UK General Election - May 7th 2015

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This is based on the proposed boundaries from the cancelled boundary review, and it's for 2010.  Northern Ireland would have had 16 seats, so that's right, and Alliance would definitely have won Belfast South-East (and had a good chance at holding on to it in 2015; it was a bit of a dream scenario for them).  I'm not sure how he's getting 6 Sinn Féin seats, though: they'd presumably have won the new "Glenshane" seat (the successor to East Londonderry) but Mid Ulster would have been abolished, so I'm only seeing 5.  Possibly he thinks they'd have won North Belfast, but I don't think the proposals would have helped them there.

No, the proposed Belfast North wasn't good for Sinn Féin, though Glenshane would have been (in fact, it would have been mostly Mid Ulster, leaving Gregory Campbell without a seat).

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If the Lib-Dems did axe Clegg, is there anybody who could somewhat salvage their fortunes (since it seems that whenever they actively try to do that with Clegg at the helm it just makes things worse - a la the Euros). I mean, I imagine all of their current cabinet ministers would be pretty useless at that, but is there anyone on the backbenches maybe?

All English politicians are "pretty useless" by the ridiculous standards people expect. Except Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, but they're popular because they don't actually run anything, just act as human projection vessels for people's hopes and fears. The problem with the Lib Dems is that they attracted lots of lefties who have not liked any government in their adult lives and thought they had found a permanent party of protest. 6% of the electorate were with the Lib Dems and are now with Labour. Obviously, Labour hopes that they will (a) win Labour the election and (b) stay with Labour afterwards, rather than walking away, feeling betrayed, to the Green Party or some such vessel. But neither is assured. (For context - imagine how betrayed UKIP supporters would feel the minute their party entered government!)

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Geographically, South Thanet looks like the type of seat normally associated with the words "Voting Rights Act".

As for hung-parliament maths, Sinn Féin don't take their seats at Westminster. That means you can exclude them from a majority threshold, but it also means that you can't ever add them to a majority. The SDLP is a bit more ideologically centre-left and is not abstentionist, so they would indeed help to sustain a Labour minority government and defeat a Conservative one. God knows what the SNP would do about a Labour minority government; in some ways, it helps their electoral aims when Conservatives rule from London. Above all, the Lib Dems show us that there are no prizes for helping prop up a government these days. This will raise the price charged by small parties for future support.

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Of course, the Tory party began to vanish forever a few years after that.

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The problem of England continues to be intractable. Creating an English Parliament leads to the risk that the First Minister of England would do to the Prime Minister of the UK what Boris Yeltsin did to Mikhail Gorbachev.  Federal type states do not work very well when one member of the Federation is stronger than all the others combined.

I wonder if this is really true. One can't precisely compare a dying socialist dictatorship to the UK. Perhaps it would weaken the UK federal government, but the same is true in countries with much more federal subject parity like Belgium.

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Fiscal federalism pays best for prosperous regions. Northern voters may not like having Conservative governments, but that's presumably because they get less income redistributed from London. Devolution would only let them tap the rich bits of Tyneside for a bit more.

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What happens if we see a result along these lines?

Lab - 290 seats
Con - 290 seats
SNP - 35 seats
Lib Dems - 20 seats

Cameron (+Clegg?) would continue for as long as possible and try to portray the SNP as wreckers weakening the UK by denying it a stable government. Conservative majority at election no. 2 2015.

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There's no evidence that Labour is sweeping to a Scottish landslide under its new, non-Scottish leader.

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The by-election results, local elections, and some constituency opinion polls suggest that UKIP can win pluralities in a very small number of places.

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Well, 2010 genuinely was both close and volatile. 2005 and 2001... not. 1997 more notable for rare surprises than the landslide result as a whole. I don't think those Blair elections were considered very unpredictable.

I see it being like a reverse Canada, with the upstart populists being spread too thin and winning few seats and the establishment conservatives having the favourable geography.

Also, Ukip are about half as popular as the Conservatives in most polls. That doesn't help.

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Cameron's net approval ratings are near-zero, though you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise given all that's happened. The other two leaders... plumbing the depths.

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A claim that has been made periodically since... what... the 1960s?

Yes. Fundamentally different would include a new official opposition or government party. If Ukip get 120 seats, things really would be fundamentally different!

However, it seems that a lot of fundamental questions were debated since 2010, if not actually changed, like the electoral system, Scottish sovereignty, the West Lothian Question, Lords reform, and of course British membership of the European Union. This seems more dramatic than what preceded it, though mostly the change has been defeated with very few concessions from the victors. One gets the impression that they still comprise pressures on the system, which won't be alleviated until 4% annual GDP growth returns, or something gives.

