Election Campaign

in full knowledge that the SNP will never vote with the tories against them

The SNP have not said they won’t vote with the Tories, they have said they will not support a Tory government. There could well be circumstances where it suits both the SNP and the Tories to go through the lobby together if Labour was in power.

Junkyard – lazarus

Miliband only path to power involves the SNP

That’s not true imo, they’re forecast as neck and neck with the tories so if they were to essentially take the SNP out of the government-forming equation by refusing to work with them it still leaves the minor parties as possible partners

But they’d have to be spectacularily stupid to throw away a winning hand to gamble on a weak one

what he said and they will still need SNP support to get legislation through as it will likely be the only way the numbers add up

Should be fun …
FUN!…..FUN you say???

Yes. Fun. I mean how much worst can you get or shall I say how hard can it be?

I’d stay up and watch if I was sure I’d witness Mr Gimbloid crying into his Shandy at the end of the night.

I expect him losing his seat to be the Portillo moment of this election

I hope Clegg doesn’t lose his seat, it will simply let off the hook and leave it to someone else to attempt to clear up the mess he will have left behind.

I want him to experience the humiliation of trying to lead a party with less than half the MPs it previously had, it took decades to build up to over 50 MPs – in the early 1970s the Liberals had only half a dozen MPs.

I want Clegg to remain in the limelight for the next 5 years. I don’t want him to have one humiliating day and then to quietly slip away to take the post of EU commissioner, or whatever other nice secure bureaucratic job he can find where he can make decisions affecting people’s lives without the need to worry about people voting for him.

God you are mean…but i like your plan 😀

TBH I think Farron will be the leader after the election.

Yeah well it’s personal Junkyard. I have previously described Nick Clegg becoming leader of the LibDems as the greatest British political disaster of recent times.

After 13 years of a Labour government which had become discredited in the eyes of the electorate, and a totally discredited Tory Party which couldn’t even win a general election, the LibDems should have been raking in the votes offering a real alternative.

Unfortunately under Clegg’s leadership the LibDems swung to the right, proved to be no different, and the rest is history.

This is the thread which I posted as soon as the general election results were known, at that point a coalition between the Tories and the LibDems hadn’t been announced, no one even thought a full coalition was likely :

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/time-for-nick-clegg-to-go

Painting him as weak and unprincipled isn’t fair and ignores the practicalities of the situation.

Taken from the Wiki page for Vote for Students:

House of Commons VoteEdit
On 9 December 2010, the government won a House of Commons vote for the tuition fees rises. However, Lib Dem MPs split over the issue, with 27 voting for the plans including Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, 21 voting against the plans including former leaders Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy, and 8 abstaining including deputy leader Simon Hughes.

All 56 of the LibDem MPs signed the pledge. 27 broke their promise. 8 were to cowardly to vote for something their constituents partly voted for them in to power to do.

If Clegg loses his seat I’ll laugh nearly as hard as I did when Portillo lost his.

Wiki Vote for Students

Ehrnie, Thanks for the questions

And what “conditions” would like to see attached to no pay cuts THM ?

The obvious ones that I have cited many times on here Ehrnie

In contrast of course the Tories have said that they can’t guarantee no pay cuts in the NHS (rises in line with inflation) a much better better policy eh THM ?

To guarantee cuts or rises in isolation of the real drivers is stupid Ehrnie

At least the commentator on the radio this morning understood how wages should be set. But gov’s realise that Joe Public thinks that they (the government) is in control here – oopps!

Clegg’s rise to Dep PM was brilliant – it shows that when in power you have to make real decisions not rely on fluff. That media ratings at artificial TV debates are poor indicators or political effectiveness and that protest parties soon change their spots when faced with the realities in front of them – eg SNP, Syriza and even M Hollande!

Against the cynicism, the LD tax policy for the low paid was a stand-out for the coalition. Ok they talk tosh at the other end but that’s to satisfy the sandal wearers and totally consistent.

All 56 of the LibDem MPs signed the pledge. 27 broke their promise.

Yes I know, but the point you’re missing and I’m trying to make is the reason WHY they broke that promise. The reasons aren’t black and white, no matter how much people with the knives out want it to be.

The problem, as I’ve said before, is that you cannot make these cast iron promises in politics as you never know what’s going to happen. However the traditional political discourse demands that we do. So promise breaking is virtually guaranteed at some point.

“And what “conditions” would like to see attached to no pay cuts THM ?”

The obvious ones that I have cited many times on here Ehrnie

Thanks THM that makes everything very clear. You support pay cuts but the reason you do is buried deep in STW’s past.

To guarantee cuts or rises in isolation of the real drivers is stupid Ehrnie

Well like most people I was thinking the ‘driver’ might be the increase in the cost of living, sometimes referred to by economists as inflation.

And thanks for pointing out that Joe Public is too stupid to realise that the government has nothing to do with civil service or NHS wages. It certainly puts a whole new angle on Nick Clegg’s pledge not to further cut civil service wages.

