That UK Election Thing

[YoungWillz 18,971]

 

Reckon the election result will be a bit of a surprise:

 

My prediction is (seats calculated using electoral calculus):

 

Conservative: 32% (300)

Labour: 30% (302)

UKIP: 20% (12)

Green: 10% (2)

Lib Dem: 5% (6)

 

How many SNP?

 

Well, on that analysis and assuming that all the 5 independents lose their seats and George Galloway is not re-elected, Deathray accounts for 622 seats to which you have to add the 18 Northern Ireland seats. You must also add in the Speaker who is neutral. Therefore that would mean that Plaid and SNP would be left to share the remaining 9 seats, i.e. the status quo (currently 3 and 6 respectively).

 

Personally, I'm not sure either of the two main parties should be banking on achieving any more than about 285 seats at the current time, but that's just an impression from polls and information I have seen.

[Paul Bearer 5,644]

The way things are going, I think the nationalists could boot labour out of Scotland.

[Deathray 2,933]

 

 

Reckon the election result will be a bit of a surprise:

 

My prediction is (seats calculated using electoral calculus):

 

Conservative: 32% (300)

Labour: 30% (302)

UKIP: 20% (12)

Green: 10% (2)

Lib Dem: 5% (6)

How many SNP?

No more than 10. I'm foreseeing a shy Labour effect in Scotland and a shy UKIP effect in England and Wales.

[msc 17,743]

Labour c300, Tories c.260, Liberal Dems c.30 SNP c.30 UKIP c.4 Greens 1 or nothing is my guess. The SNP surge will prevent a Labour majority, the swing from Tory to Labour every poll has shown will do for the Tories.

[themaninblack 2,112]

I could be the only person in Britain saying this but I still think the Lib Dems will poll more than UKIP...

[Bibliogryphon 8,627]

The Liberal Democrats have the advantage of local power bases and some incumbant MPs. They also actually have some target seats where they have a strong local candidate. I think in the end they will have between 20 & 30 seats. I can believe msc's figures above which still makes the maths hard. If Labour are as high as 300 then 30 Lib Dems would provide the magic number for a Lib/Lab Coalition but only just.

[msc 17,743]

I could be the only person in Britain saying this but I still think the Lib Dems will poll more than UKIP...

 

As in seats or as in percentage of votes?

 

Seats for sure. Vote percentage, it depends. I think UKIP will take more votes over larger areas but Lib Dems will take them in their held seats. Certainly I don't see the Greens overtaking either!

 

 

The Liberal Democrats have the advantage of local power bases and some incumbant MPs. They also actually have some target seats where they have a strong local candidate. I think in the end they will have between 20 & 30 seats. I can believe msc's figures above which still makes the maths hard. If Labour are as high as 300 then 30 Lib Dems would provide the magic number for a Lib/Lab Coalition but only just.

 

That's what I was thinking. I'm going positive on the Liberal Democrats too (only half their MPs going *is* positive, currently!). Assuming they hold onto Kennedy, Cable, Clegg, Hughes, etc. If those types start dropping, they're really fucked on the night.

 

I think the Fixed Terms thing will go swiftly into the new parliament though with these types of numbers.

[Bibliogryphon 8,627]

 

I could be the only person in Britain saying this but I still think the Lib Dems will poll more than UKIP...

 

As in seats or as in percentage of votes?

 

Seats for sure. Vote percentage, it depends. I think UKIP will take more votes over larger areas but Lib Dems will take them in their held seats. Certainly I don't see the Greens overtaking either!

 

 

The Liberal Democrats have the advantage of local power bases and some incumbant MPs. They also actually have some target seats where they have a strong local candidate. I think in the end they will have between 20 & 30 seats. I can believe msc's figures above which still makes the maths hard. If Labour are as high as 300 then 30 Lib Dems would provide the magic number for a Lib/Lab Coalition but only just.

 

That's what I was thinking. I'm going positive on the Liberal Democrats too (only half their MPs going *is* positive, currently!). Assuming they hold onto Kennedy, Cable, Clegg, Hughes, etc. If those types start dropping, they're really fucked on the night.

 

I think the Fixed Terms thing will go swiftly into the new parliament though with these types of numbers.

 

I think Cable will be safe and possibly Hughes but Sheffield Hallam has a high student population who might decide to punish him for the whole tuition fees thing. However if he has a good campaign he might hold on.

 

In Scotland I think all bets are off but if I understand it correctly the SNP power is located in the cities rather than in the remote communities. I think CK has the largest constituency in terms of land area.

