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Should we be ready for an early election? – politicalbetting.com
Should we ready for an early election? – politicalbetting.com
Some Tory MPs claim colleagues threatened with an early election if they vote down the billBut a number are sceptical No10 would follow through. One told me they’re minded to vote against providing they can answer the question how this wouldn’t be curtains for Rishi Sunak
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🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
Labour lead narrows to eleven percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
Con 29% (+2)
Lab 40% (-2)
Lib Dem 11% (-2)
Other 21% (+2)
Fieldwork: 8th-11th December 2023
Sample: 1,005 GB adults
(Changes from 1st-4th November 2023)
https://twitter.com/DeltapollUK/status/1734233103000834075
Regarding perceived economic competence, the gap between @UKLabour and @Conservatives narrows to six percentage points.
https://twitter.com/DeltapollUK/status/1734234405202178123
No doubt in a week when it reverts back again it will be just "noise"
Do you have any old trainers ?
Need Fishy-Rishi's spreadsheet to keep count.
There is every prospect of this Bill running into the sand and, if he cannot find a compromise between wings of his party on what is a key bit of policy for him, that's really difficult in terms of running the Government on towards five years.
However, I don't think Sunak will allow the Government will "fall" over it causing a February election. More likely, he will back down, take the Bill away for "fine tuning", muddle through to the Budget, and call a May election then.
Lab: 44,42,42.40
Con: 27,28,27,29
Lib: 10,11,13,11
I am struggling to see the next step for the government if this bill fails or is withdrawn.
After this week politics will be suspended for Christmas. In that time Rishi has a choice, it seems to me:
1. If he does nothing, I think it likely he’ll face a VONC in the new year. He probably won’t lose that vote, but it will leave him completely hamstrung (even more than now). I think even if he wins he may have to stand down, and then 3 applies.
2. He calls a GE early doors January to take place mid feb 2024. He would need to make this a position of taking a hard line on immigration and beefing up the Rwanda policy (in short, I find it difficult how he couldn’t go into that election pledging to leave the ECHR).
3. He resigns. I think this is much more possible than some seem to think. He’s going to lose the election, his government is falling apart, and he can’t break the deadlock. Why not just throw in the towel and call it quits? Let the Tory Party battle it out over policy, get a new leader and let that leader fight the GE?
https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2023/12/11/could-the-supreme-court-reject-the-rwanda-bill-as-unconstitutional/
I’ll be happy to pass your details to his lawyers if you like.
One thread of this multiple folly is that the internal Tory debate - in which every Tory MP thinks the bill is either too soft or too hard and everyone knows that Cleverley thinks his own bill is crazy - is also pointless.
The Commons can delay it for a matter of days or weeks, the Lords can delay it for a year, and the immediate generic legal challenges (I can think of some and I am not being paid to) would take at least 6 months as there is plainly stuff of public importance to go to the SC. There would then be each individual challenge...
By which time there would have been a Labour government for some months.
So this is merely a PR stunt (a worse one would have done but I can't think of one) and the essence of the stunt is that it proves Tories have a line on Johnny Foreigner of election winning proportions. Any good it could do as that PR stunt is being trashed by the Tory MPs.
This is neither Machiavelli nor statesmanship. It has its comic side.
Lawyers for Alexey Navalny said they have lost contact with him, and his whereabouts are unknown. This was exactly the same scenario w/Sergei Magnitsky before he was discovered to have been killed. Let’s hope he hasn’t suffered the same fate as Sergei
https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/1734231069182799972
Of course, this would still give Labour a clear majority.
Christmas recess soon then suddenly we are into January and February without necessarily having a vote on this. Then it's Budget time and then the election can be called late March for 2 May.
https://www.standard.co.uk/business/goldman-sachs-uk-real-estate-short-interest-rates-property-houses-homes-mortgage-b1126191.html
I don't buy that it's the "not sealed the deal" phenomenon. Labour has as many (or as few) well known policies now as it had a year ago when it was touching 50% in the polls. And I can't see it being to do with Starmer support for Israel and apparent prevarication over Gaza. That's surely only an issue for a small minority of the Left, and we would expect to see Green VI rising if this were really a big driver.
I do wonder if it's actually a measure of some (very limited) success by the conservatives in getting bread and butter issues off the table and moving the news agenda back on to culture war and immigration. It might not be helping the Tories massively given all the internal chaos, but it's not notably harming their support either. Whereas for Labour I wonder if it's unhelpful.
I mentioned they could be losing support to Reform. How? Take your average disgruntled voter somewhere in the Red Wall who thinks the country's going to the dogs and the Tories deserve a kicking. A year or 6 months ago they might have argued that the country's going to the dogs because inflation is rampant, nobody's getting a decent pay rise, the roads are full of pot holes and it takes 6 months to get seen on the NHS. Now they might be saying the country's going to the dogs because the government has failed to stop the boats or control immigration. Before the obvious place to move your vote would be Labour. Now perhaps that's Reform.
