The Election Section: Get Your Crystal Balls Out...

Blacklight

Clegg won't form a government with UKIP. Labour are finished as they've said they won't get into bed with SNP.

The only thing that can happen now is Conservative majority or Con-U coalition (more than likely).

Moby

padington wrote: »

50 - 1 for a Cameron, Clegg, 'Fatage et twois' at paddy power ...

I’d ignore the bookies odds – it’s just an indication where the money has gone recently and what’s the value bet. The bookies odds were so far off in 2010, as well as countless other elections, that this market is almost worthless as an indicator.

Ed doesn't have to 'get into bed' with the SNP....he'd table his Queens Speech and the SNP would either vote for it or against it? No formal agreement needed.

https://colinrtalbot.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/who-governs-britain-after-may-7th/

SailorSam

Ed isn't doing himself any favours saying he doesn't want to get into bed with Nicola ....... (well you know what i mean). He's making himself sound like an idiot saying if it isn't an outright Labour Govt he rarher have the Tories again. How can he go back on that on Friday morning, say he was only joking.

kabayiri

vivatifosi wrote: »

I think this is a likely scenario as an alliance. I do wonder though how Clegg and Farage will manage as their views on pretty much everything pull in opposite directions.

I'm sure that in Politics, just as in life, you have to learn to work with people who you don't particularly like.

For me this is infinitely more preferable than dogma driven politics.

There seems to be these overriding themes put about; for example that all immigration is good or all immigration is bad

The reality is that there a multitude of positions within these extremes. It really does depend on your life experiences.

kabayiri

Moby wrote: »

Let me tell you...... Farage may not get elected if you look at Ashcrofts latest poll in Thanet. Clegg is also currently a point behind in Hallam....but let's assume he get's back. What support do you think there will be for him within his own ranks to go back into a coalition with a sweaty lipped used car salesman who uses his own son's illness as a prop to show his genuine concern for the future of the NHS? Cameron really can't hide what he is can he! Yesterday a slip of the tongue led to his 'career defining' slip and he refers to the poor sod's drafted in to listen to his drivel as Chaps and Chapesses!

I don't have to like Cameron; Milliband; Farage; Clegg; Sturgeon to vote for them and their party.

I'm also sick of the NHS being the ultimate political football, allowing the politicians to play to the galleries.

Should the country get into too much debt one of the budgets which will be really slashed is the NHS, make no mistake. The best NHS defence is to avoid that scenario.

chewmylegoff

I'm hoping for a weak labour minority govt, after about 30 days of Ed Milliband being comprehensively defeated by various sandwiches he will die of hunger and there will be another election.

buglawton

padington wrote: »

Clegg's the one that's coming through consistently well if you ask me. He might even get my vote, which frankly, I'm amazed about.

The Libdems only really put one foot wrong during the coalition and that was uni fees. Libdems voters must be more passionate than most to want punish him so much. As if they'd forgotten that the Libdems were in a coalition rather than in actual power. Anyway yes, in Question Time he seemed to play a straight bat and present well.

michaels

Too much wish casting I fear. Too many voters who live the spend now worry about the consequences lifestyle will vote for the parties offering jam today.

I think it is best to think of the SNP as being a bit like sien fein, if there is a labour administration they won't vote it out and risk another election but they will do so with any Tory coalition. So for there to be a Tory coalition they need 323 where's a labour coalition only needs about 300 assuming 50 SNP MPs

kinger101

At the moment, I think a minority Labour government is the most likely. Not necessary because they'll have more MPs, but because the Conservatives will not be able to form something workable. SNP will back whatever Labour says without a formal coalition. Otherwise, in Scotland, they'll once again be known as the party who puts the Tories in power (they initiated a no-confidence vote in 1979, though the one tabled by Thatcher took precedence).

Whoever the PM is, I think it will be a very fragile government, and we're likely to have another election in the near future.

antrobus

buglawton wrote: »

The Libdems only really put one foot wrong during the coalition and that was uni fees. Libdems voters must be more passionate than most to want punish him so much......

Not so much 'passionate' as 'students'.

Thanks to this interweb thing, we can go back in time and see what things were like back in 2010.

Lib Dems target student vote with tuition fees warning
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7641956/Lib-Dems-target-student-vote-with-tuition-fees-warning.html

Mr Clegg said: "Labour and the Conservatives have been trying to keep tuition fees out of this election campaign."...."Students can make the difference in countless seats in this election." ...."Use your vote to block those unfair tuition fees and get them scrapped once and for all."

And so forth.

If you big up a certain policy, and claim that it's one of the things that make your party 'different', you can expect a certain negative reaction when you later abandon that policy.:)

buglawton wrote: »

... As if they'd forgotten that the Libdems were in a coalition rather than in actual power. ...

I don't expect anybody who voted Lib Dem in 2010 because of their tution fee policy did so in the expectation that there would be a Lib Dem majority government. They did so on the basis that they expected there to be a coalition, and that the Lib Dems would indeed insist on blocking those 'unfair tution fees' and getting them 'scrapped' as a price for that deal. Hence their disappointment when all of Mr Clegg's fine words turned to dust.