Most likely result of the general election in 2015?

First topic message reminder :

Looking at the current state of UK politics what do you all think is the most likely outcome of the next General Election?
 
Personally I think Labour will win but not with a out right majority (as it currently stands at least).
 
I had a quick look and couldn't see another thread like this but if there is my apologies.

patakace wrote:

stuart torr wrote:More bullshit mrs black cherry.

Why such a churlish  reply?
Disagree by all means but don't demean yourself .
Remember that you are theoretically part of the " Cutting Edge" Forum .

If you ask for a churlish answer that is what you will get patakace

patakace wrote:http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/01/the-tories-need-to-weaponise-ed-milibands-incompetence/

There is nothing more effective for highlighting an incompetent than letting them demonstrate their incompetence for you . See the Spectator article and Andrew  Marr humiliating little Ed .
This is probably poor  Miliband's  greatest talent -- messing with crucial details and  then just messing up .
With their flag ship policy of freezing energy prices  in tatters , Labour are struggling to find anything interesting to say .
They desperately wanted to misrepresent the economy in total by pretending that during austerity wages should rise  at least in line with inflation . And that one day they should be able to wake up , banish austerity and let increased earnings flood in to destroy everything positive that had been achieved .Dream on Eddie .

Back in the real world we now  have effectively no inflation and every day brings sunny news of earnings catching up .
As if  they  could grow faster than inflation in any serious attempt to regulate an economy !! You could not invent such twaddle  and keep  a straight face .
Yes , what twaddle the Left manufactures .
A pity that Labour cannot  turn it  into private sector growth . Then , at long last , they would be acting productively .

And WHO is Andrew Marr a rather PETTY Tory supporter, as for BUFFON Doris he is desperate to take over Cameron job of PM (here we go again another knife getting sharpened to plunge into his shoulder blades just like they did to Thatcher) its true what they say there is NO HONOUR between thieves. You have no room to talk about MESS with what this Tory led gov't has done over the last 5 years to the UK not forgetting all the LIES they told the voting public just before the 2010 G.E, after been cought out LYING to the public about Statistics on several occassions by his own gov't department on Stats.

See my earlier post on energy companies I have spelled it so you can understand it.

The only people that are seeing the sunny news is the friends & donors of the Tory party, every other working person is still on zero hour contracts part-time work & CRAPPY PAY, as for TWADDLE & SPIN the Tories are past Masters at it patakace. As for keeping a straight face that is very hard when watching the Parliament channel having to watching the Tory MPs tell LIE after LIE and hope the general public will swallow them, let me enlighten you people of the UK have woken up to the Tory LIES after they broke every promise they made to the voting public before the 2010 G.E:lol!:
,

Keep them coming Redflag let us hope more people see the Tory lies prior to the election.

stuart torr wrote:Keep them coming Redflag let us hope more people see the Tory lies prior to the election.

The people should know the Tory LIES off by heart now stuart

They certainly should Redflag, unless they live in a Tory lying area, or have to listen to it day after day by by Tory mad posters?

I am near completing details for the Tory victory party on May 8th .
On behalf of all our members you are cordially invited as my guests .
Please PM for details .

Would love to come and meet you patakace, especially when it turns into the Tories losing party.

What a shame we seem to have attracted a total WUM...Who seems to think they are adding to the discussions but in reality they are just becoming a total bore who, like Cameron at PMQ's, can do nothing but spout pre-prepared lines and try and make pseudo-funny comments at other peoples expense, unfortunately on here they do not have Cameron's baying gang of sycophants for them to 'grandstand to...........
I believe that they should be just ignored, as getting into any exchange will be the same as that which happens at PMQ's and is a complete waste of time........

I'm inclined to agree - bombast and boasting can get very dull - perhaps best ignored

Leave them alone ....
and they will go home,
dragging their tales behind them.

most attractive

patakace wrote:I am near completing details for the Tory victory party on May 8th .
On behalf of all our members you are cordially invited as my guests .
Please PM for details .

