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Profiles in leadership – politicalbetting.com
Profiles in leadership – politicalbetting.com
Longstanding readers of Political Betting know how much faith Mike Smithson and I put in the Ipsos MORI leader satisfaction ratings. Thanks to Rob Ford for digging into the numbers one month before the election which shows Rishi Sunak and the current Tories are record breakers for all the wrong reasons.
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Does that mean a third do? So my Labour 38% Conservatives 33% result still has a chance?
Yes, Reform continue to poll terribly in real votes. Whereas, at least in London, the ELE seems far off. Eltham and Chiselhurst is the Tories 41st most vulnerable on notionals and a new seat so ill be interested how it turns out. Clive Efford should take it for Labour but that by election suggests it could be closer than imagined.
Re Reform theres of course the risk of snowball from media hysteria over one poll, The Tories would be well advised to encourage early postal voting to bank some coin as it were
The events leading up to the election are fascinating.
No solace for you there.
He’s really taken on the media image of him being dull and grey and deserves to benefit from that.
Indeed considering the prelidictions of PBers it's a surprise how unpopular Sunak is even amongst spreadsheet geeks!
I'm really confused as to why Russia wasn't making these sort of attacks 28 months ago instead of lobbing their missiles at apartment blocks and supermarkets.
That is 628 artillery systems destroyed in the month of June alone.
Worse than watching paint dry.
I don’t really buy the argument that if the mainstream right simply ignore the views of millions of disgruntled supporters, then the populist right will vanish.
OM bf market suspended? Does it take that long to work out what the YouGov poll means?
Just because we know who is going to win it doesn’t make the potential outcomes elsewhere boring - Man Utd relegated or second? Everton surpassing their nearest rivals and condemning them to the Championship.
All to play for and people’s careers, reputations, millions of disappointed or joyful supporters. It’s all here.
It does feel like the last month or two has seen a major step-up in the war for control of the air.
Plaid to win in new Bangor Aberconwy seat.
The former Aberconwy seat was held by Conservatives with Labour as the main challenger, and most pundits are predicting an easy Labour win as the Conservatives continue their implosion.
But Aberconwy has previously been held by Plaid in the Senedd - the additional Bangor area is a Plaid/Labour battleground - while the additional inland areas formerly in Clwyd West are all held by Plaid at council level.
Plaid's campaign so far has not been very spectacular, but has been steady and generally positive. Meanwhile Welsh Labour are suffering the Vaughan Gething fallout.
I am not predicting a Plaid win here - but I do expect them to challenge well - much more strongly than some predictions. I have not seen any odds quoted for this seat...anyone??
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.167249195
ETA: Even in the early stages, contingency had to be made for the fact that they were unlikely to be getting more in the short to medium term.
That way they can survive as an independent force, but also occasionally on more friendly terms with the hard right in the future, as on the Continent. The only other option might be to be eaten by Reform.
The answer to "Populism" is to find different solutions to the problems they raise. Not scream THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS.
If Ukraine were to end 2024 with the Russian air force as degraded as the Russian Black Sea Fleet, while their own air force was bolstered with F-16s, then that would create much better conditions for a successful counter offensive.
And all the while new Ukrainian drones are being developed and produced in greater numbers.
On the other hand, the only real way to deal with the populist right is for the centre right to regain the centre from the centre left, and then to fix these deeper issues from there. Why? If you cede the argument onto the populist right's ground, it just strengthens them. The populist right deals in undeliverable demands and impossible solutions, so you can't come and take over their argument if you actually wish to govern (c.f. the populist Left).
Right or left, the challenge is finding enough people with the intellectual horsepower to address the fundamentals, the emotional intelligence to listen and talk the language of the people they wish to represent, and the ability to govern in practice. Who are also prepared to take the apparently ludicrous step of entering the political arena in the modern media climate.
Because the Ukrainian air defences are effective when avaialable, but limited in scope (not enough systems), the Russians tried fairly random attacks on populations, since the various SAM systems can't be everywhere.
How often is the standard journalist question “how will this affect the polls?” The whole debate is framed by whether it benefits the narrow strategy of one or other political party. The focus is wrong. The whole political-media complex is engaged in talking amongst themselves the voters don’t get a look in.
