How likely is it that the polls narrow significantly before July 4th? Well, historically, campaigns make little to no difference. This message might not be well-received in Downing Street, but if we judge campaign impact as movement in the polls from the point of announcement to polling day, Mr. Sunak’s chips are cooked. The evidence is stark: in UK general elections since 1992, the average change in the Conservative/Labour lead during the campaign has been just under four percentage points. Reminder: he currently trails by 22 points.
Famously though, the change during the campaign has occasionally been much higher. When Theresa May called her snap election in 2017 her party was, on average, eighteen points ahead in the polls, but by the final days of the campaign her lead had shrunk by almost two thirds. The eventual results were even worse, and cost May her majority. But everyone agrees her campaign was apocalyptically bad – and 2017 should be considered a monumental outlier as far as this analysis is concerned.
So the Tories romping back to the front of this horserace based on a highly effective campaign? Not likely, and probably even less so with the generally unimpressive campaigner that the Prime Minister is seen to be at the helm.
"Watching her today made me realize what a cruel place we live in. I don't believe she deliberately set about trying to ruin the lives of innocent people but somehow we can't free ourselves from the ghoulish delight of public humiliation. Watching Alex Thompson of Ch4 News lifting her umbrella as she tried to leave the court so he could bully her further was almost unwatchable."
Roger being on the wrong side of a very clear moral question once again. Vennells is a scumbag who deserves to be scorned and humiliated for what she did. She might not have set out to deliberately ruin lives but she certainly made a point of deliberately igoring the fact they were being ruined and of putting the reputation of her sordid little company above the lives and wellbeing of those who worked for her.
Maybe Thompson should not have lifted the umbrella but Vennells deserves no hiding place for what she did. The best place for her to be if she dislikes being in the glare of public censure is inside a prison cell.
Yes, I thought the view of Vennells as a victim of bullying to be an odd one!
She is Proper Person - all the Right Views, knows The Right People.
It is invidious that such a person be held in anything less than High Regard. All that she did was to fiddle with the lives of some of The Head Count. Not Real People. NPCs, really.
Some years ago, I was at a garden party where the then Home Sec was present. Had a few words about the scandal of the day - Rotherham. A flunky to the Home Sec was appalled at my suggestion that, since the people in charge had proudly declared they had got rid of the evidence against themselves, that the Home Sec should simply put those responsible on the various registries of people who were a danger to children.
Apparently, I didn't understand how hard working and wonderful these people were.
The split among 2019 Tories is a sign of potential future trouble for them in Opposition when they have to choose between embracing Faragism, or creating something new. Though it will be easier for them without Farage himself.
Do you really think such a result is possible? (Non-sarcastic question).
I do think more people ought to be at least contemplating the possibility. It would have profound implications. Not least, that fewer than a tenth of the PLP could breakwaway and instantly become the official Opposition...
“Look at what Biden has done in Ukraine. He did nothing to deter the invasion. He assumed Ukraine would fall within days.
While the Ukrainians have proven to be amazing fighters, Biden refuses to help them win. He gives them just enough to survive, while Russian missiles and tanks grind their country to dust.”
She is aware that her guy isn’t even going to give them enough to survive. You can’t attack someone for doing nothing if your lot intends to do less.
Her career was done when she dared attack Trump and didn't fold immediately like DeSantis. Which makes kowtowing like this just undignified.
I’m guessing she knows her only chance now is if Trump is out of the running through health issues then she needs to have the backing of the MAGAnuts to take his place but she’s also not alienated floaters by going Bigly for him.
Looking at him recently it’s not a wild idea that he might suffer some major health episode.
Sensible positioning on the small chance of Trump falling before the election.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Hmmm.
This is going to be a fascinating election, because right now the polls just feel off to me. I dont doubt that Labour are ahead by enough to get a decent working majority, and the Tories are in a very bad place.
BUT:
I am just not sure I can conceive of a situation where we will have a 25 point gap when push comes to shove. I simply can’t. 10 - most probably. 15? Yes, definitely a possibility. But that gap? I simply cannot see it.
But again - it would be a significantly bad polling failure to underestimate the Tory vote so severely.
So I remain intrigued.
This may not be wholly accurate as I haven't got the patience to count. But the last 100 or so (and probably more) opinion polls on Wiki show a Labour lead of between 15 (lowest) and 30 (highest) - let's say an average of 22.5, then. So if the polling is out it would be a catastrophic error by every polling company involved. If the "real" Labour lead was 5-10 points, surely some polls at least would show that?
Maybe folk are over-complicating it, and the average of those last 100 polls is about where we're at going in to the GE campaign.
I'm also of the view that movement back to the Tories is by no means inevitable. The possibility of an utterly chaotic Tory campaign could even lead to the polling gap widening. Don't underestimate the ability of the currently divided Tories to make a complete hash of it.
Do you really think such a result is possible? (Non-sarcastic question).
I do think more people ought to be at least contemplating the possibility. It would have profound implications. Not least, that fewer than a tenth of the PLP could breakwaway and instantly become the official Opposition...
Yes. I mentioned this to my mother yesterday and she wouldn't hear of it. Considered it to be dangerous hubris to even think it.
I'm sure she'll blame me if the campaign turns into a disaster for Labour.
"Watching her today made me realize what a cruel place we live in. I don't believe she deliberately set about trying to ruin the lives of innocent people but somehow we can't free ourselves from the ghoulish delight of public humiliation. Watching Alex Thompson of Ch4 News lifting her umbrella as she tried to leave the court so he could bully her further was almost unwatchable."
Roger being on the wrong side of a very clear moral question once again. Vennells is a scumbag who deserves to be scorned and humiliated for what she did. She might not have set out to deliberately ruin lives but she certainly made a point of deliberately igoring the fact they were being ruined and of putting the reputation of her sordid little company above the lives and wellbeing of those who worked for her.
Maybe Thompson should not have lifted the umbrella but Vennells deserves no hiding place for what she did. The best place for her to be if she dislikes being in the glare of public censure is inside a prison cell.
Yes, I thought the view of Vennells as a victim of bullying to be an odd one!
It's one of those things like where people regard someone being held to account to be vindictive. That reacting at all is an overreaction.
No. Not really. If you say it is okay for that to happen to her, where do your lines lie? At what point, and what action, does ot become unacceptable?
The holding to account is happening very well in the inquiry. This was an entitled scumbag 'journalist' being a scumbag.
Comments about Farage on this GB News video are pretty brutal
Think the penny might finally have dropped with this grifters fan base.
What reemerges from the wreckage of the right after this elecion will probably be much younger and more right wing.
Yes, mirroring what’s been seen in the US this year.
The very weird trend is that people are no longer trending right as they get older to the same extent as previously (possibly related to home ownership), but that the youngsters are trending right, possibly as a rebellion.
The young are trending right because young white men can see they are at the back of the queue for everything, behind every single minority, and all women; young white women are trending right because the city streets are becoming less safe for them, as we import people from more violent and/or patriarchal cultures, getting hissed at for wearing short skirts, etc
Go look at interviews with young French Le Pen supporters, if you need evidence
There's something about talking too much about identity that reinforces it. And not always in the way that you'd perhaps like.
But, I don't think young women are trending right - for now, they are very liberal/woke and that possibly increases the more men go the other way.
