Politics Thread!

[(o)(o)]

Brands been a thorn in the sides of politicians of all creeds by pointing out cogent facts and dismantling lies and propaganda. His honesty and egalitarian approach has a lot of popular support. Going too far to call Brand an idiot. I've heard directly from the mouths of staunch right wing tax avoiders - 'he's got a point'.

Pogo you said "average political outlook in the UK is centre-right".

Are you standing by that comment because 40% of the population don't vote.

That's nearly half, btw.

[pogo]

But as they don’t vote their outlook is irrelevant. At least to the political parties who have to be aware of where the centre is so as not to drift too far from it and lose support. But it’s only the support of voters, i.e. their votes, that matters. Those that don’t vote are pretty much irrelevant.

Something students should remember. That pledge to cut tuition fees (though not by much) might be the first thing to be sacrificed in coalition/pact/whatever negotiations. Students just don’t vote in enough numbers, and Labour probably think they can take them for granted.

[gravy]

a lot of popular support.

Yep, that's the problem.

Going too far to call Brand an idiot.

He's been enouraging an utterly thick course of action, now reccomending a U Turn when it's too late for anyone who did take his advice to do the same and seems mostly concerned with drawing attention to himself than any of the actual issues.

Idiot might not be the best description, self promoting narcisist may be better.

[(o)(o)]

But as they don’t vote their outlook is irrelevant.

It is entirely relevant to what you said : "the average political outlook in the UK is centre-right".

If you exclude 40% of the electorate that cannot be the average can it.

The outlook of 18,455,960 people is not "irrelevant".

In particular we know the demographic of non voters tends toward the more vulnerable in society.

Who don't vote because they are not being served by their public servants.

Many are justifiably burned out after decades of neoliberalism.



I'm glad Brand has finally come to his senses.

Millband will be next.

[pogo]

35% according to your graph. Problem is you just don’t know where the politics of that 35% lies. I don’t believe it’s much to do with the most vulnerable not voting. Who votes in the greatest numbers? Old people who as a demographic group are more vulnerable than any other, while young people who generally would be most able to vote do so least.

Apart from that the people who don’t vote are probably the most apathetic, or at least the ones who just don’t care enough about politics to vote. That is they mostly don’t have strong political views. So it makes no sense to include them when talking about what the average political position in the UK is. They would probably not swing it either way, and certainly won’t affect the outcome of the election.

[(o)(o)]

I didn't see any factual information in your post.

35% according to your graph. Problem is you just don’t know where the politics of that 35% lies.

The Lodestone Political Survey found that 56 per cent of those who didn’t vote in 2010 said that they would probably vote if an election was held tomorrow. While people are far more likely to say they’ll vote than they are to actually vote, it is striking that 32 per cent of these people said they would vote Labour. 22 per cent said they were undecided, 18 per cent said they would vote UKIP, 15 per cent said they would vote Conservative, 5 per cent said they would vote Lib Dem and the rest said that they would vote for other parties.

That means that around 11 million of those that didn’t vote in 2010 say they would vote if an election was held tomorrow and that 3.4 million of them would vote Labour. This is a rough estimate, in that some of those who didn’t vote in 2010 will have passed away, other demographic changes will have also been at play and, of course, many of those who say they will vote will not vote. However, the potential win for Labour from motivating just a fraction of these 3.4 million citizens to vote is clear when you consider that the party only attracted 8.6 million votes at the 2010 General Election.

[gravy]

Utterly amazing

https://twitter.com/Gillian_Philip/stat ... 44/photo/1

[The ghost of raids past]

I didn't see any factual information in your post.

35% according to your graph. Problem is you just don’t know where the politics of that 35% lies.

The Lodestone Political Survey found that 56 per cent of those who didn’t vote in 2010 said that they would probably vote if an election was held tomorrow. While people are far more likely to say they’ll vote than they are to actually vote, it is striking that 32 per cent of these people said they would vote Labour. 22 per cent said they were undecided, 18 per cent said they would vote UKIP, 15 per cent said they would vote Conservative, 5 per cent said they would vote Lib Dem and the rest said that they would vote for other parties.

That means that around 11 million of those that didn’t vote in 2010 say they would vote if an election was held tomorrow and that 3.4 million of them would vote Labour. This is a rough estimate, in that some of those who didn’t vote in 2010 will have passed away, other demographic changes will have also been at play and, of course, many of those who say they will vote will not vote. However, the potential win for Labour from motivating just a fraction of these 3.4 million citizens to vote is clear when you consider that the party only attracted 8.6 million votes at the 2010 General Election.

Or if the Conservatives could persuade the UKIP to vote for them then thats 33 percent more conservative votes. Its all arbitary though as people who dont vote cant later whine and complain the wrong people get in.

If you want a party in or want to vote to stop a party getting in turn up and vote.

[zip accident]

that whole graph the average is to the right all the way down.

It's a subjective graph of how people think the parties are. There are people who think Labour are far right. It would be interesting to see where the average punter thought they themselves were over the years, but it wouldn't be objective.

[pogo]

I didn't see any factual information in your post.

Nor I any in yours. The most interesting bit of the linked article is this:

When asked about why they didn’t vote, the majority of non-voters said that they didn’t believe their vote would make a difference or that they believed that all the parties and candidates were the same. Other non-voters said that they were not interested in politics, that they didn’t have enough information and knowledge to make a decision or didn’t vote for other reasons.

Which all makes sense. Not thinking your vote will make a difference is very common as it’s true for the majority of voters, given how many seats are safe and/or foregone conclusions. Others may think they have a choice but the choice doesn’t matter. But many if not most of these still vote.

I see no evidence the ones that don’t are especially vulnerable/left leaning. Or at least if there are lots of apathetic Labour voters there will be lots of apathetic Tory ones as well. If anything UKIP supporters seem most likely to sit this election, with almost all of their votes going to waste. Some think UKIP will do much better in the election after this one as they and their supporters will know which seats and areas best to focus on, so they will be much able to convert their votes, as the third most popular party, into seats, giving their supporters more reason to turn up and vote.

The other reasons, of not being interested or engaged enough to bother, is probably why so many young people don’t vote. It takes time to form your political opinions and to discover which party best represents your views and interests. At your first election it is much harder as you have nothing to go on except the conflicting messages from parties – and idiots like Russell Brand.

[gravy]

Exciting!

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/05/05/co ... bour-tied/

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 4th May

Con 33%
Lab 33%
LD 10%
UKIP 12%
GRN 5%

Labour also predicted to get more seats than the cons if that's the way the cookie crumbles.



lol

[(o)(o)]

I didn't see any factual information in your post.

Nor I any in yours.

And yet you discuss survey data I posted in your next comment.

MENTAL !

The most interesting bit of the linked article is this:

When asked about why they didn’t vote, the majority of non-voters said that they didn’t believe their vote would make a difference or that they believed that all the parties and candidates were the same. Other non-voters said that they were not interested in politics, that they didn’t have enough information and knowledge to make a decision or didn’t vote for other reasons.

Which all makes sense. Not thinking your vote will make a difference is very common as it’s true for the majority of voters, given how many seats are safe and/or foregone conclusions. Others may think they have a choice but the choice doesn’t matter. But many if not most of these still vote.

Nah, it's clear from that small sample that those people don't vote in the main because they feel democracy in this country fails them.

I see no evidence the ones that don’t [vote] are especially vulnerable/left leaning. Or at least if there are lots of apathetic Labour voters there will be lots of apathetic Tory ones as well.

The study shows 2:1 ratio Labour to Conservative of non-voters.

The demographic isn't even controversial. It's widely accepted by normal functioning adults, because of the tons of data on it.

I've decided how to Vote.



Want the Tories out? Click here :

http://voteswap.org/

[pogo]

Exciting!

That makes YouGov the exception then. It’s the only one predicting Labour will have more seats, the other five are predicting the Tories will have more, all by wider margins:

http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/

It looks likely to be close. Labour no longer have a large built-in advantage as that depended on Scotland which is voting SNP, so a lead in votes is much more likely to translate to a lead it seats between the two main parties. And the votes are close so the seats are close. In theory it does’t matter exactly who wins. The SNP have said they won’t work with the Tories and as third largest party will hold the balance of power. But a Lab-SNP coalition will look much more legitimate if Labour are the largest party. Also the better Labour do the less they have to depend on additional parties, apart from the SNP.

[gravy]

That makes YouGov the exception then. It’s the only one predicting Labour will have more seats

Not really

It makes YouGov the latest major poll we have. It's a shifting situation.

There'll be another tomorrow and another on Thursdy We'll see if it's a trend or not.

Emphasises there are no clear winners here and not one party that can get a majority.

This is hard for Cameron; his own party looks likely to turn on him even if he makes it to the PM spot.

[pogo]

We’ll see. The only plausible way for Cameron to be PM again is if the Tories do far better than the polls suggest, enough that they can govern with the Lib Dems again. But I can’t see the polls being that badly wrong. They were in 1992 but they must surely be very keen to avoid such an embarrassment again.

One thing I can’t see happening is a larger coalition on the right, like the progressive one the SNP seems to want. It would need to include the Lib Dems but they have ruled out working with other minority parties, none of whom will have enough seats to form a government with the Tories if the Lib Dems aren’t involved.