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.

Alternatively begin here:

http://www.allysonpollock.com/

or

A film-clip is at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/nhs-sos

Thanks for that - food for thought

Tashski I disagree I think with the way the Tories have treated the majority of the UK public, and LIED about everything plus the scandals that have come out eg Laws been claiming housing allowance on his expenses when his landlord was his partner. Plus people being sanctioned not for anything they had done but because the JCP had targets to meet, I suppose the money was used to give the Tory donors tax breaks plus it also gave the unemployment figures a boost so Scameron could boast unemployment was going down.

Conservatives outspend Labour but we will 'out-body' them, says De Piero

From an article by Nicholas Watt:-

“The Labour Party is acknowledging that it will be outspent by the Conservatives by a margin of three to one in next year's general election, but believes it will be able to ‘out-body’ the Tories on the ground with a new generation of grassroots activists, Gloria De Piero has said. She is to launch a campaign to sign up supporters who are normally disengaged from politics. The shadow minister for women and equalities, who first made her name as a political correspondent with GMTV, has been tasked by Ed Miliband with reaching out to new supporters after the success of her ‘why do people hate me?’ roadshow. De Piero toured Britain trying to reconnect with voters who were put off Westminster after the parliamentary expenses scandal.

Labour is launching its campaign as a party analysis showed a fall in Tory membership in marginal seats – the 31 Conservative seats whose MPs have a majority of fewer than 2,000 voters. Labour says that an analysis of Electoral Commission figures for subscriptions found that 70% of Tory associations in the marginal seats saw their membership income fall in 2013.”

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2014/aug/16/labour-outspent-conservatives-grassroots-support-gloria-de-piero

(No quips about Ms De Piero’s body, please…. )

IVAN At least the Labour party will be able to say the money we spend is CLEAN MONEY given by Union mmebers who are honest hard working people, whereas the Tory money comes from every sleazy deal done in the City of London and all those that got the tax break of 5p costing the treasury £3 Billion in lost revenue not forgetting the tax avoiders & evaders.

"You get the government you vote for" is steadily morphing in the UK to mean "You get the government you've paid for", Redflag.

oftenwrong wrote:"You get the government you vote for" is steadily morphing in the UK to mean "You get the government you've paid for", Redflag.

At least I know the Labour funds come from decent honest hard working Union members, and since that is the case I will get a good clean honest gov't and definitely rules out the corrupt sleazy Tories OW.

Panicking Tory MPs plot to do deal with UKIP - and demand Farage is made Deputy PM

From an article by Glen Owen and Brendan Carlin:-

"Tory MPs are putting pressure on Cameron to offer cabinet positions to UKIP as part of a pre-election ‘peace deal’ with Nigel Farage. With UKIP’s Douglas Carswell predicted to romp home in next month’s Clacton by-election – triggered by his bombshell defection from the Conservatives – rebel Tory Eurosceptics want a formal pact with UKIP which would offer both Farage and Carswell the chance of ministerial office. Local surveys also put Farage ahead in South Thanet, where he has been selected as the general election candidate. UKIP is targeting a further ten seats where it will concentrate most of its campaigning firepower.

The move comes as Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg made a public call for the PM to reserve two cabinet seats for UKIP – or sit back and watch Ed Miliband move into Downing Street. Rees-Mogg says Farage could become Deputy PM while another UKIP MP could be minister for Europe. Now Tory MP Adam Afriyie, who last year infuriated No 10 by forcing a vote calling for an early referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, is understood to privately hope Cameron will agree to ‘unite the family of the Right’.

Up to 100 Conservative MPs are preparing to defy Cameron by declaring in their personal manifestos at next May’s election that they will vote to leave the EU even if the PM manages to negotiate concessions for Britain from Brussels."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2746282/Panicking-Tory-MPs-plot-deal-Ukip-demand-Farage-Deputy-PM.html

Oh no please forgive them with defeat if they do get involved with the UKIP, A fascist racist homophobic group of politicians, and supporters.

Sounds to me like Tories in melt down - but you never know

I hope so boatlady I really do, after what they have done to me they should all have gone down on the titanic.

Most likely result of the general election in 2015?

I'd choose to have total independence for Britain from any Tory government.

One and what actually do you mean by Britain oftenwrong.
two why Tories?

OW would be possible to push the Tories down to the south east of England and leave them too it there, banning them from the rest of the UK??

Brilliant idea Redflag, or why not put them all on a boat with supplies for 7 days and a map for the US of A.

If I put them on a boat stuart I would make sure there where holes in it but would not start taking in water until it was in deep enough water so that they all drowned and any one that was spouting right wing policies would suffer the same fate.

Nice one Redflag.

