Wes Tender

The Boundaries Commission is there to make the whole thing fairer from the perspective of the number of electorate in each constituency. It needed to address the disparity between many of the cities having several MPs while there are large rambling rural areas with much bigger electorates. But as the boundary changes would have affected Labour, the Scots and the Welsh most, there hasn't been much clamour from them; they'd rather bleat about changing the voting system instead, Labour having lost.

Whilst you're discussing the inequalities of the voting system, let's hear your views on the boundary changes that ought to have been implemented by 2013 and will now only come into force by 2018 and which would have favoured the Tories with an even greater proportion of the seats.

Thank you for your well reasoned reply, without labelling anybody who wants a referendum on Europe as some sort of nutter. I accept your analogy that UKIP supporters effectively had concerns regarding two main issues, coming out of Europe and Immigration, but of course the two were irrevocably linked, as the Treaties signed subsequent to the original Treaty of Rome permitted the freedom of movement of the citizens of the EU between countries without much in the way of restriction. Therefore their concerns about our membership of the EU were fired by the mass immigration that we have endured as a direct result of our membership and the anger that successive governments have not permitted the British electorate to vote on the Treaties that caused these issues. But of course, it is not exclusively UKIP members who have these concerns; there are supporters of all parties who feel that a referendum is long overdue, but because of the argument you have put forward, that we elect the MPs that we feel will make those decisions on our behalf, it is easy to sweep it under the carpet. As a one-issue party, UKIP have concentrated the minds of the other parties wonderfully. The massive endorsenment of UKIP's stance on Europe was the one that they received from the electorate during the European Parliamentary Elections, when they won the largest number of seats, beating the two major parties for the first time in those elections. When you claim that Europe is not something uppermost in Joe Public's mind, that they would be more likely to be concerned with health, housing, cost of living, education, local issues, then of course it could be argued that Europe and immigration directly impact most of those. Immigrants need somewhere to live, they also have health problems, their children need education, etc. The extra burden on those services requires additional funding, which then impacts on people's cost of lving. I'm pleased to hear that despite the points you raise, you (and Verbal I see), agree that a referendum should be held during this Parliament. As you say, now that Cameron has an absolute majority and doesn't need the support of other parties, they can carry out their pledge to hold one in 2017. Any backbench dissidents should be told that as an election pledge they must support that policy. My own position is that I am content to remain in Europe solely as part of a trading block, much as it was when we first joined. I don't see that big business/finance/City of London would have any particular problem with us maintaining our trade with Europe, but dropping all the other stuff. The biggest difficulty is the wording of the referendum question. Either there should be third option additionally to the yes/no, stay in/ leave vote, or it should be understood that the aim is to remain in Europe solely for the trading agreements and that the only way to strengthen our hand would be to vote no in the referendum and then renegotiate the basis for our return. I think that a straight in/out vote would still command a majority, but if it was the prelude to renegotiating solely a membership for trade, then I reckon two-thirds of the electorate would go for that.

Looks almost as mad as Miliband

Typical left-wing assertion that anybody who happens to disagree with a particular political stance must be a looney. The Conservative Party had made manifesto pledges on an EU referendum in previous elections. Perhaps you will kindly explain why you think that our Governments of the past can sign us up to these Treaties committing us to ever deeper participation in a Federal Europe with the resultant loss of sovereignty, and not have to put those commitments to the electorate for their approval. Whilst you're at it, also please explain why you think that the message that the electorate sent by giving UKIP a massive endorsement for their policy to hold a referendum on Europe in the recent European Parliamentary elections should be ignored. Oh yes, don't bother; the electorate are looneys.

I see that Southampton Itchen is now Tory. And Portsmouth is all blue.

I had to stay up until 4.30am for the Eastleigh result. Not only returned to the Tories, but it is no longer a marginal. It was lovely watching the Lib-Dems vote collapse all around the country. So Milliband was unelectable after all.

JB produced an extensive list of Tory election manifesto policies, echoing the one I linked to. You have labelled all Tory policies as sh*t and said that the Tory supporters on here had not defended them, only being interested in attacking Labour policies. So go on, if you aren't to be called a hypocrite; answer JB's request to either state that not every single one of those policies is sh*t, or tell us which ones you disagree with and why.

