UK General Election - May 7th 2015

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

AV got rejected solidly in the referendum - we'll be sticking with FPTP for a good while, I'd say.

A minority government - either blue or red - could be forced to act for the benefit of confidence votes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Just a quick question for those who have been following this longer then I have:

What's the path to a Conservative Government?

Their best case scenario has them losing a dozen seats. The Lib Dems aren't going to help them again, and probably won't have the seats to do it even if they wanted to.
The SNP may have the seats but they'd never form a Government with the Conservatives. And UKIP will only have 5 seats or so.

So how does Cameron stay in office?

If they only need 12 more seats, they could enlist the help of both UKIP and the DUP...

Remember that the Conservatives don't have a majority now, hence the coalition, so losing a dozen seats would put them well over a dozen seats away from government.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I see no reason why the Libs won't carry on the current coalition (unless ukip refuse to back up a government with Liberals in it ... or the EU referendum becomes a sticking point)

[Clyde1998]

If I'm not mistaken May2015's forecasting model uses Lord Ashcroft's constituency polls to predict the results in some 100  seats that are marginal or otherwise of interest (your Thanet Souths and Sheffield Hallams), so that there is a considerable part of their prediction that is completely independent of the national polling figures. Very dubious, I'd say.

It's possible to turn those polls off when using the calculator.

[Insula Dei]

If I'm not mistaken May2015's forecasting model uses Lord Ashcroft's constituency polls to predict the results in some 100  seats that are marginal or otherwise of interest (your Thanet Souths and Sheffield Hallams), so that there is a considerable part of their prediction that is completely independent of the national polling figures. Very dubious, I'd say.

It's possible to turn those polls off when using the calculator.

Yes, but don't they include them in their own prediction?

Cf. The discussion higher up in this thread about the Tories having a plurality of seats in their forecast while their poll of polls have them on the same PV percentage as Labour.

[136or142]

I see no reason why the Libs won't carry on the current coalition (unless ukip refuse to back up a government with Liberals in it ... or the EU referendum becomes a sticking point)

They have to win at least one seat first!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

As hilarious as it will be for the lib dems to receive null points, there are a few impregnable strongholds; and the curiosities of FPTP will surely help them (with the clown car debates and minor party hype, we could see some impressive vote-splits going on, that would surely save some Liberals bacon)

[SNJ1985]

Just a quick question for those who have been following this longer then I have:

What's the path to a Conservative Government?

Their best case scenario has them losing a dozen seats. The Lib Dems aren't going to help them again, and probably won't have the seats to do it even if they wanted to.
The SNP may have the seats but they'd never form a Government with the Conservatives. And UKIP will only have 5 seats or so.

So how does Cameron stay in office?

If they only need 12 more seats, they could enlist the help of both UKIP and the DUP...

Remember that the Conservatives don't have a majority now, hence the coalition, so losing a dozen seats would put them well over a dozen seats away from government.

Ah, right. If the Tories only won 294 seats, they would need 32 more to get to 326; and the two parties I mentioned are almost certainly not going to win 32 seats between the both of them.

I guess that just leaves the option of forming a minority government.

[YL]

This week's YouGov polls:

27 Jan: Con 34 Lab 33 UKIP 15 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
28 Jan: Con 34 Lab 33 UKIP 14 Green 7 LD 7 SNP/Plaid 5
29 Jan: Lab 33 Con 33 UKIP 16 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
30 Jan: Lab 34 Con 34 UKIP 14 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
1 Feb: Lab 35 Con 32 UKIP 15 LD 7 Green 6 SNP/Plaid 5

[ChrisDR68]

This week's YouGov polls:

27 Jan: Con 34 Lab 33 UKIP 15 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
28 Jan: Con 34 Lab 33 UKIP 14 Green 7 LD 7 SNP/Plaid 5
29 Jan: Lab 33 Con 33 UKIP 16 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
30 Jan: Lab 34 Con 34 UKIP 14 Green 7 LD 6 SNP/Plaid 4
1 Feb: Lab 35 Con 32 UKIP 15 LD 7 Green 6 SNP/Plaid 5

I don't see the point in doing an opinion poll each and every day. There's almost bound not to be much difference between them. Better once a week imo.

On the issue of the Tories being the largest party in a hung parliament but with fewer seats than the 306 they won in 2010 I think there are three possibilities:

1. They form another coalition with the Lib Dems.
2. If that coalition with the Lib Dems doesn't get them over or close to the magic 326 number then they could additionally try and form a three way coalition with the Lib Dems and DUP.
3. They try and govern as a minority living a day-to-day existence on issue after issue and vote by vote. An exhausting experience as the Callaghan and late Major governments would testify to.

