May 2015 UK General Election Campaign.

[Gups]

How did you think decision making processes in parties/coalitions in parliamentarian systems work? 

I figured the cabinet thrashed things out then the backbenchers fell in line.

That's how it works most of the time, though it varies at different time, in different parties and over different issues.


Most Tory splits over the past couple of decades have been over the EU and Cameron has had to tread a tightrope to keep his job. For example, he almost certainly would not be promising a referendum if he didn't have to appease the Eurosceptic wing of the party.  He also lost a vote (having called an emergency session of Parliament) on intervention against Syria with more than 30 Tory MPs voting against and just as many abstaining.

[Admiral Yi]

Referenda, second declension, neutral plural of referendum, so no referendae, since it would be first declension.

Oddly enough spellcheck didn't like referenda but liked referendums.

[Sheilbh]

It begins

[Agelastus]

It begins

Yes.

First we have the attacks on each other's economic competence...even if it doesn't show up as the number 1 concern of voters in polls I'm still surprised that a party bleeding voters to UKIP in some of its traditional heartlands has nailed its colours to the mast so dramatically. Surely that wasn't the only thing Labour's strategists could come up with to attack the Tories with?

On the other hand, the Tories were just as bad - if the voters have already forgiven Labour for pissing money up the wall for ten years under Blair and Brown they're hardly likely to be swayed now by claims that a new Labour government would do the same.

[garbon]

[Monoriu]

I heard on TV that the Conservatives want to hold a referendum on withdrawing from the EU if they win the election? 

[garbon]

To be honest, I don't know what to make of this story. I can't help but think that here is a man who made terribly poor choices in his past and now he should be elected into office?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-britains-first-hiv-positive-parliamentary-candidate#.mpdE61qnp

[PJL]

To be honest, I don't know what to make of this story. I can't help but think that here is a man who made terribly poor choices in his past and now he should be elected into office?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-britains-first-hiv-positive-parliamentary-candidate#.mpdE61qnp

I think his biggest mistake in life was not so much becoming HIV positive as being a LibDem candidate in this election. 

[garbon]

[Sheilbh]

To be honest, I don't know what to make of this story. I can't help but think that here is a man who made terribly poor choices in his past and now he should be elected into office?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-britains-first-hiv-positive-parliamentary-candidate#.mpdE61qnp

Who amongst us hasn't accidentally joined the Lib Dems?

[Warspite]

I dabbled in the Lib Dems when I was younger, and they turned out to be a gateway into other, more serious political parties.

[Valmy]

  Leave the LibDems alone!

[mongers]

I dabbled in the Lib Dems when I was younger, and they turned out to be a gateway into other, more serious political parties.

Yeah I experimented with the LSDs, but later found less harmful mind altering politics. 

[Gups]

Latest UKIP candidate gaff is a bona fide classic of the genre


http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/01/kidnap-obama-ukip-candidate-jeremy-zeid-replaced-after-outburst


Jeremy Zeid, a Ukip candidate in Britain's 2015 election, has been replaced after writing on Facebook that Israel should "kidnap" Barack Obama.

The post by Zeid was a response to the declassifying of US federal government documents on Israel's secret nuclear programme and was written last week as he prepared to run for a seat in the election on 7 May.

"Once Obama is out of office the Israelis should move to extradite the bastard or 'do an Eichmann' on him and lock him up for leaking state secrets," Zeid wrote in the Facebook post, according to a screenshot.

"Just kidnap the bugger, like they did to Eichmann," he added in a comment, referring to the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who was captured in Argentina in 1960 and put on trial in Israel.

[Gups]

Leave the LibDems alone!

I'm probably going to vote for them, if that's any consolation.