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Ukip is so polarising that the Conservatives are extremely unlikely to fall behind them. Too many people hate Ukip. An overtaking would require Labour to poach moderate Conservative voters, which under its current leader is, shall we say, unlikely.

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Turnout's usually less than 70%. So which voters actually voted matters a lot.

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Could members weigh in on the following point (which was raised in a question I answered on All Experts.com)?

Ed Milliband currently has 258 MP's, in order to govern with a majority he only needs 321 MP's (a net gain of 63) or no less than 306 MP's (working in coalition with the Liberal Democrats or the SNP) (a net gain of 48)

At the moment, you have the following maths for a Labour government, and this is the most optimistic I can make it.

For: Labour (258), Lib Dem (57), PC (3), SDLP (3), Green (1), Independent (1), Alliance (1) = 324
Against: Conservative (304), DUP (eight), Ukip (1) = 313
Majority: 11
In reality, it would be hard to keep everyone onside to support that government, which is why it didn't happen in 2010. George Galloway and the SNP would try to cause trouble for Labour at times, in which case every vote matters.

The SNP aren't joining a Labour coalition as supplicant to their main rival at Holyrood, which is the place they really care about. Confidence and supply would require the SNP to cast positive votes on bills that involve just EW or EWNI matters. The SNP's interest is in getting fiscal powers OR in keeping a situation of tension in the UK such that it looks like a relatively much better government. Furthermore, alliance with nationalists would, I think, be toxic in much of England.

Assuming 20 seat gains for Labour and 15 for Conservatives from Lib Dems, it's 278 seats for Labour, 287 after including PC+SDLP+3. I think these are high but feasible levels of seat gains. Lib Dem losses to Conservatives don't matter much if Lib Dems vote to oppose a Labour government eventually. 287-328 (if Lib Dems abstain) requires 21 net gains from Conservatives. 287-350 requires 32. Add another 5 in each case for a more stable Labour government. Can they win about 25-35 seats, net? Yes, but it is less likely today than if this election had been fought a year early.

Your point being?

Beats me. Nationalising trains and the death penalty also have widespread support among the public, it really just means that they miss the days when they were young, rather than an intention to elect a party to enact those policies. Otherwise they would have done it before.

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A lot of negativity on here towards UKIP. However their central policy (withdrawal from the EU as the EU is on an irrevocable course towards a federal superstate which is not in the UK's interests to be a part of) has widespread support among the British public.

Your point being?

My point being is that there would not be such a thing as the UK Independence Party if it were not for this central issue. They may have policies that cover most other stuff but they are essentially a single issue party.

Put it another way, is everyone here comfortable with the United Kingdom becoming part of a federal European superstate at some point in the future and if so why?

I think this is an exaggerated simplification of Ukip.

There has been British hostility to the EEC and EU since the beginning, at first as anti-Common Market factions in both main parties back when they really were the be-all and end-all of English and Welsh politics, later dissipated all across the British political spectrum in a more broad and shallow manner, but strongly localised among the Thatcherite Conservatives and a few straggler Labour members. It is not a new phenomenon that explains why Ukip is now a meaningful entity.

Ukip itself has existed for over two decades. Yet European integration didn't give it even a shadow of its current position. The UK hasn't subscribed to a major article of European integration since the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009. The next year, Ukip won just 3% at a general election and made a material difference to results in a handful of seats. The UK has agreed to practically no integration in the interim, nor has it been pushed to do so by a European Commission focused on economic, euro-based topics intensely controversial in the euro area but irrelevant in the UK.

So what changed? Ukip has been catapulted to current success by a few factors: the proportional, list-based European Parliament electoral law, almost uniquely designed to favour small anti-EU parties; an ability to attract former Conservative donors to fund its activities; above all, rapid EU immigration since 2004. They know it. And any interested observer of UK politics should know it, too. Like any political party, it is an avatar of its current voters rather that the issues that brought it into existence, otherwise the Corn Laws would be more relevant than they are today. And every study I know of suggests that Ukip voters' priority is to extract foreigners from their fields of vision.

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A Guardian/Observer article about Green ambitions.

The target list mentioned (other than Brighton Pavilion) is
Norwich South
Bristol West
St Ives
Sheffield Central
Liverpool Riverside
Oxford East
Solihull
Reading East
York Central
Holborn & St Pancras
Cambridge

I think they have a good chance of holding Pavilion.  They might have a chance in Bristol West if something goes wrong with the Labour challenge there, but I think it's more likely that they'll be squeezed, while I think they'll do well in Norwich South but catching Labour there is a tall order.

