Euro Elections!

[Crazedwraith]

Just going out to my polling station afterwards. I'm wavering between spoiling my ballot and actually voting green.

There's some minor stuff in their mini-manfesto. I don't agree with. Ending animal testing, making residential areas 20mph speed limit. But for the whole it seems sensible stuff I agree with.

And here's the biggy. I was actually easily able to find their mini-manifesto on their website. The lib dems had a pityifully simplified 3 point 'only we can save you' type thing. And labour had absolutely nothing, easily accessible from their home page.

[Darth Nostril]

http://www.reasonstovotegreen.org.uk/

[Darth Tanner]

Greens do have a lot of policies I would support, its just a shame they have so many stupid ones too. The fact they actually have policies is a good thing though.

[Zaune]

Well, since nobody even thought it worth canvassing around here except UKIP, whose pamphlets I tore into tiny shreds, I'm leaning towards spoiling my ballot paper unless the Pirate Party are running.

[Crazedwraith]

UKIP were certainly the most enthusastic canvassers around here. But we got also got stuff from the tories, labour, the bnp and i think some of the other no eu parties.

I'm amazed how many flavours of that we had on the ballot. There was UKIP, An Independence From Europe Party and No2EU. Plus the BNP and English Democrats. Hopefully they'll split the idiot vote so they can't do much damage but since the North West elected Nick Griffen last time...

[Darth Tanner]

I'm quite hopeful the BNP will be purged from holding any MEPS this election... probably only good to come from the insane media attention to UKIP.

[Darth Nostril]

Anything that spreads the moron vote among more parties, lessening their impact, is a good thing.

[Borgholio]

Do you have two big main parties like we do in the States, or do you actually have a real (meaningful) choice?

[Crazedwraith]

Traditionally we have a big three: The Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems though that's being generous to the Lib Dems. Usually the government is conversvative or Labour but at the moment its a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

There are lots of small parties though and they do get some seats. They tend to do better in what we're having at the moment; local elections for councils. And the elections for the European parliament. Possibly because they're not so much seen as elections as commentary on how the main government is doing. Tend to be a lot more protest votes going to wacko parties.

[HMS Sophia]

Traditionally we have a big three: The Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems though that's being generous to the Lib Dems. Usually the government is conversvative or Labour but at the moment its a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition.

Generous yes, but they are generally going to be the decider in any hung parliament as we had in the last election. That can be very powerful, though of course it relies on hung parliaments, which I've seen the argument made will happen more and more in coming elections.

[Borgholio]

So you pretty much actually have a viable third party. That would be quite refreshing over here.

[Lolpah]

So you pretty much actually have a viable third party. That would be quite refreshing over here.

They're talking about the UK, not EU in general, just in case you didn't get that.

[HMS Sophia]

So you pretty much actually have a viable third party. That would be quite refreshing over here.

This party seems to have also shown itself to be able to do absolutely nothing when it is in a coalition. Take of that what you will.

[Crazedwraith]

So you pretty much actually have a viable third party. That would be quite refreshing over here.

This party seems to have also shown itself to be able to do absolutely nothing when it is in a coalition. Take of that what you will.

I actually read an article years ago that saying that'd actually done quite a bit at moderating the tories. Obviously not big stuff like the uni but lots of smaller stuff. We don't know how bad the Torys would have been without them.


So, so far about 60 our 160 local councils are in. Big losses for Torys and Lib Dems, (not unexpected) big rises for labour and UKIP (sigh) of about plus/minus one hundred councilors each. Cue lots of talk about the new fourth party of politics and so on.

I so hope it doesn't continue into next years General Election. Imagine a tory/ukip coalition instead of what we have now.

[LaCroix]

Do you have two big main parties like we do in the States, or do you actually have a real (meaningful) choice?

Most of Europe, you got 4-5 viable choices.

Big ones:
Social Democrats
Conservatives
(These usually are 25-30% each, in some states they regularily form a "great coalition" to rule, unless one of the 'Regular players' is big enough to make it work)

Regular players:
Green Party
Liberal Democrats
Nationalistic spin-off of Social democrats/Conservatives
(combined another 30-40% of the vote, one of them usually forms a coalition with a big player)

An then a sprinkle of small change, which eat up about 5%, each, and occasionally make it into parliament :
Far right Nationalists
Communists
One-topic parties like the Pirate Party...

[madd0ct0r]

tory/ukip coaltion seems unlikely:

According to Sky, today's results, if replicated at the general election, would produce these results.

Labour: 308 seats (up 50)

Conservatives: 272 seats (down 34)

Lib Dems: 40 (down 17)

In other words, Labour would be the largest party, but well short of a majority. A result like this would probably produce a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.

[HMS Sophia]

I actually read an article years ago that saying that'd actually done quite a bit at moderating the tories. Obviously not big stuff like the uni but lots of smaller stuff. We don't know how bad the Torys would have been without them.

That's a good point. I'm probably being a wee bit unfair to them

[Zaune]

One-topic parties like the Pirate Party...

That's inaccurate and slightly unfair. The British one at least actually has a pretty detailed manifesto that covers a lot of ground outside the issues they were founded over. They talk a lot more sense than the Greens on many topics, and if they'd been running in the East Midlands I'd have voted for them yesterday.

[Dartzap]

UKIP surprisingly didn't do all that well in the locals down here. Both Plymouth and Exeter councils swung to or remained Labour. I imagine they will get the Euro seat though.

[mr friendly guy]

Why is this in testing?

Anyway I am interested in how strong a force the Eurosceptics and right wing forces are going to be. Politicians such as Farage, Le Pen (whose father just said Ebola will fix Africa's population problem) and Geert Wilders are no doubt doing the rounds. Wilders gave an interview on RT earlier this month and I swear the reporter Sophie Sebanze looked like she was going to fall asleep.

[LaCroix]

One-topic parties like the Pirate Party...

That's inaccurate and slightly unfair. The British one at least actually has a pretty detailed manifesto that covers a lot of ground outside the issues they were founded over. They talk a lot more sense than the Greens on many topics, and if they'd been running in the East Midlands I'd have voted for them yesterday.

That may be right for Britain, but in Austria, they ran for Parliament, and during interviews, their usual answer to unexpected topics like "unemployment", or "education", was:
"We haven't had a discussion about that, yet..."

[Dartzap]

Why is this in testing?

Because in less than a femtosecond someone will use the words 'Well, if this was the States.....'

[Crazedwraith]

Why is this in testing?

Cos I just started out by burbbling about the parties websites and who i personally was voting for? Didn't feel like up to N&P's rarified heights of posting standards.

[HMS Sophia]

UKIP surprisingly didn't do all that well in the locals down here. Both Plymouth and Exeter councils swung to or remained Labour. I imagine they will get the Euro seat though.

Oop North (In lancs at least) we've pretty solidly stuck with labour, which is nice.
UKIP won 163 seats out of... 4211 available. Less than 4%.

[mr friendly guy]

Britain has 4211 seats?