UK general election: May 7

A thread for discussion of Britain’s May 7 general election.

April 30, 2015

With only a week left to go, I’m bumping this thread back up the batting order. If you’re a Crikey subscriber, here are my thoughts on the subject of Britain’s need for electoral reform.

April 14, 2015

A thread for discussion of Britain’s May 7 general election, about which I’m sure I’ll find something to say in due course. In the meantime, here is a poll aggregation from Wikipedia.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

78 comments on “UK general election: May 7”

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  1. TT – with the election date known years in advance the thought had crossed my mind. I suppose a more charitable view could be a desire by the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family to provide a happy distraction to electioneering.

  2. Or or maybe the Reptilians forced the baby out so that the distraction could ensure that fellow Reptilian, David Cameron could get re-elected. Then again, Ed Miliband is also a Reptilian, so they’d still have their Shadow Government. Black helicopters.

    I suppose you could go with the completely loony theory that it is just a coincidence and also go with the nutter idea that it’s possible that it might not even have that much of a bearing on how people vote on the day. But I live in reality – Reptilians it is!

  3. A naive report on SBS in tonight’s news, they just followed the BBC in interpreting a few people yelling at Jim Murphy as “chaos” in the streets of Glasgow, caused by “seperatists”.

    This emblematic picture. The young man in the middle with the Unionist Flag is a notorious neo-nazi/fascist BritNat.

    The wee scottish lass is awesome.

  4. Looks like there will be a very interesting few days of negotiations after this election. Poisoned chalices a plenty offered.

  5. Looks like Nick Clegg is the winner.

    If you look at Nate silvers site – it seems he will lose half his seats and still end up in a minority labor/ lib govt backed from without by the snp.

  6. CTar1 – and as regards return to work on Monday – I was fine in AM, started flagging in PM, bombed out in evening – pattern has repeated for three days!

    As for Nick Clegg – he may win his seat as Tories there will vote “tactically” to keep him in, as they are well aware that any subsequent Lib-Dem leader is much less likely to want to go into coalition with the Conservatives.

    That said, even if he wins his seat, I do not expect the Lib-Dems would be in any formal coalition with Labour.

    So if the Conservatives win more seats than Labour, but cannot get a bare majority with LDP, UKIP, DUP, how will Cameron propose to remain PM? Any of his legislation could be voted down by Labour-SNP-SDLP-PC-Green members.

    Latest poll (Opinium) has Con 35, Lab 34, UKIP 12, LDP 8.

    http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/survey-results/political-polling-4th-may-2015

  7. UK Election update (Wed) election-eve;

    Seven national polls today:

    -Tied race, ICM (phone)
    -Con 1% ahead, ComRes (phone)
    -Con 1% ahead, TNS (online)
    -Con 1% ahead, Opinium (online)
    -Lab 2% ahead, Panelbase (online)
    -Tied race, Survation (online)
    -Tied race, YouGov (online) nb sample size 10,000

    In the Survation poll, a forced-choice question of Lab or Con govt came out at 52-48 to Labour, a bit like your 2PP I thought

    ICM are continuing fieldwork today and will update tomorrow

    Also due tomorrow are Ashcroft and Ipsos-MORI (both phone)

  8. Thanks for the update Ray. As the clock ticks past midnight UK time, I am sure you are in for a very interesting day and night.

    It is always hard to extrapolate what would happen if there were preferential voting in the UK, because people vote knowing the system they have. I know that it would affect the way I would vote, depending on the constituency in which I was living.

  9. Rocket Rocket

    About to retire for the night, a bit of foot-slogging in Sheffield Hallam tomorrow to see if we can’t get them a different MP………

  10. Ray – very interesting

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-2015-nick-clegg-set-to-lose-his-seat-according-to-latest-sheffield-hallam-poll-10213626.html#

    The Tories are desperate to get Clegg up, because I think the other Lib-Dems would be very wary about another coalition. The Coalition agreement certainly seems to have damaged the Lib-Dems much more than the Conservatives.

    Good luck in your work to change the UK!

  11. Rocket – You were very ambitious. So the crash and burn cycle likely.

    Ray / Rocket

    Clegg gone from what I can see. How Labour will work with the SNP is …

  12. I’m so excited! Confident about a Labour-ethno nationalist bloc locking Cameron out.

    Constituencies on my watch list so far:

    Sheffield Hallam for sure, for the s&gs.

    How many LibDems will Labour take? constituencies:
    Birmingham Yardley
    Bermondsey & Old Southwark
    Cambridge
    East Dunbartonshire

    A sample of Labour must-wins (here from the Bs & Cs):
    Bedford
    Cardiff North
    Carlisle
    City of Chester

    Ones that will put them over:
    Amber Valley
    Harbone
    Ipswich
    Lincoln
    Stockton South
    Warrington South

  13. So, will we know by Monday if Mili vanilli is going to reneg on his “no deals” and have a highland fling?

  14. UK Election update, polling day

    Ipsos-MORI final poll, Con 36% v. Lab 35% (phone poll)

    The final four phone polls from yesterday & today show movement to Labour, converging to the online pollsters

  15. UK Election update, polling day

    Populus final call, Lab & Con tied at 33% (online)

    ICM final call, Lab 35% v. Con 34% (phone)

    That’s it now until exit poll at 10pm local time

  16. UK Election info:

    The boffins behind the broadcasters joint exit poll, including esteemed psephologist Prof. John Curtice, have attached a slight caveat for tonight.

    With the rise of the SNP in Scotland and UKIP in England, they believe the accuracy may not be as good as in recent elections (in 2005 and 2010 it essentially nailed the actual result).

    Consequently, take with a small dose of salt until we have some early results.

    Those familiar with the 1992 ‘polling disaster’ will probably know that it was not apparent until some of the early marginals reported that the exit poll was wrong.

  17. A 4% then a 5% swing Con-Lab in first two seats in the North East, exit poll must be terrible for Lab in the south if exit poll is right

  18. So how did the pollsters get this one so wrong?

    I must admit, it never “felt” right that Cameron could be in serious danger given the fairly strong state of the British economy. I realise that’s a simplistic argument and an easy one with hindsight but I made the same comment to plenty of people in the lead-up.

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