Be Excellent To Each Other

Opening line



Well that's so fucking fundamentally wrong I'm not reading the rest of your shit.

As an aside, from what I gather, the SNP/Labour left split won't likely see any Conservative growth in seats in Scotchland.

Yeah this is a debate I've been having with myself. The only two or three seats the Tories have a chance of realistically winning are the those in the borders. They currently have Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, but latest polling indicates they might lose that one, but maybe pick up Berwickshire & Roxburgh and Berwick.

But they're all extremely marginal seats so anything could happen there. Theoretically the Tories could net four seats in Scotland, more than they've had in quite some time.

Where I am though there's no chance my vote would be anything more than pissing in the wind, and my seat was previously a semi-marginal Lib Dem/Labour toss-up with the SNP polling at 10% in the last GE. The incumbent Labour MP has been in since 2001, and it seems like the smart move is to vote for him. Of course, I don't want to, but when given the choice between that guy and an SNP twat that's hell bent against the Tories getting into power in any circumstances, I'll choose Labour. Also securing the seat makes it slightly less likely Labour will be forced to do any kind of deal with the fucking nationalists, and I'd rather have a Labour majority than some kind of informal pact perversion.

All that said the battle for Westminster won't be won in Scotland - the Tories need those seats in England more than anything else. Plus or minus three seats in Scotland probably won't end up making the critical difference.

I am more than a little disgusted at the SNP, a mere 7 months ago were hurling hateful rhetoric against the notion of staying in the UK, have now turned around to say they'll be doing things for the benefit of people of the wider United Kingdom. Fuck off, you despicable arse-faced cunt. How anyone can believe such shit said with a straight face is truly fucking beyond me.

The SNP's positioning is very interesting: if you're a natural Labour supporter, why begrudgingly vote for Labour who will only sell out and betray (yeah, I'm still bitter Mr Blair) when you can vote for even more radical policies. And unlike the Lib Dems, they're not trying to be all things to all people either. They are also posing as an outsider party despite being in government in Scotland for the past eight years: those people wishing they could vote SNP down here will not have experience of how they have handled power (for the record, I think they deserved to win the 2011 election). This wasn't an issue when they abstained on votes not affecting Scotland, but given their pronouncements on their likely behaviour in the next Parliament this does become an issue.

As for their 'red line' issue on Trident: I'm on the fence about nuclear weapons (other than probably being a little miffed if any were to be hurtling towards the Shire) but in the current climate I'd rather the decision one way or another was taken as part of a larger strategic review rather than being completely absolutist on it. Not sure people would be happy that one of the key roles of the state was being bartered for short-term gain.

If Labour are unable to recover in Scotland, the lack of any other whole-Union* party to manage differences and conflict between the nations internally will lead to far more volatility and increasing desires for a divorce as resentments cannot be confined behind (now-metaphorical) smoke-filled rooms of the party executives.

On the other hand, yeah, I like the idea that each vote in Parliament should be in doubt but not to the extent that every minority has to be paid off on every issue to get work done.


*yeah, I know they don't stand in NI but, frankly, who cares?

Anti-gay marriage group are distributing leaflets in various constituencies stating how candidates voted in the last parliament. Well, I suppose it saves us the time to check on theyworkforyou.com .

As Britain becomes increasingly secular, I think we are going to be more aware of religious pressure groups as they, like any other minority or sectional interest, try to get attention rather than being the 'default' position . I think it would be a mistake for one party to exploit this section of the public, despite how well-organised and well-funded they are, as it would alienate far too many people.

Not to say, of course, that people shouldn't campaign on moral issues, but that in the past the religious elements haven't been as visible as in the past.

Here is the Ukip flier I got through. Interestingly, he brings up hospital car parking charges and pay for carers. So at least he has done some research on the demographic around here. I expected it to be "EU bad! Dirty foreignS here" but it comes across as reasonable. And reads like it was written by an 8 year old. And he put a cell phone number on the bottom to call him for any stuff.

Well exactly, and if there's one thing you can be certain of, the SNP will threaten to throw all the toys out of the pram on every single vote in return for more and more deference to Scotland. If Scotland becomes a lost cause teeming with wee nats that only care about themselves within Scottish borders then my opinion on independence would shift radically.

If they're going to make life as difficult as possible for the UK (and let's face it, they most definitely will because they're fucking cunts) we'll be glad to see the back of them. I'd just be impatient for Scotland to implode when it transpires they really can't prosper as a socialist utopia when these crowd-pleasing unrealistic policies can't be paid for.

