UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[Phony Moderate]

And Labour are 6% ahead in England with Ashcroft, representing an 8-9% swing.

[Phony Moderate]

Are they going to place bets on Galloway too?

[Phony Moderate]

Another car crash interview from Natalie Bennett...

http://youtu.be/zKhWvogL9dc

[Phony Moderate]

The blonde idiot's response: "I, uh, think this is, uh, welcome news, to, eh, the, my party and, uh, we will, uh, will win and, uh, everyone, eh loves me, purely, uh, on the, uh basis of my, eh, hair."

[Phony Moderate]

Worthless as it is, I had a dream about election night...or at least the exit poll. It showed Lab 300, Con 230, UKIP 9, SNP 4 (yes, four)...can't remember the Lib Dem number, but it must have been in the region of 80-85. The analysis lady (not someone who I've ever seen on TV before btw) said that 300 would be better for Labour than expected, whereas the Tory number would be about as expected.

So, be prepared for Cleggmania 2.0...not.

[Phony Moderate]

Although the Tories won't be reduced to two seats, there are some startingly comparisons to Canada 1993 here, are there not? Main centre-right party faces a challenge from a party to its right which is led by a high-profile leader, nationalist party in one province/constituent nation looks set to make huge gains, another third party could be virtually wiped out.

Incidentally, the polls at the beginning of the Canada 1993 campaign were also similar - main centre-left and centre-right party tied, right-wing populist party hovering around the 12% mark.

[Phony Moderate]

Ed Milliband's principal rival was his older brother David. David's reputation has risen because he was not elected, but I always thought that Ed was better at simulating normal human behaviour than David was. No doubt if David had been elected, the general opinion now would be that Ed would have been the better option.

The other candidates for the Labour leadership were Ed Balls (now Shadow Chancellor), Andy Burnham (former Health Secretary now shadowing the job) and Diane Abbott (a black London MP who appears on television a lot).

A truly dreadful field. I would not have voted for any of them, even if I had been a Labour supporter. However, if absolutely forced to choose, I would concede that Ed was the least worst of them.

Mind you the recent Conservative and Liberal Democrat leadership candidates have not been much better. I think all UK parties had better quality leaders in the past. At least they usually tended to have been prominent political figures for a lengthy period, during which they had done things and stood for something more important than winning the next election.

The best potential Labour leaders of course chose not to run. Alan Johnson would have probably been the best choice...and (dare I say it?) Harriet Harman would have been better than any of the five who stood.

[Phony Moderate]

That's got to be a joke right?

Rightly or wrongly, it was the narrative going around in the run-up to the election.

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He won for the same reason that Mitt Romney and Michael Dukakis won their respective party nomination - he was the best or least worst of an unimpressive field.

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The big Labour-supporting unions are certainly not 'lefty' in Labour Party factional terms.

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Yes, because we all know that union members are not capable of researching candidates on their own terms and have to be told who to vote for...

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Except on those occasions when they haven't (which is quite often).

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He won because he was up against a drunken idiot in the second round. He would have lost a two-way battle between himself and Callaghan. Just over two years prior to his election, Wilson lost by a 2-to-1 margin to Hugh Gaitskell.

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Granted, though Heffer was obviously to the left of Kinnock.

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And, as I previously said, those unions are generally not on the Labour left.

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Smith had been seen as Kinnock's natural successor even when a 1992 victory looked likely. The main alternative to Smith was the then-leading moderniser Gordon Brown (though of course he did not contest). Blair, yes, although he charisma had a lot to do with it too.

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Have you ever seen that image of him holding a banana? As for looking and sounding like a potential Prime Minister, the same could have been be said of Tony Benn.

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Sure, but there is little correlation between the faction of party leaders and their electoral successes/failures. Of Labour's three most successful post-WWII leaders, two (Wilson, Attlee) were from the left and one (Blair) from the right. Of Labour's two lowest post-WWII vote shares, one came under a left-winger (Foot) and the other a right-winger (Brown).

[Phony Moderate]

Even if the campaign goes badly, Miliband can probably expect his personal ratings to rise into the low 30s (or thereabouts) by election day on the back of a 'rally around the party' effect of those 40% of Labour voters who currently say he is doing badly.

[Phony Moderate]

The Lib Dems shouldn't worry. Their incumbents are all more popular than Jesus and hence (those who are standing) will all be re-elected even if the party polls 0.4% nationally.

[Phony Moderate]

So we could be looking at quite a few 'Portillo moments'. The Alexanders, Murphy, Kennedy, Clegg, Hughes...

[Phony Moderate]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31742155

I can actually envision Clegg getting a bounce on the basis that he'll come across as the most normal. He'll be facing an uber-posh elitist, a wide-eyed weirdo, a raving xenophobic windbag and an inept environMENTAList. And two secessionists.

[Phony Moderate]

Labour 4% ahead with YouGov, their biggest lead with them since December. The overall position right now is probably something between a tie and Labour 1% ahead.

[Phony Moderate]

The next ICM (due out in a few days, right?) will probably be the most critical poll of this month, given that it showed a 4 point Tory lead last month.

[Phony Moderate]

How bad is the Lib Dem bloodbath in the Southwest going to be?  So many of these seats already have them defending pitiful majorities.

As previously mentioned, the Lib Dems are more popular than Jesus in the seats that they are defending (or so we are told).

[Phony Moderate]

Labour back into the lead with YouGov, 35-34.

[Phony Moderate]

Since 1968, to be precise.

[Phony Moderate]

Labour ahead by 3 (32-29) and UKIP on 18% with Populus.

Also, the MORI leader ratings show a noticeable (if modest) increase for Miliband over the past several months.

[Phony Moderate]

Miliband has ruled out a coalition with the SNP.

[Phony Moderate]

Populus: Lab 34, Tories 34, UKIP 15, Lib Dems 8, Greens 5 (previous was a 3 point Labour lead)
ICM: Tories 36, Lab 35, UKIP 9, Lib Dems 8, Greens 4 (previous was a 4 point Tory lead)

Lib Dems at 20-year low with the Gold Standard, and they probably cannot expect the usual campaign increase since a. They are in government this time, and b. We are in de facto campaign mode already (certainly more so than at this point in 2010).

[Phony Moderate]

Ashcroft has the Tories ahead at 31-29 (yeah...both are clearly too low) and YouGov has Labour ahead by 35-33.

[Phony Moderate]

Cameron has agreed to a single seven-way debate in early April.

[Phony Moderate]

Budget Day. Will it alter public opinion significantly? Probably, as any move in any direction can be described as 'significant' in an election like this.

[Phony Moderate]

... 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

Not really; they didn't know where they were likely to do well back in those days.

[Phony Moderate]

Agreement on debates reached. One seven-way debate on ITV on April 2nd, a 90-minute grilling of Cameron and Miliband on Channel 4/Sky News on March 26th, a five-way opposition leaders debate on the BBC on April 16th and a Question Time special on April 30th with Cameron, Miliband and Clegg each appearing individually (which is something that has happened in the past).

Presumably there will be a 'Chancellor's Debate' at some point too.