UK General Election Thread - New Poll every Sunday

[Akko]

lel iz funny that more people car aboot the Murican elections den UK. Becuz ur cuntry iz irrelvunt and ur Murica's slave,

[StevenChilton]

Fingers crossed for Hillary

[Akko]

Fingers crossed for Hillary

Oh jesus christ, just stop already.

[Harrier]

Can someone explain what exactly is wrong with Ukip? Is it just because they're libertarian, or do they have some other retarded policies that isolate potential supporters?

Yeah it isn't all what Sven said but he did his best to belittle the left.

UKIP, and Nigel Farage in particular, are going about the campaign talking about how they are the party of the people and are so incredibly different from the "political class". However there's a large hypocrisy in that their leader has been a full time politician for 16 years, there only two elected members were both MPs before becoming UKIP ones and they have the lowest percentage of female candidates out of all the 6 main parties.

They also make a big fuss about the media bias against them. However, UKIP are on TV more than any other minor party and nearly as much as the two main ones. Despite having only two elected MPs.

Thirdly, their candidates have a habit of being a bit OTT with their freedom of speech. All the parties have their fuck ups, just UKIP seem to have a lot of them. They've had to ban former members of the old right-wing parties from joining to help prevent further cock ups.

Gotta disagree with most of your points. UKIP quite clearly are different to the rest of the political class (not saying they're any better or worse, just different). Farage actually had a career in the private sector and had his own business before he went into politics, he only got elected after actually doing something with his life. All the others, Cameron, Clegg, Miliband etc all went the exact same route: graduated from Oxbridge, went to work for their relative political parties in central office and then became SpAds, progressing on to become MPs around the age of 32. All three of them have only really ever worked in politics and have little experience of the outside world. Cameron has the most experience of the private sector, as he worked at a PR company for two years. Miliband has never worked outside the public sector.

Probably true about its MPs being former Tories and the relative lack of female candidates.

Come on, you find that in all the parties, it's just the media like to play up the stereotype of UKIP being homophobic etc and focus in on it. I'd argue the media elite is just as narrow and from the same liberal North London background as the politicians. They love to bash UKIP whenever possible.

I probably won't vote for them, but they do raise a lot of legitimate points about the current narrow eliteness of UK politics and how distanced the main parties are from the concerns of their voters.

It never ceases to amaze how much of the electorate buy into these stereotypes and bandwagons when it comes to UK politics. 'UKIP is different, everyone vote for them!'. People were saying the exact same thing about the Lib Dems in 2010 and look at how people have discarded them now because, guess what, Lib Dems were a political party same as UKIP and everyone else. The whole 'all politicians are evil and stupid... except this one!' mentality really needs to die and be replaced by actual research into the parties and their policies. David Cameron summed it up perfectly during the Channel 4 Battle for Number 10 when asked 'What are Ed Miliband's best qualities?'. He answered that he believed everyone who went into politics did so for the best reasons and that everyone believes what they're doing is the right thing for the country, just that everyone has different opinions and priorities. Some are more ethically and motivationally questionable (UKIP) and some are more naive and even dangerous (not mentioning any names), but none are in-disguise Bond villains who will burst into maniac laughter upon winning the election to fleets of black helicopters flying overhead.

One thing I will say about Farage is that he's incredibly charismatic and that serves him very well. It really is a shame what cause he puts that charisma towards, but it wins him voters nonetheless. Combine that with the convenient lumping of all of the country's problems into one pot labeled 'Foreigners', the offering of two simple overnight solutions to it (almost too good to be true, right?) and you have a popularity explosion among the more nationalistic and more credulous of the voter base. A few PR shots of Farage holding a pint followed by an assault on the posh, university educated political elite couldn't hurt either. It's depressing just how well it worked, even if it looks like it will fall well short tomorrow.

In totally unrelated news: UKIP candidate Robert Blay has been suspended after threatening to shoot a Conservative MP of Asian descent for not being British enough for parliament.

[StevenChilton]

Can someone explain what exactly is wrong with Ukip? Is it just because they're libertarian, or do they have some other retarded policies that isolate potential supporters?

