Thursday 7th May

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:14 am

Morning all.

So it's finally here. Best wishes to all those involved in getting out the vote.

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:24 am

'If – and it is a very big “if” – Labour can get out the youth vote and other first-time voters in anywhere approaching the numbers currently suggested, Ed Miliband may well make it into 10 Downing Street. It would be an historic achievement. '
http://www.comres.co.uk/who-votes-wins/

Post by **PaulfromYorkshire** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:27 am

Morning Stephen

Yes it's all about turnout now. The polls assume Labour sympathisers are less likely to vote. Let's see!

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:40 am

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Morning Stephen

Yes it's all about turnout now. The polls assume Labour sympathisers are less likely to vote. Let's see!

Morfingtons!

Very sunny and bright here in hope....on the eve of the Mililandslide*

Umm...I know I can sometimes be painfully dim, but I'm not really seeing any connection to reality with that statement (from the polls, not you, PfY, natch) - if someone is a Labour 'sympathiser', they will be very well aware of all the lies, obfuscation and omnishambolic frackwittery from the last 5 years and will be very motivated to vote to get Cloucy Funt and his Murkydochian Monsters as far away from grown-up stuff as possible....so (unsurprisingly) I don't believe(TM) the pollsters.

*I'm saying tomorrow as that's when the votes will have been counted

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:44 am

Generally a forgiving and easy going guy, I'm not ordinarily up for a fight but when I see abuse I just cannot walk by. Now get out there and give Dave, George and their acolytes the bloody noses they deserve. That's putting it very mildly.

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:47 am

That's odd, just for an instant I saw the Thanks button as the page refreshed. Perhaps it was wishful thinking... or shouldn't I go there? No mark my words; today is Get Ed Day.

Edfit: now that I see it in type, I realise there should have been a hashtag involved. Not being a member of the Twitterati I've no idea if someone has started one. I leave that up to you.

I suppose I should clarify even if it has taken some time. The Thanks button appearing would have made no (operational) sense whatever. What I had seen was the extra butt6on on mmy own post as opposed to the others. Just saying in case admin take me at my word.

One further edit - now that I've said that, there is no extra button!

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Thu 07 May, 2015 6:47 am

Last time, one factor was the incumbency factor. Sitting MPs beat the overall swing.

Now, this might be because most sitting MPs attract a certain loyalty, and so will do better than polling suggests.

Or it might be that the 'ground war' makes a different, which would mean that Labour should do better in the marginals than overall polling suggests.

We are about to find out (although, hitherto, there has been no correlation between 'contact rates' and votes demonstrated.)

If you want a lecture on the 2010 General Election (and other important post war elections), Vernon Bogdanor is well worth listening to

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/professors-and ... or-fba-cbe

Spacedone · Post by **Spacedone** » Thu 07 May, 2015 7:00 am

Anyone else really glad today has finally arrived? This has been a long campaign. I don't know how Americans put up with year long election campaigns.

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Thu 07 May, 2015 7:04 am

Our national broadcaster and mainstream press have not covered them selves with glory these past few weeks.

The Canadian state broadcaster CBC has had a live discussion about - 1) how a 17-year-old girl wanted fairness in the reporting of Miliband, set up milifandom, got harassed by Murdoch hacks, and set Twitter alight; 2) how a celebrity who exhorted his followers not to vote was converted to tell his 9 million followers on Twitter to vote Labour.

I will be off shortly to deliver our "Good Morning" leaflets. One last push for Matthew Dorrance and Brecon & Radnor Labour. Then we'll vote.

Good luck to everyone who is working for Labour today or otherwise doing their bit for this election.

I'm tired now (not much sleep) and will be more so this time tomorrow - but hopefully with euphoria rather than its opposite.

See you all later.

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 07 May, 2015 7:25 am

Spacedone wrote:Anyone else really glad today has finally arrived? This has been a long campaign. I don't know how Americans put up with year long election campaigns.

Agreed, Spacedone, and a particularly long five years. Ordinarily these days I find that time flies by, but there are some things that can never come soon enough.