The greatest exemplar of this problem is GB News, not for the reasons people think. The problem is it is a cast of people some of whom are confused as to whether they want to be poachers or gamekeepers. It is an outrage that sitting MPs were setting themselves up as quasi journalistic figures. However most of the media are problematic because they want to make the news rather than relay it, hence the gotcha approach and self conscious editorialising.
The political parties have also given up making an argument for election and play into the prevailing architecture of the media ecosystem. Thoroughly depressing, it’s no longer possible to work out whether the campaign drives the polls or the polls drive the campaign but it is probably the latter.
I know this is probably the worst place to take aim at polling but whilst it may be helpful for placing wagers I think it’s pretty corrosive to electoral politics.
Labour are supposedly the challenger in Tewksbury, yet the LDs have the base, the ground campaign and the momentum https://pollingreport.uk/seats/E14001542
Or my own seat of ANME where I am coming 2nd last behind "other" who aren't on the ballot paper. Labour - with no councillors, no base, no campaigning of any kind are running the SNP close https://pollingreport.uk/seats/S14000062
Its a change election and a biggie, so anything can happen. I would query whether "anything" is as some of the models are predicting.
What does that mean for the national result? Well, the interest at the moment seems to be that Labour are sliding, with votes going off to various parties. That's almost certainly true as the 2nd phase of ELE kicks into gear. There are bound to be a few seats where that splits the ToryELE vote and the Tory incumbent clings on. But lots of us in lots of different seats look at the models and say "that isn't what is happening here"
On the other hand, if they hadn't executed last summer's counter-offensive, this summer would have started from a less advantageous position; I think it was just that Western commentators were hoping for (maybe even "expecting") another miraculous Russian collapse.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GOV5GBoWUAA1JJ2.jpg:large
The Conservative campaign has been by far and away the funniest of my lifetime.
It would need those Lords to step up and not be lazy but they can get airtime and coverage in a way nobody in reform other than Farage will get.
I agree with Beyond Topline’s analysis - Starmer’s favourability ratings are improving even as Labour has a fall in the polls - this indicates it might be tactical vote sorting happening, rather than people actually turning away from Labour.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
He is the key force behind a large part of what has happened since 2016, and now he's gaining from that rather than losing from it, because the Tories keep deferring to him. Either accept to become his party, or take him on. Now they're in a disastrous no-man's land in between, which could push them towards being irrelevant.
https://pfdatablog.com/blog/how-does-the-public-feel-about-a-tory-wipe-out
Farage will be licking his lips at this kind of analysis.
For example: "On average, Labour voters are expecting their party to fall just shy of a majority with 320 seats, while Conservatives are now on average expecting fewer seats than Labour but roughly a hung parliament (240 seats Conservative, 262 Labour)."
and: " 46% of the public agreed with the slightly excessive statement that the Conservatives “deserve to lose every seat they have”, including around a quarter of their own 2019 voters (24%), and a whole 64% of those who intend to vote Labour."
"One in every 16 pupils at school here is now a ‘newcomer’ according to the Department of Education.
"The term is used to refer to a pupil who is often originally from outside the UK and does not initially speak the same language as their class teacher."
1 in 16 kids in Northern Irish school DOES NOT SPEAK NATIVE ENGLISH
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nn54vqn6eo
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/14/young-germans-afd-european-elections
"How far-right parties seduced young voters across Europe"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/14/far-right-seduced-young-voters-europe-elections
Despite polling showing 2/3 now want to rejoin the EU and everybody (even Andy Marr) expecting Labour to actively pursue rejoing the SM (the realist, disenchanted story about britains post exeptionalist strategy), it cannot be mentioned.... it is still taboo. That is not good for the country and I partly blane the divisive impetus of FPTP, but also to some extent the british character which tends to stiff upper lippedness and ignoring the elephant in the room to keep up appearances.
The No.1 goal for many of us is to boot out the tories. If I’m VI polled then my answer is ‘LibDem’
Until 3 weeks ago my answer would have been ‘Labour’.