Extracts from the speech by Harriet Harman to Labour's annual conference 2014 in Manchester:-

Today we hear Cameron's described the Queen as “purring down the phone at him”. And We Are Not Amused. Sometimes it's like we've got David Brent as Prime Minister.

Ed is a leader who at every stage of his leadership has rewritten the political rules and challenged conventional wisdom. He stood up to Rupert Murdoch and ‘The Daily Mail’. He took on the energy companies who are ripping people off. He's rewritten the rule that says Labour has to tear itself apart in opposition.

Cameron is also defying conventional wisdom that says you are at your strongest when you're a new PM, yet he's been too weak to stop his MPs “banging on about Europe”. His party can see the writing on the wall and that’s why so many are throwing in the towel or defecting to UKIP.

Party leaders don't get it right all the time, but who would you rather have? A man who one day had a bad photo with a bacon sandwich, or a man whose director of communications was sent to prison? And Cameron's photocalls are nothing to write home about. Do you remember where he was pointing at fish, cold and slippery? And the fish didn't look too good either.

The Tories are challenging our numbers while blocking an independent scrutiny of them. So let the independent OBR audit Labour's plans, so that the public will see that our plans add up. We know the Tories are going to throw a lot of mud at Ed, but we've got to be really clear about why they're doing that. They attack the messenger when they can't argue with the message.

For the whole speech:-
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/105270/terms.html

It's going to be a dirty election. The Tory Party knows that it is fighting for its very existence, challenged by UKIP and also by internal dissent. (Again).
Miliband is on course with his Rob the rich to save the Poor platform as there are more poor voters than rich ones.

I guess, in a fixed term parliament, the opposition has the choice - constant guerrilla war, sniping in PMQ's, mounting a vociferous and shrill event by event commentary on the government - government still stays in power 5 years, all they do is give opportunities for the PM to answer criticism, look statesmanlike and gain the sympathy of the electorate and the press because he's facing this constant barracking.

OR --- the can keep heads down, make sensible plans for their return to government, let the incumbent lot make mistakes and generally cause chaos (which is more or less what's happened) and get caught out in repeated lies  - then come out at the last minute, reasonably fresh, with an electable set of policies and having spent the intervening years in building up grassroots support in the constituencies.

I'm pleased you're pleased, Bobby - have to say I'm a bit chuffed meself

Andy Burnham for PM please

I just wrote a very long and well-written post for this thread and Firefox shut down just as I was about to enter it...

Gremlins

methought. Sorry to hear that. If you're posting more than two or three sentences, it's always safest to write it elsewhere and then copy/paste it to here. It's not just because a search engine can crash; very occasionally those gremlins can freeze this site when you click 'send'.

bobby wrote:I must admit, I have been impressed by much of what I have heard from the Labour conference, all of the speakers including Ed Miliband, but particularly Andy Burnham said much of what I have been waiting to hear including calling Herr Cameron a liar.
I really hope that they mean all they have said, and as Andy Burnham said, they will from now on take this effing Government to task sooner and not later.
I still feel let down by Labour by their 4 years of doing very little by way of opposition, so lets hope they prove me wrong and fight as hard and dirty as we know the Tories will.

I have watched the Labour party conference from the start until they sang "REDFLAG" bobby, I thought it was a good conference with a lot of good things been said by all the Labour MPs & Councillors. I think I can assure you bobby the Labour party has made mistakes in the past, after all first and foremost there human beings like you and me but one thing I will say they will not allow OUR NHS or should I say Labours NHS to go down the plug hole as the Tories want it to go, after there mates & Tory donors especially the private health companies of the USA that have poured money into Tory party funds.

methought wrote:Andy Burnham for PM please

I think you like others methought are in for a surprise (a nice one of course) I am talking about Ed Miliband and he will surprise a lot more than you, I think he is more to the left than he can show because he must appeal to people right across the income spectrum to get the majority gov't he will need to "Repeal" quite a few of the Tories nasty bills, otherwise Tories and the DUP & UUP parties will join up with them to stop Labour party from Repealling Tory bills.

I remain very pessimistic about Labour's chances in May 2015.

They look too much as if they are still suffering the hangover of the 2010 defeat and are noticeably overly-apologetic and tentative in my book. Added to the absence of any semblance of effective opposition from them for five years and we have all the ingredients for another disappointment.

And they will have brought it upon themselves...

Ed Milliband needs to decide who he is talking to.

If he is talking to slow learners who require a lot of repetition he may just get their vote.

If he can talk to ordinary voters like they are not a single stereotype of low paid mothers, benefits scroungers or thickos then the squeezed middle just might find him interesting.

If he is prepared to declare his principles loud and clear we may not have to just wait and see whether he might turn out to be a decent leader. He is a decent man, of that there is no doubt, but he will also have to be a man other world leaders can do business with.

It's time he put his head above the parapet.
we wait to see.