Yeah it isn't all what Sven said but he did his best to belittle the left.

UKIP, and Nigel Farage in particular, are going about the campaign talking about how they are the party of the people and are so incredibly different from the "political class". However there's a large hypocrisy in that their leader has been a full time politician for 16 years, there only two elected members were both MPs before becoming UKIP ones and they have the lowest percentage of female candidates out of all the 6 main parties.

They also make a big fuss about the media bias against them. However, UKIP are on TV more than any other minor party and nearly as much as the two main ones. Despite having only two elected MPs.

Thirdly, their candidates have a habit of being a bit OTT with their freedom of speech. All the parties have their fuck ups, just UKIP seem to have a lot of them. They've had to ban former members of the old right-wing parties from joining to help prevent further cock ups.

Gotta disagree with most of your points. UKIP quite clearly are different to the rest of the political class (not saying they're any better or worse, just different). Farage actually had a career in the private sector and had his own business before he went into politics, he only got elected after actually doing something with his life. All the others, Cameron, Clegg, Miliband etc all went the exact same route: graduated from Oxbridge, went to work for their relative political parties in central office and then became SpAds, progressing on to become MPs around the age of 32. All three of them have only really ever worked in politics and have little experience of the outside world. Cameron has the most experience of the private sector, as he worked at a PR company for two years. Miliband has never worked outside the public sector.

Probably true about its MPs being former Tories and the relative lack of female candidates.

Come on, you find that in all the parties, it's just the media like to play up the stereotype of UKIP being homophobic etc and focus in on it. I'd argue the media elite is just as narrow and from the same liberal North London background as the politicians. They love to bash UKIP whenever possible.

I probably won't vote for them, but they do raise a lot of legitimate points about the current narrow eliteness of UK politics and how distanced the main parties are from the concerns of their voters.

It never ceases to amaze how much of the electorate buy into these stereotypes and bandwagons when it comes to UK politics. 'UKIP is different, everyone vote for them!'. People were saying the exact same thing about the Lib Dems in 2010 and look at how people have discarded them now because, guess what, Lib Dems were a political party same as UKIP and everyone else. The whole 'all politicians are evil and stupid... except this one!' mentality really needs to die and be replaced by actual research into the parties and their policies. David Cameron summed it up perfectly during the Channel 4 Battle for Number 10 when asked 'What are Ed Miliband's best qualities?'. He answered that he believed everyone who went into politics did so for the best reasons and that everyone believes what they're doing is the right thing for the country, just that everyone has different opinions and priorities. Some are more ethically and motivationally questionable (UKIP) and some are more naive and even dangerous (not mentioning any names), but none are in-disguise Bond villains who will burst into maniac laughter upon winning the election to fleets of black helicopters flying overhead.

One thing I will say about Farage is that he's incredibly charismatic and that serves him very well. It really is a shame what cause he puts that charisma towards, but it wins him voters nonetheless. Combine that with the convenient lumping of all of the country's problems into one pot labeled 'Foreigners', the offering of two simple overnight solutions to it (almost too good to be true, right?) and you have a popularity explosion among the more nationalistic and more credulous of the voter base. A few PR shots of Farage holding a pint followed by an assault on the posh, university educated political elite couldn't hurt either. It's depressing just how well it worked, even if it looks like it will fall well short tomorrow.

In totally unrelated news: UKIP candidate Robert Blay has been suspended after threatening to shoot a Conservative MP of Asian descent for not being British enough for parliament.

That's normally true, most UK parties aren't that different to one another, but at this election there's a lot of radical voices in the mix. SNP, UKIP, Greens etc, they really are different. If any one of them got into power then life in the UK would massively change (for better or for worse depending on your point of view). But with Labour, Lib Dems or Tories, whatever combination forms the next government life will pretty much carry on as it always does albeit with a few quite minor alterations.

'He (David Cameron) answered that he believed everyone who went into politics did so for the best reasons and that everyone believes what they're doing is the right thing for the country'.

