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andysays said:
To be clear (which I probably wasn't before) I'm wondering if there are marginal seats where all the potential Green vote supporting one of the two front runners would be likely to swing the result.

My (totally uninformed) hunch is that there may be a few, but not too many.
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From memory there were 10 seats in 2010 where the Green vote was larger than the Labour margin of defeat (including the Green victory in Brighton), although of course you can't assume that all Green voters would otherwise vote Labour, especially in 2015 when a significant proportion of the Green vote looks like being ex-LDs with an anti-Labour bent.

I think their vote will go up quite a bit but they will probably lose Brighton. They've no chance in Norwich South which is their second strongest seat - the Green vote there in 2010 let the Lib Dems in so some voters will tactically switch back to Labour, whose vote will go up anyway from the 2010 low. Labour have also selected a good left-wing candidate there and the Greens a very stereotypical fluffy green councillor with multi-coloured jumpers who isn't imo going to look like Parliamentary material.
 
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butchersapron said:
Better bets out there, but i think yes, nailed on.
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I'm not so sure that it's nailed on. The usual reason for switching to Labour is that the Greens can't win - but in Brighton they can and have. The reason they will probably lose is that the Labour vote will just go up from its historic low in 2010 and the Green margin was very slim, but Caroline Lucas has some genuine appeal to Labour voters so it's still open.
 
co-op said:
From memory there were 10 seats in 2010 where the Green vote was larger than the Labour margin of defeat (including the Green victory in Brighton), although of course you can't assume that all Green voters would otherwise vote Labour, especially in 2015 when a significant proportion of the Green vote looks like being ex-LDs with an anti-Labour bent.

I think their vote will go up quite a bit but they will probably lose Brighton. They've no chance in Norwich South which is their second strongest seat - the Green vote there in 2010 let the Lib Dems in so some voters will tactically switch back to Labour, whose vote will go up anyway from the 2010 low. Labour have also selected a good left-wing candidate there and the Greens a very stereotypical fluffy green councillor with multi-coloured jumpers who isn't imo going to look like Parliamentary material.
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Thanks for that. That's the sort of answer I was looking for, and the sort of number I expected.

I agree that you can't assume that all Green voters would otherwise vote Labour (or en mass for any other party), but the starting point for them being able to have the sort of electoral influence which was being hinted at would have to be that the Green vote was larger than the previous Labour margin of defeat. Obviously it would then require Labour (or whoever) to actually mobilise that potential vote on their behalf.

ETA I know a few Green party council candidates round my way. They're lovely people on a personal level (in small doses), but I can't imagine any of them storming an election to take a seat at Westminster (and as for storming Westminster the other way, forget it)
 
DotCommunist said:
iirc they had a large membership boost post reff. Not as big as the SNP's boost, but large.
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Yep, more than trebled their membership. Same with SSP. Now on 6500 plus. Tactical voting in 2016 could see them win many seats via the Regional List.

E&W membership also up apparently, from 13k to 20k in 2014. Partly fracking consequence?
 
Michael Crick tweets:

1987: only 0.4% of GB voters - 1 in 250 - chose cands other than Con, Lab, SDP-Lib, SNP or PC. By 2010 nearly 10%. 2015: could be almost 20%
 
In 1987 96% of the vote went to the big three
In 2010 88% of the vote went to the big three

In 1987 there was a 75% turnout
in 2010 there was a 65% turnout.

Smaller turnout = bigger significance for non-big three votes - bigger share of the pie for them. It doesn't mean massive rising support for non-big three parties. It means larger disengagement and alienation from official political process. Which shows up very well in polls and one-off elections.
 
Labour have also selected a good left-wing candidate there and the Greens a very stereotypical fluffy green councillor with multi-coloured jumpers who isn't imo going to look like Parliamentary material.
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Who is the left wing PPC? who was deselected, but has now been reselected, she is great, is that her?
 
butchersapron said:
It doesn't mean massive rising support for non-big three parties. It means larger disengagement and alienation from official political process. Which shows up very well in polls and one-off elections.
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I agree with that.

