Lucky Lib Dem punter could clear £800k on Clegg victory

If the Lib Dems achieve the unexpected and romp home on May 6, it is not just the political pundits who are likely to be put out – but the bookies too, with one canny punter possibly clearing the best part of a million pounds. There may even be occasion for The Reg to eat a small portion of humble pie, as our last words on …

[Alastair 7]

Not worth a flutter

Because, as you've said, the first past the post system is hopelessly skewed.

For what it's worth, I'm optimistically predicting the following:

- Lab or Con the largest party (doesn't really matter), but relying on the Lib Dems to get anything done.

- Lib Dems insist on a series of commitments from the governing party in return for this co-operation- key amongst it is electoral reform.

- We tick along for a year or two, safe hands for the recession etc.

- Then the voting system is changed to something closer to proportional representation. New elections, Lib Dems win a bigger share, have a decent shot at governing.

[Cynical Observer]

Better not hang around

Fully agree with your assessment - but the Lib Dems had better make it the first order of business to get the electoral reform through - and not just the pathetic AV system as proposed by Gordon Blunder.

Wouldn't put it past the lyin' cheatin' bar stewards that make up Lab/Con to try and stall that one for as long as possible.

Roll on democracy!

[Tom 15]

Reasonably likely

The LibDems need to gain another 4 points in the polls to get the most seats.

The LibDems need to gain another 6 points in the polls to form a healthy majority.

The LibDems have gained 13 points in the past week alone, so here are my predictions:

If Nick Clegg wins this Thursday's debate then we're guaranteed at least a hung parliament, probably with the LibDems getting the most votes but the least seats.

If Nick Clegg wins both this Thursday's debate and also next Thursday's then we'll probably be able to pull a slim LibDem majority or at least make them the biggest party and therefore coalition leaders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Partisan..

Is the Reg officially declaring itself pro-lib dem then?

[tirk]

Well if you're a geek...

geekthevote.org.uk

[s. pam]

So, What's the odds....

on NONE OF THE ABOVE winning a reasonably large percentage then, I must wonder.

Ballot for PM:

[ ] Idiot Number 1

[ ] Idiot Number 2

[ ] Idiot Number 3

[ ] I've got a Brain, NONE OF THE ABOVE

Thusly, should NOTA win, the whole group of idiots are thrown out, and a new group is selected. Might take longer, but as Fscked as the economy and country are, pairing out the weak, etc would be a valuable, if unique exercise. Caveat Emptor...

[Rob Beard]

You could be on to something there....

.... all we need is some lucky bloke to be left 30 million in a will with a condition to spend it in 30 days, the have him stand for election and say vote for none of the above.

Then find at the last minute he's stabbed in the back by an associate of his who turns out to be a bad guy only to have his accountant write it off so he gets the full 300 million.

Sounds like a great idea for a movie... oh hang on...

Rob

P.S. I agree they're all as bad as each other, even Nick Clegg claimed £2.49 for a bloody cake tin!

[Gordon is not a Moron]

What happens with a hung parliment?

if there is a Lib Dem - Labour or Lib Dem - Tory, erm accomadation. Would the bookies have to cough up the money on bets that had Nick Clegg & Co forming the next Government ?

[Jerome 0]

No

Because in those circumstances, Nick Clegg & Co would not have formed the next government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lib Dems

I reckon they have a realistic chance to cut a swathe in mainstream politics. I think many people would prefer middle-ground this time around and their traditional vote will swing.

And the more people that believe they have a realistic chance, the more chance it has to come true.

Let's see how the markets react to this sentiment.

[DominicT]

Blame the Tories

And this is why Tory voters should be ashamed of themselves - they are supporting a party that is actually defending a system where the party with the most votes would come third. A Tory vote isn't a 'vote for change', it's a vote to keep the same, unfair, undemocratic system in place.

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the odds...

What are the odds on Mad Cap'n Tom?

http://www.madcapntom.co.uk/

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be disastrous

If the Lib-Dems get the largest number of seats then it will be a certainty that as a condition of allowing one of the other parties to form a new government with them they will seek their support in bringing in proportional representation. This will mean a big kiss goodbye to whatever is left of regional representation by supposedly local politicians and a warm welcome to government by whoever kisses up most to the top of the hierachy.

An outright win by the Lib-Dems and they will bring in PR before the sun sets on the ballot boxes.

The press seem to be suggesting that any coalition will be between the Lib-Dems and Labour so hopefully that will be enough to scare people away from them.

