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MikeK said:

Good Morning, 8 days to go and my 81st birthday tomorrow.

Survation. ‏@Survation 32m32 minutes ago
Media Alert, Financial Markets. @damiansurvation this morning on the potential for UKIP seats, share and "Brexit": http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000375243 …


Survation. ‏@Survation 14m14 minutes ago
"Only" is CNBC's word not mine. 5-10 seats would be impressive under FPTP. Keep in mind the number of SNP seats in 2010.

Best wishes for tomorrow Mike, I will remember to toast your good health

Alistair said:

dr_spyn said:

Edinburgh Zoo's pandas outnumber SLAB MPs at Westminster.

Pandas vs non-SNP MPs

We need an Orkney and Shetland poll.

I wonder how many seats candidates standing as 'Coalition Unionists' (Con/LD) would have been able to hold.

acf2310 said:

TheWatcher said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Ipsos Mori Scotland phone poll

SNP 54% (+2) Lab 20% (-4) Con 17% (+5) Lib Dems 5% (-1) Greens 2% (-2)

http://news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/318815-stvipsos-mori-poll-snp-set-to-win-all-scots-seats-at-general-election/

That Labour / Con figure is very interesting.

If those are the results on the day, Mundell will hold on in DCT.

Cons got 16.7% of the vote in Scotland in 2010. I those are the results on the day then Mundell is gone gone gone.

Hmm I either need the Tories to win 2 seats, or 0.

TheWatcher said:

Alistair said:

Sandpit said:

Daniel said:

Ipsos Scotland poll :SNP 54% (+2) Labour 20% (-4) Conservatives 17% (+5)
Lib Dems 5% (-1) Greens 2% (-2)

Wow! Con to beat Lab in Scotland anyone?

17% is the absolute max Con will get in Scotland. 16.5% is where I think they will be. So the only way they can beat Lab is by Lab falling below them rather than Con adding any more.

Not unlikely, as things stand. What's Labours min?

I don't know but I think we will find out on May 8th!

antifrank said:

Mind you, I'll be bloody annoyed if my bet on a tie in Scotland between the Conservatives and Labour loses because the Conservatives win.

On these figures, it's hard to identify a single Scottish Labour seat that would be held.

Murphy was guest on Radio Scotland this morning and did not have a good time of it , heard only one person being nice, rest were not happy and Jim got real snappy with them but got put in his place many times. Showed the mood very clearly.

NickPalmer said:

One thought as a long-standing supporter of the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform - if the SNP get nearly all the seats in Scotland on roughly half the vote, I think that might give some of my colleagues pause for thought.

Yes only interested when it is to save their own skins, kind of sums up why they are getting a good thrashing in Scotland.

Richard_Nabavi said:

There is not going to be a grand coalition under any circumstances. It is inconceivable in the UK parliamentary system. Quite apart from anything else, why on earth would either party want it?

What we might see is a 'grand confidence and supply', but even that is highly unlikely. More likely would be an informal arrangement where one of the two big parties decided to abstain on a confidence vote in order temporarily to keep the other in as a minority government. They would do this if they thought it was better, from a purely party-political viewpoint, to let things fester for a bit, heaping unpopularity on the poor saps trying to hold things together. They might also do this if they thought they needed more time themselves before provoking an election - for example, because funds were short or if they wanted to change leader first.

But a grand coalition is for the birds.

Yes: see Spain for exactly how this might work.

There the presence of regional (Basque, Catalan) parties has meant that the (historic) big two parties only very rarely got absolute majorities. Rather than be blackmailed at the mercy of regional parties to form a government, there was a gentleman's agreement between the big parties to allow the largest party to form a minority government.

Of course, to pass laws required a degree of compromise with smaller parties, or required individual representatives to be willing to ignore their party bosses, but - by and large - the system worked fairly well.

malcolmg said:

acf2310 said:

I wonder how many seats candidates standing as 'Coalition Unionists' (Con/LD) would have been able to hold.

Since you cannot get less, ZERO.

Sorry: I think they'd get the Border seats and one or two in Edinburgh.

