UK Election non-frenzy

Actually I see it a different way. In contrast to America in particular. Obama had election interest, excitement, hope, passion. But once he got in office he couldn't do anything. In the UK it is the opposite. Little emotive interest but the difference between the parties will be felt at ground level in the years after the election.

most exciting development yet

I'm finding it interesting how much the Scottish are being demonized

i watched the millbrand interview. im engaging with politics.

Weirdly I thought the Brand interview he came across as pretty well. Kind of honest and relatively un-spun, though that maybe just a reflection of how almost hyper-real politics and the media in this country has become. Politicians seem to be becoming judged explicitly on how well they can spin rather than what they actually say, Evan Davies suggesting to politicians other ways they should have spun things...mental.

Anyone see any way that the Union is going to last much longer? The Unionist parties seem right up for stoking up English nationalism for short term gain whatever the long-term effects.

Brand who I'm generally sympathetic towards come across like a hunched over personal space invading freak though

He seemed a bit star-struck aha. I like how the Tories totally fucked themselves by believing their shtick about Miliband being this utterly repellent social disaster though. People must have thought he was doing well if he didn't shit himself during the hustings for all they talked that up.

The sheer level of bile in the Tory press for Miliband and Labour in the run-up to this election is extraordinary even by their usual standards. I mean they really have abandoned any pretence about being about policies and have reverted to the level of playground insults. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mail's headline tomorrow is DON'T VOTE FOR THIS MAN, HE LOOKS FUNNY AND SMELLS.

And did anyone see this the other day?





Because David Cameron is such a down-to-earth man of the people and definitely not, like, a direct descendant of William IV, or anything.

Seriously, this is worse than GWB's Texas-homeboy routine. At he didn't sound like a member of landed gentry.

Mr. Tea said:

And did anyone see this the other day?

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That link's not working for me but I like that the attachment is cunts.jpg

Agreed tho on the right wing bile. I guess having grown up with Blair I never saw the establishment press at its most rabid. It's something else altogether. One of the best things about a Miliband victory is that it would rob them of power almost instantly - why be scared any more? That would be fucking glorious.

Except it's looking less and less likely. The polls are moving, I think, even if a couple today look a bit better for Labour. There doesn't have to be much of shift for the Tories to be largest party, then throw in a few lib dems and we've got five more years of this shit.

Can't blame Scotland for going SNP, and there's a couple of ironies here. Labour always did disproportionately well out of Scotland, picking up all these seats with not that many votes (or work). Now the SNP are doing the same but more so. Labour have lost their in built electoral advantage in the space of 8 months, following a referendum that they, on the face of it, won.

Speaking of the right wing press:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/30/scottish-sun-snp-rupert-murdoch-nicola-sturgeon

The degree of influence of the Scottish vote - whether real or imagined, and whether seen as positive or negative - is quite extraordinary, considering the place is home to a whopping 8% of the UK's population. It's got fewer people in it than the West Midlands, and when was the last time the West Midlands was seen as the determining factor in a general election?

There's quite a strong possibility that the Tories and the right wing press will make that argument, too, if it looks like the SNP might form part of a left-of-centre coalition.

Which is ironic, really, because the last time anyone asked, they all thought first-past-the-post was the fairest system imaginable.

Slothrop said:

...if it looks like the SNP might form part of a left-of-the-present-Westminster-government coalition

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Fixt it 4 u.

Good point well made.

Also, as far as the press goes - it's actually vaguely reassuring that this is the second election running where we've had a fairly vicious media attack on a not-exactly-barnstorming labour leader, and it looks like the Tories won't have managed an outright majority in either of them. It's also not looking great for DC's leadership...

Mr. Tea said:

The degree of influence of the Scottish vote - whether real or imagined, and whether seen as positive or negative - is quite extraordinary, considering the place is home to a whopping 8% of the UK's population. It's got fewer people in it than the West Midlands, and when was the last time the West Midlands was seen as the determining factor in a general election?

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I think that's just an illusory effect of Scotland being something of a recognised self-contained entity that tends to vote in one way. The West Midlands would have as much power if they voted as a bloc, as Scotland tends to do. Also, it only has the possibility to prop up one or other government. If the English all voted UKIP then what could Scotland do? It's an illusion that Scotland has a particularly great deal of power created by a London-centric media.

I agree that it's exaggerated, hence "real or imagined" in my last post. And in any case, it's a result of a parliamentary system in which coalitions are the exception rather than the rule, as they are in many (most?) democracies.

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.

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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Perhaps with Labour to fend off the SNP electoral JUGGERNAUT, if only to save poor Trident.

I don't want a Tory majority, if that's what you're getting at. I've been canvassing for Chris Ellmore in the Vale of Glamorgan. I have a Labour placard outside my house. I'm not exactly enthused by Miliband or the current Labour policy platform, but I still think Labour are the best option for this country. I think they have to face up to the fact that they ramped up borrowing in 2007-9 to reckless levels and this smashed against the banking collapse which they had a small part in creating. However Labour spending up to 2007 was not hugely out of scale with previous governments. Between 1998-2000 they had the lowest borrowing since the Second World War. 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.

But the polls do suggest that there is a large chunk of the population who haven't, or can't decide. Up to 40%, I think. This matches my experience of the doorsteps of the Vale of Glamorgan. The things they are agitated about - welfare, immigration, national debt -are things that are being answered by the Tories and UKIP in a way that matches their concerns and fears. People who are voting for the other parties have already decided, I believe, and will say so. Scotland is undoubtdly wrapped up for the SNP. The large, hedged, silent vote is largely for UKIP and Conservatives. So I think that UKIP will do better than current polls suggest, and this may or may not translate into actual seats, but the real winners of this hedged, silent vote will be the Tories.

It is mostly instinct, though. I won't be surprised if I am wrong, but I won't be surprised if I am right, either. I am calling it though.