Americans uninspired by UK poll (BBC)

[Asher]

Who cares who the UK elects. I don't even care who Canada elects anymore.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Qilue
I meant, why does a short election campaign impress american voters as opposed to their ~2 year version?

Wouldn't you get tired of the two year long mud-fests where good people are chewed up and spit out?

Two years of crap about various people, two years off, two years of crap about various people, two years off...

The American presidential selection system is more akin to a slaughterhouse than a process of rational decision making about who should lead.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Democracy sucks anyway. It assumes that the majority of the population aren't stupid.

Authoritarianism sucks. It assumes that any single person has a higher chance of being smart rather than being stupid.

[chequita guevara]

What can the Tories do? Hasn't Labor replaced the Tories as Britain's conservative party?

[MikeH]

The UK is also uninspired by the UK election.

The tories are still a bit further to the right economically but there's not much to pick between them really.

[Shi Huangdi]

Well, Labour isn't as far left as it used to be, but the Tories aren't as conservative as they used to be either it seems. This campaign they seem to have focused on running the government more efficently, but have offered little in the way of stark ideological differences or any indication they would challenge the size of government in any significant way. The result has seem to be that the Tories haven't inspired anybody.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Democracy sucks anyway. It assumes that the majority of the population aren't stupid.

And, as long as the majority isn't stupid in the same way, it works, because the intelligent option will have the plurality over the many stupid options.

[Odin]

I find it funny that the Labour Party started out as a socialist bunch, but have become no better than the US Democrats.

[MikeH]

None of the parties have really.

The Tories could have two possible issues that people care about that could really show them as an alternative to labour.

1. Europe. Problem is the Conservatives are quite heavily split internally on Europe. They can't start using a more anti-European stance because historically it's nearly torn the party apart and no-one wants to elect a party torn by infighting.

2. Iraq. Unfortunately Howard always has, and still does (he said the other day) support the Iraq war, so all they have to play with is the "were we told the truth?" angle but then they say they'd have gone in anyway so...

People still don't trust Howard from when he was home secretary, etc. Check out his profile:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4357809.stm

[Dinner]

The UK elections are on the BBC news each night on PBS.

[Shi Huangdi]

Hmm this is interesting, according to the most recent poll, the Tories have closed the gap with Labour to two points. This could get interesting after all.

[MikeH]

Not really... the way the election boundaries are even if the Tories equal the labour vote they won't win. Labour has more of the smaller population constituencies.

The constituency boundary reviews (which have to be done from time to time as populations move around) are under way and will address that in time but not for this election. Plus it depends which constituencies are Labour vs Conservatives, which are Labour vs Lib Dem, which are Conservative vs Lib dem and vice versa.

Play with the figures here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/seatcalculator/html/default.stm

The conservatives need to be a few percentage points ahead in the national vote to win.

[Shi Huangdi]

Well, right now the polls are at:

LAB 36
CON 34
LD 23
OTH 7

I had read previously, though I am not sure if this is correct, that the Tories usually do 2-3 points better then the polls suggest. So if that effect were to hold true again, and the in the last of week campaigning the Tories managed to swing 3% of voters over to there side(or blair was hit with some last minute scandal), we get

CON 40
LAB 30
LD 23
OTH 7

Which would lead to a Conservative overall majority of 2. Unlikely, but there should be some outside chance of it.

Of course, even if the polls remain as they are, but the Tories still did 3 points better then the polls predicted, getting us

CON 37
LAB 34
LD 23
OTH 7

We would get a hung parliament, albeit with Labour as the largest party.

And of course, even if Labour managed to hold on to it's overall majority, I imagine it would still look bad for Blair if his party did not receive the most votes.

[Dauphin]

A hung parliament would be great! It won't happen though.

[Provost Harrison]

I still think it could potentially happen though...perhaps I should try and get Bexleyheath and Crayford Conservative after all