You are wasting your time and energy patakace, but one thing for sure you will not be wearing yourself out with hard work, Tories just do not enjoy REAL hard work that is why Tory MPs pay people to deliver there leaflets whereas Labour party members along with there Labour MPs deliver there leaflets.

You need to find a doctor that can help you get your head out of "Cloud Cuckoo Land" but do make sure its an NHS doctor that way he will make sure that your head does not get stuck in the clouds again.

On form today Redflag,

cybercheshired wrote:-
Clegg's promise re tuition fees was binding if they won. They didn't.

That may be a little disingenuous. I don’t think even Lib Dems at the height of ‘Cleggmania’ thought they would be in a position to form a majority government. And they didn’t just make a promise to abolish tuition fees, all Lib Dem MPs made individual pledges. It's not unreasonable to expect that that could and should have represented a ‘red line’ in any coalition talks. At the very least, they should have prevented any increase in fees. But as far as I can see, there were no red lines, not even on the matter of proportional representation for Westminster elections. Settling for a referendum on the alternative vote – a fudge which wasn’t likely to satisfy anyone – looked like a sell-out.

Coalitions mean you get some not all of your manifesto implemented.

I accept that the result of the 2010 election left the Lib Dems in a difficult position. They had fought the election on a manifesto which was to the left of the Labour one, and they no doubt attracted many supporters because of that. However, the parliamentary arithmetic wouldn’t have provided the more obvious Labour/Lib Dem coalition with an overall majority (though I doubt whether other MPs, apart from maybe the handful of Democratic Unionists, would have voted with the Tories on many issues). I don't expect the truth will ever be known about what happened during those five days of negotiation in May 2010, with accusations flying around that on the one hand some Labour grandees were opposed to a coalition, while on the other hand Nick Clegg appeared to have a natural affinity with the Tories (witness his own public school background and his close friendship with Leon Brittan).

I guessed as soon as the cabinet was announced that the Lib Dems had been stitched up. All the posts that really matter – PM, chancellor, home, foreign, health, education, defence – were filled by Tories. Why the Lib Dems didn’t insist that Cable, who had been chief economist for Shell, was made chancellor, rather than the towel-folding Bullingdon Club twit who spent most of his time in a Tory central office back room, beggars belief. The Lib Dems may be the junior partners but they held the balance of power and had the Tories over a barrel; they couldn’t implement anything without their support, and they should have used that power much more effectively.

Which brings us to what coalitions mean. I see two types:-

1. A minimalist government - maybe for a limited period such as 18 months to 2 years, before giving the electorate a chance to reconsider – where you only implement policies which are common to the manifestos and philosophies of both parties.

2. A compromise, where you agree to implement some (but not all) of each party’s manifesto.

Clearly the government which is just finishing its five-year term was intended to be of the second type. But it doesn’t seem as if that's what happened. Yes, the Lib Dems got their much-trumpeted £10,000 threshold for income tax, but a lot of the advantage to the lower paid was negated by the rise in VAT, something which the Lib Dems warned against with their ‘bombshell’ posters before the election. (And the poorest people didn't pay income tax previously, but now they're paying more VAT.) I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that this has been the most right-wing government in living memory, rather than a centrist coalition.

Germany has thrived under coalitions where these sorts of compromises are usual.

I think that's known as a 'false cause' in the dictionary of logical fallacies. Germany has thrived – but not necessarily because of coalitions; I don’t think they’ve worked so well in Italy for much of the post-war period. But getting back to Germany, the FDP, the sister party of the Lib Dems, has been in a number of coalitions with the centre-right CDU group, but has paid a high price as a result:-

http://www.dw.de/german-free-market-liberals-back-from-the-dead/a-17279261

The Lib Dems are also paying a high price for getting into bed with the Tories. They are perceived as facilitating the controversial Health and Social Care Act of 2012 (which wasn’t in the manifesto of either party), allowing the sociopath Iain Duncan Smith free rein to destroy the welfare state and do serious harm to many sick and disabled people, and for betraying the students whose support they courted in many university towns in 2010. The Tories, by contrast, are getting off relatively lightly because people who vote for them expect them to do vicious things, to help the rich and to create more inequality, because that’s what Tories exist to do. The Lib Dems, on the other hand, have been toxified in the eyes of most of their former supporters by their association with ‘the nasty party’.

