@Orathaic

Whilst you would've been correct about Prime Ministers being able to call elections whenever they want up til 5 years ago, the Coalition passed the Fixed Term Parliaments Act which now makes dissolving parliament exceedingly difficult - with five year parliaments now enshrined into law. The only way it can happen now is if governing parties whip their own MP's to pass a vote of no confidence against themselves... and in a hung parliament this can be defeated to the point where you could have a government led by a party who don't want to be in charge and have resigned, thus having no actual government but no election for 3-4 years. Quite the constitutional crisis.

Truly idiotic Coalition law, that one

Yeah, we do things different in the US than in the UK. I wish we had more than 2 prominent political parties like you guys. It's almost impossible for any third party to win congressional seats, much less the presidency. That's bad for me as a libertarian; a small faction of the Republican party is libertarian (e.g. Justin Amash, Ron Paul and to a lesser extent his son Rand Paul), and we have our own party, but it struggles to get even a percent of the vote, which is never enough for seats. So we're stuck with center-left and center-right. Blech!

As you might can tell I'm interested in the UK elections more than most Americans. Why? Two of my near-obsessive fascinations are politics and British things, and this is in the center of that Venn Diagram.

@octavious - look at http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html which shows something they call Tectonic Voter Migrations, you'd be surprised where Green votes come from.

Without looking I'd guess a lot of them are remnants of the Lib Dem left that abandoned the party after coalition, a spread of protest voters from across the spectrum, and a chunk of environmentalists who haven't read the manifesto, or have read it but don't care because they know that most of it will never happen.

There are probably at least a few who have both read the manifesto and agree with it. Maybe as many as a dozen ;).

The only thing surprising there are LibDems moving to UKIP. Although I guess that includes LDs who never really believed in what the LDs stood for and only voted for them to stick it to the big two.

Yeah I was surprised by the libdems moving to UKIP. Other things that surprised me was graphic showing 1/100 Tories going to Green along with 1/100 labour going green which runs against some of accepted wisdom that greens damage Labour. Think Tory-green figure was rounded up, but still. Other thing that has opened my eyes is people in my area saying I would vote green but are scared that will let labour in locally. I do come across the counter arguement more, ie we love green but will vote labour as lesser of two evils.

Of course the other factor we tend not to consider as much as we should is that people do change. There have been plenty of London bankers who burn out, find themselves a shack in the country somewhere, and turn hippy. Likewise the last time I saw the former leader of the Exeter university Socialist students he was working for a shiny bank in the square mile :p.

I've personally encountered quite a few former Conservative voters who are now choosing Green. If you think about it, it's not *that* surprising. They tend to be people who were never comfortable with Thatcherism, who are very concerned about preserving the countryside, and who have come to see the Tories as pro BIG business without having much to offer small businesses. (The last point of which rings particularly true in the North East - during this campaign I've spoken to many small business owners who feel let down by Cameron and Osbourne).

The Green party isn't particularly pro business of any kind :p.

I think you're wrong about the environmental side. The gulf between a Green environmentalist and a Tory environmentalist is huge. The only people who could slip easily from one side to the other either don't understand what the green party is or should never have been a Tory voter in the first place. I'd say a Tory environmentalist is much more focused on creating an environment that is beneficial to humans, whereas a Green environmentalist is more focused on creating an environment as it would be if humans didn't exist. Sometimes those goals align, but more often than not they don't.

I'd say our Green party was pro-local economics, and anti- air miles on food... (But i might be wrong) that might convert into preserving rural living conditions and a lifestyle in tune with nature (ie one where you work with the land, rather than simply exploiting it) - and that can lead to support for small local businesses. Of course i don't know if what actual green party politics looks like - nor what their supporters look like...

@Hellenic Riot - thanks for that correction, i didn't know it had changed.

@orathaic "Of course i don't know if what actual green party politics looks like - nor what their supporters look like..." Imagine a young Robert Redford with a hint of Errol Flynn, that's what Green Party supporters look like - well this one anyway.

@ Octavious: "The only people who could slip easily from one side to the other either don't understand what the green party is or should never have been a Tory voter in the first place."

Surely you realise that thousands upon thousands of voters cast their vote each election without fully understanding, in detail, the policies of the party they have chosen to vote for?

So... yeah, to an extent you may have a point. Nonetheless, I am not wrong to say that some former Tory voters are now considering voting Green, because this is what a number of real-life people, who voted Tory in previous elections, have told me.

"The Green party isn't particularly pro business of any kind."

That's a cheap shot and you're way off the mark. In brief:

- The Green Party is on your side if your business is involved in renewable energy - there would be huge investment in this area, which actually covers a wide range of businesses;
- The Greens' ambitions house-building programme would be a boost for the construction sector;
- The live music sector would get a boost from relaxations on licensing for live performances, and scrapping VAT on live music;
- Improvements to rail capacity across the whole network would bring benefits to business - there would be more capacity for rail freight, and the re-nationalisation of passenger rail would make travelling by rail easier and cheaper for businesses and their staff;

That's just off the top of my head, but not a bad starter.

