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Can Johnson convince that he’ll keep the Tories in power? – politicalbetting.com
Can Johnson convince that he’ll keep the Tories in power? – politicalbetting.com
One of the problems about winning a big General Election majority is that it creates a large group of MPs who came in last time and feel very insecure whenever the party gets into troubled waters. Many of the surprise winners had to endure the huge disruption in their lives that becoming an MP entails and quite a large proportion never really believed they would be there in the first place.
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(Alas?)
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant!
https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61546480
Disaster charity drafted in to rescue lorry drivers stuck in post-Brexit queues
RE:ACT Disaster Response has agreed a £180,000 six-month contract with Kent County Council to ease stuck truckers’ nightmare waits to board ferries and Eurotunnel shuttles
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/t-27028421
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
https://twitter.com/ElectCalculus/status/1528649594392961025
Labour majority of 136
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/where-is-our-minister-for-the-north-asks-red-wall-mp-jake-berry-2xcvmhh7p
Group could develop separate policy but key is bringing back a Cabinet-level job specifically focussed on the north, Berry says.
He said: “Frankly, if we don't win seats in the north then Boris Johnson is not going to be prime minister.”
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
It's the MPs on the next danger level down- who lose if Johnson carries on like this but have a chance under AN Other- who are more interesting. Do we know who and how numerous they are? Do they know?
And if there is a window between "too early" and "too late" (there might not be), can they push Bozza out through it?
It would have been entirely legitimate, *and* to his own great advantage.
Instead of the referendum being about current membership or a determined style of departure, it became "Do you like the EU?" [of course, even then, it was massively winnable but for the suicidal incompetence of the Remain campaign].
He told the public what would happen.
They cried "Project fear"
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
While this seems far from the worst version of monkeypox - there is a strain in Africa which appears to have a mortality rate as high as 30% - it looks as though it can be quite dangerous in children.
Some of us are old enough to have had smallpox vaccinations - I got mine on the airport tarmac in Corfu in the early 70s - and they might still be effective.
Even fin-de-siecle swingback still exists.
If the swing is strong enough then swingback won't be sufficient to reverse the damage, that happened in 2010 and 1997, even though there was swingback the swing away had been too much for the government to survive.
The really bad unpopular stuff has barely started to kick in yet.
Livingstone, for one, is mostly discredited because Boris beat him. Twice.
And in any case, as any sports fan knows, you can only beat what's put in front of you.
https://twitter.com/spectator/status/1528653617313505280?s=20&t=UjIM7UWuwwhLf8Zd0i4G5A
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1528650438714662912
Due to the high losses of armored vehicles during the fighting, the command of the Russian army was forced to opt for obsolete T-62 tanks from storage to staff and form reserve battalion tactical groups to be deployed to Ukraine, @GeneralStaffUA reported in its May 23 update.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
https://dominiccummings.substack.com/p/snippets-4-and-ama-1200-13-may-hundreds?s=w
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
And that trolley thing is feeble
It's the "something that changes" that impacts what happens. In this case that could help either Labour or the Tories, and the "swing(back)" could be in either direction.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
However, it requires someone capable of doing the recovery.
Any names on the list?
( I suspect that self-serving, dilettante, complacent, incompetent, dishonest arse-sitters need not apply.)
Its armour can be defeated even by old Soviet RPGs, and it is slow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-62
But that's not the point John was making - the terms of Brexit should have been negotiated before the referendum(*) so that people knew what they were voting on. The reason they weren't, of course, is that Cameron was trying to win a referendum to stay in the EU and knew he'd need to use Project Fear to do so. Nearly worked, too.
(*) Or, at the very least, EEA/EFTA should have been on the ballot paper.
Re your point @AndyJS, I agree, however one mitigating point is that AV tends to be only more disproportionate when one side is a clear winner already. That of course doesn't justify under representation of the losers so I would prefer STV.
This is like the British Army raiding Bovington and using the Centurions and Conqueror from the exhibit.
Yes there was a methodological problem in 1997 but that doesn't remove the fact that significant swingback occurred from the midterms to the election day. The swingback wasn't enough since the swing away by the midterms was so catastrophic for the Tories that the decision was already made, but there was still swingback even with the methodological issues.