Version 1: They saw the light

Version 2: They saw the ministerial limo

Version 3: They are just untrustworthy charlatans

(tea break over, now back to work!)

Thanks THM that makes everything very clear.

My pleasure much better not to “Labour” the point.

Well like most people I was thinking the ‘driver’ might be the increase in the cost of living, sometimes referred to by economists as inflation.

And like most, you would be mistaken. Google is your friend though….especially as it increases the productivity of the search 😉

I love Ernies inability to have a debate. As soon as someone questions his point of view he gets all defensive.

The problem, as I’ve said before, is that you cannot make these cast iron promises in politics as you never know what’s going to happen. However the traditional political discourse demands that we do.

Not at all. I don’t ever recall anyone demanding that the LibDems line up to before media cameras to sign a solemn and binding promise (AKA as a pledge).

They did it freely without any pressure from anyone.

Obviously because they thought it might win them a few votes, which it probably did.

Now breaking that high profile solemn and binding promise is going to cost them a few votes. Which seems very fair.

As soon as someone questions his point of view he gets all defensive.

Absurd isn’t it ? …….defending your point of view. No one should do that.

What’s your point of view btw?

But they’d have to be spectacularily stupid to throw away a winning hand to gamble on a weak one

It’s the other way round IMO. The weakest hand of all would be to have fewer seats than the tories. The strongest would be to have more. By refusing to rule out a deal with the SNP they make the former much more likely.

As an aside the charity that claimed 1 million people used it’s food banks has just said the actual number is actually half that as they where counting visits not people. Still a very high figure but half the claim.

On the Clegg debate above, much like my view on Blair and the Iraq war, I say that ANY realistic candidate for the leadership of the Lib Dems would have done exactly the same re a coalition with the Tories. The Lib Dems as a group agreed the coalition terms trading an AV vote and some cabinet positions for the Tories budget plans inc student fees (Tories aren’t daft and they knew that would hurt the Lib Dems more than them)

It looks unlikely Labour will have more seats than the Tories so the Tories are going to get first dibs at a coalition / minority government (also as I understand it the prior government get first go at forming a new government if there is not a majority). This is why Labour are putting so much effort into Scotland as without those MPs they are likely to have a smaller number of MPs than the Tories.

Seems the Wiki administrator who suspended the alleged Shapps account and then went public with it is a Lib Dem activist from East London. He’s been “chastised” (his words) by the Wiki management for his somewhat unilateral actions

@jambalaya – fullfacts.org (non-political) has the data and analysis here. Not that this is just for the Trussel Trust; there are more foodbanks out there which are not managed by them and no data is available.

fullfacts.org

It is still disgraceful that one of the richest countries in the world has this happening.

Also, even if the Tories do get first dibs at a government there is no stopping say Labour + other parties voting down everything they put up.

EDIT: That wikipedia chap, wasn’t Grant Shapps under another name, was it? 😀

It looks unlikely Labour will have more seats than the Tories

The polls suggest a dead heat so I don’t know what extra intelligence/knowledge you’re calling on to make that statement. It’s all to play for as far as I can see. The trouble is the more labour court floating voters in Scotland, the more they’ll alienate floating voters in England. They probably need to decide whether to focus on limiting losses in Scotland or boosting gains in England. I’m not sure they can do both.

@AdamW – thanks for that link, I will take a look. Its normal for a country like the UK to have a charity sector and for that sector to provide food. For 10 years I used to walk through cardboard city at Waterloo where the soup vans gave out food. That’s a positive that such help exists. Its always going to exit. I give money to such charities. My daughter setup and ran a charity project which collected food about to go out of date from supermarkets and prepared meals with it. The mere existence of such projects isn’t a disgrace.

On the Trussel Trust (which is a Christian charity working with Churches) press release link here

Their headline is a bit misleading – 1 million visits to foodbanks is the stat, what that means is that 500,000 people use the foodbanks on average twice a year. 49% of the people use the foodbank once a year and only 15% use them 3 or more times a year.

IMO the headline tries to create the impression that 1 million people are using foodbanks with the implication that’s regularly / every week / month etc. I’ve seen such posts here on STW. When in fact the truth is very different.

But some constituencies won’t be affected by the polls, they’ve been one party or the other for ever. The polls would have more bearing on very close constituencies.

This site seems to take lots of varying factors into account and gives reasoning as to how they reach their numbers http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/

@dazh – lots of different polls and of course polls taken nationally or in one region don’t necessarily refelct what might happen locally. Guardian/ICM has had the Tory lead as a high as 39 vs 33 just last week. All of it’s rubbish really IMO

By refusing to rule out a deal with the SNP they make the former much more likely.

No matter how many times you say it they wont for the reasons mentioned
they probably will have to have some sort of arrangement with them and better to be non committal than an unprincipled bastard who gave up their principles for power AKA to Clegg.

