Who will win the UK election ?

Cyberman60

kabayiri wrote: »

I'm so glad the politicians understand they are there to work for us, the electorate.

Oh...wait a minute...what am I saying? They are a bunch of self serving short termist grabbers.

Who the heck thinks a manifesto policy of starting a £50 billion+ high speed railway from one of our least densely populated regions (Scotland) is good long term economic and business sense?

It is the politics of envy and destruction - pure and simple.

Not tackling the deficit is also the politics of destruction. SNP/Labour will simply build more deficit and debt until we can no longer finance our debts. It's a truly scary scenario which most people haven't a clue about. :eek:

Linton

Predicted outcome - minority Labour government lasting 5 years.

On what issue would the Conservatives vote with the SNP against Labour? On any of the SNP Red Lines that a minority Labour government brought to a vote the Conservatives would vote with Labour.

Conversely would the SNP vote down a Labour government on a vote of confidence alongside the Conservatives? What good would that do them? How could they explain it to their membership/voters?

Generali

antrobus wrote: »

Articles are either (a) reasonably sensible or (b) idiotic.



The way it would work is this;

- minority Conservative government faces a confidence vote
- SNP join with Labour to vote down the government
- minority Labour goverment takes office

following which, if at any time the SNP vote down Labour, there will be an election

I rather liked the point in the article which basically said that the Conservatives would be looking to dare Labour to vote them down and join with a Nationalist party they were battling against just months earlier. When you look it at like that it seems rather less likely that Labour would side with the SNP.

I suspect that a few leftish Tories could be persuaded to vote with Lab or the other way around to maintain a functioning Government. Most of the pollies around these days are career politicians rather than burning ideologues these days anyway. I'm sure that there are a few on either side that have a couple of pet policies that if they were thrown a bone on would side with the other lot. That or some old fashioned pork of course.

antrobus

Linton wrote: »

...On what issue would the Conservatives vote with the SNP against Labour? ....

If the Conserervatives were 15% ahead in the polls, almost any issue would do.:)

Linton wrote: »

..Conversely would the SNP vote down a Labour government on a vote of confidence alongside the Conservatives? What good would that do them? How could they explain it to their membership/voters?

It would make the UK look ungovernable. The whole point of the SNP is to persuade the Scottish that independence is the answer to all their problems.

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

I rather liked the point in the article which basically said that the Conservatives would be looking to dare Labour to vote them down and join with a Nationalist party they were battling against just months earlier. When you look it at like that it seems rather less likely that Labour would side with the SNP.....

It is entirely possible that such a sequence of events would be Miliband's preference as well.

antrobus

Anyways, the most recent polls have;

Panelbase CON 31%, LAB 34%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 17%, GRN 4%.
Survation CON 33%, LAB 29%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 18%, GRN 4%
ComRes CON 36%, LAB 32%, LD 8%, UKIP 10%, GRN 5%
YouGov CON 33%, LAB 35%, LD 8%, UKIP 13%, GRN 5%

So the clear trend is that there is no clear trend.

Jason74

My money is still on another five years of Tory / LD coalition. And it says a lot about the train wreck that this election threatens to become that I (as someone who is broadly supportive of the current Labour party) see that as far from the worst possible outcome.

Shakethedisease

antrobus wrote: »

nment
- minority Labour goverment takes office

following which, if at any time the SNP vote down Labour, there will be an election

No, there won't be. That's the entire point of the Fixed Term Parliament Act. Lib Dems wanted it so the 2010 coalition would be stable.

Moby

Shakethedisease wrote: »

No, there won't be. That's the entire point of the Fixed Term Parliament Act. Lib Dems wanted it so the 2010 coalition would be stable.

That's another 'quandary' thrown into the mix.....a minority govmt in crisis. Does it have to limp on because of the Act or can they try and do a Harold Wilson?

Generali

Moby wrote: »

That's another 'quandary' thrown into the mix.....a minority govmt in crisis. Does it have to limp on because of the Act or can they try and do a Harold Wilson?

Think about it in logical terms rather than through the lens of an extremist.

Imagine we have 4 groups of note in Parliament.

A has 42 seats
B has 40 seats
C has 11 seats
D has 7 seats

51 seats needed for a majority.

C has said that they will never work with A. D worked with A in the last parliament.

D&A can't get a majority. Unless a couple of people from B join in.

B&C can have a majority but B&C fought a pretty bitter battle a few months earlier.

A gets first dibs on forming a Government due to the constitution. The Anne, leader of A, puts together a program and thinks she might be able to get a budget through. She's wrong and so resigns her Government.

Britain now has no Government although it still has a PM and a cabinet.

The Queen now approaches Ben, leader of party B, to ask him to form a Government. He approaches Carol of party C who says, "Surely I'll back you as long as you give a squillion squids to me every year". Ben tells her to go away.

I strongly suspect that in such a position the Queen would call in the leaders and ask them to vote in some way for a fresh election. If they were stupid enough to refuse (which I doubt) she would just call one anyway as Head of State.