State of the parties as 2015 General Election looms.

[Beef Oven!]

What you appear to be saying is that Nicki Morgan will pretend to listen, but will do Gove's own thing anyway.

Spelling. See me.

[teamsaint]

latest polls, in "on topic post" shocker.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

labour ahead, a bit.

[Beef Oven!]

latest polls, in "on topic post" shocker.

LOL!

Interesting numbers.

Lab 34%
Cons 32%
UKIP 14%
Grns 7%
LibDs 6%

I wonder what AV would produce if these %s were at play in the general election. I guess we'll never know!

[amateur51]

LOL!

Interesting numbers.

Lab 34%
Cons 32%
UKIP 14%
Grns 7%
LibDs 6%

I wonder what AV would produce if these %s were at play in the general election. I guess we'll never know!

Interesting indeed.

What would you think to a Labour/Green/LibDem coalition, jean?

[jean]

Not much.

[Beef Oven!]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/541793/SNP-activist-killed-over-child-sex-files

[Beef Oven!]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30269231

[Richard Barrett]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30269231

Of course the responsible thing to do, for both people and environment, would have been to invest in public transport infrastructure instead... yet another potentially popular policy that none of the major parties is really taking seriously - anyone would think they were in someone's pockets.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Not much.

But surely better than the alternative?

[teamsaint]

But surely better than the alternative?

which would be?

[jean]

The danger is that you have to compromise so much you lose all credibility with your supporters - or perhaps they just have too high expectations of you.

Look what happened to the Lib Dems.

[Serial_Apologist]

The danger is that you have to compromise so much you lose all credibility with your supporters - or perhaps they just have too high expectations of you.

Look what happened to the Lib Dems.

What happened was that the Lib Dems' shallow ideological foundations were exposed once in the coalition, which they were probably not prepared for in any case.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What happened was that the Lib Dems' shallow ideological foundations were exposed once in the coalition, which they were probably not prepared for in any case.

Agreed. Nick Clegg was just too eager to be "in on the act", selling the party's soul to achieve a brief moment of shallow glory.

[Richard Barrett]

shallow ideological foundations

There you have it. Remember all that embarrassing "I agree with Nick" business because the big party leaders were panicking about the LibDems' election prospects? Now it's all "I agree with Nige", without even saying so, which is even more pathetic.

[ahinton]

There you have it. Remember all that embarrassing "I agree with Nick" business because the big party leaders were panicking about the LibDems' election prospects? Now it's all "I agree with Nige", without even saying so, which is even more pathetic.

I remember it only too well - and the lion's share of it seemed to emanate from the mouth of Mr Gordon Brown upon whom so many - even including Dave - are now lavishing fulsome tributes in the wake of his impending (but carefully and perhaps cynically leaked) announcement that he'll step down at the next General Election; somehow, though, I cannot imagine similar televised Strictly-Come-X-Factor party leader contests in which each non-UKIP leader competes with each of the others in the "I agree with Nige" stakes, as it seems to me rather more likely that they'll all want to distance themselves from UKIP even to the point at which a whole new "us and them" might appear to emerge...