So I go down as someone who has dropped support for Labour in favour of LibDem. But it’s purely because I now know that in Newton Abbot my best chance of defeating the sitting tory MP is to vote LibDem.
Be careful because these national voting intentions are masking a LOT of constituency variations around tactical voting.
And the centrist Dads of PB in their tedious midwitted naffness maunder on about "elections being won from the centre" and "it's all over for the Right". It really really really isn't; the opposite is the case. Ask Emmanual Macron
A huge tide is turning, a secular change is beginning, and we can see signs of it even in the UK
The result I would want for them is a crushing defeat and they learn the right lessons from where they went wrong. This is possible, but there are plenty of current Conservatives who seem determined to learn the wrong lessons, including on this board.
Thanks for your comments.
It sounds like a 'no bet' to me. I agree it could go in a meltdown but in that case there are better bets elsewhere. You are probably right that the popularity of the incumbent will see him through otherwise.
Good luck on the stump. I know you work hard and report honestly. I hope you see some return for your efforts.
The problem is that when the reality of having to stop everyone’s businesses collapsing and everyone losing their jobs came along with Covid, then having to pay for it, then the crazy cost of living crisis thanks to Russia, the state did what small state people actually do believe in, and acted as a safety net. Unfortunately it was a ridiculously expensive safety net.
So Sunak, a small state low tax politician by instinct had to do something he wouldn’t want to do but added to that government is hemmed in by treasury and market orthodoxies so there are very few “acceptable solutions”.
So Sunak, and Hunt, being dry, sound money politicians are left with a shitshow where they have to regain trust of markets (after the Truss event) and try and restore stability to the economy. These aren’t sexy things to do. You don’t get thanks for it from the public because the public wants you to hose money on their pet projects but want you to take that money from anyone but them.
In the meantime you’ve got immigration soaring, countless policies and tweaks have failed, different wings want different actions, some elements of society will do anything to stop your measures. It’s bearable to a gov if the country is in good shape economically but the absolute focus has been on the economy by Sunak and Hunt and Sunak isn’t a salesman who can say “yeah sorry people, country is in a mess (by the way I did warn it would happen with Truss but was ignored) and as soon as we have sorted the economy we will turn on immigration as diligently.
So back to the beginning if you wrongly identify the problems and problem MPs you will get the wrong solutions. The right needs to be flexible and clear that sometimes there need to be big taxes and big gov in emergencies and yes we’ve raised taxes but our instincts are always to lower when we can where Labour’s are to keep high or raise permanently.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
The more rightwing member of my family WhatsApp are considering Reform. For context, we are a mix as an extended family, trending right, but with some notable exceptions - usually the righties vote Tory. Not this time, HOWEVER they are wary of voting Reform because rhe local candidate is SO bad. He lists on his leaflet his main hobbies, one of which is "collecting tattoos". Yet my fam now officially despises the Tories. I suspect they will split - return reluctantly to the Tories, abstain or spoil, hold nose and go Reform
But that's a number of Reform votes lost because of a shite candidate. This will be an issue in many places
Your strain of opinion doesn't have any credibility in this argument any more, if it ever did.
And what are these awful populist rabbit holes? Not bankrupting the country over Net Zero whilst China burns coal to make all the things that were once made here? Controlling our borders and only bringing in people that we need (except a few in deep need themselves) and can assimilate?
Yes I suspect Reform will do astoundingly in places but utterly bomb in leafy shires, London and Scotland. They'll mop up in Midlands towns, the Saxon shore and the NE
Best way to learn a language. Be plunged into it at primary school.
The reason spending is out of control is not Covid and its not Truss either, its political choices.
The Government is spending a higher proportion of GDP today on welfare than Gordon Brown was. Why?
Its not because of Covid.
Its not because of unemployment, that's much lower than it was under Brown.
Its not because welfare to the poor is exceptionally generous either.
Saying you are fiscally dry and being fiscally dry are two completely things. Unfortunately, Sunak is not. He is high tax, high spend, but without much of a clue where the money is going or why.
He's also exceptionally weak, buffeted by special interest groups who need to be told "no" sometimes.
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial