Is it just me getting excited about how close it is getting? 🙂

I've been playing with the bbc election seat calculator toy. It's great. How bored am I??

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8609989.stm

I just was too. Seems there's no chance of a LD PM but hung looks very likely. And surely to goodness Clegg would side with Labour.. surely?

I've been playing with the bbc election seat calculator toy. It's great. How bored am I??

That's very pretty. No idea how it works or what it's supposed to prove but it looks lovely.

Any of them would side with whoever it is in their best interests to side if it came to it.

Yes, kinda brings it home that unless everyone votes Libdem we're very likely to see it hung.
What happens then? I was only 4 last time that happened, and wasn't paying attention.

Just shows what an utter disgrace our parliamentary election system is…

Use the last 3 poll results to set the percentages and compare the number of seats 👿 Democracy my @rse.

If nothing else comes out of this election it should be a massive, populist push for better representation

well looking at that, with around 1/3 of the vote each, labour would have 324 seats, the cons 203 and lib dem 107. And to think people think we live in a democracy.

rkk01 – Member
If nothing else comes out of this election it should be a massive, populist push for better representation

Definitely, hopefully relegate the phrase 'tactical voting' to history.

well looking at that, with around 1/3 of the vote each, labour would have 324 seats, the cons 203 and lib dem 107. And to think people think we live in a democracy.

it kinda depends where those votes come from – the opposite result could occur too

You know, a good way to avoid a hung parliament would be if everyone voted for Lib Dem. That would give them a ruling majority! Has anybody else thought of that?

Kindly explain???

Presumably as in – the Tories get most of their national percentage from safe leafy shire seats where the vote is "wasted"….?

Libs dems have consistently ended up with a far lower percentage of seats vs national vote throughout my lifetime.

Apparently you are meant to say balanced parliament not hung. Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland seem to have worked with a balanced parliament. not really sure why everyone is so scared of it here when it is pretty much the norm in other countries.
OK NI is a contentious one but it has worked better than the troubles in terms of democracy

Someone should take out injunctions against the media using the term "hung" parliament – it is pejorative, derogatory and potentially very suggestive to people in their voting intentions.

They used to regularly be in power up until the 1940's. Is it really that unbelievable that they could get in power again?

not really sure why everyone is so scared of it here

Because it is not (and post-war, never has been) in the interests of the two main parties to encourage anything other than an outright win…
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…. and those two parties dominate political reporting and the language used.

Is it really that unbelievable that they could get in power again?

hopefully

Heh heh 😆

i expect the labour and especially torry behind the scenes spin PR consultant types are busy trying to work out a plan to make clegg and his party look bad

id expect a continual drip of negative libdem coverage being fed to the press and pushed to the front page by their various corrupt party affiliated owners

it will be interesting to see how clegg does in the next debate;
foreign policy, he has the ace up his sleeve of being the only party to vote against the iraq war so the brown and especially cameron will come be trying to attack him

When's the next debate?

thursday i think

then the following thursday on bbc where economy is the topic?

you can put questions forward here….http://news.sky.com/skynews/Election/debatequestion

Isn't there always a 'hung' parliament in Germany? Or rather, a coalition govt?

Polls would have to change a lot to avoid that here I think.

But yes, +1 for PR.

I read of one interesting scenario in which Labour & Tory agreed to form a government, to keep the LibDems from power. After all, LAb & COn are both Thatcher-Blairite in ideals.

Then when the LibDems are excluded, call another election without the threat of proportional representation

The constituency I'm in is full of lentil-eating, hemp-wearing, Guardian-reading lezzers, with the odd militant Islamist thrown in. At the last election, were harumphing about Iraq…. and probably some other stuff about GM mung-beans or something. The Islamists may have been trying to establish a calliphate I think. I forget. Lesbains? Islamic nutters? It all gets confusing.

Any-road-up. The seat has been labour since…. I'm not sure about the exact date…. but there was reference to the sitting labour MP in the book of Genesis. I think he's been claiming expenses for his second cave, as well as a new and very elaborate sack.

The upshot was that everyone decided to vote tactically to boot labour out. The seat went Lib Dem with a 17% swing

Can someone explain why similar action is beyond the wit and wisdom of every other constituency in the country? Does it need a critical mass of carpet-munchers or something?

read of one interesting scenario in which Labour & Tory agreed to form a government, to keep the LibDems from power. After all, LAb & COn are both Thatcher-Blairite in ideals.

Then when the LibDems are excluded, call another election without the threat of proportional representation

That's a very interesting idea.
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I wonder if Cameron and Brown would have the balls to pull a stunt like that – I almost hope that they do.
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It would p!ss off the electorate so much that it would be the final nail in the coffin of the already highly disrespected elctoral and political system in the UK.

