The election 2015

I think it's probably a fait accompli now, and suspect that in the next few years we'll see another pressure emerging, that from England which can perhaps be broadly summarised as '**** off then'. The last time I saw this surveyed, about 30% of the English wanted rid of the Scots. Trying to understand the 70% that didn't is more interesting as the attitudes was never drilled down into. I'd guess that at least a quarter of these were people like myself who tend to view Scotland's principle benefit to the union as providing an anti tory (labour) vote. If they can no longer be relied on to do that, and perversely instead, start to generate Tory wins in marginal seats as an indirect consequence of their nationalism, then there has to be a question mark as to whether they're meeting that requirement any longer. There'll also be those who blindly follow conservative policy and who want to maintain the union because Cameron does. Should he change his tune, or show less enthusiasm, there'll be abother 10% who could easily follow suit. I wouldn't be shocked to discover in a few years time that support for Scottish independence is running close to 60% in England, and 50% in Scotland.

I do think however that it won't be economic meltdown as is being predicted, but neither will it be a path to glorious socialist utopia. The Irish Republic emerged from a much less promising base and would go onto become a functioning state.

As an observation though, Josef Goebels once said the bigger the lie the more likely you to get away with it. I'm sure Alex Salmond claimed that Scotland would be the eighth richest country in the world? (was there any qualification on this figure?). If he did indeed say this as I'm recalling it correctly, then it would be symptomatic of someone who is suffering from lie inflation. People tend to tell lies incrementally and increase them the more they sense they're getting away with them. For Salmond to put himself in this kind of strata does make me wonder what went before it

Am I recalling what Salmond said accurately, or did he have some kind of filter on the countries he was referencing?
 
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Warbler said:
As an observation though, Josef Goebels once said the bigger the lie the more likely you to get away with it. I'm sure Alex Salmond claimed that Scotland would be the eighth richest country in the world? (was there any qualification on this figure?). If he did indeed say this as I'm recalling it correctly, then it would be symptomatic of someone who is suffering from lie inflation. People tend to tell lies incrementally and increase them the more they sense they're getting away with them. For Salmond to put himself in this kind of strata does make me wonder what went before it

Am I recalling what Salmond said accurately, or did he have some kind of filter on the countries he was referencing?
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Depending on what paper you read could be first, sixth, eighth, fourteenth it's all there on google
 
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Personally I come back to this notion being heard that the New Labour formula is the winning one for Labour. To my mind New Labour was a successful concept for a 21st century Britian post-Thatcher with a firm grip being put on its socialist left wing past. It was right at the time to those who invented it, as it gave them the middle ground in British politics. What would a rebranding of a 1997 formula look like in 2015, or 2020 by the next election? Can anyone here take me on a journey and explain how making Labour (new or otherwise) a party in the same centre right pond as the conservatives actually persuade the electorate to put them in power again. I think it goes far deeper than shifting a bit to the centre (wherever that exactly is nowadays?!). At the moment their only chance in five years is if the conservative party tear themselves apart or some unforseen world events like another banking crash happens which they can hold the Tories culpable for, imo. Or alternatively a young Tony Blair takes over once again.
 
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Look at the figures on the seats lost on election day,i was told 2 days before that labour vote was going in droves to ukip by a tory canvasser actually told me he was betting the labour seats that looked automatic gains where most of the torys were odds against.The swings were phenomenal the ukip vote increased 6 fold and most of it came from labour voters and the pattern was remarkably the same throughout midlands and in wales,the tory % actually didn't go up that much especially when you look at relation to seats gained.If you took the top 50/60 marginal and put just 50% of the swing back to labour I would imagine there would've been very little between the partys.The election was a huge protest vote against labour and its immigration policy by the WWC I'm not even sure the other policies affected the result at all,even if they were left leaning I doubt the vote for ukip was based on smoking being retained in pubs..:lol:
Obviously the SNP factor as well but the combination of the two was disastrous..
 
