Corbyn & may both live on channel 4 question /answer

[The Red Baron]

I would n't be surprised to see Labour nick it, Corbyn has out performed May on everything, Labour have momentum and the Tories are retreating at an alarming rate. My gut feeling is a hung Parliament though

Wouldn't it be fun if we end up virtually exactly as we already are? How would May be able to say that she won't call yet another election to 'end the uncertainty' then?

That's not an inconceivable scenario, Glyn. Personally I think the Tories will have a working majority, probably bigger than they have now. Two things are working in their favour. The UKIP vote has collapsed and will probably go mostly Tory. Also the Lib Dem vote doesn't seem to have picked up, so the Tories will be ok in the London suburbs and south west where otherwise they might have been vulnerable.

Have to say the Tories in general and May in particular have run a pretty wretched campaign. However I'm old enough to remember how poor their campaign was in 1987 (another occasion where they thought they only had to turn up) and they still won a sizeable majority then.

[wilts rover]

I reckon the higher the turnout the greater Labour's chance of winning. If you look at the campaigns they kind of mirror that too - May is trying to frighten people to not vote Labour (if you are not going to voet for me then at least dont vote for him) whereas Corbyn is trying to engage a lot of the people who dont often vote (under 25's - low earners). We wont know who is successful until next week but I will go for - a high turnout - Labour win, a low turnout - Tory win.

[Glyn_Wigley]

I wouldn't write off the LibDems yet. Their vote is traditionally highly regionalised and national polls don't really take that into account.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Have to say the Tories in general and May in particular have run a pretty wretched campaign. However I'm old enough to remember how poor their campaign was in 1987 (another occasion where they thought they only had to turn up) and they still won a sizeable majority then.

Only because they started off with an absolutely monumental majority to start with! They lost 40-50 seats of their majority then if I remember correctly, from roughly 144 to about 100..?

Imagine them losing that many seats this time!

[The Red Baron]

I reckon the higher the turnout the greater Labour's chance of winning. If you look at the campaigns they kind of mirror that too - May is trying to frighten people to not vote Labour (if you are not going to voet for me then at least dont vote for him) whereas Corbyn is trying to engage a lot of the people who dont often vote (under 25's - low earners). We wont know who is successful until next week but I will go for - a high turnout - Labour win, a low turnout - Tory win.

I expect the turnout to be lower than the Referendum and similar to the last couple of GEs.

[The Red Baron]

I wouldn't write off the LibDems yet. Their vote is traditionally highly regionalised and national polls don't really take that into account.

All the polling models I've seen (which factor in the localised nature of party support) suggest the LDs will pick up no more than a handful of seats. They may even lose a couple of current holds.

[The Red Baron]

Have to say the Tories in general and May in particular have run a pretty wretched campaign. However I'm old enough to remember how poor their campaign was in 1987 (another occasion where they thought they only had to turn up) and they still won a sizeable majority then.

Only because they started off with an absolutely monumental majority to start with! They lost 40-50 seats of their majority then if I remember correctly, from roughly 144 to about 100..?

Imagine them losing that many seats this time!

That is true, but if you recall a number of polls were calling it a lot closer than that. I sat up watching TV on election night 1987 (as is my wont!) expecting an all-nighter. After the first dozen results or so it was clear the Tories were in for a comfortable night.

An example: I was living in Cambridge at the time, a rare example of a three-way marginal. No-one gave the incumbent Tory a price. It was going to be Labour or the Alliance. In the end the Tory hung on.

[The Red Baron]

GE turnout.

http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

In last year's referendum, turnout was 72.2%

[RedJ]

Have to say the Tories in general and May in particular have run a pretty wretched campaign. However I'm old enough to remember how poor their campaign was in 1987 (another occasion where they thought they only had to turn up) and they still won a sizeable majority then.

Only because they started off with an absolutely monumental majority to start with! They lost 40-50 seats of their majority then if I remember correctly, from roughly 144 to about 100..?

Imagine them losing that many seats this time!

That is true, but if you recall a number of polls were calling it a lot closer than that. I sat up watching TV on election night 1987 (as is my wont!) expecting an all-nighter. After the first dozen results or so it was clear the Tories were in for a comfortable night.

Aye, 2015 was a bit like that...

[The Red Baron]

Re 2015, most of the polls called it wrong, hence the incredulity that met the forecast of the (very accurate) Exit Poll. I dare say we may have something similar this time.

YouGov, who produced the poll that showed the Tory lead at 4% (Hung Parliament territory) were notoriously off-beam in 2015. They consistently over-estimated the Labour vote and after the election they were sacked as The Sun's pollster.

[not on facebook]

Do you think the General Election turnout will be as big as the Referendum, or back to the level of the 2015 election?

I don't think it will be as high as the brexit vote turnout ,as for dropping down to the 2015 I could not say tbh as I don't know.

When it comes to casting your vote I will say that more  older people will get off their backside and visit a polling station to vote.

as the  many of the younger generation will not take a visit to their polling station as a serious duty.

