Yeovil Saint

Don't know much about Battersea, but Vale of Glamorgan is quite a good area for the Tories as it covers the rural area to the south and west of Cardiff with a good mix of farmers and better off commuters who work in Cardiff. It does include Barry which is Labour-supporting but only a third of the constituency. The Tories have won Vale of Glamorgan in 1983, 1987 and 1992 (they had lost it in a 1989 by-election) and Labour won in 1997, 2001 and 2005 so it is a marginal. I think that if Labour and Tories nationally were equal then Vale of Glamorgan would go Labour by 500 votes discounting any incumbency factors. This election the long serving John Smith (MP for 1989-92 and 1997-2010) is retiring and so Labour won't benefit from incumbency, the Tories are fielding the same candidate as last time. I don't see any reason to back anyone else but the Conservatives at 1/8

Bungle, I really don't mind you rooting for the Lib Dems, but please remember CP Scott's famous quote "Comment is free, but facts are sacred." You seem to often quote poll results that are misleading and/or downright inaccurate. The real figures are Tory 33% Labour 28% Lib Dem 30% They are good figures for the Lib Dems, I don't see why you wanted to make the Labour position look worse.

It's not really a freak, especially as Bungle's reported the unweighted poll which is more favourable to the Lib Dems. The correct version of that same poll is Con 35% Lab 28% LD 24%.

Sorry that's rubbish, the boundary change for this election covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland (in Scotland the boundaries changed in 2005 with the reduction in the number of Scottish MPs from 72 to 59)

Yes, Astonishing but there's a caveat to it that you forgot to mention. ComRes were only polling people who watched the first debate right after the debate finished. I expect the YouGov daily tracker to move a little towards the LibDems, but only 3 or 4 points.

Wow, better tell the Borough Council that they don't need to open any polling stations then.

There are buses from the end of the station approach to town but they are infrequent and it's only 10 minutes walk from there to town. Either walk down Sherborne Road and Middle Street or along the Yeovil Country Park path, signposted from Pen Mill Station as Town Centre 1/2 mile.

Huish Park is about 35 minutes walk from town centre - if you're walking it I would recommend the Bell which is about 20 minutes away along Preston Road (on the left hand side). Yeovil doesn't have a real away fans pub but Arrow and Bell are fine for away fans (don't know about Airfield as never been in there on match day). Arrow opens at midday and Bell at 11am so that's fine for the train you'll be on. Wetherspoons (the William Dampier) by the bus station opens at 9am for you early starters. Taxi from Yeovil Junction to town should cost about £5, Town to Huish Park would be about £7, guess it's about £10 from Yeovil Junction to Huish Park.

Yeovil are still selling tickets for the Leeds game (on Monday) so I don't think that home tickets will be all snapped up by the local fans. Tickets on general sale for home ends are restricted by postcode. For the Leeds game the local area includes Bournemouth, but don't think they will be as generous for Saints. If anyone is having trouble getting tickets, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

Steve, the problem is that it's almost impossible to run a ballot completely correctly and if any discrepency results in an injunction then it will be almost impossible to hold a strike ballot making strike action effectively illegal. There's three main rules for holding an industrial action ballot. 1) The union(s) concerned must only ballot their members. 2) All members who would be in the workplace/function going on strike must be balloted. 3) No members who are not in the workplace/function going on strike can be balloted. Sounds easy enough, and (1) is. But the information needed for (2) and (3) aren't held by the union, that information is held by the employer and it's tough for the unions to get that information. People do move jobs within an organisation, maybe moving into the scope of strike action, maybe moving out of that scope. People sometimes leave an employer, but their direct debits are still coming in and so the union thinks that person is still employed in that workplace. That's because the employer doesn't in many cases give lists of leavers to the union so the union can remove leavers from their membership lists. It seems unfair that employers can withhold the information that unions need to conduct a lawful ballot and then take the union to court for not holding a lawful ballot.

Surely throwing Pompey out of the Premier League just because they finish bottom would be a restraint of trade. I reckon their hotshot lawyer Jacob will be able to get them out of it.

I kind of understand the reason for booing Cortese (though I don't agree with it). But what's baffling me is why cheer Markus but boo Cortese? Does anyone believe that Cortese is doing anything at all that Markus doesn't approve of? They are a team, it's just that Cortese is the bad cop to Markus's good cop. Cheer them both or boo them both, they are the only logical positions to take.

Are you listening to the same Budget or something made up by the Daily Mail?

Up to £250k, you don't have to spend £250k to benefit.

Everyone to have the right to a basic bank account. Good idea, I've known people who have had to pay more for electric on a key card rather than direct debit and who have had to cash pay cheques in those cheque cashing places. It's not right to make the poor even poorer because they can't have a bank account.

Isn't that exactly what the administrator's there for? Obviously wasn't his turn for the communal brain cell today.

And even though we gave Rupert Lowe ten times the stick that Peter Storrie got (compare "Swing Lowe" to "You're having a laugh, mush") Lowe didn't whinge when it all went bad and got out.

Southampton's a unitary authority so nothing should go to Hampshire CC anymore, they do have to give some to Hampshire Police and Hampshire Fire so they just have to increase the take from everyone else to pay for the 100% rebate for Specials and the 10% rebate for pensioners.

That's only in Southampton though, don't think it's anywhere else.

But that's almost exactly the trajectory the Conservatives had from 1992-2001 Compare these: Labour 1974(Oct) 11.4m votes 1979 11.5m votes 1983 8.4m votes with Conservatives 1992 14.0m votes 1997 9.6m votes 2001 8.3m votes But no-one calls the Tory 2001 manifesto the longest suicide note in history, William Hague's still seen as a potential Prime Minister. Except the timeline doesn't match your theory, the formation of the SDP was already well into the planning stages in November 1980 when Foot was elected leader, in fact a number of SDP defectors voted for Foot over Healey so that they would have a better chance in the new party. There was nothing Foot or Benn could have done to keep the SDP in the fold (though to be honest I don't think Benn wanted to). That's exactly my point, you're taking one election as evidence that the British people would never vote for a socialist programme of action whereas there's lots of times when a very right-wing programme has been defeated, but it keeps coming back and one day will be elected. Agreed, but not necessarily a bad thing There's plenty of right-wingers who hate Foot, Benn, Blair and Brown, can you imagine the outcry if Tony Benn was given a state funeral?

I know, just wondering if Dune would catch my reference :-)

Douglas Haig got a state funeral so the precedent's there for Thatcher.

Bit unfair to pick on you as you're only repeating received wisdom, but the 1983 Labour Party still received 8.4m votes at that year's general election, that can be compared to the 8.3m Hague got in 2001 or the 8.7m Howard got in 2005. But we don't say that the British people rejected Tory ideas, they don't seem to mind the warmed up and more professionally presented version that Cameron's offering now. In fact, given that his leadership had been crippled before it got started with the formation of the SDP he didn't really do that badly.

You do realise that Michael Foot was actually more pro-Falklands War than Thatcher and lost a lot of support from the rest of the Labour Party for so doing?

One Pompey fan thinks that they own their training ground too. Look at the comments here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/portsmouth/article7046403.ece