UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[ChrisDR68]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well that's a judgement you are making and one I don't share.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I was thinking mainly of Len McCluskey of Unite who I think you'll agree is pretty left wing.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

They sure can although putting Vote Ed leaflets in the ballot envelope still seems a little bit dodgy to me

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You seem to be saying Wilson's success in that leadership election had little to do with him aligning himself with Labour's left. A doubtful argument.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well I've seen polls showing only about 14% of the British people view themselves as "very left wing" so I'd imagine Tony Benn's appeal to the general public would be similarly limited despite him having been a fluent communicator.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Maybe I'm wrong about this but almost everything that Ed says seems to be opportunistic and short term in order to court popularity for a few days. Something appears in the headlines and the next thing you know Ed makes an announcement on it (the latest being banning MP's from having second jobs).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

No argument there. I still think he's the superior politician when choosing between the two though.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

About two thirds of the blame for the financial crisis was with the banks themselves (and mainly American banks at that). The other third was with the last Labour government in respect to how they were regulated. As Gordon Brown changed the way they were regulated as soon as Labour was elected in 1997 he has to take the lion's share of the blame for the dangers that built up over the next 11 years (particularly the capital ratios they were required to hold in their vaults in case of a crisis occuring).

[ChrisDR68]

... and, to summarise:
"Near certain" hold 2
"Likely" hold 9
"Lean" hold 17
"Lean" loss 10
"Likely" loss 13
"Near certain" loss 6

Don't take too seriously.

So they could poll around the same level that they did in the 1970 general election according to what most opinion polls are showing at the moment (8.5%) but instead of winning just the 6 seats they won in that election they could end up with the 28 you've worked out here.

Extraordinary

[ChrisDR68]

Are the Brit polls in the run up to the election normally this static?

Nope this is quite unusual.

In past elections it's normally the Lib Dems who creep up in the opinion polls (usually to regress back to near where they started from on polling day). Obviously their association with the Tories in the coalition means they're going to take a kicking in this election.

If there is to be movement this time round I suspect it will happen quite late when all these undecided voters make up their minds.

[ChrisDR68]

Well considering he's more popular than his party, surely this is a bad move.

Not really.

Maggie Thatcher got into serious trouble once she got past 10 years as PM. Tony Blair took that lesson on board and resigned exactly on the 10 year mark so Cameron is essentially following in Blair's footsteps.

[ChrisDR68]

As an aside, an amusing thought: Let's say the Tories remain in government after May 7th. Burnham succeeds Miliband. Johnson succeeds Cameron at some point during the next parliament. Tories fail to break 1% in any Liverpool constituency in 2020.

Amazing to think that Maggie Thatcher actually gained Liverpool Garston from Labour in the 1979 general election with a 2787 majority and held Liverpool Wavertree with a majority of 6942. 

Not surprisingly they haven't won a seat in the city since.

[ChrisDR68]

Too bad there's no proportional representation with a threshold. I really wish to see LibDems to follow the FDP path.

Why because you only see merit in a binary choice which is more or less what they have in the United States?

Speaking personally that's a revolting thought