Until 2010, the Westminster Parliament had not seen a coalition since the Second World War (the nearest thing was the Lib-Lab pact of 1977-78) and so it was probably inevitable that mistakes would be made. For a start it was rushed; Belgium took over a year to form a coalition prior to December 2011, the Lib Dems signed up after only five days. With hindsight, a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement with the Tories would have been much more sensible, making it easier to block Tory excesses and to save the Lib Dems from being tarnished by them.

The result is that we’re left with the question – why would anyone vote for the Lib Dems in 2015? If you like what the Tories have been allowed to do, you will vote Tory. If your top priority is to get the Tories out of office, you will vote Labour. If staying in the EU is important to you, you might as well vote Labour. If you want a left-wing party of protest, the Greens have assumed that role now. The Lib Dem vote in Scotland will be hammered (as will the Labour vote) by the rampant SNP uniting all those who voted ‘Yes’ within its ranks. I feel sympathy for the rank and file who helped the party to grow from just a handful of MPs, but it will take a long time and a lot of rebuilding – under a new leader such as Tim Farron – before the Lib Dems are a significant political force again. And at present I can’t see where they will find their niche in the political spectrum.

What a pity it is that some version of the above cannot appear at the head of all ballot papers next May.

The last paragraph mainly I think OW.

Ivan wrote:I don’t think even Lib Dems at the height of ‘Cleggmania’ thought they would be in a position to form a majority government. And they didn’t just make a promise to abolish tuition fees, all Lib Dem MPs made individual pledges. It's not unreasonable to expect that that could and should have represented a ‘red line’ in any coalition talks. At the very least, they should have prevented any increase in fees.

Ivan I just heard today something that really surprised me as I am sure it will surprise all the members on CE, apparently the Lib-Dems did not have to triple Unii fees they where given the (a bit of a)
choice to keep there vow to the Uni students of the UK.

???????

I'm flattered by Ivan's detailed dissection of my attempted defence of the the Lib Dems (a lonley beat!) I just think we in the UK are missing the point: coalitions may become a permanent fixture and praying for outright victory won't change this. Coalition requires compromises not red lines, or government collapses into paralysis. 2010 was incredibly threatening: a minority government could easily have provoked a further fiscal crisis. 2015 sees a new issue: fragmentation of the 2 party system. We really must get to grips with coalition politics. The best outcome for UK politics is a Lib-Lab (-SNP?) progressive alliance. What prevents this? Not the Lib Dems who have shown the courage to grasp the coalition nettle, the strength to block much (not all) Tory nastiness and the determination to get liberal stuff through to the fury of Tory backbenchers. The Lib Dems now have experienced ministers (treasury, business, energy, pensions). Clegg was the only leader to stand up not suck up to Farage. They've also had the resilience to take flak from left and right. I'll be voting Liberal for all these reasons, but mostly because I'm a liberal.

I'm not clear on which Tory nastiness the LibDems managed to block - thought they just basically laid down and let the juggernaut roll over them - maybe you can enlighten me?

Didn't even think they were even as brave as that boatlady, I thought they just gave up like many patients waiting to be seen in A + E these days.

