As I have said earlier, I am pretty unwilling to discuss anything related to Scotland with you due to the lens with which you look at every piece of data. It’s not just me, others have called you out on it in other threads. You’re myopic.
It is nothing to do with what you regard as important or not. I am interested in the views of others about what is a UK wide general election rather than just a few dozen Scottish seat.
And you are ducking the possibility that the SNP might have a serious bloc and block after the election. Should that happen, they could become kingmakers rather than coalition partners. Should that occur following a failure to live up to the promises in the Vow, it would make for an interesting time as negotiations occur over specific pieces of government legislation.
Before these two polls the assumption had been that UKIP and the LibDems would hold the whip hand. Now it seems quite possible that the SNP will be in that position.
Certainly worth discussing.
Side question: how mainstream is UKIP now? When they first showed up I dismissed them as another far-right refuge that would be gone as soon as one of its leaders was outed in a Hitler costume - though they seem to be getting more and more serious and less skinheady as time goes on.* So do they draw non-racist votes now? Are middle-of-the-road voters upset enough about immigration to vote UKIP?
*British Union of Fascists (executing brown people) > National Front (throwing bricks at brown people) > BNP (campaigning for the right to throw bricks at brown people) > UKIP, and so on.
I have now obtained a copy of The Scotsman and as I expected you have entirely misrepresented John Curtice’s views. He concurs that on the latest polls Labour face a meltdown. The 12 percent swing he mentions was the position before the latest polls. The two latest polls suggest a swing of 20-25% which Curtice agrees means an SNP landslide if it occurs.
Sigh - how predictable.
It won’t happen - my earlier post stated I simply do not expect a swing of anything like that and why (polls taken at height of Labour bad week).
Also I used no misrepresentation at all. I used his +7 seats for a 12% swing statistics - and said I did not think it would be more than that. He also was support for my statements as to Labour being a distant second to SNP in their target seats - rather than your mythical mass of three-way-marginal-Scottish seats.
This is why I am done with you. It is you that throw out these accusations at others, and you who consistently misrepresent what other posters actually say. You are myopic.
I will not be responding to any of your further posts - I am sick of you. Views of others who are more interesting would be welcome however!
Check Wikipedia for marginal seats in Scotland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election_results_in_
Please try to keep to verifiable facts in future.
Actually, that’s not actually true. They’re about control of immigration, not immigration per se.
I think we should all do the same. At least stear the thread away from bloody Scotland for a change. I regret steering it in that direction earlier.
An interesting tactic if the SNP do take a decisive part.
This is the same Scotland you were convinced was going to vote for independence? And the same slip in Labour’s seats that made you so convinced.?
I’ll wait till the election, thanks.
I was not convinced that there would be a vote for independence- check back. I felt that there was a chance that it would happen even though it was not my original position, preferring devo-max. Before the referendum the Labour vote had slipped by 12 points. Now it seems to have slipped by over twenty. Every heavy paper in London yesterday led with the story as did BBC and ITV news last night. Labour have lost their leader and deputy in the past couple of days and the party is in chaos six months before an election.
I think there is a little there to discuss in terms of potential outcome next May!
Oh, give me a fucking break! Your position is on record.
Provide a reference for anything other than the above then. Don’t assume- check!
My original statement on my position regarding independence:
“I am in agreement with you. I started out a decade ago as a believer in devolution as I have always been (I wanted initially stronger counties a la Redclffe Maud or regional government for the whole UK- Wessex, Yorkshire, Devonwall, Mercia etc. On moving to Scotland I supported the LibLab Government generally but voted SNP in 2007 and in every election since becasue I agree more closely with their general policies than any other party than the Greens (I am a lapsed Social Democrat). Entering the campaign I was an advocate for getting the vote over, losing it and then achieving Devomax, and then going again in a decade or so as people bacame more comfortable with a Scottish State. The campaign has turned me into a straight Independence supporter because of the Better Together campaign and the Neo-colonial attitude adopted here and elsewhere.”
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17702757&postcount=198
5th September.
