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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » At last! Betting on the May 2016 Scottish Parliamentary Ele
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » At last! Betting on the May 2016 Scottish Parliamentary Election
Given what we’ve seen it is very hard to envisage anything other than a big SNP victory. Unlike last month’s general elections north of the border where the SNP were able to pick up 56 of the 59 seats with 50% of the vote the system for Holyrood is different and should see many more parties being represented.
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I am surprised that this method of voting is seldom mentioned as a possible replacement for FPTP when it comes to HoC elections.
Using the existing areas for Euro elections could be the way to divide up the UK, albeit unlike in Holyrood elections due to the bigger differences in population each area would elect differing numbers of list MPs. It is more proportional than AV but less complicated than STV.
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Is it a slur against potholes?!
Naturally my principal interest is in Yvette!
The maintaining of the FPTP element and the constituency link that goes with it for the majority of MPs whilst having a more proportional result overall I think make it good system.
Boris comes to the fore, and takes a stand that will make him leader of the Tory Eurosceptics.
It all seems overly complicated. Wouldn't it be simpler just for everyone in an area to vote for one candidate and the person with the most votes wins?
Onm topic, that 7-4 for NOM looks quite good odds. The SNP would have an overall majority on the 2010 figures, but there seems at least an even chance that they won't do quite that well again.
The word "fair" is always used ... which directly translates (as always) into "better for me".
Since every CLP has to nominate one woman and there are only two women candidates, the obvious missing one is Abbott. This may be partly because the party is in a pensive, not very left-wing mood, and partly because she's annoyed members by sniping at the party through her TV slot ("I want a candidate, not a bloody pundit", as one put it). She may well still make it to the ballot, but I don't think she'll be selected.
I much prefer STV, which is more proportional, maintains the constituency link, elects everyone on an equal basis and allows the electorate to choose between multiple candidates from the same party.
However, you can scale this systems by this desirable quality of not magnifying a small plurality, and proportional list systems will come on top while FPTP will be dead last. I mean, it is very silly that two of the last three general elections have produced working majorities on 35 and 37 per cent of the vote - and for different parties! you couldn't make it up.
SNP most seats probably correct at 1-20; Also SNP majority about right at 4-7 with NOM @ 7-4.
Lab Maj @ 12-1 - more like 1200-1 now lol.
Betting w/o SNP would be very interesting,
98 overs;
Need a draw only;
Cloud cover;
5th day pitch;
Alistair Cook captain;
Possibility of more rain;
Outfield slowed from rain last night;
Chris Gayle in at 3
I've gone -430 Eng; +50 NZ; +28 Draw anyway.
However, because it is Holyrood, the SNP may not get 45-50% of the votes. I suspect overall, they will be a couple of votes short of overall majority. So, 7/4 NOM has value.
One problem is that in recent years the ERS has become obsessed with irrelevant things, like gender quotas and votes for 16-year-olds, and of course it was the leadership of ERS which was primarily responsible for the disastrous, patronising and counter-productive Yes campaign in the AV referendum.
But, perhaps more interestingly, I am not sure that I necessarily support STV any more. I like the idea of relatively small STV constituencies (only 2 or 3 MPs each - enough to provide a boost for the two main parties) but even that might be too proportional.
The most recent information released by the ERS talks ridiculously about 2015 being the "least proportional ever" result. There would have been a problem if one party had got a majority of seats and a different party had got a plurality of votes; in 2005 it *was* a problem when Labour got a large majority of seats with only a 3% lead in the popular vote. But I don't regard a majority of seats, and a 7% lead in the votes, to be particularly a problem.
If we had some form of PR, then David Cameron would still be Prime Minister anyway, except propped up by UKIP in some form. In 2010 there would have been a Conservative-LibDem coalition, just as there was under FPTP.
That makes me think:
Why do people vote for minor parties?
Why did 23% vote Lib Dem in 2010?
Why did 12% vote UKIP in 2015?
It was not because they wanted a Lib Dem government in 2010, or a UKIP government in 2015. If the Lib Dem voters had wanted a Lib Dem government in 2010, then they would not have descended into howls of outrage as soon as the Coalition was formed, and they would have been more grateful in 2015 for the things which have been enacted by the Lib Dems in government. Similarly, if UKIP had a few dozen MPs, UKIP voters would not have been enthusiastic about them hurtling into a coalition or a confidence-and-supply arrangement (or whatever) with David Cameron.
People voted Lib Dem in 2010 and UKIP in 2015 because they wanted to be grumpy, rebellious, register a particular type of abstention, or "send a message" to the two main parties.
