UK Election 2010

[KuntaKinte]

If Conservatives fail to get a majority in 2010, what will happen? Minority government or coalition government?

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Some time ago I found this one:

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/

Of course it just works with a uniform swing but it's still fun to play with the percentages. I very much like the regional  predictor. And it learned me that the pro-Labour bias is even stronger than I expected.

What do the Brits say, is this a good predictor? Do you know a better one?

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I say we have debates with Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP and BNP all in

If it is just about fun, you shouldn't exclude Sinn Fein and the DUP. And Respect.

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Would Labour be in a better (or less desperate) situation now if Brown were removed last year? I'm not sure.

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...I hope someone polls Barking... I really hope Griffin doesn't win.

Do you really think that's possible?
In 2005 Labour leads the BNP with 30 points in Barking, wikipedia says. I'd say it would need a really bad turnout for the BNP to be competitive.

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While playing around with the swingometer map that afleitch posted, I found out that there is not a single truly safe Labour seat in Kent. That sursprised me.
Are the old coalmining areas in Kent not as loyal to the Labour Party as their equivalents in Wales and the North? Or are they just to small and not populous enough to dominate a constituency?

IIRC the Kent coalfield  was actually one of the more "radical" NUM areas in the strike of 1984.

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Thank you all for answering. I have to say this is one of the threads that actually learned me something.

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And where the hell is the "industrial unrest" today? Gone, alas. In the past. Finito.

There have been a couple of high profile strikes recently. Emphasis on 'couple'. Unions these days prefer to negotiate then head into arbitration rather than strike.

What's the rate of unionization these days in Britain? Not yet as bad as, let's say, France, i guess (and hope), but pretty bad, isn't it?

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What's the rate of unionization these days in Britain? Not yet as bad as, let's say, France, i guess (and hope), but pretty bad, isn't it?

The most recent set of figures I can find put it at a shade under 28%. Union membership is highest in Wales (37%) and the North East and Northern Ireland (both 35%). Lowest rates of membership are in the South East of England (21%).

Thanks!
That better I expected. In Germany you're usually told that the unions 'collapsed' during/after the Thatcher years, so to me it's appeasing that you have still more than a quarter of employees in the union.

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A lot of that was related to the banning of the closed shop.

There were so many closed shops?
I consulted wikipedia, but they don't deliver much information. From what I read about the miner's strike, the pits were no closed shops. And if I'd have expected any UK union to be powerful enough to push through closed shop agreements across the board, it was the NUM.

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The collapse of the economies of most of the old industrial areas probably accounted for most of the fall, though. The jobs that replaced the old unionised ones were in the low-pay service sector rubbish.

*The economic infrastructure
Must be swept away
To make way for call centers
And lower rates of pay*

It's depressing. I must say I'm really glad we just had to deal with s guy like Helmut Kohl, and never with something comparable to Maggie.

The scabs were mostly ex-NUM members who formed their own union (UDM), fwiw.

Yeah, Nottinghamshire and all that. Is the UDM-NUM division still current?

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The pedant in me would say that in fact the 'rates of pay' in call centres were higher.....

So in Britain the call center guy makes more than the miner or the steelworker? I don't think so.

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'I think breaking up the NHS is exactly what you do need to do to make it a more responsive service.' 'We do want to break up the NHS,' 'We don't want to privatise it, we want to break it up. Should the debate be taboo? Of course not, absolutely not.'

How much potential to hurt the LD would this statement have, given that the media put its focus on it?
Is the NHS a sacred cow ín today's Britain?

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Another random question I have: Approx. what # of seats would the Conservatives have to reach to realistically avoid having to make any deal whatsoever with the LibDems?  At some point, they could get by just by making a deal with one of the parties in Northern Ireland, right?

If Northern Ireland again elects 10 Unionists and 5 Shinners (who don't take their seat), and if all the Unionists are ready to support Cameron, 313 would be the magic number.

Lot's of "ifs" of course.

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Anybody know where to get election coverage outside of the UK?

I will watch BBC world, I'm pretty sure they do some election coverage in the evening.

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Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

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Is there some kind of Exit Poll just after 11pm ?

There'll be one released at 10:02pm, just after the polls close.

Great.

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I'm excited, impatient and anxious at the same time - that's the incomparable feeling of election nights. Just lovin' it