Predict the UK election result.

[Darat]

I don't understand why she's talking about such powers. She's happy to trample on the human rights of people like Tommy Robinson for simply speaking out against Islam (closing his businesses, freezing his money, falsely imprisoning him, arresting him repeatedly to prevent him speaking at marches, banning him from areas of the country for no reason, banning him from social media, repeatedly raiding his house for no reason, threatening his wife, even trying to have him killed) yet when she's confronted with actual terrorists it all must be done according to the law. Give me a break.

Forlorn hope I know but I'll try anyway.

Any chance of evidence for these allegations. Note that is evidence not for his arrests etc. they are well known but that he had his human rights (as defined in the UK at the time) "trample[d] on"?

And any chance of evidence that May tried to have him killed?

 

[MikeG]

......And any chance of evidence that May tried to have him killed?

Any chance of sticking to the topic of the thread? Not just you, but everyone who thinks that human rights, or even Mrs May's take on human rights, is on topic. As a reminder.....the topic is "Predict the UK election result".

 

[baron]

Forlorn hope I know but I'll try anyway.

Any chance of evidence for these allegations.

You should have stuck with your instinct. The answer is no. First, that level of detail is OT. Second, the information is freely available on the internet. Third, I'm not about to spend my time presenting you with evidence only for you to ignore it and trot out your habitual straw man arguments. At least have the courtesy to gain knowledge of a subject before you demand that others engage with you.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Forlorn hope I know but I'll try anyway.

Any chance of evidence for these allegations. Note that is evidence not for his arrests etc. they are well known but that he had his human rights (as defined in the UK at the time) "trample[d] on"?

And any chance of evidence that May tried to have him killed?

Should be relatively easy to fact check. Just pull out the notes from his ECHR case and check the verdict. Maybe his fanboy will be kind enough to link us to where he raised the case against these blatant human rights abuses and where the laws Theresa is trying to do away with upheld that he was right.

 

[baron]

Should be relatively easy to fact check.

A process totally alien to you.

 

[ddt]

May I ask a point of clarification?
When you say "Conservative majority of 80 seats", does that mean the Tories have
a) 50% of the seats + 80
b) 50% of the seats + 40 (and so they have 80 seats more than the combined opposition).

Oh, and in those calculations, do you count the seats that Sinn Féin will win but not occupy?

I'm always confused by this idiom. I have the nagging suspicion it's (b), but as in Dutch political discourse, it's (a) and we have coalition talks going on with speculations on possible coalitions, I'm getting extra confused.

 

[MikeG]

Meanwhile, in on-topic news..........

A Newsnight editor has done a bit of research involving the constituency visits of the party leaders in an effort to deduce what sort of result the parties themselves might be expecting. He suggests that the Conservatives are hoping to gain about 60 seats, if there is anything in his thesis that the PM's visits are a guide to which constituencies they hope to win. Corbyn's visits seems more arbitrary, apparently, but suggest they hope to pick up about 40 seats.

Make of that what you will.

 

[MikeG]

May I ask a point of clarification?
When you say "Conservative majority of 80 seats", does that mean the Tories have
a) 50% of the seats + 80
b) 50% of the seats + 40 (and so they have 80 seats more than the combined opposition).

Oh, and in those calculations, do you count the seats that Sinn Féin will win but not occupy?

I'm always confused by this idiom. I have the nagging suspicion it's (b), but as in Dutch political discourse, it's (a) and we have coalition talks going on with speculations on possible coalitions, I'm getting extra confused.

No, a Conservative majority of 80 would mean they had 80 seats more than the total combined number of seats of all their opponents.

 

[ddt]

Well yes. But I still have no idea why you would challenge my statement that we were on the verge of reverting entirely to two party politics, when quite clearly we have had a third party (or more) at least in the conversation for the last couple of decades. It was a harmless and correct, indeed incontrovertible statement, and I shouldn't have to be defending it.

Yep, you had the Lib-Lab pact in the 1970s and recently, 2010-2015, the Lib-Tory coalition government. It was eminently clear what you meant.

 

[ddt]

No, a Conservative majority of 80 would mean they had 80 seats more than the total combined number of seats of all their opponents.

Thank you! I'll try not to get confused again.

 

[baron]

No, a Conservative majority of 80 would mean they had 80 seats more than the total combined number of seats of all their opponents.

Does it? That's my poll vote screwed. In that case I'll go with 68.

 

[ddt]

Oh and Lib Dems* (who, according to a test I did, I'm naturally more inclined to) may well get a smaller number of seats. Amazing how a party that was on the rise and in a country that has been desperately looking for an alternative to the big two, has fallen so far due to (IMHO) one spectacularly bad decision. No, not going in to coalition or the string of being conned by the Tories to always be the ones giving bad news, whilst Tory ministers were always trotted out to give the good stuff, I think it was purely and simply Tuition Fees.