...
Finally, there is no point in tinkering with AV, which is an irrelevance. In the vast majority of constituencies, people know who the top two candidates are going to be. Voters are able to decide whether they want to (a) choose between the top two, or (b) register a protest by voting for a minor candidate. Voters, in other words, transfer their votes according to their preferences before they even write their X on the ballot paper.
Thus it is quite odd, but I have actually come to like FPTP.
Another influence on the Labour succession would be the Conservative leader at the time, probably not Cameron.
I suspect Blair would have stayed until 2009/10, and Brown wouldn't have had a coronation. He probably would still have won, but it's far from a certainty.
Charles Kennedy former LIBDem leader dead according to family BBC reports
I voted Ukip because they've become the party that I identify most strongly with on a number of issues. I'm was fully aware that my vote wouldn't make any difference, but I'd have voted Ukip had I lived in a marginal as the Tories hadn't done enough to get my support and EICIPM would have been funny.
The Tories have a majority now and so will be judged at the next election. My main concern with FPTP is that it concentrates the election into a small number of marginals. Take my constituency of Woking, there really is no viable alternative to the Tories following the Lib Dem collapse. But I guess that could change one day.
Sad news indeed, and 55 is no great age at all. Condolences to all friends and family. RIP.
I was walking the Pennine Way when he was elected leader of the Lib Dems, and I hunkered down in the lee of Stoodley Pike monument so I could listen to the result on the radio.
Probably the moment I realised I was a politics junkie.
My own MP (now 43) is very able and intelligent and could have done all sorts of well-paid jobs if he had lost; he did say that he was considering teaching as one possibility. Some will no doubt be less able to adjust or find something suitable.
There can be little other explanation why the ERS even mention AV, why they failed to communicate to the public that AV is not PR and allow the media to continually mix up the two and allow opponents of PR to go unchallenged when they try to do so. It would also explain why the ERS allow the unpredictable and unstable full list PR to be considered instead of focusing entirely on the fair, stable and eminently sensible AMS system.
It also explains why Labour never select her. As a way to maintain the dominance of Labour and the Tories, taking their fifth column out the ERS would be distinctly problematic.
On topic there was a story in the ST at the weekend in which the SNP are going to create a sort of sister party, allegedly of even more left wing loons, to "game" the system and stop the other parties from getting list seats.
The system is proportional because the party who wins the constituencies in an area is at a disadvantage in the lists but the plan, allegedly, is that the SNP will get their supporters to vote for this sister party on the list vote and SNP on the constituency vote.
We shall see how this works out but there is no political system known to man that politicians cannot game given the opportunity.
As a learned man, I would not have expected you to fall to such blatant anti-SNP propaganda. Your post sounds as bad as anything from Scott P.
BTW, even were it not both illegal and likely to be politically detrimental, it would also be completely unnecessary while the SNP have both the Greens and Tories as very reliable and consensus based allies in Holyrood.
I think finding a way of ultimately destroying Scottish Labour would tempt the SNP and a Scottish Socialist party is an obvious way of doing it.
Huzzah! They've just mentioned on the radio that the government will be extending its troubled families program.
I can't find a link yet, but if I heard correctly then it's a really good move.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-than-105000-troubled-families-turned-around-saving-taxpayers-an-estimated-12-billion
A man who struggled with demons in his last years, and whom I'm never certain got the support he needed. RIP.
I had the pleasure of meeting him several times in the heady early SDP days. He was the shining, future star. It seems like only yesterday.
Finding a Lib Dem with a moral compass was always difficult after Nick Clegg took over. Now finding any the public might want to identify with is going to be just about impossible.
His poor family must be devastated; an awful time for them.
Edit: also, party lists are very undemocratic. I voted for AV but all these other wacky systems just seem to be designed to by-pass the stupid public
Sad news about Kennedy, far too young
They couldn't refuse a workable coalition the first time one came up.
BTW, did he really say that the coalition would be a disaster for the Lib Dems when he voted against it?
Any alternative would have been better than the Extinction of their party (which is what they now face).
Agree about party lists though. In our area we have one excellent MEP but his party’s general policies are not those I prefer. Every Euro election I wonder whether to vote for the party or the man! Especially as “my" Party is the LD’s who need every vote they can get!
I always liked him
Kennedy was right to lead the opposition to Labours Gulf War, If only our leaders had stood firm I think the US would not have been so keen on going in alone. Lets hope the Chillcot report vindicates the LD position and finishes off the career of people like Alastair Campbell.
Sour grapes from the usual right wing losers.