The only time  that the said younger generation will take their vote more serious is when they get older and their views might well have changed if that makes any sense.

[rtid88]

I'm predicting a hung parliament. The only way a government will be formed is whoever can side with the SNP. That certainly won't be the Tories.

[not on facebook]

Now there is  food for thought another hung parliament

Could Labour hook up with the SNP or vice versa ,or is that one never going to be on the cards.

[Glyn_Wigley]

That is true, but if you recall a number of polls were calling it a lot closer than that. I sat up watching TV on election night 1987 (as is my wont!) expecting an all-nighter. After the first dozen results or so it was clear the Tories were in for a comfortable night.

An example: I was living in Cambridge at the time, a rare example of a three-way marginal. No-one gave the incumbent Tory a price. It was going to be Labour or the Alliance. In the end the Tory hung on.

Me too! I did A-level Politics so am addicted to these too. I've even collected most of the BBC Election Night Specials as video files so I can revisit them occasionally. Sad I know, but it is interesting seeing politicians who later became important in their early days as humble spear-carriers! And seeing some of the great characters no longer with us - by 'eck we could do with a few of them these days when they all seem to have identikit personalities.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Now there is  food for thought another hung parliament

Could Labour hook up with the SNP or vice versa ,or is that one never going to be on the cards.

I can see them having an arrangement where the SNP vote with a minority Labour government, but not a coalition. Any party going into national government in coalition with a regional party is asking for trouble.

[Yargo]

I personally think that Labour will win this election ,not because I don't like but I just don't trust the polls anymore and would not belive what day it was if they told me.

It is virtually impossible for Labour to "win" a General Election because of their huge losses in 2015 in Scotland. Until they start making substantial gains there their best hope is to be the largest party in a hung parliament.

You make a fair point about polls, but some polling companies have a better track record than others. It is often worth looking at overall trends. At the moment I'm reckoning about a 50 seat CON majority. That's on the basis that the numbers will tighten a little more in the next week.

TRB bang on as usual,same as you were 12 months ago.

[not on facebook]

My clap and cheer  readings that I put up and I did point out that the Torys candidate did not get one round of applause after whatever she said.

This has got to do with the make up of the selected bums on seats that were present in the crowd that night.

The fcuking bbc made out it was an equall share of a cross section in the crowd .what a load of b*llocks as Iam sure the crowd was stacked.

No longer can the bbc be said to be neutral ,the set of d**kheads .

My stance will now be to never pay a bbc leicence for their troubles and they can try and take it out of my nose.

[rtid88]

The only people that are saying the people in the audience were bias are Farage and Boris from what I have seen. Personally I wouldn't believe a word either of them said. Inevitably the audience was always more likely to be slightly left wing sided due to the stances of the 5 parties involved. This is purely UKIP and the Tories being bad losers as they came out of the debate looking like tits!! 

[Glyn_Wigley]

My clap and cheer  readings that I put up and I did point out that the Torys candidate did not get one round of applause after whatever she said.

This has got to do with the make up of the selected bums on seats that were present in the crowd that night.

The fcuking bbc made out it was an equall share of a cross section in the crowd .what a load of b*llocks as Iam sure the crowd was stacked.

No longer can the bbc be said to be neutral ,the set of d**kheads .

My stance will now be to never pay a bbc leicence for their troubles and they can try and take it out of my nose.

Yet again you blurt without thought.

The audience wasn't chosen by the BBC at all. It was selected by an independent body, Comres, so that there was an equal number of party supporters across the boards as well as a number of undecideds; and it also selected them so as to get a representative brexit/remain balance as well.

[albie]

Those of you that like to tinker with your majority might enjoy playing around on here;
Electoral Calculus

Nowt better than adjusting your variables to give the outcome you want!

Trouble with all this debate is that people keep thinking that the past tells you information relevant to this election.

What if that does not hold good, and we are in a new (and more volatile) political landscape?

[Glyn_Wigley]

Those of you that like to tinker with your majority might enjoy playing around on here;
Electoral Calculus

Nowt better than adjusting your variables to give the outcome you want!

Trouble with all this debate is that people keep thinking that the past tells you information relevant to this election.

What if that does not hold good, and we are in a new (and more volatile) political landscape?

That's what the science of psephology is all about!

[albie]

Yes Glyn, thats why I put up the link.

The various methods are set out on the site;
Electoral Calculus Psephology
but the question I was putting is that the nature of political dialogue is changing, and so the voting intentions of electors may need a new approach to accurately capture future trends.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Part of psephology is to study changes and what their impacts may be, not just to wait until after they happen. But no prediciton, however well researched and weighted, has any guarantee of accuracy - and never has.

What changes in the nature of political dialogue are you thinking of in particular?

[albie]

The most important at the moment is the use of social media as a communication tool, rather than a reliance on traditional broadcast media.