I'm not surprised you thought that, though the fulminations of Tory backbenchers is a clue. At most they get one-liners in the media or the throw away "after Lib Dem objections". Clegg referred to it in his 2013 Conference speech but the only reporting that got was "Is he doomed?" etc. Things blocked include cutting inheritance tax, bringing back traditional O levels, scrapping the Human Rights Act, worsening child care ratios in nurseries, allowing summary sacking without explanation, lowering public sector pay in the north, scrapping housing benefit for the young, scrapping Natural England, scrapping teaching about global warming in the National Curriculum, the "snoopers' charter" (surprised you missed that one, the Lib Dem veto was loudly flagged by Ms May et al). I know a lot of nasty stuff got through. Coalitions involve compromises, often unpleasant ones. The other side of the coin is of course measures that DID happen due to Lib Dem influence within cabinet. What did Labour block by the way?

Not taking sides here, particularly - I really don't follow the minutiae of politics.
Thanks for providing those examples - I can look into them and maybe develop a more friendly view of the LibDems

cybercheshired wrote: .... We really must get to grips with coalition politics....
I'll be voting Liberal .... but mostly because I'm a liberal.

A minority government can rule without necessarily forming a coalition. It simply takes the agreement of other parties to support those proposals where there is common ground.

(.... and the Liberals are a busted flush. They won't now be trusted by anyone in an Election.)

That anyone should even attempt to defend a party which has willingly allowed all manner of crimes to be committed against the needy, and abandoned any integrity they may have had just for the taste of 'power' and a few ministerial cars, beggars belief.

The LibDems are a despicable bunch of opportunists who colluded with a horrible bunch of spiteful bile-spitters and can now be rightly regarded simply as Tory lapdogs . Disgusting and worthy of contempt.

Well said Phil, just following the Tories to maybe win a few seats in the election.

I'm sorry that the idea of parties actually compromising to work together causes such fury. Confidence & supply can work of course and is part of our constitution. But it wouldn't have worked in 2010 because non-amnesiacs will recall we had a bit of an ongoing fiscal crisis. It won't work in 2015 either because with FIVE parties now contending holding another election a few months later will still not produce a government because neither of the previously "major" parties command enough support. So Labour supporters had better prepare themselves for (a) serious post-election talks with the SNP and Lib Dems (b) media crucifixion for "clinging to power" (c) accusations of treachery from their own whiter than white supporters for not being able to deliver their manifesto. Nick can give advice at this point

If Labour even dreamt of entering a Coalition with the Lib/Dems they'll need to wake up and apologise. I for one will tear up my Labour Membership if the Lib/Dems are even considered as partners for Labour.
The truth be told, I very much doubt the Lib/Dems will have enough seats to play musical chairs with, let alone hold the balance of power.
Pray tell, why have your lot especially Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander spent the past 56 months agreeing every argument and point in favour of the Tories, and have used the self same lies against Labour i.e "The mess we inherited from Labour and we are in it Together". It has only been the past month or so (as we near the 7th of May) when the have turned against the Tories and accuse them of being the Nasty Party, if that was the case, why then did they agree to all the things that make the Tories nasty through Parliament.
I can almost forgive the Tories as all they have been is nothing but Tories and have done what we expected them to do, but the duplicitous Lib Dems sold the Country and their principles down the swanny, as Phil has said for an office and a chauffer driven car. I will never forget this evil Coalition and would never give the Lib/Dems a good word let alone my support.

Bobby, I hope you won't tear your Labour card up. That would be to abdicate responsibility if there's a hung parliament which is a perfectly legitimate (if awkward) outcome of our first past the post system. It is convenient for bigger parties if they get an overall majority but to call necessary coalition building if not  "musical chairs" is surely denigrating our parliamentary system, not to say short sighted. The Lib Dems didn't wash their hands in 2010 even though this has cost them dearly in the polls. I therefore suggest you give a little thought to what you feel Ed should do if he emerges in May with most seats but needs smaller party support to form a government (the polls consistently suggest this outcome, which is the question we are debating here). Which parties/policies are acceptable? Would you prefer to be a semi-lame duck confidence and supply minority government with a fragile economic recovery, on-going deficit and debt, terrorist and hacking threats, pressing civil liberties issues? This may be ideologically more comfortable but is it in the national interest? Or would you advocate a moral rejection of coalition building so hand over to the Tories to have a go with Ukip et al? I get your visceral dislike of the Lib Dems - well expressed by the way - good diatribe! - but those who dismiss coalition building as mere duplicity as you seem to do may be in for a shock in May. Better to be prepared.

