Full disclosure, I am not a conservative voter. YMMV
But a few things will spring to mind,
1) we tend to vote conservative when the books need balancing, and labour when we feel wealth is not being distributed properly
2) the conservatives always try to "cost save" on the NHS by privatising parts of it. This virtually always leads to decreased performance. We like the NHS (a lot).
3) like in most places in the world, we're in a living standards squeeze. They say they're turning the economy around, but in reality while the books might say that, the poor and middle class haven't noticed the difference. Tax has also not been noticeably reduced which is usually a conservative winner.
4) they formed a coalition government with the lib dems (they did not have a majority). Due to lib dems u-turning on some key points (tuition fees for example), and most lib dem voters are not pro conservative, they are likely to lose a lot of seats. So many so that another coalition seems unlikely.
5) nanny state-ism. An election point in the past here accused labour of this kind of behaviour, but now with their default on porn ban, the snoopers charter and others, it's starting to wash off.
oh and 6) UKIP. Historically the hard right wanted to exit the EU (and stop migration), but the conservatives keep dallying around on the subject(s). They're losing voters and MPs to UKIP who are seen by hard liners as more likely to deliver.
Unfortunately you have a rather poor read on the current electorate over here right now. While the Tories are not the most popular party around you have to look at the competition. Labour is a joke and Ed Miliband couldn't get elected to local council at this point; infighting between SNP and Labour in Scotland will mean that while the left will still have heavy support in the north it will not necessarily be to Labour that most MPs owe allegiance. The Lib Dems are done for the next decade. A cycle being ineffective lap dogs to the Tories has pretty much crushed their future. UKIP is picking up a lot of what is more nationalistic than traditional "hard right" and if it comes down to it UKIP would gladly replace the Lib Dems in the coalition; the Tories would prefer this not to happen but having UKIP out there is not quite as bad for them as it seems to most voters, the votes they lose are not going to be supporting a Labour government when all is said and done.
The end result is that you are likely to see the Tories back in power by the end of summer, in a somewhat different coalition and with mildly adjusted policies. Either way, more of the same.
Exactly. If Labour can't get ahead of the Tories they are doomed and once people actually start seeing Ed's policies it is mostly downhill IMHO. Right now Labour has the advantage of being "not the Conservative party", but that won't get them far. Add up the Tories and UKIP -- if those two together total 50% then nothing else matters and Farage can acquire his pound of flesh if necessary...
Hmm, I always wonder about these kinds of polls for non-proportional representation systems.
Obviously if party supporters were evenly spread throughout the country, the outcome of the election would be a whitewash. It's not the case, though -- "Scotland tends to vote Labour" and so on. Gross vote supremacy obviously helps to win seats, but the relationship isn't obvious -- certainly small parties will tend to be under-represented, for example.
The Conservatives did not win a majority in 2010. Thus, if they are to win a majority this year, they need to be doing better. However...
They tried to trade their boundary change bill in exchange for House of Lords reform, but failed because of a rebellion in their own ranks. Thus the constituency borders are favourable to Labour.
During their term, UKIP became the 3rd most popular party, which is splitting their vote.
Labour's popularity has also increased since 2010 (when it was at record lows).
The Conservatives' only saving grace is that if Labour does not achieve a majority, David Cameron gets the first chance to try to form a government.
However the mechanics of FPTP are such that UKIP are unlikely to achieve a share of seats proportional to their vote, and the Lib Dems are unlikely to be completely annihilated.
So the most likely outcome is that neither Conservative + Lib Dem nor Conservative + UKIP will add up to a majority. A three-way is right out.
They can of course try for a minority government, but if Labour are almost at a majority and the Cons are much further away, the Queen (should) say "Errrr... no".
Technically a Prime Minister doesn’t win an election at all: people vote for a party.
