Not who do you think WILL win the election; not even necessarily who will you vote for.

But who do you actually WANT to win, and why? Are you by nature a believer in state provision and governance, but you think Labour's lost the plot and deserves a kicking? Or maybe you just think Gordon Brown, personally, deserves to lose?

Or maybe you are, and always have been, a strong believer in liberalism, business and the church, but still think that putting the country into the hands of a few priveleged bankers' sons from Eton is just too much to swallow?

Lib Dems by a country mile. Vince Cable was the only one who had any clue what needed to be done with the financial crisis just for starters.

Brown or Cameron - it's akin to choosing which foot you'd rather have amputated.

1) The tories remain a nasty bunch of selfish poor-hating cunts

2) I think Labour's manifesto will be more radical than anything they've actually done whilst they actually had the power, but I wouldn't trust them not to backslide.

3) We desperately need to open up the system to PR

So I want Labour to win with no majority, with the Liberals parlaying their influence to pass supply bills and no-confidence in return for STV PR for the next Westminster election, and having people like Caroline Lucas in from the Greens helps show what we can do, and could be influential with a government with no clear majority needing to pick support from others on an issue-by-issue basis.

A danger is that the Tories win with no overall majority and do a deal with the Scot Nats for a referendum. Cameron's happy to see 40 Labour MPS fuck off for ever, and the Nats again not bothered to leave us with a government of cunts in their quest for independence.

Shit, really? Is the Tory-SNP thing actually being discussed? I would have thought that Tories might look askance at destroying the Union just for a 4-year majority.

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:
Are you by nature a believer in state provision and governance, but you think Labour's lost the plot and deserves a kicking?

I think we need to start by roundly rejecting the terms in which the question's been framed...

Be that as it may, like: I'm talking myself into a lesser-of-two-evils Labour vote, for the first time in three General Elections.

I can't see it happening for either party. The SNP policies are miles away from those of the Tories, and like AG says, I don't see the Conservatives compromising the Union even for the political advantage of getting shot of some Labour MPs. Plus, if the refererendum was lost...

I'd like a hung parliament to answer the question. First Past The Post is just intrinsically undemocratic and needs to be got rid of as a matter of urgency.

I want Labour to win (particularly with their decent remaining MPs keeping their seats), but I'd like to see the Greens pick up a seat or two. And I'd like to see the Tories do extraordinarily and surprisingly badly, to send out a symbolic rejection of the way they've sought to frame the debate around the recession, the deficit and 'broken Britain'. Fraudulent, hateful scumbags they remain.

Ultimately though, the renewal of politics will have to come from elsewhere.

Labour

I'd like to see the Greens pick up a seat or two.

I suppose that's exactly the point about PR systems, isn't it - there is simply not a chance in hell that the Greens, even if they got up to something like 15-20% support in every constituency in the country, would win a single seat.

Not unless, I don't know, Paul McCartney stood for them, as a one-off, in Brighton.

Trouble is, the "STV" system we're apparently going to have a referendum about wouldn't make any significant difference in that respect either - one study I saw suggested that system would have affected the outcome of only about 10% of seats in the last couple of elections, and could actually have INCREASED the "small popular majority, huge legislative majority" imbalance of several recent governments, not decreased it as is the intention.

Actually Rogin, the Greens' Caroline Lucas has a very good chance of winning in Brighton.

I basically agree with what NHH said.

The SNP only get their budget through the Scottish parliament with Tory votes. They are quite cosy in the Scottish parliament.

A referendum is not in Cameron's gift - the SNP don't need to do a deal to get one. I also don't think the SNP will have that many MPs to make a deal. Their support at Westminster always lags a long way behind their support at Holyrood.

It is quite rare to get a hung parliament, and is quite unlikely as any tory revival is as likely to sweep away Lib Dem seats in the South and West as well as Labour seats in London, the Midlands and the North.

So, it is still very much Winner Takes All.

I want Labour to win.

I don't want any of them to win, but I'd be really upset if the tories did.

In an attempt to prevent this, I'll probably hold my nose and return to the Labour fold for the first time since 1997. I have a horrible feeling they're going to get massacred, and to be honest, they'll only have themselves to blame.

Whilst the Tories can't stop the SNP organising a referendum in Scotland, any Independence Act would require an Act of the Westminster Parliament (I don't see armed struggle followed by peace treaty on the agenda) which will very much be in Cameron's gift if he were the largest party. If they bless the process and agree to respect the decision, then it's real. If Salmond organises it, it's still just a more expensive opinion poll.

As for the Unionist bit, I really don't think they give a shit anymore to the depth they once did. The union they wanted to be identified with doesn't exist anymore, as it was essentially an imperial state. Devolution has profoundly affected that, and anyway, most of their MPs couldn't give a shit. Offering them to chance to (in their eyes) get rid of a bunch of welfare addicted wheezy whingers who cost money and vote Labour, the neo-Thatcherite spivs would jump at the chance. And if that was the way they stopped Gordon Brown forming a government and prevented him from being an MP in the Parliament, then chuckles and velvet divorces all round.

I don't think offering to respect the result of an independence referendum is any sort of bargaining chip.

In the real world it is not as there is very little chance of such a referendum taking place, and even less of a chance it actually winning. The percent in favour of independence is robustly low and tends to fall as soon as the argument is made in public - head rules heart sort of thing

Secondly, even Margaret Thatcher said that she would respect the result of a referendum.

Broadly what NHH said.

The Green Party has targetted three Westminster seats with a realistic chance of winning- in Brighton, Norwich and Deptford (SE London). For anyone living locally, there's a decent chance I'll be around on a mass canvass.

I want all Ulster unionist parties to reorganise themselves as single-issue pressure groups, not stand for Westminster and allow Gerry and the Peacemakers a good chance for biggest party locally. Before Stormont has a mass storm-out.

Actually, would the Tories doing a deal with the DUP (the 4th largest party in the Westminster Parliament remember) be more likely than them doing a deal with the SNP?

Disco Sea Shanties wrote:
Actually, would the Tories doing a deal with the DUP be more likely than them doing a deal with the SNP?

I think it would, yes. Cameron has been sniffing round all the Uu parties recently, and there's no shortage of precedents for our lot doing dodgy deals.

(the 4th largest party in the Westminster Parliament remember)

Not necessarily. Their support fell from 31% in the 2007 local elections to less than 20% in the Euros last year, basically outflanked by the even more hardline Traditional Unionist Voice (bald bloke ranting on QT last week, if anyone was still awake).

Technically, the fourth largest party is the Co-operative Party with 27 MPs, but I'm splitting hairs as they're in electoral alliance with Labour. And their first ever leader was Fred Perry's Dad, and old Fred used to practice on Co-op courts. There's quiz gold for you there.