UK General Election 2015 | Conservatives win with an overall majority

[Ubik]

Is that really true though, mate? It's like assuming that Boris Johnson is the best hope for the Conservatives just because he's outspoken, publicity-hungry and populist. I read somewhere that Farage has failed to secure a seat seven times...

Different kinds of parties though, I'd agree that Boris potentially being a great leader of the Tories is a very questionable statement, but he'd be an amazing leader of UKIP. Outspoken, publicity-hungry and populist are the qualities you need to be leader of an insurgent party like UKIP who are all about anger and opposition rather than actually achieving support from enough of the electorate to govern. Appearing to be an "outsider" (despite being very much an insider) to appeal to the disenchanted is their bread and butter, and without Farage I don't think they'd last long, and least at the level of support they've had in the last few years.

Farage's failure to win a seat in all those attempts though is interesting, particularly when you consider that Thanet council did go to UKIP in this election. He's a very polarising figure so opponents will go the extra distance to beat him locally.

 

[SteveJ]

Yep, good points.

 

[rcoobc]

I just read it as the cities themselves, not their suburbs, and only places with an elected mayor so it will likely be Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Bristol, Nottingham, Coventry, Wakefield, Doncaster, Salford and possibly Liverpool and Leicester since they all have or were offered an electoral mayor system.

If what Osbourne announced for Manchester this afternoon is true and the Cities can set their own taxes and plan infrastructure, NHS spending etc then it's going to be very strange if a city decides to reduce corporate taxation in a grab for businesses or if they change income tax levels within their boundaries so people living in Radcliffe or Whitefield would pay a different tax rate to those living 2 minutes away in Bury.

Yeah, I mean, taxation differences works well in the US because it's all so spread out.

In the UK? If I ran a business it would put me off if suddenly I've got to move headquarters to get a decrease in tax or something. It just doesnt make sense.

 

[Amethyst]

Is that really true though, mate? It's like assuming that Boris Johnson is the best hope for the Conservatives just because he's outspoken, publicity-hungry and populist. I read somewhere that Farage has failed to secure a seat seven times...

UKIP have significantly grown as a party over the last 2-3 years though, Farage wasn't expected to win any of the other times.

 

[GloryHunter07]

This UKIP thing is amazing, you've now got their top two donors on opposite factions calling for the other lot to resign. Farage is their best chance of electoral success, but has also unquestionably mounted a coup to remain leader which, for a democratic party, isn't terribly wise and just ties them ever closer to fascism. I can't see the types in UKIP being overly fond of reconciliation and compromise, so we really could be witnessing a big split here.

Hope so.

Like him or not, Farage is Ukip's biggest weapon. Without him i think they will struggle.

 

[Drifter]

Really nice to hear that Ukip are self imploding. That's what you get when ambitious mps cross the floor.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

Hope so.

Like him or not, Farage is Ukip's biggest weapon. Without him i think they will struggle.

Definitely, his charisma is the glue that holds it all together and without him it'd be a mess. You can see that just looking at their support. There's a majority of desperate traditional Labour working class voters who've latched on to the 'immigrants cause all problems' message because the economy's in the pits, then there's the right-wing working classes who used to support the likes of the BNP, then there's a bunch of Religious Right 'Gays cause hurricanes' types and overlapping with them you've got a bynch of ultra-conservatives who think the Tories have 'gone soft'. It's a complete mish-mash of people with wildly different ideologies.

 

[rcoobc]

I think some people said the same thing about Alex Salmond to be fair.

It all depends on who they get next, if they do change from Farage.

 

[Ubik]

The SNP have a long history, experience of governing and an established base of support, plus Sturgeon had been an effective TV performer for about 10 years and was the natural successor. Farage, to a lot of people, is UKIP. The favourite to take over, Suzanne Evans, perpetually looks like she's just trodden in some dog shit and would have nothing like the outreach. Carswell is highly respected and intelligent but is not a fan of the anti-immigration rhetoric so would take them away from their biggest area of support, O'Flynn has a squashed face and Paul Nuttalls from the UKIPS is a whiny scouse. Maybe they have a mini-Farage hiding somewhere but I've not seen them.

 

[SteveJ]

Like him or not, Farage is Ukip's biggest weapon.

I think we can all agree with that, though he has some competition.

