Deathray

Odd that nobody has picked me up on this. This should be 1987-2005. The first by-election of the 2010 parliament was because Phil Woolas was a naughty boy and told porkie pies in his election literature. I was going to pull you up on it but was unsure of the technicality of whether the Thirsk and Malton election counted as a by-election or not.

FFS, this is a marathon and we're not even at half marathon distance yet. "That guy" may be well up in the running order at the moment. I was being tongue in cheek, MPFC, given I went from bottom place to around 5th in late Summer in this game once with one inspired pick! I thought "that guy" meant nul points, like. It did Toast, it did.

Aye, but that story is fairly non-specific on who the alleged fraudsters might be. There were allegations of intimidation by UKIP at the polling station, so - does anyone know - are they the ones suspected of fraud. Fraud inquiry closed. http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/577149/South-Thanet-election-fraud-investigation-closed UKIP however have admitted that they used espionage techniques against political opponents in the campaign, presumably illegal, no? That depends on which espionage techniques. Important ones, like reading their political writing or observing opponents from the public road or at meetings are perfectly legal. Infiltration and incitement to commit crimes.

Aye, but that story is fairly non-specific on who the alleged fraudsters might be. There were allegations of intimidation by UKIP at the polling station, so - does anyone know - are they the ones suspected of fraud. Fraud inquiry closed. http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/577149/South-Thanet-election-fraud-investigation-closed UKIP however have admitted that they used espionage techniques against political opponents in the campaign, presumably illegal, no?

Race between me and msc not to be that guy...

I get a feeling that it won't be too long before B.B. King passes away. Early next month would be my guess and I'll be stuck in traffic as it hear it on the radio on my way home from work. My dad will probably text me the news and then 5 minutes later send another text to ask if I received the one that he sent initially. I'd then have to explain to him again that I don't always answer my phone straight away, especially if I'm driving. Can you PM with your feelings about other hopeful candidates in December. Cheers.

Healey again. Sticking to him this time. Can you do me a favour and not remove him in December when he inevitably doesn't die like you did with my pick for last year.

Do we get bonus points for getting the reason right?

