General Election 2010

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

It's no surprise because Murdoch announced earlier in the year that his papers were changing tack and getting behind the tories. The Sun came out first so it was only a matter of time before The Times went public. I like The Times too, Renton. My dad gets the Telegraph which has a superb sports section, but I can't be doing with the rest of the paper.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

It's going to be the most interesting election night in years. Voters sick of labour, wanting change, but not convinced by Dave.

 

Looks like lots of wasted votes for Clegg and hung or weak government all the way with another election called before Xmas.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

If it's a hung parliament do they have to have another election? Or if a workable co-alition is formed can they go with that for the full term?

[Craig 6682]

It's going to be the most interesting election night in years. Voters sick of labour, wanting change, but not convinced by Dave.

 

Sounds like a complete inverse of 1992. I suspect the 'shy Labour' contingent may surface to privately back them.

[Craig 6682]

If it's a hung parliament do they have to have another election? Or if a workable co-alition is formed can they go with that for the full term?

 

BBC do a good guide on it...

 

Recent opinion polls have suggested a growing possibility of there being a hung parliament after the general election.

 

If it is to be avoided, either Labour will have to improve significantly on their current showing in polls, or the Conservatives will have to achieve one of the biggest electoral swings ever seen.

 

But since World War II, there has only been one exception to the rule that in the UK we do not elect hung parliaments.

 

What are they and why do we not have them very often?

 

What is a hung parliament?

 

A hung parliament is one in which no party has an overall majority, which means no party has more than half of MPs in the House of Commons.

 

It means that the government will not be able to win votes to pass laws without the support of members of other parties.

 

At the next election the number of seats contested will be increasing from 646 to 650 as a result of boundary changes.

 

That means that on the face of it, an absolute majority would require one party to win 326 seats and that if no party won that many seats there would be a hung parliament.

 

In reality, it is not quite that simple because the speaker and his deputies, although members of parliament, do not usually vote.

 

Also, in the current parliament, there are five Sinn Fein MPs who refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen and as a result are not entitled to vote.

 

But in the simplest terms, the Labour Party will lose its absolute majority if it loses 24 seats and the Conservatives will gain an absolute majority if it gains 116 seats. Any result in between will result in a hung parliament.

 

What happens if there is a hung parliament?

 

The incumbent Prime Minister will remain in power until he or she resigns and may try to stay in government even if his or her party did not win the largest number of seats.

 

In 1974, Edward Heath stayed in power for four days after the election trying to put together a coalition, even though Labour had the largest number of seats in Parliament.

 

A party can stay in power without an absolute majority by trying to forge an alliance with a smaller party to create a coalition government, which would usually involve policy concessions and allowing members of the smaller party into the cabinet.

 

In some countries, instead of forming coalition governments, they have reached agreements with smaller parties that they will support the government if there is a vote in parliament aimed at bringing down the government and forcing an election.

 

Another possibility is for the biggest party to form a minority government with no agreements with other parties and just try to form majorities in favour of each individual bill as it comes up.

 

If no party is prepared to go down one of these paths then parliament will be dissolved again and there will be another election, although in effect that is relatively unlikely to happen because two elections so close together would be unpopular and the result would probably be the same.

 

Has this happened in the UK before?

 

In the first of the two elections in 1974 there was no outright majority.

 

Labour won 301 seats compared with the Conservative Party's 297.

 

Harold Wilson formed a minority government, but it did not last for long, with another election in October 1974 giving Harold Wilson a slim majority of only three seats.

 

There was also a hung parliament following the 1929 general election, with Ramsey MacDonald's Labour Party winning 287 seats to Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives' 260 and David Lloyd George's Liberals' 59.

 

Occasionally, parliaments have also become hung parliaments in the middle of a session as a result of by-elections, as happened to John Major's Conservative government in 1996.

 

But that still means there have only been a handful of hung parliaments in the UK.

 

Other countries seem to have loads of them. Why don't we?

 

British politics has traditionally been dominated by two parties, although there is evidence of a shift away from that.

 

Part of the reason for the two-party dominance is the electoral system.

 

Israel has one of the purest forms of proportional representation. All voters choose from a list of parties, and parties get seats in the Knesset based on the number of votes they receive in the whole country.

