UK General Discussion

[Leftbehind]

 

[Leftbehind]

That's been obvious since day one.

[Leftbehind]

Cable appears to be playing apologist to Osborne's shares-for-rights horsesh**t over on LDV. Well that's an open goal for Labour to capitalise on if he is the Liberal's replacement.

[Leftbehind]

If only Osborne would do the same.

[Leftbehind]

Any idea what caused the bitterness between him and Kinnock?

[Leftbehind]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20157063

How important is this?

Remains to be seen, really. Its implications, rather than the actual defeat, of course.

[Leftbehind]

I had no idea that the Secret State was (loosely) based on A Very British Coup, nor that it was set in Teesside! Will definitely be watching. I enjoyed the C4's actual adaptation of the book, even if it did needlessly change some fundamental parts.

[Leftbehind]

Nadine Dorries gets Tory whip suspended for going on reality show in Australia

Kind of difficult to talk about abortion with a mouthful of insects.

What the f**k is she doing.

[Leftbehind]

It's terrible publicity. Career poison. I still don't understand her motive.

[Leftbehind]

Except polling shows he's reliably more popular than his party?

The arithmetic is an important point. With a 7% lead the Conservatives still couldn't win a majority, and they'd need to extend that lead in 2015 if they were going to. Instead Labour's leading them in the polls by 10%.

[Leftbehind]

The main reason why the Tories failed to win a majority in 2010 despite a large popular vote lead is the fact that a lot of constituencies that once formed part of their automatic total have been voting LibDem since 1997 or so.

Won't that change once the LibDems get destroyed in 2015? If they stay around 10% in the polls, there's like 25-40 guaranteed seats for the Tories.

The amount of Liberal seats that'd fall to the Tories is massively outnumbered by the Tory-Labour marginals in which Labour would gain, since the Liberal defections mostly transfer to them. Even if and when the Liberals 'get out of the way' for the Tories, there are other important factors that led to a large lead in vote share but without the seats for it - with differential turnout being one (ie Tory safe seat turning out in hordes in comparison to safe Labour seat, but with the net result being a seat apiece).

[Leftbehind]

Yep.

In other news, Hague's made it obvious UK's gonna abstain from another Palestinian bid.

[Leftbehind]

More likely the arrogant posh boys were taking the opportunity to knife Dorries, who had become a nuisance to them. In that regard, I'd be surprised to see them let her back in.   

[Leftbehind]

Pleased with the capping of benefits rises to 1%. Public Sector workers, particularly those in HMRC and DWP who deal with benefit claimants haven't even had a pay rise.

Right, because making the poorest people even poorer must be an enormous sense of comfort for them. In the same way it was an enormous help to private sector workers to see public sector workers get their pensions reduced. Congrats on peddling the usual Tory disingenuous bollocks.

[Leftbehind]

That would actually have the combined Right more than Labour (even omitting the support for an increasingly FDP-type Liberals). Although it's difficult to look at those figures without a sense of pleasure, given it'd a) ensure a Labour landslide and b) a fracturing of the Right offers the possibility of a more ambitious Left and even a desire for PR arising in the Right.

[Leftbehind]

Canada 1993 2.0 here we come?

IIRC the Reform party was polling around 8-10% until the election campaign began. Then a horrendous Progressive Conservative campaign* allowed them to shoot up to 19%. I could see this happening in Britain if UKIP avoids gaffes and the Cameron campaign stinks up the joint.

* Here's two examples of how bad the PC campaign was:
1) The PC leader said "An election is no time to discuss important issues"
2) The PC's ran ads with closeups of the Liberal leader's deformed face with voice overs saying "This doesn't look like a Prime Minister" and "I would be ashamed if this man was my Prime Minister"

But unlike in Canada, that wouldn't give UKIP (m)any seats and so they wouldn't be anywhere near in challenging the Tories.

[Leftbehind]

Very happy to hear that the Labour Party will no longer be whipping MPs to vote in favour of Gay Marriage. Apparently 3 shadow cabinet members threatened to resign if the vote was whipped!

I can't believe they've banned CoE/W churches from performing them; what a sham piece of legislature. It's the AV vote all over again.

[Leftbehind]

Long, large-sampled poll from Ashcroft.

Topline VI (male/female in brackets)
Lab 42% (33%/31%)
Con 32% (38%/45%)
Lib  9% (8%/9%)
UKIP 9% (11%/7%)

Pref PM (UKIP voters in brackets)
48% Cameron (57%)
38% Miliband (33%)
13% Clegg (10%)

Pref duo:
52% Cam/Osb (61%)
48% Mil/Balls (39%)

Pref for 2015:
Lab gov 39% (31%)
Con gov 32% (43%)
Lab/Lib 18% (18%)
Con/Lib 12% (9%)




Tonnes more interesting questions, but I can't be arsed posting them.

[Leftbehind]

Long, large-sampled poll from Ashcroft.
Pref PM (UKIP voters in brackets)
48% Cameron (57%)
38% Miliband (33%)
13% Clegg (10%)

Pref duo:
52% Cam/Osb (61%)
48% Mil/Balls (39%)

Pref for 2015:
Lab gov 39% (31%)
Con gov 32% (43%)
Lab/Lib 18% (18%)
Con/Lib 12% (9%)

What dates are the bracketed numbered because the comparison is devastating for Dave.

Those in brackets aren't changes or the prior figures, they're what the UKIP sample opted for.

[Leftbehind]

You're descending into self-parody, afleitch.

[Leftbehind]

He was revealed as The Sun's "source", so yeah - not a name most had until recently.

[Leftbehind]

Or the coalition agreement.

Simfan: it's a universal provision for children - not a targeted re-distribution to the wealthy. It's unlikely the wealthy get more out of it than put in, and if any fairness issues do arise then raise the taxes on them (and not cut them, like the coalition are doing). If it's not needed - fine, piss it away, but it's still no more a re-distribution than any other universal benefit is (like universites, for instance, where they last tried to apply this fatuous argument). 

[Leftbehind]

Former children's minister and Conservative MP Tim Loughton told the BBC[...]"Apparently there are 132 Conservative MPs who voted in favour, so I think what we're going to see is that more Conservative MPs voted against this legislation than for it."

Aye - 400
Nay - 175

So the ayes have it.

Bigger majority than some had anticipated.

Can't see why people would be predicting a smaller majority?

[Leftbehind]

So now the old, unelected, institutionalized and religiously-influenced club of hacks (aka the House of Lords) votes.  Is it considered a real possibility that they might reject it?

Even so, it'll just be bowled over like the irrelevant joke it is.

[Leftbehind]

I think most were assuming all of the "undecideds" were No votes. In the end, most were, but about 20 reportedly undecided MPs must have voted in favor.

If we're talking about the list posted above, it has 20 extra votes apiece (it already predicted 156 were against). The No vote was only like to come from one place (and ofc the minuscule number of unionists) in any great number, so just how many more Tories were people predicting given already a majority voted against?