 

[rcoobc]

The SNP have a long history, experience of governing and an established base of support, plus Sturgeon had been an effective TV performer for about 10 years and was the natural successor. Farage, to a lot of people, is UKIP. The favourite to take over, Suzanne Evans, perpetually looks like she's just trodden in some dog shit and would have nothing like the outreach. Carswell is highly respected and intelligent but is not a fan of the anti-immigration rhetoric so would take them away from their biggest area of support, O'Flynn has a squashed face and Paul Nuttalls from the UKIPS is a whiny scouse. Maybe they have a mini-Farage hiding somewhere but I've not seen them.

A damning verdict.

I expect them to move slightly away from the anti-immigration rhetoric and onto a mixture of anti-SNP, English first, anti-EU, and political reform.

 

[Grinner]

 

[Drifter]

Question time will be interesting with Farage tonight.

 

[Ubik]

Question time will be interesting with Farage tonight.

Had totally forgotten about that, should be excellent.

Fair play to him for keeping it together afterwards, though I especially liked the pause for effect before saying it.

 

[GloryHunter07]

Definitely, his charisma is the glue that holds it all together and without him it'd be a mess. You can see that just looking at their support. There's a majority of desperate traditional Labour working class voters who've latched on to the 'immigrants cause all problems' message because the economy's in the pits, then there's the right-wing working classes who used to support the likes of the BNP, then there's a bunch of Religious Right 'Gays cause hurricanes' types and overlapping with them you've got a bynch of ultra-conservatives who think the Tories have 'gone soft'. It's a complete mish-mash of people with wildly different ideologies.

Thats a pretty good summation, but you might be missing a category for the "easily lead".

My freind is a young traditional tory voter who told me that he was tempted by UKIP because "they had some good policies " which he couldn't elaborate on. This is despite him growing up and working for a while in another EU country, having an EU immigrant girlfriend, and himself being of mixed heritage of about 5 different countries and being mixed race. Baffled.

 

[Red Defence]

What do you make of Cameron's 'blue collar Conservatism'? Looks like he is remaining centre right for now and even trying to reach out to traditional Labour supporters!

He's trying to appear centre right in order to gather support from the Labour voters (we are the party of working people....or should I say "hard" working people) and UKIP (making tough noises on immigration etc). Just a case of waiting now, the mask will slip soon, the tough noises will fade into nothing and he'll hammer the poor for all he's worth.

He's a smooth talker though. The clue in deciphering what he's actually said when he avoids answering the question put to him asked is to listen carefully to the wording. His answers are cleverly intended to deceive and unfortunately too many people fell for it in this election campaign.

 

[Don't Kill Bill]

This is getting silly.

When you say "candidate" are you talking about a constituency candidate trying to become an MP? Because if so, you are again showing that you don't know what you are talking about. And thats a rather big problem when trying to discuss it.

In your example, the candidate would immediately be elected. Before anything else happens, they are elected as an MP and can celebrate whilst everyone else is worrying about their future.

As for this bit: "Endless complicated recounts later taking days and days, everyone is looking at the candidate elected and wondering how the hell they got in when very few people actually wanted them." None of that is true either. STV could easily be counted overnight, just like the current FPTP system.

I might have miss understood you, because I thought in a post earlier you were talking about needing 50% of the vote to win and eliminating people allocating
their second preference etc. That's not what you were proposing in STV.

My mistake.

 

[Don't Kill Bill]

It appears he doesn't really understand STV, but believes he's in a position to just brush everyone who happens to disagree with him off.

What percentage of the UK population do you think would know what STV is and how it works. Its going to fall to those proposing it to explain it because I doubt people are just going to take your word for it.

I disagree with you about FPTP as a system, I'm in a discussion with you about it so just how is that brushing you off?

 

[The Mitcher]

I'm so confused by this devolution to cities idea...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32726171

Is Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Essex, going to come under London?

Obviously Oxfordshire would come under Oxford, and Berkshire come under Reading, and so on....

But there is nowhere South East of London fit and capable or running a "state".. Dover? Maidstone? Tonbridge Wells? Lewes? Yet we are as different from London as Ipswich is in my opinion.

The same goes for North East of London as well.

If it's just Cities controlling their spending, then that's fine, but thats hardly the equal of what Scotland have, and shouldn't be treated as such.

They should just give us what Scotland has, this is basically the regionalism thing that people like Tony Wilson campaigned for a decade or two ago.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

I can't help but feel that if you had regional assemblies or whatever based in big cities you'd get the same problem we have now on a national scale, just on multiple regional scales - spending and investment getting concentrated in the larger settlements with the rest of the area losing out. Admittedly its better than everywhere except London missing out, but it's still not great.