There’s a massive gender imbalance, young men are trending right and young women trending left.
Having a large group of dissatisfied young men, doesn’t generally work out too well for any country.
So... being right-wing a sign of dissatisfaction?
Dissatisfaction with the status quo, which is left-liberal.
But women are trending the other way, so the status quo is also conservative? Confusing.
Support for the status quo isn't a bad working definiton of small-c conservatism.
yeeeeesss, but you said the status quo is "left-liberal". So you seem to be saying that left-liberal-conservative is a single thing, which doesn't track to me.
Let's start again. You say men are turning right because they are dissatisfied with the left-liberal status quo. But if women are turning left, then what's the reason? It can't be because they are dissatisfied with the status quo, unless the status quo is conservative. I don't think it can be conservative AND left-liberal. So I'm not sure I understand at all what your model for political change is.
This needs better definition. Is left and right here social, economic, or something else? Who is moving? Is it a whole sex group moving as a rigid mass or is it smaller subgroups moving very radically? What are the moving relative to? I.e., are they just switching VI to parties and the parties are regarded as fixed points? Or if I supported Labour in 2017 and then again in 2024, have I moved right simply by definition of Labour having moved right?
These questions are vital if we want to interpret what's going on in an honest way. The methodology of the survey? study? should be understood before we jump to explanations.
Looks like I’m now in a genuine 3-way marginal which is exciting and confusing.
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33% LIB DEM 32% LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
Do you really think such a result is possible? (Non-sarcastic question).
I do think more people ought to be at least contemplating the possibility. It would have profound implications. Not least, that fewer than a tenth of the PLP could breakwaway and instantly become the official Opposition...
We really need fewer of this misplaced pedantry. Less than a tenth.
It's such a bloody long process. What additional is there to ponder that they have not had ample time to consider, versus what they had which was enough to arrest Murrell?
John Swinney was asked to defend under-fire Michael Matheson NINE times in 10 minutes as the SNP’s campaign launch was overshadowed by the iPad roaming bill scandal.
The Perthshire MSP spent much of the launch in Edinburgh explaining why he opposes the former health secretary’s suspension.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. I can't visualise how, but something might come up. I think the low bands (0-49 and 50-99) are about right so by elimination that makes the 100-199 batch a bit too short, if pushed mostly the 100-149 bands is perhaps too high at close to 30%. Once the Tories are below 150 seats is doesnt take much to move them down further below 100 and it doesnt matter much whether their lost votes go to Labour, LDs, Reform or just dont vote.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
BAXTERED, that gives Labour 527 seats with Tories and Libs scrapping it out on 44 each. I reckon all parties will be happy with that. Starmer gets a decent majority of over 400, and the Tories retain a solid base, meaning they can expect to be back in power in the first decade of the 22nd century
C'mon this is the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain we're talking about here. They've been ... I mean it's the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain, that's who we're talking about here. The Tories.
Do you really think such a result is possible? (Non-sarcastic question).
I honestly don't see why not.
The LDs would be the official opposition (44 to 43 seats) and nothing would ever be the same again.
Have we ever had an election where the possibilities are so wide? Serious number crunchers were arguing only recently that the 2nd May figures suggest the possibility of NoM (a minority view I happen to share) while the possibility of a Labour majority of 390 is also a completely rational prediction.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Hmmm.
This is going to be a fascinating election, because right now the polls just feel off to me. I dont doubt that Labour are ahead by enough to get a decent working majority, and the Tories are in a very bad place.
BUT:
I am just not sure I can conceive of a situation where we will have a 25 point gap when push comes to shove. I simply can’t. 10 - most probably. 15? Yes, definitely a possibility. But that gap? I simply cannot see it.
But again - it would be a significantly bad polling failure to underestimate the Tory vote so severely.
So I remain intrigued.
This may not be wholly accurate as I haven't got the patience to count. But the last 100 or so (and probably more) opinion polls on Wiki show a Labour lead of between 15 (lowest) and 30 (highest) - let's say an average of 22.5, then. So if the polling is out it would be a catastrophic error by every polling company involved. If the "real" Labour lead was 5-10 points, surely some polls at least would show that?
Maybe folk are over-complicating it, and the average of those last 100 polls is about where we're at going in to the GE campaign.
I'm also of the view that movement back to the Tories is by no means inevitable. The possibility of an utterly chaotic Tory campaign could even lead to the polling gap widening. Don't underestimate the ability of the currently divided Tories to make a complete hash of it.
I think the big Conservative blunder that's going to increase the Labour vote % even further than current polling suggests is the Conservatives are going to go hard on immigration and "Get Rwanda Done"
This offers absolutely nothing to moderate Conservatives who are concerned about the state of the economy and put off by right wing populism, while those types for whom immigration is an issue already feel completely betrayed by the Tories - who have done nothing about it despite 14 years in power - and will stick with Reform.
If the Conservatives go big on immigration, they will get stomped in July. After 14 years, they are like the Boy Who Cried Wolf on the immigration issue now, and we all know what E. Garak had to say about that particular story.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Hmmm.
This is going to be a fascinating election, because right now the polls just feel off to me. I dont doubt that Labour are ahead by enough to get a decent working majority, and the Tories are in a very bad place.
BUT:
I am just not sure I can conceive of a situation where we will have a 25 point gap when push comes to shove. I simply can’t. 10 - most probably. 15? Yes, definitely a possibility. But that gap? I simply cannot see it.
But again - it would be a significantly bad polling failure to underestimate the Tory vote so severely.
So I remain intrigued.
This may not be wholly accurate as I haven't got the patience to count. But the last 100 or so (and probably more) opinion polls on Wiki show a Labour lead of between 15 (lowest) and 30 (highest) - let's say an average of 22.5, then. So if the polling is out it would be a catastrophic error by every polling company involved. If the "real" Labour lead was 5-10 points, surely some polls at least would show that?
Maybe folk are over-complicating it, and the average of those last 100 polls is about where we're at going in to the GE campaign.
I'm also of the view that movement back to the Tories is by no means inevitable. The possibility of an utterly chaotic Tory campaign could even lead to the polling gap widening. Don't underestimate the ability of the currently divided Tories to make a complete hash of it.
I think this is fair bit of analysis and is pretty soundly based on the behaviour of the party to this point. The last couple of days have not painted Sunak as a gifted campaigner. Labour have seemed relatively disciplined, though I daresay they will have their own problems, but it would take something pretty epic and unexpected for the gap to close below ten points.
Looks like I’m now in a genuine 3-way marginal which is exciting and confusing.
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33% LIB DEM 32% LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
Labour have not got more than 22.2% here and have no candidate in place yet. Its LD vs Con, 16.5% swing required with about 20% Lab and Green to squeeze
I refer you to the first post of this thread and the limit on the number of embedded photos.
You need to clarify the distinction between embedded and linked
And you, the distinction between one and more than one.
Thus far my embedded photo count stands at zero
No it doesn't.
Any embed either via Vanilla or via a website link counts as an embed.
Vanilla overall sees it as an image then eventually starts shrinking/blurring all photos.
That makes zero sense - but hey it's Vanilla and a lot of the things they do make no sense.
