2017 Election Result - a PH poll

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Bit of an experiment to see if we can tease out some motives - traditional and tactical.

Obviously can't capture every motive, but chucked in a few or the more obvious ones, as well as what is intended to be a simple "I will vote/support Tory/Lab/LD" etc.

Post further reasons if you want, or not to stay anon.

Me - Lib Dem - hoping for enough seats to force a coalition that forces a decision on whether the outcome of brexit (once defined under best possible negotiation) is really an idea that still carries 52% support. I don't think Farron is PM material and LDs are a bit lightweight at the moment. A coalition is a really long shot, but I think we have to try. As many seats as 2007/2010 possible (62/57)?

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FN2TypeR said:

Tory, for the first time.

I live in Scotland, so it's almost certainly a waste due to our beloved FPTP system however.

Is that due to brexit or because they are the only team that look vaguely capable of running the country? Brexit aside, I have sympathy with the latter view.

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Not sure how accurate it is, but the 2015 seat calculator suggests:

25% LD >> 50+ seats
20% LD >> 30 seats

Clearly the votes are showing the natural right wing bias on PH above, but still interesting, and not looking good for Labour!

PS lets try and keep it polite please.

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FN2TypeR said:

///ajd said:

Not sure how accurate it is, but the 2015 seat calculator suggests:

25% LD >> 50+ seats
20% LD >> 30 seats

Clearly the votes are showing the natural right wing bias on PH above, but still interesting, and not looking good for Labour!

PS lets try and keep it polite please.

I think that the Lib Dems will be looking at reasonable gains - nine seats now, perhaps twenty after, their "passage back" will take more than just the one election IMO. Their resurgence is one of the reasons I think that this election isn't going to provide the Tory landslide that people think it's going to. But, I also don't think it's about achieving such a landslide as their MPs are toeing the party like and May has stitched Parliament up good and proper, they need time in power, not more MPs.

Playing with the seat calculator, it appears that even if the LDs get 50+ or even more seats, Labour will lose so many that a coalition like 2010 seem unlikely.

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dbdb said:

I will vote Liberal Democrat, though I am not especially enamoured with Mr Farron, nor do I consider them to have any real depth of talent. The same could be said for the Conservatives or Labour at the present time though.

I am a former Tory voter who does not support Brexit. I recognise that staying in the EU through a second referendum on the details of Brexit is now very unlikely (this election snuffs out any chance of that) but I will vote Liberal Democrat at this election since they are now the only pro-EU party - Mr Corbyn is a Brexiter and Labour are unsupportable in myriad other ways. My seat is traditionally a three-way marginal, the current MP is a Conservative.

I believe there will not be a coalition since the Conservatives are likely to achieve an increased majority - probably significantly so. The election is very well timed. We have not left the EU yet so the economic damage I am certain that leaving will cause has not yet been felt. A great many people believe it never will. Maybe they are right. I believe they are wrong, but any change of heart by the public after facing the realities will be too late now. I believe this election has extinguished any chance of a second referendum no matter how badly the negotiations go, since the modern Conservative party is dominated by anti European Union zealots and they want out whatever the cost.

It remains to be seen what the long term consequences for the Conservative party of a failure to reach a satisfactory exit deal which causes significant economic damage would be. I suspect dire. It is easy to forget that Tony Blair was once very widely supported and well regarded. He achieved landslide election victories. Now he is seen as a charlatan. The same could easily happen to the Brexiters. I cannot imagine voting Conservative again and it could be that by the next General election enough voters are disillusioned by the realities of Brexit that the Conservatives see their support collapse. Leaving the EU is a vastly complex and difficult thing to do, yet so many seem to think it is easy and simple.

This aligns closely with my views.

One of the motivations for the poll was to see how many others feel this way. I was never expecting anything other than a mass of Tory / UKIP support here (though interesting to see how UKIP support here seems to have migrated to Tory for this vote), but was wondering to see if some migration to a lib dem protest vote might occur and see the LDs bust through 20%. At times in the poll it did exceed 20% but is settling around 15%.

The collapse is any labour support is stark.

I also agree this will cement mays Brexit position until it's all too late and any detrimental outcomes from the deal are baked in and hard to escape from - it will all be too late. I also think you are right to link this to Blairs fall from grace. As the impacts of Brexit emerge, the tories will be judged very harshly, I almost felt this vote was partly about creating space between 2019 (Brexit) and 2022 (election) - though whether that will make much difference to how long a trade deal will take (probably ages), who knows.