Again in 2010 there was swingback too. Yes there was an LD surge in the election campaign, but there almost always is and the polls exaggerated it. However from early 2008 to the election day there was a very real swingback to Labour and away from the Tories which was sufficient to deny the Tories an overall majority.
In 2009 the Tories were polling a double-digit poll lead in almost every single poll, most poll leads were in the teens and there were as many 20+ as there were in the high single digits. In 2010 swingback occurred before the Lib Dem surge and the lead was narrowed to single digits long before the first debate and the rise of the Lib Dems.
What benefit does it give them?
Yes it gets rid of the Conservatives but it replaces them with a larger Labour majority which could be worse.
How many Class of 83 were booted out in 1987?
(In toto Tories only lost 13 MPs in 1987, and gained 9).
There are dozens more which didn't go Tory in 2019 so could by this definition.
In more common usage, however, there are plenty of "Red Wall" seats which are actually just marginals. They simply went Tory because they won an 80 seat majority.
AV has one big merit - it allows scope for new entrants/minority parties to slog their way up the tree by abolishing the 'wasted vote argument. And that is all it does. I like it.
Unlike strict PR it also provides a fairly high degree of defence against ultra extremes clawing their way into parliament. For myself I don't want 2 or 3 fascists and Stalinists in parliament. I want zero.
A Conservative win in 2024 (and notice that nobody is really talking about autumn 2023 for the next election any more) depends on the economy going bad and rebounding in time to be noticed before Mr, Mrs and Mx Voter go to the polls. It's not possible, but the timings look awfully tight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_United_Kingdom_general_election#Incumbents_defeated
I count 17 one-term MPs out of 27 Tory losses.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election?
- How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats?
- Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
If they've not made the leap to say that they'll vote Labour or Lib Dems during mid-term then it's because they're looking for an excuse to vote Tory to stop Labour. They will be provided with ample such reasons during an election campaign.
Incidentally, I have to talk up the government's success in the latter area. The UK workforce has shrunk by 600k since 2019/20, a triumph for all those employers who have unfillable vacancies which now threatens their ability to remain functional. Huzzah!
The Ukranians reckon they’re about 40% through the Russian tank supply. If most of the remaining stocks are such relics, that bodes well for the defenders.
While some people object to FPTP because of "safe seats" it is worth noting that no seat is guaranteed to remain safe, and equally marginal seats can become safe. All safe seats are, are seats where the public currently has made up its mind, but they can always change it.
To highlight three seats:
Warrington South, Cheshire, was Labour from 1992 to 2010, regained by Labour in 2017 and regained by the Tories in 2019. Its been a marginal high up the target list for whichever party hasn't held it almost consistently. Indeed I campaigned for Mowat in this seat in 2015 and was chuffed when he was re-elected, I expected him to sadly lose the seat and the BBC exit poll (wrongly) projected he would even when it was predicting a good night for the Tories. I expect if the Tories lose the next election, this will go back to Labour again.
South Ribble, Lancashire, was Labour 1997 to 2010 but the majority has only widened at every election since (even 2017) and now has an outright majority of votes cast for the Tories and a nearly 21% majority. Be a shock if this went back to Labour even if they won a majority now.
Esher and Walton, Surrey, was Tory from 1997 to date and had an over 50% majority in 2015 but is now a marginal with a majority down to 4.4% and will probably be lost by the Tories at the next election whether they win or lose a majority.
The next election could see Tories losing seats in Surrey while holding seats in the North. That may not be a bad thing for the party or the country.
I'm not disagreeing with you - but I think I'm talking about the difference between the maths and the physics; the what and the how and the why.
Stainsby - especially the Eltham Crescent end - is dirt poor. Homes are not owned, the area isn't gentrified. And in 2019 the turnout was off the scale crazy - even higher than in the referendum. And when I sampled the boxes from that area the Tory win coming out of them was sizeable.
The problem the Tories now have is that pisshead thumbs up I love Parmos me but you're all too thick to cook videos from Matt Vickers aside absolutely nothing has happened to start improving the area or the town. That lot won't be voting for unicorns again without you delivering *something*.
