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    The 2015 UK General Election thread

    Prompted by Tee Rex on the Green Party thread, let's gird our loins and do a proper GE thread.

    If the first six weeks of 2015 are anything to go by, it's going to plunge new depths of dispiriting, hateful, mindless, unambitious, disillusioning bullshit.

    Off we go then

    #2
    The 2015 UK General Election thread

    We agree at every election that it'll be more significant/ worse-tempered/ closer than ever. This time we may be right.

    My turf accountant (William Hill) has DC as clear favourite (about 55%) to be PM, with EM on about 38% and AN Other trailing on 7%. Boris or Alan Johnson, Wee Eck or can Nige surprise us all?

    As WH also think neither Labour or Tory will get near 326, presumably they fancy either a minority Govt. or another LibDem coalition?

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      #3
      The 2015 UK General Election thread

      Colours to the mast: I hope fervently that EM replaces DC as Prime Minister. I'll be voting Green, but that's because I'm in a massively safe (Tory) seat, Cambs [edit:] South* (living as I do in the only ward in Cambridge which is excluded from the city constituency). If I were in any even remotely marginal constituency I'd vote Labour.

      * retiring MP Andrew Lansley, he of the NHS rap song.

      The prediction game this time is certainly more complicatedly multi-dimensional, unpredictable and fascinating than ever. Electoral Calculus gives percentage probilities to each credible outcome each month. Their latest iteration gives a total of 58% to scenarios which must make EM PM (being 31% Lab maj, 16% Lab-Nat, 11% Lab choice of Nat or LD), and a total of 30% to scenarios which must make DC PM (being 14% Con maj, 11% Con-Nat and 5% Con choice of LD or Nat). The remaining 12% is Nat choice of Con or Lab, and a tiny sliver of 2% (yes, I know that sums to 102%, rounding innit) where things are more chaotic in terms of majority-forming.

      http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

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        #4
        The 2015 UK General Election thread

        I don't know if I'll vote. I'll wait and see who the Green is, but I'm not expecting it to be an inspiring choice. I can't imagine I'd vote Labour again, but certainly not this time.

        I'd like to vote SNP.

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          #5
          The 2015 UK General Election thread

          TonTon wrote: I don't know if I'll vote.
          Booooooo

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            #6
            The 2015 UK General Election thread

            Ideal possible outcome? Lab / SNP coalition needing Green confidence & supply support.

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              #7
              The 2015 UK General Election thread

              Ideal possible outcome? Lab / SNP coalition needing Green confidence & supply support.
              That'd be my most preferred outcome probably, too, despite being considerably less left wing than TT. Icing on the cake would be Nigel Farage coming about 7th in Thanet, behind Al Murray.

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                #8
                The 2015 UK General Election thread

                Is Murray really standing?

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                  #9
                  The 2015 UK General Election thread

                  TonTon wrote
                  I don't know if I'll vote. I'll wait and see who the Green is, but I'm not expecting it to be an inspiring choice. I can't imagine I'd vote Labour again, but certainly not this time.

                  I'd like to vote SNP.

                  Ideal possible outcome? Lab / SNP coalition needing Green confidence & supply support
                  Do you mean that you aren't inspired by (an) individual(s) likely to be your local Green candidate, or generally just find most Green activists uninspiring? Surely, given that s/he is unlikely to win, you'd be voting for the overall package, not the individual.

                  You're a bit like a mirror image of my brother. He'd rather vote DUP, but living in England has to make do with the next best thing

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                    #10
                    The 2015 UK General Election thread

                    There are Greens I'd not vote for, and I'd not be surprised if my local candiate were one of those. We'll see.

                    If that shitbox Kitkat were standing, for example, I'd not vote for him. Or that TERF from wherever. Or those anti-immigrant Greens what wrote to the papers and that.

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                      #11
                      The 2015 UK General Election thread

                      TonTon wrote: If that shitbox Kitkat were standing, for example, I'd not vote for him. Or that TERF from wherever. Or those anti-immigrant Greens what wrote to the papers and that
                      That's one guy who isn't standing and a handful of others who contradict party policy. Obviously we aren't able to compare directly as most Green candidates won't already be councillors, but it's pretty different from all bar 30 Labour MPs supporting drastic benefit cuts or bombing Iraq again?

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                        #12
                        The 2015 UK General Election thread

                        Now that they have a non-Iraq-War-voting leader, I think I'll return to the Labour fold. I'm in a safe Labour seat anyway, so it wouldn't really matter what I did. Fuck, we need a better voting system.

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                          #13
                          The 2015 UK General Election thread

                          I said I'm not voting Labour, Dunc.