[Magere Hein 1,397]

I was a bit surprised at the number of seats that's being contested in this election. So I copied some numbers from Wikipedia and did the arithmatic. Ignoring senates, upper houses and such fluff:

 

|ISO| population | MPs | proportion

| UK | 64,100,000¹ | 650² | 98,615

| NL | 16,912,640³ | 150⁴ | 112,751

 

For comparison:

| DE | 80,716,000⁵ | 631⁶ | 127,918

| IS | 325,671⁷ | 63⁸ | 5169

| IN |1,210,193,422⁹ | 552¹⁰ | 2,192,379

 

It turns out the proportion of MPs to total population is pretty close to the one in the Netherlands.

 

¹2013 estimate

²House of Commons

³2015 estimate

⁴Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

⁵2014 estimate

⁶Bundestag since the German federal election of 2013. The number of seats in the Bundestag is not fixed

⁷2014 estimate

⁸Althing

⁹2011 census

¹⁰Lok Sabha

[Bibliogryphon 8,627]

I was a bit surprised at the number of seats that's being contested in this election. So I copied some numbers from Wikipedia and did the arithmatic. Ignoring senates, upper houses and such fluff:

 

|ISO| population | MPs | proportion

| UK | 64,100,000¹ | 650² | 98,615

| NL | 16,912,640³ | 150⁴ | 112,751

 

For comparison:

| DE | 80,716,000⁵ | 631⁶ | 127,918

| IS | 325,671⁷ | 63⁸ | 5169

| IN |1,210,193,422⁹ | 552¹⁰ | 2,192,379

 

It turns out the proportion of MPs to total population is pretty close to the one in the Netherlands.

 

¹2013 estimate

²House of Commons

³2015 estimate

⁴Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

⁵2014 estimate

⁶Bundestag since the German federal election of 2013. The number of seats in the Bundestag is not fixed

⁷2014 estimate

⁸Althing

⁹2011 census

¹⁰Lok Sabha

 

Forgive my ignorance but what system do you have for electing your representatives. Do you use First Past the Post or a proportional system?

[Magere Hein 1,397]

Forgive my ignorance but what system do you have for electing your representatives. Do you use First Past the Post or a proportional system?

PR, D'Hondt method.

[Bibliogryphon 8,627]

 

Forgive my ignorance but what system do you have for electing your representatives. Do you use First Past the Post or a proportional system?

PR, D'Hondt method.

 

Does this work well?

[msc 17,743]

 

Forgive my ignorance but what system do you have for electing your representatives. Do you use First Past the Post or a proportional system?

PR, D'Hondt method.

 

 

Ah yes, thats what Scotland uses for its regional lists.

[Magere Hein 1,397]

 

PR, D'Hondt method

Does this work well?

 

That question is a bit tricky to answer.

 

The differences with FPtP are large in effect. Since the proportion of seats a party gets roughly represents the proportion of the vote it attracts, rather than the proportion of constituencies it wins, it's very hard for any party to win an absolute majority. A 'hung parliamnent' is the natural state of things.

 

The system has both advantages and disadvantages:

 

Advantages:

• Representation of parties attracting small proportions of the vote
• Just a few percent of the vote is not represented
• Easy access to representation for new parties

Disadvantages:

• Representatives are selected by their parties, not the electorate (with some refinements); there's little personal contact between voter and representative.
• Permanently hung parliament, so always a coalition government/executive
• Winning the election doesn't necessarily mean being part of that coalition
• Coalition negotiations can take very long. Several weeks is normal, several months not uncommon
• Junior parties find few of their polling issues realised in coalition agreements

Neutral or both:

• Electoral change rarely results in major policy changes
• Government coalitions rarely hold for the full parliamentary term of 4 years, early general elections are pretty normal

Polls rarely have the drama UK general elections have, which is a bit of a shame. The statistical models analists use are so good, that after a few municipalities have declared results, they predict the final result to within on or two seats of the eventual result. Often the outcome is pretty clear an hour after the polling stations close.

 

In the Netherlands a cabinet position is incompatible with being an MP. This also means that cabinet members can be recruited from outside parliament and often are. Occasionally parties push useless dweebs¹ in cabinet positions and some coalitions fall apart soon after formation. Junior parties in the coalistion often have a disproportionately large influence on policy. I think it all works reasonably well. There's room for improvement, but it seems to suit the Dutch quite well.

 

¹After coalition formation this regularly leads to hilarious situations. Especially parties new to government, but the established ones as well, often fail to screen their candidates well. This has led to several occasions in which cabinet members resigned, hours after being sworn in, because the press dug up ugly facts about them, such as porkies on their CV.

 

ETA: Can somebody shoot the person who programmed the new IPB editor? It screws up my edits

Edited March 28, 2015 by Magere Hein
Murder request added

[Deathray 2,933]

I fear you mean analyst rather than analist..

 

Also are the dutch not aware you can do PR whilst maintaining constituency link? All hail the STV voting system!!

[Magere Hein 1,397]

I fear you mean analyst rather than analist..

