times of electoral calls (London time) with a summary of the interesting ones: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/07/election-2015-a-guide-to-results-night

via 538

 haresfur wrote: 
It's not really got a history as much here ( I'm not saying they never do it but economic probity is a big thing for the electorate usually). So this campaign has thrown me a bit with the Tories in particular throwing big bribes to the electorate! 

47 hours til the polls close and it's still absolutely neck and neck. About 34:34 for conservative and labour parties.  

 kurtster wrote: 
I don't know the details of British campaign promises but here in Oz the polys take them to a whole new micro-management level. My impression is that in the US the give-aways are pretty much on the grand policy level - you know like billions to banks and warfare companies vs. food and health programs. Here we get public give-aways, for example on the state level, building a train station about 10 km beyond the main terminus so it is only serviced by 2 trains each direction a day. So those trains probably don't match your schedule and if you were to miss the one train home you'd be screwed so you might as well drive the extra distance to the station where trains run every hour. Bloody Liberal waste of tax dollars. Oh, wait... the Liberal Party are the conservatives here but that didn't stop them.

 islander wrote: 
imho, you're making a mountain out of a molehill and trying to be overly sensitive on purpose.  If that is all it takes now to cause outrage, we have hit a new low and that is saying alot.
.
Let's see now, ... hmmm ... my last political comment was on April 27th

and before that was on April 7th in an exchange where I was clearly dismissed as a bigot for even trying to present a different take on events discussed within.  I'm a bigot for even thinking about trying to defend something that was conventional thought and behaviour since the beginning of civilization that has only become an extreme and radical position in the past 10 years.

Yep, I'm just tearing up the place.  Just so I get things straight, never say anything good about republicans and never say anything bad about democrats.  That way life will just be a big bowl of cherries around here.  As you wish ...

Bon Apetite'  

 

and for extra goodwill ...

 

 kurtster wrote:

That nearly any commentary is met with the "democrats are the worst", "Obama is the devil"... we know you hate them and they have wronged you so. 

To be fair, I could have let your comment lay as well. I'll try harder next time. but once a month or every 1000 rabidly partisan posts you put up I'll break down.

 aflanigan wrote: 
Yep.  True that.  The Republicans have no redeeming values.

 kurtster wrote:
Don't tell that to the Koch brothers, Walton family, or other recipients of corporate welfare that Republicans support.

 islander wrote: 
Like what ?  I thought my comment was civil, pretty bland, unoffensive and non combative.

I stated a simple truth.  I was nice about it.  I coulda called the donkey a jack ass if I was trying to be provocative.

Would you have felt better if I included the Republicans are the party of take away ?  Is not that a simple truth as well ?  That their mascot should be changed to the Grinch ?

Et tu ... ?

 

 kurtster wrote: 
Are you really going to be like this all election season?

 Blackbirds wrote: 
Not much different here in the states.  

But here in the states the Democrats have a lock on give aways, because no party can out promise a Democrat when it comes to giving away free stuff.  The party should change their mascot from the donkey to Santa Claus.

As I am living now in the (still) UK, these will be my first British Parliamentary Elections - and no, I am not allowed to vote, relieves me from having to make a choice - , I am surprised on how the parties try to over trump the others with promises to spend extra pounds on...

 haresfur wrote: 
No is the commentary ive seen from Anthony Wells who runs UK polling report. His commentary was basically no chance of change due to the baby and frankly nothing else so far has made any difference either! 

PJ O'Rourke's guide for the puzzled American.

Will the royal bub tip the vote to the conservatives? A well planned conspiracy.

This is likely to translate into the following seats ( bearing in mind there are 650 seats and some parties not mentioned here but only operating regionally will get some). There is a range of about 20 seats for the tories and labour That will depend on the final metrics on the night and how well they do in marginal constituencies.  Parties like UKIP and the greens won't deliver on their vote percentage as its too spread out to be useful in a first past the post system. 

labour about 270
conservatives about 280
LD about 25
UKIP about 2
Green 1
SNP (Scottish nationalists) 55
Plaid Cymru (Welsh) 1
various independents a couple
Northern Ireland: 19 seats of various hues but probably about 8 to the right wing DUP and 6 to Irish nationalist Sinn Fein who don't go to
Westminster. 
 
A government/ prime minister needs to get support of 320-325 MPs in order to run things.there are two possible prime ministers- ed Miliband for labr or our current PM, David Cameron for the conservatives. So we will probably be looking at their a right or left alliance of some sort to prop up one of these two.

from right to left we have: UKIP ( very right), DUP (very right), conservatives (centre right)
centrists: libdems: could sit with either labour or the conservatives depending on the situation but totally opposed to UKIP- worked with the conservatives in a coalition 2010-2015
on the left: labour- centre left, snp ( bit further left), green ( very left), plaid and a few other N Irish Seats. 

I'll let you do that maths but as you can see it's pretty tight either way if the polls are right.  

4 of the five polls for the main national Sunday papers are now out. The election is on Thursday( btw no exit polls in the UK- it's illegal). These pollsters all comply with various minimum standards in terms of listing full data pre and post weighting etc if you are interested.

 Opinium for the observer: conservative 35%, labour 34%, libdem 8%, UKIP 13%, green 5%
comres for the independent and mirror:  C 33, L33, LD 8, UKIP 13, G 7
 Survation for the mail: c31 L34, LD 8, UKIP17, G 4
 Yougov for the times: c34, L33, LD 8, UKIP 13, G 5

 miamizsun wrote: 
I'm a member of a forum called Fly The Nest, broadly left-leaning, with some very knowledgeable participents. The Daily Politics section has, well, daily discussions of all things political, with excellent links to new stories, polls &tc.
 
There are other sections with loads of background stuff, but might be a little bit arcane in places!