UK Election non-frenzy

Whoa, misread your post! My ToryFilter must have been on, I couldn't countenance Cameron not having to form a coalition.

Just read a John Lanchester piece on the LRB that suggests the Lib Dems may be kingmakers again and it'll be hard for them not to make Cameron king.

It's totally possible, of course, but I also think that many Lib Dem MPs would react strongly against it. The more it's talked up, also, the more the Lib Dem vote will bleed to Labour as most of their supporters are left-leaning, unlike the Laws-Clegg party Orange Book clique.

The other option no one is mentioning is Lib-Lab coalition, maybe because the arithmetic is wrong (I am not a politics nerd, so I couldn't tell you). But that is a preference for many Lib Dem and Labour MPs and members. It was a live issue in 1997, Blair and Ashdown both super-keen to heal the historic left of centre split (Brown implacably opposed, a Labour tribalist through-and-through).

It's correct, 100% I believe, for Labour to rule out coalitions with Nationalist parties even if they are nominally 'socialist'. Apart from the fact that the SNP and Labour are hostile entities in Scotland, Nationalism is anathema to Labour's history.

Also, the reason that Scotland is now a one party bloc, Labour handing over to SNP, is for recent historical reasons. 40 years ago, the Tories had an electoral prescence in Scotland; for that matter, even in the last election, the Tories were second to Labour and SNP in a number of seats. As I fruitlessly pointed out during the Referendum debate, there are lots of Scottish Conservatives, even if they aren't strict Tories. There is no reason to say that in the future, either in the Union or out of it, some form of Scottish conservative party or constituency will not revive. These are rather unique times in Scotland, and the SNP is clearly the most effective political machine in the country and I am sure that many Welsh and English people would vote for Sturgeon right now if they could, but the idea that the majority of Scots are naturally all left-wing Nationalists and that this chimes with some sort of socio-ethnic character seems to be obviously absurd.

craner said:

My instinct is that the Tories will get a small majority. It's just an instinct and goes against the polling data. But I don't think that Cameron is going to have to form a coalition.

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I don't see how they are going to better now that they did 5 years ago.

craner said:

It was Brown that wrecked it, by the massive spike in borrowing before the 2010 election and laying prostrate in front of the investment banking sector throughout the Labour years.

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Interesting. What's never talked about was his tax cut in 2007(?). When he got rid of the 10p tax band, he cut income tax to 20p from 22p. Blew a massive hole in the public finances.

I'm canvassing for Labour in my nearest marginal tomorrow. Another 5 years of Tory government would change the country, and hurt some of the most vulnerable people. But I share all the misvgivings of Labour last time round, both in terms of how they spent money and how they dealt with powerful financial interests.

craner said:

It was Brown that wrecked it, by the massive spike in borrowing before the 2010 election and laying prostrate in front of the investment banking sector throughout the Labour years.

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OK, but it's still small beer (well, relatively, sort of) compared to the borrowing over the last five years, isn't it?

FY 2015* £1.36 trillion
FY 2014 £1.26 trillion
FY 2013 £1.19 trillion
FY 2012 £1.10 trillion
FY 2011 £0.91 trillion
FY 2010 £0.76 trillion
FY 2009 £0.62 trillion
FY 2008 £0.53 trillion

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from http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html

That's an increase in debt of 600 bn from 2010-2015, compared to an increase of a "mere" 230 bn from 08-10.

I thought this was good.

Mr. Tea said:

OK, but it's still small beer (well, relatively, sort of) compared to the borrowing over the last five years, isn't it?



from http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html

That's an increase in debt of 600 bn from 2010-2015, compared to an increase of a "mere" 230 bn from 08-10.

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That's a function of the deficit though isn't it? As in, getting the deficit to 0 would merely stop the debt from increasing, it wouldn't reduce that at all.

griftert said:

That's a function of the deficit though isn't it? As in, getting the deficit to 0 would merely stop the debt from increasing, it wouldn't reduce that at all.

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Well yes, but the deficit is now in the region of £110 bn per annum, as opposed to the figure of £0 per annum Osborne said he'd reduce it to by 2015, five years ago. So not only is the debt far bigger than it was even under Gordon Brown when everything went tits up seven or eight years ago, it's still increasing rather rapidly.

Mmmm - having a better credit rating would've helped.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22219382

I'm surprised that Labour haven't thrown this back at the Tories.

"Our debt interest is higher because your economic plan for growth failed"

I can just imagine Ed fucking that line up.

you said:

Mmmm - having a better credit rating would've helped.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22219382

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Yes, and keeping our precious AAA rating was another thing Osborne felt was important enough to gut the welfare state for, and he still failed.

So not only has he thrown the baby out with the bathwater, he's then done a massive shit in the bath and set fire to the baby.

you said:

I'm surprised that Labour haven't thrown this back at the Tories.