 

That encourages single-issue parties and parties appealing to only one section of the population and makes it almost impossible for a single party to win a majority of seats.

 

After an election, the biggest party has to try to form a coalition with as many smaller parties as it takes to achieve a majority.

 

The UK is at the other extreme. A party will only win a seat if it gets the largest number of votes in a single constituency.

 

That means that parties have to try to appeal to as much of the population of individual constituencies as they can.

 

Smaller parties can win thousands of votes around the country but still not win a seat.

 

The system makes it much more likely that a single party will win a majority.

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ele...010/8427233.stm

[Christmas Tree 4711]

If it's a hung parliament do they have to have another election? Or if a workable co-alition is formed can they go with that for the full term?

 

 

They'll have a bash at making it work but it will soon fall apart.

 

If Cleggs the king maker and brown or cameron is pm, vince cable would want chancellor which would leave cable higher in government than clegg.

 

It would also upset Darling or Osbourne.

 

This would be repeated all the way down with constant bickering and fighting.

 

Nowt will get done.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

It's going to be the most interesting election night in years. Voters sick of labour, wanting change, but not convinced by Dave.

 

Sounds like a complete inverse of 1992. I suspect the 'shy Labour' contingent may surface to privately back them.

 

depends if it's giro day, can't see them getting out of bed otherwise.

[Meenzer 15448]

Looks like lots of wasted votes for Clegg and hung or weak government all the way with another election called before Xmas.

 

You shouldn't be so dismissive of those "wasted votes", they're what'll win you a bunch of Lab-Con marginals.

 

Of course, as always, if everyone who says they'd vote for the Lib Dems if they didn't think it was a wasted vote actually voted for them...

[Craig 6682]

I suspect the Lib Lib Dem vote share will fall back from the current estimated 28% to around the 20% mark on Thursday.

 

Tories need to grab over ¾ (6.1%) of that vote share to get a majority. Labour need slightly more of it for a majority - about 6.6%

 

Realistically, if the Tories are serious about taking overall control, they need to make serious in-roads into Labours vote-share too.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

Looks like lots of wasted votes for Clegg and hung or weak government all the way with another election called before Xmas.

 

You shouldn't be so dismissive of those "wasted votes", they're what'll win you a bunch of Lab-Con marginals.

 

Of course, as always, if everyone who says they'd vote for the Lib Dems if they didn't think it was a wasted vote actually voted for them...

 

The real Libs Dems would come out from the shadows.....

 

 

 

 

[Craig 6682]

Heckler thrown out of Brown event

 

A 38-year-old man has been thrown out of a Labour Party event after heckling a speech to supporters by Gordon Brown.

 

Julian Borthwick said he had gone to the National Glass Centre in Sunderland for lunch but "felt animated" when he heard the prime minister was there.

 

His complaint was about availability of fast broadband in the North East.

 

He also said he was angry that the PM was not meeting any ordinary people and was instead appearing before "small hand-picked groups"

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ele...010/8656046.stm

 

Labour starting to lose the plot now IMO.

[Matt 0]

Looks like lots of wasted votes for Clegg and hung or weak government all the way with another election called before Xmas.

 

You shouldn't be so dismissive of those "wasted votes", they're what'll win you a bunch of Lab-Con marginals.

 

Of course, as always, if everyone who says they'd vote for the Lib Dems if they didn't think it was a wasted vote actually voted for them...

 

Its' shocking that the Tories have to use the threat of a hung parliament to get votes in. They've got a government which is as unpopular as Major's equally smug band in 1997 but there's no sign of the tides turning as it did then- not even close.

 

It's been piss poor- relying on winning the election by default then deciding on proper policies once they were in government. They've been banging on to the electorate about Gordon Brown's failings, only to find those voters they were targeting going over to the Libs. Cameron should be romping away with it.

 

A hung parliament is looking nailed on, will take something dramatic in the next few days to swing it.

[Renton 21404]

Heckler thrown out of Brown event

 

A 38-year-old man has been thrown out of a Labour Party event after heckling a speech to supporters by Gordon Brown.

 

Julian Borthwick said he had gone to the National Glass Centre in Sunderland for lunch but "felt animated" when he heard the prime minister was there.

 

His complaint was about availability of fast broadband in the North East.

