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Why I’m betting that LAB won’t get a majority – politicalbetting.com
Why I’m betting that LAB won’t get a majority – politicalbetting.com
Firstly there is the question of how a majority is defined. This is from Smarkets:
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They are starting with slightly more seats than Cameron in 2010 but they are up against a more plausible leader in Sunak than Brown was by the end and and have a somewhat less plausible one of their own.
Can they do it? Absolutely. But it's not easy.
1) The Red Rose is going to be flower of Scotland if the SNP don't stop being a shit show
2) Last week confirmed the anyone but the Tories tactical voting coalition is back
My back of the fag packet calculations say Labour could win a majority with a 6-7% national lead.
We have a tired, worn out Conservative government that has been in power for thirteen years. A government that gave us scandal after scandal under Boris, not to mention a party that foisted Liz Truss on us.
We have a labour leader who won't terrify people on the centre right. They might not vote for Starmer, but they may not feel strongly enough about him (as they did about Corbyn) to go out and vote.
The economy is likely to get worse, not better. Interest rates are likely to continue rising and as more people come off their fixed mortgage deals, that is going to hurt. Inflation certainly doesn't seem to be coming down yet. Property market looking toppy as well. Energy bills still a problem. Overall, people are going to feel even poorer this time next year.
Many people in the red wall loaned their votes to the Conservatives to "get Brexit done". Well, it's done now and many red wallers may return to Labour, particularly with the hated and perceived-as-unpatriotic Corbyn long gone.
The "stop the boats" nonsense is going to backfire. Immigration is continuing to increase under the Conservatives, so basing their campaign on this is going to make them look ridiculous.
The SNP have imploded. While Labour won't return to their pre-SNP position of dominance, they're poised to improve their performance. There's also no danger of the Conservatives running a "Starmer in Sturgeon's pocket" campaign.
Local election results are not a good guide to national results. In the 2017 locals the Conservatives did very well, giving Theresa May the false confidence to call the 2017 GE, where Labour significantly outperformed expectations.
Tactical voting and lending of votes between Labour and Lib Dem supporters will pile further pressure on the Conservatives.
Overall, the stage is set for a Labour majority - perhaps even a landslide. Against this, what do the Conservatives offer? A tired government led by the managerialist Sunak, who seems to have no solutions for either growth or reducing the tax burden.
In short, people will have a lot of reasons to vote Labour and few to vote Conservative. I have put my money where my mouth is and bet on a Labour majority accordingly.
Ireland maintains a secret arrangement dating back to the Cold War era allowing the UK to police the country’s airspace despite concerns about the accord being raised over the years by Ministers and military officers, The Irish Times has learned.
The agreement was drafted in the early 1950s when relations between the west and the Soviet Union were at a low point, according to interviews with diplomatic, political and military figures.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/05/08/secret-anglo-irish-air-defence-agreement-dates-back-over-70-years/
Is there any research on how much difference party targetting makes for the big two? Does piling big guns into a seat improve the swing much? How many counterexamples are there- people like Stephen Twigg, who really didn't expect to get anywhere against Portillo.
I do think Scotland is very important, both as a source of seats for Labour and in turn reducing the fear in England and Wales that the SNP could end up in power at Westminster.
It's a strange thing, the British army marched troops down Dublin in 2003 for the funeral of Ian Malone but nobody made a big thing about it.
All credit to him if he turns out to be right, as he may well do, but at the moment it feels like a moderate Labour majority is the most likely outcome imho.
Dominic Raab's plan for a British Bill of Rights will now be shelved according to @matt_dathan
: https://thetimes.co.uk/article/dominic-raabs-bill-of-rights-will-be-scrapped-for-a-third-time-nqqfl3sq7
Not a huge surprise - it was never popular with other ministers or the legal profession. Blow for Raab who's been thinking about this project for years.
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1655522035068444672
(SKSWNBPM)
SeanF’s 310 looks a fair number overall, but I would have said before that was a top end possibility. Now I’d make it a 50%+ chance, with a majority a 20% chance.
Ireland chose not to have an airforce, so it was kind of inevitable that something like this would be done.
Reminds me of when South Park did some episodes with the plot point of not being able to show images of the Prophet Muhammed (and indeed the network did not allow them to at the end), pointed out by characters that they had done just that years earlier and apparently no one had cared.
Labour has slightly more seats than Cameron in 2010?
Yes, yes, I know, boundary changes mean we have notional figures but crudely they are just the other side of the critical 200 mark.
Though honestly it was the pettier (and attempted) claims that felt more damaging
(196 versus 193 if you want to ignore the 'lost whip' seats.)
But with Scotland poised to return a phalanx of extra Labour MPs and the LibDems ready to clear a path between Chichester and Leamington Spa, Labour’s chances of a majority are starting to look pretty good.
With even supposedly well-informed PB’ers like Heathener in the Tory/LD seat of Newton Abbot thinking that voting Labour is the right thing to do, tactical voting may not work out quite as well as some folks are hoping, especially with new boundaries and Labour’s unwillingness to countenance anything other than a majority win.
