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Can Johnson survive the Tory LE2022 flop? – politicalbetting.com
Can Johnson survive the Tory LE2022 flop? – politicalbetting.com
What makes the aftermath of the local elections so dangerous for the prime minister is that the outcome was not predicted. The Tory losses were far in excess of what anybody thought was going to happen and it is going to take some time for this to be digested by the party.
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As the old Arab curse goes "may your children live in interesting times".
"Newcastle-under-Lyme
Con +7
Lab -1
Ind -3
LD -3"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2022/england/councils/E07000195
The Conservatives lost nearly 500 seats. It is, indeed, devastating.
I think I've heard this story before. And I'll believe he's gone when the PCP finally gets rid of him.
The real winners were the Lib Dems yesterday. Clearly,resurgent and now with a large councillor base in parts of the country to help campaign when the election comes.
Heaven help,us.
The Tories have turned this country into a latrine and they need to be ejected pdq.
But, of course, when you prioritise one group, another is deprioritised. One man's tax cut is another man's tax rise.
I suspect that the Conservative threat from the LDs will not be enough to dethrone them in 2024 (like @MaxPB, I suspect we're heading towards a '92 type election). But the choices will only get harder after the 2024 election: which groups do we want to take more from the limited pot, and which less?
https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1522815760678150144
Approximately 100 T-90M tanks are currently in service amongst Russia's best equipped units, including those fighting in Ukraine. The system’s upgraded armour, designed to counter anti-tank weaponry, remains vulnerable if unsupported by other force elements.
The conflict in Ukraine is taking a heavy toll on some of Russia’s most capable units and most advanced capabilities. It will take considerable time and expense for Russia to reconstitute its armed forces following this conflict.
It will be particularly challenging to replace modernised and advanced equipment due to sanctions restricting Russia’s access to critical microelectronic components.
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1522815718999289856
We know Boris will demand anyone else lays down their political life to protect him. And he's now an easy target.
I've had a decent run recently: won well on the US elections, then Chesham & Amersham, Macron and now the LibDems in Woking.
But then I fucked up over the invasion so it's all relative
The thing is, he doesn't have any answer. It's one thing to blah blah about levelling up but the fact is that he has ridden roughshod over traditional tory values. He is a PM who has spaffed out on the country's credit card with high spending and high taxation. To which is added a complete lack of morality and ethics and a large dose of the kind of 'wokeness' which gets right up blue tory noses.
I think the blue wall may be about to turn on him. Remember, these are the ones who know how to defenestrate their leader.
Betting PostF1: maybe presumptuous based on practice but I've split one stake backed Russell at 9 and Hamilton at 15 each way to be fastest qualifier.
We'll see how that plays out, but if they're on terms then the odds are too long.
I'll likely put the pre-qualifying tosh up fairly soon rather than waiting until the evening and third practice.
It is a major reason the left has done so badly over the last 50 years or so.
For example Brown and Corbyn had it Blair didn't.
If this is a traditional mid-term, the 1992 scenario seems arguable to me. But I am not sure that anything is traditional anymore in a time of post-Brexit realignment, covid and a cost of living squeeze that will have a substantial and long-running impact on personal finances and public services. The government is not in control of events.
What yesterday said to me is that the polls are pretty accurate: there is a sizeable and highly motivated anti-Tory vote out there and it is beginning to get its act together. Boris Johnson is viscerally disliked by a large section of the electorate. If I were a Tory that would scare the life out of me.
The Conservatives have lost hundreds of council seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats as Tory MPs in the party’s southern heartlands openly question Boris Johnson’s leadership
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1522818785891307523
I think you're right though: this yellow advance into the blue wall is highly significant. The tories cannot win a majority if the blue wall is crumbling.
I think it's this which may finish him. Not the red wall tories at all, who are probably still gooey-eyed about the oaf. It's the blue wall which is about to knife him.
Raab is different.
Don't get high on your own supply.
But, I am not sure the results in England are poor enough to get the panicked letters going in.
Rightly or wrongly, the Tories will be less concerned about the LDs rather than Labour taking their Council seats. I think rightly.
You are transferring Trump to the UK and it's a no-go.
Johnson is lauded by the red wall. But he does not 'own' the blue wall. He never has and he never will.
p.s. the rest of your post was good though
Could be a somewhat disrupted qualifying session too, so it might be down to who’s in the right place at the right time.