 

He also said he was angry that the PM was not meeting any ordinary people and was instead appearing before "small hand-picked groups"

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ele...010/8656046.stm

 

Labour starting to lose the plot now IMO.

 

Don't see how they've lost the plot at all from that article tbh. Sounds like he's a nutter.

[Gemmill 44539]

Heckler thrown out of Brown event

 

A 38-year-old man has been thrown out of a Labour Party event after heckling a speech to supporters by Gordon Brown.

 

Julian Borthwick said he had gone to the National Glass Centre in Sunderland for lunch but "felt animated" when he heard the prime minister was there.

 

His complaint was about availability of fast broadband in the North East.

 

He also said he was angry that the PM was not meeting any ordinary people and was instead appearing before "small hand-picked groups"

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ele...010/8656046.stm

 

Labour starting to lose the plot now IMO.

 

Don't see how they've lost the plot at all from that article tbh. Sounds like he's a nutter.

 

Aye, I mean the bloke's giving a speech. You can't just let some mackem flid mong on about his broadband.

[trophyshy 7073]

It teks us aal neet to get one epeesohd of Lost man Gordon, sawt it ooot man ya cab door heed.

Edited May 1, 2010 by trophyshy

[Park Life 71]

The Lizards stop the vital fluids once you lose power. [/icke].

 

 

Edited May 1, 2010 by Park Life

[Craig 6682]

Heckler thrown out of Brown event

 

A 38-year-old man has been thrown out of a Labour Party event after heckling a speech to supporters by Gordon Brown.

 

Julian Borthwick said he had gone to the National Glass Centre in Sunderland for lunch but "felt animated" when he heard the prime minister was there.

 

His complaint was about availability of fast broadband in the North East.

 

He also said he was angry that the PM was not meeting any ordinary people and was instead appearing before "small hand-picked groups"

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ele...010/8656046.stm

 

Labour starting to lose the plot now IMO.

 

Don't see how they've lost the plot at all from that article tbh. Sounds like he's a nutter.

 

Aye, I mean the bloke's giving a speech. You can't just let some mackem flid mong on about his broadband.

 

Brown made a pledge not that long ago that he wanted the entire country to have at least 2mb broadband in their homes.

 

Anyway, what he's arguing about is besides the point - one of the biggest criticisms that came out from the Gillian Duffy incident is that people felt that Brown wasn't listening. Removing a 'heckler' who's hardly going to test his political mind that much isn't exactly helping to dispell that train of thought.

 

Is he worried about fucking up again? If not, then why not speak?

[Ketsbaia 0]

Heckler thrown out of Brown event

 

A 38-year-old man has been thrown out of a Labour Party event after heckling a speech to supporters by Gordon Brown.

 

Julian Borthwick said he had gone to the National Glass Centre in Sunderland for lunch but "felt animated" when he heard the prime minister was there.

 

His complaint was about availability of fast broadband in the North East.

 

He also said he was angry that the PM was not meeting any ordinary people and was instead appearing before "small hand-picked groups"

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ele...010/8656046.stm

 

Labour starting to lose the plot now IMO.

 

Don't see how they've lost the plot at all from that article tbh. Sounds like he's a nutter.

 

Aye, I mean the bloke's giving a speech. You can't just let some mackem flid mong on about his broadband.

 

Brown made a pledge not that long ago that he wanted the entire country to have at least 2mb broadband in their homes.

 

Anyway, what he's arguing about is besides the point - one of the biggest criticisms that came out from the Gillian Duffy incident is that people felt that Brown wasn't listening. Removing a 'heckler' who's hardly going to test his political mind that much isn't exactly helping to dispell that train of thought.

 

Is he worried about fucking up again? If not, then why not speak?

 

Didn't Cameron get a heckler 'removed' from a speech he was giving on a few days ago? No politician is going to go toe to toe with someone on a rant about how long it takes to twoc the latest Lady Gaga album.

[Craig 6682]

Aye he did... but he's not in the media spotlight over it as much as Brown is thanks to Wednesday's episode.

 

They reckon he was dragged from the room too - sounds a bit draconian to me.

[Christmas Tree 4711]

Adam Arnold

Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg have both been heckled while on the election campaign trail.

 

A man who accused Labour of having an "orchestrated" strategy, shouted at the Prime Minister before being forcibly ejected from the room.