But then I blame the rest of the UK generally for diluting the ability for anyone to obtain a political majority by dicking around with all of these ideological parties, each one thinking they'll change the world in their own misguided way.

I tells ya what, Rupert Murdoch's visit to The Sun has worked wonders for the bile spilling out of that rag.

But weird that the Tories are all agog over potentially having the SNP as a party in a coalition or voting block, but are fine with themselves being propped up by UKIP or whoever.

Oooh, I have an independant on my ballot paper!

https://www.keepitrealparty.uk/

Shame he isn't a candidate worth voting for....

I'm also getting to vote in a referendum too! How exciting!

http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/plannin ... rhood-plan

The Tory canvasser met MrsA. Now I don't know about the future of tip permits.

I've got five things to vote for, apparently.

http://m.bedfordshire-news.co.uk/Bedfor ... story.html

So many adverts!

Is there much publicity or advertising surrounding the police precept one?

No, I had to look it up to find out how much it would cost me - about £28 a year, it seems, so they can have that.

Running referendum itself cost £350,000

Yep, I'd quite happily pay an extra £2 a month for a better police service.

Nothing is worth £2 a month, don't be crazy.

It's a permanent increase in budget isn't it? So in terms of the overall rise in income, if a yes vote then the referendum cost itself amortised over multiple years is negligible.

Not if its a no vote though.

YouGov things it will be a 70% "no".

"Armando Iannucci: It’s time for a very British revolution "

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... revolution

I think I might vote for him, if only to help him get his deposit back. It's a Lab/Con two horse race here, and I wouldn't vote for either of them anyway.

Shame they aren't fielding enough to form a government. Their Queen's Speech would be very short, but it'd be kind of cool to see Brenda slouching on the throne in front of the assembled begowned Lords, smoking a reefer and just saying 'My Government will keep it real'.

So what parties leaflets (and how many) are people getting through their letterboxes?

With just over 2 weeks to go I've only had Labour (10) and Liberal (3).


And I wasn't planning on voting for either.

I've not had anything from the Greens, but I had a leaflet from everyone else of note, but only the one from each (I think - maybe two from Labour). Had a Labour chap turn up at the door at the weekend, too.

No one puts anything through our door due to Eric and Ernie, our two Rottweilers.

I've had labour and ukip.

Too late now, i've voted already I went with the independent guy, as Lib Dem would be pointless here and at least he might get his money back afterwards.

Does he not mean because he wasn't quite old enough in 2010 and so missed his opportunity due to his birth date?

Yes. But if that statement is correct he has been old enough to vote in one referendum, one European election and at least one council election since.

Ah, I get you.

I wonder what the proportion of active voters in local to general elections, is?

Leafletwise, I've had several Tory ones for both the General Election and the district council poll. One each from UKIP and Labour. The young Labour candidate has a beard, so that's a bonus point for the red team.

No canvassers yet. This kind of rejection is worse than OKCupid.

Very low. Usually 25% turnout is considered good. Local Government matters, people!

For people who legitimately claim to be so engaged with the democratic process, 100%.

FFS he complains about a system that PR supporters claim would correct and he didn't register to vote on PR

I meant I wondered what the difference I. Turn out is between local and general elections? I'd imagine that turnout to general elections is generally higher than local simply because of the publicity difference.

I've had the Tory leaflet through the door in the last couple of days. Really terrible design, full of tedious platitudes, and pictures of the candidate standing in front of stereotypically 'Scottish' things, all the while grinning like an idiot. Checking in to his history he's been the candidate of choice for everything going in this area for the last 10 years.

Looking at his LinkedIn profile he doesn't actually seem like a bad bloke. Plenty of history with charity and helping the homeless. It's just the PR effort that's bloody terrible. Blurb on the back from Ruth Davidson full of the standard guff. I find her face almost as weird as Nicola Sturgeon's.

I didn't get a good look at the SNP leaflet as it was falling into the bin.

Some useful figures from the Grauniad:

2009 European 34.7
2009 Local average 39.2
2010 General 65.1
2010 Local average 63.5
2011 Local average 42.6

Note how local turnout rises when the general is held on the same day.

The usual explanation is that people see local and European elections as far less important. People, rightly, consider that there is way more at stake at a General Election. Arguably, over the last 50 years local government has increasingly lost powers and the reduced turnout is a rational response from the electorate: if councillors can't change anything but merely tinker because Westminster is telling it what to do, why bother?