Indeed, they didn't tell us they were hiding the view likes, it was only thanks to BenPointer having a look on the Vanilla website that he made me aware of the fix.
Don't tell me - if you want to have lots of people posting lots of the photos, you have to pay Vanilla lots of money?
With this new system, the pressure is certainly now on to find a decent photo every day
Being lawyerly, what about videos?
Can I post my N+1 photo to Youtube for 5 seconds?
(You are safe from 5s of Agnetha in electric blue pedal pushers and silver Rishi Boots, as I have already had two bollards today.)
How likely is it that the polls narrow significantly before July 4th? Well, historically, campaigns make little to no difference. This message might not be well-received in Downing Street, but if we judge campaign impact as movement in the polls from the point of announcement to polling day, Mr. Sunak’s chips are cooked. The evidence is stark: in UK general elections since 1992, the average change in the Conservative/Labour lead during the campaign has been just under four percentage points. Reminder: he currently trails by 22 points.
Famously though, the change during the campaign has occasionally been much higher. When Theresa May called her snap election in 2017 her party was, on average, eighteen points ahead in the polls, but by the final days of the campaign her lead had shrunk by almost two thirds. The eventual results were even worse, and cost May her majority. But everyone agrees her campaign was apocalyptically bad – and 2017 should be considered a monumental outlier as far as this analysis is concerned.
So the Tories romping back to the front of this horserace based on a highly effective campaign? Not likely, and probably even less so with the generally unimpressive campaigner that the Prime Minister is seen to be at the helm.
Just 3 weeks until postal ballots go out, and most get returned quickly. Disproportionately older voters I suspect, with some younger holidaymakers etc, so votes that could break the Tory core vote.
It's the next 3-4 weeks that Sunak has. If no progress by then he is Toasty Mctoastface.
John Curtice reckons a Lab lead of Less Than 12 on new boundaries is a NOM result
He thinks a 42-31 lead means NOM? Respectfully, that can't be Curtice's considered opinion. Even under UNS, but more importantly, Labour will not be taking 85% in random Islamic / student districts of core cities this time, they'll be winning by 3% in normal places in the Midlands.
John Curtice reckons a Lab lead of Less Than 12 on new boundaries is a NOM result
I'm not so sure about that - if the Tories are on 35% that may be true but below a certain percentage say 25/27% and the Tory seats will just drain away..
After his rain-soaked launch, Rishi Sunak has so far today: - asked Welsh workers if they're looking forward to 'all the football' [not realising Wales not in Euro2024] - had 2 Tory cllrs cosplaying as members of public to ask him Qs
It's only Day 2.
Football doesn't seem to be such a big part of football as it used to be, does it? In the 90s and noughties, the football team the PM supported was an important fact that everyone had to know. There may have been an Only Connect round on it - Chelsea, Newcastle United, Raith Rovers, Aston Villa. But who did TMay suuport? Boris? Rishi? I couldn't say.
Which is probably healthy, really. Nothing* intrinsically wrong with football, but it strikes me as daft that our favourite football teams should be an important factor about us. (I couldn't say what any PM's favourite county cricket team or rugby team is, with the exception of Major at Surrey, and nor would I expect to be able to.)
*Actually lots, but let's not go into that now.
Sunak supports Southampton.
I wonder if he will be at the playoff final this weekend.
Leeds lads will give him a warm welcome
I coach a local U7 team; we have a couple of lads in Leeds Academy too. One of them, just getting started last year, used to bawl his eyes out lying on the floor whenever he was on the losing team - first time it happened I thought he'd got some kind of bad injury that I'd missed! As his mum put it (last season), "he's a Leeds Utd fan, he'll have to learn how to cope with losing!"
Good to see them back in the mix for top flight next year.
LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS!!!
Not that I'm particularly a fan of football, but it would be nice for them to go back up. I was touched by how happy my mate was to have got a ticket for the final.
You might know this - for the second leg against Norwich at Elland Road they put a scarf on each home fan's seat - apparently it was an amazing site to see them all held aloft.
Yes I'd rather Sheff Wed but Leeds back in the top flight would be good to see.
One of my favourite things about football (let's give the sport some credit for a change) has been its, on the whole, stubborn refusal to go in for the Americanisation of team names. You don't make the game any more exciting or get any more supporters for changing the name for Hull City to Hull Tigers (a proposal which was happily kicked firmly into the long grass) nor Bradford Northern to Bradford Bulls. It is marketing, change for change's sake, and I am suspicious of both, so well done to football for keeping this sort of thing to an absolute minimum. (I still lament slightly every time I hear the name Leicester City that they saw fit to change from the singular and excellent Leicester Fosse.) But even in this stolidly conservative field, Sheffield Wednesday is worth celebrating. It does not claim to be a wild animal, nor celebrate the virtues of togetherness, nor imply any sort of sporting ability, nor commemorate any martial connection, nor even note civic status. It doesn't even point to an obscure bit of geography. It simply celebrates a day of the week. Arguably the most boring day of the week. A name to baffle Americans, and who could not get behind that? (Obviously it would be even better with their previous name of 'The Wednesday', as if Wednesday could ever meaningfully have a definite article. But still.)
A great name for a great old club. My dad used to take me to home games. We saw Wednesday play (and lose to) the famous Matt Busby Man U and "Bestie" scored two and made one. Now, due to living so long in London, and mainly North London, I support Arsenal. I still have a soft spot for The Owls but it's nothing like it was. I don't even always remember to look for their result at the weekend. That's loss of roots and identity in a nutshell right there. Arsenal ffs.
A lovely paragraph. A Kingsley Amis short story on the ambiguities of belinging right there.
My Dad really felt this, it affects people who move from the working classes to the middle classes acutely, eg Kinabalu. And my Dad
My late father would always tell the story of how he came down from his first term at Oxford to the then-humble family home in Carnkie, in the mining heart of Cornwall, and he asked his Dad to listen to some music my Dad had come to love at Uni. It was Mahler. His father, my grandfather, a carpenter - a generation from the mines - listened to about seven bars and walked out, without a word. And thus a gulf emerged between father and son, never to be bridged
My Dad said he felt forever lost between the two worlds, his working class background and his new upper middle class milieu, never quite belonging in both. He found it very hard to make male friends all his life. Was fine shagging women
I don't suffer from it. I am one of T May's citizens of the world, I float dreamily and boozily about, quite nomadic, and wherever I lay my hat is my hat laying place
He’s been readopted and planned to stand. Health issues. Wish him well. He’s a decent guy.
To me it sounds like very unfortunate timing for Kevan, a operation where he would likely be up and going come October but leaves him in an impossible situation given the election is now early July
I don't think betting markets predict turnout well. Good quality evidence to the contrary is welcome.
The non-response bias is very difficult for them with that. If less than 2%, or whatever, of people contacted for a poll respond, then clearly the people less likely to bother to turnout will be less likely to respond to the poll.
They can mostly get shares for the various parties approximately right, because the highly motivated to respond to polls are roughly equally distributed among the different parties support, and you can correct for bias to an extent with demographic data and past vote.
I don't think they have so much to go on for turnout.
Edit: Oh. You said betting markets not opinion polls. D'oh! I don't know about that.