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 07 May, 2015 7:33 am

Just to put a damper on things, last night my youngest confessed to me that even though he hated the Tories (and we have an incumbent) he wasn't sure he would vote. Dare I say Kipper tendencies? Even the younger generation inclined toward Labour are not happy with unfettered immigration. I know it's a cliché but he really is not racist, indeed is learning Polish and Hungarian (colloquially) and as often as not asks me to give one or others a lift.

Anyway he's on afternoons and I am not going to let him lay; too long anyway.

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Thu 07 May, 2015 7:42 am

Morterevoon comrades and fellow-travellers. The sun it shineth with an intermittency of cloudage, here – barring a light shower at one-ish and another at seven-ish. Here's to a great turn-out and may we all find ourselves in the best possible kind of Landslide by this time tomorrow. Instead of a country where what counts is Happiness only for those with the greatest Gross Incomes, I'd like to find myself in a country where Gross National Happiness is truly important and where the Government takes real action to help bring it about - rather than just throwing it out as a slogan at the plebs to chew on like the Bloody Collision Governers did! Cripes,

Polls have been open for 41 mins as Ed and Justine head into their local polling station...

Good luck, everyone

Here follows a reply (and the post) wot I waz riting whilst yesterday's thread was being closed:

seeingclearly wrote: . . .
A bit of a long post written earlier, when it wouldn't post, went away, got very annoyed by a post with a message from Blair to Ed, attracting loads of posts from almost Labour voters, put off and mostly now saying they'll vote green. When I say loads, was into the +1000 comments and rising. FB post, so who knows what it will do.

------------------

I find it baffling that it's so incredibly close, when I see people wavering all over the place, getting pushed and pulled, and that the pollsters are so remarkably unanimous. As polls for other elections have not really delivered I'm not sure what to make of these. Especially as the rags they appear in also have almost unanimous support for one party.

I'm also baffled that this seems not to be reflected in daily life. Do woolly brained lefties like me really never encounter the blue brigade, do they never venture into any common territory. I only lately remembered I do know one, lives very close, but that's, for me an anomaly.

I'd have loved to have been able to meet some, I'm not sure even what they'd look like. But thing I know where some might be.

It looks as though my constituency is safe but right across the road from me is John Hemmings' territory, full of frothing far right people, flag wearing, immigrant loathing, heavy drinking, bovver boot inheritors, interspersed with a few rather nice people who desperately wish they lived anywhere else but can't afford to move.

If I walked North, which is these days a purely hypothetical activity, I'd feel safe in all the suburbs I passed, and a few more I won't, clear to the city centre, but travel south and there are visible markers to deter strangers, and a sullen hostility in the air. Are these the missing voters, do they, without any fanfare, vote tactically?

It's odd because it almost seems less British than Saltley, of 'camera on every street corner' fame, where the streets are empty of the women whose voices you sometimes hear; reminds me of 11 am in the poor streets here during my childhood, when the women done with doorsteps , washing, beating rugs and so on, were quiet in their kitchens, babes out in prams, and undoing aprons and headscarves, taking out rollers over their cups of tea, while their menfolk were hard at it in factories, from where they would flow outward to the pub at noon. Today the corner pubs in Saltley are no more, replaced by mosques and the lunchtime sirens by the call to prayer, but they still seem more English than the edgy places to my south where I'd no sooner walk at night than at midday.

Tonight I'm wondering whether my city can be healed. The places I find safe and haves for decades been able to walk through, even as a lone woman, with no sense of danger or threat, are the fearsome Trojan horse lands, though we've really seen little evidence of this mythical objects existence, and where this week school heads spoke of dead animals being left on fences and in the playgrounds of young children. I deeply suspect that the animals originate in the areas I wouldn't venture into, where dogfighting is not unknown. Along with the cars that anxious parents report to be cruising the roads close to our schools..... filled with hate shouting youths.

The fault line runs right past my house, the evidence of its existence the graffiti, unbearably reminiscent of the past, that appear on the long white wall that leads to the bus stop that caters for the thousands that travel our outer circle route, in and out of our communities, many of them our mixed young teens, every shade of human, travelling the long routes to and from home. It gets repainted a lot, this wall. Seen a lot too. And at night I sometimes hear voices that sing or shout the same messages, and am appalled.

