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Were some Tory MPs secretly lobotomised? – politicalbetting.com
Were some Tory MPs secretly lobotomised? – politicalbetting.com
The magic number required to oust Rishi Sunak is not the 52 letters to trigger a vote of confidence in him but the 173 Tory MPs required to vote against Sunakm the chance of the latter happening is as infetismal a Boris Johnson being a declared husband of the century.
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https://x.com/AntiToxicPeople/status/1793465125783187468/photo/1
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/23/july-general-election-tory-mps-may-october
If this is true then the campaign is going to be an ill planned shambles. A fitting post script to the worst government in at least 250 years.
He also said Downing Street building couldn't be used for the announcement as Party matter - same reason why no PM crest on lectern. So had to do it outside (unless went elsewhere which would look very odd).
So no reason they couldn't have checked the weather and gone elsewhere.
A poorly planned campaign could see the Tories lose ground from here. If the Lib Dems, conversely, have a good campaign, then the differential swing could lose Sunak a lot more seats than even the most pessimistic forecasts.
The voters chose the Tories last time and ensured to give a large majority to them too. I expect they'll give an equally large majority to their new choice this time too.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/22/sympathy-not-forthcoming-tears-paula-vennells-post-office/
Couldn’t we just encourage posters to embed image links via the html “img” tag?
It's hard to come up with plausible numbers in electoral Calculus that would produce that outcome.
I'm just reporting what Watt said.
I thought it was worthwhile to do so given the debate starting re number of letters. Watt was very confident this was nonsense. He added the point re the building so I added that too.
Vanilla does shit upgrades, I am also trying to get the search facility working again.
I also suspect that tactical voting won't be particularly widespread with the exception of key Lib Dem targets. That might blunt the chance of a Storegga Slide*.
*I think this term should be used for any swing above Labour '97.
Don’t No.10 have a pop-up gazebo canopy they can put up over the lectern?
'Professor Sunak, in the pop up gazebo, with an election announcement.'
Con most seats has gone from 14.5 to 17.
But Con to lose over 200 seats has gone from 1.49 to 1.7.
So Con even less likely to get most seats but also less likely to be a wipeout.
However still odds on to lose over 200 seats - though quite a significant move away.
So we're running a trial and error approach to see what works.
A few weeks ago I noted on a 400 post thread there were over 180 photos embedded in posts.
I think REFUK candidates need to pay their own deposits and run their own local campaigns, so might find they are well short of the full slate promised, and this will benefit the Tories to some degree.
When will nominations close?
The other factor that could produce a hung parliament/minimal majority would be a massive Lab to Green/WPB swing and I just can't see that.
Most postal votes get returned quickly and they will be going out in just 3 weeks or so. There isn't much time for Sunak to turn it around.
I know you like your pithy responses but sometimes (often) they don’t mean as much as you might think.
If you are referring to fear that Theresa May was going to win a landslide I think that had bugger all to do with it compared to her disastrous electioneering. She was unmasked as awkward, out of touch, and unable to respond to journalists’ questions. Most notably at that disastrous welfare shambles.
She dodged the tv debates and came across as robotic.
Bugger all to do with people fearing a large majority. They thought she was crap.
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40237833
https://www.politico.eu/article/how-theresa-may-lost-it-uk-election-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-jim-messina-lynton-crosby-uk-sarah-palin-campaign/
You do know, don’t you, that it would really help this place if you stopped that prat for spamming us with his egotistical holiday snaps?
Yup.
In a nutshell.
I was not looking forward to covering a UK general election and a US presidential election held within days of each other.
I couldn't handle two massive elections at the same time.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2024-05/UKPGE Election timetable 4 July 2024.docx
2017 was the campaign with more campaign shift than any other in recent times, but unique conditions.
Additionally voters don't like unnecessarily early elections.
I agree it's a pretty weak point from Watts, though. There are loads of buildings nearby, including CCHQ and Parliament (which isn't a Government building - it's the legislature), and it wouldn't have looked odd at all to do it indoors on a rainy day.
As someone else pointed out yesterday - it’s almost like Rishi’s press team hate him
There's no secret about it, Conservative MPs openly, gleefully lobotomised themselves in 2019.
Everything else follows from that.
In other news, Simon Case is up at the COVID enquiry today. Trying to work out if 'good day to bury bad news' applies or not.
Here's a stat. Only just over half of Labour's voters in 2017 approved of Labour's policies or leadership. That late surge was a more or less negative vote to make sure the Tories didn't have landslide.
So, there *is* a very recent example of voters 'putting their X in a different box because they feared a large majority.'
I know you think 2017 was the standard election and 2019 the outlier but such evidence as we have doesn't support that view.
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Even two of the more moderate Tories, Brine and Ellwood, were giving bravado interviews (when people really see Rishi etc etc). The only honest one was Steve Baker who was humourous and acknowledged he might lose his seat.
Starmer should put him in the Lords for the LOLs.
Looking back, they were insane to ditch Truss for him - her administration *might* have stabilised, but she was at least willing to try stuff, whereas Sunak has been a complete vacuum of anything other than a really poorly presented version of "more of the same".