John Curtice reckons a Lab lead of Less Than 12 on new boundaries is a NOM result
I'm not sure I want it that close. If the Dismal Decline Manager isn't snapped up by Silicon Valley he might get it into his head to try to hang on as LOTO. I couldn't bear watching PMQs apart from anything else.
Looks like I’m now in a genuine 3-way marginal which is exciting and confusing.
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33% LIB DEM 32% LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
Labour have not got more than 22.2% here and have no candidate in place yet. Its LD vs Con, 16.5% swing required with about 20% Lab and Green to squeeze
Looks like I’m now in a genuine 3-way marginal which is exciting and confusing.
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33% LIB DEM 32% LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
Labour have not got more than 22.2% here and have no candidate in place yet. Its LD vs Con, 16.5% swing required with about 20% Lab and Green to squeeze
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I can't work out if the Tories will win 200 seats or 20... and it won't take much for them to get either result...
Oh Senor Milei has been having lots of fun, to the point where Spain has withdrawn its amabassador to Argentina for Milei calling the Spanish PMs wife corrupt.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
BAXTERED, that gives Labour 527 seats with Tories and Libs scrapping it out on 44 each. I reckon all parties will be happy with that. Starmer gets a decent majority of over 400, and the Tories retain a solid base, meaning they can expect to be back in power in the first decade of the 22nd century
C'mon this is the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain we're talking about here. They've been ... I mean it's the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain, that's who we're talking about here. The Tories.
Don't give a fuck. Want them gone for the immigration disaster alone. It is beyond a disaster. They have wrought a fucking catastrophe, like a wartime defeat, and I want them hurled into eternal perdition and oblivion, even if the price we pay is ten years of dreadful Labour governance
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. I can't visualise how, but something might come up. I think the low bands (0-49 and 50-99) are about right so by elimination that makes the 100-199 batch a bit too short, if pushed mostly the 100-149 bands is perhaps too high at close to 30%. Once the Tories are below 150 seats is doesnt take much to move them down further below 100 and it doesnt matter much whether their lost votes go to Labour, LDs, Reform or just dont vote.
Agree. I am on this with small amounts. What can be fairly said, I think, is that this election offers an awful lot of value on the betting market. The only problem, as so often, is knowing where it is.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I can't work out if the Tories will win 200 seats or 20... and it won't take much for them to get either result...
It's about an additional 11% swing to go from 200 to 20 so 41-30 to 52-19 for example
John Curtice reckons a Lab lead of Less Than 12 on new boundaries is a NOM result
I'm not sure I want it that close. If the Dismal Decline Manager isn't snapped up by Silicon Valley he might get it into his head to try to hang on as LOTO. I couldn't bear watching PMQs apart from anything else.
Unless the Tories are largest party but lose due to an agreement between other parties I cannot see him successfully staying on.
I don't think parties really give second chances anymore. Corbyn managed only due to exceeding expectations so much.
Rishi coukd exceed low expectations, but if he still loses I think he's gone regardless.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I'm really not sure. I feel like this election is more uncertain than many because both party leaders are so unpopular.
I think their aggregate unpopularity is probably a massive record.
I think Tories around 100 seats is plausible, but Tories near 300 seats is too.
The footnotes at the end. Davey publicly defended the barrister being accused of dodginess when allegations were made. I agree with the footnotes: It's not clear why he felt any loyalty given the situation. There's no reason to believe he was involved or profiting from the 'avoidance' scheme, it was probably naivete and a reflexive defensiveness which comes from being in politics and getting used to bad faith attacks as a matter of course.
And the thing is Robert Venables was infamous for given favourable opinions on dodgy tax avoidance schemes.
I used to joke elsewhere that his opinion related to the lunch he was given rather than the scheme it supposedly was connected to because even I could see through the scheme in 30 seconds.
You also have to remember that because Ed Davey was working with these people there will be people who signed up for the scheme because an MP was "championing their work"
The letter is from Davey in his capacity as chair of the APPG, isn't it?
And if so, is there actually anything to suggest that he did anything personally? Or is it the case that the whole group was responsible for defending Manley?
All he needs are Baxters soup and Mackies ice cream to get the 2014 No party back together.
Don’t forget Sir Ian Wood to tell us that NS oil is a diminishing, low value resource that would in fact be a burden to an Indy Scotland. Could be a lordship in it..
Looks like I’m now in a genuine 3-way marginal which is exciting and confusing.
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33% LIB DEM 32% LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
Labour have not got more than 22.2% here and have no candidate in place yet. Its LD vs Con, 16.5% swing required with about 20% Lab and Green to squeeze
Gut feeling - Con Hold
Interesting. Where is here please?
Newton Abbott that you posted about
Oh. But it has the new constituency boundaries so I’m giving you the Electoral Calculus take on it. Actually I gave you probabilities of winning. On vote share it looks even tighter
After his rain-soaked launch, Rishi Sunak has so far today: - asked Welsh workers if they're looking forward to 'all the football' [not realising Wales not in Euro2024] - had 2 Tory cllrs cosplaying as members of public to ask him Qs
It's only Day 2.
Football doesn't seem to be such a big part of football as it used to be, does it? In the 90s and noughties, the football team the PM supported was an important fact that everyone had to know. There may have been an Only Connect round on it - Chelsea, Newcastle United, Raith Rovers, Aston Villa. But who did TMay suuport? Boris? Rishi? I couldn't say.
Which is probably healthy, really. Nothing* intrinsically wrong with football, but it strikes me as daft that our favourite football teams should be an important factor about us. (I couldn't say what any PM's favourite county cricket team or rugby team is, with the exception of Major at Surrey, and nor would I expect to be able to.)
*Actually lots, but let's not go into that now.
Sunak supports Southampton.
I wonder if he will be at the playoff final this weekend.
Leeds lads will give him a warm welcome
I coach a local U7 team; we have a couple of lads in Leeds Academy too. One of them, just getting started last year, used to bawl his eyes out lying on the floor whenever he was on the losing team - first time it happened I thought he'd got some kind of bad injury that I'd missed! As his mum put it (last season), "he's a Leeds Utd fan, he'll have to learn how to cope with losing!"
Good to see them back in the mix for top flight next year.
LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS!!!
Not that I'm particularly a fan of football, but it would be nice for them to go back up. I was touched by how happy my mate was to have got a ticket for the final.
You might know this - for the second leg against Norwich at Elland Road they put a scarf on each home fan's seat - apparently it was an amazing site to see them all held aloft.
Yes I'd rather Sheff Wed but Leeds back in the top flight would be good to see.
One of my favourite things about football (let's give the sport some credit for a change) has been its, on the whole, stubborn refusal to go in for the Americanisation of team names. You don't make the game any more exciting or get any more supporters for changing the name for Hull City to Hull Tigers (a proposal which was happily kicked firmly into the long grass) nor Bradford Northern to Bradford Bulls. It is marketing, change for change's sake, and I am suspicious of both, so well done to football for keeping this sort of thing to an absolute minimum. (I still lament slightly every time I hear the name Leicester City that they saw fit to change from the singular and excellent Leicester Fosse.) But even in this stolidly conservative field, Sheffield Wednesday is worth celebrating. It does not claim to be a wild animal, nor celebrate the virtues of togetherness, nor imply any sort of sporting ability, nor commemorate any martial connection, nor even note civic status. It doesn't even point to an obscure bit of geography. It simply celebrates a day of the week. Arguably the most boring day of the week. A name to baffle Americans, and who could not get behind that? (Obviously it would be even better with their previous name of 'The Wednesday', as if Wednesday could ever meaningfully have a definite article. But still.)
