Not to mention that we'll know something fucked up really HAS gone down if the SNP manage to take the Orkneys off the Lib Dems, given they've held it for all but about 2 elections since the 1830s.

:D

 

Yeah, most of the South West (apart from the likes of Thornbury and Yate) is basically a write-off for the Lib Dems at this stage, but I still think they'll hold on to about twenty or so seats - they're oddly safe in Midlands seats against Labour (Southport and Birmingham Yardley et al) and South East/London seats against the Tories (Eastbourne, the Kingston/Carshalton/Sutton ring plus maybe Twickenham, Colchester).

 

Southport, Midlands? It's more north than me! :P

 

Some of us on Politicalbetting were talking about how much store can be put in the Ashcroft results in Lib Dem seats. I'm not sure there can be tbh. The question that he asks that gives the good Lib Dem results is prompting people specifically to "think about your local area" -- but a lot of people surely AREN'T going to be thinking about the local area on election day, they're going to be thinking about the national picture and who they want in government. And in virtually all Lib Dem seats that Ashcroft has polled, the generic voting intentions question (which he asks before the "local area" question) puts the Lib Dems behind.

Southport, Midlands? It's more north than me! :P

 

Some of us on Politicalbetting were talking about how much store can be put in the Ashcroft results in Lib Dem seats. I'm not sure there can be tbh. The question that he asks that gives the good Lib Dem results is prompting people specifically to "think about your local area" -- but a lot of people surely AREN'T going to be thinking about the local area on election day, they're going to be thinking about the national picture and who they want in government. And in virtually all Lib Dem seats that Ashcroft has polled, the generic voting intentions question (which he asks before the "local area" question) puts the Lib Dems behind.

The difference is that most Lib Dem MPs make a virtue of being a super local candidate and being really good MPs that are frequently in touch with voters. It isn't likely to be enough always to overcome the *huge* national swing against them, but if you'd normally vote Labour and the local MP is fairly dug in against a Tory (or vice versa), it can be enough to sway a lot of them. Generally there's been a pretty good case for there being a specific incumbency bonus for Lib Dems in the past - and this time you only have to look at the likes of Eastleigh to see it's likely to still exist in up to about 20 seats.

Even in SNP #GE15 wet dreams, Orkney and Shetland is still a LibDem seat.

The "thinking about your local area" part of the question is meant to prompt people to think about the situation in their constituency, i.e. "Does my first-choice party have any chance of winning? If not, is there a chance of trying to make sure the party I hate the most does not win?".

 

As for the idea that Southport is a) in the Midlands and b) a Lib Dem / Labour battle, Labour got under 10% of the vote last time.

Merseyside totes counts as the Midlands.

Even in SNP #GE15 wet dreams, Orkney and Shetland is still a LibDem seat.

 

Highly likely I agree, but surely not a complete certainty? Support for independence in O&S was roughly equal to in the Scottish Borders, but the SNP apparently are in with a shot in the seats there...

The Midlands ends and the north begins in Mansfield, notts. According to my geography rules, that is. :lol:

 

There is of course the outside chance that a lot of voters might actually LIKE their local candidate and vote for them with personal votes against the national trend. Conversely, there's also some who will vote against their local MP cos they hate them, or think they are useless. I know I do, and will. I would vote for The Chuckle Brothers if they seemed most likely to beat the local Tory MP, though I draw the line at UKIP....

As for the idea that Southport is a) in the Midlands and b) a Lib Dem / Labour battle, Labour got under 10% of the vote last time.

 

I have a feeling that Labour might be stronger there than they look, based on how Labour have constantly got stronger in Crosby/"Sefton Central". The Lib Dems imo might have a strong grip on tactical Labour voters there, which they should probably keep this time since the LibDem MP has been a bit independent from the coalition and has a high profile locally, but if in the future he steps down or becomes unpopular then I wouldn't be surprised to see Labour jump right up, as in Sheffield Hallam.