Once a voter has shifted to Reform is it possible the Tories could then win them back rather than them slipping back to Labour? Possibly, if they can then make the next election about cultural issues rather than the pound in your pocket.
All this seasoned with just a touch of Labour not seeming to be any different on economic or public spending policy now.
I would say Labour needs the political weather to move back on to economy and (particularly) crumbling public services, and it needs to offer something for people to grab on to in this respect.
EDIT: Oh, I get you - you mean the last Parliament in which the issue essentially didn't arise.
NYT (via Seattle Times) - Once they were pets. Now giant goldfish are menacing the Great Lakes
Inside a fishbowl, the goldfish — a species of carp native to East Asia, bred for aesthetic delight and traditionally believed to bring good fortune — is hardly more than home décor. Usually just a few inches long, it is among the easiest of pets to keep.
But released into the wild, the seemingly humble goldfish, freed from glass boundaries and no longer limited to meager meals of flakes, can grow to monstrous proportions. They can even kill off native marine wildlife and help destroy fragile and economically valuable ecosystems.
“They can eat anything and everything,” said Christine Boston, an aquatic research biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Over the past several years, Boston and her colleagues have been tracking invasive goldfish in Hamilton Harbour, which is on the western tip of Lake Ontario, about 35 miles southwest of Toronto. The bay has been decimated by industrial and urban development as well as by invasive species — making it among the most environmentally degraded areas of the Great Lakes.
Their study, published last month in the Journal of Great Lakes Research, could help pinpoint goldfish populations for culling, said Boston, who is the lead author. “We found out where they are before they start spawning,” she said. “That’s a good opportunity to get rid of them.” . . .
Goldfish were first spotted in Hamilton Harbour in the 1960s, but largely died off in the 1970s because of industrial contamination. In the early 2000s, their population appeared to recover. Goldfish can tolerate a wide range of water temperatures, reach sexual maturation quickly, and can eat nearly anything, including algae, aquatic plants, eggs and invertebrates, Boston said.
Their football-shaped bodies can swell to a size that makes them too large a meal for predators — up to about 16 inches long. “A fish would have to have a really big mouth to eat it,” she said.
The feral goldfish are also destructive, uprooting and consuming plants that are home to native species. They help spawn harmful algal blooms by consuming the algae and expelling nutrients that promote its growth, Boston said, creating conditions that are intolerable to native fish. . . .
Climate change may play a role, because of the goldfish’s capacity to adapt to warming and poorly oxygenated waters, he added.
“There are literally millions of goldfish in the Great Lakes, if not tens of millions,” Mandrak said.
The problem is not unique to Canada [or the United States]. In Australia, a handful of unwanted pet goldfish and their offspring took over a river in the country’s southwest. Feral goldfish have flooded waterways in the United Kingdom, and, in Burnsville, Minnesota, the discovery of football-size creatures in a lake in 2021 led officials to beg their constituents: “Please don’t release your pet goldfish into ponds and lakes!” . . . .
Putting in Labour 37%, to 30% Conservative still gives Labour a majority of 50, because the Lib Dems only win a third of the seats they got in 2010.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67681940
Donald Tusk is set to become Poland's prime minister after current leader Mateusz Morawiecki lost a key vote in the country's parliament on Monday.
Mr Morawiecki's populist Law and Justice (PiS) party failed to win a majority in October's elections.
President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, nonetheless nominated Mr Morawiecki to lead the government.
His failure to win a vote of confidence paves the way for Mr Tusk to become PM.
In all, 190 MPs voted for Mr Morawiecki's government, compared with 266 against.
October's elections saw a coalition led by Mr Tusk win a majority of seats in the Sejm, the country's parliament, with a record turnout of more than 70%.
The grouping comprises three parties, Mr Tusk's Civic Coalition (KO), the Third Way and the Left.
Mr Morawiecki's ruling PiS emerged as the single biggest party after the election, but other parties refused to work alongside it and it was not able to form a majority in parliament.
Mr Duda's decision to nominate Mr Morawiecki to lead the country meant that the formation of the new government was delayed for several weeks...
However the next 33% has to go somewhere. If we give 4 percentage points to the SNP (which may be generous), that leaves a staggering 29% to split between Reform, the LibDems, Green and Other.
🟥 LAB 40% (-2)
🟦 CON 29% (+2)
🟧 LD 11% (-2)
🟩 GRN 7% (+1)
🟪 REF 7% (+1)
🟨 SNP 3% (=)
Via
@YouGov
, 8-11 December (+/- vs 4 December)
SKS FANS PLEASE EXPLAIN
"Labour majority of only 150. SKS fans please explain."
No, I don’t quite know how someone is looking at the current Tory Party and is convinced, but there you go.
I forecast the range as NOM to Lab Maj of 50 BTW
LAB MAJ of 46 apparently
That said, I suspect if could be more like 39/32, with both Reform and Greens going to Conservative and Labour respectively.