Every single Tory manifesto policy is sh*t according to you. Even if they espoused the same policy as Labour, it would still be sh*t, wouldn't it? Maybe it's not worth arguing for those policies against the likes of you, because you have already stated in your over-simplistic blinkered way that all of them are shi*t. As I already said, this is sheer arrogance from you attempting to pigeon-hole as idiots a section of voters at least as large as that which supports Labour. If somebody attempted to speak in those terms about Labour supporters, you would be beside yourself in righteous indignation. It seems to have escaped your mind that sometimes it is equally valid to vote against things that you disagree with as it is to vote for things that you do agree with.

Most things seem simple to you. But then again, they need to be.

It really was.

Oh well, Ben Studebaker has spoken. No further reason to debate on. The words of some young whipper-snapper Yank student who's been in the UK for five minutes and wishes to share all his wordly knowledge of the British political system with the gullible left who really do want to accept everything he says as the gospel truth.

Typical assumption from you that only the left know what they are voting for and that everything in the Labour manifesto is brilliant for the country and their policies will be universal vote-winners. But it isn't difficult for anybody capable of simply Googling stuff to find out what the main policy proposals are from the Conservative Party, but maybe you are just not interested. But in case you couldn't find it, here is a summary for you:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32302062 Anybody who wishes to delve into the manifesto of any party can do that easily enough and make up their own minds as to which party's policies are must attuned to their preferences. It is arrogant of you to pick the voters of a party which is hard to separate in terms of poll voting intention predictions from Labour and then to infer that they don't know what they are doing by voting Conservative.

Pap's a master debator. At least I think that's what I heard.

We're not talking Northern Cities? It was you who brought it up and then you refuse to respond to the points I made that it is unfair that they return a disproportionate number of MPs per head of electorate. The current topic that started this off today was the effect that the SNP might have on Labour in government. Now I know that you would prefer to have a discourse on your own pet agenda of how nasty the Tories are and how downtrodden the masses are, but I'm not interested in debating the history of the Labour Party and how industry used to provide opportunity before the Trade Unions decimated it.

When the Tories do it, it is fear-mongering. When Labour does it, is it the truth, carved in stone.

I think that you'll find that not only can most of the electorate remember the last 5 years, but most of them can also remember the Labour years of government before that. A bit of a difference between clusters of Labour voting cities in the north of England and almost an entire country going to vote for a party intent of leaving the union, so a rather poor analogy. That many northern cities return so many Labour MPs and indeed that Scotland and Wales also had traditionally returned so many, reflects the unfairness of the Parliamentary boundaries which should have been altered at the time of the last election. This is one area of electoral injustice that almost certainly will not be addressed in the event of a Labour/SNP alliance, as it suits neither party. If there was an English Parliament equivalent to the ones that Scotland, Wales and NI have, then that would be dominated by the Conservatives, despite the northern cities.

If you like, yes, but with some big differences. The Conservative/Lib Dem arrangement was a coalition, allowing some of their party to have ministerial responsibilities. I doubt that will apply to any arrangement that Labour and the SNP would arrive at, especially considering the West Lothian question. But neither were the Lib Dems intent on breaking up the United Kingdom. I admit that to an extent the Lib Dems curtailed some of the policy objectives of the Tories, therefore one could use the analogy about them having the Tories by the balls if you like. But do you dispute that the SNP would have Labour by the balls? That the anti-Labour rhetoric is about the party they might enter into an understanding with in order to gain their support (as I understand it, it won't be a coalition without SNP cabinet seats) rather than Labour policies, reflects the potential seriousness of that scenario. It was up to Labour to set the agenda for their policies and if the media have preferred to concentrate on the implications of a Labour/SNP alliance, that is Labour's fault. In any event, much of the electorate's opinions on Labour are justifiably going to based on their experience of what happened the last time they were in power, rather than what they say that they will do if they won the election. And that will be tempered by the electorate's perception of how the SNP will extract their pound of flesh in the process.