Sorry,thats an absolute crock of shit. People got the opportunity to vote on an alternative in 2011 and a whole 42% of the population managed to drag themselves away from the telly and overwhelmingly reject a change. THAT is democracy, not perfect by any stretch but democracy all the same. Im getting massively fucked off at all of the whinging about the result. The Tories polled the most votes under the system that WE wanted to keep. If things here were that shit there wouldn't be hundreds of migrants across the channel risking their lives to get here let alone the millions trying to get into Europe with the main aim of getting into our social and economic utopia. On a personal level, laying my cards on the table, Im grateful that a Political ideology that should have been left back in 1973 hasn't got into power to arse rape ordinary folk like me. There are multitudes of people out there who have worked their fucking arses off to make their lives as comfortable as possible while significant amounts of people around me look on in resentment that I have dared to buy a home and have two holidays a year and a new mowtah on the drive etc etc. The fact that I shifted my arse from my bed at 4.30am to go and put some hours in at work to pay for these 'luxuries' has fuck all to do with anything, right? I used to laugh about my much missed Dad and the amount of 'Angry from Tunbridge Wells' letters he used to write about all manner of things. Thing is, when I really think about it, here was a man who came home with ingrained oil on his hands, smelling of Engines who spent his life working his arse off through the grim times and the hard times. No summer holidays, no new cars and the council house that he bought off the Council was repo'd back in the 80s because the small business he tried to build couldn't survive that recession. So it was back to a council house and two years unemployment for a highly skilled man. A life where he was loved and a life ended in a hospital bed in the lounge of his and mums council house. Angry of Tunbridge Wells was actually angry at the hand wringing 'oh woe is me' food bank society that have grown up completely unable and unwilling to take any responsibility for themselves, instead blaming governments and resenting those that wanted to get on with things. Truly pathetic. As virtually anyone who supports proportional representation will tell you, AV is not PR. The only people who voted for AV were the misguided and Lib Dem supporters. We're the only country in Europe that uses FPTP, and we only voted to keep it in so much as we voted not to adopt AV - that's likely saying Scotland voted to keep the situation exactly the same. I'd be saying exactly the same thing had Labour won the election on 35% of the vote, even if I'd rather have had them in power than the Conservatives. I accept the Conservatives won the election but I do not accept they have any right to a parliamentary majority. And before you start yelling at me because you think I want PR to give us a left wing government, there'd almost certainly be a Conservative-UKIP-Dup coalition in power, which would be even further to the right but I'd be willing to accept it. And as you've said - 58% of the population didn't vote to keep FPTP. 58% of the population DIDNT BOTHER TO VOTE for a better alternative to FPTP. Do you seriously think that they would all have turned out en masse to vote for PR if it had been put on the table? If you don't bother to vote you don't have a say. Apathy was not a demand for change. To clarify what I assumed was pretty clear in my post, I did not confuse AV to PR or ARSE or CUNT, my point was that, when offered a chance to have an 'alternative' voting system, the public chose not to come out and vote and those that did chose not to take up the opportunity. Im not fussed whether under any other structured voting scenario the result would still have been the same because there was no other voting scenario. Whether you accept or not that the Conservatives have the right to a parliamentary majority is neither here nor there, under the system we work to, that's how it is, people are unhappy with not having Labour form a government, that's how it is. To clarify, I don't like the Conservatives and, in the past, I have voted Labour. If people, such as yourself, are unhappy with the current system then you need to lobby your MP where bugger all will get done. Its the way things are done, isn't it. Yup, and this is the crux of the issue. When something hugely disproportionately benefits the two main parties they're not going to set aside their own interest and vote for proportional representation, lobbying my MP on the issue is useless as my MP is a Labour proponent of First Past the Post who voted for the AV referendum over an STV one, and why wouldn't she be with a Labour safe seat?. In terms of referendums, where there is no option for neither, the people who don't want either have no option but to not vote or vote for something they don't want - therefore non-voters are much more relevant than at elections.

Sorry,thats an absolute crock of shit. People got the opportunity to vote on an alternative in 2011 and a whole 42% of the population managed to drag themselves away from the telly and overwhelmingly reject a change. THAT is democracy, not perfect by any stretch but democracy all the same. Im getting massively fucked off at all of the whinging about the result. The Tories polled the most votes under the system that WE wanted to keep. If things here were that shit there wouldn't be hundreds of migrants across the channel risking their lives to get here let alone the millions trying to get into Europe with the main aim of getting into our social and economic utopia. On a personal level, laying my cards on the table, Im grateful that a Political ideology that should have been left back in 1973 hasn't got into power to arse rape ordinary folk like me. There are multitudes of people out there who have worked their fucking arses off to make their lives as comfortable as possible while significant amounts of people around me look on in resentment that I have dared to buy a home and have two holidays a year and a new mowtah on the drive etc etc. The fact that I shifted my arse from my bed at 4.30am to go and put some hours in at work to pay for these 'luxuries' has fuck all to do with anything, right? I used to laugh about my much missed Dad and the amount of 'Angry from Tunbridge Wells' letters he used to write about all manner of things. Thing is, when I really think about it, here was a man who came home with ingrained oil on his hands, smelling of Engines who spent his life working his arse off through the grim times and the hard times. No summer holidays, no new cars and the council house that he bought off the Council was repo'd back in the 80s because the small business he tried to build couldn't survive that recession. So it was back to a council house and two years unemployment for a highly skilled man. A life where he was loved and a life ended in a hospital bed in the lounge of his and mums council house. Angry of Tunbridge Wells was actually angry at the hand wringing 'oh woe is me' food bank society that have grown up completely unable and unwilling to take any responsibility for themselves, instead blaming governments and resenting those that wanted to get on with things. Truly pathetic. As virtually anyone who supports proportional representation will tell you, AV is not PR. The only people who voted for AV were the misguided and Lib Dem supporters. We're the only country in Europe that uses FPTP, and we only voted to keep it in so much as we voted not to adopt AV - that's likely saying Scotland voted to keep the situation exactly the same. I'd be saying exactly the same thing had Labour won the election on 35% of the vote, even if I'd rather have had them in power than the Conservatives. I accept the Conservatives won the election but I do not accept they have any right to a parliamentary majority. And before you start yelling at me because you think I want PR to give us a left wing government, there'd almost certainly be a Conservative-UKIP-Dup coalition in power, which would be even further to the right but I'd be willing to accept it. And as you've said - 58% of the population didn't vote to keep FPTP.