If option 3 happens a second general election would be quite likely within a year to 18 months imo. 

[Lurker]

The answer is that seat projections are usually worthless.

This is true, though some projections are more worthless than others. Any model predicting that the Tories can win more seats than Labour on an equal share of the vote is hard to see as even remotely credible.  

In that regards, this one looks pretty terrible as well: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/01/2016-general-election-prediction

[Clyde1998]

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/a7awj68e8x/Final_Times_Results_150202_Website.pdf

New full-scale YouGov/Times poll shows SNP 21% ahead of Labour in Scotland - an all-time record.

Voting intentions:
SNP - 48% (+1%)
Lab - 27% (N/C)
Con - 15%
Lib - 4%
UKIP - 4%
Grn - 3%
Others - 1%

Leadership trust ratings:
Nicola Strugeon (SNP) - +42%
Jim Murphy (Lab) - -10%

Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes - 49% (+1%)
No - 44% (-1%)

Excluding Don't Knows
Yes - 52%
No - 48%

If there was a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, how would you vote?
I would vote for Britain to remain a member of the European Union - 52%
I would vote for Britain to leave the European Union - 29%

[politicus]

Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes - 49% (+1%)
No - 44% (-1%)

Excluding Don't Knows
Yes - 52%
No - 48%

Why a Yes majority now, when it is too late? Just protest votes or a genuine swing?

[Phony Moderate]

Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes - 49% (+1%)
No - 44% (-1%)

Excluding Don't Knows
Yes - 52%
No - 48%

Why a Yes majority now, when it is too late? Just protest votes or a genuine swing?

Because a fair number of No voters are coming to the view that they were had.

[Clyde1998]

Should Scotland be an independent country?
Yes - 49% (+1%)
No - 44% (-1%)

Excluding Don't Knows
Yes - 52%
No - 48%

Why a Yes majority now, when it is too late? Just protest votes or a genuine swing?

I think it's a genuine swing - as it's the third consecutive YouGov poll showing a "yes" lead. I think that the undelivered devolution promises would have had a effect on future voting intentions (should there ever be a second referendum).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course had Yes won, No would now doubtless be leading

[Clyde1998]

Of course had Yes won, No would now doubtless be leading

Who knows. Also, the events that followed the referendum would have been different - so the polling figures would have changed accordingly.

Salmond resigning may have, ironically, moved people towards yes.

[EPG]

Of course had Yes won, No would now doubtless be leading

Thumbs up. And, don't forget, many polls (especially YouGov polls) before the referendum also had a Yes majority.

[afleitch]

Of course had Yes won, No would now doubtless be leading

Who knows. Also, the events that followed the referendum would have been different - so the polling figures would have changed accordingly.

Salmond resigning may have, ironically, moved people towards yes.

Salmond resigning and being replaced by Sturgeon is probably the key event that helped the SNP. They would not have risen as high without her, her positives are stratospheric at the moment. We can never know because it happened simultaneously with the 'No' vote.

[Clyde1998]

Of course had Yes won, No would now doubtless be leading

Thumbs up. And, don't forget, many polls (especially YouGov polls) before the referendum also had a Yes majority.

According to the Wiki page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Scottish_independence_referendum,_2014 - yes were only ahead in two polls in 2014.

[EPG]

My mistake. I had thought YouGov was systemically more positive than others.

[Clyde1998]

My mistake. I had thought YouGov was systemically more positive than others.

YouGov were the pollster I criticised the most throughout the entire campaign, as I felt they were under representing support for 'yes' - until the late surge near the end of the campaign [mainly as they had never predicted a Scottish election correctly with their final poll]. In hindsight, their polls seemed to be pretty accurate...

[YL]

Ashcroft is finally going to release his Scottish constituency polls tomorrow, and is ramping them on Twitter.

FWIW (possibly not very much) in the YouGov poll the SNP voters are noticeably more confident that they will actually vote that way than the unionist parties' voters.  (The Lib Dem sample is tiny, of course, so is even less informative than the others.)

[Clyde1998]

Seeing that the Ashcroft polls are suggesting that Margaret Curran could lose her Glasgow East seat - which would be at least a 19% swing. The record swing in a general election in the UK is 21%.

EDIT: Just seen this on Twitter - don't know if it's real or not...

[Clyde1998]

You'd think that a billionaire would be able to protect opinion polls, but obviously not. Anyone is easily able to access the poll results.

Nearly every poll shows swings of over 15% to the SNP, with most showing swings of over 20% - some over 25%.