This was seen as such a massive betrayal of a really clear promise. Clegg could have got away with abstaining but would obviously have been far better voting against. It would have had no material effect on the outcome and he could even have indicated tacit understanding along the lines of 'Having seen the books, I can understand why they feel the need to do this but I gave my word and I can't in all conscience betray the people who voted for me on that understanding'. Then some better marketing on how they'd 'moderated' other Govt agendas and they could have built to the next election. As it was, they looked like lapdogs and that one clear issue proved it.

No no no no.

Clegg should have walked out of government over the tuition fees. Then Cameron would have had no real other choice than to renegotiate. After a week of negotiation, they could have mended the break, with an agreement of no tuition fees but an equal amount of budget cuts elsewhere. That would have shown the public, from the Guardian or Telegraph reader down to the Sun reader, that the LibDems mattered and that they fought tooth and nail for their ideals.

That's how a coalition works, especially for a junior partner - at least over here, and of all British politicians, Nick Clegg should have known, with his Dutch ancestry, Dutch cousins and knowledge of the Dutch language. I'm really not surprised the LibDems got a beating after that.

We had elections on 15 March, and the coalitions talks have no end in sight. Everyone is passing the buck around, so that, in the end, all coalition partners can say "we really did our best to get the most out of it". And nobody wants to play with Wilders' brownshirts, the Labour party doesn't want to play after their beating from 38 to 9 seats, the Socialist Party doesn't want to play with the conservative VVD, the Dutch LibDems, D66, don't want to play with the protestants over "end of life" issues, etc. etc.

I think the other, long-term strategic, error Clegg made in 2010 was not to insist on PR elections. If he'd gotten that, he would have had a near-guarantee that the LibDems would be needed in any future government. No party ever, at least since WW2, had 50% of the vote. And even with the beating MikeG predicts they'll get this time to 3-4 seats, they'll still have 10% of the vote. In a PR system with a big left-wing and a big right-wing party, neither of which has the majority, that guarantees you'll be needed for a coalition.

 

[ddt]

Does it? That's my poll vote screwed. In that case I'll go with 68.

I see you voted "100+ majority" and predicted in post #3 specifically a majority of 138 seats. And according to MikeG's explanation, that means they'll get 50% of the seats + 69 seats - so the combined opposition has 50% - 69 seats, and the Tories have 138 seats more than the combined total of the opposition.

Please don't try to confuse me again!

 

[MikeG]

......even with the beating MikeG predicts they'll get this time to 3-4 seats, they'll still have 10% of the vote. In a PR system with a big left-wing and a big right-wing party, neither of which has the majority, that guarantees you'll be needed for a coalition.

No, I think they'll be around about 7% to 7.5%, which in some variations on PR doesn't even get you a seat in parliament.

They are going to be the main victim, I think, of the demise of Ukip. Where Ukip may have split the right-of-centre vote in the past and allowed the Lib Dems in, that isn't likely to be the case this time.

 

[MikeG]

Does it? That's my poll vote screwed. In that case I'll go with 68.

What did you think it meant?

 

[baron]

What did you think it meant?

A majority as compared with the next largest vote (seat) share.

 

[MikeG]

So you were going for Conservatives winning 138 seats more than Labour? I don't think you will be very far out with that, but that isn't ever used as a way of describing a general election result. The current government has a majority of 12, meaning it has 12 more seats than all the others combined.

For this exercise we ignore the fact that once elected, the speaker is no longer a party member, and that Sinn Fein MPs never take their seats.

 

[baron]

So you were going for Conservatives winning 138 seats more than Labour?

Yep.

I don't think you will be very far out with that, but that isn't ever used as a way of describing a general election result.

I know that now, I never really considered it before.

 

[ddt]

No, I think they'll be around about 7% to 7.5%, which in some variations on PR doesn't even get you a seat in parliament.

First, I'm not going to bet on this prognosis, I remember the previous avatar bet.

Second, yes, I guess it depends on what you call PR. The Irish 4-5 seat per constituency STV system apparently also counts as PR and then I agree with you. I thought primarily of the Dutch or Israeli pure PR system, or the mixed German or Scottish or Welsh system. In Scotland, with 16 seats per region, or Wales with 12 seats per region, 7% would give you approximately 7% of the seats.

They are going to be the main victim, I think, of the demise of Ukip. Where Ukip may have split the right-of-centre vote in the past and allowed the Lib Dems in, that isn't likely to be the case this time.

I don't quite get that reasoning, so can you spell it out more for me?

May out-thatchers Thatcher and has swung the Tories further to the right, gobbling up the UKIP with lots of pro-Brexit rhetoric. I'd thunk that leaves a gap on the Tory left flank which the LibDems then could profit from. What am I seeing wrong?

 

[MikeG]

.....I know that now, I never really considered it before.

I'd be curious to know what you thought a "hung parliament" might mean in the light of your misunderstanding of the term "majority".