I have not deviated from this position. I prefer Devo Max; I suspect that Independence will follow.
It would seem that my above analysis is shared by others
http://www.ukelect.co.uk/HTML/forecasts.html
UK-Elect General Election Forecast, November 1st 2014.
Hung Parliament - Labour Short By 34
This is the latest UK-Elect forecast for the 2015 UK General Election, created on November 1st 2014. Further forecasts will be made at frequent intervals before the next UK General Election. The effect of the recent dramatic growth in SNP support is illustrated in this forecast - with the 38 seats achieved by the SNP sufficient to deprive Labour of an effective governing majority. A new experimental UK-Elect forecasting method was used for this prediction, which also shows seats gained by UKIP and the Green Party.
The GB percentages used for this forecast were Lab 32%, Con 32%, UKIP 17%, Lib Dem 8%, Green 5%. For Scotland the percentages used were SNP 40%, Lab 29%, Con 15%, Lib Dem 6%, UKIP 4%, Green 4%. Other parties votes were not specifically set.
Pretty mainstream here in East Anglia, though this region is one of their main areas of support. I see Purple UKIP signs at the side of motorways, in fields, draped from bridges, in windows in houses and so on every election cycle, we get UKIP pamphlets through the door for council elections, and so on. UKIP have also took the most votes in the European elections for the East of England region, and have three active MEPs, with a Tory MEP having previously also been UKIP before defecting.
As for their support. Well, they’re more or less unreformed old-school Tories these days and the party has been purging embarrassing or gaffe-prone members in an effort to become more acceptable to the mainstream, which seems to be paying off as they are leeching support from both the Tories and Labour now. Certainly any attempt to smear them as lunatics by the press or the mainstream parties inevitably ends up backfiring, and only seems to increase their support amongst the general public (in this respect they have some commonality with the SNP who only became stronger the more the mainstream parties tried to paint them as Braveheart-inspired anti-English bigots). It also helps that they’ve managed to paint themselves as an anti-establishment party, attracting a lot of support from previous non-voters who were disillusioned with the current state of British politics.
CONs will definitley be polling ahead of LAB in terms of percentage of the vote on polling day, I mainly agree with your prediction but I see CON’s and LAB being much closer in terms of seat numbers than that, I think CONs will poll 1-3% ahead of labour on election day
The position of UKIP in British politics can only be really understood through the lens of the history of the LibDems (and previously the Liberal Party. The third party in the UK (well, in England) is going to have a major problem with the hegemony of the Conservatives in the shires and south and Labour in the Cities and North. Two many safe seats. Although a third party can pick up protest votes and concentrate its resources in local and bye elections, they regress to their minimum except in their core areas at General Elections. This is because people know that they are selecting a government, and third parties don’t do Government. LibDems and Liberals, election after election, did well in local and bye elections and failed in general elections- I know, I was there! LibDems and Liberals were reliant on their core eats in peripheral areas- Scotland, Wales, South West England for many decades and rarely won substantive seats at General Elections outside these areas- they are likely to regress to that situation with 30-40 MPs in 2015. Maybe East of England is UKIP’s eqivalent of the Libs Celtic fringe.
Also against the UKIP vote is that their core policy (out of Europe) is not held by a majority of the electorate and the importance of European politics come well down the list of prime concerns of the electorate.
I expect UKIP to pick up between 10 and 20 seats in the East of England in 2015 and then fade into insignificance after some form of Referendum that confirms UK membership of Europe. The members will then retreat back into the Tory party or form an unelectable rump party.
Why do you think that the Conservatives will poll so well? I suspect the balance between Labour and Conservatives will be close and dependent on errors in the campaign. They are both close to only achieving their core vote, and in the case of the Conservatives losing a lot of their core vote to UKIP.
It is worth noting that Alex Salmond said hree things of note on Andrew Marr:
1/ The SNP would consider forming a Government with Labour (although this would cause problems with the previous policy of SNP MPs not voting on only-English matters.)
2/ He might consider becoming a Westminster MP again.
3/ Any involvement in Government would require far reaching devolution to Scotland as a price for support.