In most parliamentary systems, the Head of State is compelled to invite the party with the largest representation in parliament to form a government, and that party then proposes a government which is then subject to a confirmation election in the parliament, which it must win in order to be the government. So, generally, Prime Ministers win an election among members of parliament, who are themselves elected by the public (whether or individually or by party name depends on the particular parliamentary electoral system -- the UK system, as I understand, uses first-past-the-post with candidate names and parties on the ballot, much like most US elections -- while some systems use party-list-proportional where seats are allocated proportionally to the number of votes cast for parties, and there are various hybrid and other systems in use, as well.)
This is not entirely unlike US Presidents, who are also elected indirectly by presidential electors who are in turn elected by the public, however, it does differ in that the electors in the UK are also legislators rather than being elected solely as electors. Its kind of like if, in the US, members of Congress elected the President.
(Which, in fact, can happen in the US system, but only if the Congressional count of the vote by the electors doesn't give a majority for any candidate.)
I'm not too familiar with the UK system, but it seems like in the US the people have more direct control over the identity of the president, since both parties have competitive primaries every election cycle, except for the parties of first-term incumbents, whereas the last Conservative Party leadership election was in 2005(?). Also, primary voters don't need to be paid-up members of their party.
The US differs from most European countries in that the president is also the head of the government. And because he's elected directly (well, sort of), the US government has its own mandate independent from the parliament, which means the parliament can't really send the government home (though it can clearly stop it from functioning, as the US has demonstrated).
In most parliamentary systems, the parliament is the direct representative of the people, and they elect and appoint the government, and can disband it whenever the government loses support of the parliament. The UK is slightly odd here, because I believe the members of the government are also still members of parliament. I have no idea whether the LibDems have the power to withdraw their support and send Cameron home (or at least back to his seat, while the LibDems form a new government with Labour). In many other countries, they would definitely have that power.
Of course the US and the UK are both oddballs in that they have a pure district system, whereas most democracies have some level of proportional representation. (Often purely proportional, but some have a hybrid system where people still have a representative directly from their district.)
Comments
Can you elaborate a little why do you think so?
Full disclosure, I am not a conservative voter. YMMV
But a few things will spring to mind,
1) we tend to vote conservative when the books need balancing, and labour when we feel wealth is not being distributed properly
2) the conservatives always try to "cost save" on the NHS by privatising parts of it. This virtually always leads to decreased performance. We like the NHS (a lot).
3) like in most places in the world, we're in a living standards squeeze. They say they're turning the economy around, but in reality while the books might say that, the poor and middle class haven't noticed the difference. Tax has also not been noticeably reduced which is usually a conservative winner.
4) they formed a coalition government with the lib dems (they did not have a majority). Due to lib dems u-turning on some key points (tuition fees for example), and most lib dem voters are not pro conservative, they are likely to lose a lot of seats. So many so that another coalition seems unlikely.
5) nanny state-ism. An election point in the past here accused labour of this kind of behaviour, but now with their default on porn ban, the snoopers charter and others, it's starting to wash off.
oh and 6) UKIP. Historically the hard right wanted to exit the EU (and stop migration), but the conservatives keep dallying around on the subject(s). They're losing voters and MPs to UKIP who are seen by hard liners as more likely to deliver.
Unfortunately you have a rather poor read on the current electorate over here right now. While the Tories are not the most popular party around you have to look at the competition. Labour is a joke and Ed Miliband couldn't get elected to local council at this point; infighting between SNP and Labour in Scotland will mean that while the left will still have heavy support in the north it will not necessarily be to Labour that most MPs owe allegiance. The Lib Dems are done for the next decade. A cycle being ineffective lap dogs to the Tories has pretty much crushed their future. UKIP is picking up a lot of what is more nationalistic than traditional "hard right" and if it comes down to it UKIP would gladly replace the Lib Dems in the coalition; the Tories would prefer this not to happen but having UKIP out there is not quite as bad for them as it seems to most voters, the votes they lose are not going to be supporting a Labour government when all is said and done.
