Poll: General election voting round 5 (final one)

Voting intentions in the General Election?

  • Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

    Votes: 3 0.3%

  • Conservative

    Votes: 403 42.2%

  • Democratic Unionist Party

    Votes: 2 0.2%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 59 6.2%

  • Labour

    Votes: 176 18.4%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 67 7.0%

  • Not voting/will spoil ballot

    Votes: 42 4.4%

  • Other party (not named)

    Votes: 8 0.8%

  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 1 0.1%

  • Respect Party

    Votes: 1 0.1%

  • Scottish National Party

    Votes: 37 3.9%

  • Social Democratic and Labour Party

    Votes: 1 0.1%

  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 2 0.2%

  • UKIP

    Votes: 154 16.1%
  • Total voters
    956
  • Poll closed .
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
So if we all heckled, used loudspeakers etc how would you have a clue what anyone stood for?

Far better to allow free and unopposed speech, if someone wants to listen let them.
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From the myriad other ways parties get their message across.

If you think you have a better view, get a box, stand on it and convince people. Far far far better debating than just shouting people down you disagree with.
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The problem with British politics is that it has become a sanitised corporate edifice that people are feeling alienated from in a big way. What we have are corporate executives giving speeches and when they go into TV studios are fawned upon by presenters. I want these presenters to be super-Paxmans who tell these people "no you are not telling the truth" or "stop the BS and answer the question". Listen to people in this election, although you could say any election, what they are saying is nobody is giving a straight answer to any question. I would rather MPs felt like they had gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson after a TV interview than continue with our current sham.
 
OldCoals said:
How did he do that?
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I'd forgotten "Ed" got in by courting the block vote of the Unions over his brother, despite his brother having the majority support of Parliamentary Labour MPs and Party members. We could end up with a weak power obsessed Prime Minister beholding to the SNP, Unions and anyone who might support him to keep him in power in exchange for serving their requirements for their support. If that happens we're going to get four years of achieving nothing other than a Labour government borrowing as much as possible so they can splash the cash to try to persuade people to "don't worry about the debt we're running up like last time, just be happy".
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Who cares, as a population we are evolving and changing. I doubt you would find many people at all to vote for a labour party of the 70s in todays world, try trotting out a manifesto from that era.
The welfare state was completely different, it was about people IN JOBS, represented by unions, getting more not those who aren't. Was practically no welfare as people would conceive it now.
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There were more jobs then so getting another one was not too difficult. Signing on was much, much easier. You went in each week, signed a form and left. No questions on looking for a job etc because almost everyone was just signing on for a short time between jobs.

If you want a more left wing party you can vote for green or SNP, welsh lady.
SNP are riding the wave still, otherwise there is no massive support for a left wing party currently in the UK.
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I was talking about the evolution of party politics. Britain has moved further right than the 70's. Welsh lady?

[/quote]I think the two party system is pretty much broken, not that that is a bad thing. Sooner or later we will hopefully move to a more balanced representative government. I would like to see far more power to the public, directly influencing decisions. Really when you think about it, electing a government to make all decisions suited a poorly educated workforce, once the general level of education increased we should have had a better system[/QUOTE]

The two party system is broken because for the last 20 years there has been very little difference between the parties. A slight tweak here or there but essentially the same. Power to the public? Never going to happen. Each party going in promises to do just that and when in power the last thing they do when they have power is give it away. Also our political system relies on Depts. and the top civil servants hold a lot of power which they fight tooth and nail to keep. Educated workforce or not has very little to do with it.
 
Macro said:
I'd forgotten "Ed" got in by courting the block vote of the Unions over his brother, despite his brother having the majority support of Parliamentary Labour MPs and Party members. We could end up with a weak power obsessed Prime Minister beholding to the SNP, Unions and anyone who might support him to keep him in power in exchange for serving their requirements for their support. If that happens we're going to get four years of achieving nothing other than a Labour government borrowing as much as possible so they can splash the cash to try to persuade people to "don't worry about the debt we're running up like last time, just be happy".
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You mean he was democratically elected?
 