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The right must be loving it,the wwcs voting for ukip and all topped up by the racism for the scots there was only one winner of the election and that was ukip no doubt they'll play the race card down a little and I can see plenty of by election wins over next two years,just hope the punters aren't as stupid as I think they are!!!;)
 
The Labour to UKIP hypothesis is an interesting one. I tend to agree, never under-estimate the stupidity of the British electorate (politicians don't) despite what they say publicly about the British being the smartest electorate in the world (don't believe a word of that - promise!).

I was struck time and time again as they put up the swings by seat, how many times UKIP had gained, but the liberals had lost (I'll try and dig the national picture out) as I'm not going to go through seat by seat.

At face value this seems incongruous. Is it conceivable that liberals were experiencing the biggest conversion since St Paul fell down on the road to Damascus? It seems most unlikely that political philosophy was the cause of this. There is a possible explanation though. Was the Liberal vote of 2010 concealing a hell of a lot more protest vote than had hitherto been realised?

Gigilo's thesis has some merit I'd say, and it would offer Labour a crumb of comfort. Regaining a protest vote has been done plenty of times previously, but there is also such a thing as a punishment vote. I reckon punishment votes tend to be the more enduring (this is what's probably happened in Scotland).

It begs the next question though of what the future holds for UKIP? It was felt for a long time that Farage was their star performer and it was a single person party. Certainly it's fortunes waned previously when he took a backseat, in much the same way as the SNP's did when Salmond stepped down, before being persuaded to lead them again. You also sense though that Farage has taken them as far as he can, and he does carry baggage. Would UKIP benefit from a new leader with a labour leaning background who is able to reach deeper into the north than a posh southern ex-tory from Kent? Don't know is my answer to that

I suspect Gigilo's time line is likely right, UKIP will over perform in the run up to the referendum, but after that they could easily be a spent force. The UK electorate have proven to be 'big mouths' in the past (particularly the English). They posture and push their chests out and make out they're up for radical change from the safety of elections that don't really matter, but when they're called out on it, they tend to cower. We've seen this happen from the AV vote when early opinion polls of 66/33 were reversed into a result of 33/66. We've seen elements of it at play in the 2015 election, as we did in 1992 as well (the demon eyes attempt of 1997 didn't work) but then you'd need to be particularly cowardly and stupid to think that Tony Blair was a communist incarnate. I expect the threats of job losses issued by big business and predictions of economic isolation and loss of global infuence to carry the day, and a result to emerge that isn't significantly different to that in 1975

Roll forward to 2020 then, and what might UKIP be by now? A party heavily defeated on the central plank of their policy foundation, and quite likely looking for their third leader in 5 years. UKIP has a lot more factions than is widely recognised and has the capacity to rip itself apart like the BNP did. Unlike the Scots who rallied behind their losers and dug their heels in, the English are much more likely to drift I reckon. By now, it might even be time for Labour to inherit the mantle of the harbour for the disaffected protest vote too.
 
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Dan Jarvis won't be standing for leader wants to spend more time with his kids after wifes death in 2011,get your money on him for future leader after one of the remaining misfits have taken up the position he's a certainty and maybe double it with him being PM be interesting to see what prices are floating around..:cool:
 
Here's how the vote changed from 2010 then

ENGLAND

UKIP = +10.7
LAB = +3.6
GREEN = +3.2
CON = +1.4
LIBS = -16.0

I calculate that to be a swing of 13.25% from the Liberals to UKIP (albeit I might have that wrong in a multi party result?)

