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Jack Whitehall
jackwhitehall
"Farage now has some difficult decisions to make. I'm A Celebrity or Big Brother?"
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Do we need a GE2015 thread?
(619 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Ed resigning this afternoon, Harriet to take over until party election.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Now 326 seats.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@PS
"Labour will be more inclined to look to reform now - on the basis of the drubbing they've received, they will have to do a lot of soul searching as to how they get back on the map in the south of England and in Scotland. I suspect that if some form of PR had been in place Ed Balls would still be in Westminster."
With 643 results in, Labour have 35.8% of the seats and 30.5% of the votes.
I don't see Labour tossing away this advantage any time soon.
If they were to, it would be on the basis that they believe they could usually create bigger coalitions than the Tories.
But the big risk would be that PR would encourage the creation of leftist alternatives to Labour and that Labour would find themselves as an ever smaller factor in the leftist coalition.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@gibbo Yes, but if the alternative is looking like never, ever being in power again? Coalition better than nowt, if under a reformed system with a recalibrated expectation of what coalition actually means.
Who knows, there may even be some Labour politicians who are in the party in order to achieve a particular society/country as opposed to simple football-team-style partisanship and/or climbing the greasy pole?
PR-style system might also lead to a fragmenting of the Conservatives?
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Now 326 seats."
potentially better than depending on the DUP?
Posted 9 years ago # -
@SRD
Definitely. They represent what is supposed to be my "side of the community", but I hold them in the same lack of regard as I do UKIP. Both darngerous nutters.
Better the Tories have no crutch to lean on and no-one to blame over coalitions. Future c0ck-ups are theirs and theirs alone
Posted 9 years ago # -
SRD - wait until the Tory Eurosceptics get up to their old tricks, no longer encumbered by the Lib Dems. David Cameron will be relying on anyone and everyone to get anything done, including the DUP.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@morningsider
The Tories are now led by a Eurosceptic and it will be more the pro-Europe ones (if there are any left) who will be the rebelsPosted 9 years ago # -
I may be alone, but I can't help thinking we dodged a bullet there.
Confess to liking a good number of the things that Labour say, but have absolutely no confidence they could have delivered any of them competently.
The leadership needs to change, and the party needs to change (especially in Scotland. Jim, you're not listening....!), when that happens I'll have another look.
Regards SNP, secretly I think they will be pretty pleased with the outcome, obviously in Scotland, but also in England.
Tory Govt + more austerity + potential withdrawal from Europe all good for the separatist cause.
However, people will be watching SNP MP's over the next few years, lots of unknowns / inexperienced, how will they fare / conduct themselves.
SNP also arguing for full fiscal responsibility, not quite yet, but once the £7Bn hole has been patched up.
If the tories were smart, and really do want to keep the union, giving FFR now might drown the SNP in a pool of their own fiscal medicine as they would have to cut services and raise taxes. I don't think that will happen though.
OK, we never got the predicted "chaos" of a hung parliament which would have been fun to watch, but the next few years will be intriguing indeed....
Posted 9 years ago # -
paddyirish - I don't think Cameron is particularly Eurosceptic (for the modern Conservative party anyway). He originally agreed to the EU referendum to secure the leadership. He didn't have to deliver it during the last Parliament, conveniently able to blame the Lib Dems for this failure. He re-committed to it due to the perceived threat from UKIP.
He now has to enter into "negotiations" with other EU leaders on "returning power to the UK". They will throw him a few bones, so he can go back and argue that he has won concessions from the EU and that Britain should stay in the EU (as wanted by the Conservative's financial backers, the USA and other EU Governments).
The hard line Eurosceptics will be satisfied with nothing less than withdrawal from the EU, and create merry hell for the next few years.
Obviously, I could well be wrong here - but very similar scenarios played out under both the Thatcher and Major governments.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Tory Govt + more austerity + potential withdrawal from Europe all good for the separatist cause."
Not nice for any actual people subject to it, though, unless they're sufficiently pecuniarily fecund to resist the trickle-up whittling and scraping.
It's be interesting to have seen what would have happened if there had been something called something like the Ameliorate Westminsterism Geographical Power Distribution Party, fielding candidates in all UK constituencies (between its several fairly-divided geographical subgroupings). There weren't really any viable alternatives in most places down south - whilst my parents had an actual Green to vote for their constituency turned in the usual substantial Tory majority.
Whilst PR runs the risk of allowing the nutbag parties to initially gain representation proportional to their support, might people not very swiftly stop voting for nutbag parties when they actually started getting nutbags representing them? The alternative might be the nutbags defecting or dropping their less helpful tendencies once in office, upon realising themselves that being an elected nutbag is considerably more difficult (without co-operation with non-nutbag colleagues) than a mere unelected candidate?
Posted 9 years ago # -
The majority that the tories now command makes the next five years a bleak proposition indeed
They'll wreak maximum havok on society's weak, after all that is their inevitable nature, scorpion / frog fable style
They'll openly sneer at the uppity commoner jocks in the house, and we'll all be wincing with embarrassment that we live in such an ugly neo-edwardian society
Here's Tom with the weather
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Despite seeing his party reduced to just one Westminster seat earlier on Friday, Murphy insisted he and his deputy Kezia Dugdale would work on rebuilding the party in time for next year’s Scottish parliamentary elections.
Murphy said he planned to stand for Holyrood in May 2016. He said that Scottish Labour’s constitution allowed him to continue in charge because, despite losing his seat on Thursday, he had been a parliamentarian at the time of his election as leader.