In my constituency, the Tories are 1/100, so not worth putting a fiver on... I'm still tempted by betting that the Lib Dems will get more votes than UKIP overall though. Glad I kept my money there then! Saying that, the Lib Dems deserved everything they got... Depend on you're definition of deserve. They certainly deserved the hammering they got in terms of vote share, they definitely didn't deserve to be knocked down to 8 seats, similarly to how they didn't deserve to be as low as 57 seats last time round.

Caught up on sleep, morning everyone. The votes per seat in this election say everything you need to know about the legitimacy of this Conservative government. It's pretty clear from last night we cannot change the electoral system at the ballot box - which is a fucking tragedy.

Seen at least a hundred comments like this today/yesterday whatever (Bar a cat-nap between 5am and 6.45am yesterday I've been awake since polls opened on Thursday) but I'm not sure it's going to be the impending disaster everyone's predicting. We'll see though.

You've probably heard the arguments everywhere else today from the other seven million people who voted for one of the "fourth" parties in this election and have been greeted with 10 seats whilst the SNP have got 1.4m votes and achieved 56 seats, but it's now time for electoral reform of the proper type (not Alternative Vote) to be put on the table in readiness for 2015. And I'm not advocating this because my party only got one seat, I was advocating it before the election as my posting history will bare out. Cameron's government is illegitimate given the shortcomings of our democratic system. Yes, he earned the right to be largest party but similarly to Blair in 2005 he is absolutely devoid of any right to his parliamentary majority whatsoever. 650 of 650 declared and the electorate's been royally fucked once again, five more years of the fucking Tories - who are already preparing to pass the snoopers charter and look for their welfare savings from a scheme that helps the disabled find work. Although on the bright side they will finally give us an EU referendum.

They all suck. Bring back Churchill! At least that's what the paper's keep hinting at anyway... (allegedly, possibly and any other clarifying adjectives you can think of)

So which royal do you work for/are related to RA? That's too close to be good, Diana and Elizabeth fair enough but how did you predict Charlotte? Oh hang on Charlotte is Charles, that's predictable.

I thought that the other Alexander (the Danny variety) is the one most likely to get creamed. One omission from the list is Jeremy Hunt where the Lib Dem candidate has suspended their campaign to support the NHS candidate. Hmm, that would be a Portillo Moment indeed! Hunt got 59% of the vote last time, though, I really couldn't include him. But any and all additions and contenders are welcome and will qualify for the final round-up after the people have their say. Actually the Lib Dem candidate was suspended for falsifying council nomination douments, although will still appear on ballot papers.

Now switching to Labour: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/04/russell-brand-changes-mind-about-voting-and-urges-support-for-labour Slight problem is most people who bought into his bollocks won't be registered to vote and can't (possibly including him!) - wonder how much the Tories paid him for this stunt?

https://www.change.org/p/party-leaders-reform-our-voting-system-to-make-it-fair-and-representative This should hopefully interest a few of you, it'd be nice if this petition could go big this week to coincide with the election.

Just curious as to what age bracket most forumers fall into.

Nick Clegg.

To be fair, this will be genuine moment to moment change at its best points, and it may take weeks to get some sense of who our next government are. Though how many minutes it'll take most of us hereabouts to get sick of it is another question. I'm probably going to be awake for somewhere in the region of 48 hours around election night, not because I have any need to just because I want too. I've started preparing my election night seat log as well, this is gonna be fun.

The BBC have gone with uninterrupted election coverage from 10pm until 7pm bar for VE day - no breakfast by the looks of it, presumably a result of them having to skip it last time round?

Well that's took half the fun out of election night.