But whether they get 200 seats or 20 seats will be determined by the campaign and I can easily see them getting the lower end of that scale because Rishi just isn’t good at h the is stuff as shown at 5pm yesterday
Labour will probably convince a few DK voters and lose a few flakier supporters. But as the Tories firm up a tad they will move from mid-high 40s down a touch to low-mid.
LDs will firm up gradually during the campaign and will probably end up in low double digits.
Everything else will fall around those central movements.
So I suspect something like Lab 40-43 Con 29-32 Ld 10-13. Seats harder to consider as figures in those ranges can result in a staggering variety of outcomes but wouldn’t be surprised if it shook out at something like Lab 345-375 Con 200-230 LD 15-45etc.
I remember approaching that with a real sense of forboding. The Brexit vote, moving towards Lancaster House etc.
And it turned into comedy gold. The dropping letters, the robotic delivery, the interruptions.
And with an able supporting act in the shape of Liz Pork Markets.
That was when we saw the Emperor’s Party had no clothes.
Lets look at just a couple of the points you dismissed:
"forced out by his own side" - plenty of reporting both of the squabbling camps inside the party and of the "we can still get him out" attempt last night.
"isn't actually ready for the GE" - widely reported that they were planning for November and had budget planned for a long campaign over the summer
"activists as well as MPs are livid" - you're not denying that, surely
"an ill-planned shambles". The announcement couldn't have been worse. A rambling speech with "oh by the way' we're having an election" as a throw-away line in the middle. The rain. The music. The photographs. And then the launch event where they threw Sky out live on air then followed him round, whilst inside the hall Cabinet members looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here.
That's the evidence. Your dismissal I'm afraid is the feel part. What you want, and what there is are not the same thing here. Sadly for you and your party.
Not happening
The Tory vote will hold up in the Midlands better than people expect. But will collapse in the north.
So she went to the country unnecessarily to capitalise on what was seen as Labour chaos (but actually they tended to rally round for the campaign) and to get her a larger majority because she didn't want the faff of dealing with the challenges of making compromises to get legislation through. She then ran a pretty dire campaign, and people who might have been receptive to her generally just thought "nah".
As with all elections, people voted for all sorts of reasons too. There were doubtless people who'd not really looked at Corbyn except the drumbeat of Labour splits over a couple of years... they then saw him on the stump and thought, "actually, he's pretty good" (many changed their mind pretty decisively over the next two years but still).
Your argument may be better supported by the landslides of 1997, 2001 and 1983 elections where the winners got thumping wins but actually rather underperformed the late polling - there might well have been some element of some people wanting the result but not the death of opposition. However, 1987 is a fly in the ointment - the pollsters had the Tories pretty much bang on, while Labour were overestimated.
I think Con 200-249 is reasonable value on BFX at 8.2, but the favourite is 100-149.
Look at last nights announcement I just don’t see it happening - Rishi didn’t look like a Prime Minister - he looked like a badly organised drowning puppy
The prime minister had made the decision to go to the country nearly a month ago after it became apparent voters were unwilling to give the Tories credit for any economic recovery
Rishi Sunak opened Cabinet on Wednesday afternoon by setting aside the formal agenda. “I don’t think anyone will mind,” he said as he told colleagues that he was calling a general election on July 4. The economic outlook, he said, was improving and it was time to be bold. “We have got to own the choice and frame the choice,” he said.
The prime minister’s decision to go early was not universally welcomed. Esther McVey, the Cabinet Office minister, said that she disagreed and argued that the Tories needed more time for the improved economic outlook to feed through to voters. Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, said he would not have gone early but added that he was “100 per cent” behind the prime minister.
In fact, Sunak made the decision to call the election nearly a month ago, shortly before the local election results were announced. The original plan had been to hold off until the autumn, by which time people would feel better off as inflation fell and interest rates were cut.
It soon became apparent, however, that the economic recovery was slower than hoped, and that even then people were unwilling to give the Tories credit.
The prime minister became concerned that the longer he waited, the more he would be susceptible to accusations that he was “clinging on”.
The narrative that the Tories once deployed successfully against Gordon Brown — that he was squatting in No 10 — would be deployed against Sunak. By going early, the thinking was, Sunak could seize the agenda.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inside-the-cabinet-debate-where-election-decision-was-made-xz2vct0tt
Labour lead at 25 points in this week's YouGov poll for The Times
CON 21 (+1)
LAB 46 (-1)
LIB DEM 9 (=)
REF UK 12 (+1)
GRN 7 (-1)
Fieldwork 21 - 22 May
If you're selling Pot Noodle, you don't announce it as fine dining (except in jest), and if you're advertising Bugatti, you don't say it's got wonderful fuel economy for the busy mum going to the shops.
2017 unmasked Theresa May as the pretty disastrous leader she proved, although that has been eclipsed of late.
I do agree with @MikeSmithson and @TSE about leader ratings being very important indicators of outcome. Lots of real evidence for that.
It's an admission they will not go before the election.
- now that may actually be worth a few votes from the Reform voters block to the Tories. Still don’t think it gives them 30+% of the vote though