Andy Burnham on the other hand has fought the Tory dragons vociferously on many issues so we do at least know where he stands on important points of principle.

Points of principle please - in secondary school level English or above, please. It's time to stand tall and lead from the front.

And if Ed is going to have women in his cabinet he should at least have Patricia Hewitt and Glenda Jackson in there, otherwise there is no indication he is prepared to take on board the lessons of the past.

They all look like babies apart from the other Ed who has such a chip on his shoulder no-one wants to listen to him. They need to value intellect as well as working class tribalism. They need to lead on scientific development links to industry. To hear Prescott refuse to talk to Prospect magazine because he is a doer not a thinker has well and truly sunk the party from the intellectual forefront.

I depair of this shower to be honest.

Glenda Jackson is 78 years old and standing down as an MP next year. Patricia Hewitt retired in 2010.  

There's a lot more female talent in the shadow cabinet than in the present government - Yvette Cooper, Rachel Reeves, Caroline Flint, Emily Thornberry, Mary Creagh and Emma Reynolds for a start. And Harriet Harman can still pack a punch, as she showed in her conference speech.

I agree Ivan the Labour party has quite a few fiesty women within the Labour party, I would not like to get on the wrong side of Caroline Flint but I am sorry to hear that Glenda Jackson is retiring she is one fiesty female I have seen her in the HOC have a right good go at the Tory gov't and she does get under the Tories skin.

Unfortunately for the labour party good old Glenda was born too early to be labour party leader then prime minister.

I'm interested to know how many regular contributors to Cutting edge correctly forecast the outcome of the Scottish Independence referendum BEFORE the result was announced.  It certainly wasn't any of our esteemed Party Leaders, all equally stampeded by a single Poll in the Sunday Times.  Which proved to be wrong.

A regrettable number of people seem to discount Miliband before there can be even a whisper of an election result eight months in advance as of right now.  The only question worth serious consideration is whether the invasive and abrasive Coalition can be despatched back into the darkness from whence it emerged four long years ago.  

Uninfluenced by Right-wing Press propaganda it's easy to see that the Labour Party is the only white knight already saddled and spurred.

Unless you prefer to roll over and play dead, for safety.

I was in Germany at the time of the Scottish referendum. Two days before the event, I predicted a 52-48 win for the No camp; in the event it turned out to be 55-45. Interestingly, a YouGov poll on the day before the referendum suggested 55.6-54.4.

I wouldn't dream of forecasting the precise figures for an election just over seven months away, not least because the FPTP system is a lottery and a meltdown in the Tory Party seems to be moving at some pace. Short of France invading the Isle of Wight and being successfully repulsed, I can't see how the Tories can possibly improve on their 2010 result or even match it, and I note that 53 Tory MPs have majorities of less than 3,000. I never bet ("a taxation on the daft", as I believe Dr Samuel Johnson suggested), but if I did, my money would be on an outright Labour win.

It has just been announced that Mark Reckless has defected to Ukip, another traitorous Tory if this carries on there will be no Tories left by the time of the general election comes around in 8 months time, the election could be sorted by loads of by-elections

Living as I do in what seems to be becoming the UKIP heartland, I have to say, I worry about UKIP.
If, as seems possible, they win all 20 seats they stand for, that's quite a decent block vote, which would never be in support of Labour on any of the advertised policies.

Labour may well win, but perhaps it will be a bit of a Pyrrhic victory

King Pyrrhus of Epirus gained a victory over the Romans in 279 BC at the battle of Asculum in Apulia. The battle was fought between Pyrrhus' army and the Romans, commanded by Consul Publius Decius Mus. The Epiriotic forces, although they won the battle, suffered severe losses of the elite of their army.

The phrase 'pyrrhic victory' is an allusion to the battle. John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's Pyrrhus, 75 AD reports that:


"... they had fought till sunset, both armies were unwillingly separated by the night, Pyrrhus being wounded by a javelin in the arm, and his baggage plundered by the Samnites, that in all there died of Pyrrhus's men and the Romans above fifteen thousand. The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward."


Those who fail to learn the lessons of History are doomed to endlessly repeat them. The parliamentary system in Britain is discredited, Politicians are derided and voters disenchanted.

Redflag wrote:OW would be possible to push the Tories down to the south east of England and leave them too it there, banning them from the rest of the UK??

We don't want Tories in the South East!

No-one wants them anywhere else either Sharon, but i'm afraid some poor bastards are going to get them, excuse the language please.

Very true Stuart - I have a Tory MP, but 2 neighbouring constituencies have Labour MPs - 1 of whom is standing down next year, and his majority last time was 192...

Ouch, that is not many in today's political climate is it not? how is the UKIP support in your area at the moment may I ask? as that may erode those few votes quite easily may it not?