Fringe party votes are themselves a proxy for discontentment/ alienation too imo.
 
treelover said:
Who is the left wing PPC? who was deselected, but has now been reselected, she is great, is that her?
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Clive Lewis. When I said "good left wing", I meant "good and left wing" - I don't know his politics in detail but he does call himself "a proud socialist" on his twitter id. And he's also photogenic, articulate and (I think genuinely) working class background.

He's the guy in the photos I posted, she's the Green candidate. Looks like a mis-match to me.
 
co-op said:
Clive Lewis. When I said "good left wing", I meant "good and left wing" - I don't know his politics in detail but he does call himself "a proud socialist" on his twitter id. And he's also photogenic, articulate and (I think genuinely) working class background.

He's the guy in the photos I posted, she's the Green candidate. Looks like a mis-match to me.
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Sorry, I was referring to a working class female who basically said the Tories should die and got suspended, not sure what area.
 
Today's YG national for the Scum...

This morning’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of:-

CON 33%, LAN 34%, LDEM 7%, UKIP 14%, GRN 6% (tabs here).

Yesterday’s YouGov poll was also back to a small Labour lead, so it looks as if the Tory lead immediately following Cameron’s speech may have fallen away again. My advice would normally be to wait for a few more polls to see where things settle down, but of course tonight we have a potentially poll changing event in its own right – the Clacton and Heywood & Middleton by-elections.
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Anthony at YG dwells on the poll fails in Heywood & Middleton...

The two polls in Clacton, conducted by Ashcroft and Survation, were both conducted more than a month before polling day, so they cannot in all fairness be compared to the final result (opinion in Clacton could easily have changed in the interim period), for the record though they were both pretty close to the actual result, certainly they got the broad picture of a UKIP landslide correct. The two polls in Heywood and Middleton (conducted again by Ashcroft and Survation) are more worrying. They were conducted about a week and a half before the election – so there was time for some change, but not that much (and many would have voted by post before polling day). Both showed a nineteen point lead for Labour when in reality they ending up squeaking home by two points. In both cases the polls both overestimated Labour support, and underestimated UKIP support.
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And Smithson's put up a graph of the latest ICM 'Wisdom' (of crowds) stuff...showing what % of the 2015 GE popular vote that poll respondents think that the parties will end up with...

c6bec79d-30cf-4a33-b313-f9eeee160dcf_zps9486de71.png
 
Latest from the volatile lord ashcroft (who we must remember is a tax-avoiding tory twat) polling:

Lab 32% (+2)
Con 28% n-4)
UKIP 19%, (+2)
Lib Dem 8% (twats)
Green 5% (-2)

Also another ICM/Guardian one that seems to echo the observer one:

LAB 35 (/c)
CON 31 (-2)
LD 11 (+1)
UKIP 14 (+5)

edit: bMissed the populus one from this morning:

LAB - 36% (+1)
CON - 35% (+1)
UKIP - 13% (=)
LDEM 9% (=)
GRN - 3% (-1)
 
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Smithson presents this ICM polling evidence showing how Lab/Con will struggle to simultaneously address the concerns of UKIP and LD waverers...

http://www1.politicalbetting.com/in...e15-votes-icms-new-approach-to-whats-salient/


  1. This all illustrates the strategic dilemma for for Tories. Going hard on immigration might be the right way of winning back some of the voters who’ve gone to UKIP but it is not going to cause many 2010 LD switchers to return to their allegiance.
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Though I'd say the same could pretty much be said of NuLab.
 
YG's highest ever UKIP number...
After the strong UKIP performances in the most recent Survation, Ashcrfot and ICM polls YouGov is reporting this morning that the party is on 18% – the highest ever figure from the firm.

Survation at the weekend had the party on 25% while ICM on Monday saw UKIP move up 5% to 14%. The same day the Ashcroft National Poll had the party on 19% which equalled the previous record share.

So there’s strong polling evidence now that UKIP has, as you’d expect, benefited enormously from the winning its first ever MP at Clacton last week and the coming so close in Heywood. The latest YouGov has:-

CON 30%/LAB 34%/LD 8%/UKIP 18%
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