Full marks to someone prepared to stick to their guns, but probably in a lost cause.

General Elections through FPTP voting are the device by which the faceless men who REALLY control events throw a crust to the lumpenproletariat, and they are currently mightily disturbed at the prospect of Britain sleep-walking into a rift with Europe through the incompetence of politicians.

There is only ONE party committed to remaining in Europe, so Labour will be allowed to win the next election.

cybercheshired, I believe the reason we have an affiliation with any particular party, is because we think/believe they will do the things we want them to do. The reason I will remove myself from Labour would be, the last thing I want them to do is to join with a Party that has lost its direction, has by its actions gone against all it believed in prior to Coalition.
Like many, prior to their deceit I had a lot of time for the Lib/Dems, the only reason I never voted for them is that I could never see them gain Power. Their policies were always to the left or left of centre and generally quite in line with Labour. When though the chance of Power came their way, they threw all of their principles down the nearest drain, voted through Parliament all the bills they had previously opposed and even allowed the trebling of tuition fee's despite the fact that all of them signed a pledge that they wouldn't raise them.
What we are now hearing on a regular basis is how, because of the Lib/Dems the income tax threshold was raised to £10,000, all very good but when put beside the rise in VAT which Clegg and co signed up to, how much if anything are the poor really better off by.
The Lib/Dems can not distance themselves from any of the evil policies passed through Parliament and should now be judged on every thing that has caused so much suffering to our Country, particularly the poor sick and unemployed.
"but those who dismiss coalition building as mere duplicity as you seem to do"
I really don't know where you get that from, I don't think that Coalition building in itself is duplicitous, what I referred to as being duplicitous is the Liberal Democrats for the reasons stated above.
As for Coalitions I don't much like them, because I prefer strong Government, not a Government who hash up deals in smoke filled rooms, but one in which the Coalition partner will stand up for their core values, and not as Clegg and co have done give up their principles and values for the trappings of power.

Many critise the FPTP system we currently have for voting, but I find the method of PR used in the Euro elections a total turn off as I couldn't tell you who my 'local' representative is. With the single transferable vote we would be more likely to party appointed member who have nothing to do with local issues.
We already have to suffer the parachuting in of preferred party candidates with the local party have little say on who they want but have to bow to the national party wishes....

cybercheshired. Thank you for your polite, thoughtful and measured responses to the comments on this thread. That’s a refreshing change from some of what’s been happening on this forum in the last couple of weeks!  

I note that you understand the frustration which most of us here have felt while observing the events of the past five years. When the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 was passed (which didn’t feature in anyone’s manifesto), when the bedroom tax was introduced (even for existing tenants), when Iain Duncan Smith was telling the terminally ill (and even dead in some cases) that they were fit to work, when a fee of £1,200 was introduced for anyone wanting to go to an employment tribunal, when the period of redundancy notice was reduced from 90 days to 45 days, the question we all asked was “how can the Lib Dems allow this to happen?”. More recently, some of us seethed with anger when Nick Clegg did PMQs and parroted the tired old Tory lie that Labour caused the global credit crisis of 2008.

However, you are right to look ahead and focus on what might happen in May. The polls do point to another hung parliament, though that could depend on how many of those who say they’re voting UKIP, Green or SNP decide in the end to return to the party they voted for previously. If, as Electoral Calculus predicted in December, Labour ends up a few seats short of an overall majority, it could govern alone. Sinn Fein has never yet turned up (its members won’t swear allegiance to the British monarchy), and I believe SDLP members take the Labour whip. I can’t see Caroline Lucas or George Galloway, if they retain their seats, ever voting with the Tories, and the same could be said of Plaid Cymru members. As to the SNP, although it helped to bring down a Labour government in 1979, it’s already ruled out working with the Tories in a hung parliament as it knows they are particularly toxic to the Scots.

