UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[Barnes]

It's also an Opium poll and they're sh!te.

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The Greens currently hold Brighton Pavilion. The MP in question (Caroline Lucas) is personally popular, but the local authority is also run by the Greens and is a walking disaster which may complicate her re-election chances.

That Greens administration in Brighton has been quite amusing to watch over the past few years.

[Barnes]

Yeah, the trend for Labour to go with a minority versus a fully-fledged coalition is pretty entrenched. IMO, Wilson had the right idea in March of '74 by daring the opposition (particularly the Liberals) to bring down the government - of course, another election was inevitable, but I think the brovado povided a pretty firm grip on power.

[Barnes]

Heath handled it about as heavy-handed as you can get - although that was his style. Anyway, my point is, a hung parliament doesn't mean that there automatically has to be unstable and "cautious coalition" government, something Labour strived to point out in both '74 elections.

[Barnes]

My proposal for the debates would be to drop them all together.  Of course, that's not going to happen, especially since the 2010 exercise has been heralded as a "landmark" event in British politics.

[Barnes]

Actually threatened or perceived to be threatened? There were journalists who thought that Callaghan might be under threat in 1979, for instance.

That commentary was quite interesting on the BBC's coverage for that election; that, and Pat Arrowsmith's memorable trolling during Callaghan remarks.

[Barnes]

It's quite nice to see Hague handed a defeat on his last day in the House of Commons.

[Barnes]

The motion was not to dump Bercow per se, but to move the vote on re-electing the incumbent speaker at the start of a new parliament to a secret ballot. The government felt they could have a shot a ditching Bercow if MPs didn't have to go through the division lobbies.