General Election 2015 - Thoughts/Predictions/Results

[radamfi]

The problem with opinion polls is we don't have proportional representation when it comes to actually voting.

There are a number of websites which convert projected vote into projected seats for example

http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html (was accurate in 2010)
http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/
http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Unfortunately, they forget that smoking is the only legal product in this country that kills when used as intended by the manufacturer.

Apart from alcohol. Brewers say 'drink responsibly' but if people stayed within the recommended limits, there would be much less money made from the industry. Smoking kills people slowly but alcohol can kill people both slowly and quickly. Alcohol ruins people's lives and the lives of people around them while people are still young and can kill people in a day, whereas smokers tend to live until at least their 50s, and usually their 60s. So alcohol should be regulated at least as strictly as smoking.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You've missed the point entirely here - it is a self contained room that you only enter if you wish to smoke.

Before the smoking ban came into effect, I recall quite a few pubs and restaurants set up non-smoking areas. Is there any difference in practice between that and what you're proposing (other than the terminology)?

As I recall, separate smoking and non-smoking areas never worked because of the way group dynamics works in pubs. You come in with a group of friends. If only one person in the group smokes, that person expects to go in the smoking area, and that means to keep the group together, so do all the non-smokers. The result is that almost no one gets protected from the smoke anyway. You end up with a near-empty non-smoking area, and a smoking area where there are lots of people who would rather not be there, but feel socially obliged to remain there.

There's also an issue that if you smoke in a confined area, as far as I an make out, a lot of the smoke gets trapped in your clothing, which means they smell, and are presumably releasing dangerous particles, even if you then walk into the non-smoking area

Getting back to The Election will everyone be watching David Dimbleby's swansong before he hands over to Hugh Edwards for future contests.

Over 50 years experience he will be hard to replace !!

Oh, is this election his last one?

 

[Antman]

There are a number of websites which convert projected vote into projected seats for example

http://electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html (was accurate in 2010)
http://www.electionforecast.co.uk/
http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Apart from alcohol. Brewers say 'drink responsibly' but if people stayed within the recommended limits, there would be much less money made from the industry. Smoking kills people slowly but alcohol can kill people both slowly and quickly. Alcohol ruins people's lives and the lives of people around them while people are still young and can kill people in a day, whereas smokers tend to live until at least their 50s, and usually their 60s. So alcohol should be regulated at least as strictly as smoking.

I'm afraid I disagree, it is the misuse of alcohol that causes problems, people ruin their own lives whilst the vast majority of us consume alcohol in sensible amounts and subsequently suffer no ill effects.

 

[Seacook]

Over 50 years experience he will be hard to replace !!

Perhaps he should have been replaced after less than 20 years. Then it would have been easier.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Other than giving us free hospital parking (something that both Wales and Scotland has, which England doesn't), the NHS will be free at the point of delivery and the costing of NHS services will come out of general taxation.

UKIP are wanting the railways returned to the public and that HS2 is to be scrapped, so that the cash that was going to be used for HS2 would be spent on upgrading the infrastructure, reopening of lines and stations and buying much needed new units!

UKIP oppose tolls, so those at Dartford and the ones on the Humber Bridge would be removed, again the cash to pay for maintenance would come out of general taxation.

So expect taxes to rise sharply. His estimated savings from EU payments are way off the mark considering what we have got back from Brussels.

Free hospital parking is also a thorny issue. I live in a town that has a small hospital within 2 minutes walk of the town centre. As soon as parking becomes free at that hospital, then the hospital car park will be full of shoppers avoiding the council run pay and display car parks.

 

[Butts]

Before the smoking ban came into effect, I recall quite a few pubs and restaurants set up non-smoking areas. Is there any difference in practice between that and what you're proposing (other than the terminology)?

As I recall, separate smoking and non-smoking areas never worked because of the way group dynamics works in pubs. You come in with a group of friends. If only one person in the group smokes, that person expects to go in the smoking area, and that means to keep the group together, so do all the non-smokers. The result is that almost no one gets protected from the smoke anyway. You end up with a near-empty non-smoking area, and a smoking area where there are lots of people who would rather not be there, but feel socially obliged to remain there.

There's also an issue that if you smoke in a confined area, as far as I an make out, a lot of the smoke gets trapped in your clothing, which means they smell, and are presumably releasing dangerous particles, even if you then walk into the non-smoking area



Oh, is this election his last one?

I'm not talking about a room partitioned between smokers and non-smokers without any structural separation. The smoking rooms would be self-enclosed with an adequate ventilation system. Like a Smoking Lounge at Airports. This means the smoke only affects those who choose to enter.

