AnswerBank Election Thread

[AB Editor]

Good Evening Everyone.

I thought I would drop this in for everyone to mumble, grumble, whoop, cheer and yes, even boo, their way through this evening's election results.

What I am seeing on the exit poll on the BBC is

Con: 307
Lab: 255
LD: 59
Other: 29

I have a feeling there may be a few people saying they voted Tory on the way out, but really voting Labour. It has happened before - any thoughts?

Spare Ed

[4getmenot]

they wouldnt even let me tell them, they were only doing every 30, so what if every 30th vote just happened to be for conservatives and all the others in between were lib dems?

[DrFilth]

have a good night everyone i am off

[dothawkes31]

It's a disgrace, blame the appathetic idiots who think that 'they are all the same', blame the kids who are at uni and could vote but can't be bothered cos they think the tories will give them support when they leave the bank of mum and dad. Blame the idiots who don't use their vote or don;t register to vote but spend all the time moaning about the state of Britain. the worst kind are those that think they have the right to criticise the amount of pension, tax, petrol etc yet didn;t get off their backside to earn the right to moan..

[olddutch]

Statistical genius Nate Silver predicted the correct result between Barack Obama and John McCain in 49 of America's states.

The baseball nerd who used his genius for statistics to make startlingly accurate predictions in the 2008 US presidential race has weighed into the British election – and his conclusions make chilling reading for Labour.on his blog, presenting his own alternative methodology that suggests a disastrous May 6 performance for Labour.

Silver's method breaks up the monolithic uniform swing and instead assigns specific percentages of the parties' votes in 2005 to other parties in 2010. Using a recent polling average of the three main parties – with the Conservatives on 34%, the Lib Dems on 29.1%, and Labour on 26.9% – the differences between the two methods become stark.
Using uniform swing, those percentages translate into
253 Labour MPs,
271 Conservatives,
93 Lib Dems.
Using Silver's method,
Labour ends up with just 214,
with the Conservatives surging to 304,
and the Lib Dems on 101.

[boxtops]

Here here dot, I said that on another thread, if you don't vote you can't complain. Old habits die hard with some people though.

[AB Editor]

A general attack on the Electorate Dot? I would say that all the students I know have voted, either by post or otherwise.

I agree there is too much moaning and not enough action! The British don't quite have revolution in their blood I'm afraid - or at least, not yet.

As to the exit polls - I am sure they try to get a representative sample. Also, they tend to avoid people who actually Want to answer these things.

Sadly no one asked me.

Has anyone lied on the exit poll today?

Doc, I am certain it will be Sunderland again.

G'night Dr.F!

All the best

Spare

[AB Editor]

Hi OD,

I do hope the Liberals get over 100 MPs - I think they could be a taming force on government.

As to who is in power come the morning, I hope it isn't Cameron.

Does anyone know how the Markets are likely to react to a Hung Parliment vs. a Con win?

Spare Ed

[olddutch]

hello spare ed

agree with you - below an earlier post as to where I stand

I believe the past months have clearly shown that very many voters now want a change to a new system of polilitics and that PR would be the system to accommodate that voter desire.

PR is an obviously much fairer voting system in that the number of MPs in the parliament will be a reflection of the total number of votes cast per party. It produces a greater effective choice for voters by reducing the dominance of the large parties, encourages fuller voter turn-out and reduces voter apathy .Voters will be more likely to vote if they think their vote will always count ,and this would promote truer democracy.

PR promotes the fairer treatment of minority parties and independent candidates By rarely producing an absolute majority for one party, PR ensures greater continuity of government and requires greater consensus in policy-making. I believe that stable government is viable through PR. Once PR had replaced FPTP and bedded in, a greater consensual politics would, of necessity, evolve. The ethos of adversarial politics after elections had been held would quieten over time and stable Government under PR would be as workable here as it is in many other countries - but no system is perfect .

I too am looking forward to a hung parliament working well on all counts - especially fair austerity measures - and the LibDem collaboration eventually generating PR.

So fingers crossed Lib dems do better than exit poll predicts

dont know market reaction yet but they usually react badly to uncertainty

happy viewing or listening !

[Gromit]

After Clegg mania, it seems odd that the Exit Polls suggest the Lib/Dems will end up with 3 seats less than last time. Either the Exit Poll is wrong, or the Lib/Dem optimism has not trnslated into votes at the polling stations.