 

[Mockney]

Tbf, if our cities had independent state governance like the US, the Tories would lose a lot of power. The North & South have had their differences, but we vote consistently left in industrial areas. It's our equivalent of the American coasts vs heartland battle. The answer, naturally, is just to economically annex the countryside. We'll import our eggs from China. Suck it Midsommer!

 

[The Mitcher]

Tbf, if our cities had independent state governance like the US, the Tories would lose a lot of power. The North & South have had their differences, but we vote consistently left in industrial areas. It's our equivalent of the American coasts vs heartland battle. The answer, naturally, is just to economically annex the countryside. We'll import our eggs from China. Suck it Midsommer!

Make it so

 

[Eboue]

Tbf, if our cities had independent state governance like the US, the Tories would lose a lot of power. The North & South have had their differences, but we vote consistently left in industrial areas. It's our equivalent of the American coasts vs heartland battle. The answer, naturally, is just to economically annex the countryside. We'll import our eggs from China. Suck it Midsommer!

Would they? In the U.S. we have that and despite democrats getting 48% of the vote in 2012 house races, they got 43% of the seats in the house. The republicans got 47% but won 56% of the seats.

This generally holds true at the state legislature levels as well. Michigan ha voted democratic in every presidential election since 1992 but is solidly republican at the state level.

Any time you create districts of unequal size it is undemocratic. The senate is the most famous violation of the one person one vote principle. Even when you have roughly equal district sizes, it can be manipulated by those doing the drawing. There's actually a simple computer program to draw fair boundaries but in this country it has no chance of ever taking off. When I interned in a district office part of our area consisted of the center lane of a road, no one could live there obviously, it was just used to cram two low income neighborhoods into one district and create safe republican seats next door.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...mmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/

Look at some of the districts on there, it's farcical.

 

[berbatrick]

I know in the US district lines are drawn by state assemblies (which seems ridiculous), is it the same in UK as well? (constituency boundaries drawn by parliament)

EDIT: Those NC district lines

 

[Don't Kill Bill]

@Don't Kill Bill

FPTP system. 200 seat house. 2 major parties and some minor parties strong in a few seats.
One party with 46%, the other with 34%.
First gets 163 seats, second gets 21.
Do you think that is a fair outcome?


OR:

80 seats. 4-way contest with 3 strong parties and the 4th having a few regions of strength and some core voters who never seem to leave.
Voteshare:
I: 43%.
II: 22%
III: 19%
IV: 10%.

Seats:
I- 73 seats
II- 5
III- 0
IV- 2.

Bear in mind that the 1st party would never align with the other 3 while II and III (themselves mortal enemies) had together externally supported a government led by IV.

You can view the electorate as a whole entity and base the division of seats proportionately. Then who decides the specific people who were elected by your vote?

Or you view the election as at some level the sum of smaller electorates in which case the wider vote is not the focus. This allows you to control as a smaller unit the person you actually elect.

The question is which is most important to being well governed, the people who you/your constituency elect or the amount of people who someone else says will represent your interests.The suspicion is that the closer you can hold the person to account the better.

In the UK we developed a system which allowed that because most people are too busy and can't really study all the issues that arise in govt the best thing to do is elect a person who goes to parliament and represents our local interests. We built our democracy from that stance a simple vote and whoever gets most votes wins. We start with the person we elect because we can always vote for someone else next time and hold him to account for his actions.In theory anyway.

 

[Nick 0208 Ldn]

I can't help but feel that if you had regional assemblies or whatever based in big cities you'd get the same problem we have now on a national scale, just on multiple regional scales - spending and investment getting concentrated in the larger settlements with the rest of the area losing out. Admittedly its better than everywhere except London missing out, but it's still not great.

Agreed, barely a week in and i have my first policy disagreement with the new government. It's as if Westminster has learnt nothing from the piecemeal devolution in the past. You add a further layer of government but do you actually improve the standard of governance?

How many in the Greater London could even name their representative on the Assembly? The answer to which is likely not a surprise one either, not with turnout in 2012 falling below 40%.

 

[711]

Would they? In the U.S. we have that and despite democrats getting 48% of the vote in 2012 house races, they got 43% of the seats in the house. The republicans got 47% but won 56% of the seats.

This generally holds true at the state legislature levels as well. Michigan ha voted democratic in every presidential election since 1992 but is solidly republican at the state level.