Leicester Fosse (named for Fosse Way where the original ground was) became Leicester City in 1920 when Leicester became officially a City. There was a proposal by the Thai owners a decade or so ago to change it back, but it didn't happen. Our black away strip with the turquoise diagonal sash is an update of the original Leicester Fosse strip.
I don't know how I feel about this. While I lament the original name change, is 100 years a long enough time that I would consider the changing of the name back change for change's sake? Or is it an overdue return to the 'right' name? What's the view in Leicester?
My team - Stockport County - has its surname for the town's status as a county borough, a status which has had no currency for the past 50 years. I'm obscurely pleased with this.
Fans preferred to stick with Leicester City.
Fosse means ditch btw. Fosse Way is a Roman road, perhaps originally a defensive ditch from Exeter to Lincoln.
The original team nickname was "The Fossils" !
Fosse rhymes with doss, dross, floss, toss ... the opposition fans would love it.
Oh Senor Milei has been having lots of fun, to the point where Spain has withdrawn its amabassador to Argentina for Milei calling the Spanish PMs wife corrupt.
Theres much more mileage in this
Zelensky is far better at playing a president than Jack Black is.
Looks like I’m now in a genuine 3-way marginal which is exciting and confusing.
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33% LIB DEM 32% LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
Labour have not got more than 22.2% here and have no candidate in place yet. Its LD vs Con, 16.5% swing required with about 20% Lab and Green to squeeze
Gut feeling - Con Hold
Interesting. Where is here please?
Newton Abbott that you posted about
Oh. But it has the new constituency boundaries so I’m giving you the Electoral Calculus take on it. Actually I gave you probabilities of winning. On vote share it looks even tighter
My comments stand
Edit - new boundaries are almost identical, less than 0.1% effect on votes
It's why I've been calling the 'Ukraine should give territory for peace!' shits appeasers.
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I can't work out if the Tories will win 200 seats or 20... and it won't take much for them to get either result...
It's about an additional 11% swing to go from 200 to 20 so 41-30 to 52-19 for example
With UNS, yes.
The big important unknown is how efficiently LibLab votes sort themselves. That's hard to tell, and pretty much out of the Conservative Party's hands.
But it's pretty much impossible to model that effect in polling. However, the results of the last few rounds of locals (big seat gains on relatively meh vote shares) are ominous for the Conservatives.
And the next spike on the torture device they willingly walked into is that plans to rally the right (eg. Get Rwanda Done) unite the left against them as well. Ouch.
Just been pondering the 1906 election where the Tories lost nearly 250 seats. In that election their leader suffered a 22.5% swing to lose his seat. Suspect that given current polling numbers this election is the best shot of something similar occurring again to have come along in a while.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I can't work out if the Tories will win 200 seats or 20... and it won't take much for them to get either result...
This is exactly it.
I suspect 200. But a very bad night could see them on 150.
I just… if it goes beyond that we’re into serious one party state territory (I’m being flippant, but seriously, what Starmer says goes). And while I absolutely agree that FPTP can throw up these weird results - no reason it can’t - it would be seismic.
Maybe I’m shoving my head in the sand and ignoring the signs. I have just never felt so uncertain about a GE result before.
It's why I've been calling the 'Ukraine should give territory for peace!' shits appeasers.
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
Putin is right about Woke, tho. And he's quite good on Russian medieval history. Swings and roundabouts, innit
"...The upcoming election in the UK is expected to result in a decisive defeat for the Conservative Party. There is speculation that they may even receive fewer than 100 seats, reflecting the public's weariness and contempt for the Tories. This election will deliver a clear verdict on the Conservatives' 14-year rule, but it will not signify a realignment in British politics.
In the previous election in 2019, the Tories successfully tapped into a realignment of voters by focusing on Brexit, leveling up the North and Midlands, and controlling immigration. However, they failed to follow through on these promises, leading to disillusionment among voters.
The refusal of the political and media class to accept this realignment has created a gap in British politics. There is a demand for a nationalist, anti-globalist, culturally traditionalist, and left-wing party, which is currently unrepresented. On the other hand, there is an overcrowding of parties offering a different position.
After the election, the Conservative Party will need to either accept the new alignment and move away from free markets or face the possibility of splitting or being replaced by a new populist right-wing force. A Labour government with a large majority will also face challenges as it disappoints its supporters and fails to address the issues that drive the new alignment.
The election and the subsequent Parliament will mark the end of the political era shaped by Thatcher and Blair, with new alternatives expected to emerge in the next Parliament..."
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
LAB down one and CON up 1. The swing back starts here.
This election will be a good test of swingback theory.
There's no substantive reason why the gap should narrow, and absent blackish swans we should finish up with about 20 points between the two main parties. If it is much less, swingback theory holds.
It's why I've been calling the 'Ukraine should give territory for peace!' shits appeasers.
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
Putin is right about Woke, tho. And he's quite good on Russian medieval history. Swings and roundabouts, innit
He's also illegally occupying bits of Georgia (Abkhazia, South Ossetia), Moldova (Transnistria), and Japan (South Kuril islands).
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
Less than 100 seats is considered unthinkable but a 27% chance on the betting markets. In terms of the betting markets I am not sure that is particularly value either way. In terms of informed commentariat opinion, i.e. if we could bet against the likes of Curtice and his methodology then yes the very low side is seriously underrated.
The footnotes at the end. Davey publicly defended the barrister being accused of dodginess when allegations were made. I agree with the footnotes: It's not clear why he felt any loyalty given the situation. There's no reason to believe he was involved or profiting from the 'avoidance' scheme, it was probably naivete and a reflexive defensiveness which comes from being in politics and getting used to bad faith attacks as a matter of course.
And the thing is Robert Venables was infamous for given favourable opinions on dodgy tax avoidance schemes.
I used to joke elsewhere that his opinion related to the lunch he was given rather than the scheme it supposedly was connected to because even I could see through the scheme in 30 seconds.
You also have to remember that because Ed Davey was working with these people there will be people who signed up for the scheme because an MP was "championing their work"
The letter is from Davey in his capacity as chair of the APPG, isn't it?
And if so, is there actually anything to suggest that he did anything personally? Or is it the case that the whole group was responsible for defending Manley?
All Davey's Xmases have come at once with the GE date. He is due to give evidence to the post office inquiry on July 18.
It's why I've been calling the 'Ukraine should give territory for peace!' shits appeasers.
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
Putin is right about Woke, tho. And he's quite good on Russian medieval history. Swings and roundabouts, innit
Perhaps when his terms of office ends (no jokes please) he could take up a career as a college professor.
Just been pondering the 1906 election where the Tories lost nearly 250 seats. In that election their leader suffered a 22.5% swing to lose his seat. Suspect that given current polling numbers this election is the best shot of something similar occurring again to have come along in a while.
Yeah, I've been thinking about 1906 a bit, too. Was the last election where the Liberals won an outright majority before being gradually replaced by the Labour Party over the next 18 years and was just 8 years before WW1.
