UK Elections 2014

[Clockwork]

A second UKIP voter? Well this is a thing unheard of! An Elf will go undergr....wait nevermind. But yay regardless I might not be on my lonesome next political discussion!

Despite sarcasm I am actually pleased. And despite sarcasm I do actually read up on politics. But I am also unequivocally a dumbass which may be used against me sparingly

[comrade_general]

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

[TTG4]

I disagree on solar power vs wind power, especially in the UK and would be interested to see any data on just how solar panels are more efficient than wind turbines.

Though on the 'renewable' energy argument the major point that goes unsaid is that we fundamentally lack any suitable energy storage mechanisms, only when we can store energy efficiently will we be able to move from fossil fuels/nuclear to 'renewable' sources.

[Jubal]

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

This sentiment really really REALLY annoys me, but this isn't the place for me to have that rant

TTG4: of course the best option is renewable or semi-renewable nuclear sources like fusion and thorium, but nobody can be bothered to fund those.

ANYWAY

Party conferences are over - and tomorrow we have the Clacton by-election and the Heywood and Middleton by-election. Let's see how this turns out! (And DC and Colossus, prepare to break out the beverage of choice; you'll probably have your first MP by Friday).

[comrade_general]

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

Blame Mark Twain.

[Pentagathus]

I've never looked into it too much but from what I've heard wind turbines are more efficient when talking about large scale installations in appropriate locations but for use in the much smaller scale or in urban/semi urban environments then solar panels are the way forward.
Course you can have solar panels placed within roads, pavements etc but thats super expensive at the moment.

[Clockwork]

Though really we should have jumped on nuclear power a long ass time ago (in a galaxy far away). But hey, at least we're getting one more.

@Jub: Rant, rant, rant, rant

[DeepComet5581]

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.

This sentiment really really REALLY annoys me, but this isn't the place for me to have that rant

TTG4: of course the best option is renewable or semi-renewable nuclear sources like fusion and thorium, but nobody can be bothered to fund those.

ANYWAY

Party conferences are over - and tomorrow we have the Clacton by-election and the Heywood and Middleton by-election. Let's see how this turns out! (And DC and Colossus, prepare to break out the beverage of choice; you'll probably have your first MP by Friday).

The trouble with Thorium is that governments can't make weapons out of it...

To think, this time last year, all 3 of the big parties (Though with the Lib Dems that's a matter of debate) were writing off UKIP as a protest vote. Now, many by-elections end up with UKIP in second. That, coupled with our gains in the local elections and victory in the European elections, paves a slightly golden path for us.

[Tom]

Ukip won a seat.

[Glaurung]

Ukip won a seat.

Yes - and, rather more unexpected, very nearly won a second one.

We live in interesting times. I think we in the UK are about to discover that a first-past-the-post electoral system produces highly unpredictable results when there are more than two or three parties with a significant share of the vote. At the moment, I am guessing that the general election next year will produce (a) a hung parliament, and hence a coalition government, though I have no idea what sort of coalition, and (b) an even greater than normal divergence between the share of the total vote by party, and the numbers of MPs. Perhaps the Conservative and Labour parties will come to rue the day they argued against proportional representation?

[Jubal]

DC: that is indeed precisely why our nuclear power stations are so awful. We're using a reactor system that's a) designed for a submarine not for power production and b) is designed to produce insanely dangerous weaponisable waste. Which is pretty stupid.

As to the results, yes, UKIP doing so well in Heywood was a real surprise. Labour's vote share held to 2010 levels, but given 2010 was such a catastrophe for them (not so much in terms of seats but their national vote share was awful) that's not terribly comforting.

Clacton was more expected but Carswell reaching 60% is psychologically pretty important I'd say. The Tories have a long way to go if they want to try and unseat him next year. They're now going to throw all the money they can muster into Rochester and Strood in a desperate attempt to halt the UKIP momentum - polling there shows they've got a 9% lead to close in the next few weeks, but polls seem to be underestimating rather than overestimating UKIP's support so it may be very, very difficult for them to hold. They're running a horrible campaign against Mark Reckless too, just trying to vilify him as much as possible.

[DeepComet5581]

That is precisely why UKIP are making gains - All the big three parties were resting on their laurels, and now that a threat has emerged, they are running around like headless chickens. UKIP has exposed the fact that, despite the big three championing a "Reconnect with the people of Britain" line, they clearly don't actually know or really care, at least until it actually affects them.

What compounds the issue further for them, is that they've spouted the same lines they did after the Euro elections, and they clearly haven't heeded that particular "Wake-up call".

[Jubal]

Yeah - the Conservatives I think are doing the worst at responding, their "vote UKIP get Labour" line just yields a "so portugaling what?" from much of UKIP's support base. They can't seem to make any good arguments as to why their policies outweigh UKIP, they're just arguing "stick with us because we're bigger". Labour are also pretty lacklustre and still trying to rely on UKIP=Tories, which is the flip side of the same issue. Meanwhile the Lib Dems have come out swinging against UKIP... but are trying to attack them on what is in popularity terms by far the Liberals' least popular policy portfolio, aka Europe. So that's pretty much a non-starter, braver than Lab or Con but not exactly clever politics.

[Othko97]

Cameron's vote UKIP get Labour line is actually pointing out the problems with FPTP voting, bet he wishes he'd made more out of the AV referendum now. Also I was not at all surprised by the increase in UKIP support in Heywood, there are a lot of vote UKIP banners and boards in windows at election time, and a lot of people have become disenfranchised with the main parties. People in this area are often vehemently against immigration, and with that and the NHS being about the only things campaigns focus on. I was expecting UKIP to do pretty well.

[TTG4]

I find it quite amusing that they didn't back AV because they thought it would help UKIP and it's now come back to bite them. I wasn't surprised Carswell got in, he was popular locally and there isn't much you can do in a short period of time to beat that. The other by-election just makes it clear how strong UKIP has grown.


Though Carswell's acceptance speech was interesting, he seems to want to pull them back from swinging too far right and having the centre/left easily attack them as bigots, Farrage's comments the other day about keeping HIV positive people from entering the country is a prime example of what they need to move away from.