With relation to your points about releasing dangerous particles - it's not radioactive you know

 

[me123]

You've missed the point entirely here - it is a self contained room that you only enter if you wish to smoke.

You assume that smokers and non-smokers don't talk to each other or go out as a group - non-smokers will be in this room because their mates in that room smoking. You also assume that the bar staff will have any say in working in that room. They won't, and it is simply not acceptable to expose the staff to the risks of second hand smoke.

Apart from alcohol. Brewers say 'drink responsibly' but if people stayed within the recommended limits, there would be much less money made from the industry. Smoking kills people slowly but alcohol can kill people both slowly and quickly. Alcohol ruins people's lives and the lives of people around them while people are still young and can kill people in a day, whereas smokers tend to live until at least their 50s, and usually their 60s. So alcohol should be regulated at least as strictly as smoking.

I would agree that alcohol manufacturers probably have an ulterior motive to maximise sales and, therefore, profits over the health of their customers (although I have no hard evidence to prove this). However they do at least officially advertise that their products should be consumed responsibly, and indeed there are safe guidelines for the consumption of alcohol. By contrast, there is no safe level of consumption for tobacco products, and there are no safe guidelines. The evidence is clear - smoking is associated with increased risk of mortality. There is no safe number of cigarettes.

 

[St Rollox]

How many votes can there be in the smoking lobby.
Half the smokers i know seems to be sucking a pen.
Might well be why Ukip is slipping in the polls.

 

[Butts]

You assume that smokers and non-smokers don't talk to each other or go out as a group - non-smokers will be in this room because their mates in that room smoking. You also assume that the bar staff will have any say in working in that room. They won't, and it is simply not acceptable to expose the staff to the risks of second hand smoke.

Mein Gott....you are a right killjoy - I bet you were protesting about the fact they reintroduced a smoking area post-security at ABZ :cry:

If someone's mates choose to join them in the smoking facility that is their prerogative and choice as an Adult, it can hardly be argued that they are not making an informed decision with the "wall to wall" anti-smoking campaign that pervades most areas of society. Similarly if they were at their mates house and decided to stay in a room while he smoked the same inference could be drawn.

With regard to staff their is no need for them to enter the facility other than to clean it. If the ventilation is sufficient it will only be a slight odour they are exposed to. From my experience a lot of Bar Staff smoke anyway, so send in a smoker.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Free hospital parking is also a thorny issue. I live in a town that has a small hospital within 2 minutes walk of the town centre. As soon as parking becomes free at that hospital, then the hospital car park will be full of shoppers avoiding the council run pay and display car parks.

That's easy enough to solve. Keep the pay system for the hospital car park, but genuine hospital users get a one-time exit ticket from the reception desk after their appointment which will get them through the barriers. Anyone using the hospital then has free parking while anyone else pays.

 

[Butts]

That's easy enough to solve. Keep the pay system for the hospital car park, but genuine hospital users get a one-time exit ticket from the reception desk after their appointment which will get them through the barriers. Anyone using the hospital then has free parking while anyone else pays.

Despite what people are lead to believe Hospital Car Parking Charges have not disappeared completely in Scotland.

Edinburgh and Glasgow Infirmary's and Ninewells Dundee still charge. These were built under the Private Finance Initiative.

 

[radamfi]

That's easy enough to solve. Keep the pay system for the hospital car park, but genuine hospital users get a one-time exit ticket from the reception desk after their appointment which will get them through the barriers. Anyone using the hospital then has free parking while anyone else pays.

Is that how it works in Scotland and Wales?

Presumably, bus passengers get a refund too, otherwise it would be unfair to them.

 

[Oswyntail]

...genuine hospital users .....

Does that include staff? Patients' visitors? Drugs reps? Admin visitors? And what about hospitals with P&D systems? There were few more emotive topics on the hospital board, I can tell you.

 

[Antman]

You assume that smokers and non-smokers don't talk to each other or go out as a group - non-smokers will be in this room because their mates in that room smoking. You also assume that the bar staff will have any say in working in that room. They won't, and it is simply not acceptable to expose the staff to the risks of second hand smoke.

Exactly, not only the staff but the emergency services may need to enter the premises at any time and why should they be subjected to other peoples smoke?

I'm amazed that anybody is still arguing about the smoking ban, most people accepted it a long time ago.

 

[deltic]

That's easy enough to solve. Keep the pay system for the hospital car park, but genuine hospital users get a one-time exit ticket from the reception desk after their appointment which will get them through the barriers. Anyone using the hospital then has free parking while anyone else pays.

Some hospitals have tried that - its a disaster - poor receptionist is given the impossible task of determining who has the "right" to free parking and ends up subject to abuse while also trying to deal with far more urgent enquiries. Hospital car parking is subject to huge abuse and costs a fortune to provide and manage - hence why charges are introduced.


