?? | BRITISH POLITICS ? Can Labour win more seats at the next General Election than they did in 1997?We’re 5/4 on them winning 420 seats or more!? BET NOW: https://t.co/cHe8AwdJwk? 08000 521 321? T&Cs apply | 18+ https://t.co/9fj8GQUoFv https://t.co/UUGISNaFxw
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It's less about Starmer winning seats, but more about how many seats the Tories manage to lose and I'm finding that hard to call at present mainly due to the uncertainty in the squeezability of don't knows and RefUK.
ETA: And one person away from First [Minister] like Yousaf?
(Not quite the same thing, because of changes in places like North Britain. But in the vast majority of constituencies, the election will still be some sort of Two Horse Race between Red and Blue horses.)
I would want 90 minutes, bare minimum, and at least two hours if you have hold luggage
Con 31435
Lab 15046
Lib 8625
https://electionresults.parliament.uk/elections/2472
A 15% swing does it, even without any tactical squeeze.
ETA: If you want to play with your own swingometer, all the notionals are here:
https://electionresults.parliament.uk/general-elections/5/majority
That impact could either be that when the crunch comes some people reluctantly decide to come out and support the Tories, leading to a pretty heavy but not catastrophic defeat (let’s say 210-230 seats).
On the other hand if Farage steps into the fray and Sunak continues to completely mess things up then I could see further leaching of votes to Reform and indeed possibly even crossover. That would obviously be the catastrophic result and lead to a post election significant realignment on the right of British politics.
Like the Tories or BoJo's next mistress.
2010 was a change election against a government in chaos whose economic fantasies had been shredded. Cameron won just over 100 seats, a remarkable achievement, but, like Starmer he started a long way back. Our politics seems to become ever more volatile but I just can't see Starmer getting more seats from the Tories than Cameron did from Labour. Add on maybe 30 from the SNP and he gets a majority but in my view 420 is just fantasy.
I don't think so, but it's not impossible.
- Will Con get a lower seat total than Major in 97
- Will Ref win any seats
- Will Lib Dems overtake SNP into 3rd place
- Will Lib Dems hang on to any of their byelection gains
- Will Green win any seats
- Will Mogg (+ various others) lose their seats
It is crazy to imagine Labour gaining 200+ seats in one go, especially given that SKS is worthy but dull. But looked at from a different direction, it's crazy to imagine the Conservatives successfully defending 200 seats.
And something like one of those two crazy things has to happen, because the number of MPs has to total 650.
Mind you, there might be some dodgy Labour candidates provoked into saying some stuff about Israel that Starmer will have to disown.
So an initial glance would conclude that 5/4 on >420 seats is quite generous.
But these MRPs also have implied Reform UK shares of: 10%, 8.5%, 12%.
I wouldn't say that it was guaranteed that these voters will end up mostly voting Tory at the GE, but I would say it's the largest and most obvious source of uncertainty.
So the price for the SNP remaining in government for the next 2 years is likely to be Yousaf's head. As he somewhat unwisely said about Ash Regan when she defected to Alba, that seems a very small loss.
That level of enthusiasm isn't there for Starmer in 2024.
Hard to call
- Will Ref win any seats
No. Which are their suggested seats to win? Except maybe by defection before or after the election - but I've no idea where.
Is Tice going to be upstanding, bearing in mind that the Reform Party Company defines him as a "person of no significant control"?
- Will Lib Dems overtake SNP into 3rd place
Probably given current events in SNP-land and in the Tory-sack, plus I hope so.
- Will Lib Dems hang on to any of their byelection gains
Yes. Suggest Chesham and Amersham, North Shropshire, Tiverton and Honiton, Somerton and Frome ie all of them. AFAICS all of the second places are Conservatives - how would they lose?
- Will Green win any seats
Tricky. I'm not sure.
- Will Mogg (+ various others) lose their seats
Perhaps 50% will, depending on your list.
As far as next time is concerned we might get a better idea if there's a Scottish GE early this summer, but I suspect you are right.
Starmer may do better than Blair without the charisma. People are looking for competence and direction, not, at the moment, sunlit uplands.
Which difference is the larger and more important? That's a trickier question.
However Starmer is not as charismatic or as good a campaigned as Blair was and in the campaign itself and maybe the debates I expect Sunak to narrow the gap. If the new visa salary requirements for migrants and Rwanda destination for asylum seekers reduces immigration the Tories should also squeeze the Reform vote too
On the data such as it is, 420 seats looks likely I think
Sturgeon decided that a coalition for independence was going to be built among the liberal, ‘progressive’, pro-EU voter base and she was exceptionally successful at harnessing the anger of that bloc at a right wing government in Westminster, until her policies tripped her up. Humza is going the same way. But finding a replacement who can both keep that coalition and the more moderate wing on side is going to be practically impossible. Forbes is decent, but I have said it before that she potentially creates more problems for them than she solves.
