If you're EVER going to buy a house, you'd better do it before April - here's why.

fordcapri2000

wotsthat wrote: »

Unsurprisingly, you miss the point. If you look at a graph of house prices over time you'll notice the effect of a general election is zero. There are differences between the main parties on housing policy but they amount to different positioning of deckchairs.

No, Unsurprisingly you miss the point. This general election could well turn out to be the type I have never witnessed in my lifetime in that a civil coalition cannot be formed.

Of course if we get a decade of disruptive parties not working together which has a high probability of happening I have no idea how that would effect housing and you're beloved never ending house price inflation, but I could have a good guess

Bridgeton_Boy

Hi folks, good debate going on here. In relation to the next general election I would not be sure that there will be a Labour / SNP pact. It is nearly always the case in a coalition government that the junior partner party pays the bigger price for the next election failure. SNP are on the up and why would they be stuck with a lame duck PM. As for housing I think we need to seriously stop looking at our houses as being an investment instead of a home where we live. We need to build more good quality social housing and give all our citizens the right to live in a decent home.

fordcapri2000

Bridgeton_Boy wrote: »

Hi folks, good debate going on here. In relation to the next general election I would not be sure that there will be a Labour / SNP pact. It is nearly always the case in a coalition government that the junior partner party pays the bigger price for the next election failure. SNP are on the up and why would they be stuck with a lame duck PM. As for housing I think we need to seriously stop looking at our houses as being an investment instead of a home where we live. We need to build more good quality social housing and give all our citizens the right to live in a decent home.

I agree BB

Trouble is that we have a number of selfish low self esteem d***heads in this world that cannot see past their own selfish needs. I personally think the SNP getting some kind of control would be poetic justice, Scotland has had to sit and watch a bunch of self serving English southerners screw their country.

SNP would build homes, sadly they would eventually hang themselves and the UK in the process, but right now this country needs turning upside down and starting from scratch.

CLAPTON

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

I agree BB

Trouble is that we have a number of selfish low self esteem d***heads in this world that cannot see past their own selfish needs. I personally think the SNP getting some kind of control would be poetic justice, Scotland has had to sit and watch a bunch of self serving English southerners screw their country.

SNP would build homes, sadly they would eventually hang themselves and the UK in the process, but right now this country needs turning upside down and starting from scratch.

The scottish people have rejected independence from the Union

The Scots get a higher per capita block grant than the English people

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world

Difficult to see how one could say the Scots have been screwed by anyone

Difficult to see why one would want to turn a very successful country upside down and start from scratch.

wotsthat

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

No, Unsurprisingly you miss the point. This general election could well turn out to be the type I have never witnessed in my lifetime in that a civil coalition cannot be formed.

Of course if we get a decade of disruptive parties not working together which has a high probability of happening I have no idea how that would effect housing and you're beloved never ending house price inflation, but I could have a good guess

There haven't been many coalitions in British history but the only time a 'civil coalition' wasn't maintained was the coalition of 1915-16 so I'm not sure why you think it's highly probable we're in for a decade of disruptive parties not working together especially when we're nearly five years into a coalition where the sky didn't fall in.

fordcapri2000

CLAPTON wrote: »

The scottish people have rejected independence from the Union

The Scots get a higher per capita block grant than the English people

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world

Difficult to see how one could say the Scots have been screwed by anyone

Difficult to see why one would want to turn a very successful country upside down and start from scratch.

All that might or might not be true, I think it is mostly true, but I am just thinking like a lot of Jocks. Question is then, why is there going to be a SNP whitewash then?

fordcapri2000

wotsthat wrote: »

There haven't been many coalitions in British history but the only time a 'civil coalition' wasn't maintained was the coalition of 1915-16 so I'm not sure why you think it's highly probable we're in for a decade of disruptive parties not working together especially when we're nearly five years into a coalition where the sky didn't fall in.

Thanks for making my point, there have not been many coalitions, so this is not like any other general election. Like I already said, Clegg has now destroyed the Liberal party with his submissive partnership with Cameron. I actually think the guy gave us stable government when it really could of become quite ugly, but the electorate will not see it like that.

