UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[Leftbehind]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

[Leftbehind]

UKIP beats the Lib Dems in the popular vote. but gets 1 seat at best. Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

Why would it?

Key word is hope. I'm not confident it will at all.

Nor me, but two parties supporting PR is better than one, and with both being the only potential coalition partners it can only increase the possibility (depending on how important they make it). I think 4 party-politics with parties winning seats on 25% will start to be questioned by the media and public (especially as the former are quite favourable to UKIP, and will probably regard their 15-20% vote winning next to no seats a scandal).  

Same as usual. Toss up as to who comes out on top. Lib Dems on 17% or something similar and UKIP on about 5% winning no seats.

That looks remarkably like wishful thinking on your part.

[Leftbehind]

Lib > Lab swings in the by-elections this parliament.

-6.6 Bradford West
+4.4 Inverclyde
+5.0 Oldham East and Saddleworth
+5.6 South Shields
+7.3 Eastleigh
+7.9 Rotherham
+8.3 Leicester South
+9.3 Feltham and Heston
+9.6 Croydon North
+9.7 Corby
+10.0 Cardiff South and Penarth   
+12.3 Middlesbrough         
+13.3 Barnsley Central
+16.8 Manchester Central

When crudely added together give an average of 9.2%

[Leftbehind]

It was speculated today that the LibDems might actually gain seats, even if they lose votes overall.

The reasoning behind it: In Tory-LibDem marginals, the Lib->Lab swing is irrelevant. While the LibDems might lose some votes to Labour, the Conservatives will lose even more to UKIP, resulting in LibDem wins.

Any thoughts?

Well Lib>Lab swing is plainly not irrelevant - if only because it weakens the Liberal result, and when it's averaging around 10%+ swings we're not talking "some votes", we're talking exoduses. So Tory losses to UKIP is not the saviour he claims, and nor have the Liberals shown to be immune from their damage either.

Really, if Liberals were going to gain from this you would've seen it in the locals earlier this month, instead you seen them recording 130 losses (falling to a new low in council seats) and setting their worst PNV at 14%.

[Leftbehind]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

You think we'd wish to stay disenfranchised through worry that opening the voting system might also benefit the far-right? We've already got the governing party trying to appease a hard right party (& a faction within its own ranks), and I think the prevailing consensus only helps to instil the Right's message and increase their support, with them being locked out of parliament no comfort when they're shifting the centre-ground (and the parties hugging it) ever rightwards.

[Leftbehind]

Hopefully electoral reform ensues.

The one possibility of a silver-lining I can see for the next election (and by electoral reform, I don't mean worthless sh**te like AV).

Do people on the far-left really want proportional representation though? Seems like an easy way to open the floodgates to hard-right/far right parties.

You think we'd wish to stay disenfranchised through worry that opening the voting system might also benefit the far-right? We've already got the governing party trying to appease a hard right party (& a faction within its own ranks), and I think the prevailing consensus only helps to instil the Right's message and increase their support, with them being locked out of parliament no comfort when they're shifting the centre-ground (and the parties hugging it) ever rightwards.

Out of curiosity how much do you think a Labour Left party could get if you had PR? Maybe 12-15%?

I suppose it would be closer to the Scandinavian "Socialist Left" parties than Die Linke in Germany or the French left wing. So undogmatic on economics and emphasis on green issues and pacifism.

It's difficult to know, really. It all depends on what form it takes, what the organisation is like etc. I think there are a significant amount of voters to the left of Labour, who haven't really been given the opportunity to express it.

I think it'd follow a German model, personally - an explicitly socialist movement led by someone like Nellist, who would probably attract about 5%+ and the social democratic Greens getting about the same initially, and whenever Labour follows SPD lines of 'centrism' disillusioning more to each respective pool. A conservative estimate, as I don't believe PR will deliver us socialism, but on the other hand it'd undoubtedly bring us representation and influence to extend our message and there's a significant vote out there that wants to reverse the neoliberal consensus beyond that 10% (perhaps even a majority). 

In the last Euro's (the last election to have PR) Greens got 8% and Socialists, collectively, 2% - but this was with shoddy turnout and falls down at the same way cataloguing far-left failures does under FPTP: their profile is non-existent and won't be until PR grants them that through influence relevant to their vote. Part of the reason the Left lives and dies by a handful of big personalities is it's hard enough to be taken seriously in FPTP without even a recognisable face for the voter.

[Leftbehind]

No-one on this thread has mentioned the effect of Labour having Ed Miliband as leader will have on the result of the next election. Personally I think if his brother David had won the Labour leadership in 2010 and had made Alistair Darling shadow chancellor they would have walked into 10 Downing Street without even needing to campaign during the 2015 general election.

Ed's personal ratings are very similar to Neil Kinnock's.

If the leader of the opposition is not seen as a credible potential prime minister history shows they tend to lose general elections.

Just ask Micheal Foot, Neil Kinnock, William Hague and Michael Howard.

The exception to the rule is Hugh Gaitskell but that was over half a century ago and he unfortunately died less than two years before probably winning power at his second attempt in 1964.

 

One of those golden rules that people like to point out that isn't actually all that deserving. Thatcher was uncompetitive with Callaghan on leadership stakes, but the Tories were sailing away and of course won the general election handily. The rest never achieved consistent decisive VI leads (Foot and Kinnocks brief moments came undone with the arrival of SDP and Major respectively). 

[Leftbehind]

Basically what you'd expect from Finkelstein; the Lib Dems have already lost their identity and it's really only right-wing Tories like him who actually believe they've delivered on a restraining agenda. Radical right-wing government, looking to privatise everything from the NHS to the fire services to the Royal Mail (but they're watering down changes to public services!), and they're insisting taxes are raised on the rich so much corporation tax has plummeted to the lowest tax rate of any major economy in the world, the 50p tax has been cut (whilst simultaneous regressive rises in VAT and slashes in council tax subsidies for low earners) and their mansion tax is only mentioned once, without fail, at their conference each year simply to top up their faithful's false hopes.

I could go on, but I'd rather not - in short, "Lib Dems can only be centrist whilst supporting Tories"(!).