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UK - Election 2015

LondonJohn said:
The exit polls focus almost exclusively on the top 100-120 marginal seats, which is where elections are entirely won and lost.

There were real people standing outside polling booths in those constituencies, gathering real data on how real people had actually just voted. Therefore the outcomes in these marginals can be predicted with high statistical significance.

By contrast, for example, the first constituency to declare - Houghton and Sunderland South - was the 136th-safest seat in the whole country in 2010 (or the 514th-most-marginal). It was, and is, irrelevant for pollsters who are trying to call the election result.
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We will see what happens overall but my point is not about the overall result, it is about the political segregation on a geographical basis
 
angrysoba said:
I think Thatcher's second election resulted in more seats from a reduced vote so the popular vote itself is not the important figure. Besides much of the loss for Labour will happen in Scotland. Not sure where the increased Tory seats are supposed to come from though.
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From the LibDem implosion?

Labour, OTOH, are predicted to lose 19 seats overall, but lose something like 40 in Scotland. So that means they actually win around 20 seats in England&Wales.
 
malicus said:
Clegg surely cannot survive this, even as part of another coalition.
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My bet:

Clegg will keep his seat. Clegg will lead negotiatons for a new coalition with the Conservatives, in which the LibDems will accept a greatly reduced role. Clegg will not take a position in the new government, and will announce his intention to stand down as leader of the party. Danny Alexander or Ed Davey will become leader (provided Alexander retains his seat). The LibDems will get one minor economic position in the cabinet and one other cabinet seat.
 
Lothian said:
We will see what happens overall but my point is not about the overall result, it is about the political segregation on a geographical basis
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I agree. But exit polls are designed to account for all these sorts of variations, since they are based on actual voting patterns in actual marginal constituencies.
 
I am (from a nerds perspective) interested in the BBC forecast. The prediction has not changed after the three declarations to date. Those declarations bucked the general Tory swing. That suggests that the prediction is on a constituency basis as opposed to a national voting pattern. Yet I am sure earlier the predictors couldn't indicate where the 2nd UKIP seat might come from which suggests the prediction is not on a constituency basis. [/confused]
 
LondonJohn said:
My bet:

Clegg will keep his seat. Clegg will lead negotiatons for a new coalition with the Conservatives, in which the LibDems will accept a greatly reduced role. Clegg will not take a position in the new government, and will announce his intention to stand down as leader of the party. Danny Alexander or Ed Davey will become leader (provided Alexander retains his seat). The LibDems will get one minor economic position in the cabinet and one other cabinet seat.
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As long as it's not Vince Cable!

What do you reckon Andy Burnham's chances would be in a leadership contest for Labour?

The BBC is suggesting Gorgeous George Galloway may have lost his seat. This election is certainly throwing up some surprises.
 
Agatha said:
As long as it's not Vince Cable!

What do you reckon Andy Burnham's chances would be in a leadership contest for Labour?

The BBC is suggesting Gorgeous George Galloway may have lost his seat. This election is certainly throwing up some surprises.
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Fast moving night. Reports Danny Alexander has lost.
 
Lothian said:
I am (from a nerds perspective) interested in the BBC forecast. The prediction has not changed after the three declarations to date. Those declarations bucked the general Tory swing. That suggests that the prediction is on a constituency basis as opposed to a national voting pattern. Yet I am sure earlier the predictors couldn't indicate where the 2nd UKIP seat might come from which suggests the prediction is not on a constituency basis. [/confused]
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It's a pan-broadcaster exit poll (which is one of the reasons it's so powerful, since it's an amalgamation of resources).

It looks primarily at the top 100-120 marginal seats, but with lesser surveys conducted in the next 100 or so seats as well. It uses a combination of purely local (i.e. seat-by-seat) absolute analysis and trend analysis to predict the outcome.

The main (real) reason why one of the poll's custodians was unwilling to say where Ukip's two predicted seats would come from is that exit polls never call individual seats. But on top of that, it's likely that there are three seats in which the exit polling shows Ukip as having a decent chance of winning, and an algorithm and trend analysis applied to those raw numbers suggests that two out of the three (but not which two exactly) will be won by Ukip.

And in addition to that, the tiny number of seats being predicted for Ukip means that by definition, margins of error for the 2 Ukip seats could turn out to be disproportionately large (while the overall statistical significance of the poll remains very high).
 
Watching the BBC forecast they are highlighting whether there is an incumbent MP. From a personal perspective I think a locally active MP can gain or lose votes in way that is separate from their political allegiance. I wonder how this might have affected the exit polls, if at all.
 
I'm hoping for 53 SNP seats, as I got good odds on that at Ladbrokes and stand to get fifteen quid. Under 49 seats then I'm twenty quid up. But fingers crossed for mid to high 50s.
 
Agatha said:
As long as it's not Vince Cable!

What do you reckon Andy Burnham's chances would be in a leadership contest for Labour?

The BBC is suggesting Gorgeous George Galloway may have lost his seat. This election is certainly throwing up some surprises.
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My best bet for next Labour leader:

Chuka Umunna


(I think Burnham is too much "used goods" - even though he's still quite young.)

As another possibility: Douglas Alexander.

And as a left-field suggestion (but not as crazy as it at first might sound): Gloria De Piero.
 
Agatha said:
As long as it's not Vince Cable!

What do you reckon Andy Burnham's chances would be in a leadership contest for Labour?
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If Labour lose the election, poor. He is to the left. Rather than support conviction politics I think the Labour party would follow the electors and go for a more right wing candidate.
The BBC is suggesting Gorgeous George Galloway may have lost his seat. This election is certainly throwing up some surprises.
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and some good news.......
 
If Ed Balls, George Galloway and Nigel Farage all lose their seats I will celebrate with fizz every night for a week. :D
 
ddt said:
I'll help them with the argument: the Tories (and Labour and LibDem) do stand with candidates in Scotland, but not in Northern Ireland. That's a crucial difference. The Tories could claim the DUP is sort-of their sister party (well, the UUP is, but who minds such details?).


Now, now, you're not saying they're terrorists, are you? :)
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The IRA? Heaven forfend. Freedom fighters. Loveable rogues, dear chap. Martin McGuinness just liked wearing a balaclava for fancy dress parties, etc...
 
ddt said:
From the LibDem implosion?

Labour, OTOH, are predicted to lose 19 seats overall, but lose something like 40 in Scotland. So that means they actually win around 20 seats in England&Wales.
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That'll be it. Sick of voting Lib Dem and ending up with a Tory agenda, voters decide to cut out the middleman.
 
I love the standard response (currently being nicely demonstrated by Yvette Cooper on BBC) of politicians to unfavourable polls: "I'm baffled - it doesn't reflect what I and my colleagues were seeing and hearing on doorsteps up and down the country".

There seems to be confusion and indecision in Lab Party HQ right now about what the right message ought to be, in the light of the exit poll. Should the poll's legitimacy and accuracy be questioned, or should the debate now move on to pointing out how the exit poll suggests that the Tories would only scrape a majority with LibDem support?

I suspect there's widespread panic in Brewer's Green right now.............
 
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