The reason I think we are in for disruptive governments is that the Liberals will pay the price with their old faithful turning their back on them, and there is no way the SNP, UKIP are going to make life as easy in a coalition with one of the other two parties.

shortchanged_2

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

Thanks for making my point, there have not been many coalitions, so this is not like any other general election. Like I already said, Clegg has now destroyed the Liberal party with his submissive partnership with Cameron. I actually think the guy gave us stable government when it really could of become quite ugly, but the electorate will not see it like that.

The reason I think we are in for disruptive governments is that the Liberals will pay the price with their old faithful turning their back on them, and there is no way the SNP, UKIP are going to make life as easy in a coalition with one of the other two parties.

I don't think the libdems will lose their old faithful, I think they will not get the floating voters they would have got in the past. They did well in the last election due to promises they made students who were then subsequently dumped on by Clegg.

The old faithful are probably chuffed to bits that they have had the closest thing to a whiff of power in decades.

wotsthat

fordcapri2000 wrote: »

The reason I think we are in for disruptive governments is that the Liberals will pay the price with their old faithful turning their back on them, and there is no way the SNP, UKIP are going to make life as easy in a coalition with one of the other two parties.

Coalitions aren't just thrown together to see how it goes. For example the current coalition was formed following a formal agreement where they agreed, in advance, what each party will and won't support.

If UKIP or the SNP found themselves in a coalition following such an agreement the last thing they'd want is the coalition to fail as a new election is unlikely to be favourable for them if they were making life deliberately difficult.

FWIW I can't see Labour going into a coalition with the SNP. It's doomed to toxic failure and I don't think Milliband is that desperate. More likely IMO than a Lab/ SNP coalition is a minority Labour government in a 'coalition light' agreement with the Tories. However a long way to go yet and I don't think you can discount an outright win for either party.

Unless Labour rule out an SNP coalition I won't even consider voting for them.

N1AK

wotsthat wrote: »

If UKIP or the SNP found themselves in a coalition following such an agreement the last thing they'd want is the coalition to fail as a new election is unlikely to be favourable for them if they were making life deliberately difficult.

FWIW I can't see Labour going into a coalition with the SNP. It's doomed to toxic failure and I don't think Milliband is that desperate. More likely IMO than a Lab/ SNP coalition is a minority Labour government in a 'coalition light' agreement with the Tories. However a long way to go yet and I don't think you can discount an outright win for either party.

There is no chance of SNP/UKIP being in the same formal coalition. UKIP have no tolerance at all for SNPs policies on Scottish independence, and SNP have many issues with UKIP and are passionately pro-european.

There will not be any kind of coalition arrangement between Labour and Conservatives. Even if they were the best matched pairing it would be political suicide for both parties.

I think there is very little chance of a big swing either way before the election. On that basis my predictions, in decreasing order of confidence:
1/ SNP will become the 3rd largest party in the national parliament
2/ Liberals will become the 4th largest party with over 20 MPs
3/ UKIP will have fewer than 10 MPs
4/ Labour and Conservatives will both have 260-290 MPs
5/ The Conservatives will have 10-30 more MPs than Labour

Based on the above assumptions there will be no viable 2 party coalition because
1/ Conservatives and Labour will not cooperate
2/ SNP + Conservaties will not cooperate
3/ Labour + any other party will not be a majority

So then things get interesting. The cons got more votes, and are the current coalition leaders, so get first try at forming a coalition. They'll need 36+ MPs from coalition partners but won't be able to pull together viable partners:
1/ Libs won't join coalition with UKIP
2/ Without Libs or SNP they can't pull together enough seats for majority government

If they don't form a government Labour can then have a go, but MUST ally with the SNP to have any chance of getting 326+ MPs. They'd probably need the Liberals as well.

Based on all this I think the three most likely results of the next election are:
1/ A Labour/Liberal/SNP majority government
2/ A conservative minority government
3/ No viable government and another election