The electorate has been volatile since 2010, with Con/Lab getting 67% in 2010, 70% in 2015, 83% in 2017 and 78% in 2019, but likely dropping back in this coming election.
@DeltapollUK
Net approval for
@Keir_Starmer
falls by thirteen percentage points since our last poll, while net approval for
@RishiSunak
is up by three points.
SKS FANS Please explain
Labour needn't worry too much about a bit of 'swingback'. It is difficult to sustain leads of 20+ points without some major scandal or bit of help from the opposition. They have enough ammo to be going into the campaign, when it starts, and are unlikely to expend it now when it is not needed.
Patience is a virtue in this scenario, and Starmer seems to have plenty of that.
Thats how Tory SKS is
As @TimS mentions Labour appears to be falling at the moment as opposed to Conservatives gaining (Deltapoll is just one polling company out of many). Let's see what Redfield & Wilton publish at 5pm today.
That of course benefits the Conservatives indirectly but the impact on seat distributions is different, particularly if the Lib Dems are on the rise.
https://x.com/JournoStephen/status/1734242038999142653?s=20
Perhaps you can now explain why SKS ratings have fallen from +2 to -11 in a week
One train journey and the whole country are suddenly BJO Fans
Despite you not being a half wit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_United_Kingdom_general_election
Including personally:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_East_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1900s
voter. But it will benefit them for one big reason: they are seen as more competent on the economy, better placed to improve public services and better able to turn the country around than the Tories. That’s a very very low bar, but it’s the key bar.
Make politics a binary choice about the economy and public services and they’ll vote Labour. Make it a binary choice about immigration or human rights and they have a wealth of choices: Refuk, the Greens or Lib Dems and so on,
And still cant even attempt an answer to why a fall of 13% in SKS's ratings might have come about
Quarter Wit!
You're pathetic because you cream your pants when one poll, one solitary poll, cements your confirmation bias, while ignoring the actual latest YouGov which has Labour's lead at 23% and any others that contradict it.
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Copy_of_TheTimes_VI_231207_W.pdf
You're pathetic because you criticise Starmer for falling against standards he himself set. Corbyn would have killed for these numbers.
You're pathetic because you don't support Labour. You support the Green Tories.
Finally, you're pathetic because you let your own deluded visions of ideological purity stand in the way of any semblance of common sense, preferring all should burn rather than you be proved wrong.
Do you consider our resident apologist for the Jezaster to be, well, pathetic?
Imagine the following scenario:
January 1 poll:
Lab 45 Con 30
BJO... silent
February 1 poll:
Lab 40 Con 30
BJO... Labour poll share falls 5%! SKS fans please explain
March 1 poll
Lab 45 Con 30
BJO... silent
etc
Does that sound like a plausible scenario?
And I may never live this down.
But....
There is a really, really good article on OFSTED - on ConHome...
https://conservativehome.com/2023/12/11/john-bald-ofsted-has-lost-all-credibility-with-the-profession-it-is-difficult-to-see-a-way-forward/
It is well worth two minutes of your time to read it.
Sunak won't call an election unless he thinks he can win or he thinks he's run out of road. I still reckon mid-Nov is his preferred option.
A new Tory leader may call a snap election but there won't be one of them until late February at the earliest, pointing to an April poll. Though May is more likely in those circumstances.
You simply don't go to the country when 15-20 points behind in the polls, on the off-chance that you might be ousted. And you can't go once you have been ousted.
LAB 39
CON 35
Sounds Plausible
But Centrists would then claim NOM to LT 50 MAJ was a triumph and SKS Fans would still find reasons not to explain why LAB has underperformed.
Lab under Burnham would be sailing along at over 50%
"I'll resign, put CB in and he'll make a mess of it without a stable majority. Ha!"
- slightly later -
"Oh, he's called an election. I forgot he could do that once he was PM."
Labour leads by 18% nationally, marking two years since the Conservatives last led in our polling.
Westminster VI (10 Dec):
Labour 43% (+1)
Conservative 25% (-1)
Lib Dem 13% (+1)
Reform 11% (+1)
Green 5% (-1)
SNP 2% (-1)
Other 1% (+1)
Changes +/- 3 Dec
https://x.com/redfieldwilton/status/1734256736670753044?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
Mortgagees are more likely to be thirties and forties, young children, squeezed middle. Since most of the country has made its mind up, the voter on the margin is likely to become less likely to vote Conservative as and when their fix ends and their payments go up, which is happening to people all the time.
If there's a plausible route to interest rates going down before Jan 2025, the Tories will hold out until the bitter end. If not, the sooner they go to the polls the better, because as more and more people's disposable income drops rapidly and suddenly at the end of their fix, the more angry they will become.
My gut says that a May election in 2024 leads to a comfortable Labour majority of 50-80, waiting any longer will lead to an utter shellacking.