The ideological 'choose to not vote' argument would only hold if turnout for locals was unchanged when it coincided with a general. Fact is people are generally quite fucking lazy and will only do something if you make it incredibly, incredibly convenient for them. Like do things on the same day so they don't have to make a second trip another time.

One thing I remember very well from May 2010, was the BBC prediction at 10:01pm was almost exactly spot on.

So if that is repeated, it could be that we know the result long before any of the 650 results are in.


What could be pivotal is whether the 'halved' LD Mp's (30 ish) team up with the Tories (280 ish) or the smaller (due to massive rise of SNP) (260 ish) Labour.

One thing will be sure, it'll be fascinating to watch in 2 weeks and 1 day.


No matter what happens, I'll get some policies I agree with and some I dont. That's the same for 90%+ of all of us though.

If the Tories do 'win' and manage to convince the LD's into coalition one more time, then they better give me that referendum in 2017!

The two highlights to watch for (personally) are:

(1) Nick Clegg keeping his seat.
(2) Does Nigel Farage win his?

Some frankly astounding charts here tracking the pledges Cameron made in 2010 and how he has broken nearly every last one of them:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 74433.html

I don't have any issue with having all the elections simultaneously. They aren't, despite what the press and public think, a form of mid-term election: voting a councillor out will not affect the governing party's ability to rule in Westminister, although admittedly it is fun and satisfying when your opponents are wiped out in town halls across the country.

Despite its weaknesses and declining budgets, there's still a lot of stuff which is decided locally so it would be good if people paid attention on the current incumbments in their community and the manifestos. And then voted solely on bin collections, as usual.

Balls. I should have run in a "Weekly bin collections, no tip permits and no hydroelectric plant in Saltaire" ticket. I probably would have won.

It didn't really need a graph for the VAT increase though, did it?

Based on Policies and general ideology, I'm torn between Green/Lib-dems/Labour. Who to vote for? Ah, but I'm not technically voting for a party, I'm voting for an individual, right? So I should look this stuff up!

https://yournextmp.com/constituency/659 ... hempstead/

That picture of the green guy quickly got my attention. A quick google shows results in this video:



which results in a quick no for them, even ignoring the green policies of no nuclear plants and no animal testing. :/ I can't imagine he'd be any use in parliament other than as a "green seat", (ignoring the fact that it's incredibly unlikely that would even happen). 1 down, 2 to go I guess!

(The Labour guy is a lifelong teacher and has he CV up on a site linked from yournextmp.com. I couldn't find much out about the lib dem guy. The UKIP one seems to be a bit of a loony dentist/programmer/entrepreneur hybrid that continually demands via twitter that "questions are asked about XYZ" but doesn't actually ask any questions. And the conservative guy has been the MP here for about a million years.)


re: UKIP. Even though I think most of their policies are shit and I don't like the underlying "it's all the forrener's fault, life would be so much easier without them" rhetoric, I'm at least glad they're around as it's woken up the other parties and made them include policies I agree with, e.g. no NHS/benefits usage for people under you've worked here for 2 years, etc.

What a brilliant site! Thanks for that.

Here's my list. Most disappointing game of kiss/marry/kill ever.

Here's my lineup: https://yournextmp.com/constituency/65561/bedford/

The Lib Dem guy looks about 12! Also we have a Lib Dem mayor - is it a good thing or a bad thing to have mayor and MP in the same party (or doesn't it matter)?

Current MP is the Tory chap.

I tweeted the Lib Dem chap to ask if he had any plans for improving life for commuters.

Jesus Christ that gimpy Green party candidate. Is that the best they can come up with? You'd think he'd have watched that video back in 2012 and thought 'hmm, maybe I should give it a second take where I don't pause continuously to obviously read off a prompter and also make a strong effort to pronounce full words without pausing halfway through'. Typifies the kind of lightweight frippery that I think of all Green candidates. His email address is 'goldenwhitelotus@hotmail'. Could he represent a greater lack of maturity and credibility if he tried? Fuck me.

According to the Ashcroft polls the SNP are on course for a 20% swing to take the seat here. I fucking hope not.

That Green guy - isn't he Star Wars Kid...?
I think we should be told.

This is interesting: https://yournextmp.com/numbers/parties

Why does Labour have so few candidates compared to the other "big" parties?

Many Labour candidates stand as 'Labour & Co-operative'. The 42 candidates listed lower down bring the total to 631.