Morris_Dancer said:

Och aye tha noo!

Could it be Miliband's nocturnal rendezvous with Russell Brand has failed to make him alluring to Scottish voters?

I believe Ed also has a midnight rendezvous planned with Billy Connolly, - should even things up a bit.

Plato said:

Everyone is a distant second in a walkover. Blair trounced the Tories in 1997, Labour killed Liberals a century ago. Mrs T landslided Labour in 1979.

It all goes in cycles - some longer than others.

malcolmg said:

Plato said:

Ruth Davidson is proving to be a great appointment - rather sooner than I expected. I thought it'd take another GE for the Tories to get back on the front foot - it seems to be accelerating due to SNP bulldozing and chronically weak SLAB.

Pulpstar said:

foxinsoxuk said:

Plato said:

Tories on 17% - golly.

Daniel said:

Ipsos Scotland poll :SNP 54% (+2) Labour 20% (-4) Conservatives 17% (+5)
Lib Dems 5% (-1) Greens 2% (-2)

Scottish Con vote does seem the only one in Scotland resistant to the charms of Ms Sturgeon.

Why would they be, they have a sensible alternative and a very decent leader. They are competing for a completely different constituency than the SNP.

If you count coming a very very distant second with ZERO MP's being an improvement

However in Scotland the Tories are moribund and going nowhere. Their only chance was to become a Scottish party but they chose to remain a London regional sockpuppet hoping a few could get up the greasy pole. As long as they are run from London with no real Scottish policies they are also rans.

New thread.

Peter_the_Punter said:

My understanding is that he took quite a pay cut when entering Parliament in 1997. Not sure if he has a family but if he does they certainly weren't evident while I was working with him up in Broxtowe recently. Nor was there much evidence of work being done by ZHC interns. It seemed to be mostly in the hands of unpaid volunteers like me, and of course himself. One reason I would expect him to beat Anna Soubry is precisely the high reputation he enjoyed amongst his former constituents as a hard-working backbench MP.

Of course not all MPs are like that. It's partly because I wish more MPs were that I was prepared to give up two days of my precious time to give him a hand. I am not a Party member and haven't voted Labour since 1997, but will probably do so this time.

[This was a Party Election Broadcast on behalf of CREEP - the Campaign for the Reelection of Palmer.]

ISTR NP saying he used to be on £90k then went to the HoC on £65k.

The trouble with this sort of comparison is the ensuing claim, that to become an MP was to be worse off. We hear it from many MPs, so I'm not saying this against NPxMP personally or specifically, and it isn't honest.

The £65k excludes all manner of allowances for which no receipts are required, they're just paid regardless of whether the corresponding expense was actually incurred. So the food allowance of ~£4000 is effectively £7000 of gross salary. Ditto all the other allowances. Ditto the tax-free capital gain on taxpayer funded hime flipping - which still continues because now they just rent each other their BTLs.

The final salary scheme vests at 1/40 per year - even when private sector jobs had final salary schemes 1/60th or 1/80th was more normal. The five-year contract under the FTPA is in fact a 62-month contract because defeated MPs get 2 months' pay, and on top of that, they get a capital sum by way of a redundancy. How many people do you know on a 62-month contract? How many contractors are paid redundo by their client? These are benefits whose value is basically incalculable because you simply could not get them any other way.

An MP's package is thus probably worth about £200k to £300k if properly valued, i.e. you would need that sort of headline gross salary to end up, as a private oik and net of tax, where MPs end up. This is for a job that an 18-year-old could do (we must presume so, as Labour has put up 18-year-olds as candidates).

MarqueeMark said:

If my football promotion/relegation thingy has any validity, then incumbents should get a bit of a boost from civic pride in Watford and Burton. Being in the play-offs should boost Ipswich, Norwich, Milton Keynes and Swindon.

Getting a poorer result would be the LibDems in Yeovil, Colchester, Cheltenham, Burnley and Bermondsey (Millwall) and the Tories in Blackpool and Crawley.

Colchester eh? hmmmmmmmmmm *scratches chin*