The UK Election!!!!

I'm not surprised Clegg came out top; I'm surprised by the margin though.

Knackered = tiredNappies = those garments you put on babies to catch their doings. Er, diapers?

Tactical voting in this election is going to be a massive error because the result, right now, is far too unpredictable. The Lib Dems are sitting pretty in the polls, even more so among the younger age group more of whom have registered to vote than ever before. Tactical voting requires good knowledge of which party stands any chance of winning; we don't have that in this election.Vote Liberal; the Good Guys can win this time.

Labour = used to be socialist. Now centre-right and highly authoritarian. Have been in power for last 13 years and presided over a huge increase in public spending that now turns out to be unsustainable. Also noted for constantly, constantly tampering with everything and setting bureaucratic targets as a means of "improving" services.Conservatives (aka Tories) = our right wingers. Somewhat to the right of Labour, slightly less authoritarian (going by their manifesto if not past record). Their big ideas for this election are not introducing a planned tax rise, getting people to set up their own schools funded by the government to compete with the other government funded schools and letting private hospitals take NHS work if they can provide it as the same cost. Claim they'll slash our huge deficit faster than Labour but have no credible plan to do so. They're the most euroskeptic party.Either the Conservatives or Labour have ruled for about the last hundred years.Liberal Democrats = economically between the two big parties, but much less authoritarian than either. Their big plans involves raising the tax free allowance on income tax to 10k paid for by higher taxes on businesses and the more well off, not building new nukes, and pushing renewables instead of nuclear power, along with a bunch of green initiatives. Historically they've not stood a snowball's chance of winning anything but after the Leader's debate that's all changed. They're the most pro-European partyMost likely outcome for the election is a hung parliament, possibly followed by a Lib/Tory pact. All support stemcell research. Nuclear power is backed by all by the Liberals. The differences in actual crime fighting approaches are pretty slim - the Liberals have by far the most progressive approach to Justice though, supporting methods that have actually been shown to work instead of just sending more folks off on short prison sentences that do nothing to prevent re-offending. Social security: no-one proposes scrapping it. Labour will probably protect it the most, Tories have the most plans to try and force people back into work.Want more info, ask The BeebEdited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.

Tactical voting is meaningless in seats where there is no competition. In seats where there is competition there's little reason to think that results this time round - based on polls as are - will provide sufficently accurate guides to make your tactical vote better than your preferred vote.

The British people are a bunch of blitherin' idiots? Don't ask me. They've been head and shoulders above the other two in policy terms for as long as I've been alive, but never picked up many votes. I can only guess tribalism and a general belief they won't win elections. Yeah, that's my biggest issue with them too. Still, they're much more focused on sorting out carbon emissions that the other parties, so it's not so bad.

Overly concentrated votes also count against you. It's one of the reasons this election doesn't favour the Tories. You want to win every seat by a single vote to maximise your seats:votes ratio. Also, while the Liberals vote is a bit more spread than the other two, it's not that much more. I don't agree with your cynicism.Edited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.

Hope, damnit! It worked for the US and it can work for us! Yes, they'll benefit from PR, I don't accept that's their reason for liking it. I don't think the Tories oppose it for self-benefiting reasons either; that strong government bollocks is the kind of thing they like. Labour's floppity, floppity position on it comes down to where the short term money is. Yes. I started out planning to vote Tory on a get rid of Labour tactical basis but given the way things have shifted I'm going to vote for the best party instead.

Me too

Looks like Clegg's narrowly won the second debate; there's a real chance of the Libs keeping - or increasing - their share of the vote right up to election day now.

And Gordon commits the first grand gaff of the campaign. Poor chappie, it was always going to be him, wasn't it?

Barely, and the smaller parties would back them on electoral reform anyway (except the DUP who benefit more than anyone else from the current system).

O_oSo, because you can't impose the exact set of policies advocated by the party you voted for supported by a strict minority of the populous on the country as a whole it's wrong for parties to come to a compromise agreement between them that represents a reasonable balance between their ideals?How does that figure?A lib-con coalition won't represent the precise wills of either libs or cons but it will represent a compromise position between the two of them, surely that's a better representation of the disparate wills of the voters than either of the parties on their own.

That makes no sense.(Also, I'm not huntard)

Yeah, I think that makes no sense.The best outcome for a consensus decision is that a compromise is reached which is acceptable to the majority. Having a happy minority is a way back from that.It's also a shoddy way to run a government. Strong government is not a good thing, it's a bad thing. It leads to bad decisions being muscled through (as the last 30 years clearly show) rather than considered compromises.