UK General Election 2015 looks set to be the most unpredictable British general election in recent times.
Labour are currently tied with the Tories at 33% according to surveys released this week, a terrible result for Labour who should be far in the lead by this point given they are not in power. Even worse, they’re collapsing in Scotland, one of their traditional heartlands, with the Scottish Labour leader resigning earlier this week over alleged micromanagement of the Scottish Labour Party by the Westminster Party.
The Liberal Democrats are in meltdown as their supporters have had to face their bête noire — power and concrete decision making, rather than having a different policy in every constituency.
The SNP look set to benefit greatly from the collapse of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland and may become the UK’s third party by seats (though UKIP may be third by total votes). On that point, the rise of UKIP has been astronomical, with both Labour and the Tories looking extremely vulnerable to a UKIP surge in previously safe seats. UKIP membership passed 40,000 this weekend, with the party doubling its membership in two years.
Lastly, the Greens also look set to pick up quite a few disillusioned former Liberal Democrat supporters, though whether they maintain their Brighton Pavilion seat is up-in-the-air, as Labour look set to give a credible challenge.
Exciting times. Political betting exchanges have now moved to predict no overall majority in May next year. Is that likely? Are we going to see leadership challenges in any of the big three parties before the election? Are we seeing the slow death of FPTP in the UK?
It seems like it’s a good election not to win by many accounts. I honestly have no idea who to vote for next year as none of the parties have won my respect. I will vote, but it will depend on a great deal of factors and I’ll think more carefully than I’ve done in a long time.
I’d be curious to learn what such a close thing does to turnout. That and people have discovered small parties are a thing.
As for FPTP, I can’t see it ending in the next Parliament. I expect one of the two main parties to form a minority government with the blessing of the other main party, and Labour will realise how much FPTP helps them.
I don’t think FPTP will end this next Parliament neither, but if no party can obtain a majority again I think pressure for reform is going to be pushed to the forefront, especially so if the Liberal Democrats maintain 30 seats due to localised support whilst the likes of UKIP only obtain 5-10 seats despite polling well all over the place.
I seem to have a little trouble understanding how a hung parliament would result in getting rid of FPTP. I am under the impression that alternative methods all seem to favor minor parties over the major ones, thus making hung parliaments more likely unless each minor party is known in advance to support one of the major ones, in which case voting for a minor party is de facto voting for a major one.
Miliband seems unelectable to me - I’m starting to wince just at the sight of him trying to articulate policy. Has the Brownian gift of appearing gauche and terribly ill at ease in front of the camera. Maybe this is just me and others see him as a better communicator. What seems clearer, though, is that the labour party isn’t yet ready to return to government - they don’t have the people or the policies. The latter is quite damning given the polarising political climate and that the general public don’t really believe in the current government with any conviction (IMHO).
So I’m surprised that the bookies are forecasting it as being neck-a-neck. A guy I work with (quite politically engaged, generally talks sense) was saying that the current constituency boundaries are very favourable to labour - don’t know if this is true, but would help mask their weakness if it is.
We had a referendum only 3 years or so ago on whether or not to implement PR. The result was a decisive No. I can’t see a change anytime soon. Though this leads me onto my particular bugbear. The current voting system favours Labour over the Conservatives. The set-up of current constituency boundaries mean the Conservatives need to beat Labour by 2% just to win the same number of seats. If there is a change in the electoral system as a consequence of this election it will be boundary changes imo.
edit: I see Busy Scissors has partly dealt with the boundary issue.
The reason the bookies have it neck and neck is because of UKIP. No-one knows for sure how their vote will hold up at the General Election. I read elsewhere that if UKIP win more than 10% of the vote it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Tories to win. If UKIP take 10% or less then the Tories have a chance of winning. I don’t know how accurate this is, but it’s probably a fair enough assessment.
Difficult to predict, I think. It looks like the major parties aren’t breaking up so much as hemorrhaging mass support, and becoming medium-parties by default under the present regime anyway.
I think it’s impossible to predict what will happen at the moment, a lot of things could still change depending on the latest EU argument, if UKIP win the next by-election, if anyone else defects and if any other sitting MPs just decide not to run.
The EU issue is important in some places, I expect UKIP to get a few seats but not enough to hold the balance of power unless they really manage to stage a decent campaign.
More important is probably Scotland – if Scotland feels that Labour their have broken their promise then they’re hosed. So who they pick for Scottish leader has a tough job, Gordon Brown is their best chance but it’s a hell of a risk as there’s a lot of bad feeling about him. Now, Labour can win without Scotland, or at least be in a position to form a government (as the SNP are not going to side with the Tories) – but it’s going to be a lot closer.
And the basic problem is Miliband doesn’t feel like a Prime Minister – I think, in the end that will be the reason it ends up with a hung parliament.
So, I said impossible to predict, but I will anyway – May is a hung parliament with no real clear majority. Labour, Lib Dems and the Conservatives take the chance to change leaders. Everyone goes back to the polls in November. And then, Boris wins? I dunno … depends on a lot of things.