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JagLover said:

As I said in the other thread people keep trying to make this pro or anti Brexit but what we are actually electing is the team to negotiate the best possible exit and new deal going forward.

Is that May with a strong majority, so that she ignore fringe extremists, or is it some sort of a coalition. That is all the consideration there is in regards to Brexit at least.

Charles Moore in today's Spectator thinks the main impact of a stronger majority is that May can afford to ignore the more extreme Tory Eurosceptics, Hence why it is a gross simplification to think this can be reduced down to a clear Brexit option via a General Election.

I think there are several valid views on what might happen here, I'm no sure anyone can be certain.

You could say Tory majority will allow May to have a strong hand and go for trade deals, SM access in all but name and silence the eurosceptics.

You could also say a large Tory majority will embolden the eurosceptics to shout even louder "there is your mandate for hard Brexit!!"

A resurgence of the only EU friendly party - so far the lib dems - might send a message that hard Brexit is deeply unpopular with at least a fair chunk of the population.

I'm quite uncomfortable that the Tory Brexit objectives remain rather vague. Out of the SM but with a good trade deal - but which will come second to immigration control. That is a possible recipe for a pretty hard exit. Does she mean it?

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confused_buyer said:

///ajd said:

Playing with the seat calculator, it appears that even if the LDs get 50+ or even more seats, Labour will lose so many that a coalition like 2010 seem unlikely.

The LibDems won't get anymore seats at all if the Tory vote is in line with the national swing. On the current polling there is a swing away from the LibDems to Tory (the LibDem vote has gone up but the Tory vote up more - in many places hoovering up a lot of UKIP votes).

So, the LibDems will have to either do a lot better nationally than the polls are currently implying or do exceptionally well in the marginals compared to the national swing.

The latter obviously looks the better bet for them and I can certainly see them picking up some seats or coming close in areas like London. I can't see them getting close to 50 - 20 would be an excellent result for them but they may pick up none at all.

Basically, the LibDems may well pick up some Remain votes but if for every vote they pick up the Tories pick up one from Labour or UKIP then they won't actually win any more seats.

You may well be right.

It will be interesting to see if the LibDems can coral an effective "anti-hard brexit" vote - they'll be held back by Farrons personality unfortunately.

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RegMolehusband said:

There isn't an option for "none of the above" which is currently what I'm considering spoiling my voting slip with.

As a Conservative voter, they've now moved too far to the left for me with their tax increases. They no longer represent me.

I won't be able to claim mortgage interest as a cost on the house from which I get rental income, even though this isn't a BTL house but my ex-marital home. Yet somebody setting up a limited company to manage their BTL properties will be able to do so. Crazy.

Osborne changed the long-standing method by which my small company's dividends are taxed, costing me considerably more, and then the idiot Hammond extended this in the last budget whilst naively attacking the self-employed with his NI increase, which he had to back down from of course. The change in dividend taxation will also hit core Conservative voters amongst the retired who depend upon dividend income.

They have shown their colours and I believe they will tax these sectors further. At the moment, I couldn't bring myself to vote for them, and there are no viable options.

Edited by RegMolehusband on Sunday 23 April 10:30

You're right, I forgot that. Added now. Probably too late though, can you change vote?

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B'stard Child said:

Not a bad idea

Slightly offended that he felt the need to create an identical poll to one already created

They even give broadly the same result

Party	BC Poll	///AJD Poll
Conservative	73	77
Lib Dem	10	12
Labour	3	6
SNP	1	Not Included
MRL	4	Not Included
Greens	0	Not Included
Coallition	3	Not Included
UKIP	5	3
NOTA	Not Included	2

No need to be offended, I only intended to bring out some voting intentions such as "lib dem as protest" and "tories as they are most competent" which yours didn't. The interesting thing for me was that in my poll the lib dem vote was 66% protest. Thats quite a big jump.

I think competence / confidence is a key factor in elections which doesn't get discussed that much really, and it will really hurt the lib dems. Clegg would be much better.

You also spiked your poll a bit by asking "who do you think will win" rather than "who will you vote for". Technically the answer to your poll question should be 99% tory. I'm not sure the 5% in your poll really think UKIP will win with Nuttal as PM, so its a bit unclear in yours who was really clicking for what. Better to ask who will vote for what and then work out the result.