Good horse action though.
Emmanuel Macron's motorcade making its way up an oddly vacant Champs-Élysées. The commentator gives the reason: police have cleared the entire area to avoid the disruption of protests.
https://twitter.com/frasermatthew/status/1655504935260151809
Most importantly, I don’t think the majority can be achieved purely from Tory gains, the vast majority (sic) of the 326-seat permutations require a lot of gains in Scotland.
Grrrrr
Would be helpful if it shaded where there were no elections, to see ones which were up which no gains were made in.
What are Labour targets 90 to 105 and how did they do in the locals?
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/TLG2.png
The Labour vote is much more concentrated in its safe seats meaning the swing required to gain equivalent seats gained by the Tories in 2010 are a few points higher.
Nor is it actually correct that the Tories did much better in the local elections than current polling. They got the equivalent of 26%, which is actually worse. The seat loss was even larger, because of the spread of tactical voting. So the apparently comforting lead of "only" 9 points is misleading - what we've just seen is the combination of
(a) very low Tory vote share and
(b) lots of tactical voting.
If that's repeated, and the LibDems largely focus on their targets and don't repeat the "Only we can win" stuff in Con-Lab marginals, then a Labour majority looks likely.
Czech President Pavel said he warned Zelensky & PM Shmyhal against rushing Ukraine's counteroffensive "before they are fully prepared."
"It will be extremely harmful to Ukraine if this counteroffensive fails, because they will not have another chance, at least not this year."
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1655499883611029504?cxt=HHwWgICwhe-XwvktAAAA
Here's an ordered list of Labour target seats.
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
Old boundaries mind.
Not just for purchase, but training, maintenance etc.
At that point, there will be a sad armistice and a semi-permanent division of Ukraine, I suspect
Of course, the Ukes might still win with this attack
That makes the majority (or lack thereof) depend largely on the level of tactical voting.
Sure, no jets to use with it but from what I gather we couldn't really put it to see or fly off it anyway ourselves.
I am duty bound to report this.
Even rode side-pillion in a 3CX on a few journeys along roads. Again, fun.
I feel it in my waters.
Leicester, eesh.
They keep gloating about how rich they are, the parasitical tax-haven fucks, well then it’s time for them to stump up some cash or get tae fuck
And why didn’t they manage [preventing Scotland being dragged out of the EU, or extracting concessions at least]? Because they were so terrified of being seen to vote with the Tories on anything – even if it was saving Scotland and the UK from an even worse Brexit – that they didn’t even TRY to do a deal. Which told Labour that even if there is a hung Parliament next year, they can call the SNP’s bluff and shout “1979!” again and it’ll work.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/sing-us-a-new-one/
Source - a relative arranged just such an activity.
https://twitter.com/p_surridge/status/1655542082583289857?s=46
It seems we will be having this discussion daily for the next 520 days approx
Who said a week (7 days) is a long time in politics?
I think in a hundred years austerity will be seen to be the biggest policy blunder of the 21st Century.
It is a lovely memory
Thanks for that info. In some US states, for example, Pennsylvania, the Democratic vote is similarly concentrated. And I have been wondering whether something similar was true in Britain.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/targets/p_con.stm
Target Seat 80: Halifax, swing required was 4.4%.
Labour 2024:
https://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
Target seat 80 Worcester, swing required is 6.6%.
Unlike some others, I’m expecting growth to be reasonable in 2023/24/25, and wage rises to be running well ahead of inflation by the Autumn.
LAB: 48.9% (+18.1)
CON: 40.8% (-4.8)
GRN: 8.0% (-15.6)
IND: 2.3% (+2.3)
Labour GAIN from Conservative.
Government spending went up.
Lest we forget Labour were also proposing austerity, bigger cuts than Thatcher is what Darling promised.
A favourite was Corbynites saying a) we should stop paying interest on the national debt to the bastard bankers b) we should borrow as much as we like, it’s a Right of The People.
[ducks]
You've exactly confirmed my point. We gutted our public services, slashed spending on the council budget etc and yet our national debt has never been higher and our public services have never been worse.
All for what?
Then you really would have austerity.
A Rutherglen by-election, could be a rather useful indicator over the summer.
But if a week is a long time in politics, 18 months is an eternity in Scottish politics.
In 2009/10 the deficit was 11% of GDP. Had the government kept it at that level indefinitely, I think the consequences would have been unpleasant.
The best bits are behind the paywall.
They just can’t understand why the British conservatives are so reluctant to go full on anti-woke.
I can think of several reasons, none of which occur to either of them.
Interesting discussion, but the sheer lack of intellectual rigour has led me to cancel my subscription.
It’s interesting to know what these people think - and, at times they do make valid critiques of our political culture. But come on, guys. If you’re charging people money for your intellectual output, you need to be rigorous.
PB is smarter than these people.
Pretty sure we can come up with several good reasons as to why the Tory party is hesitant to go full on anti-woke.
I’ll start;
1. Section 28 and its political legacy.