A British YouGov Poll released on April 18, for the May 6 House of Commons election, shows these results: Liberal Democrat 33%, Conservative 32%, Labor 26%, other or undecided 9%. Much of that last 9% will go to the Independence Party, but the poll apparently didn’t include them as a separate category.
Hmmm…interesting. Significant third party gets signifcant bump in polls after inclusion in three-way debate. No wonder those wusses in the Rep and Dem party fight so hard to exclude indies and 3rd party candidates.
The UK election is shaping up to be quite interesting. A Conservative victory would be best for the Scottish National Party and Scottish Greens’ bid for Scottish independence, because the Tories are hated in Scotland.
#1: The Republicans and Democrats, of course, let the independent Ross Perot into the 1992 presidential debates, since both parties considered it advantageous to them.
Apparently, that 33% in the UK don’t think that Labour has given them a strong enough dose of socialism.
Looks like the UK may wind up with a hung Parliament.
Scottish Independence is a complete non starter. Scotland cannot stand on its own economically.
Real democracy at work in Britain. The worst nightmare of the parties that hold the power in America.
Whether Scotland could stand alone may depend on who
would control that North Sea oil.
Just a small quibble: the “Independence Party” is always referred to as the “United Kingdom Independence Party” or the UKIP.
Also, the Green Party is on target to win at least one seat in Bright Pavilion constituency.
Scott West- I looked at several polls for that constituency and haven’t apparently found the one you have seen. No poll I saw showed better than a third place finish. What have you seen?
I’m referring to the results of an ICM poll from December, commissioned by the Greens, and another poll from September.
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15821483
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poll-surge-suggests-greens-on-course-for-first-commons-seat-1863895.html
Admittedly, that’s only two polls, and I expect that others will show different results. So we’ll see in a few weeks.
650 gerrymander seats in the U.K. gerrymander House of Commons (first past the post [from MORON horse racing] — aka plurality regime) — the cause of endless chaos in the world — U.S.A., Canada, India, etc.
Will a *hung* [love those MORON British words and phrases] Parliament produce super-demands for —
P.R. and A.V. — even in the nearly dead U.K. regime.
Stay tuned. Election results will apparently be delayed in some gerrymander districts for one day — to take tea, water the horses, etc.
The has the potential to be a real lesson for British politicians and voters alike. Because Labor voters are geographically concentrated and Lib-Dem voters are more even dispersed, it is possible that the party winning a plurality of seats will do so on fewer votes than the other two major parties. Expect a much louder debate about proportional representation as a result (the subject is already more familiar in the U.K. than it is in the U.S.).
I’m having a dream in which, after negotiations to avoid a hung Parliament deadlock because Clegg will not accept anything less than PR and Brown will not offer anything better than the alternative vote (IRV), Helen Mirren, in a reprise of her Oscar-winning role as the Queen, refuses to appoint any Prime Minister at all unless all three major party leaders agree to a referendum on PR.
Don’t wake me up for a while.
If I am not mistaken one of the few actual constitutional roles the queen exercises is the right to choose the party she wants to form her government. If no party wins a majority I believe Labour gets first chance by tradition but perhaps the queen can choose who she wants to get first crack at it. Hopefully one of our British friends can explain how this works.
The Liberal Democrats have to be given credit for keeping alive major electoral reform issues in the UK when the Labour and Conservatives were generally happy with the status quo.
Their would probably be a majority if Labour and Liberals entered into some sort of agreement or coalition government.
The conservatives could try something similar, but they would have to look at some of the more odd ball and ugly smaller parties; i.e. UK Independence or the far-right wing one.
#11 See the Crisis in the U.K. regime on 9-10 May 1940.
Churchill is chosen as the P.M. — day 1 of the Hitler attack on France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The pending END of the EVIL monarchy in the U.K. ??? Stay tuned.
Demo Rep- I am aware of the history of the time period to which you referred. I don’t see a parallel to the current election. By the time Churchill was asked to form a government Britain was at war and there had not been an election since 1935.
The key issue is who can sit down and common to some sort of agreement to get enough legislative seats to form a working majority?
Labor-Liberals have had some shaky efforts at coalition building back in the 1970s, but their was some real attempts to improve things in the past decade. They could hammer out a compromise of some sort that stipulated agreement on some core issues which would be the focus of the Government.
Conservatives could do something similar with the UK Independence Party which aside from being very much opposed to the European Union, tends to have very oddly eccentric and socially right-wing folk. Same thing with a few other parties.
A big issue for the Labor-Liberals would be supporting proportional representation or at least a fair national refrendum of the issue.
The Conservative Party has increasingly moved itself away from the religious right wing (and warmed up to the European Union) which could pose a problem with the smaller conservative and reactionary parties, which may agree with them on basic economic and trade issues.
ETJB- I don’t see any evidence that the UKIP will win any seats let alone enough to form a government with the Tories and Ulster Unionists.
Casual Bystander (#11), I’m not an expert on the (unwritten) British constitution. But I get the impression that the Queen’s authority to appoint a Prime Minister is severely limited in practice by (among other constraints) the ability of Parliament to do away with the monarchy altogether — something a segment of the population wants anyway. It would take real backbone to fulfill my fantasy and attempt to bargain with the candidates, probably even to bargain for a referendum in which the people decide.
#14 There has been a continuous WAR for the last 6,000 years between the forces of Democracy and monarchy/oligarchy.
LOTS of control freak gerrymander monarchs/oligarchs in the U.K, U.S.A., Canada. etc.
P.R. and A.V.
Why are people so keen on this no-chancer Lab-Lib coalition? The Liberal Democrats have been hounded since 2005 to say they’d consider joining with either Labour or Conservative in the event of a hung parliament and they have consistently said they will refuse any sort of offer of a coalition government; and I hope they keep to that if a hung parliament is created.
Some people here seem to think the word “Liberal” means “Socialist” which is a bit strange and shows obvious ignorance of the UK political system. Nick Clegg himself is considered centre-right and his leadership has obviously given the party a slightly more centre-centre right position than it was before. Even still, the leftest of the Liberal Democrats aren’t left enough to be considered Socialist. For those that don’t know the history the “Democrat” part of the Lib Dems come from a splinter from the Labour party: the Social Democratic Party which split in 1981 because they thought the Labour party was too “left”. They joined up with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats in 1988 after being in an electoral alliance* for the ’83 and ’87 elections.
* In the UK, two or more registered parties can opt for a joint ticket in some or all constituencies they are standing in with a single candidate. This has been used historically quite often between minor parties to ensure that they can use their resources to maximum effect. It has the bonus that the party names or an agreed joint name get listed on the ballot paper.
Yes! Go Lib Dems!
Steve Rankin, the Liberal Democrats are more conservative than Labour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom
Machination stuff in the formation of a new regime/government.
NO written constitution — ANY thing is possible in a STONE AGE / DARK AGE regime — having desparate party hacks on the loose.
#19: Didn’t the Social Democrats have a woman as leader in the late 1970s or early 1980s?
What was her name?
Shirley Williams was one of the “Gang of four” which led the split from Labour. She was never party leader at any time though. A comic in 1977 depicted her as Prime Minister in the year 1999, of course Margaret Thatcher of the Conservatives became Prime Minister 2 years later in 1979, eliminating the male-dominated history of the position.