Just walked the dog. A perfect day out there.
Advice: get on with your lives - and let us Tory activists worry about getting on with moving Boris out.....
Lab 7,011
Con 6,881
Green 2,517
Ind 742
LD 637
The Government then loses +800 seats at local elections, only two years before the next general, as unspectacular and uninspiring leader of oppo soaks up 500+ new seats. And look, even the Lib Dems are on the up.
And…. two years later Tony Blair wins a reduced but comfortable majority at the 2005 general election.
Jeremy Hunt's constituency is Surrey South West and he is in big trouble. In 2019 there was a 15% swing to the Lib Dems and Hunt held it 31,000 to 23,000. Right now I'd say it's a racing certainty he would lose the seat.
And re. the wealth, that's exactly what they said about my ward: Hook Heath (hence my name) is extremely wealthy. One of the most genteel high-end places in the whole of Surrey where you'd be hard pressed to find a single property under £1m. It used to be a safe Conservative area. Not any more. It wasn't even close. The Lib Dems won it 1500 to 1000.
Johnson has never been popular amongst his MPs, except perhaps that coterie of 2019 red wallers. But the traditional tories?
Nope. And nope again.
In the south the Tories rule with particular complacency. It is a wholly good thing if their hegemony is coming to an end.
Turnout was similar to previous years, so not much evidence of Tories abstaining, but rather they have switched.
Overturning an 80 seat majority is generally a long job, but it looks like it is going to happen.
Incidentally, the next Seventies re-run that we get may well be in industrial relations. 10% inflation yet a paltry pay offer of 2% is not something that my colleagues are very happy about. Expect a Winter of Discontent.
And what's changed is that the public have broadly forgiven the Lib Dems for 2010-5. Not so much because of what they've done, but because of time and the awfulness of Johnson's Conservative party.
The clues were there in C&A and N Shropshire, but now it's clear nationwide. Labour aren't seen as the only anti-Tory game in town, which they were for a while in England. So Labour down in places where they have a low ceiling, but the Conservatives facing systematic attack on two close but distinct fronts.
Not great for Labour, but worse for the Conservatives. And that effect could be a couple of dozen seats all by itself- see 1992 or 2017 or 2019- when the Conservative seat count didn't really reflect the change in vote share.
Labour lost two by-elections, 1 to Conservative, 1 to Independent.
November 2021, the 4 Independents joined the Conservative group
so May 4th 2022 the seat count was Conservative 23, Labour 18, Lib Dem 3, hence Conservative hold.
*a poor term, even worse than the Red Wall, but at least that looked vaguely like a wall on electoral maps.
It seems old fashioned, but referring to members as being the honourable person for the place that elected them, and referring to errors or misleading statements, is what stops politics from descending into everyone calling each other crooks and liars.
It’s really important to see your political opponents as honourable but misguided, but sadly many of those on the more extreme ends of politics prefer to depart from these conventions.
Back to a 2018 position for Labour in the Red Wall is quite a turnaround from 2019. It is a quiet and unspectacular aspect of the results, it isn't just Blue Wall Tories that are losing faith.
Almost 20 days in, the much-anticipated and feared grand offensive falls short of expectations.
It is still not even close to achieving its ultimate goal — the encircling and crippling of the core Ukrainian military group in the region.
Amid fierce hostilities, Russia has only managed to achieve limited territorial gains at significant cost.
https://kyivindependent.com/national/russias-offensive-in-donbas-bogs-down/
Spinning defeats as insignificant is definitely a step down the slippery slope. If the Tories are now content to lose, that’s half the battle.
Labour's 1945 landslide nearly all went in 1950- Attlee staggered on for a tiny bit longer as a kind of zombie.
The next change of government was Macmillan to Wilson- that was overturning a majority of 100.
Wilson's 98 seat majority didn't save him in 1970.
The swings in the 70s were smaller, sure. But Major to Blair was huge, and 2010 saw the government lose over 90 seats.
If the voters want a government out, they're quite happy to flip enough seats to make it happen.
If I was a Tory MP I don't think I'd press the button. They're not looking at anything like certain doom, and the replacement would be chosen by people who literally pay money to be members of a party led by Boris Johnson so they can't really assume they'd get a sensible alternative.