I do; Dutch spelling interfered. I've been writing Dutch all day, with some English here for replacement activity. One of the things I wrote was a translation of a German Wikipedia page to Dutch. Ja! Bijherhond dat of de flipperwoudt gerspoet!

 

Also are the dutch not aware you can do PR whilst maintaining constituency link? All hail the STV voting system!!

Some Dutch are. The constitution (Grondwet art 53) mandates PR, but the actual system is part of the Election Act (Kieswet 1989), so it can be changed by simple majority in both Houses of Parliament. A few parties, particularly small ones (D'Hondt gives large parties more seats per vote by a few percent), put electoral reform on the political agenda regularly, but it's not a hot campaign issue.

 

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing that I really like about Dutch parliament: many parties are represented, 16 currently, although 5 of those have split from other parties since the 2012 general election.

[Deathray 2,933]

Just started watching Coalition - they really skimped on the make-up department didn't they.

[maryportfuncity 9,992]

Just started watching Coalition - they really skimped on the make-up department didn't they.

 

 

No, they went to town on it, politicians really are that ugly!

[themaninblack 2,112]

Just started watching Coalition - they really skimped on the make-up department didn't they.

Who was the fat cockney Tory with the glasses? I didn't recognise him at all!

[maryportfuncity 9,992]

 

Just started watching Coalition - they really skimped on the make-up department didn't they.

Who was the fat cockney Tory with the glasses? I didn't recognise him at all!

 

 

 

Don't think he was supposed to be a cockney, wasn't that Eric Pickles?

[Deathray 2,933]

Cameron has just visited the queen to inform her parliament has been dissolved, first time that she's not been required to dissolve it herself - reckon she's butthurt.

 

This is quite likely to be the closest elections in several hundred years.

[Bibliogryphon 8,627]

Cameron has just visited the queen to inform her parliament has been dissolved, first time that she's not been required to dissolve it herself - reckon she's butthurt.

 

This is quite likely to be the closest elections in several hundred years.

That might be hyperbole.

 

The 1992 election was very close. The BBC were planning to go to broadcast with a picture of Neil Kinnock to start with but at the last minute they changed it for a split screen of both him and John Major.

 

The two elections of 1974 are of course very close and the 2010 election was the closest of them all resulting in the first formal coalition for over 70 years.

 

The question is why is this election close we have had five horrible years where it has become evident that we are not "All in it together". My only conclusion is that the Conservatives have created an illusion that it is all the Lib Dems fault and it will all be great tomorrow.

 

Just a note on Cameron and the Third Term issue. What you have to remember about Cameron, for all his faults and insincerity he is as nice as the party gets. If you take a look over the possibly replacements bastards to a man (including Theresa May). Cameron is there because his party need him, not because the want him.

[maryportfuncity 9,992]

 

Cameron has just visited the queen to inform her parliament has been dissolved, first time that she's not been required to dissolve it herself - reckon she's butthurt.

 

This is quite likely to be the closest elections in several hundred years.

That might be hyperbole.

 

The 1992 election was very close. The BBC were planning to go to broadcast with a picture of Neil Kinnock to start with but at the last minute they changed it for a split screen of both him and John Major.

 

The two elections of 1974 are of course very close and the 2010 election was the closest of them all resulting in the first formal coalition for over 70 years.

 

The question is why is this election close we have had five horrible years where it has become evident that we are not "All in it together". My only conclusion is that the Conservatives have created an illusion that it is all the Lib Dems fault and it will all be great tomorrow.

 

Just a note on Cameron and the Third Term issue. What you have to remember about Cameron, for all his faults and insincerity he is as nice as the party gets. If you take a look over the possibly replacements bastards to a man (including Theresa May). Cameron is there because his party need him, not because the want him.

 

 

 

Good point, the runners and riders informally nominated by Cameron in his interview notably omitted the odious Michael Gove (known to harbour leadership ambitions and conspicuously available to Newsnight on the day of Cameron's announcement). Cameron may have more of the John Major/keeping a lid on the nest of vipers quality than people have given him credit for. If he fails to deliver a Conservative government in a few weeks it'll be open season on him soon after.

[Dr. Zorders 1,269]

Hate it when the guy on the news says "Parliament has been dissolved" and you wait for him to say "..... in acid" but he doesn't.

[Deathray 2,933]

Hate it when the guy on the news says "Parliament has been dissolved" and you wait for him to say "..... in acid" but he doesn't.

 

Seen as it's the day of dissolution I'm going to come out and say it... I prefered it when the PM had control over when to call and election, it meant elections were generally more frequent (something I prefer as a keen political watcher) and there was a lot more suspense involved in government difficulties, the fact I haven't experienced a snap election yet ( the last being 1974) probably has something to do with it.

 

At this rate 2001 will go down as the last non-multiple of five election.