Proportional representation is inherently bad because it leads to coalition government. I would like us to switch away from FPTP to Approval Voting. With FPTP it’s the least disliked candidate who is elected; with ApV, it’s the most liked.
There’s something else to consider: the Liberal Democrats blocked Boundary Commission changes which would benefit the Tories by removing their electoral deficit to Labour. There’s still time for those changes to be made.
A ComRes poll released last night is another terrible result for Labour, with them dropping 5 points, the Tories up 1 and UKIP up 4, to leave Labour and Tories tied at 30. This is four out of the last five polls showing Labour and the Tories level pegging, and also seems to imply that Labour voters are being attracted to UKIP. Still, under the current electoral system a Tory-Labour tie will generally see Labour win the election, as the Tories need a 6 point lead to ensure victory.
Also, I have read elsewhere that the majority of these polls are likely to be severely understating UKIP’s support, as no polling company lists UKIP on their questionnaire but rather classes them under the banner of “other parties”. When UKIP are listed alongside Labour, Tories and the Liberal Democrats their support shoots up. For example, the last Survation poll “prompted” UKIP and had their support at 25%, 5-7% higher than other polls that do not “prompt” them.
Your opinions on AV are not the issue. The fact is we had a once in a lifetime referendum on changing the voting system to a form of PR. It failed. The chances of another form of PR being implemented after the next election lie somewhere between no chance and almost no chance.
Fuzzy Wuzzy the fact that AV is not a form of PR is a fact, not an opinion, and my claim that AV can deliver even more distorted results under certain circumstances than FPTP is also a fact, not an opinion. I suggest you actually read up on what is meant by AV and what is meant by PR before going off half-cocked in future.
Hi, Just signed up to the forum purely to reply to this topic because I absolutely love talking about politics (I’m 19 years old and have enjoyed it for a good few years now).
I think a hung parliament is very very likely considering Labour (with the collapse of their vote in scotland) will likely now need to win upwards of 36% to win a majority, with the Torys needing around 38% (if not more). The likelyhood of either party winning that % of votes I’d say is very very low. A few months ago I could of conceivably seen Labour winning a majority but with them polling neck and neck with the Torys that is a disaster for them, if they were going to win a majority they would probably need to be 5% ahead of the Torys at this time (historical evidence shows that on average the swing back to the current government in the last year of polling leading into elections is around 2.7%. This would mean that based on statistical Evidence a 5.4 percentage point lead for Labour in May of this year would probably of resulted in the 2 polling approximately the same % on Election day, so 7 months out as we are now , the Labour party would probably need to be winning by about 3-4% as of now to end up with an equal share of the vote to the Torys on Election day.
As for the Torys, they can probably expect to gain around 3% and for Labour to maybe lose 1-2% , even in that scenario the Torys would fail to win a Majority and would lose seats to Labour.
I think its safe to predict that neither of the 2 main parties will “win” the election, I think the real battle will be on whether either of them can get enough seats to be able to form a coalition government. We could be looking at a scenario where the Con/Lab both have under 300 seats each which would make it incredibly difficult to form a stable coalition because they would likely need the support of more than 1 party. The alternative is a minority government but I believe a minority government would struggle to govern. We could even be looking at a re-election having to take place because no stable government can be created.
Hope to hear some responses on if people agree with me etc.
I can’t disagree with much of this. I think a lot will depend on tactical voting in marginals. UKIP supporters may vote for non UKIP parties as a way of maximising their own impact. THis is why I suspect UKIP will not obtain the perecentage of votes opinion polls are currently indicating. The fear of Ed Miliband may also bolster the Tories artificially in constituencies that the Tories may otherwise have lost.
Labour are losing support in Scotland quite significantly. However, with the curent constituency setup I think their number of seats in Scotland will remain fairly high. They will lose a few seats, but perhaps not enough to make a significant dent in Labour’s overall numbers of MP’s.
Im not sure if we are talking of gerrymandering or just a natural internal movement of people over generations; a movement which has lead to the Tories needing about 2% more in the polls to win outright victory over Labour. Any “neutral” boundary commission is as neutral as the people on it and the beaucraucrats/politicians willing to implement boundary changes. An attempt was made earlier this Parliament to make changes. Need I bother telling you the Tories were in favour, the LIbDems and Labour against. It’s all about power for these people.
It may not be a significant amount of seats that they lose but in an election where both Main parties are struggling to get to 300 seats, it could be the difference between them being able to form a stable coalition or not. I honestly think both parties (LAB/CON) would both snap your hands off right now if you offered them about 305 seats (probably enough to just about scrape together a 2 party coalition with the LibDems). Also, I agree with you I think the single biggest challenge facing LAB in 2015 is the electability of their leader, I find it very hard to believe that Labour will be able to gain the probable 6% they need to increase there share from 2010 with Ed Miliband as there leader. As of now I am pretty confident in predicting that CONs will win the most votes (% wise) probably by anywhere from 1.5-3% over Labour, but I really think its a 50/50 toss up as to which of the 2 has the most seats.