The end result is that you are likely to see the Tories back in power by the end of summer, in a somewhat different coalition and with mildly adjusted policies. Either way, more of the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2015_Un...
Exactly. If Labour can't get ahead of the Tories they are doomed and once people actually start seeing Ed's policies it is mostly downhill IMHO. Right now Labour has the advantage of being "not the Conservative party", but that won't get them far. Add up the Tories and UKIP -- if those two together total 50% then nothing else matters and Farage can acquire his pound of flesh if necessary...
Hmm, I always wonder about these kinds of polls for non-proportional representation systems.
Obviously if party supporters were evenly spread throughout the country, the outcome of the election would be a whitewash. It's not the case, though -- "Scotland tends to vote Labour" and so on. Gross vote supremacy obviously helps to win seats, but the relationship isn't obvious -- certainly small parties will tend to be under-represented, for example.
The Conservatives did not win a majority in 2010. Thus, if they are to win a majority this year, they need to be doing better. However...
They tried to trade their boundary change bill in exchange for House of Lords reform, but failed because of a rebellion in their own ranks. Thus the constituency borders are favourable to Labour.
During their term, UKIP became the 3rd most popular party, which is splitting their vote.
Labour's popularity has also increased since 2010 (when it was at record lows).
The Conservatives' only saving grace is that if Labour does not achieve a majority, David Cameron gets the first chance to try to form a government.
However the mechanics of FPTP are such that UKIP are unlikely to achieve a share of seats proportional to their vote, and the Lib Dems are unlikely to be completely annihilated.
So the most likely outcome is that neither Conservative + Lib Dem nor Conservative + UKIP will add up to a majority. A three-way is right out.
They can of course try for a minority government, but if Labour are almost at a majority and the Cons are much further away, the Queen (should) say "Errrr... no".
Well technically he didn't even win the last election.
Technically a Prime Minister doesn’t win an election at all: people vote for a party.
In most parliamentary systems, the Head of State is compelled to invite the party with the largest representation in parliament to form a government, and that party then proposes a government which is then subject to a confirmation election in the parliament, which it must win in order to be the government. So, generally, Prime Ministers win an election among members of parliament, who are themselves elected by the public (whether or individually or by party name depends on the particular parliamentary electoral system -- the UK system, as I understand, uses first-past-the-post with candidate names and parties on the ballot, much like most US elections -- while some systems use party-list-proportional where seats are allocated proportionally to the number of votes cast for parties, and there are various hybrid and other systems in use, as well.)
This is not entirely unlike US Presidents, who are also elected indirectly by presidential electors who are in turn elected by the public, however, it does differ in that the electors in the UK are also legislators rather than being elected solely as electors. Its kind of like if, in the US, members of Congress elected the President.
(Which, in fact, can happen in the US system, but only if the Congressional count of the vote by the electors doesn't give a majority for any candidate.)
I'm not too familiar with the UK system, but it seems like in the US the people have more direct control over the identity of the president, since both parties have competitive primaries every election cycle, except for the parties of first-term incumbents, whereas the last Conservative Party leadership election was in 2005(?). Also, primary voters don't need to be paid-up members of their party.
The US differs from most European countries in that the president is also the head of the government. And because he's elected directly (well, sort of), the US government has its own mandate independent from the parliament, which means the parliament can't really send the government home (though it can clearly stop it from functioning, as the US has demonstrated).
In most parliamentary systems, the parliament is the direct representative of the people, and they elect and appoint the government, and can disband it whenever the government loses support of the parliament. The UK is slightly odd here, because I believe the members of the government are also still members of parliament. I have no idea whether the LibDems have the power to withdraw their support and send Cameron home (or at least back to his seat, while the LibDems form a new government with Labour). In many other countries, they would definitely have that power.
Of course the US and the UK are both oddballs in that they have a pure district system, whereas most democracies have some level of proportional representation. (Often purely proportional, but some have a hybrid system where people still have a representative directly from their district.)
Well done. I enjoy being out pedanted. Have an upvote.