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · 9h The REAL reason Sunak panicked into calling a snap election will come out very shortly
OOOHH
Attention-seeking vagueness implying something juicy that probably doesn't exist.
Peston did something similar yesterday, but about something else.
Absolutely despise these attention seeking, engagement farming, twats who post stuff like this. ‘I know something you don’t. I won’t tell you what it is. Only that I know’
It's why I've been calling the 'Ukraine should give territory for peace!' shits appeasers.
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
Putin is right about Woke, tho. And he's quite good on Russian medieval history. Swings and roundabouts, innit
LOL. His understanding of 'Russian medieval history' is interesting, and you might class it as good. AIUI it is not accurate though. And that matters.
As for woke: even *if* you take woke as existing, or being important; I'm sure having Russian soldiers mistreat your female friends and family members would be fine as they're doing it in the name of not being 'woke'; in fact, the abuse is quite anti-woke...
What barbarity wouldn't you condone in your anti-wokeness?
It's why I've been calling the 'Ukraine should give territory for peace!' shits appeasers.
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
Putin is right about Woke, tho. And he's quite good on Russian medieval history. Swings and roundabouts, innit
If you are on the side of Putin, you really need to rethink your views on "Woke".
It's almost certain that he is on the wrong side of the argument. Listen to your daughters.
After his rain-soaked launch, Rishi Sunak has so far today: - asked Welsh workers if they're looking forward to 'all the football' [not realising Wales not in Euro2024] - had 2 Tory cllrs cosplaying as members of public to ask him Qs
It's only Day 2.
Football doesn't seem to be such a big part of football as it used to be, does it? In the 90s and noughties, the football team the PM supported was an important fact that everyone had to know. There may have been an Only Connect round on it - Chelsea, Newcastle United, Raith Rovers, Aston Villa. But who did TMay suuport? Boris? Rishi? I couldn't say.
Which is probably healthy, really. Nothing* intrinsically wrong with football, but it strikes me as daft that our favourite football teams should be an important factor about us. (I couldn't say what any PM's favourite county cricket team or rugby team is, with the exception of Major at Surrey, and nor would I expect to be able to.)
*Actually lots, but let's not go into that now.
Sunak supports Southampton.
I wonder if he will be at the playoff final this weekend.
Leeds lads will give him a warm welcome
I coach a local U7 team; we have a couple of lads in Leeds Academy too. One of them, just getting started last year, used to bawl his eyes out lying on the floor whenever he was on the losing team - first time it happened I thought he'd got some kind of bad injury that I'd missed! As his mum put it (last season), "he's a Leeds Utd fan, he'll have to learn how to cope with losing!"
Good to see them back in the mix for top flight next year.
LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS!!!
Not that I'm particularly a fan of football, but it would be nice for them to go back up. I was touched by how happy my mate was to have got a ticket for the final.
You might know this - for the second leg against Norwich at Elland Road they put a scarf on each home fan's seat - apparently it was an amazing site to see them all held aloft.
Yes I'd rather Sheff Wed but Leeds back in the top flight would be good to see.
One of my favourite things about football (let's give the sport some credit for a change) has been its, on the whole, stubborn refusal to go in for the Americanisation of team names. You don't make the game any more exciting or get any more supporters for changing the name for Hull City to Hull Tigers (a proposal which was happily kicked firmly into the long grass) nor Bradford Northern to Bradford Bulls. It is marketing, change for change's sake, and I am suspicious of both, so well done to football for keeping this sort of thing to an absolute minimum. (I still lament slightly every time I hear the name Leicester City that they saw fit to change from the singular and excellent Leicester Fosse.) But even in this stolidly conservative field, Sheffield Wednesday is worth celebrating. It does not claim to be a wild animal, nor celebrate the virtues of togetherness, nor imply any sort of sporting ability, nor commemorate any martial connection, nor even note civic status. It doesn't even point to an obscure bit of geography. It simply celebrates a day of the week. Arguably the most boring day of the week. A name to baffle Americans, and who could not get behind that? (Obviously it would be even better with their previous name of 'The Wednesday', as if Wednesday could ever meaningfully have a definite article. But still.)
A great name for a great old club. My dad used to take me to home games. We saw Wednesday play (and lose to) the famous Matt Busby Man U and "Bestie" scored two and made one. Now, due to living so long in London, and mainly North London, I support Arsenal. I still have a soft spot for The Owls but it's nothing like it was. I don't even always remember to look for their result at the weekend. That's loss of roots and identity in a nutshell right there. Arsenal ffs.
A lovely paragraph. A Kingsley Amis short story on the ambiguities of belinging right there.
My Dad really felt this, it affects people who move from the working classes to the middle classes acutely, eg Kinabalu. And my Dad
My late father would always tell the story of how he came down from his first term at Oxford to the then-humble family home in Carnkie, in the mining heart of Cornwall, and he asked his Dad to listen to some music my Dad had come to love at Uni. It was Mahler. His father, my grandfather, a carpenter - a generation from the mines - listened to about seven bars and walked out, without a word. And thus a gulf emerged between father and son, never to be bridged
My Dad said he felt forever lost between the two worlds, his working class background and his new upper middle class milieu, never quite belonging in both. He found it very hard to make male friends all his life. Was fine shagging women
I don't suffer from it. I am one of T May's citizens of the world, I float dreamily and boozily about, quite nomadic, and wherever I lay my hat is my hat laying place
Thank you. Yes I have shed one thing but not discovered any replacement for it. I guess rather than class or place my identity has become defined by my elevated political sensibility. I'm a progressive. Not just in what I think, it's more than that now. It's what I am.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Hmmm.
This is going to be a fascinating election, because right now the polls just feel off to me. I dont doubt that Labour are ahead by enough to get a decent working majority, and the Tories are in a very bad place.
BUT:
I am just not sure I can conceive of a situation where we will have a 25 point gap when push comes to shove. I simply can’t. 10 - most probably. 15? Yes, definitely a possibility. But that gap? I simply cannot see it.
But again - it would be a significantly bad polling failure to underestimate the Tory vote so severely.
So I remain intrigued.
Yup. That's why I'm worried.
Pro: It is entirely possible, given Con's colossal fuckups and the resurgence of Reform, that the Conservatives will die like dogs. Evidence: polls, byelections, Sunak leader ratings, possibly the local elections.
Anti: it is entirely possible that Labour is overrated and the Conservatives, whilst still losing, may cut it back to a smaller deficit. Evidence: known problems with panel polling, Starmer leader ratings, possibly the local elections.
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · 9h The REAL reason Sunak panicked into calling a snap election will come out very shortly
OOOHH
Attention-seeking vagueness implying something juicy that probably doesn't exist.
Peston did something similar yesterday, but about something else.
Absolutely despise these attention seeking, engagement farming, twats who post stuff like this. ‘I know something you don’t. I won’t tell you what it is. Only that I know’
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
Less than 100 seats is considered unthinkable but a 27% chance on the betting markets. In terms of the betting markets I am not sure that is particularly value either way. In terms of informed commentariat opinion, i.e. if we could bet against the likes of Curtice and his methodology then yes the very low side is seriously underrated.