I don't think UKIP will win more than three or four seats, and it’s extremely unlikely that the Tories will gain a majority for the first time in 23 years. If the Tories are to be in government again after the election, they might only be able to do so with another coalition with what’s left of the Lib Dems. I suspect that Nick Clegg would go along with that, but reports on the ground from Sheffield (the students who were betrayed have graduated by now, but the locals still haven’t forgotten Forgemasters) suggest he might not get re-elected. So the onus will probably be on Labour to form a government, but what if they can’t govern alone?

A ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement could work, especially as in a fixed-term parliament a general election isn’t automatically the result if a government is defeated. Or there would have to be a coalition, and there are only two realistic possibilities. According to UK Polling Report, the one which would be most popular with Labour voters would be with the Lib Dems. But wouldn’t it be the height of cynicism and opportunism for the Lib Dems to join a government which then repeals measures they had helped to pass, such as the Health and Social Care Act and the bedroom tax? The alternative is a coalition with the SNP, which could well be the third largest party after the election. But what price would the SNP extract for such an arrangement? Another referendum on Scottish independence no doubt!

The most ridiculous idea, probably emanating from Lynton Crosby, is that we could follow Germany and have a Tory/Labour coalition. That suggestion has been floated to help peddle the myth that basically the main parties "are all the same", in the hope that non-Tories don’t then bother to use their votes (“what’s the point?”). I can’t see anyone in the Labour leadership going along with such an idea, and it would see thousands of us cutting up our membership cards, but then who’d have thought that the Lib Dems, who campaigned to the left of Labour in 2010, would ever join the Tories in government? Harold Wilson was so right when he said “a week is a long time in politics”.

The prospect of teaming up with Clegg must be a appetising one indeed. Here we have a man who lied to LibDem voters, propped up a vicious Tory government for his own selfish purposes and now-at the eleventh hour- seeks to tell us all how wicked the Tories really are.

Given all that, could the  slimy toad be believed if he told anyone foolish enough to trust him that Christmas Day is on 25 December?

If Labour joined up with the lib/dems in a coalition, I would cut up my membership card too.
As the lib/dems are only Tories under a different flag.
Well said Phil.

Six of these people want the other one to fail



Don't you feel sorry for him?

I take it that it is the Tory prick that they want to fail OW? NOT BEING SO GOOD ON PHOTOGRAPHS EXCEPT 3 main ones of course!!!

Phil Hornby wrote:That anyone should even attempt to defend a party which has willingly allowed all manner of crimes to be committed against the needy, and abandoned any integrity they may have had just for the taste of 'power' and a few ministerial cars, beggars belief.

The LibDems are a despicable bunch of opportunists who colluded with a horrible bunch of spiteful bile-spitters and can now be rightly regarded simply as Tory lapdogs . Disgusting and worthy of contempt.

I agree with what  have said Phil, I heard the other day that the Uni fee increase did not have to happen according to a Tory they were quite willing to let the tuition fees be scrapped.

I wonder if Clegg will survive as leader of the LibDems, and if he doesn't, I wonder if a different leader would change anyone's attitude to a possible coalition including LibDems with Labour?

I read an interview with Tim Fallon (?) a little time ago, and he seems as if he would be a slightly less toxic leader for the party

I think you mean Tim Farron, who is certainly on the left of the Lib Dems. Fallon (as in Michael) is the Tory defence secretary who seems to have had a charisma by-pass operation, but whether he had it on the NHS or went private I've yet to ascertain.

Yes, you're right - I do mean Farron - he seemed to be a contender for leader of the LibDems and rather more palatable to those of us on the left of the political spectrum.

If Clegg loses his seat, maybe the LibDems might seem like a different party