General election results 2015

[ahinton]

What her constituents knew of her unusual (for a Tory) views isn't really the point, which is rather how those views will ever be able to make much of an impact within the party system we've got.

Fair enough, of course, but her achievement in winning that seat (which was, afer all, dependent upon voters who didn't want the then shadow chancellor as its MP) remains quite an achievement and ought at the very least to illustrate that the Tories aren't all tarred with the same brush.

[MrGongGong]

Dear Oh Dear ...

It is not myself who favours the 'against' case as I've already declared it to be a nonsense as nobody actually votes 'against' but 'for'. What is so difficult to grasp about that?

I've simply pointed out that even applying this so-called 'against' methodology the Tories would still come out as the Party with least votes 'against'.
!

Sorry you are wrong
I really can't be bothered doing the maths in detail but if you look here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

You can see that more people voted against the Tories than for them

The Tories got 11,334,576
Labour 9,347,304
Lib Dems 2,415,862
Kippers 3,881,099

So even ignoring all the rest and my aversion to maths
I think 15,574,265 is a bigger number than 11,334,576

People DO vote 'against' I did, I voted to try and stop something.

[ahinton]

Very sad really
In spite of this she will be in favour of selling arms to dodgy regimes, taking away benefits from disabled people and all the other nasty things that are promised.

Will she? I mean she, as distinct from the party? What will happen when the whips get to her will, of course, remain to be seen and I'm not saying that you're wrong here - more that we need a little time within which to wait and see.

[MrGongGong]

Will she? I mean she, as distinct from the party? What will happen when the whips get to her will, of course, remain to be seen and I'm not saying that you're wrong here - more that we need a little time within which to wait and see.

I think once you join the 'party' thats what you buy into.
Don't get me wrong, there are some good people involved in party politics
but those who do other than what they are told are very few and far between and probably a dying breed....

[ahinton]

Moving on...

"Net migration to Britain surged to 318,000 in 2014, just below its previous peak under the Labour government in 2005. The latest quarterly migration figures from the Office of National Statistics show that net immigration from outside Europe – up 42,000 – is now rising almost as strongly as from within Europe – up 67,000. Net migration from outside Europe is now at its highest level since 2011 and the latest rise brings to an end a recent decline as a result of the last government crackdowns."

So obviously the solution to this "problem" is to leave the EU, right?

The obvious solution to the "problem" is the one somewhere beyond what the May's now shouting about - i.e. cutting immigration as much as possible from all sources; "leave the EU", indeed? - better put yer money where yer big mouth is and leave Council of Europe as well - and maybe also UN while we're about it (not your mouth, you understand!) - pariah state here we come!...

[ahinton]

It is not myself who favours the 'against' case as I've already declared it to be a nonsense as nobody actually votes 'against' but 'for'. What is so difficult to grasp about that?

The fact that all tactical voters vote "against" something/someone as much as "for" anything/anyone else, for starters - and, given the number of parties today, there's surely likely to be a lot more tactical voting going on, especially in seats thought to be marginal.

I've simply pointed out that even applying this so-called 'against' methodology the Tories would still come out as the Party with least votes 'against'.

Yes, that much seems fair enough insofar as it goes but the point, however, is that their majority is very small and so they're likely to have a rough time of it and not just because of the success and subsequent demands of SNP or the utterly disproportionate numbers of seats occupied by the Greens and UKIP compared to the number of votes polled for them; how to you suppose that some one-sixth of the voting populace feel about their voting efforts producing just two out of 650 seats in Parliament?

Instead of pretending a lack of comprehension over simple, publicly-available figures on the internet, and elsewhere, I suggest it might be disgruntled members who need to consider 'moving on' on this subject, or come up with rather more convincing arguments.

How typically patronising of you! In presenting a number of statistics here, I am not expressing disgruntlement that the party with the most votes has the most seats (although, even there, the proportion of Tory votes to seats differs widely from that of Labour votes to seats). The most "convincing argument" about any of this seems to me to be that this particular election has demonstrated - and not only because there were more "main" parties involved in it - that FPTP, with its disproportionate and suspect dependence upon mere cynical boundary drawing and redrawing, has - or at least ought to have - had its day.

Unlike others here I'm not at all concerned with particular political allegiances just the fairness or otherwise of the electoral system itself!

Good; then we would on the surface appear to be in agreement on that, at least!...

