Red, Yellow or Blue?
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Interesting to hear an 'outsiders' point of view, cheers pete.
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vote conservative!
i think you have to be a bit mental to vote labour. im really sick of that gorilla faced gimp running our country. and what's with his little nervous mouth twitch?!
anyone hear gordon brown's cock-up today? he left his microphone on by mistake haha truly amateur!
I am glad to see there are only 2 labour votes in this poll, lets hope thats reflected in the election.
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Just out of curiosity (I'm not tuned to y'all's politics) How do the Conservatives in UK and Conservatives (Republicans) in the USA match up? Is it just a word or do they share the same values?
I guess in the same vein the Democrats (USA) with the Liberal Democrats on your side. -
Yeah, the repulicans and conservatives are roughly the same in that the major right wing party. Id say your democrats are roughly the same as our liberal democrats, being slightly left of centre (from my point of view at least, im sure you could argue this point) and then our labour party are the major left wing party.
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Are the Green's big enough to make show in the UK?
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No, theyre not really a major player, although as smaller parties go theyre pretty big (bit of an oxymoron there.)
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So what are the major issues that can swing this election?
I heard them going on about Immigration, withdrawing troops, something to do with EU (saw highlights on BBC international)
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ooh its neck and neck!
jobs, economy, immigration, foreign policy, europe, tax and more transparency i guess. oh and lets not forget climate change
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Reform of the electoral system is on a lot of peoples minds as well, i think. With the current system (first past the post) a party can get a majority without getting the most votes, more details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_past_the_post
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Specific issues are probably a red herring in this election. There's little to choose between the parties. None of them are telling us the full story, especially on the economy. You just know that whichever party gets control, the true state of the economy is going to be revealed as much worse than any of them want us to know ahead of the election.
I'd be happy just knowing that the winning candidate had the integrity and morality to act in the best interests of the country and put those ahead of his/her own interest and ambition (and greed.)
Sadly, I suspect that would be a vain hope.
Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..
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@john.warburton said:
Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..
I hear this all the time, but every vote is important. Not too long ago we had local elections where only 16% of the electorate bothered to vote. Yet, I'm always hearing/reading the complaint that politicians aren't accountable. When 84% of the voters are apathetic, of course the politicians are gonna get the message that people don't care and they don't have to be accountable. 16% is an extreme example (our turnouts have improved since), but regardless, anytime there is a low turn out it sends the same message. It also sends our children the message that voting in a democracy is not important.
Also, voting reflects the mood of the electorate. There's a difference between winning with 51% of the vote as opposed to 75% or 90% (although, in this country some think 51% equals a mandate).
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ooh I see there's a couple more labour supporters voted!
they must be kinky! 5 more years of a government taking the piss? no thanks!
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@daniel said:
@john.warburton said:
Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..
I hear this all the time, but every vote is important. Not too long ago we had local elections where only 16% of the electorate bothered to vote. Yet, I'm always hearing/reading the complaint that politicians aren't accountable. When 84% of the voters are apathetic, of course the politicians are gonna get the message that people don't care and they don't have to be accountable. 16% is an extreme example (our turnouts have improved since), but regardless, anytime there is a low turn out it sends the same message. It also sends our children the message that voting in a democracy is not important.
Also, voting reflects the mood of the electorate. There's a difference between winning with 51% of the vote as opposed to 75% or 90% (although, in this country some think 51% equals a mandate).
...and I will vote of course. It is a safe Labour seat - I'll not be voting Labour, though.
The way it is looking, I suspect that we'll be voting again by the autumn anyway.
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@olishea said:
ooh I see there's a couple more labour supporters voted!
they must be kinky! 5 more years of a government taking the piss? no thanks!
Many peope would say very similar things aobut the conservatives
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so?....
What's the buzz?
Are the exit polls available?
Almost time to start the count, any predictions?
I say there will not be a majority, and a minority coalition will be formed.
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@solo said:
so?....
What's the buzz?
Are the exit polls available?
Almost time to start the count, any predictions?
I say there will not be a majority, and a minority coalition will be formed.The first results won't be till ~11pm [6 hours away] - the lot should be in by early Friday morning.
Exit polls will be resented this evening before the counting starts.
The poll here seems to be fairly typical - no one has a majority - any two added together does.
Currently it's either 'blue' to win by a short nose OR 'red'+'yellow' to form a coalition with 'yellow' demanding Proportional Representation [PR] for the next election, as part of any deal. The other alternative is for of 'blue'+'yellow' - but it is not so popular - if 'blue' just scrape in they might try to struggle on alone as a minority government, and then have another election early next year when they have tried to fix stuff and hope for more direct support from the voters. Of course 'blue' and 'red' will never form a coalition [unless there's a world-war/alien-invasion etc] !
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The sooner we get PR the better. It's ridiculous to think that this video by John Cleese was made a quarter of a century ago. NOTHING has changed.
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I was chatting to my daughter Shelly this morning. She is located in Brighton, UK and voted Green Party. The Greens have an increasing presence in Europe!
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Without PR the system looks silly...
Let's assume there are three main parties, each getting about a third of the vote [RBY].
We aren't a lot off this now !
One party [like the Y=Lib-Dems] are 'nationally' popular, but the other two are more 'regionally' popular [R=Labour in working-class / the north, and B=Cons in middle-class / the south areas etc].
In some constituencies the seats go 30:30:40 and Y get them, but in a disproportionate majority the vote goes 40:30:30 or 30:40:30 - the seats go to R or B.
So R or B now make the government because they got most 'seats', BUT Y might have got the same [or even more] actual votes than the final 'winner', and they'll get only handful of seats in parliament. It's possible to get fewer votes but more seats just on this statistical quirk ! -
From my limited understanding of y'all's system (we are pretty insulated from world affairs on this side) help me understand a few things....
PR as mentioned above, is this some sort of Parlimentary reform or election reform?
Are there any parties that oppose reforms?The Conservatives and labour parties have dominated historically, have the Liberals ever had a majority before?
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