Depressed lefties sign in here...

[WilfSell]

...on the grounds that if we assume there will be a Tory govt, then the crowing triumphalism of all the Chinless Wonders and Thrusting Monetarists and Nasty Racists who'll poke in here to crow and gloat, will somehow force a cosmic rift in the time-space continuum. And it will be like 1992 all over again but the other way round.

I fear the best we can hope for is a hung parliament.

I've suggested hemlock for the Election Night supper thread...

I remember the excitement of 1997 - It was weeks before my 18th birthday and we were in a club when we found out that Labour had won - we all went back to a mate's house to watch Portillo lose his seat.

sob - have you seen the news. Labour candidate spouting off.

'I've never met a Tory that didn't dislike poor people. '

Or assume it's all their fault or some personal failing of theirs that they are in such a situation.

Oh this is a good thread.

Please may I come in hee waving my red flag and singing the internationale.

I cannot BELIEVE that we have the prospect of Buliingon club member Little Lord Fauntleroy as our next PM.

I am bloody gutted. I remember staying up all night utterly riveted with excitement in 1997. After a whole childhood of Thatcher, then the grim final years of John Major, it seemed like the world had been washed and everything was good.

Fundamentally to me tory = white, CofE, middle class, male. And always will be.

1997 - bliss it was in that dawn to be alive etc etc. It was just a few weeks before my DS was born and I was really happy to think he was going to be a Labour baby.
Did anyone hear GB this morning saying that when he leaves politics he'd like to do something for charity? Bless! At least there's one who won't be on the million-quid lecture circuit or lining his pockets in the City.

Please someone help me figure out how to vote tactically. Live in a safe Tory seat (25 years blue).
Here's the equation:

In the last election C = 19,000 = 44%
L = 13,500 = 31%
LD = 7,000 = 16%

I know it looks like I should vote labour but what of those national opinion polls translate at a local level and LD is better for keeping the Tory out? Should I vote LD just to increase their numbers overall for when it comes to negotiating electoral reform?

Plus, should I factor in the duckhouse because the Tory who has just retired his seat was, in fact, Sir Peter 'Duckhouse' Viggers? Will there be a duckhouse exodus and if so, to where?

Or am I overthinking this. DP and I equally baffled.

Any advice welcome!

I might be getting soppy in my old age, but after seeing GB's Citizens UK speech yesterday I do wonder if things might've been different if he'd been PM all along

MagicMountain - similar figures in my constituency and I'm also wondering if the libdems will be the bigger threat to the tory incumbent this time around. Tough call!

Read this. It might help.

Sorry,pollsworth and magic mountain, just read your posts properly and realized that I am offering training manuals in egg sucking to grandmas!

Pollsworth, that's interesting, what a conundrum it all is.

Oh no, seeker, thanks for the link.

What I need is a crystal ball.

I think I'd go lib dem if I were you two. That is, if my hand would let me do it. I think with Polly's support, I could.

I think you may be right.

MM - Not sure I agree. Its a 16 pc difference after all. I'd stick with Labour.

GB a much more decent person than his predecessor.

The whole country and every child in it, needs and deserves Change on Thursday. The state has become far far too big and interfering in everyones lives, and apparently believes at every turn it knows best how to parent children, how childrens lives should be run and what every child MUST think. Our children and families, are OUR children and families, not the product of some pseudo-socialist, social-engineering hungry set of politicians. So roll on Thursday nite and the emergence of a majority Tory government, or at the very least a coalition of Tory & Social Dems.

Governments, who govern for too long/too many consecutive terms, no matter what their flavour, all fall into the same trap of believing in their own supremacy of Politician over Electorate. Let none of us ever forget, Politicians and Government are here to serve the will and best interests of the people, NOT to shackle us all into subservience. Magna Carta became established some 800 years ago, let's not allow any political party to 'rape' us of our country, nor of any of our rights!

Is that you, Dave?

MM (have changed back to Molesworth btw, didn't feel comfortable in my election name guise) - I've just checked the results in my constituency again and the non-tory vote is actually pretty evenly split here so perhaps it would make more sense, tactically, to vote lib dem on the basis that there will be disillusioned labour voters going over to the yellow side.

Trouble is, there have been major boundary changes here. One of the richest areas of the constituency has been hived off into a new constituency, so the tory vote here might not be as strong as it was last time.

It's a fairly unusual constituency in that it's populated by extremes of rich and poor: few middle income families here (Kensington).

DevonParent you're on the wrong thread, love. Read the title and go away.

Social Dems? Is that you, Roy?

MM - I think I'd be inclined to vote Labour based on those figures, although factoring in the 'duckhouse' issue and disillusioned Labour voters...it's a tough call. Sorry, that hasn't helped much

Molesworth - I'd be surprised if Rifkind lost that seat, so I'd vote with your conscience as I think the Tory majority is too high to overturn unless all the LDs voted Labour, or vice versa. If you want to make a point by voting LD so their share of the vote goes up (and thus exposes the rotten-ness of the current voting system) then that would be a good reason to vote for them

Molesworth, I think it might be Sam

Your pony needs feeding, love!

signs in...am I too late for the Hemlock? I am currently trying to smoke myself into oblivion (started again in a fit of depression last week after 5 Fkin years off the fags: I BLAME DAVE) but hemlock seems more thorough.

I have decided to do something useful and will be wheeling my poor wee dd1 over to the local Labour office to ask for a poster. Her first political memory...apart from mum snarling at Tory billboards.

Have you seen the front page of The Times today? Samantha Cameron looks like a really nice lady and I have nothing against her, but this kind of manipulation just makes me feel sick. Or maybe I am just having an awful day [lethargic]
The Independent should run their Murdoch campaign on their front page now.

not too late for me to sign in I hope.

have been ranting on the other thread about how important it is for women to vote. Last time I voted in 2005 I was in labour! ( no pun intended)

Had little lump in my thoat yesterday when my 8yr old dd was able to quote the 'M. Thatcher milk snatcher' refrain accurately.

PinkFuschia I absolutely agree with your post of 12.59 yesterday. I remember all the events you mention. I also remember a very corrput and racist police force (I have always been in London)and all the riots of 1980, 1983 and the Tottenham riots (I lived up the road from there). As well as Wapping - oh yes, another masterstroke of that c**t Murdoch.

I am not saying riots are exclusive to a Tory government but anyone who thinks that anto social behaviour will be curbed by the right is deluded.

What puzzles me is that it's only people in large houses on nice streets who want 'change'.

Friday will be terrible; the worst behaved people at the Cambridge college I was at were the tory ones. But, basically, they just don't like poor people behaving badly; it's ok for old etonians to throw up in college toilets and get cleaned up by minimum wage cleaners but this is considered anti-social if the drunk person is poor.

So, from Friday the country will be run by immoral, thoughtless posh people who know nothing of how hard decent low-income families work.

Was about to post elegant and eloquent polemic but haven't got the heart. It's all been said on this thread already.

Will request swig of hemlock instead. Have planned debauched Election All-Nighter with embittered oldest mates - all 50-something jaded male lefties who are currently fellow house elves Economically Inactive as a result of redundancy, ill-health or just being er, over 50.

First time I voted, Maggie was elected for the first time, and we then had 18 years of the buggers. Am very worried about the future for my family.