Moses said:
If only UKIP voters were smart enough to vote tactically - in a bunch of recent Ashcroft polling, the Tories would win the seat over Labour, if a chunk of the UKIP went for them. But instead of voting Tory, they vote for a UKIP candidate who can't win and risk the seat going Labour (who will not offer a referendum).
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Nick Clegg is also reliant on Tory support/tactical voting for his seat and looking at the polls he'll likely get it

unfortunately the average UKIP voter is probably a few IQ points lower than the average Tory voter
 
John40 said:
I see labour has gone slightly ahead of UKIP in the poll which is bizarre.
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Much as I despise the current Labour Party (as they fundamentally are not what they set out to be) I'm not surprised by this, at least they have a history, serious politicians in their ranks and do have experience - however poor - of both local an national government.

Much as I hate living in my Labour controlled city and feel that Labour in national government has never ended well, I'd vote for them in a heartbeat over UKIP!
 
I haven't voted Conservative for years but I think this year I shall. It's a tough decision to make as I have a social conscience, but I really don't fancy a Labour Government lead by Mr Milliband.
 
Moses said:
Is he reliant on it? The polls had been too close to call, so he may have done okay without any recent 'surge' (which I'm dubious about).
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yup - in terms of overall support for the individual parties in that constituency Labour is slightly ahead, but on voting intentions Clegg gets more support thanks to Tory tactical voters - half of the Tory supporters in that constituency will vote for him instead of the Tory candidate.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...tical-votes-to-save-nick-clegg-in-hallam-poll
 
Macro said:
So we get lumbered with a weak minority government lead by a untrustworthy union man so desperate for power he was prepared to do over his own brother, propped up by a party who has no interest in England, Wales and Northern Ireland except if it's to secure their own position and give every possible advantage to Scotland at the expense of the rest of the Union based on the premise of "anyone but the Tories".

On the bright side if it pans out that way Labour will end up pretty much unelectable for the next 10 years as the electorate punish Milliband for whatever sly justification he ends up trying to sell for doing some kind of "understanding" with SNP in the name of the working class NHS poor <insert tedious political stereotype here>. How many weeks into a Labour government before he ends up using the phrase "I have been persuaded against my personal beliefs to work with Nicola Sturgeon, in return for which I have negotiated hard to secure her guarantee she'll not call for a Scottish independence referendum during this parliament".

In the mean time a minority Labour government unable to do anything without the support on a vote by vote support basis form the SNP will spend the next 4 years unable to do anything of any consequence other than try to reduce the deficit by the standard Labour tactic of borrowing more, throwing money around and hoping no one notices the mess their making again.
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The amount of MDs that have stood up in front of companies last week and the week before have just said literally that. A minority labour government is the worse situation for this country. This is what business is saying. Industry is going to decline. This is a big risk to jobs.
 
dante6491 said:
I suppose he is criticising the weighting of the union votes in the leadership battle. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both have one person one vote whereas Labour do not.
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Indeed, it's not exactly a level playing field as a democratic starting point and then add to which the only way he could likely lead the country is again by quietly getting support from the SNP, not because they agree with his policies, rather to serve their own interests and extract concessions from him.

He stabbed his brother in the back to be leader of the labour party by doing back room deals with the Unions securing their block vote in opposition to the wishes of the majority of Labour party members and MPs. Now it looks like the only way he could fulfill his ambition to get into power as Prime Minister is by doing more back room deals with the SNP despite the majority of the UK electorate opposing his premiership <assuming that's the way votes turn out based on the premise in this thread of late>. At some point the SNP and Unions will coming knocking for their pound of flesh.

Hardly the recipe for a strong democratically elected government given a mandate by the people, you can't knock his preparedness to do whatever it takes to get into No10 no matter the cost though.
 
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edit - interesting, they had less tactical voters from the Tories in the ashcroft polls with the Lib Dems only getting 6% increase from Tory supporters and losing to Labour by 1%
 
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