If you fancy the Tories under 100 seats and consider 27% ungenerous, you might prefer Lab on 500+ (14 to 1 with Skybet) - strikes me as a not dissimilar bet with much better odds. (I am on this, FWIW)
He’s been readopted and planned to stand. Health issues. Wish him well. He’s a decent guy.
To me it sounds like very unfortunate timing for Kevan, a operation where he would likely be up and going come October but leaves him in an impossible situation given the election is now early July
Yes, it looks like the case.
He will be a big loss to the constituency. What’s clear from Facebook responses is he’s helped an awful lot of people. I remember when a young lad killed himself at the railway station during COVID the family saying what a big help he had been. That sort of thing transcends tribal party politics.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I'm really not sure. I feel like this election is more uncertain than many because both party leaders are so unpopular.
I think their aggregate unpopularity is probably a massive record.
I think Tories around 100 seats is plausible, but Tories near 300 seats is too.
The difference with ‘97 is that people were genuinely enthusiastic about the Labour leader, now he’s the “not the Tory” leader. While the Conservatives are as unpopular now as they were then they have a poorer campaigner as leader. They’re heading out the window, the only question is from which floor.
Rishi gives SKS a 25 point start as he fires the gun (according to YG)
Tories +1?
THE FIGHTBACK STARTS HERE!
If they maintain that every working day then it will be a dead heat by election day. When will the betfair markets realise?
Careful, you might be spoiling my next article! Or not, in this case. But you never know...
I do think there is probably some value on the Tories doing much better than expected especially in terms of seats. .
It’s equally perfectly possible that the polls are right, the general feeling of utter disdain for them is correct, and that they are going to do MUCH worse.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
I can't work out if the Tories will win 200 seats or 20... and it won't take much for them to get either result...
This is exactly it.
I suspect 200. But a very bad night could see them on 150.
I just… if it goes beyond that we’re into serious one party state territory (I’m being flippant, but seriously, what Starmer says goes). And while I absolutely agree that FPTP can throw up these weird results - no reason it can’t - it would be seismic.
Maybe I’m shoving my head in the sand and ignoring the signs. I have just never felt so uncertain about a GE result before.
I wonder whether some of the uncertainty is simply that we refuse to believe what the polls are telling us?
In part this is for good reason because of the experience of 2017, when the Tories had the sort of leads they Labour have now. But still. How confident can you be in opinion polls that predict something completely unprecedented?
If the polls were pointing to a close result we wouldn't doubt them so much.
Comments
How likely is it that the polls narrow significantly before July 4th? Well, historically, campaigns make little to no difference. This message might not be well-received in Downing Street, but if we judge campaign impact as movement in the polls from the point of announcement to polling day, Mr. Sunak’s chips are cooked. The evidence is stark: in UK general elections since 1992, the average change in the Conservative/Labour lead during the campaign has been just under four percentage points. Reminder: he currently trails by 22 points.
Famously though, the change during the campaign has occasionally been much higher. When Theresa May called her snap election in 2017 her party was, on average, eighteen points ahead in the polls, but by the final days of the campaign her lead had shrunk by almost two thirds. The eventual results were even worse, and cost May her majority. But everyone agrees her campaign was apocalyptically bad – and 2017 should be considered a monumental outlier as far as this analysis is concerned.
So the Tories romping back to the front of this horserace based on a highly effective campaign? Not likely, and probably even less so with the generally unimpressive campaigner that the Prime Minister is seen to be at the helm.
It is invidious that such a person be held in anything less than High Regard. All that she did was to fiddle with the lives of some of The Head Count. Not Real People. NPCs, really.
Some years ago, I was at a garden party where the then Home Sec was present. Had a few words about the scandal of the day - Rotherham. A flunky to the Home Sec was appalled at my suggestion that, since the people in charge had proudly declared they had got rid of the evidence against themselves, that the Home Sec should simply put those responsible on the various registries of people who were a danger to children.
Apparently, I didn't understand how hard working and wonderful these people were.
Will Rishi (or Reform) go with Waterloo?
"I feel like I win when I loo-oose ! Waterloo ..."
Plus someone gets to wear electric blue, flared, just below the knee pedal-pushers, with silver platform boots.
Is this the next Trouser Innovation?
I think
LAB 38%
CON32%
LD 11%
Reform 5%
Green 8%
But thats gonna need a bad campaign by SKS and a good one by the Blue team and would still lead to PM SKS by 56
It would have profound implications.
Not least, that fewer than a tenth of the PLP could breakwaway and instantly become the official Opposition...
Looking at him recently it’s not a wild idea that he might suffer some major health episode.
Sensible positioning on the small chance of Trump falling before the election.
Maybe folk are over-complicating it, and the average of those last 100 polls is about where we're at going in to the GE campaign.
I'm also of the view that movement back to the Tories is by no means inevitable. The possibility of an utterly chaotic Tory campaign could even lead to the polling gap widening. Don't underestimate the ability of the currently divided Tories to make a complete hash of it.
Crown also confirms investigations still ongoing into Nicola Sturgeon and Colin Beattie
https://x.com/KieranPAndrews/status/1793680277744857399
I'm sure she'll blame me if the campaign turns into a disaster for Labour.
The holding to account is happening very well in the inquiry. This was an entitled scumbag 'journalist' being a scumbag.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/23/javier-milei-sings-punk-rock-in-leather-coat-at-book-launch/
John Curtice reckons a Lab lead of Less Than 12 on new boundaries is a NOM result
Let's start again. You say men are turning right because they are dissatisfied with the left-liberal status quo.
But if women are turning left, then what's the reason? It can't be because they are dissatisfied with the status quo, unless the status quo is conservative. I don't think it can be conservative AND left-liberal. So I'm not sure I understand at all what your model for political change is.
This needs better definition. Is left and right here social, economic, or something else? Who is moving? Is it a whole sex group moving as a rigid mass or is it smaller subgroups moving very radically? What are the moving relative to? I.e., are they just switching VI to parties and the parties are regarded as fixed points? Or if I supported Labour in 2017 and then again in 2024, have I moved right simply by definition of Labour having moved right?
These questions are vital if we want to interpret what's going on in an honest way. The methodology of the survey? study? should be understood before we jump to explanations.
The SC, coincidentally I am sure, have made it much harder to prosecute people for corruption unless literally caught in the act apparently.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/22/menendez-corruption-trial-prosecutors-00159557
Newton Abbot.
Electoral Calculus has it:
CON 33%
LIB DEM 32%
LAB 33%
I’ll be frank: I have insufficient inside knowledge to give you any tips at the moment. As you know, I tipped Woking Council to turn yellow which it did and I suspect some very good LibDem results in Surrey but I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in Newton Abbot constituency.
I think it fairly close to the mark.
https://x.com/United24media/status/1793069765084508455
The Perthshire MSP spent much of the launch in Edinburgh explaining why he opposes the former health secretary’s suspension.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/scottish-politics/4989964/john-swinney-michael-matheson-ipad-election/
Have we ever had an election where the possibilities are so wide? Serious number crunchers were arguing only recently that the 2nd May figures suggest the possibility of NoM (a minority view I happen to share) while the possibility of a Labour majority of 390 is also a completely rational prediction.
I predicted 160 seats but I suspect that’s very generous.