Then when the LibDems are excluded, call another election without the threat of proportional representation

How does that work? You'd just get another hung parliament…

Binners – Your clue is in your question…

Can someone explain why similar action is beyond the wit and wisdom of every other constituency in the country?

Pretty sparingly allocated within the tabloid reading voting population

on another comedy note

just look at this picture of this tory candidate

like he ever has a chance o being elected in scotland anyway…..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/scotland/8632051.stm

its old people that vote

and they all hate dark people, europe, kilograms, gays, immigrants because they believe what they read in the daily mail/ times

[quoteMSP – Member
well looking at that, with around 1/3 of the vote each, labour would have 324 seats, the cons 203 and lib dem 107. And to think people think we live in a democracy.[/quote]

Gerrymandering by any chance?

In Scotland the first 8 years of the Holyrood parliament were ruled by a labour Lib dem formal coalition. The prices the Libs dems exacted for supporting the labour government were on the whole good – they exerted a moderating influence and thus no foundation hospitals, no city academies, no tuition fees.

Also PR for local councils ( already existed for holyrood) this has been undoubtedly good IMO. NO longer does any party get massive majorities – basically all the urban councils run by Labour!

The last few years have been a minority SNP government – this means they have to get a vote on an overall programme thru and also on particular issues. This means compromise and co operation – but has led to some popular but stupid policies such as the retaining of A&E at monklands hospital.

On the whole the coalition and minority governments in Scotland have worked well – and one aspect of it is labour who didn't want to play the game have rather marginalised themselves by refusing to co operate at all with the SNP

Thats cold – its no gerrymandering as such – its to do with the geographical concentration of votes – Tory votes are much more concentrated in particular areas than Labour.

read of one interesting scenario in which Labour & Tory agreed to form a government, to keep the LibDems from power.

There's been a similar thing in the past at the 1906 general election but only for 36 seats a Lib-Lab pact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib-Lab_pact

A more modern version to kick the Tories back to the last century [where they belong] has been mooted & replace them with Lib
Basically, in every constituency whichever has the best chance [Lib or Lab] goes against the Tory on their own, the other doesn't stand
That would probably put the Tories as the 3rd party in parliament & the other 2 can then take over the 2 party system

Basically, in every constituency whichever has the best chance [Lib or Lab] goes against the Tory on their own, the other doesn't stand
That would probably put the Tories as the 3rd party in parliament & the other 2 can then take over the 2 party system

Great except that a significant number of people would feel that it was classic politicians doing what's right for them instead of the people which given the expenses scandal really isn't what they want – I think that if it comes to a position where they get to effectively choose who gets in power, they'll be very wary of siding up to a side that would effectly mean ignoring the view of the people – eg siding up with Labour if the conservatives were just a few seats short of a majority, especially if they also had a majority of the total number of votes (rather than just seats won)

Can someone explain why similar action is beyond the wit and wisdom of every other constituency in the country?

Priorities in other constituencies are quite different.. that's why.

foreign policy, he has the ace up his sleeve of being the only party to vote against the iraq war

The LibDems are also the only party to oppose the war before it started, but then fully support it after it had started. Which imo isn't very ace, and rather makes them the jokers in the pack.

And that sort of spectacular political acrobatics, very much sums up for me how Liberals have always been.
Not so much sitting on the fence, more a case of jumping up and down on the fence.

The constituency I'm in is full of lentil-eating, hemp-wearing, Guardian-reading lezzers, with the odd militant Islamist thrown in. At the last election, were harumphing about Iraq…. and probably some other stuff about GM mung-beans or something. The Islamists may have been trying to establish a calliphate I think. I forget. Lesbains? Islamic nutters? It all gets confusing.

Do you live in Hackney, Binners? 😆

balls ernie!!

once the war has started you cant not support the people doing the fighting, that would be bad for everyone!

The LibDems are also the only party to oppose the war before it started, but then fully support it after it had started.

Ernie, you're just making stuff up now.

I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "we're against this war but now you've sent our troops into harm's way you should give them adequate equipment".

Ernie, you're just making stuff up now.

And yet it appears to be you, who's "making stuff up".

The LibDems never said that they were against the war after it had started, and only concerned that our troops should have "adequate equipment".

I clearly heard in person Charles Kennedy state that whilst he was opposed to the Iraq war, once it had started, he would not oppose it any way.

And he was true to his word. After the Iraq was had started no senior LibDem politician ever again, spoke at any anti-war rallies.

Although to their indisputable credit, many LibDem members continued as individuals, to oppose the war and attend rallies – calling for the war to be stopped. Their leaders however refused to call for the war to be halted.

The LibDems went from officially opposing the war, to officially supporting the war.

Typical liberal Guardian-reading fudged bollox.