Plenty of examples in Scotland and Wales of staff no-longer being able to park in hospital car parks due to abuse of facilities by others. A certain south-east London hospital with a staff car park near a train station had consultants' wifes/children/mistresses parking in it and then jumping on a train to London to do their shopping - consultants had a permit per car not per person and as no-one had any power over them they could do what they wanted.

Blue badge parking is also a big issue in many areas especially in London where hospital car parks dont often exist

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Some hospitals have tried that - its a disaster - poor receptionist is given the impossible task of determining who has the "right" to free parking and ends up subject to abuse while also trying to deal with far more urgent enquiries. Hospital car parking is subject to huge abuse and costs a fortune to provide and manage - hence why charges are introduced.

Simply the production of an appointment card / staff or visitor pass. None of those = no parking exit pass. No decision making process involved. Maybe shield the receptionists from that abuse by having the security men handle the issue of the passes instead.

Blue badge parking is also a big issue in many areas especially in London where hospital car parks don't often exist

In Epsom ( town, not the hospital ) blue badge holders have to pay the same rate as the rest of the public to use public car parks. Well, almost... they have to pay for the first two hours then get a third hour free - completely negating the point of having the blue badge in the first place. ( Again... well, almost. The end result of this misguided borough council policy has been a totally predictable increase in blue badge holders using their yellow lines rights instead... )

 

[me123]

Is that how it works in Scotland and Wales?

Nope. Aside from the PFI hospital car parks that can still charge (because they're contracted), it's just a plot of land with spaces marked off. The reality, however, is that you are often subject to a four hour maximum stay in these car parks, or have to prove your reason for being there (for example by showing an appointment card at a barrier - which must be an absolutely useless screening test), ANPR to ensure that you're not using the car park on a daily basis... and even if these exist you quite simply do not have enough spaces for staff patients and visitors.

Very often, you'll find it is the hospital staff who end up being the most disadvantaged by the free parking/parking restrictions imposed by their own employers, as Deltic has already said. It is very common in NHS Scotland that staff are simply told that they may not drive their car to work, and in extreme cases are told that doing so is considered "gross misconduct".

In terms of visitor parking, there simply are not enough staff to validate their tickets. Although it would work at clinic appointments perhaps, where you will be seeing a receptionist, it doesn't work for visitors to inpatient wards. But perhaps a machine located well within the hospital would help - they would need to be far enough inside that you can't just pop in the front door.

Simply the production of an appointment card / staff or visitor pass. None of those = no parking exit pass. No decision making process involved. Maybe shield the receptionists from that abuse by having the security men handle the issue of the passes instead.

The appointment card system at the gate is grossly unfair because patients will not always bring their letter with them, and indeed may not always have an appointment card - reasonably often doctors will tell patients to come back without giving them a formal letter/card and have much better things to be doing than worrying about the bureaucracy of a parking system. All this would do if it was enforced to the letter is increase the rate of non-attendance. Receptionists in the outpatient and day case settings actually can offer permits quite easily - every patient reports to them anyway so even if they don't have an appointment card the receptionist can verify if it's a genuine attendance. It's the inpatient setting for both patients and their visitors that probably wouldn't work as well - ward receptionists are far too busy to be dealing with parking.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

(About Nigel Farage)

This. He was repeatedly ignored for raising irrelevant points that were clearly self-interested - does anyone really care about hospital parking fees in our leaders' debate, for example? - and frankly the point about HIV was utterly disgusting. There were a few times when it was noticeable that everyone else there found what he was saying really unpleasant. Part of me wants to leave the EU just so they can't claim to have easy solutions to complex, difficult problems.

Turns out that his point about HIV was factually wrong. (Nigel Farage says something that's not true - why does that completely not surprise me...)

Somone on fullfacts.org has dug out the actual figures. And I've just looked at the spreadsheet to check them too. It turns out that for 2013 - the last year for which figures were available, 5990 people were diagnosed with HIV. 38% were born in the UK, 13% in the rest of Europe, 21% in Africa, 5% in Asia, 6% elsewhere, 17% not recorded.

Looks to me like someone in UKIP probably added up the %'s of all the people not explicitly recorded as born in the UK, and just presumed that they were all (a) not UK citizens, and (b) health tourists - ignoring the fact that many of those people will have lived in the UK for decades, many will be British citizens, and some of those may have been born in the UK but that wasn't recorded. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few 'health tourists' amongst that number, but it's clearly nowhere near the 60% Nigel Farage implied during the leaders debate.