Value may lie in the unthinkable.
This offers absolutely nothing to moderate Conservatives who are concerned about the state of the economy and put off by right wing populism, while those types for whom immigration is an issue already feel completely betrayed by the Tories - who have done nothing about it despite 14 years in power - and will stick with Reform.
If the Conservatives go big on immigration, they will get stomped in July. After 14 years, they are like the Boy Who Cried Wolf on the immigration issue now, and we all know what E. Garak had to say about that particular story.
@IsabelOakeshott
·
9h
The REAL reason Sunak panicked into calling a snap election will come out very shortly
OOOHH
Its LD vs Con, 16.5% swing required with about 20% Lab and Green to squeeze
Gut feeling - Con Hold
Can I post my N+1 photo to Youtube for 5 seconds?
(You are safe from 5s of Agnetha in electric blue pedal pushers and silver Rishi Boots, as I have already had two bollards today.)
It's the next 3-4 weeks that Sunak has. If no progress by then he is Toasty Mctoastface.
My Dad really felt this, it affects people who move from the working classes to the middle classes acutely, eg Kinabalu. And my Dad
My late father would always tell the story of how he came down from his first term at Oxford to the then-humble family home in Carnkie, in the mining heart of Cornwall, and he asked his Dad to listen to some music my Dad had come to love at Uni. It was Mahler. His father, my grandfather, a carpenter - a generation from the mines - listened to about seven bars and walked out, without a word. And thus a gulf emerged between father and son, never to be bridged
My Dad said he felt forever lost between the two worlds, his working class background and his new upper middle class milieu, never quite belonging in both. He found it very hard to make male friends all his life. Was fine shagging women
I don't suffer from it. I am one of T May's citizens of the world, I float dreamily and boozily about, quite nomadic, and wherever I lay my hat is my hat laying place
They can mostly get shares for the various parties approximately right, because the highly motivated to respond to polls are roughly equally distributed among the different parties support, and you can correct for bias to an extent with demographic data and past vote.
I don't think they have so much to go on for turnout.
Edit: Oh. You said betting markets not opinion polls. D'oh! I don't know about that.
Theres much more mileage in this
Last night, Russia removed the light buoys delineating the border between Russia and Estonia in the Narva river.
This happened after previous reports stating that Russia intends to unilaterally change its maritime borders with Finland and Estonia.
🇷🇺🇪🇪🇫🇮
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1793688281135386986
I don't think parties really give second chances anymore. Corbyn managed only due to exceeding expectations so much.
Rishi coukd exceed low expectations, but if he still loses I think he's gone regardless.
I think their aggregate unpopularity is probably a massive record.
I think Tories around 100 seats is plausible, but Tories near 300 seats is too.
And if so, is there actually anything to suggest that he did anything personally? Or is it the case that the whole group was responsible for defending Manley?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/live/c2ll0z21zpqt
Eng 243/9 from 50 overs
Pak 95/3 from 23 overs
Edit - new boundaries are almost identical, less than 0.1% effect on votes
Because they're doing what the appeasers in the 1930s did. Except the modern-day appeasers have the advantage of knowing what happened in the late 1930s. There were many sane, moral voices in the 1930s calling for appeasement: they were wrong, but many had their hearts in the right place.
Their modern-day counterparts have no such excuse. Putin is a fascist imperialist, and appeasing him will just lead to future expansion of his empire. Which is fine until it is your home he wants to expand into. (Though some modern-day appeasers might quite like living under Russia's thumb - they harken back to the glorious days of the USSR).
The big important unknown is how efficiently LibLab votes sort themselves. That's hard to tell, and pretty much out of the Conservative Party's hands.
But it's pretty much impossible to model that effect in polling. However, the results of the last few rounds of locals (big seat gains on relatively meh vote shares) are ominous for the Conservatives.
And the next spike on the torture device they willingly walked into is that plans to rally the right (eg. Get Rwanda Done) unite the left against them as well. Ouch.
I suspect 200. But a very bad night could see them on 150.
I just… if it goes beyond that we’re into serious one party state territory (I’m being flippant, but seriously, what Starmer says goes). And while I absolutely agree that FPTP can throw up these weird results - no reason it can’t - it would be seismic.
Maybe I’m shoving my head in the sand and ignoring the signs. I have just never felt so uncertain about a GE result before.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/23/election-will-shape-british-politics-for-generations/
AI summary via AHRefs
"...The upcoming election in the UK is expected to result in a decisive defeat for the Conservative Party. There is speculation that they may even receive fewer than 100 seats, reflecting the public's weariness and contempt for the Tories. This election will deliver a clear verdict on the Conservatives' 14-year rule, but it will not signify a realignment in British politics.
In the previous election in 2019, the Tories successfully tapped into a realignment of voters by focusing on Brexit, leveling up the North and Midlands, and controlling immigration. However, they failed to follow through on these promises, leading to disillusionment among voters.
The refusal of the political and media class to accept this realignment has created a gap in British politics. There is a demand for a nationalist, anti-globalist, culturally traditionalist, and left-wing party, which is currently unrepresented. On the other hand, there is an overcrowding of parties offering a different position.
After the election, the Conservative Party will need to either accept the new alignment and move away from free markets or face the possibility of splitting or being replaced by a new populist right-wing force. A Labour government with a large majority will also face challenges as it disappoints its supporters and fails to address the issues that drive the new alignment.
The election and the subsequent Parliament will mark the end of the political era shaped by Thatcher and Blair, with new alternatives expected to emerge in the next Parliament..."
https://ahrefs.com/writing-tools/summarizer
There's no substantive reason why the gap should narrow, and absent blackish swans we should finish up with about 20 points between the two main parties. If it is much less, swingback theory holds.
Pretty seismic election.
Absolutely despise these attention seeking, engagement farming, twats who post stuff like this. ‘I know something you don’t. I won’t tell you what it is. Only that I know’
Expect much more of this on social media.
As for woke: even *if* you take woke as existing, or being important; I'm sure having Russian soldiers mistreat your female friends and family members would be fine as they're doing it in the name of not being 'woke'; in fact, the abuse is quite anti-woke...
What barbarity wouldn't you condone in your anti-wokeness?
It's almost certain that he is on the wrong side of the argument. Listen to your daughters.
- Pro: It is entirely possible, given Con's colossal fuckups and the resurgence of Reform, that the Conservatives will die like dogs. Evidence: polls, byelections, Sunak leader ratings, possibly the local elections.
- Anti: it is entirely possible that Labour is overrated and the Conservatives, whilst still losing, may cut it back to a smaller deficit. Evidence: known problems with panel polling, Starmer leader ratings, possibly the local elections.
And I don't know which one is trueHe will be a big loss to the constituency. What’s clear from Facebook responses is he’s helped an awful lot of people. I remember when a young lad killed himself at the railway station during COVID the family saying what a big help he had been. That sort of thing transcends tribal party politics.
NEW THREAD
In part this is for good reason because of the experience of 2017, when the Tories had the sort of leads they Labour have now. But still. How confident can you be in opinion polls that predict something completely unprecedented?
If the polls were pointing to a close result we wouldn't doubt them so much.
Interesting insight from MiC and suggests a 180 to 200 seat total versus perhaps 380 to 400 Labour?