Edited April 26, 201510 yr by Danny

I count the North as Lancashire and Yorkshire up.

Highly likely I agree, but surely not a complete certainty? Support for independence in O&S was roughly equal to in the Scottish Borders, but the SNP apparently are in with a shot in the seats there...

That's mainly due to the unionist vote being split between the Lib Dems and the Tories in the Borders (hence why the Lib Dem border seat is potentially SNP, as it's a three-way marginal), whereas it's pretty much all Lib Dem in O&S.

The Midlands ends and the north begins in Mansfield, notts. According to my geography rules, that is. :lol:

The north begins in Salisbury :D

I count the North as Lancashire and Yorkshire up.

Balls to that.

The north begins in Salisbury :D

 

That is a common perception in these earrr parrrts, wherrre's it tooo? :lol:

The North for me begins in County Down or Armagh, unless your in Donegal where your further north but in the South technically :P :P

Balls to that.

SHUT IT MIDLANDER

There's a really interesting surveys of a few Scottish seats by Lord Ashcroft asking people why they'd switched from Labour to the SNP.

 

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/04/ashcr...kip-11-green-7/

 

The main reasons cited were how close Labour are on policies to the Tories (“Boris Johnson said Ed Miliband was dangerously left wing, but I see him as being centre-right”), how the Scottish party just had its strings pulled by the Westminster party (“It’s the UK party that pulls the strings for the Labour party in Scotland. The referendum made people see that. Scotland is different”), and how Labour used such negative arguments in the independence referendum (“They could have been ‘Labour for No’ and made a socialist case for a No vote, and let the Conservatives focus on their core voters. It seemed like they were pushing a homogenous establishment view rather than a Labour view”).

 

That said, there's a slight shred of hope for Labour at the end, some of the people saying they were considering SNP said they were worried they might help the Tories get in, and some were uneasy about some of the more...ahem..."distinctive" SNP candidates.

Edited April 27, 201510 yr by Danny

There's a really interesting surveys of a few Scottish seats by Lord Ashcroft asking people why they'd switched from Labour to the SNP.

 

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/04/ashcr...kip-11-green-7/

 

The main reasons cited were how close Labour are on policies to the Tories (“Boris Johnson said Ed Miliband was dangerously left wing, but I see him as being centre-right”), how the Scottish party just had its strings pulled by the Westminster party (“It’s the UK party that pulls the strings for the Labour party in Scotland. The referendum made people see that. Scotland is different”), and how Labour used such negative arguments in the independence referendum (“They could have been ‘Labour for No’ and made a socialist case for a No vote, and let the Conservatives focus on their core voters. It seemed like they were pushing a homogenous establishment view rather than a Labour view”).

 

That said, there's a slight shred of hope for Labour at the end, some of the people saying they were considering SNP said they were worried they might help the Tories get in, and some were uneasy about some of the more...ahem..."distinctive" SNP candidates.

Such as?

 

I assume some of their candidates were selected on the assumption that they had no hope of winning. In 1983 and 1997, there were some pretty useless / awful MPs elected in what would normally have been hopeless seats.

From the Guardian:

 

The Conservatives lead Labour by 36 per cent to 30 per cent in this week’s Ashcroft National Poll, conducted over the past weekend. The Tories are up two points since last week and Labour are unchanged. The Liberal Democrats are down a point at nine per cent, Ukip down two at 11 per cent, the Greens up three at seven per cent and the SNP down two at four per cent. The Conservatives have now led in six of the last eight rounds, and this week’s finding equals the highest the party has yet recorded in the ANP – though the figures are within the margin of error of a much closer result.

 

The polls seem to be moving..

Meanwhile Labour have been ahead for five days in a row on YouGov and both parties are ahead in two polls each!

 

I refuse to believe they're that far ahead with the amount of ridiculous gaffes they've made in this campaign tbh.