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The extent to which Miliband has failed to capitalize on the government's appalling handling of the economy even by its own skewed standards is breathtaking. It's as if he's swallowed their bullshit hook, line and sinker. He can't really be that dense, surely?

i think it's related to how much the media entirely is onside with the Tories and their austerity discourse. They've been practically vilifying Miliband for his modest critique of it, just imagine what it would be like if he actually disagreed entirely with its assumptions. 'Economics of the madhouse' would be all over newsnight every night.

Absolutely ANYTHING that could in any way compromise businesses' ability to make AS MUCH MONEY AS POSSIBLE ALL THE TIME is LITERALLY STALINISM.

Seems to sum up the position of the Mail/Torygraph. Is the Murdoch press quite as extreme as this in economic terms? The Sun seems to be concentrating on painting Miliband as this gaff-prone posho gimp who can't even eat a bacon sandwich without looking like the kid whose lunch money you used to steal at school every day, lololol.

I'm sure that's all true, but a lot of people (many still undecided, or so they say) don't buy it because the origin of the problem was Brown's fatal 2007-10 blow-out and his love affair with The City. Labour cannot wriggle off that hook, especially when the party elite are all former Brownites. The facts then and since may be more subtle, but people are not wrong to buy that basic argument, which is why (I believe) Miliband was fatally compromised to deny that Labour ever overspent.

I still stick to my Tory small majority hunch. I wouldn't take any major risks for it, but I might find a betting shop and put 20 quid on it if the odds are good. Failing that, a second election, I reckon. I just cannot see any coalition materialising. Labour limping in with a Union-sponsored minority would be sulphorous, for the country at large and those involved.

I also find it interesting that people are treating polls like The Word Of God, again. What happened to all those healthy, cynical caveats we used to have?

i always wonder about "the undecided vote" at such a late point in a campaign. really, there are people who honestly still don't know how they are going to vote? do they not give a shit? or just sort of retarded?

i think a lot of it is bullshit, they just say they don't know.

I don't think it is bullshit. I think there are plenty of people who do follow their gut when they get to the booth. I also think there are many who choose not to disclose their intentions, and they tend to vote conservative witho ut actually being Tories. I reckon that vote will have its biggest moment since 1992, and still be a squeak. But, crucially, enough.

Miliband has been bloody dreadful in this election, as has the Labour campaign. When the highlight is an interview with Russell Brand, you know that it has been badly misconceived from the beginning, even malformed. Tories have been awful too, especially Cameron. Farage has been a disaster. Clegg has been better than this lot, but hitting his bland limits and handicapped from the beginning. (Kirsty Williams is probably the best they have, in some ways, and ought to get out of the Welsh Assembly and score a seat in Westminster as soon as she can.) The Greens have had their first major election platform, and the exposure has not been kind. I like Leanne Wood, and she had been alright, a lot better than her toxic party (I've always argued that she is a disaffected and ambitious Labour politican who looked for, and found, a vehicle in Plaid.) SNP, and Sturgeon in particular, have played a blinder, probably the most effective UK election campaign since Labour in 1997. The NI parties have played no part in this campaign outside of their constituencies, which probably reflects most people's interest in or opinion of this rump territory.

End of The Craner Report.

really? i find it very hard to believe that people have no idea which way they will vote upon entering the booth when the ballot choices are so vastly different. perhaps the choices are more similar in the uk, i don't follow closely enough to know.

also, if they choose not to reveal their intensions to a pollster, that does not make them undecided. they've decided but chose not to disclose.

Well, obviously nobody knows, because it's a secret ballot. But I cannot believe that, in the UK at least, nobody can say they have not met people who will tell you that they don't know, and will vote on gut instinct at the booth, whether they lie or not. Friends, family, work colleagues, whatever. People who don't disclose, in my experience, tend to be closet conservatives, rather than ideological Tories. Unless something major sways them to social democratic values, like Blair did (once, at least), or Brown could have if he pulled the trigger on an autumn election in 2007, before his government imploded and he went bonkers.

Having just dismissed NI, I am now watching the NI Leaders' Debate on the BBC. This should be informative. These guys and gals are very interested in what happens with the SNP, for obvious, frightening reasons.

NI parties currently arguing about whether or not they swayed the vote on Syria and the motion to recognise Palestine. Wow. This lot are way more deluded than Welsh politicians.

Just to be clear, chaps, I know you have important problems, and Clinton paid you a visit once: but, no, really, you didn't. You are not that important.

NI politics is an even more exotic side-bar for UK political nerds than Welsh politics. This is obscurantic, involved, rich, irrelevant, highly-charged, weird stuff. Watching Martin McGuiness debating within the BBC QT prism is particularly novel, notably when opponents throw IRA history back at him. Now that's a big gap between the rest of the UK and NI. "Yeah, you oppose austerity, but don't forget, you blew people up!"