 

[northwichcat]

David Cameron seems to keep referring to a choice of him or Ed for the next 5 years. As far as I know while Cameron's said if the Conservatives win or form a Coalition then the next election will be May 2020, Miliband hasn't said the same so could call an election any time between May 2018 and May 2020. In fact most Labour governments in recent times have been for 4 years. The most recent Labour one was probably only 5 years because they changed leader and chancellor part way through the term and didn't want an election too soon after making those changes.

 

[PaulLothian]

Doesn't work quite as it used to...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_2011

Fixed term parliament legislation has changed the game considerably!

 

[dcsprior]

Doesn't work quite as it used to...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_2011

Fixed term parliament legislation has changed the game considerably!

But no parliament can bind it's successors, so whichever part(y|ies) win in May can just repeal it

 

[PaulLothian]

But no parliament can bind it's successors, so whichever part(y|ies) win in May can just repeal it

If they can get a majority to agree...

 

[northwichcat]

Doesn't work quite as it used to...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Parliaments_Act_2011

Fixed term parliament legislation has changed the game considerably!

Are EU elections and local council elections usually going to be every 4 years still? If so there could be some years where some people will have votes for UK parliament, EU parliament and local councils all on the same day.

 

[Busaholic]

You've missed the point entirely here - it is a self contained room that you only enter if you wish to smoke.

Getting back to The Election will everyone be watching David Dimbleby's swansong before he hands over to Hugh Edwards for future contests.

Over 50 years experience he will be hard to replace !!

I shall certainly be watching, probably until 4 a.m or so.Who says it's DD's swansong though? This was said in 2010 and proved to be wrong. After all, the next election may be only months away!

Huw Edwards would be a most unsuitable replacement anyway. He might be able to do the royal pomp bit, but pomposity unallied to natural ability is not what is required on election night. Andrew Neil would be so much better, his political nous is second to none and he won't take crap from the political participants. Nick Robinson, assuming a full recovery from his illness, on hand to do the dissection of the results with his usual amusing insights is also a necessity. BBC News Channel also have a very able presenter/reporter called Clive Myrie who could be given a chance as a second stringer.

 

[PaulLothian]

Are EU elections and local council elections usually going to be every 4 years still? If so there could be some years where some people will have votes for UK parliament, EU parliament and local councils all on the same day.

I believe that the only other election formally affected is the 4-yearly Scottish Parliamentary elections, put back one year by this piece of legislation. Logically, the dates must clash at some point.

I worked as a polling clerk at the 2007 elections, when there were three different types of voting to be done, and spent a very long day explaining to the terminally confused what they had to do with three ballot papers. I would recommend keeping different elections apart!

 

[me123]

I believe that the only other election formally affected is the 4-yearly Scottish Parliamentary elections, put back one year by this piece of legislation. Logically, the dates must clash at some point.

I worked as a polling clerk at the 2007 elections, when there were three different types of voting to be done, and spent a very long day explaining to the terminally confused what they had to do with three ballot papers. I would recommend keeping different elections apart!

Made worse in 2007 by multiple systems in use - FPTP for Scottish Parliament constituencies, Additional Members System for the regional lists (you got a single vote for each using an 'X', but both sheets were on the same form); and Single Transferrable Vote (where you rank candidates with numbers) for the councils.

But you're right - unless Scottish Parliament terms are increased to five years (which would be sensible in light of the fixed term Westminster parliaments) we will see election dates colliding once every 20 years, assuming we continue to elect candidates to both parliaments in May.

 

[PaulLothian]

But you're right - unless Scottish Parliament terms are increased to five years (which would be sensible in light of the fixed term Westminster parliaments) we will see election dates colliding once every 20 years, assuming we continue to elect candidates to both parliaments in May.

And in fact, the first clash of dates will be... 2020! By which time, I shall no longer be a polling clerk.

 

[me123]

I thought the planning was short-term but... wow there's not much forward thinking there! (Although what were we expecting?)

 

[St Rollox]

I never went Eton but the last Scottish elections were 2011 and the next one is 2016.
Is that not 5 years?

 

[me123]

Correct. And the one before the 2011 election was in 2007. Four years. And the one after that is in 2020, which is how many years after 2016? Yep, four years. Because, as enshrined in the Scotland Act 1998, a general election to the Scottish Parliament must occur on the first Thursday in May four years after the previous general election to the Scottish Parliament.

What we were saying is that, whilst the Scottish Parliamentary elections occur every four years, the 2015 election was delayed by a year to prevent it clashing with the UK general election. However, it's a very short term plan because, as has been pointed out, the clash will occur again at the next scheduled election in 2020, and every 20 years thereafter.

If you're going to make a sarcastic remark, at least read what you're replying to first.