Whatever result we get I feel fearful, hopeful, confused about our future.

i wonder about how close things are and the results are said to be be likely to be, and if the fractures are too great, or the trust too hard to regain. And I worry for the peaceful mixed communities interspersed everywhere that merge easily into our more visibly ethnic areas. I wonder how damaged we really are, and whether we'll be allowed to grow back together. Whether the media shouting will cease and the right wing haranguing come to an end.

We'll have to wait and hope and see. And hope too there's enough people here who will stand together in solidarity. I'd like the wall to have a community feel, based on solidarity not polarity, but it wouldn't survive the day. I'd like community orchards on the wide swathe of green across the way, but they'd not be allowed to survive.

We are free of the howls of 'red Tories', though, and I've found something - a tiny bit of certainty!

Thank you for such a brilliant post, @seeingclearly – brilliant, too, in the sense of shining a bright light on your home-town and bringing it so vividly to life. If you write a blog this should be on it. If you have the access this should be in a newspaper.

No constituency, county, borough, or even ward in the country is a monoculture. Like your area, rich/green&leafy, middling/notquiteasmuchgreen, and poor/run-down, or desperate/desolate, all merge, bump, or crash, into each other; and are sometimes (landscape- or stereotype-wise) wearing each other's disguise.

We'll all have to wait and see what happens and hope – and work, as always – for the best, doing what we can to help, to heal, to connect, to make things better.

Edit: formatting. Do I say 'bumboils?

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:16 am

Morning.

Much better day today, think Wales will have some showers but not the strong wind and heavy rain a lot of places got yesterday. So hopefully will help the turnout.

With all the coverage of the general election the English council elections have faded into the background.

Anyone seen any projections for those results please ?

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:22 am

Lib Dems are buoyed up by the endorsement of.....drum roll....David Aaronovitch.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:25 am

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:31 am

: mldf02365.GIF (80.77 KiB) Viewed 15120 times

(It seems the advocates of a Landslide on here are not alone)

(Apols as ever if it's too big)

danesclose · Post by **danesclose** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:38 am

Please let this happen

: daily fail.jpg (120.05 KiB) Viewed 15113 times

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:39 am

Right!

Done the estates - in the windows: 4 Labour posters, 2 Green (well, this IS Hay) - Conservative: 0, Liberal Democrats: 0

Met a wonderful old lady (Labour poster in window), dressed in a pink quilted dressing gown, hair perfectly coiffed, who nipped out to tell me to tell Matthew that she has always voted Labour and always will.
She has complained to the council (no, I don't know either) that the LibDems keep sending her pretend newspapers and asking her to keep the Tories out. She has lots of friends and is telling them all to vote Labour.

Just lovely, she was.

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:39 am

Lonewolfie wrote:
mldf02365.GIF
(It seems the advocates of a Landslide on here are not alone)

(Apols as ever if it's too big)

Cheers for that, Lonewolfie, but surely some mistake. They can't be going to the Red planet, can they?

danesclose · Post by **danesclose** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:44 am

Lonewolfie wrote:
mldf02365.GIF
(It seems the advocates of a Landslide on here are not alone)

(Apols as ever if it's too big)

Bugger - you beat me to it

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:46 am

Good-morning, everyone.
Lovely day in Stoke.
Sunshine, birds singing.
I've looked out the window, hugged my spouse & read greetings on FTN.
It's a fine day to vote for fine candidates & return a Labour government.
I love you all.
xx
cJA

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:46 am

I see the Guardian have given Scot Nat Irvine Welsh a lot of space to spout against Labour, and whinge about the English party.

danesclose · Post by **danesclose** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:46 am

Would love to see this around the country

: paper.jpg (49.11 KiB) Viewed 15100 times

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:47 am

Brilliant. Thanks danesclose.

Post by **refitman** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:49 am

yahyah wrote:I see the Guardian have given Ex-pat Scot Nat Irvine Welsh a lot of space to spout against Labour, and whinge about the English party.

