General election

We don't have a general election where I live.

Lots of noise, little illumination

I am generally politically engaged but this campaign seems to have reached a nadir for negativity, obfuscation, blatant bribery and lack of inspiration. In the area I know about most (the NHS) the utter lack of intelligence in the main party manifestos has been teeth grindingly frustrating.

I also live in an area where any swivel headed loon would be elected for the party that hold the seat. In fact I have never voted at any general election for a candidate who had any hope of winning in that seat. Still feels important to do it I guess-but this year I genuinely wondered if I would bother.

Bruce

Sharon Storer.

Prescott getting punchy.

'That bigoted woman'.

These we have missed, and consequently been unengaged.

Personally, I've found a constant feed of opinion polls stultifying.

Chris

I think I'm correct in saying the Polls at the start of the campaign and at the end have not altered?

Bruce

Yup. There just seem to be so many of them. Still, easier and cheaper for a news editor to reproduce polling data from a press release (or even download a broadcastable pre-prepared [by whom?] package) than send out reporters, photographers and camera crews to find out what the issues are and what people think about them.

Chris

I think Radio5 (I'm not a TV watcher) have done well at mixing studio-based analysis and a pretty wide geographical and social mix of public contributors.

My point is more over whether all this campaigning changes anything?

Bruce

I don't think the campaigning has changed anything this time. The reasons IMO are press officers terrified of anything going viral in a social media age, and a largely right-wing media only too happy to do their master's bidding.

Chris (no TV at home).

Where I live, the seat is one of the safest Tory seats around. The previous, and excellent, MP has stood down. The new Tory candidate is an idiot who used bad language in front of the children in a primary school and then proceeded to announce, in front of the head and the children that, 'of course, I went to a private school and Cambridge'. 

So I will pootle round to the polling station and vote labour, as I always do. The local Labour candidate has excellent policies and is highly intelligent, but doesn't stand a hope of being elected. Instead, a bone headed Tory moron will be elected. 

I vote because I feel I have a duty to do so, but this has been the most achingly dull, negative campaign I can remember and this is the first time I've felt like not bothering.

I am involved in a local group pushing for PR,  I might be long gone before it happens, but if you don't try, it wont ever happen.

Like HH  I live in one of the safest conservative seats in the country & tends to be the way I vote, but I do feel a degree of sympathy for the other parties, no chance;  the Libs might stand a half chance,  but anything in the red zone is liable to loose deposits. 

I get a feeling that this election will end up with the party that has 2nd most votes & seats in government & despite all the assurances to the contrary (read that as two faced lies),  the SNP will be pulling strings. 

I thought I may just be getting more cynical but I have never seen such a dishonest campaign.

Not lying as such but making promises that are simply unfunded and impractical and not really being called up for it. They have offered all sorts of things and not been honest about the payback. I am someone who believes (perhaps foolishly) that we could do with politicians that actually say where the money will be raised, where the cuts will fall and the taxes increased so that we have believable policies. I think the UK public understand we don't get something for nothing.

Bruce

Thinking of the outgoing coalition I never felt to me that the Lib Dems 'pulled the strings' as the minor player. It felt very much like a Tory administration with some mild modifications. I'm not sure it failed as a model of government. Specific parties and policies aside I could be quite happy with another coalition as a way of tempering ideological excesses.

Bruce

Point partly taken Bruce,  however whilst the Lib/Dems pulled the Cons towards the centre & into moderation,  I fear the far left that is SMP will pull labour further left & will augment the extremes. 

I see that Mike, good point.

Bruce

I hardly think the SNP are 'far left'. Had you been to a WRP meeting in the late 70s you'd have seen what the far left looked like. The parties are all pretty centrist these days, but with critical differences around the size of the state and the level of redistribution. The next few days will be interesting!

.......  ahhh those were the days HH - not

I attended a few revolutionary meetings a bit further back in the 1960's,  in those days a lot of peeps believed it would take a revolution to overthrow the ruling classes. But truth be told,  it was more a "hip" thing & mostly more interested in the peripheries, in miniskirts.

Then I got married & felt the rough end of the 1970's, mortgage interests rates through the roof,  3 day weeks, blackouts, winters of discontent,  never again AFAIAC.    

I was really meaning SNP are the far left of the mainstream parties that we have today.  I am sure that'l get some of our Socialist/Unionist readers a bit frothy, but I was thinking winning seats at Westminster.  

It might be a boring election - but it'll be interesting times ahead 

I only really hope for one thing tonight-Farage failing to win.

It might even exceed the 'Portillo moment' I recall from a previous election night.

I would venture to suggest we may have two or three new paryt leaders inside the next few weeks. Could Milliband really stay on if he fails to get power? Cameron? Clegg is history I think whatever happens-the price possibly of them in future coalition. His seat is not a done deal either.

Bruce

Portillo - the greatest leader we didn't get ?

Helen and I won’t change or modify our views or our voting, so discussion is pointless for us.  As to all the background static and media drivel, we have assiduously avoided exposure to it. For the most part it’s pretty crass.

This from the BBC website:

How does someone win the election?

The easiest way to become prime minister is to win what is called a majority in the House of Commons - a majority is where your party has more MPs than all the other parties put together.

Unless 3 year olds now have the vote, things really do seem to be at an all-time dumb level.

We will get the government we deserve. Assuming we know which end of a pencil writes. There's probably a BBC guide on how to do that.

I hardly think that was the total of the entry on the BBC website.

It is quite conceivable we will have a government formed by a party that has no majority, not the largest share of the vote and maybe not even the greatest number of seats. Seems important for the wider public to understand how that might work.

Bruce

Seems you credit "the wider public" with about as much intelligence as the BBC does. And maybe you're on the money. Yikes!

I thought we'd done quite well to avoid it. Up to now.

Interesting that the bookies now make DC slightly odds on to be next PM. Bookies usually better than polls in past experience.

Who knows what result will be. The election reflects the whole 'too much choice' thing IMO. These days, regulation seems to suggest that 'good' is reflected by having a large number of choices (in everything from politics, to energy providers, to TV providers). Somehow lots of choice between very similar offerings seems to be thought of as the right way to go. Personally I think we need to have 'better' to choose from in all things, not 'more'

I also feel that if we are now into a long era of multi-party central government (which is not necessarily a bad thing), then we need to change our national electoral system to fit.

+1 here.

Jamie wrote:

I thought we'd done quite well to avoid it. Up to now.

Quite right. Very tempting to start trying to persuade others of one's one opinion, but ultimately a completely fruitless act best left to those who are paid to do it! I could not care less who here is a Lib-dem, socialist or Tory. Note that I accept that there are other political parties, significant or otherwise.

As the old maxim goes about conversations down the boozer, "No religion, no politics ..."

However, I do believe that every responsible person should attend the poling station, even if they spoil the ballot paper as a vote of disgust. Staying at home in apathy is not correct in my view, so I am just off now ...

ATB from George

Since you British from time to time comment on American politics let me return the favor with warmest regards:

An occasional dust-up aside, we really like you folks. Please don't do anything you will regret.

Cheers

Regret is written inside us like a seaside candy.