That is not to say that the latter are not important, but they are of declining importance. They also speak to a different demographic. Older voters are much less likely to get political information (and disinformation) from Twitter/Facebook and the rest.

All of which means that the flow of information, and its particular relevance to the individual receiving it, is more concentrated depending on the source.

Changes in voting intention are likely to be more volatile imo, and this is the key to understanding future predictive responses. All the political parties have got this, but how good they are at using it remains to be seen.

The issue for Labour this time is getting younger voters to the polls;
Turnout of younger voters holds key to election outcome | Alan Travis | Politics | The Guardian

The issue for the Tories is not to piss off the elders, so that they just don't turn out.

[idler]

My clap and cheer  readings that I put up and I did point out that the Torys candidate did not get one round of applause after whatever she said.

This has got to do with the make up of the selected bums on seats that were present in the crowd that night.

The fcuking bbc made out it was an equall share of a cross section in the crowd .what a load of b*llocks as Iam sure the crowd was stacked.

No longer can the bbc be said to be neutral ,the set of d**kheads .

My stance will now be to never pay a bbc leicence for their troubles and they can try and take it out of my nose.

Yet again you blurt without thought.

The audience wasn't chosen by the BBC at all. It was selected by an independent body, Comres, so that there was an equal number of party supporters across the boards as well as a number of undecideds; and it also selected them so as to get a representative brexit/remain balance as well.

How many Doncaster/South Yorkshire accents were in evidence when question time was screened from Doncaster?

[Glyn_Wigley]

The most important at the moment is the use of social media as a communication tool, rather than a reliance on traditional broadcast media.

That is not to say that the latter are not important, but they are of declining importance. They also speak to a different demographic. Older voters are much less likely to get political information (and disinformation) from Twitter/Facebook and the rest.

All of which means that the flow of information, and its particular relevance to the individual receiving it, is more concentrated depending on the source.

Changes in voting intention are likely to be more volatile imo, and this is the key to understanding future predictive responses. All the political parties have got this, but how good they are at using it remains to be seen.

The issue for Labour this time is getting younger voters to the polls;
Turnout of younger voters holds key to election outcome | Alan Travis | Politics | The Guardian

The issue for the Tories is not to piss off the elders, so that they just don't turn out.

Communication is communication, I don't think the medium used is that important at all. Did newspapers have an effect when they become popularly used? Or the telephone, radio, television, or the internet? Not as far as I can see. The message is the important factor, not how it's delivered and that's always been the case.

[Glyn_Wigley]

My clap and cheer  readings that I put up and I did point out that the Torys candidate did not get one round of applause after whatever she said.

This has got to do with the make up of the selected bums on seats that were present in the crowd that night.

The fcuking bbc made out it was an equall share of a cross section in the crowd .what a load of b*llocks as Iam sure the crowd was stacked.

No longer can the bbc be said to be neutral ,the set of d**kheads .

My stance will now be to never pay a bbc leicence for their troubles and they can try and take it out of my nose.

Yet again you blurt without thought.

The audience wasn't chosen by the BBC at all. It was selected by an independent body, Comres, so that there was an equal number of party supporters across the boards as well as a number of undecideds; and it also selected them so as to get a representative brexit/remain balance as well.

How many Doncaster/South Yorkshire accents were in evidence when question time was screened from Doncaster?

What's Question Time got to do with the audience for the Leader debates, which is what NOF is talking about? Question Time audiences apply to attend, completely different to the debate.

[wilts rover]

If the BBC are so biased against the Tories why have they banned their stations playing the Captain Ska song - even though it is set to be No1 in the charts? There's not much Daily Mail reader anguish at this censorship is there.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/liar-liar-ge2017-petition-radio-one-stations-force-play-theresa-may-protest-song-captain-ska-a7766621.html

[Glyn_Wigley]

If the BBC are so biased against the Tories why have they banned their stations playing the Captain Ska song - even though it is set to be No1 in the charts? There's not much Daily Mail reader anguish at this censorship is there.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/liar-liar-ge2017-petition-radio-one-stations-force-play-theresa-may-protest-song-captain-ska-a7766621.html

They can't because of the political balance enforced on the BBC at Election times. They'll be free to play it after 10pm next Thursday.

[Mr1Croft]

If the BBC are so biased against the Tories why have they banned their stations playing the Captain Ska song - even though it is set to be No1 in the charts? There's not much Daily Mail reader anguish at this censorship is there.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/liar-liar-ge2017-petition-radio-one-stations-force-play-theresa-may-protest-song-captain-ska-a7766621.html

They can't because of the political balance enforced on the BBC at Election times. They'll be free to play it after 10pm next Thursday.

It doesn't show any support to any party (just attacks the incumbent) and doesn't make any reference to constituency politics.

If a DJ on a BBC radio chooses to play it then he may be breaking the law. However the reason it should be played is because it's in the charts as chosen by the public.

I'd also strongly argue that I'm yet to see any political balance from the BBC on this whole campaign. They've been a bad as Murdoch in their anti Corbyn bias.