FIFY

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:49 am

yahyah wrote:I see the Guardian have given Scot Nat Irvine Welsh a lot of space to spout against Labour, and whinge about the English party.

Walsh is just a complete arse.

A chip on his shoulder the size of France and no interest in the actual interests of the people who live in Scotland.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:50 am

ephemerid wrote:Right!

Done the estates - in the windows: 4 Labour posters, 2 Green (well, this IS Hay) - Conservative: 0, Liberal Democrats: 0

Met a wonderful old lady (Labour poster in window), dressed in a pink quilted dressing gown, hair perfectly coiffed, who nipped out to tell me to tell Matthew that she has always voted Labour and always will.
She has complained to the council (no, I don't know either) that the LibDems keep sending her pretend newspapers and asking her to keep the Tories out. She has lots of friends and is telling them all to vote Labour.

Just lovely, she was.

I adore wonderful women voting Labour & your work, Ephemerid.
You've taught me a lot of what I needed to know, my friend.
Thank you.

frightful_oik · Post by **frightful_oik** » Thu 07 May, 2015 8:53 am

Well, I've done my bit.
AK may know this. Are we expecting Lab to make gains or losses in the local elections?

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:01 am

Well, I'm up and about to tart myself up ready for my first stint of the day taking numbers. Wind has dropped and although it's cloudy it's not raining thank goodness. Wish it was a bit warmer!

Mr Ohso went to have a blood test at the surgery at 8.15. The receptionist said they were very quiet because of the election. That sounds like voting is more important than seeing the doctor or am I clutching at straws?

Whoopee. The sun is trying to come out.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:02 am

Spacedone wrote:Anyone else really glad today has finally arrived? This has been a long campaign. I don't know how Americans put up with year long election campaigns.

In the USA, members of the electorate are worn down with a steady barrage of images & words chosen for their subliminal emotive qualities. It's not an election, it's an advertisement.

edited to add...
It keeps down the number of people who actually turn out to vote. It's meant to. Election day, the actual date itself, rarely makes it in the political ad.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:08 am

Michael Oatway ‏@MichaelOatway96 11 mins11 minutes ago

Turnout expected to be 73% today, the highest since 1992!!

fedup59 · Post by **fedup59** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:08 am

Morning all - another cup of coffee then off to do my civic duty. Blue sky and fluffy white clouds so just the day for a red victory. Looking forward to waving Rupe, and anybody else that decides to leave, goodbye.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:08 am

I'm trying to work up my nerve to look at a news source now.
Wish me luck.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:11 am

ohsocynical wrote:Michael Oatway ‏@MichaelOatway96 11 mins11 minutes ago

Turnout expected to be 73% today, the highest since 1992!!

I saw something that in Hornsey & Wood Green an official had estimated it could be as high as 80% there.
Hopefully to kick Featherstone out and go back to Labour.

Post by **PaulfromYorkshire** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:11 am

frightful_oik wrote:Well, I've done my bit.
AK may know this. Are we expecting Lab to make gains or losses in the local elections?

Morning letsskip

Gains I think and hope.

Many of the sitting councillors were elected in 2011, when the Coalition were still relatively popular and Labour still recovering. I'd certainly expect to see Lib Dems skittling over where Labour is the main contender.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:12 am

ohsocynical wrote:Michael Oatway ‏@MichaelOatway96 11 mins11 minutes ago

Turnout expected to be 73% today, the highest since 1992!!

Wonderful!

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:12 am

VE day, Victory for Ed.

(Pinched that from Franz Sherbet on Cif.)

WelshIan · Post by **WelshIan** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:15 am

Morning All,

A couple of questions:

Will the SNP support the implementation of Leveson, if Labour have to rely on them?

I seem to remember that if Labour and the Tories have the same percentage voter share, then Labour gets more seats? If it is neck and neck in the polls then shouldn't this mean that Labour have more seats, or are we having to discount Scottish seats lost to the SNP?