* ambitious

"Imagine a young Robert Redford with a hint of Errol Flynn, that's what Green Party supporters look like - well this one anyway."

I look more like Mel Gibson in the second Mad Max film, only with a moustache.

@ Jamie

The Green Party would devastate large parts of the farming industry overnight, and the same with medical research, fast food, and any industry that requires a large supply of inexpensive energy. The huge hike in corporation tax would chase many large businesses overseas, which would wreck the countless small businesses that supply them. The axing of nuclear power will destroy the economies of towns like Bridgwater and put the UK energy system under huge pressure. The defence industry dies. Military towns die. And that's just for starters.

So.... killing thousands of people on reckless, de-stablising imperialist adventures is fine, because it's good for the economy?

As for your use of the word "overnight", that's trite scare-mongering of the worst sub-Daily Mail style and I can't even be bothered to respond, beyond saying that there is such a thing as long-term planning. When did you see a party win an election on 7th May, and fully implement all its long-term policies on 8th May?

Yes, there would be dramatic change.
No, we wouldn't turn the power off on Day 1.
Don't be silly.

@ Jamie

No it isn't. The Green party will make animal testing illegal as soon as it is humanly possible, will it not? It will ban factory farming as soon as it can as well, surely? I can't imagine the Green Party saying "actually, we'll keep the animal testing going for most of the parliament to give the industry time to adjust", can you? But regardless, as soon as the Green Party gained power every one of those industries would know it had no future. They would indeed be devastated overnight.

The economy of Bridgwater is heavily dependent on the current power station at Hinkley Point and the construction of the new nuclear power plant at Hinkley. If the Greens got into power that new plant would vanish into nothing instantly. The economy of Bridgwater would indeed take a massive hit overnight. How can you argue otherwise?

Besides, you can hardly claim I'm scare mongering when I am 100% confident that it will never actually happen :p. Much like a meteor hitting London tomorrow, the chances are virtually non-existent. The end of the world isn't nigh, but if it was it'd be damned unpleasant.

@ Octavious:

The party's policy on factory farming is to *phase* it out, and to *support* factory farmers in moving to forms of farming which cause less suffering and environmental damage.

On animal testing, a large proportion of the animal testing which takes place in the UK is on non-medical testing, and for duplicate research which in many cases could be avoided, or could be conducted by alternative means. There are now many techniques available for testing of chemicals, drugs and medical procedures and for researching disease that do not use animals. However, these alternatives are often not used and are not adequately funded or supported. It's our policy that Government research funds should be transferred from animal tests to non-animal technologies, including epidemiology, computer models, micro-dosing, imaging, DNA chips, microfluidics and the use of human tissue. Much greater use can and should be made of epidemiological evidence and clinical data.

This is a perfectly sensible policy position.

Bridgewater is a relatively modest-size town. I'm surprised you think that every political party should only propose UK-wide policies if they benefit Bridgwater specifically.

From what I understand, Bridgwater actually has quite a diverse local economy and is home to a range of industries. However, I can see that the town would need some support in replacing the income from the nuclear industry - although of course there would be some economic activity (and skilled employment) related to decommissioning, for a number of years.

If you want to talk about suddenly dismantling industries on which entire towns and cities depended, and just leaving people to rot with no help to transition, come to Sunderland and ask people there how much support they got when Maggie Thatcher closed all their shipyards overnight. They'll tell you their economy was devastated and she didn't give a shit. How can you argue otherwise?

I predict that I will give 14% of a fuck about the UK election and that I will not give 63% of that fuck about it. As of yet I am still undecided how much of the remaining 23% of that fuck I will be giving about the UK elections.

Just saw a poll for Cannock chase saying Greens now polling a whole 3%. Think we might actually save deposit. Only 8 days to go...

Was that the Ashcroft poll?

@octavious - yes

Good news, Greensters! Russel Brand has advised people to vote Green!

This is clearly less good news for the "don't vote brigade", but no one gives a damn about them because they don't vote.

Yeah, if only he'd advise people to vote before the registration deadline

@Maniac

Maybe that's the idea? Perhaps he was speaking to everyone at first, and is no speaking to just the ones who are going to vote.

Although I'd say to always vote. Maybe this is just me, but I feel that if people stop voting the government would start trying to get away with even more shit than they do now.

After careful consideration, a look at the numbers, and hearing the leaders say who they don't want in coalition; I predict a Labour-Conservative coalition

@Orathaic

That would be odd. I predict that Labour will get a minority government without any official backing from other parties. The only thing that adds up, other than a Grand Coalition, would be Lab+LD+SNP+a few others. That would do it. Con+LD+their allies doesn't cut it, and neither does Lab+LD+their allies.

So it's either an unstable Grand Coalition, or an unstable Labour (or maybe Tory, who knows) minority government.

I predict Queen Elizabeth II for monarch.

;-)