I'll just leave this recent Cameron Freudian slip here...
https://vine.co/v/e7XZ9grzBHK

Cameron's in politics because he desires high office, nothing more. He genuinely isn't driven by a love of public service or anything like that. Say what you like about Farage or Bennett, but they didn't join the more minor parties with an eye to making a career out of politics, but rather because they believed in it.

[Harrier]

I didn't mean different in terms of policy or manifesto. I meant that I die a little inside when I hear someone say 'X party is different!' meaning that all other parties give zero shits about the country and its people except for the party that person is going to vote for! Obviously the parties all differ to varying extents policy-wise, but my point is that some people believe one party to be made of up lying, emotionless, cold-hearted robots while another is made up of kind and caring people who would represent them. It's cringe-worthy. That sort of stereotype, along with a lot of others plaguing politics, needs to be laid to rest.

As for the Cameron clip, I really don't know how much you can read into that. Trying to draw from one misspoken word that he's in it for his wikipedia page over the country's prosperity seems like straw-clutching.

20 hours now until booths open! All polls have it as either tied or Conservatives narrowly leading, going to be incredibly close. Question is will the Lib Dems even win enough seats to help make up a majority coalition with either party? Not impossible that we could have a second election after this.

[StevenChilton]

Oh, I see what what you mean then, yeah I agree with that.

I'm not basing it on the clip, I've long thought that of Cameron and the clip is very recent, it's just yet another indication in my mind pointing to what he truly thinks.

Strangely, I think the election will end up with the same Coalition government we started with, a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition with Cameron as PM and Clegg as Deputy. It might possibly include the DUP from Northern Ireland to get them over the line. So basically, we'll end up with a very similar result to 2010 in that Tories will be largest party in a hung Parliament.

Overall:
Tories: 280-300
Labour: 270-290
Lib Dems: 20-30
SNP: 35-40
UKIP: 3-5
Greens: 1

As for the big names:
Farage will win South Thanet
Clegg will win Sheffield Hallam
Danny Alexander and Douglas Alexander will both lose their seats to the SNP
Galloway will win in Bradford West
Caroline Lucas, Mark Reckless, Jim Murphy and Douglas Carswell will also hold their seats

Might be totally wrong, we'll see!

[Harrier]

Yeah, I think the same. Even have money riding on it!



Will split the profits with people who vote Conservative/Lib Dem! Does this count as match fixing?

The only other thing I can see happening is a Labour/Lib Dem coalition. Nick Clegg has stated that he would give right of first refusal to the party winning the most votes, however, and that's almost guaranteed to be the Conservatives at this point. When he came out the other day and said that an EU referendum was not a red line for his party in coalition talks, he practically signaled that his intent is to carry on as is. For David Cameron, not only would entering into a coalition with UKIP not be fruitful in terms of number of seats but it would be validating and even empowering UKIP as a party in the eyes of its voters who the Conservatives will no doubt hope to win over at the next election. It's the same story with Scottish Labour and the SNP. If Ed Miliband has to throw this election in order to secure the longevity of Labour as a main party then so be it, he'd be a fool to enter into a coalition with the SNP and throw away any chance of ever regaining those Scottish seats along with losing a significant portion of his English voters.

[USE4life]

I've had Cameron, Milliband, Balls and Osborne in my constituency in the last week. Not once have they made it public until they've left. All the parties are too scared of having an encounter that isn't 100% staged.

[Maurice]

Vote UKIP.

[Chantakey]

Obama is best

[Fungus]

Crimean Separatists, best separatists

[Tharan]

I could see tory and Ukip happening.

[Maurice]

I could see tory and Ukip happening.

Not that I think it's 100% reliable, but the BBC Poll of Polls suggests that UKIP will win very little seats. Not enough to consider being part of a coalition.

[USE4life]

I could see tory and Ukip happening.

Even if UKIP win the maximum 5 seats that they're being predicted. It would mean the Conservatives would need 318 seats for themselves. The highest they're being predicted is 300. Tory/UKIP can't happen alone. They'd need the Lib Dems with them and I don't think Clegg would go in with UKIP.