Which nationalists?

Would that be the Tories, or Labour? UKIP perhaps?

Lol, the tories have 1 seat in Scotland so where's the need for tactical voting in that regard? The tactical voting is all based around keeping the SNP to as few gains as possible. My area has always had a Labour MP with the tories nowhere to be seen. Why would there be so many people talking about voting tactically here? It's purely to stop the SNP.

Also, if you google 'tactical voting Scotland 2015' the results are all about voting to stop the SNP.

Serious question. Are you on crack?

Nice to see you are unable to address the points above and have instead resorted to nonsense.

You are wrong on both counts.

Firstly more seats with less government is a **** trade off, seats for power makes sense.

Labour currently has about 33% of the vote many of which would support Labour if it advocated for PR in a referendum, the SNP supports, though whether this changes or not now they benefit from FPTP is to be seen and the Liberals have long standing support for PR. If you have Labour campaigning for a yes vote you get a referendum through. If they go without then under PR just how do you expect them to be excluded for ever? It doesn't work like that.

Assuming this is as close as the polls suggest would the conservatives or labour have enough seats to form a coalition even with the lib dems?

Tories need about 290, Labour don't need that and won't get it. Given the SNP won't join the government benches a minority Labour government is most likely with SNP allowing them to get through the Queens Speech

Nonsense? I mean clearly you don't realise the utter ****e in what you've said so I will spell it out for you.

'Tories have 1 seat' - they were the largest party in the country until parliament was dissolved. According to YouGov, a third of people who voted Labour in 2010 also voted Yes in the referendum; they are voting SNP today.

Why do you think they voted Labour in 2010? To 'keep out the SNP'?

I remember every election since '83, and the mantra has always, until now, been the same: we have to vote Labour to keep the Tories out.

So, how exactly does that reconcile with 'up here that [tactical voting] tends to mean people voting for parties to try to keep out the SNP'?

People previously voted Labour because they were Labour supporters/ came from traditionally Labour families etc. Are you trying to claim that through all those years people were voting tactically for Labour rather than the party they actually supported? If that's the case which parties did they really support then?

I'd have thought it was pretty obvious that everything has changed since the referendum. The SNP are set to make huge gains and there are a large number of people out there who see them as a threat to stability who will seek to cause as much disruption as possible to get their way, i.e. independence. Given they refuse to rule out another referendum it's pretty obvious why people are voting tactically against them.

Again I'll ask the simple questions you still aren't able to answer
1) Why is there so much discussion around tactical voting (according to staff at the polling station) in my local area where the tories are nowehere to be seen?
2) Why does a google search on the tactical voting in Scotland bring up results showing it is about voting agains the SNP?

Also, what consituency are you in?

I was thinking in terms of SNP/PC etc but I'd guess they'd implement PR regionally rather than everyone in one pot which'd make my point moot

Well I just gave you an example above. Want it again?

1 third of Labour votes in Scotland in 2010 were from voters who voted Yes in the referendum, and who, according to the polls, will vote SNP today.

Your questions to me are completely irrelevant. I called you out on your ****e and you have no leg to stand on. Tactical voting 'up here' doesn't 'tend to mean' voting to 'keep out the SNP'.

And by the way, the 'pretty obvious' reason to me is that those people are complete spastics.

I get what you meant, but it irks me no end that SNP/PC are, according to the mass media, the only 'nationalists' in this country. They're not.

I think the Tories need more than 290. The lib Dem line is trading at 25.5. As I've said before ITT, both parties need to have a better than expected night to form a two-party coalition.

Fwiw, the Tory line is trading at 285.5, so if both hit their line bang on, they'd be 9 short of an absolute majority, plus you can take a few off for Sinn Fein. A problem in picking up these 9 or so seats are that many of the Tory's best prospects are in the West Country, which, if they do win, they'll be picking up from the Lib Dems, therefore making them no closer to a coalition.

That being said, there would still be some extremely difficult negotiating grounds between the two, we shouldn't assume that just because they hit the magic number a coalition will instantly form. The Lib Dems will negotiate very hard if there is any chance of a Lib/Lab deal, and it could cross too many Tory red lines. I expect an EU referendum won't be too difficult to negotiate, but the Lib Dem education pledges may be a bit too far.

This is obviously true. But if you're going to have the word 'national' in your name, probably be expected to be called nationalists.

Still unable to answer a single question I see? Your posting style seems to revolve around having a little rant and ignoring any inconvenient facts that don't agree with your narrow world view. Here's some links that you no doubt won't read, as they prove you wrong, but I'll put them there for others who are actually interested in the discussion.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10219743.html

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/lord-ashcro...iation-1499350

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...-snp-1-3756167

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politi...gest.124938548

http://news.sky.com/story/1462956/ta...cottish-labour

'A YouGov poll on Thursday put support for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP at a record 49% (up three points), with Labour slumping four points to 25%.

If those results were repeated across Scotland, the SNP would win 53 seats, Labour just four and the Conservatives and the Lib Dems one each.

But new polling by YouGov 24 hours later suggested tactical voting could push Labour up to 13 seats in Scotland: still pretty dismal, but not quite the wipeout the earlier poll suggested.

That poll suggested that in Labour-SNP contests, almost half of all Conservative and Lib Dem supporters were prepared to back Labour to keep out the SNP, while one in three Labour and Lib Dem supporters would back the Conservatives in SNP-Tory fights.'

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/10...fect-election/

I hadn't considered the numbers needed for an effective majority are reduced due to the SF MP's who won't sit, but the Tories get the DUP. The Tories needing UKIP, and the DUP may test LD resolve if it is that tight. I do think you are right it's far from clear how this plays out.

Ignore me the 5 SF seats are already discounted in needing 323.

God I love elections. I've got 24 beers and Doritos with dip. In for an entertaining political marathon.

If it goes that way the Queens speech is just being the beginning and possibly the easy bit.

Apart from being interesting to us lot it may not be a bad thing. I actually quite like the idea of the SNP having a lot of influence because a minority labour government has to do things they don't oppose enough to bring the house down.

I think the Lib dems would be very unlikely to go in to a 4 way coalition with 3 right leaning parties.

Yeah me too which is why I'm expecting Miliband in number 10. Failing this a second election.

Are the pubs closed on election day?

Economist map etc.,

http://www.economist.com/uk2015data


And then this:

IN BRITAIN’S "first-past-the-post" electoral system, seats won at a general election are not shared out between the parties proportionally nationwide. Instead each one of the 650 constituencies is self-contained, meaning any vote not used to win a seat is in effect wasted. In 2010 over 900,000 people voted for the populist UK Independence Party at the general election. They needn’t have bothered: UKIP didn’t win a single seat in the House of Commons. The Liberal Democrats (the best-known loser from this majoritarian system) joined the Tories in a coalition government after the 2010 election, but over 5.5m of its 6.8m votes made no contribution to its 57 seats. Under a proportional system its votes would have translated to 150 seats. At the 2015 election the Scottish National Party is on course to be the first minor party to win a number of seats in Westminster that outweigh its share of the popular vote.

***********************************

Didn't know it wasn't a strict proportionally for the party seats. You UK'ers are quite an ornery bunch. Where's the Monarchist Party?

The DUP:

http://www.mydup.com/

Are any of the DUP wankers even sober when they vote?

I'm gathering information. I want to be up on the latest goings on for the speech I'm planning the next time I'm in Hyde Park.

Hope this exit poll is wrong. Doubt it though.

**** the British public. I'm away to flush myself down the toilet.

Pubs closed !!!!

Exit polls have a tory/lib majority of 2

Glad I'm in Ireland.