"
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/08/jim-murphy-scottish-labour-bounce-back-snp
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Jim Murphy: 'I can still become First Minister next year'
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Posted 9 years ago # -
Maybe as Labour is more streamlined now a re-boot will be easier - or not.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Off to Tesco on a Brompton. I ate all the chocolate last night. I stayed up till BoJo at which point I decided it had all got silly.
I liked the end of the piece about Jimbo in the National.
http://www.thenational.scot/politics/jim-murphy-scottish-labour-still-needs-me.2781
"The position is an unpaid, zero-hours contract."
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Scottish turnout highest in UK. Referendum increased engagement.
Sco 71.1%
Eng 65.9%
Wales 65.7%
NI 58.1%Overall turnout 66.1%
"
"
@GerryHassan: Scottish turnout: 72%. 2010 was 63.8; up by 8.2%. English turnout same as five years ago. #GE2015
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Posted 9 years ago # -
@Nelly and @stickman
Apologies for being gnomic, but I do think this result makes an independent Scotland all but inevitable. I've no idea of when or by which mechanism, but I do sense <marxism> irresistible historical forces </marxism> at play.
Powerful people on both sides have now found it useful to set the English and Scots against each other. The institutions that have embodied 'British' culture, and which would have been well placed to counter this development, seem all to be in deep trouble. The Labour party is in a right pickle, the BBC will doubtless be subscription funded by the end of this parliament and the army is a shrinking mix of professionals and mercenaries. Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth must sadly be called to the next world, and at that point I can't help but feel that we'll be left looking at each other like we woke up in bed and can't quite remember why or how we got there.
The next big signal will be what the Labour party does. If it tacks right to follow the Tories, if it leaves Murphy in place to amuse himself with Potemkin rallies, then I'll unseal the envelope where I put away my Yes flag and my Aye badge.
Posted 9 years ago # -
IWRATS I see what you are saying but I think you are overplaying your hand at this point. (Though bear with me as I will be agreeing with you shortly).
John Curtice of the accurate predictions points out that 1.45 million Scottish voters have determined Holyrood since 2007, and now Westminster but not the referendum As there are 2.55 million other Scottish voters (though sixteen per cent of the 4.1 million will never vote I guess). Electoral reform society give SNP narrow majority of Westminster seats under d'hondt PR but that of course would give UKIP 83 seats.
The next referendum will be the EU one. I doubt John Curtice will be predicting this at the moment. However, clearly this could go The way of the kippers. This will be the constitutional type change the SNP Require and then we will have another independence referendum. Now that leaves SNP probably trying to avoid making DevoMax work?
As with Quebec this one could be closer. In fact it might be more like the devolution one, so flags will be out their wrappers for sure - though as with POP 1,2,3 and 4 the lottery winners may stretch to new even better flags? Also the Yes badges in cars and windows will be picking up again next week? Interestingly in Republic of Ireland the equalities campaign (for gay marriage and possibly other progressive changes) are using the word Yes as a tool. It is powerful (also from my other hobby - James Joyce- very Joycean).
Posted 9 years ago # -
While iwrats and gembo were writing I was looking at 'the past'
"
Edinburgh votes NO
Votes %
NO 194,638 61.10%
YES 123,927 38.90%Electorate 378,012
Turnout 84.40%
Rejected ballots 460
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http://citycyclingedinburgh.info/bbpress/topic.php?id=13445#post-165640
Which demonstrates how much the Edinburgh electorate seems to have 'changed' - from mostly No to mostly no to Unionist parties!
Ian Murray 'survived' (with an increased majority) partly due to questions about the SNP candidate's Twitter judgements, but also because he is 'a good local MP'.
He is also anti-Trident - which may or may not be what Labour should consider...
Posted 9 years ago # -
@chdot
The local Snippers think that Murray's electorate turned over almost completely between 2010 and 2015, other than working class pensioners. His votes now come from Newington, the Grange and Morningside when previously they came from Gilmerton and the Inch.
I've always thought of him as being a highly energetic, rather ruthless working class Tory.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@iwrats
I have no idea if any of that is 'true'!
Nor any idea of why the collective electorate of 'his' constituency individually voted the way they did.
Perhaps he is just cynically manipulative (of the voters) by talking about 'cycling to the office' and then turning up at PoP.
'Genuine' or a 'true politician'? No idea, but preferable to a fair few ex-MPs!
Posted 9 years ago # -
"
Nicola Sturgeon meets new team of SNP MPs
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Posted 9 years ago # -
I was distinctly skeptical of Ian Murray when he first ran, but I think he's proved himself. Can't think of an issue that I wrote to him about, where his vote or position differed significantly from mine.
And his first election leaflet this year included a pic of him on my bike :)
Is the Ed south breakdown available by polling station?
Posted 9 years ago # -
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This was a very Edinburgh coup, but be in no doubt this revolution in Scottish politics will reverberate for years
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Posted 9 years ago # -
I wonder how much of the electorate even know the name of their MP let alone have talked with them enough to know if they're a decent representative.
Posted 9 years ago # -
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Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman)
08/05/2015 12:49
Totally agree RT @IslaRowntree: So sad cycling advocate @julianhuppert has lost his seat, did excellent all party work behind the scenes."
Posted 9 years ago # -
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Like his political mentor Tony Blair, Jim Murphy was "the future once", in David Cameron's barbed phrase. And now, the lost leader, the man of straw, is trying to bounce his colleagues into permitting him to stay, saved only by the logic that there is no viable alternative in Ian Murray or in his Holyrood colleagues. They must be fuming.
"
http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/jim-murphy-labours-rubber-chicken-fix.html
Posted 9 years ago #
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