European Politics

I don't actually think the Libs Dems had much bearing on Coalition policy. It was by and large Conservative policy. Vince Cable was a knowledgeable economist with lots of ideas, but he was quickly discredited in an expenses scandal, and played a lesser role after that.
 
Forostar said:
I am of the opinion that voters should accept compromises, to a certain extent. It depends on how far a party goes of course. And it depends on which principles someone finds (the most) important.

I find it too easy to be angry at a party in a government when it makes compromises no matter which these are. What people often forget is that, if that compromising coalition partner the voters voted for, would not be in that government, the result would not be better than when that party would not be in the government. (that was a shitty sentence, sorry)

If the Torries rule alone, people really will see how that will be.
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Okay, I understand what you're saying now, but I disagree with you to some extent.

Of course, coalition means compromise. Nevertheless, a compromise can be frustrating for a voter if the issue that was subject to compromise was the reason the voter gave their vote to that party in the first place, or if the compromise goes against the grain of the party's identity. From what I read here, Labour has the same self-destruct process as the social democrats do in Germany. Both parties at some point became so keen to be in the government that they changed their program to appeal to as many people as possible. The result was that they became virtually indistinguishable from their conservative opponents and alienated their voter base. Those people traditionally voting for the major socialist parties did not find their positions adequately reflected in those parties went to other, perhaps more radical leftist parties, thus fragmenting the entire left wing of the political spectrum, while the conservatives remained steadily in place. And this is not a negligible amount of people. The social democrats in Germany have 400,000 members today, from over one million they still had fifteen years ago. And that's why nobody has been able to successfully challenge David Cameron this time around, and why he is so firmly in place despite the fact he is so unpopular.

I know this sounds odd, but in my opinion, a political party's main goal should not be to form the government, but to be a political representation of a part of the population that shares common political views. I'm not happy if 'my' party makes the government if that means it is compromising their positions to such an extent that it is indistinguishable from the parties I didn't vote for. I would not feel represented in parliament, and the whole idea of a representative democracy goes out the window then.
 
I understand what you mean.

I know this sounds odd, but in my opinion, a political party's main goal should not be to form the government, but to be a political representation of a part of the population that shares common political views.
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As long as it doesn't get (too) populist. ;)

Looking at myself: Which main principles do I find important, and even if I can't find them back in party A, while being in the government, I still see that this party is making the government less right wing than if it wouldn't be in the government.

I could look into party B, but I will surely see if that party won't have things I dislike (e.g. in their manifest or voting behaviour).

The decline of the old Labour party also happens in the Netherlands.
The other left wing party here, is the Socialist Party, and they are more nationalist than I like. My father switched to them after having voted for decades for the Labour Party (still my party). They share core principles with Labour, but seem less good financially/economically and often oppose foreign involvement (includes our country being involved in foreign conflicts).

Perun said:
I'm not happy if 'my' party makes the government if that means it is compromising their positions to such an extent that it is indistinguishable from the parties I didn't vote for. I would not feel represented in parliament, and the whole idea of a representative democracy goes out the window then.
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But if you'd go for another party, when that one comes to power, it could all happen again, couldn't it?
 
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Good for the UK.

Party compromise is always hard. At some point though they have to have some electoral success to justify their existence
 
A further thing that has come out. Apparently UKIP voting in traditional Labour strongholds was quite high. This smacks of reactionary politics and disillusionment with the mainstream parties.
 
We won't know for awhile until all the post mortems are done what happened completely. A fascinating turn in one of the year's most fascinating elections.
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results

Second graph here tells the real story. Liberal Democrats lost a LOT of votes and the split went a very interesting way. Labour is actually up more than Conservative across the UK - interesting considering their loss in Scotland. But the real question is: are the Lib-Dems done?
 
Here's a randomly selected riding in the UK's Conservative heartland:
http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/E14000680

Look at how Lib-Dems fell apart. If this is a pattern that rules England, it explains a hell of a lot.

http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/E14000616

Here's another. This one was previously quite competitive. Lib-Dem support in this riding exploded and there were 2 major benefactors: UKIP and Labour. Yes, Greens and Conservatives got a minor uptick but of the 25% swing in Lib-Dem, something like 18% split between UKIP and Labour.
 
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bearfan said:
I am bit super up in British politics but was this a repudiation of the Liberal Dems in general or of Kleeg(sp?) in particular?
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I'm honestly not sure, as they were polling quite strongly. I suspect that at the 9th hour 1/2 of Lib-Dem voters decide that their only chance was to vote Labour and the other 1/2 decided they hate everyone so voted UKIP.
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/E14000583

In this one, Lib-Dems lost 11% of their support. All other parties added support, but UKIP added 15.4%

I think a huge part of the problem is that UKIP is pulling support from an area that traditionally voted Liberal in UK history. Lib-Dems brought these people into their coalition when they were created, but they appear to be a very unstable voting block. In other words, the Lib-Dems have lost their Libs.
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/S14000014

Now, this is really interesting. Both Labour and Lib-Dems collapsed here in this, the only Conservative Scottish riding. SNP picked up 27.5% of the available 31.5% of votes from loss in Labour and Lib-Dems. Interestingly enough, Lib-Dems again lost more than the Labour did.

For reference, this election is a loss for SNP, because they were expecting to be a kingmaker. Now they are merely a loud minority.
 
Perhaps the UKIP vote voters are making a single issue statement about the UK role in the EU ... and/or immigration controls in the EU.
 
bearfan said:
Perhaps the UKIP vote voters are making a single issue statement about the UK role in the EU ... and/or immigration controls in the EU.
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I think this is highly likely. UKIP doesn't really have any other reason to vote for it as a policy platform, so it's either a protest vote or a single-issue vote. That's why I targeted the Liberal party - Liberals were Labour-class people who weren't progressive enough to vote Labour. Not conservative enough to be Conservatives, either.

The other possibility is that large numbers of Lib-Dems switched to Conservative, and similar numbers of Conservatives votes switched to UKIP.
 
In any case, it is certain that the UK at a minimum is going to maintain status quo with the EU and probably at least make some minor steps back
 
The Lib Dems also lost seats in Scotland. I think they've always had a bit of support in Scotland, but in the last election, more people UK-wide were voting Lib Dem to protest at Labour whilst still opposing the Conservatives. What they got, of course, was a Conservative-led coalition supported by the Lib Dems. There have been other areas with longstanding Lib Dem support, but they probably see little difference between Lib Dems and Conservatives now.

In my mind, UKIP is picking up votes in poorer and once-socialist areas, where people are now very disillusioned with the mainstream parties and equate immigrants with a lot of the issues (eg loss of benefits).

Edit: UKIP has come to represent a populist backlash against many aspects of national policy.
 
Staying in Scotland, we have this:
http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/constituencies/S14000024

Edinburgh South, Labour's only Scottish hold. In this, the number of people abandoning the Conservatives to vote Labour are almost identical, telling the story of the mainstream parties coalescing to fight off the rise of SNP. This is the only riding in Scotland where Labour increased their share of vote.
 
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