 

Julian Borthwick had tried to ask the Labour leader a question during his speech at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland.

 

The PM said there would be an opportunity at the end but the heckler was not satisfied with that.

 

Labour supporters angrily shouted down Mr Borthwick as Mr Brown carried on with his speech.

 

Mr Borthwick continued heckling and was then removed from the room by party activists as other members cheered. 

 

He was then escorted off the property by the PM's police protection.

 

Later in the day, Mr Clegg was heckled by two men at a pub in Malvern, Worcestershire.

 

One was a Conservative county councillor who was unhappy about what he said were lies spoken by the Lib Dem candidate about the Tory candidate.

 

Mr Clegg was also heckled by a man called George Wilesmith, 27, who was told to "pipe down" by the politician as he interrupted a question and answer session.

 

He was trying to ask the Lib Dem leader "should life mean life" in prison sentences.

 

Speaking in Sunderland, Mr Brown's heckler, Mr Borthwick, said he was not a member of any opposition party.

 

But the 38-year-old said he felt the Labour campaign was orchestrated and Mr Brown only spoke to party activists and did not get to talk to real people.

 

The IT worker, who comes from Sunderland but lives in London, said: "It's the fact that it's been such a controlled campaign.

 

"Real politicians are going around talking to real people and Mr Brown isn't doing that. Mr Brown needs to see real electors, not just hand-picked people."

 

Mr Borthwick, an Oxford law graduate, also tried to ask him about Gillian Duffy - the woman the PM called "bigoted" in unguarded remarks picked up by a stray microphone.

 

He heckled the premier with comments including "we're broke" and "what about that bigoted woman?"

 

As he was walked to the edge of the centre's car park by a police officer, Mr Borthwick said: "This is what happens if you bump into the Prime Minister, you get walked off the premises."

 

Sky's political correspondent Peter Spencer said of the incident: "I would put it down to something of a missed opportunity for the Prime Minister. It was obvious that the room was completely packed with Labour activists.

 

"It would have been a glorious opportunity for him to have said, when the security guards were trying to push the bloke out, to say 'no, no, no. Let's hear him speak'.

 

"And let him say his piece, answer him and thus prove the bloke wrong on the spot. But he didn't. He simply said 'Well I'm talking now you can ask your questions later'."

 

Mr Brown had been making what was supposed to be his set-piece big speech of the weekend where he was talking about investment in the north east of England economy when the disruption happened.

[Ketsbaia 0]

"Do you know what it's like to clean up your own mothers piss?"

[trophyshy 7073]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/ma...stroud-gay-cure

 

 

0Rising Tory star Philippa Stroud ran prayer sessions to 'cure' gay people

 

Conservative high-flyer Philippa Stroud founded a church that tried to 'cure' homosexuals by driving out their 'demons

 

Philippa Stroud, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam, has founded US-style evangelical churches in Bedford and in Birmingham. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

 

A high-flying prospective Conservative MP, credited with shaping many of the party's social policies, founded a church that tried to "cure" homosexuals by driving out their "demons" through prayer.

 

Philippa Stroud, who is likely to win the Sutton and Cheam seat on Thursday and is head of the Centre for Social Justice, the thinktank set up by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, has heavily influenced David Cameron's beliefs on subjects such as the family. A popular and energetic Tory, she is seen as one of the party's rising stars.

 

The CSJ reportedly claims to have formulated as many as 70 of the party's policies. Stroud has spoken of how her Christian faith has motivated her to help the poor and of her time spent working with the destitute in Hong Kong. On her return to Britain, in 1989, she founded a church and night shelter in Bedford, the King's Arms Project, that helped drug addicts and alcoholics. It also counselled gay, lesbian and transsexual people.

 

Abi, a teenage girl with transsexual issues, was sent to the church by her parents, who were evangelical Christians. "Convinced I was demonically possessed, my parents made the decision to move to Bedford, because of this woman [stroud] who had come back from Hong Kong and had the power to set me free," Abi told the Observer.

 

"She wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so-called demons inside me were wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me, calling out the demons. She really believed things like homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction could be fixed just by prayer, all in the name of Jesus."