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                            #14
                            The 2015 UK General Election thread

                            Jimski wrote: Now that they have a non-Iraq-War-voting leader, I think I'll return to the Labour fold. I'm in a safe Labour seat anyway, so it wouldn't really matter what I did. Fuck, we need a better voting system
                            Your vote wouldn't have much effect on who won and their margin, but's that not all that matters. Best way to force a change in the electoral system is to vote for a party that supports that, and more importantly progressive policies on economic, social and environmental issues. Put simply, the Greens getting 5- 10% instead of 1% in this and future elections lessens the likelihood of overall majority rule, and thus increases that of change in the nearish future.

                            Isn't there a war in Iraq now, that Steady Eddie whipped his party to support?

                            TonTon wrote: I said I'm not voting Labour, Dunc
                            I know. I'm pointing out what while you (and I, and others) have long-argued reasons for that, your reservations about voting Green seem rather vague?

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                              #15
                              The 2015 UK General Election thread

                              I have changed my mind about how to decide about voting, over recent years, I suppose.

                              I won't be voting for someone I despise. So, I'm minded to consider the Greens, but I've always found the local party to be uninspiring at best. And I know there are some shit candidates around.

                              So I'll see who it is, and see what I think.

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                                #16
                                The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                TonTon wrote: There are Greens I'd not vote for, and I'd not be surprised if my local candiate were one of those. We'll see.

                                If that shitbox Kitkat were standing, for example, I'd not vote for him. Or that TERF from wherever. Or those anti-immigrant Greens what wrote to the papers and that.
                                This. Events from the weekend have rather put me off the Greens but as my local candidate is the seemingly blameless Natalie Bennett, and she's standing against Keir Fucking Starmer, I'm still minded to vote for them. That's if I'm able to register and vote, which due to my weird living circumstances might be problematic.

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                                  #17
                                  The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                  Right, Charles Barraball. The name is not a good start, but let's see what we can find on him.

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                                    #18
                                    The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                    TonTon wrote: Right, Charles Barraball. The name is not a good start, but let's see what we can find on him
                                    All else being equal, would you be more inspired if he was called Karl or Caral ni Barraball

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                                      #19
                                      The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                      Having been threatened last time with prosecution for not registering to vote ( ooh, scary) I may register this time round. If all the stars align and I have a day off, I might actually bother voting for the Greens.
                                      Probably not though.

                                      Ed Milliband sounds like a posh Sylvester The Cat and he'll be just as useful to working class people if he somehow manages to win. He's the most awkward-looking gimp since, oh, the last Labour leader and has just as much point.

                                      Other than that, I'll detest the local politicians and really, really detest the Tories.

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                                        #20
                                        The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                        Are you in BelAir South Calvert? Give Bailey a go, ye know it makes sense

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                                          #21
                                          The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                          I'm in Castlereagh now, DG.
                                          It might actually be my duty to vote tactically for Naomi Long.

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                                            #22
                                            The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                            I've been following the UK Polling Report site pretty regularly for a few months now. The Tory biggest party predictions seem based on a historical view that voters tend to come back to the governing party in the months preceding the election (though not in the election month itself). This seems flawed both because the polls this year don't really seem to support it - the Tory vote share has been stuck between 30 and 33 for years, and because that was in the days when the government could pick an election date of it's own choosing, so they could wait until voters seemed to be flocking back.

                                            Unless UKIP vote share crashes, and most go Tory (2 scenarios I don't see as that likely) it's hard to see how they get even the vote share they got in 2010, while Labour are sure to beat that. A majority for Labour does look unlikely though, given the SNP surge. I think a Labour minority govt with SNP C&S is the most likely.

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                                              #23
                                              The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                              Good things likely:

                                              Liberals finished

                                              Labour finished in Scotland

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                                                #24
                                                The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                                I'm not keen on the SNP or our own nationalists either. There's a lot of nationalist support for Welsh medium education, which in an area like mine looks uncomfortably like code for separate schools for white children.

                                                Of the likely candidates for PM I think Milliband is OK. He is seriously hated by the Daily Mail which doesn't necessarily mean he's on the side of the angels, but 'judge a man by his enemies' and all that.

                                                My local Labour MP seems a good guy. He responds to tweets and other times I contact him and opposed the MPs pay rise. I am going to vote for him.

                                                Although, if you are undecided you could always do what I did one year and restrict your vote to candidates who actually knock on your door. The only guy who did that was the Socialist Labour candidate so I was one of the 127 people who voted for him. (He didn't get in. Even with all the stories of low electoral turn-out, that wasn't enough.)

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                                                  #25
                                                  The 2015 UK General Election thread

                                                  I won't be voting Labour, Lib Dem, Green, anything too traditionally liberal, left or Facist.

                                                  I accept there might be some decent enough sticks and voters among those who stand and vote for most of those parties, I quite like Ed, it's just that I just don't identify with their politics.

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