The Scottish opinion poll figures are getting even more astounding.
Surely it won't be like that on the day.
UK - Election 2015
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malicus
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Speaking of neck and neck, todays TNS-BMRB full scale Scottish poll puts SNP 52% (+6), Lab 24% (-6), Con 13% (-1), LibDem 6% (+3).
Fully expect the headline to be "Liberal Vote Surges."
Don't be so cynical!
megaresp
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I knew things were not looking good for Labour in Scotland, but didn't realise they'd fallen to less than twice the conservative vote.
Do you have an electorate-by-electorate distribution? It would be interesting to see where the remaining Labour strongholds in Scotland are.
malicus
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Sorry, no distribution data for this one. The last in-depth one was Ashcrofts constituency results a couple months back, who found the Labour 'strongholds' were showing even larger swings than polling averages at that time. There are no safe Labour seats in Scotland. The days of a Labour MP being a job for life are long gone.
Actually, todays Ashcroft Scottish sub-sample has Labour at 16% (SNP 45%). Not a fan of sub-samples generally but what the hell I'm in a good mood today.
megaresp
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anglolawyer
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I see no reason for things to turn back around so I expect a wipe out. Fun!
Even better time to be an SNP candidate, I would think.
Francesca R
Girl
Paddy Power predicted number of seats doesn't seem to be budging. Con 286.5 Lab 272.5 Lib 26.5 SNP 43.5
No viable coalitions there.
This is suggested, as far as Glasgow is concerned at least, by the outcome of the referendum. According to wiki
Yet the majority of voters in every Glasgow constituency voted Yes for independence in the Referendum. The correlation between Yes votes and Lab voters switching to SNP won't be perfect. But if I was a Labour MP that would worry me a lot, given the vehemence with which Labour opposed independence, chumming up with the Tories to make the Vow; and Jim Murphy going about speechifying in favour of the Union at street corners, mounted on his Irn Bru crate.
The election's just got a bit more amusing. Someone's outflanked Farage on the eccentricity front. But with a serious... point.
ETA: Even if it is satire
ETA: Even if it is satire
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LondonJohn
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I just have a feeling this is being called wrong all across the board. I think that the Conservative vote is still being underestimated. I think that it will essentially turn into a straight two-party battle in England, with Labour dominating in Wales and the SNP in Scotland. And I think that there's still not sufficient note being taken of the dissatisfaction of swing voters (and even some Lab voters) with Ed Miliband, and his utter lack of statesmanship - especially when compared to the only other person who could be PM by June, David Cameron.
I therefore predict the Conservatives will gain north of 300 seats. I'd estimate 305-315. Not enough for an outright majority, but I'd then predict another coalition - this time Tory-dominated - with the LibDems, who should scrape enough seats amid their poor performance to make for a working coalition.
Oh, and to everyone (including all those in the media) who are confidently announcing a radical and permanent change to the UK political landscape, I'd refer them to the early '80s. Anyone remember David Steel's hilariously hubristic clarion call to the SDP/Liberal alliance? I therefore predict that the situation with the SNP in Scotland - and, to a far lesser extent, Ukip in England - will be a short-lived phenomenon. When even centre-ground moderate parties such as the SDP, Libs and LibDems cannot manage to garner long-term support to challenge the two big beast parties, I would argue that it will be near impossible for a proto-socialist outfit or a super-right-wing bunch of bigots to do the same (whether in Kent or Kilmarnock).
LondonJohn
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BTW, to address a question that was raised and partially-answered a few pages back here: in the event of no single party gaining an overall majority (in 2015, that's 326+ seats), the leader of the party which was invited to form the previous government is, by tradition, given the first opportunity to form the next government. So in this upcoming election, if it were a hung parliament, Cameron would get first dibs (assuming he holds his own seat), regardless of whether the Conservatives won 325 seats or 10 seats.
Someone also mentioned the situation after the last election. What actually happened (and I know someone who was (and still is) extremely well connected to the Parliamentary Labour Party) was that Brown actually made a serious - but extremely clandestine - effort to form a government. It's wrong to suggest that he "honourably" thought he had no moral authority to try to cling on to power, and that he therefore gave up his chance. There were serious talks held at extremely high levels with the LibDems and three other parties who shall remain nameless* (Brown would have needed 11 more seats in addition to the LibDem seats to form a majority government). The recent TV play "Coalition" documented some, but by no means all, of what happened five years ago.