The Lib Dems as a group agreed the coalition terms

It was a secret ballot and as more than half of them failed to support the pledge reversal then it seems fair to say the majority would not have done as he did.

polls taken nationally or in one region don’t necessarily reflect what might happen locally

I do so hope the pollsters have thought of this and done something about it.

All of it’s rubbish really IMO

Indeed, so your earlier statement is without any foundation?

better to be non committal than an unprincipled bastard who gave up their principles for power AKA to Clegg

I don’t really see how being non-committal is principled. They’re hedging their bets as a strategy for getting into power, which whilst not as bad as going back on promises, is not much better. In the meantime, the public can see exactly what they’re up to, and with the help of hysterical anti-Scottish propaganda from the tories, will vote accordingly. Anyway, think I’ve laboured the point enough now, if you’ll excuse the pun. We’ll see what happens, but I really do think their lack of a clear message on the SNP issue will cost them.

I don’t really see how being non-committal is principled.

I never said it was but its both expedient and it applies to both ed and Dave.
The tories want him to say no to the SNP so that if he has to they can then Clegg him/labour. It would be stupid to rule it out because it may well happen.

Guardian/ICM has had the Tory lead as a high as 39 vs 33 just last week. All of it’s rubbish really IMO

The Guardian doesn’t hand over large amounts to ICM to provide them with rubbish. Without their reputation the polling companies have nothing.

It’s fair to dispute or question a rogue poll which bucks the trend but there is really no point other than to cover embarrassment over inconvenient findings to dismiss all opinion polls as rubbish.

If they were all rubbish the whole practice would have died a death a very long time ago.

ernie, my point is that the polling companies ask so few people (vs population) and who they ask and what they ask and then how they adjust the results all means trying to draw national conclusions or apply the results to specific areas is IMO rubbish. The newspapers are in the story business, so create a story via how they do the polling is good business. the polling companies are in the business of getting hired and the newspapers are in the businesses of selling papers/generating clicks=>ads=>££

Of course drawing conclusions from opinion polls isn’t rubbish. They are a good indication of people’s opinions and voting intentions.

That’s why political parties despite often dismissing them as irrelevant always take an exceptionally keen interest in them and study their findings intensely.

In fact political parties themselves commission opinion polls, they are that important to them that they are prepared to shoulder the added cost. Obviously they don’t necessarily publish the findings.

And Lord Ashcroft’s polls, for example, have nothing to do with ‘selling newspapers’.

So it now looks like the Grant Shapps story may have just been a cheap political smear…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11555267/Wikipedia-administrator-who-accused-Grant-Shapps-of-editing-pages-of-Tory-rivals-is-Liberal-Democrat-activist.html

EDIT: well about 3/4 of the way in you discover he is

Tower Hamlets Liberal Democrats

They also did not directly chose to refute any of the allegations put fwd just said he was a lib dem and as I understand the materials are available to look at it. At no point does the article claim the allegations were false it just gives you 2 + 2 so people like you/Tories can shout 5. Its a pretty weak refutation as it does not even try to refute it

Original:

the polling companies are in the business of getting hired

Indeed so do they do this by

1, having hugely inaccurate and worthless surveys of too few people that are useless for predicting anything.

2. Having highly accurate polls that accurately predict outcomes/behaviour and outcomes.

Tough one that eh?

Any polster , who consistently gets it wrong, wont have a business.

A high quality broadsheet is also in the market of doing stories that accurately reflect reality. Its not Fox news or the tabloids and they have a reputation to protect.
If they get crap polls their reputation suffers so they would “buy” better one.

We are in the ludicrous situation of me explaining the market to you never mind polls 😕

Of course they are broadly accurate or no one would bother with them and we just read the runes or the tea leaves

The guardian’s poll projection seems pretty comprehensive as it uses all published national and local polls to make a prediction of the result in each constituency, rather than just extrapolating a national average across all constituencies. It has lots of nice graphics and pretty pictures too which is always important 🙂

And on the subject of polls, I wonder if the guardian/observer powers that be are just a little embarrassed that their ICM poll has been consistently pro-tory when most other polls are either evenly split or leaning towards labour?

You lot are doomed because Debate Me is going to kick you in your nuts you rich people you. 😆

The power of ZM bureaucrats will make your life a hell. Hell yes! 😆

More rules and more control please …

Just for you Chewy 😀

They also did not directly chose to refute any of the allegations

There may well be a very good reason for that

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2/section/106

Indeed they did not say it because they did not have the confidence [ let call this facts eh] to argue it in a court of law so they went for a weak lame ass slur to protect their Tory overlord.

Glad to see you agreeing with me on how weak it was.

dazh – Member

Just for you Chewy

Is that the new hair style that Dear Debate Me Leader is going to impose?

I have no hairs so free hair transplant please … you pay! 😆

Indeed they did not say it because they did not have the confidence [ let call this facts eh] to argue it in a court of law so they went for a weak lame ass slur to protect their Tory overlord.

Michael Crick of Channel 4 news broke the story of the LibDem guy, not the Telegraph, Gilligan has just done some additional work.

Farrage getting ripped on Newsnight