Poll: General election voting round 4

[McPhee]

A useful overview:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ent-dont-panic-democracy-will-take-its-course

Bingo.

If Labour and the SNP have 326 seats between them, there will be no Tory government. The Conservatives could land the other 325 and it still wouldn't matter - both parties would vote them down. We'd get a minority Labour government or another election instead. It's like that to prevent elections from delivering powerless governments (i.e. ones that don't have enough power in the House to actually pass legislation).

 

[jimjamuk]

Bingo.

If Labour and the SNP have 326 seats between them, there will be no Tory government. The Conservatives could land the other 325 and it still wouldn't matter - both parties would vote them down. We'd get a minority Labour government or another election instead. It's like that to prevent elections from delivering powerless governments (i.e. ones that don't have enough power in the House to actually pass legislation).

Well unless the Lib Dems and or the UKIP parties put in with the Conservatives. Theres going to be a few king makers this time round

 

[ElliorR]

This is the first election sine 1997 I'm actually......, I won't say excited as that's the wrong word but I can't think of the suitable word. Shame Blair turned out the way he did.

I do wonder how things would be if John Smith hadn't died.

 

[elmarko]

Well unless the Lib Dems and or the UKIP parties put in with the Conservatives. Theres going to be a few king makers this time round

Even if they did, they would need more than Labour, SNP, Plaid & most likely the singular Green party MP (if they retain the seat) combined to form a government.

Judging by the polls this isn't looking likely.

Based on how many Liberal Democrat voters have abandoned them for Labour it would make more tactical sense for them to join a coalition with Labour than the Conservatives (the latter would like be the final nail in the coffin if they are seen to save a minority Conservative government again).

 

[scorza]

Well unless the Lib Dems and or the UKIP parties put in with the Conservatives. Theres going to be a few king makers this time round

Well no, as satchef said if Labour + SNP >= 326 seats then the Conservatives cannot form a government, simple, as they won't be able to get their Queen's Speech through parliament unless Labour or the SNP vote for it, which just ain't gonna happen.

 

[elmarko]

Well no, as satchef said if Labour + SNP >= 326 seats then the Conservatives cannot form a government, simple, as they won't be able to get their Queen's Speech through parliament unless Labour or the SNP vote for it, which just ain't gonna happen.

It's unlikely they will need that many either, as Plaid, Respect & the Greens are also going to be a no go.

I'd say if the SNP & Labour have 320 between them they will be in power shortly after.

 

[joeyjojo]

They are talking about a series of articles written by one guy and a summary he wrote for the new statesman. Neither of which tally with the majority opinion.

As others have noted above (and it even says so in the article if you'd bothered to read it) macroeconomists are unfavourable of Osborne's austerity.

It seems to me there are two scenarios really, you choose the one you think more likely:

• Osborne is right, the unprecedented strategy of imposing austerity in times of low demand and low central bank interest rates is working, despite economic theory. Most macroeconomists are wrong. Reducing the budget deficit is actually the be-all-and-end-all.
• Macroeconomic theory is right, and the previous government cut public services because they want a leaner state. By oversimplifying the economics and blaming the previous govt. they "sold" reducing the deficit to the public, despite it being the exact opposite thing to do when faced with a recession.

The third stage in the austerity deception was to pretend that the policy change in 2012 was not a change in policy. The truth is plain to see in the data, but it was vital for Osborne not to admit that he was easing up on austerity. If he had admitted to changing his policy, he would have had to say why: austerity was delaying the recovery. All this stuff about a “long-term economic plan” can be seen as part of the effort to cover up the reversal and, therefore, the austerity mistake.

Very relevant - I'm so sick of hearing "long term plan".

 

[McPhee]

It's unlikely they will need that many either, as Plaid, Respect & the Greens are also going to be a no go.

I'd say if the SNP & Labour have 320 between them they will be in power shortly after.

You've also got to subtract the Speaker and the Sinn Fein MPs, and I'm not sure what the other NI parties and independent MPs across the UK would do. It could be that Labour are able to get in on as low as 265 with support from other parties and a few abstentions.

Surely this has to be the Parliament where the voting system finally gets fixed? This election is making a mockery of FPTP and many other aspects of our current electoral system.

 

[do_ron_ron]

You've also got to subtract the Speaker and the Sinn Fein MPs, and I'm not sure what the other NI parties and independent MPs across the UK would do. It could be that Labour are able to get in on as low as 265 with support from other parties and a few abstentions.

Surely this has to be the Parliament where the voting system finally gets fixed? This election is making a mockery of FPTP.