They are in for a bumpy ride whatever happens.
Labour gained 223 in 1945, and the Cons lost 186.
Those are the two records, I think.
Lots of the public are sick of the Tories (including this voter). I don't yet think that they are enamoured of Starmer. What you see in the polling is, in my view, an anti-government sentiment. When Labour start to get more scrutiny (and it is happening now) then I think the high leads will drop to some extent. I still expect to see a substantial swing from Tory majority to Labour majority, partly because the SNP are imploding, so the Scotland issue for Labour has moderated.
They are reported (wiki) as having 430 in place as of 17 April.
They are reported (Groan) by 10 April as having lost 10 candidates "who were reported to have made or liked racist, sexist and homophobic comments on social media."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/08/reform-uk-published-candidates-list-early-media-help-vet
Overall, the centre-right vote share, in polling, is 33-39%.
Edit: it's not as if they could see how many other people were going into the Holyrood voting lobbies and then adjusting their own decision. There aren't any lobbies.
So I think it is quite likely that a way will be found for Yousef to cling on. It suits enough people for now.
I suspect that there's a lot more of the second than we might like to think. From an academic point of view, it's quite kind of the big two parties to put someone bland against someone hopeless so that we can probe what happens in that bit of the graph.
Big majorities are always disastrous for the country, whether they are Labour or Conservative. I hope the "wisdom of the crowd" provides Starmer with a very very small majority so the country does not have to suffer the pain of a Labour government any longer than it needs to, and that if Labour are deserving of government (which they rarely are) they have to work very hard to get a second term.
Although the Conservatives might get a right royal spanking next week, I suspect they will do nowhere near as badly as the polls are suggesting. Street and Lord T. Dan Smith of Teesworks will retain their fiefdoms and Susan Hall will run Khan close.
The polls do not reflect reality.
It wasn't they were friends or anything - just spent all their time hanging out behind the bike sheds sharing a smoke. Everyone does that.
Any voting in the same direction at the same time was a complete coincidence. Just happens that way.
Just catching up on the PO Inquiry. They are dealing with the death of Martin Griffiths. Beer is being absolutely devastating. He is or seems to be genuinely furious.
In reverse chronological order, number of seats gained by party that gains most seats:
48, 30, 50, 96, 33, 6, 146, 42, 20, 58, 62, 18, 14, 77, 47, 59, 20, 23, 23, 90, 239 (1945).
Amusing that Heath gained more seats in 1970 (77) than Thatcher did in any single election (62 in 1979).
I tend to think that precedent is a poor guide to the next election, because the experience of the current Parliament is so unique.
The reason there's a good chance of Starmer's Labour making ~200 gains is not because that's what normally happens with a fag end government, but because we went through the pandemic, except the PM who told everyone to stay at home stayed partying, his replacement lasted only 49 days and nearly destroyed the pension industry and caused a Sterling crisis, and the leader of Labour's other main opposition had to resign before being arrested in an embezzlement case, that has seen her husband charged, and her replacement may also be about to be given the heave.
In some respects it would be surprising not to have an unprecedentedly large change in seats following such an unprecedented series of events that are so bad for the incumbents.
ANGUS UA; Arbroath West, Letham & Friockheim (Ind resigned)
First Prefs:
Con 41.9 (+10.5)
SNP 29.3 (-6.9)
Lab 16.1 (+9.6)
LD 8.3 (+3.9)
Grn 4.3 (New)
No ind as prev
Con 1682
SNP 1175
Lab 644
LD 333
Green 176
His unbroken run of by-election fails continues.
The ward has been moved out of Angus for Westminster and is in the new Arbroath and Broughty Ferry seat, which is the successor to Dundee East, one of the safest SNP seats.
Howeve rit has interesting implications for the next door Angus & Perthshire Glens seat which is a Tory target (and being contested by Stephen Kerr MSP, the former \Tory MP for Stirling)
What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?
Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?
Slater and Harvie served as ministers in the government until yesterday. When they left as a result of the end of the agreement.
If it has a bill, webbed feet and quacks. It is obviously a cat. Ask Londo Mollari.
I think Yousaf’s card is marked now whether or not he survives this vote (it feels 50-50 to me right now). He’s going to be a lame duck if he clings on. For the SNP it might be best tactically for him to take the GE hit and then they can look to refresh afterwards. I don’t really see any great prospect of him seeing out the next 12 months, but I may be wrong.
This is different from a caucus, where they vote together in the legislature
I remember a couple of hours of my life on here I’ll never get back.
The SNP-SCon coalition of 2007..
No
Well, confidence & supply..
No
It was an unspoken agreement then, the SCons backed Salmond for FM after all..
No, it was the Greens.
Etc
Apart from the NI executive, which is Special Politics for the Special People.