The others seem even longer shots.  They certainly have potential in Sheffield Central but are starting from a very low base having been squeezed in 2010.

These target lists are exercises in public relations, unless you've photographed a secret document under someone's arm at Clapham Junction.

Greens poll about 4-7%, up from 1% at GE 2010 which might have been 1.5% if they contested every seat. It's surely, overwhelmingly, concentrated among low-turnout voters: young childless people, the unmortgaged, the bohemian bourgeoisie, people who might find something more exciting to do that Thursday than cast a symbolic vote.

In by-elections, the increase in the Green vote has been more homogenous than would be good for them: nowhere above 4%, and not correlated with the fall in Lib Dem votes either.

Greens would need the Lib Dems to do well, to turn these contests into 3-way marginals like Brighton, Pavilion. (Will the Conservatives even contest it, or encourage anti-Labour votes?) In those cases, it's hard to see where Green votes come from, unless Labour bleeds in places like Cambridge. But why would they?

It's conceivable in Norwich South. It would be pretty massive in Bristol West. The rest is a pretension at national-party status.

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Let's consider Greens trying to win a seat against Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and Ukip.

To win a five-way marginal (!), one needs 20% and the other votes need to be split in an even manner. One also needs a breakdown in tactical voting and a large percentage of electors who are normally thought of as hostile to Greens. Conservative + Ukip should get approximately 30%.

Remove the Lib Dems from the equation, and it's a four-way split requiring 25% to win. But I think it is fair to say that good Green prospects will have above-average Lib Dem votes, both for demographic and mechanical reasons. 5% is a lot for the Greens. So the goal is 20-25%, about 20% each for Labour and Lib Dems, about 15 +- 5 % each for Conservatives and Ukip.

The smaller the Conservative+Ukip share, the larger the share required to win the Labour/Lib Dem/Green battle. I think that favours Labour as the more popular party at national level. On average, they have the proven ability to motivate voters. So do the Lib Dems, in some places. Furthermore, smaller Ukip shares probably favour Labour in these constituencies. I assume Labour voters are older and more working-class than the national average in deeply-split constituencies, due to Lib Dems/Greens hiving off the young liberals at previous elections.

Therefore, I think there must be a big Ukip share to weaken Labour, if Greens are to win in these places with about 22%, or I think it has to be about 30% if it is just Labour v Lib Dem v Greens. But I think it requires a very special demography in the former case which contains large elements amenable to Greens AND large (but smaller!) elements amenable to Ukip. Not sure where that is to be found. That is why I think the latter case is more realistic. It is most likely to happen where the Lib Dems won last time, and where there isn't a prosperous Tory vote that will resist Ukip (in Solihull, Ukip made very little ground despite winning the EP election).

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The list and the thinking behind it is kind of delusional, but that's to be expected from the Greens.

It looks like a list of where activists in each region will be sent. Live in Bradford? Sent to Sheffield. Cardiff people canvass in Bristol. Etc. It's also a public relations exercise in the sense that it garners headlines, as the Greens attempt to look like a recycled-paper tiger.

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Surely these 25-30 seat forecasts are why there has been no Lib Dem leadership challenge. They expect to do badly in seat terms, but better than they have through most of the 20th century, including the Alliance and '92 elections: to be humbled after being in government, but not rent asunder. Votes, they'll lose lots. But as has been suggested, millions of their voters didn't really want anything meaningful (they implicitly wanted a Labour government, but didn't vote for Labour. Go figure). Who cares if you go from 22% to 1% in some Midlands seat you'll never win. An MP doesn't care, at least.

So they lose half their seats, then they toss Clegg aside and go into opposition, because despite what the Lib Dems say, every party likes to scratch that itch and enjoy being the shootist rather than the target. Then they hope to rebuild. Maybe Labour wins and everything goes a bit Hollande, or maybe Ukip remains a presence and interferes with Conservative hopes to consolidate the south-west.

They might have overthrown Clegg already but he hasn't infuriated Lib Dems as much as Labour loyalists. Activists from the centre-left faction who could incite the groundswell look like they've quit the party. The democratic structures make the Lib Dem leadership look pathetic when their activists pass motions about too much competition in football at conference time, but do bind the membership to leaders' actions more than the larger parties.

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The Cleggasm turned from a blessing into a curse. If there'd been no debates, no Clegg surge, the last four years wouldn't have been so difficult for the Libs.