Why? Is it because the electorate have for the past election and this one(unless something earthshattering that nobody expects happens) do not trust either Labour or the Conservatives and are voting for others?

Far, far from a mockery, the past ten years have shown that the system is in rude health.

 

[Scania]

I see Milliband is trying to blame Cameron with regard to the recent refugee disaster, I personally think this is just another example of how wholly unsuitable the man is for the highest office in the land.

He's using a tragic event for domestic political point scoring, and a poor attempt at that.

I'm no great fan of Cameron or indeed the majority of today's supposed political heavyweights, but, he's by far the person I prefer to represent the UK on the world stage.

 

[RSR]

Conservatives.

 

[ubersonic]

As others have noted above (and it even says so in the article if you'd bothered to read it) macroeconomists are unfavourable of Osborne's austerity.

It seems to me there are two scenarios really, you choose the one you think more likely:

• Osborne is right, the unprecedented strategy of imposing austerity in times of low demand and low central bank interest rates is working, despite economic theory. Most macroeconomists are wrong. Reducing the budget deficit is actually the be-all-and-end-all.
• Macroeconomic theory is right, and the previous government cut public services because they want a leaner state. By oversimplifying the economics and blaming the previous govt. they "sold" reducing the deficit to the public, despite it being the exact opposite thing to do when faced with a recession.

How about:

• Osborne is right, the strategy is working in support of the economic theory. Some macroeconomists (including the ones that you believe represent all economists) are wrong. Reducing the budget deficit is actually helping.

Or an even easier way too look at it:

• Is the country recovering? Yes
• Are other countries recovering? Yes
• Are most recovering as fast as us? No
• Have we overtaken countries that were in a much better position post crash? Yes
• Does that indicate that the governments plan is working? Yes
• Better than the plans of mos other countries? Yes

The only country which is really doing better at recovery is Germany who were hit less by the crash and had a stronger economy to fight back against it, and compared to us they have underachieved.

 

[ubersonic]

I see Milliband is trying to blame Cameron with regard to the recent refugee disaster, I personally think this is just another example of how wholly unsuitable the man is for the highest office in the land.

Indeed, he personally voted in favour of bombing Libya, and he has since done nothing to try and raise awareness of or combat the problems that arose afterwards. Until the last few days he didn't care in the slightest about what was going on there.

 

[TheBiznes]

I see Milliband is trying to blame Cameron with regard to the recent refugee disaster, I personally think this is just another example of how wholly unsuitable the man is for the highest office in the land.

He's using a tragic event for domestic political point scoring, and a poor attempt at that.

I'm no great fan of Cameron or indeed the majority of today's supposed political heavyweights, but, he's by far the person I prefer to represent the UK on the world stage.

I agree.

I think the decision right or wrong about Syria where Ed Milliband mislead Cameron into thinking he agreed only to turn around and backtrack 2 days later. Yes it was probably the right thing to do, and you can have second thoughts, but at the time again it looked more like point scoring and indecision.

Today only showed exactly the same trait of blame for point score. If they had spent time deciding the future of Libya in the day or so they had to act I doubt the people of Bengazzi would have survived under Ed's indecisive leadership.

Why after all this time hadn't he spoke about this in the commons or raised it in a speech. I am no fan of Labour or Tony Blair, but I would rather have him than Ed Millaband as leader even after the fiasco of Iraq.

It both parties really want to save the Union though and Conservatives don't get a majority. Perhaps both parties should form a grand coalition. To save the Union if only for a few years to stop the SNP devouring all the will of the people of Scotland that voted NO.

 

[Zethor]

• Osborne is right, the strategy is working in support of the economic theory. Some macroeconomists (including the ones that you believe represent all economists) are wrong. Reducing the budget deficit is actually helping.

This is just blind stubborness, you were given enough arguments and links that prove austerity didn't work and you've shown no evidence to support the claim that it had beneficial effects.

 

[Mr C]

Wow, damning series of blog posts about the economic policies of this government from that Oxford professor I linked in the last thread.

UK mediamacro myths: an introduction
Mediamacro myth 1: 2010 Britain faced a financial crisis
Mediamacro myth 2: Labour profligacy
Mediamacro myth 3: the 2007 boom

I haven't read them all yet (and I think there might be more on the way).

For a summary check out the article in the New Statesman:

The economic consequences of George Osborne: covering up the austerity mistake
How did the coalition government manage to transform the media debate on macroeconomics so comprehensively - and what will happen now they have?