WALES

UKIP = +11.2
GREEN = +2.1
CON = +1.1
PC = +0.9
LAB = +0.6
LIB = -13.6

The same swing of Liberals to UKIP but this time of 12.5%

Something doesn't add up. I think in fairness you'd want to break this down by English region, but I look forward to any hypotheses that can shed light on this pattern? The best I can offer is that the Liberal vote of 2010 had a lot more protestors in it than we realised, and that they sought sanctuary in UKIP, albeit UKIP's base was very low and they were always going to increase, not least the 5% who voted BNP in 2010. I'd hitherto thought that the Liberal protestors who voted in 2010 were disenchanted Labourites, but clearly they didn't return in any great numbers. The Liberal vote was down 16% in England, yet Labour's only increased 3.5%
 
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gigilo said:
Dan Jarvis won't be standing for leader wants to spend more time with his kids after wifes death in 2011,get your money on him for future leader after one of the remaining misfits have taken up the position he's a certainty and maybe double it with him being PM be interesting to see what prices are floating around..:cool:
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Chukka has played stunning girlfriend card! Urm.... Samantha Cameron is going to need more than a kiddies scooter for the vote of first lady!

I'll get back to telling you who'll win this contest later!!! (in answer to the questions Marb has posed), and should have backed Chukka when he was third fav. The problem with this market though is that it assumes rationale behaviour in the college. There is not a cat in hells chance that Andy Burnham can win Labour an election, but that needn't preclude him from being selected!
 
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As I said above the labour vote went in droves to ukip,the liberal vote some % went to the tories different areas and they probably held the labour vote up but the ukip vote was far superior so cancelled it out and more,may have been some liberal switch to ukip but not the proportions that labour lost..
 
What I think the most likely explanation in this case (and I think this is what you're saying?) is some former Labour voters who voted Liberal in 2010 will have returned to the fold. This off-set the UKIP defectors and would explain why Labour's vote went up. It didn't prevent (former/ current) Labour voters turning out for UKIP though

So something like this happens;

Liberals -12% of which 8% goes to Labour (another 4% goes to the Tories)
Labour -5% to UKIP = net gain of 3% to Labour
If we add the 5% Labour UKIP defectors, to the former BNP vote of 5%, then UKIP now poll 10%

This scenraio generates the sort of result we saw, albeit even that is a bit simplistic as UKIP gained seats on their 2010 baseline (they were always going to), but lost support from their opening position during the campaign. About 7% of UKIP's position in late March has gone somewhere. Has it gone back to the Tories, or have some prospective UKIP voters from Labour, finally realised that Farage is a Tory MkII and voted against him? The Tories increased their share by just 1.5%. Assuming that anyone who voted Tory in 2010 did so again in 2015 (they wouldn't have any substantive reason not to do so as a bloc) that still leaves something like 5.5% of UKIP's popularity decline unaccounted for. Where has this gone?

The only other explanation I can find is something like this

The people who they were canvassing who they thought ought to be Labour voters, weren't, and hadn't voted Labour in 2010 either. Canvassers don't normally know how someone votes as an individual, but do know how an area/ ward votes. From this they take a view. So if you're in an area which has returned Labour councillors, yet encounter a lot of UKIP voters on the doorstep you make an estimate as to what is happening. It seems unlikely however that voters would jump from Liberal right across the spectrum to UKIP unless they were anything other than serial protest voters
 
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About six weeks ago Dan Jarvis was 8/1 to be next Labour leader which was tempting but, fortunately as it's turned out, I declined. Did at the same time (in a Corbetts office I stumbled into) back Suzie Perry to be next presenter of Top Gear at 14/1 though...still a runner I hope!

I do agree with Giglio that Jarvis is the most likely next, next Labour leader and PM, though given the field he's running with that's fairly faint praise unless another fresh face appears in the interim
 
Frankel said:
UKIP reject Farage resignation.
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after he failed to win his seat i would imagine a conversation might have gone like this..

oh sh1t i said i'd stand down if i lost the seat..htf can i get out of this one??

..don't worry Nige..go through the motions of resigning..i've got a get out for you
 
EC1 said:
after he failed to win his seat i would imagine a conversation might have gone like this..

oh sh1t i said i'd stand down if i lost the seat..htf can i get out of this one??