Interesting alt-historical scenario! Before the debate, I think they were bobbing along below their 2005 score, around 16-22% depending on whom you asked. Given the Conservatives' strength and the fact that most Lib Dem seats were and are won on not-very-big majorities against the Conservatives, they might have ended up on 35-40 seats instead of 57 with the Conservatives strong enough to govern with Unionist support. If they ended up in opposition, they might have indeed bounced back to 60 seats or so. But that's conditional on something they didn't know: that Ed M would be dire and fail to mobilise opposition to the government around Labour. And it doesn't really leave them much better-off than they started anyway, unless they eventually do get into government, and then they betray one side or the other of their support anyway...

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I think there is still a big gap for Ukip there. Lots of Ukip voters genuinely are sick of immigrants and, like their European brothers, want to do something about it. Nick Clegg wasn't going to win those votes.

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I think there is still a big gap for Ukip there. Lots of Ukip voters genuinely are sick of immigrants and, like their European brothers, want to do something about it. Nick Clegg wasn't going to win those votes.

Chicken or the egg. Are people saying they're sick of immigrants because UKIP's on the rise, or are UKIP on the rise because people are sick of immigrants?

Nick Clegg surged after the debates because he was the 'trendy' option. UKIP is surging now because they're the 'trendy' option. Similarly, the Greens are doing well amongst young people because they're a 'trendy' option.

Labour and the Tories are just seen as out of date and stale. If the Tories were able to get an out-and-out populist like Boris leading them, it'd help them a bit. Same goes with Labour.

Honestly, I think people (some people, not a majority) are sick of immigrants. I don't think people see Farage and say, there's a man I trust with running the government, let me find an issue on which I agree with him to justify my feeling. I think they say, if I vote for this man, it will tell the government to get rid of them and to leave more of Britain for us.

I think this because similar political movements are doing well in many other European countries, particularly the ones not badly hit by the euro crisis (where economic issues are the stronger cleavage). Perhaps it's coincidental that Ukip is on the rise at the same time as the Front National, the Swedish Democrats, PVV, and pals. But I don't think so; I think it's connected to the very large waves of migration within and to the EU since 2004.

Ukip aren't trendy in the same sense as Lib Dems or Greens. They are popular among old people, the working-class, and other untrendy groups, which is partly a difference between Ukip and the aforementioned xenophobes who are more popular among the young. Normally, old people don't change their minds as much, and cleave more strongly to traditional party systems on traditional class or regional lines. That support base is another reason why I don't think being out-of-date is the problem with Labour or the Conservatives. These voters aren't usually whom you associate with the pursuit of vanguard novelty.

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I will remind everyone again that the people who vote - or at least voted - LibDem are not necessarily the people that you all seem to be assuming do/did. Surveys used to show that the most popular newspaper amongst regular LibDem voters was the Daily Mail...

Well, that's because the Daily Mail is the overwhelmingly most popular middle-class newspaper, with left-wing newspapers barely featuring in circulation figures. It doesn't mean that Lib Dem voters weren't more liberal and left-wing than the country as a whole.

I don't see evidence that everyone/all people on this thread are less informed about the party's current or former support base.

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What is the stereotype of the types of people who vote LibDem in the UK. I tend to see them as having a voter base kind of like the FDP in Germany (also known as "the party of doctors and dentists") meaning that they get support from people who see themselves as being "too rich to vote Labour and too smart to vote Tory".

Am i getting close?

I am not a Britisher, but I think that type of person typically voted Conservative.

The stereotype is that Lib Dems are centre-left but not very socialist, middle-class people, often academics or students, government workers, or more rarely what the French call "liberal professionals" like lawyers or architects. The younger ones have a more post-modern profile than Labour, more sympathetic to vegetarianism, local food, real ale and other bo-bo obsessions. The older voters really really like localism, including everything from fiercely-independent urban councils on the peripheries of metropolises to Celtic nationalists. The men had beards even when they weren't cool. They were more idealistic and unrealistic than Labour. They like education spending, electoral reform and anti-war politics. Just to reiterate, the stereotype was that Lib Dem voters were centre-left and that it was a centre-left-to-centrist party which could be best stereotyped in terms of its contrasts with Labour.

The truth is that this is partly correct, but only describes a small high-profile fraction of Liberal Democrat support, and is mostly incomplete. There are simply too few of those soc-lib middle-class people, and too many of them vote Labour. Under the electoral system, small demographic shards like professionals can't elect anyone on their own. It is a little more accurate in describing their activists and active membership, but even then, it is fairer to describe most Lib Dem voters and activists in successful areas as:

Broad coalitions to win seats under first-past-the-post, typically in formerly safe seats for Conservatives, winning the tactical votes of sympathisers of Labour, or vice-versa. Often living in very pretty towns in nice parts of England like Bath/Kendal/Lewes. Less commonly, exploiting discontent with long-term Labour dynasties in more morose areas like Chesterfield/Redcar/Burnley.