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories
(2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable.
(3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
Good employers that pay well will survive. Marginal business's that could only survive my squeezing employee wages down to the bare minimum and that only because taxpayers were providing top ups to the employees I really can't be moved to shed a tear for. Tough luck on them. The employees of those companies will soon find new opportunities given the employment market and probably with better pay and conditions.
Seems to me the employees are gaining wealth and the employers that are silas marners are going to find themselves going out of business
Total shift in US policy. Though they claim it isn't. It is
Blair won a massive landslide due to the massive tactical ABC vote but Smith would also have won on a smaller scale because the Tories had broken themselves that badly in 92.
It is swingback to Labour that is far more significant.
Wage negotiations 'have to be sensible' - Richard Lochhead, Scotland's employment minister has urged people to be "sensible" when asking for pay rises.
Richard Lochhead acknowledged that many people were facing "huge pressure" as inflation hits 9%, a 40-year high. But he said the country was in a "precarious position" and workers should ask for "affordable" wage increases.
Both Aslef and the RMT have rejected a 2.2% offer from the recently nationalised train operator ScotRail.
This has raised the prospect of possible strike action on the railways, adding to the disruption caused by driver shortages.
More than 300 services were cancelled on Sunday, and a drastically reduced temporary timetable is to come into effect on Monday as many drivers refuse to work overtime.
The Scottish government has said a train driver in Scotland typically earns more than £50,000 a year, and has urged the rail unions to negotiate with ScotRail.
Asked on the BBC's The Sunday Show if the unions were making reasonable demands, he said: "My message to all workers in Scotland, in all these sectors, is that we have to sensible.
"Everything has to be affordable because the country is in a very precarious position at the moment and if we take wrong decisions we could end up with a recession."
https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1528667956498116608
"And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules"
As to FoM - as @rcs1000 keeps pointing out, look at what the Swiss have done.
It doesn't factor in how a pact might survive criticism during an election campaign, etc, but I can't pick too many holes in the methodology, though I'd like to find something to hang my instinctive disbelief onto.
They've left a sliver of doubt, should China wish to save face rather than take it as a 'provocation' (an term which, as with Russia/Ukraine, is the excuse of a dictator), but I think the US has realised the economic and strategic importance of Taiwan, and has decided to draw a line.
It's not without risks, but so is the alternate policy of doing nothing - arguably more so.
Legalising cannabis would be a good policy for Labour because it'd be young voter turnout machine, doesn't cost anything and Johnson couldn't co-opt it as he couldn't take the gammon wing of the MPs with him on it.
I've debated this with BR before who said people in Widnes should just uproot to take factory jobs in Wisbech. Amazingly enough there aren't any takers for such things. Which is why we both have large pockets of unemployment and underemployment and pockets of industries in deep shit because of a lack of workers.
The Welsh stand for Ukraine and the end to the monstrous war criminal that is Putin
Go from spending money failing to fight a war on drugs, clogging up Police, Courts and Prisons with consensual behaviour - and instead get a revenue stream of taxes that can be spent on SchoolsNHospitals or whatever else your priority is.
Its an absolute economic no-brainer to be liberal there. And gives you a source of revenue you can use to fund your other priorities.
So, @GaryL, if Russian victory is inevitable why are they making such heavy going of it?
The 17th best seat for the greens in 2019 was with they came 4th with 6.3% . I don't see enough holding their nose and voting green on the day to turn that into a win. I suspect its more likely I will change sex, become a nun and prance about the alps yodelling about lonely goatherds and whiskers on kittens while accompanied by a passel of austrian snot nosed crotch goblins than the greens would manage anywhere like 17 seats and I don't see the latter happening in this universe.
But if there's availability for workers in Widnes, but not Wisbech, then maybe the factory should be located in Widnes instead? Maybe that should encourage investment in Widnes instead?
We could possibly call that 'levelling up'.
If there's no workers available in Wisbech for the factory, perhaps the factory should close down. Or if the factory doesn't want to close down, it can pay attractive wages that attract workers. That's free market economics working.