..don't worry Nige..go through the motions of resigning..i've got a get out for you
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I imagine it was sorted even before the count.
 
i tell you what i will miss about UKIP Frankel.....Mark Reckless:blink:...when he asked questions at PM's questions.....he would stand up and have to wait a while untill all the jeers and comments subsided..the look on his face was comedy gold
 
Warbler said:
Something doesn't add up. I think in fairness you'd want to break this down by English region, but I look forward to any hypotheses that can shed light on this pattern? The best I can offer is that the Liberal vote of 2010 had a lot more protestors in it than we realised, and that they sought sanctuary in UKIP, albeit UKIP's base was very low and they were always going to increase, not least the 5% who voted BNP in 2010. I'd hitherto thought that the Liberal protestors who voted in 2010 were disenchanted Labourites, but clearly they didn't return in any great numbers. The Liberal vote was down 16% in England, yet Labour's only increased 3.5%
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It is a strange one. I'd agree that much of the Liberal vote in 2010 would have been from disaffected Labour voters but it would seem reasonable to assume that those Labour voters that did would have been, for want of a better term 'middle class new-labour' types which is not the demographic I, for one, would expect to turn to UKIP in 2015: surely it would have been more likely to be 'working class' hitherto ardent Labour voters who would jump on the UKIP bandwagon.

It's striking that the former stronghold of the Liberals in the West Country generally showed an increase in the Labour vote below the national average of 3.6% you mention

I can't really fathom it: perhaps the disaffected 'new labour' voters who voted Liberal in 2010 were so impressed by the way the Tories shared responsibilities with their new party that they moved en-masse to the Conservatives, rather than back to Labour!

Or perhaps the accepted wisdom that your typical Liberal naturally aligns rather more closely with 'the left' than 'the right' is not the case in the 21st century

This election result will no doubt be analysed to death for some time to come and I'll stick my head above the parapet by saying that the result in five years time will be more in line with the time-honoured two-party tradition: Labour (assuming Scotland is still part of the UK) regaining much of what the SNP have grabbed, UKIP declining markedly back to Labour, particularly if we vote 'out' in the promised referendum; and the Liberals regaining some of what's lost to recommence their usual position as a weak third party
 
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EC1 said:
i tell you what i will miss about UKIP Frankel.....Mark Reckless:blink:...when he asked questions at PM's questions.....he would stand up and have to wait a while untill all the jeers and comments subsided..the look on his face was comedy gold
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Didn't see that, though can envisage it. The jeers and chuckling back and forth is comical.

Just seen it. Not the warm reception he was expecting :lol:
 
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Drone said:
It's striking that the former stronghold of the Liberals in the West Country generally showed an increase in the Labour vote below the national average of 3.6% you mention

I can't really fathom it: perhaps the disaffected 'new labour' voters who voted Liberal in 2010 were so impressed by the way the Tories shared responsibilities with their new party that they moved en-masse to the Conservatives, rather than back to Labour!

Or perhaps the accepted wisdom that your typical Liberal naturally aligns rather more closely with 'the left' than 'the right' is not the case in the 21st century
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I'm not sure it's that hard to explain

If you cut me some scope to generalise, I'd say the Liberal party core aligns 66/33 in favour of Labour. This isn't uniform across the country though. They lean to Labour in Scotland and urban areas but are much more conservative aligned in the south west being largely rural economies (they have an anti European core there as well - particularly in the Cornish fishing communities)

I think it's the likely answer to why the split that way in the South West, but perhaps the question they need to answer is why they dived that way at all. It was the one part of the world where the Liberal vote should have held up. I can see why the likes of Lynn Featherstone and Simon Hughes lost seats where Labour was the opposition.

I suppose it's always possible that Labour voters who had previously contributed to the likes of Vince Cable withdrew their support, as they might have done for David Laws in Yeovil, these were seats were the Tories were the natural opposition. I'm struggling to believe that Labour voters supported the Tories to punish the Liberals, but abstaining or transferring to the greens might have had that effect. You'd need to look at turnout and the difference in the Labour vote
 
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