* One of whom would probably come as a very big surprise to many Labour voters
Someone also mentioned the situation after the last election. What actually happened (and I know someone who was (and still is) extremely well connected to the Parliamentary Labour Party) was that Brown actually made a serious - but extremely clandestine - effort to form a government. It's wrong to suggest that he "honourably" thought he had no moral authority to try to cling on to power, and that he therefore gave up his chance. There were serious talks held at extremely high levels with the LibDems and three other parties who shall remain nameless* (Brown would have needed 11 more seats in addition to the LibDem seats to form a majority government). The recent TV play "Coalition" documented some, but by no means all, of what happened five years ago.
* One of whom would probably come as a very big surprise to many Labour voters
For me it's got the sort of feeling of 1992, I predict the conservatives will win and be able to form a government with just about a working majority.
Francesca R
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Indeed it is surely a mistake to compete against family. Look at the hate the Williams sisters get.
LondonJohn
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Ahhhhh 1992. Talking of hubris........ "We're alllllll....RIGHT!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TOgB3Smvro
LondonJohn
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Yeah.... not entirely sure that is all down to anything to do with sibling rivalry. It might perhaps also have something to do with things like threatening to kill line judges?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcUIj5JdYZs
And being brothers in competition didn't do Jack and Robert Kennedy much harm, either in their own careers or in terms of public opinion, did it?
I think the issue is whether or not there's a perception that one sibling has "stabbed the other in the back" to get ahead. In Ed Miliband's case, that perception very definitely exists - both within political circles and among the general public. David Miliband was the obvious choice for Labour leader in 2010, and he had a significant lead in support among MPs and rank-and-file labour party members. But Ed Miliband exploited the rules of Labour leadership elections by securing the union block votes (via some form of private lobbying and deal-making that has never become entirely clear). So while Ed won the Labour leadership election fair and square as per the rules of that election, the perception is very much that he won it in an underhand way.
And I think that this issue, together with his physical appearance, vocal delivery and facial mannerisms (many of which should not be a factor in a fair world, but in the real world they most certainly are), are a huge subliminal electoral liability for Labour.
The claim of Cameron's statesmanship is what really annoyed me about the opposition.
Cameron managed to preside over some stonking cockups, some were entirely self-inflicted.
The three that spring to mind are
On Defence - traditionally a Tory strong point, his government wasted hundreds of millions of pounds trying to fit out HMS Queen Elizabeth for the F35C before going back to the Labour policy.
The Government's actions precipitated the 2012 petrol crisis, with Francis Maude giving dangerously stupid advice that also encouraged stockpiling and panic buying. Dealing with crises is the ultimate job of a government, provoking one is pretty poor.
On Europe, at the end of 2012, due in part to Cameron's intransigence, Eurocrats received an effective pay rise as the "Special Levy" lapsed due to a lack of agreement on their pay and conditions.
It makes me cross because the opposition weren't competent enough to hit the open goals, which tends to support the contention that they aren't that effective.
LondonJohn
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You might be confusing statesmanship and political stewardship. The examples you're citing are failings of the latter (though good spin-doctoring has more or less neutralised them). The former - statesmanship - is a far more intangible quality. It has to do with whether a person looks, sounds and acts like a leader.
At a very base (and somewhat reductive) level, imagine a typical British person sitting with a friend from another country (US or Germany, say), when the British Prime Minister comes on TV to make a statement after (say) a terrorist attack. Thatcher, Blair, Brown and Cameron all, intangibly, feel/felt "right" to be the person standing there at that point. Major and Callahan arguably did not feel "right". Ed Miliband almost unarguably does not feel "right".
As I've said before, he looks like a 5th former who unexpectedly finds himself in the school debating society with a whole lot of 6th formers. He is plastic and practised, coached to the Nth degree, and well below the calibre of person one would expect to be aspiring to high public office in this country. There are plenty of talented people in the Labour party..........but he isn't one of them.