 

"T" said he moved to Bedford because he believed the church could help him stop having homosexual thoughts. "I was trying to convince myself that a change was possible but, at the same time, a part of me didn't believe it was possible," he said. "The church's approach was not that it was sinful to be homosexual but that it was sinful to act on it. The aim is to get a person to a position where they don't have these sinful emotions and thoughts."

 

"T" said it was only after he "took a break" from the church that his depression lifted. "It was the church's attitude towards my sexuality that was the issue," he recalled.

 

"My impression is that she genuinely cares about people," he said of Stroud. "Her personal beliefs may get in the way sometimes, but she is a positive person."

 

Stroud and her husband, David, a minister in the New Frontiers church, allied to the US evangelical movement, left the project in the late 1990s to establish another church in Birmingham. Angela Paterson, who was an administrator at the Bedford church, said: "With hindsight, the thing that freaks me out was everybody praying that a demon would be cast out of me because I was gay. Anything – drugs, alcohol or homosexuality, they thought you had a demon in you."

 

Kacey Jones, a hostel resident, said she was told to end her lesbian relationship or leave the church. "Philippa was still around when I first moved in," Jones said. "There was a 'discipleship house' for Christians struggling with issues, including their sexuality. They told me my feelings weren't normal. I didn't want to be gay, I wanted to be like everybody else, get married, have kids and please my parents."

 

Stroud wrote a book, God's Heart for the Poor, in which she explains how to deal with people showing signs of "demonic activity". Stroud, who declined to talk to the Observer, writes: "I'd say the bottom line is to remember your spiritual authority as a child of God. He is so much more powerful than anything else!"

 

In the book she discusses the daily struggle of running the hostel. "One girl lived in the hostel for some time, became a Christian, then choked to death on her own vomit after a drinking bout. Her life had changed to some extent, but we wondered whether God knew that she hadn't the will to stick with it and was calling her home."

 

One resident featured in the book, Mary, was in an abusive relationship. "We discovered further layers of the tangle when she admitted to previous lesbian relationships and to being on the receiving end of abuse from her family," Stroud writes, adding: "No wonder she was in such a mess!"

 

The Conservatives have tried to win over gay voters after a string of controversial comments by party members. The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, said owners of B&B accommodation should have the right to turn away gay couples. Julian Lewis, the shadow defence minister, said he was against lowering the age of consent from 18 to 16 for homosexuals.

 

Revelations about Stroud's past are likely to make the party's task even more difficult. "This reinforces our long-held suspicions that those out of sight, but with their hands on the levers of power, have deeply reactionary ambitions," said Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society.

 

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the Stonewall group, said: "If Mrs Stroud has been praying to rid Britain of its homosexuality, she clearly hasn't been praying hard enough. It would be highly regrettable if someone who continued to hold these views held any significant office in government."

Edited May 2, 2010 by trophyshy

[Renton 21404]

Does anyone really believe the tories are not the same group of bigotted cunts of old? It'd be interesting if we could leave microphones attached to them 24/7 so we could hear what they really think. All this 'change' they have come to profess is nothing but a shallow facade imo - underneath they are the same bunch of intolerant bastards they always have been who will do nothing for minority groups.

[Ayatollah Hermione 13840]

Does anyone really believe the tories are not the same group of bigotted cunts of old? It'd be interesting if we could leave microphones attached to them 24/7 so we could hear what they really think. All this 'change' they have come to profess is nothing but a shallow facade imo - underneath they are the same bunch of intolerant bastards they always have been who will do nothing for minority groups.

 

Literally everyone I've spoke to who is voting for the Tories has given me an answer about immigrants and that's it. I don't think the majority of people are aware of what they're like.

[NJS 4375]

Does anyone really believe the tories are not the same group of bigotted cunts of old? It'd be interesting if we could leave microphones attached to them 24/7 so we could hear what they really think. All this 'change' they have come to profess is nothing but a shallow facade imo - underneath they are the same bunch of intolerant bastards they always have been who will do nothing for minority groups.

 

Literally everyone I've spoke to who is voting for the Tories has given me an answer about immigrants and that's it. I don't think the majority of people are aware of what they're like.

 

I've just about resigned myself to them winning now but have two reasons to be positive - King's opinion on how much shit is going to hit the fan and a whole new generation of selfish twats are going to be reminded what the Tories are.