as it would be the best for London. The Standard's sister paper, the Independent, endorsed the Coalition (Liberal Democrat-Conservative). This is a tad controversial
Apparently their owner has leaned heavily on both papers and this reflects his personal views. The Independent anyway is traditionally quite left wing. The Evening Standard perhaps not so much, as it used to part of the wider Daily Mail Group.
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One thing I've noticed here in London: no billboards. You might see a flyer sellotaped in someone's bay window but none of the A0 plastic ones you see on every roundabout and front garden in NZ.
Greens here have been criticised for moving away from their core green issues and going all out left- maybe as a result of their experience with proportionality in Europe. Whether this wins them votes or costs them votes we'll see.
I predict outrage when a party that polls 11% (UKIP) gets 4 seats and the majors on 33% get 250+ seats. I can't see anything changing though. Someone educate me please - who was pushing for the MMP referendum? A political party, or concerned citizens?
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Zach Bagnall, in reply to
In NZ? It's fairly interesting actually - wikipedia has a decent summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_New_Zealand#Parliamentary_electoral_reform -
Rich Lock, in reply to
Someone educate me please - who was pushing for the MMP referendum? A political party, or concerned citizens?
It was a referendum on AV, not MMP. The background is here.
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Ben Austin, in reply to
I’m not sure if anyone was pushing for a referendum on MMP, but various parties or organisations have their preferences.
One of the main reform organisations, if not the main one, is the Electoral Reform Society. Their preference is some form of STV. Darren Hughes works for them now and maybe could elaborate if he reads this forum. I think the Lib-Dems also prefer STV.
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/making-votes-count
AV+ was also recommended by the Royal, which garned some support in the Labour Party. Brown talked about it a bit I think before 2010
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If anyone's interested, the results of the 2010 election, in terms of percentage of votes cast, and seats won, are here.
The briefest of looks at the results (libdems win under a quarter of the seats of labour, on 23% of the votes compared to labours only slightly bigger 29%, and 'others' win 23 seats - nearly half as many as the libdems - with 3.5% of the votes) is quite a strong argument for some sort of voting reform.
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Caleb D'Anvers, in reply to
They don't call the Evening Standard the Evening Boris for nothing.
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WaynePhillips, in reply to
Apologies for lack of clarity - I was thinking of the NZ situation. The wikipedia link from Zach above is fascinating reading. Sounds like both Labour and then National were bluffing on the referendum but then the bluff got called.
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Ben Austin, in reply to
It very much does seem like it is designed around the owner's social life. I put it as slightly more readable than the Metro, but only by a whisker
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I thought the AV vote was a LibDem promise that was part of their coalition agreement with the tories
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Is that Sun cover trying to remind people (pork, bacon, Milliband’s face pulling) that Ed is a yid?
I've been thinking about this a lot more than I should and I'd say "probably not." (And anyone getting ready to smite me... stand down and keep reading.) But it was still an exercise in bog-standard media fuckery: Editorializing through epically unflattering photo selection, and all the groan-inducing bacon/pork puns flowed from there. (It's really hard to eat on the run with dignity, which is why I suspect Queen Elizabeth is not going to swap out her handbag for a more nourishing kebab on her next walkabout.)
At least in my book that's more than obnoxious enough -- and it's a game the broadsheets like to play too. Last election day, The Daily Telegraph pulled out ever photo they had that made Gordon Brown look like a furious badger in search of a pub fight, and The Guardian went with a "candid" shot of David Cameron behind a door, looking like a creepy uncle waiting to surprise the kiddies on Christmas Morning.
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Good god, this exit poll is depressing.
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Zach Bagnall, in reply to
Yes, one of the few things they actually delivered. That it was cynically subverted by the other two parties is another matter.
Anyway, polls have just closed. Let the crisis begin!
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Looks like the last minute scare tactics from the Murdoch media might have swung it for the Conservatives from the exit poll.
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Re politicians photographed eating, this from a few weeks ago, is glorious:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/19/photo-politicians-fear-of-them-eating-cameron-miliband-bacon-sandwich-hot-dog -
I can exclusive reveal that every newspaper in Britain will all have the same headline tomorrow morning: HEINOUS CLUSTERF--K
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Don Christie, in reply to
If it was, probably way beyond the comprehension of most Sun readers.
But the ploy of constantly showing public figures in "ugly" photos is deliberate. I even read about the tactic in Dirty Politics.
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