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:15 am

yahyah wrote:
ohsocynical wrote:Michael Oatway ‏@MichaelOatway96 11 mins11 minutes ago

Turnout expected to be 73% today, the highest since 1992!!

I saw something that in Hornsey & Wood Green an official had estimated it could be as high as 80% there.
Hopefully to kick Featherstone out and go back to Labour.

Hurrah! Millions have intentionally registered to vote not long ago - over 700,000 are people under the age of 24.

NonOxCol · Post by **NonOxCol** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:20 am

Good morning everyone.

Thank you all for the last five years on the Guardian politics blog, and for the two and a half years on this forum.

Wish I could go through the night with you, but I have to get up for work at 5:40am. This will probably be the first site I check over breakfast.

I live in a Tory marginal with a majority of 536, so I can't bear to imagine failure here. I didn't have much time for campaigning, but I did donate to Oliver Coppard.

Best of luck to all,
NOC

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:22 am

WelshIan wrote:Morning All,

A couple of questions:

Will the SNP support the implementation of Leveson, if Labour have to rely on them?

I seem to remember that if Labour and the Tories have the same percentage voter share, then Labour gets more seats? If it is neck and neck in the polls then shouldn't this mean that Labour have more seats, or are we having to discount Scottish seats lost to the SNP?

YouGov claim the swing in the marginals is only 2.5%, although the basis for this claim is unclear. It may be based on the Midlands sample of their last large poll.

This would give the Tories a seats advantage.

Kellner and other forecasts are assuming the polls are wrong and the Tories actually have a 3% lead.

I note that ICM showed Labour at +4 before adjusting down to level pegging.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:27 am

NonOxCol wrote:Good morning everyone.

Thank you all for the last five years on the Guardian politics blog, and for the two and a half years on this forum.

Wish I could go through the night with you, but I have to get up for work at 5:40am. This will probably be the first site I check over breakfast.

I live in a Tory marginal with a majority of 536, so I can't bear to imagine failure here. I didn't have much time for campaigning, but I did donate to Oliver Coppard.

Best of luck to all,
NOC

Hello, there!

I was thinking only yesterday that I hadn't seen you around for a while. And here you jolly well are. All the best to you, too.

Good morfternoon, everyone.

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:27 am

Voted, fairly quiet down there. Safe Labour, with only a Green and Labour teller.

I wrote a long post explaining my reasons for voting Labour, and my continued worries and concerns, but decided the latter can wait until 10 pm.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:29 am

I'm having all kinds of difficulty getting anywhere on Electoral Calculus now.

This web page is not available

ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:32 am

Website is offline No cached version of this page is available.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/2015guide/

UK Polling Report website linked above is also unavailable.
Does anyone know why?

mikems · Post by **mikems** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:44 am

I expect their servers are being overwhelmed.

If turnout is up, then we can be hopeful, imo. Last time tories got 36.7 of 65.5 turnout, with tories turning out in large numbers. But if turnout is 80%, and their current polling rarely higher than 35%, they will need to increase their absolute vote totals by large margins; yet there seems little chance of that, with the new cohorts of voters being less likely to vote tory than older voters.

And, of course, this increase is likely to be the return of Labour supporters to the polls after sitting out the last election in large numbers.

frightful_oik · Post by **frightful_oik** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:44 am

working for me cJA

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:46 am

If the polling stations aren't closing at 10pm if there's still people queuing to vote, isn't there a slight issue with the 10pm exit polling announcements?

StephenDolan · Post by **StephenDolan** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:47 am

mikems wrote:I expect their servers are being overwhelmed.

If turnout is up, then we can be hopeful, imo. Last time tories got 36.7 of 65.5 turnout, with tories turning out in large numbers. But if turnout is 80%, and their current polling rarely higher than 35%, they will need to increase their absolute vote totals by large margins; yet there seems little chance of that, with the new cohorts of voters being less likely to vote tory than older voters.

And, of course, this increase is likely to be the return of Labour supporters to the polls after sitting out the last election in large numbers.

Ukippers who have traditionally not voted could be contributing to this expected percentage increase.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 07 May, 2015 9:49 am

frightful_oik wrote:working for me cJA

Thank you.