[jean]

I've simply pointed out that even applying this so-called 'against' methodology the Tories would still come out as the Party with least votes 'against'.

Yes, that much seems fair enough insofar as it goes..

It doesn't go anywhere though, does it?

11,334,576 votes for the Tories.

9,347,304 (Labour) + 1,454,436 (SNP) + 2,415,862 (LibDem) + 3,000,000 (UKIP, more or less) + whatever the Greens got seems to come to rather more than 11 million, unless my arithmetic is worse than I thought.

So what 'methodology' were you using?

[MrGongGong]

It doesn't go anywhere though, does it?

11,334,576 votes for the Tories.

9,347,304 (Labour) + 1,454,436 (SNP) + 2,415,862 (LibDem) + 3,000,000 (UKIP, more or less) + whatever the Greens got seems to come to more than 11 million.

So what 'methodology' were you using?

I don't think he understands arithmetic

[ahinton]

I think once you join the 'party' thats what you buy into.
Don't get me wrong, there are some good people involved in party politics
but those who do other than what they are told are very few and far between and probably a dying breed....

Maybe - or at least a minority one - but, despite her young age, she presumably didn't just "buy into" the party in order to fight in the election...

[MrGongGong]

Maybe - or at least a minority one - but, despite her young age, she presumably didn't just "buy into" the party in order to fight in the election...

So why join one that appears to be in opposition to these other things?
Maybe she runs an arms dealing business in her spare time?

People can be odd indeed

[ahinton]

It doesn't go anywhere though, does it?

11,334,576 votes for the Tories.

9,347,304 (Labour) + 1,454,436 (SNP) + 2,415,862 (LibDem) + 3,000,000 (UKIP, more or less) + whatever the Greens got seems to come to rather more than 11 million, unless my arithmetic is worse than I thought.

So what 'methodology' were you using?

None, evidently; the actual figures are:
Tories: 11,334,920
Others: 18,432,037
Turnout: 30,691,680

This means that
(a) Labour + LibDems polled more in total that did the Tories
(b) Labour + UKIP did the same to an even greater extent
(c) Labour, the LibDems and UKIP together polled more than half of the total votes cast.

[ahinton]

So why join one that appears to be in opposition to these other things?
Maybe she runs an arms dealing business in her spare time?

You'd better ask her that! I have no idea. But she did - and one must assume that she had her reasons, especially knowing that she'd find herself up against those big money Balls...

[Dave2002]

People DO vote 'against' I did, I voted to try and stop something.

So did I, and even using an agreed vote swap, which AFAIK is not illegal, it was completely fruitless. Nobody "we" wanted got in. Only the people who are in any well recognised marginal seat usually have any chance of having influence in elections.

There have been suggestions for voting for "None of the above", but that seems to me too limiting. Why not "Definitely NOT X"? so that we could have proper "negative" voting.

[Serial_Apologist]

So did I, and even using an agreed vote swap, which AFAIK is not illegal, it was completely fruitless. Nobody "we" wanted got in. Only the people who are in any well recognised marginal seat usually have any chance of having influence in elections.

There have been suggestions for voting for "None of the above", but that seems to me too limiting. Why not "Definitely NOT X"? so that we could have proper "negative" voting.

Would that involve subtracting the number of "negative votes" from the "positives"? A so-far unsuggested alternative to FPTP I think, of which I'd be in favour, I think.

[P. G. Tipps]

Sorry you are wrong
I really can't be bothered doing the maths in detail but if you look here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results

You can see that more people voted against the Tories than for them

The Tories got 11,334,576
Labour 9,347,304
Lib Dems 2,415,862
Kippers 3,881,099

So even ignoring all the rest and my aversion to maths
I think 15,574,265 is a bigger number than 11,334,576

People DO vote 'against' I did, I voted to try and stop something.

Okay, I'll try another tack then finally give this up as a seemingly hopeless exercise.

Taking the four main parties' figures as you did:

Votes 'against' the Tories ... 15,574,265.
Votes 'against' Labour ... 17,631,537
Votes 'against' Lib Dems ... 24,562,979
Votes 'against' 'Kippers' ... 23,097,742

So even if we take the 'against' methodology all the other parties do worse than the Tories.

If we decide to add up all the votes 'against' one party we must do the same for all the others as well or the whole thing is rendered totally meaningless!

I'm afraid (for you) the Tories win either way, and if you actually believe we have a proportional-vote arrangement in the UK I'm afraid it is you who is quite wrong and not I!