There's something similar in Johnsonism. It's about lying with force. It's about Boosterism and saying what people want to hear. It's going to be really tempting for Conservatives to hear "mid term, Lib Dem, it's all fine", but if they act in defiance of the facts on the ground, they're going to be in deep trouble.
https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1522699521427484674?t=y9LamXRKpRVvyiQ2r5-Z-w&s=19
No-one is discussing the success of the Canvey Island Independence Party in becoming the largest party in Castle Point, likely to be coalition with the oddly named People's Independent Party.
The Conservatives have been in control in Castle Point for 20 years, and the CIIP a somewhat impotent opposition.
Now too we wait for the DUP to have a hissy fit when it's a poor second in N. Ireland.
As things stand, the LDs will gain 6 to 8 seats from the Conservatives in the South East.
If everything moves in the LDs favour, and they end up on 18-19% at the GE, then they *might* end up picking up 12-14 seats.
But that's - basically - a best possible scenario for the LDs, and a worst possible one for the Conservatives.
Now, I agree the Conservatives will likely lose another 2 or 3 in Scotland. And I'm sure Labour will pick up some.
But the Conservatives have a decent cushion. My 66% probability range is from a Con majority of 30 to Cons 20 short (but still largest party).
But, first past the post was outrageously good for Labour in 2005. It’s pretty good for Tories now, but not to that extent.
The next couple of years will be very difficult economically, especially if full employment doesn’t hold up.
I think there will be a reshuffle next week, and the domestic focus needs to change to cost-of-living issues, and the scope and cost of government itself.
Internationally, the West needs to make sure Putin gets defeated militarily in Ukraine. For the sake of humanity, we can’t have a nutter threatening to use nuclear bombs. Thankfully, his army is being rapidly depleted.
In a comment to EuroPravda, Anna Praine-Kosach, vice president of the Ukrainian-German association Ukraine Future, said that two weeks ago, the Ukrainian community in Berlin agreed with local authorities to hold a rally and received permission.
It was expected that about 20,000 Ukrainians would gather in Berlin to pay their respects, and no demonstration was planned. But on the evening of May 6, Berlin police sent a document to the organizers banning the use of any Ukrainian symbols when visiting World War II sites.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/05/6/7344558/
However who will support them in Government? The DUP are the only ones likely to and they might well not be there, or not in the numbers they have been.
If you call your opponents "scum" how likely is it that people who voted for them will want to vote for you?
https://www.dartmusicfestival.co.uk/
But I’m thinking I’d rather have him as PM than these twats running Germany.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2022/05/miami-pre-qualifying-2022.html
All we know is that 2022 was similar to 2018 in those areas, and 2018 was followed one year later by the Tories winning a swathe of seats. There's no solid reason to expect those seats to be regained by Labour with the underlying position, as measured by local election results, not having changed.
Now that Peskov- the mouth of Sauron- has officially denied that Russia will begin conscription, we can see that they will indeed start to do so, and several young men at British schools are already receiving their papers. This, and perhaps some legal change to the basis of the invasion, may be the substance of the May 9th speech by Putin.
However up until now the overwhelming bulk of the Russian casualties have fallen on troops from places on the margin, like Dagestan, Buryatia etc. Casualties from European Russia have been minimal. Conscripting the children of Moscovites could be the final straw for the regime. The fact is that the widespread campaign of sabotage cannot be all from the Ukrainian side. The arson attacks on army recruiting offices suggests that there are many who are taking the "Nyet Vojne" idea more seriously than others. Publically announcing the expansion of the war could begin to stir up a hornets nest inside Russia itself.
The problem is that Putin has no time. Even if he can conscript a million men, the training and equiping of these new units will take months, if they are to avoid the same fate as the first units who attacked Ukraine. Up until now the Ukrainian armed forces have been using much the same equipment as the Russians, albeit with superior tactics. Now the NATO equipment will allow the accurate targetting of the Russian artilliary and a push back against heavy armour. The Ukrainians are bringing all this kit into theatre now, and the attrition rate on the Russian side was already dangerous. Now it could lead to a culmination point where the entire Russian armed forces fall apart.
Much has been said about what Putin intends. The problem is that, increasingly, whatever he intends, he now lacks the forces to fulfil. Though we have not reached the point of Russian no return, and the Ukrainian forces have taken a deal of punishment in the past 10 days or so, the pressure on the Russian forces is relentless. So, although it may well be that Russia intends to escalate their attack, for the time being they lack the forces to do so. A window may be opening for Ukraine to start a serious counter offensive.