UK General election: SORT IT OUT YOU CLOWNS!

nomix

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Expecting a hung parliament tomorrow, I thought the Daily Star's front page from may 11th 2010 would make a nice masthead for a thread about this years UK general election.

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I'll be staying up. I expect there must be at least one other user doing the same.

So what do you think? Will we actually see a coalition labour government in a week or so? I think a lot points to it. Ed Miliband may become one of the more unlikely premiers of recent history.
 
BBC's exit poll has the Torys at 316. If the projection for the Lib Dems is right at 10 seats, giving them 326 with the torys, that's a very slight majority. But that's a big if.

Labour at 239. SNP seem to be doing well.
 
BBC's exit poll has the Torys at 316. If the projection for the Lib Dems is right at 10 seats, giving them 326 with the torys, that's a very slight majority. But that's a big if.

Labour at 239. SNP seem to be doing well.

SNP forecast to get 58 of 59 seats in Scotland. That's not going to happen - even SNP candidates will say as much.

I really hope the exit poll is wrong. It's miles away from most recent opinion polls and will surprise many.
 
I agree. I don't think it's remotely accurate, the polling has been amazingly tight. Paddy Ashdown told the BBC he would "publicly eat my hat" if the polls came true.
 
YouGov have also done an exit poll:

youGov exit poll - CON 284 MPs, LAB 263, LIBS 31, SNP 48, UKIP 2, PLAID 3, GREEN 2

Looks more realistic, frankly.
 
Certainly. I do expect Labour to do slightly better though, and the Lib Dems to see a slight drop. Not sure about the tories.

- - - Updated - - -

BBC reporting rumors that Ed Balls might lose his seat. Will Balls be the Portillo of this election?

Paddy Ashdown tells the BBC he's been offered several hats on Twitter.

- - - Updated - - -

Campbell will eat his kilt.
 
Mhairi Black is perhaps the youngest MP since the 1822 reform act, according to Dimbleby. She just defeated the shadow foreign secretary...
 
Cameron must be nervous. If the Tories aren't able to lead a coalition (I think we can assume no one will outright win) Boris will replace him at the top of the party.
 
Cameron must be nervous. If the Tories aren't able to lead a coalition (I think we can assume no one will outright win) Boris will replace him at the top of the party.

Oh, how wrong you were under 3 hours ago ... :p

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-32633099
[...] David Cameron says he hopes to govern for all of the UK as a BBC forecast gives the Tories 329 seats - enough to form a slender majority in the Commons.
His party made gains in England and Wales, including taking Ed Balls' seat.
Two senior Labour sources have told the BBC that Ed Miliband is expected to stand down later after Labour was all but wiped out by the SNP in Scotland.
The Lib Dems are heading for as few as eight MPs, with Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Danny Alexander losing their seats.
The BBC forecast, with well over half of the results now in, is Conservative 329, Labour 234, the Lib Dems eight, the SNP 56, Plaid Cymru three, UKIP one, the Greens one and others 19.
The Conservatives are expected to have won a 37% share of the national vote, Labour 31%, UKIP 13%, the Lib Dems 8%, the SNP 5%, the Green Party 4% and Plaid Cymru 1%.

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Cameron has won a massive parliamentary majority of one seat. With a popular mandate of an even massiver (yes, I invented a word) 36,8 percent.

UKIP is currently at 12,6 percent with 3,8 million votes. One seat. It's a laughably undemocratic system.
 
UKIP is currently at 12,6 percent with 3,8 million votes. One seat. It's a laughably undemocratic system.

while SNP sits at more than 50 seats with some... 6%? cba to look it up... i tend to agree, this is ridiculous.
 
It's the reason I don't vote. The system isn't representative of the population as a whole, deeply flawed and certainly not democracy the way I would want to see it.

Until every single vote cast is counted and seats in government are proportional with the percentage of votes cast for each party then we can't call ourselves a democracy. Of course that will never happen so.........
 
while SNP sits at more than 50 seats with some... 6%? cba to look it up... i tend to agree, this is ridiculous.
SNP is getting the effect the Tories have in England in Scotland, except they're getting it to a much more extreme extent. That being said, 50 seats is just about 15-20 off what they should have.

But if UKIP got what they *should* have had 82-83 MPs. The Greens should have had something in the region of 20-30. The LibDems should have won 50 seats.

But you want the whammy?

The LibDems get 8 seats for 2,362,551 votes. The Democratic Unionist Party get 8 seats for 184,260 votes.

It's the reason I don't vote. The system isn't representative of the population as a whole, deeply flawed and certainly not democracy the way I would want to see it.

Until every single vote cast is counted and seats in government are proportional with the percentage of votes cast for each party then we can't call ourselves a democracy. Of course that will never happen so.........
Well, if enough people votes Labour, the politics of the United Kingdom would have shifted significantly in the years to come, so I don't really think that's true.
 
It's the reason I don't vote. The system isn't representative of the population as a whole, deeply flawed and certainly not democracy the way I would want to see it.

Until every single vote cast is counted and seats in government are proportional with the percentage of votes cast for each party then we can't call ourselves a democracy. Of course that will never happen so.........

Oh ze deutschman system iz so mach betta, lets me tells U how wi makes system so gut! Ja!

Joking aside, while I see your point (and the french system has the same flaw), the german system where votes are cast onto parties* who then in turn decide who they think should go to parliament. Which then means nobody knows who their elected representative is and what they stand for. You just vote for parties not people. And the parties can sort of figure it out themselves, often not really in the best interest of the voters but that of the career-politicians, which we then call "Kl?ngel" (sort of Cronysim).

*that is only half true, there is a second vote (or it is rather called "the first vote") voting a designated individual but people tend to vote for "parties" and not for people. The amount of people that vote for person a and not the party that he or she represents is tiny.

What the mess that is this post tries to bring across is that both systems have their weaknesses. I see a lot more distance between the voters and the members of parliament in a system like the german one. That seems much less the case in places like France and GB. Which then in turn have a complete different set of problems ... bottom line is: Democracy is not easy. And you (MWF) should have voted :)
 
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The system isn't representative of the population as a whole, deeply flawed and certainly not democracy the way I would want to see it.

Seems to be the trend these days...
 
It's the reason I don't vote. The system isn't representative of the population as a whole, deeply flawed and certainly not democracy the way I would want to see it.

Until every single vote cast is counted and seats in government are proportional with the percentage of votes cast for each party then we can't call ourselves a democracy. Of course that will never happen so.........

I actually watched a rather interesting video series on this yesterday

 
SNP forecast to get 58 of 59 seats in Scotland. That's not going to happen - even SNP candidates will say as much.

I really hope the exit poll is wrong. It's miles away from most recent opinion polls and will surprise many.

...whoops! I was wrong.

SNP is getting the effect the Tories have in England in Scotland, except they're getting it to a much more extreme extent. That being said, 50 seats is just about 15-20 off what they should have

The SNP are one of the parties pushing for voting reform (along with what used to be called the Lib Dems and the Green party). Whilst it's true First Past The Post helped the SNP this time, in every general election before now it's hindered them and they are (on this issue) sticking to their word.

Unfortunately, seeing as it's always Lab or Tory in Downing Street, and FPTP benefits them, I can't see any reform coming along. Especially after the AV referendum a few years ago.
 
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