Any time you create districts of unequal size it is undemocratic. The senate is the most famous violation of the one person one vote principle. Even when you have roughly equal district sizes, it can be manipulated by those doing the drawing. There's actually a simple computer program to draw fair boundaries but in this country it has no chance of ever taking off. When I interned in a district office part of our area consisted of the center lane of a road, no one could live there obviously, it was just used to cram two low income neighborhoods into one district and create safe republican seats next door.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...mmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/

Look at some of the districts on there, it's farcical.

I'm surprised your constitution doesn't have something in it to sort this out.

 

[Eboue]

I'm surprised your constitution doesn't have something in it to sort this out.

Our constitution is severely limited, which is what you would expect from a document written by rich slave owning white men 250 years ago.

 

[711]

Yeah, constitutions, like bibles and korans and things, they all suffer from that a bit.

 

[Ubik]

Shite Question Time in the end, everyone pussyfooting around Farage in some weird display of sympathy...for his clearly pre-planned unresignation. Uxbridge is crap. Although he did offer the best arguments in favour of electoral reform. I'd just hope he wasn't involved on any potential future referendum on the subject.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

Agreed, barely a week in and i have my first policy disagreement with the new government. It's as if Westminster has learnt nothing from the piecemeal devolution in the past. You add a further layer of government but do you actually improve the standard of governance?

How many in the Greater London could even name their representative on the Assembly? The answer to which is likely not a surprise one either, not with turnout in 2012 falling below 40%.

Also with an extra layer of governance comes extra elected representatives who need paying, a whole new level of bureaucracy and the huge costs that come with any kind of significant restructuring. In theory I'm in favour of added powers to certain regions but it has to be done cautiously and in the right way. Jumping straight to a devolution-type deal seems risky, I'd start off by having an assembly that has money earmarked for certain aspects of regional governance (e.g transport), and which uses its superior local knowledge to target that funding better than central government would be able. If that works, then you can start thinking about doing something more ambitious.

Obviously the big problem with doing stuff like this is that there will always be issues on which national and regional interests will clash, for example with stuff like HS2, and there has to be a way to resolve the resulting disputes.

 

[sun_tzu]

New budget on 8th July... Unusual move especially as they said all election they had not yet identified the £10bn welfare cuts...

 

[soap]

That AV No Campaign still makes me angry. So many lies. So many atrocious horrendous lies.

And people were taken in by them.

Yep, same. I expected it from the Tories, but being 19 and naive I thought Labour would be better than that.

 

[berbatrick]

You can view the electorate as a whole entity and base the division of seats proportionately. Then who decides the specific people who were elected by your vote?

Or you view the election as at some level the sum of smaller electorates in which case the wider vote is not the focus. This allows you to control as a smaller unit the person you actually elect.

The question is which is most important to being well governed, the people who you/your constituency elect or the amount of people who someone else says will represent your interests.The suspicion is that the closer you can hold the person to account the better.

In the UK we developed a system which allowed that because most people are too busy and can't really study all the issues that arise in govt the best thing to do is elect a person who goes to parliament and represents our local interests. We built our democracy from that stance a simple vote and whoever gets most votes wins. We start with the person we elect because we can always vote for someone else next time and hold him to account for his actions.In theory anyway.

We've copied the same system in India.

What about a system like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_New_Zealand#MMP_in_New_Zealand
It really seems perfect.

But if it's too complex, since you (like India) have a 2-house parliament: vote directly for the MPs of one house, and let the MPs of the other house be distributed in proportion to the national votes received per party. You get a local representative, the parliament represents your local needs and also the country's overall verdict.

 

[berbatrick]

This allows you to control as a smaller unit the person you actually elect.

The question is which is most important to being well governed, the people who you/your constituency elect or the amount of people who someone else says will represent your interests.The suspicion is that the closer you can hold the person to account the better.

In the UK we developed a system which allowed that because most people are too busy and can't really study all the issues that arise in govt the best thing to do is elect a person who goes to parliament and represents our local interests. We built our democracy from that stance a simple vote and whoever gets most votes wins. We start with the person we elect because we can always vote for someone else next time and hold him to account for his actions.In theory anyway.

The problem is that s/he is not just deciding stuff for your area, s/he is part of passing policy being created by a government which does not have majority support.
Local interests from many seats may force MPs to be against, for example, solar panels, many others to be ambivalent, and very few to be pro. Yet as a whole there's no doubt the country would benefit if the govt created a policy the encouraged their manufacture and installation.