Essential reading IMO, presumably on the dangers of media/popular/pub economics...

Good articles but I believe that our deficit is still very high in relation to our GDP when compared to other nations and that budget cuts should be necessary to maintain a reasonable amount of headroom for when the next recession inevitably hits.

The facts say this is pure nonsense. The economy had begun to recover from the recession, and this recovery might have continued if it had not been hit on the head by domestic and Eurozone austerity

I must say that even though our own austerity did not help, the Eurozone austerity was far greater and was completely out of our government's control so it is something you can't blame the government for using the word "crisis" when factors out of their control are directly influencing the economy.

The thing with economic theory is that there is so many variables in the global economy there is no easy solution to solving the problems, you can argue that Germany is doing far greater harm to the EU and UK by their forced constant surplus, lack of expenditure on infrastructure and refusal to use QE in the Eurozone for such a long period of time since the crash. Then there is Japan which has had the highest deficit and almost no growth for over a decade and USA who were the first to dig themselves out of the recession with QE. All of these approach economics differently simply because of social, political and historical factors, so it is almost impossible to critique the current and previous government based on figures alone.

Overall I cant fault his analysis, but I never had any false pretences that Labour trashed our economy in the first place but I do believe some of their spending was poorly placed, e.g. unnecessary inflation of middle management and inefficient working practices within local councils and public services and if governments can't be trusted to spend efficiently then they should at least reduce spending to minimise losses in the first place and not just spend for the sake of creating "jobs". So even though it is likely that the spending cuts from the Tories did slow down economic growth I personally believe it was a necessary reform to make our country more efficient and able to deal with future crisis.

The benefit of austerity is generally long term and such you would be unable to analyse them fairly in the short term.

 

[scorza]

This is just blind stubborness, you were given enough arguments and links that prove austerity didn't work and you've shown no evidence to support the claim that it had beneficial effects.

That doesn't sound like ubersonic at all

 

[McPhee]

Why? Is it because the electorate have for the past election and this one(unless something earthshattering that nobody expects happens) do not trust either Labour or the Conservatives and are voting for others?

Far, far from a mockery, the past ten years have shown that the system is in rude health.

From electionforecast.co.uk's figures:

The Conservatives are projected to have 283 seats with 34.3% of the vote.
Labour are projected to have 270 seats with 32.6% of the vote.

Everyone else is projected to have a total of 97 seats from 33.1% of the vote.
Of those seats, 48 are projected for the SNP from a vote share of just 3.7% (the same as the Greens, who are projected to have one seat).

The fact is, for millions of people across the country, it doesn't matter what they think. It doesn't matter what their view is. It doesn't even matter if they vote (though they should do so anyway). First Past The Post ensures that their vote, their views, count for nothing unless they share those views with a majority of people locally. That last bit is key to identifying why the system is so unfair - the importance of your vote, the importance of your views, varies depending on where you live. That simply isn't fair.

 

[joeyjojo]

• Is the country recovering? Yes

I've just found a whole article on this. But it's from the same blog so you probably won't read it.

http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/austerity-growth-and-being-economical.html

Saying "we're growing now so austerity must have been OK" is exactly what the Tories have been trying to make people think for almost 2 years. The fact is, we'd be much better off if they hadn't cut public services back for a couple of years then U-turned.

Two things have come from this which are even more alarming. Firstly, that it's now become compulsory for politicians to talk about cutting the deficit, regardless of the economic reality. Secondly, now public opinion is behind it there could be any amount of cuts in the next parliament, for economic or ideological reasons - think of the undeclared cuts the OBR has said the Tories are planning for the next parliament:

George Osborne rejects OBR forecast of 'much sharper squeeze on spending'

George Osborne has rejected the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment that there will be a rollercoaster of deep cuts in the next parliament but refused to spell out what his plans would actually look like.

The benefit of austerity is generally long term and such you would be unable to analyse them fairly in the short term.

Thanks for your post. It is hard and I don't pretend to be an expert, but I do wish people would pay more attention to actual experts.

 

[scorza]

I see Milliband is trying to blame Cameron with regard to the recent refugee disaster, I personally think this is just another example of how wholly unsuitable the man is for the highest office in the land.

He's using a tragic event for domestic political point scoring, and a poor attempt at that.

I'm no great fan of Cameron or indeed the majority of today's supposed political heavyweights, but, he's by far the person I prefer to represent the UK on the world stage.

Ed looking more prime ministerial imo, showing some leadership on the world stage. Do you think that the post-conflict planning for Libya was sufficient?