I think that it was on QT in Glasgow I believe, that I saw her perfom very well. That would be as partisan an audience as it could possibly be and I'm sure that most front-bench Tories would have received a lot of flack. But she was very even-handed and composed in her answers, which commanded respect and the audience listened to what she had to say even though they may not all have agreed with her points. I believe that Cameron thinks very highly of her and IMO she would be more acceptable than Boris Johnson and Theresa May, both in the Conservative Party and the country. She has the benefit of the common touch and her background is far more humble than any of the other major party leaders, so there wouldn't be this nonsense about the party leaders being toffs, out of touch with the average voter. She has risen to where she is now through her own efforts and skills, so she can speak with conviction based on experience. It wouldn't surprise me if she was the next female PM some time in the future.

The SNP have Labour by the balls. It looks almost certain that the only way that Red Ed can take up residency in Number 10, is with their support. OK, there won't be a formal coalition, but if Labour wish to pass any contentious legislation that the other parties will not support, they will have to rely on the SNP's support. That will require Labour to return the favour on something that the SNP want. What will suit the SNP down to the ground, will be co-operating with Labour over matters that are deemed to be English legislation and where the English MPs would otherwise have voted it down, and this will cause massive resentment against them and Labour if they allow it to happen.

To my mind, there has emerged a possible future candidate for leader of the Conservatives during this campaign. Ruth Davidson has been impressive. But that will depend on her keeping her seat in Scotland, although I don't understand how that worked in 2010, when on the face of it she was elected by some form of PR from the Glasgow list. She performed very well in the TV debates and even though the SNP took most of the limelight, she held her own on Conservative policy in Scotland.

I realise that you have experience of refereeing, but it seems to me that there are two types of dive. One where the player deliberately goes down by fabricating contact by moving his leg towards a tackle and the other whereby the player goes down without any contact being made on him at all. Personally, it is the latter which I detest more and consider to be the more blatant form of cheating.

Although on the face of it it is too close to call, nothing is "clearly" going to happen with any degree of certainty, so Hutch's prediction is as valid as yours. You appear to have overlooked the probability that Labour will be anihilated in Scotland, so presumably you mean that Labour and the SNP taken together will have more seats than in 2010. The opinion polls have sufficient margins built into them to allow an array of possibilities. There are several factors that they cannot take into account like tactical voting in marginal seats. How many who voted Lib Dem the last time will change this time around because they were upset that they went into coalition with the Tories? How many UKIP voters saw that their votes in some constituencies let in Labour or the Lib Dems? How will the rise of the SNP party affect people's voting intentions when it looks very likely that they might be the tail that wags the Labour dog? Which party is trusted with the economy and which the NHS? How big a part will immigration play in certain areas of the country? Those are just a few of the things that might determine the result and it would be unlikely that a uniform result will play out across the country because people have different priorities in different areas.

So to confirm; a player can dive without any contact at all with the defender and this can justifiably be a penalty if it is in the box, provided that the referee had decided that the player had to take evasive action to prevent him being tackled, just in case he might have become injured in the process? Naturally the refs who miss the dive will use that as an excuse for why they got it wrong. As for the televised replays of the incident, nobody will defend the referee by suggesting that the diver took evasive action legitimately, so the referee will be deemed by most to be incompetent and the player will be deemed to be a cheat. Furthermore, the referee hearing that he is blamed for incompetence for incidents like this, will come across a player who has gained a reputation for diving and then be influenced to show a yellowfor simulation, instead of awarding the penalty that you believe might often be more appropriate. Why do these players who go looking for penalties bother to trail their leg deliberately into the path of a defender's legs, when they don't even need to make contact with them at all?

The vice-chair of Labour's general election campaign, Lucy Powell, has suggested that Ed Miliband could break his election pledges which he had had carved onto a limestone tablet at great expense. But then when it became clear that she had committed a major gaffe by saying so, she back-tracked and denied she had said it or suggested that she had been misquoted. Her words are recorded for all to hear and they sound unambiguous enough. It appears that instead of being made of stone, the tablet is in fact made of the same stuff as Miliband's feet - clay.