Note: I am a lifelong socialist but there is no way in an eternity of Sundays or blue moons and a long time thereafter that I would vote for the current Labout party. Brown and the rest of his cronies have disgraced the traditional values of the Labour party to such a degree that if there were a revolution... well let's just say Nicolae Ceauşescu got off lightly.

[Peter Murphy]

IS PR a bad thing? No, it isn't.

"This will mean a big kiss goodbye to whatever is left of regional representation by supposedly local politicians and a warm welcome to government by whoever kisses up most to the top of the hierachy (sic)."

That's extremely unlikely. You seem to be assuming that the 600+ constituencies in the UK will be replaced by one mega constituency covering the whole of Britain, with all politicians aiming to get a quota in THAT. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish would never stand for that. What would be more sensible is form new seats from 5 or so of the existing seats, with 5 or so politicians elected from that. You get regional representation AND PR.

One PR system I recommend is the Hare-Clarke, which has been used in Tasmania for more than 100 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Clarke

The beauty of that is that people vote for their candidates rather than party lists. It allows people to choose WHO they want to choose, rather than their party. Say you like Party X, but their local rep, Basil Timeserver-Hack MP, is utterly useless. You can still vote for other candidate for the same party. It happened in recent elections down there; people got sick of certain members, and ended up replacing them with people from the same party. It's so different from FPTP; people may like a party, but then have to stick with the all-too-common flunkies and deadwood that the party puts up to represent them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: IS PR a bad thing? No, it isn't.

Peter,

The system you mention is the good side of PR, unfortunately common sense rarely rules these days. However the major problem with PR which that you haven't addressed is that smaller parties hold big sway over the larger ones. It could be argued that PR in Israel is one of, if not the main, reasons that there is still confilct in the Middle East. The relatively small ultra orthodox parties vote with whichever of the main parties will support their policies.

Oh, and please hold of on the sic, we all suffer from fat finger syndrome.

Re: How good is yours?

I understand that, hence I said "supposedly" local politicians, far too often a party favourite is brought into a safe seat.

[Anonymous Coward]

How good is yours?

People keep talking about local politicians working for local people but unless they actually bring in some kind of requirement that local politicians actually do so it seems more and more just vote on party lines.

On the whole though, what we are seeing here is 35% of the population being stubborn bulldogs who aren't happy that two smug gits seem to think they time-share control of our lives. Work for us or we will vote you *both* out.

[Alex Threlfall]

Betfair...

I managed to place a bet about a week or so ago for £5 on Any Other Party gaining a majority at 770-1. It has subsequently dropped down to around 50-1.

If the lib dems make it into a majority, I stand to make about £3.8k!

[PT]

Deadlock holiday

As an ex-pat who has no intention of returning, even for a visit, it makes little difference to me who wins. But for sentimental reasons I'm hoping for at least a decade of deadlocked, hung parliament that can't get anything done. Everything will still keep running, and things can only get better. The UK has been effectively governed from Brussels for a long time, and the regional government in London only seems to use its remaining powers to bleed the country dry with expensive military projects and tighten its control over the people that elected it. A pox on them all. By all means elect some *cough* representatives *cough* to sit in Westminster fiddling their expenses and pretending to be important, so long as they don't pass any more laws.

[Tom Thomson]

PR systems and local representation

It's fairly easy to do both at once.

Take 3 levels of constituenct: local constituencies, regional constituencies, and national (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland) level. Make them nested. Make the local constituencies single member, operating on the alternative vote scheme. Make the regional constituencies and the national constituencies multiple member, any STV scheme. Each voter puts local candidates in order of preference, regional candidates in order of preference, and national candidates in order of preference. When a local candidate is elected, their votes in the regional election are discounted by some proportion (depending on which round there support for him came in at, and on the ration of locally elected to regionally elected or nationally elected seats) in the regional election; those who didn't support the local winner have a full (undiscounted) vote in the regional election. When regional candidates have been elected (there should be at least 5 seats in each region, probably not more than 20) the votes of those who supported then are similarly discounted in the national election (so some voters may be suffering a double discount in the national election, some may be carrying forward a discount from either the regional or the national election, and some may still have a full vote). Calculating the discount proportions according to the number of seats at each level in local, regional, and national constituencies concerned in each chain and the proportion of support for elected candidates obtained in each round that will give a genuinely proportional representation is straightforwards but non-trivial. Letting voters order the candidates rather than having party lists with a predefined order largely eliminates the risk of electing nothing but party hacks, but it is still a good idea to make sure that a significant proportion of seats (at least a third) are at local level to ensure decent local representation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Me gov, YouGov?

I find it very hard to take any Yougov poll at face value since their very recently former CEO arrived as the parachuted Tory candidate for Stratford-upon- Avon.