Tactical voting guides

[TheOstrich]

Milliband was rather taciturn in his acceptance speech, wasn't he?

Well, interesting times ahead, Suff!

I'm off for a kip - catch up with you later

[Kaz]

I think it was regional rather than tactical. The SW has turned blue from yellow, as the Lib Dems have lost hugely and the Scots have voted SDP. I don't think that's tactics that ideology

Well they say people get the government they deserve, so god help the weak, the disabled, the vulnerable is all I can say!

[miasmum]

Well at least I can say, yet again, well I didn't vote for them. I did consider voting tactically, but I have never ever done that and it doesn't sit well with me. So I voted with my heart and yes I am disappointed but at least I can hold my head high and know I did what I believed.

Aside from that I presume the SNP could have had a donkey standing and the Scots would have voted for it? What the hell does a 20 year old student have to offer as an MP? How is she going to spend her time between Scotland, London, her constituents and her degree? Maybe she will abandon her degree, after all in Scotland that doesn't matter she can always pick it up again, wont cost mummy and daddy anything will it?

[Osc]

I'm interested in this tactical voting - how do you vote tactically when it is first past the post? I'm well used to it here under the PR system when you can make conscious decisions on transfers.

[Suff]

Osc, to vote tactically in FPTP you need to have a full guide to each seat, how the people intend to vote in that seat and how close the call is.

Then you can transfer your vote, in that seat, to the party that has the best chance of unseating the incumbent. What happened was that two national papers printed that list out for everyone who bought their papers to see. This hasn't happened before.

As for the result? Given that Cameron is a left leaning Tory with a social conscience, I don't see that the weak and the poor will suffer significantly more than they would under the coalition. What I do see is the economy growing faster, more jobs being available and less red tape on companies to be able to generate revenue in the UK. Which, to me, is way better than strangling business to give money away. That doesn't work, has never worked, but only sounds good to some people.

For me this is a very good result. Cameron gets a small working majority. That means he has to listen to his back benchers if he wants to get his bills passed. Again, good result for me.

Next is SNP. That is a perfect result for me. Remember I'm pro independence. If there were any one thing to make the Scots wake up and smell the coffee as to their place in the UK this is it. Think it through. Scotland has voted overwhelmingly to have a single strong voice in Westminster. England has voted decisively to shut the Scots out of any decision the UK government will make. Thank you Nicola, you have given exactly the result i wanted.

You see, to me, this means we must have another independence referendum. The Scots have done something never seen before in British politics. They have swept the board and brought in one party with virtually one voice on Scottish affairs. Yet, due to the English vote, they have no voice at all.

Remember what I said. With 85% of the UK seats, so long as England makes up it's mind that they want something, then England gets it and no matter what any of the others in the Union want, they can't block it. This result is the very embodiment of what I was saying.

So, for me, this is a very good result indeed. Cameron is curbed by his back benchers to carry out Tory policies and not neo Labour policies. SNP get a mandate for another referendum and the Tories, not in coalition, get to change the boundaries and undo 13 years of Labour fiddling to make it easier for them to win. On the downside, Clegg still has a seat. Well you can't get everything you want in one go can you?

[miasmum]

My idea of tactical voting is much more simplistic and probably wrong

What I think of as tactical voting are people that have said to me "I usually vote Labour, but I don't wont the SNP in coalition, so I will vote elsewhere this time" Or I usually vote Lib Dem, but I am scared Labour will get in, so I am going to vote Conservative and hope to get the Lib Dems in via the backdoor again"

[medsec222]

I am disappointed that Nigel Farage didn't win his seat despite the fantastic number of votes the Party polled overall. The Conservative Party has probably persuaded a fair amount of UKIP voters to vote Conservative with the spectre of the SNP forming some sort of an alliance with Labour. It is something which many prospective UKIP voters will have thought long and hard about. I hope Nigel lives to fight another day - I suspect he will but maybe not as leader unfortunately.

[cromwell]

Mary Creagh MP for Wakefield just snuck in, thanks to the fiddled electoral boundaries around here.

UKIP have 3.5 million votes, more than the SNP and LibDems put together but they have only one MP.

[Osc]

UKIP have 3.5 million votes, more than the SNP and LibDems put together but they have only one MP.

That's where PR really comes into its own.

[TheOstrich]

cromwell wrote:
UKIP have 3.5 million votes, more than the SNP and LibDems put together but they have only one MP.

That's where PR really comes into its own.

Yes, Osc, and I shall be very disappointed if we don't get full PR in this country in my lifetime. Just imagine the furore if the SNP and Labour had snuck into power on the basis of First Past The Post ....