I have just had the very surprising news that I have had my first ever involvement in a UK election by just being messaged by three family members living in Cheltenham that they switched from Lib Dem to Tory on the basis of voting for Alex Chalk (rather than the Tories as such) on my pleading and they are just back from the polling booth.
Tory majority nailed on now clearly.
You persuaded them to vote Tory? You will be awarded the Casino Gold Medal of Endeavour!
It was definitely a vote for him not the party tbh. He’s the sort of Tory we need lots of in the rump that remains if it’s to revive its fortunes.
That's fair!
I thought for a minute that you were being socially irresponsible, but we do need 50 or 60 of them to make it and better the sane ones than the loonies....
When you end up with 220 Tories I will remind you of your "socially responsible" voting.
I only want about 50, not 220.
Besides, the electorate is never wrong unless it is former East Germany
"Comrades, we lost the new election. We need new policies."
"The policies are fine - we need a new electorate."
Can report dog was actively encouraged to go into the polling station and was made big fuss of by all the polling staff.
We are usually Lib Dems out of choice but both switched to Labour tactically this time.
Think the Tories will hold on here - Chester South and Eddisbury - but having said that there has been no sign of a Tory campaign and we passed 7 Labour canvassers on the way to the polling station.
Was the dog able to vote or was he refused for not having the correct ID?
I know parties tend to renege on changing the voting system when in power - but if the election results are as badly skewed as they look to be, with Labour potentially getting >60% of seats on 40%> of votes, and all the other parties getting much less representation than their vote share - will everyone but Labour end up supporting PR?
Apart from the smallest parties, the certain result of AV PR would be fragmentation of parties. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind.
Hasn't happened in Scotland, if anything a bit of a reduction overall (Scottish Socialists now kaput, were bigger than Alba is now).
Butd that's partly the weird voting system, perhaps.
No the SSP suffered, and Alba do, from having toxic leaders.
There's surely never been an election where the result is both so eagerly awaited and yet unenthusiastically greeted?
Everyone bar the blue team is rooting for the red team yet many of us won't vote for them.
My wine bottle is gently cooling for either celebration or commiseration later
I’ve probably cursed any chance of a Tory revival by not having a bottle of pink champagne on ice as I did in 1992….
There must be a branch of one of the German delicatessens near you, I can't vouch for the quality but surely if it hands you a Tory victory it must be worth a punt.
Will people *please* not vote for Reform as I am on at all prices below 14%.
I know for some of you this will be hard eg @kinabalu, who I'm sure won't alter his vote especially if it means me losing money over it but I am imploring you all.
tia
Do spoiled votes count in that calculation, or do you need people to choose a non-Reform candidate to vote for to help push down the percentage?
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Seriously whoever would have thought at the beginning of the campaign that we would end up with the bookies offering only 5-2, 9-4 on the Lib Dems getting 65 seats or more!! It is an incredible phenomena, almost once in a lifetime. Me I am on 50 -1 at 30 or less.
If Sunak had run a better campaign, would Starmer have done so too? Or would he be incapable?
As it is, the big leads have meant that ming vase is the thing. Say nothing to offend. If the Cons had been catching up substantially then Starmer would have needed to do something a bit more positive, if he was able, even at the risk of alienating some voters.
I'm a bit young to really remember 1997 - I watched the election night coverage with great interest, but I didn't really have that much of a sense of the build up and saw it through a pro-Tory lens anyway. Was Blair much more positive or was he all safety-first, too?
Starmer has strengths and weaknesses. His weaknesses are more of a problem in campaign mode, while his strengths will be useful to him when he becomes prime minister tomorrow.
Strengths: He's serious, which the country needs after nearly a decade of self indulgent politics. Focused. A good organiser and I think results oriented. A pragmatic ideologue (I think he's actually quite left wing, which might surprise people)
Weaknesses: Inflexible, doesn't deal well with changing situations. An Ed Miliband inability to express an idea in simple terms. Inability to do rhetoric. Lack of vision.
I have just had the very surprising news that I have had my first ever involvement in a UK election by just being messaged by three family members living in Cheltenham that they switched from Lib Dem to Tory on the basis of voting for Alex Chalk (rather than the Tories as such) on my pleading and they are just back from the polling booth.
Tory majority nailed on now clearly.
You persuaded them to vote Tory? You will be awarded the Casino Gold Medal of Endeavour!
It was definitely a vote for him not the party tbh. He’s the sort of Tory we need lots of in the rump that remains if it’s to revive its fortunes.
That's fair!
I thought for a minute that you were being socially irresponsible, but we do need 50 or 60 of them to make it and better the sane ones than the loonies....
When you end up with 220 Tories I will remind you of your "socially responsible" voting.
I only want about 50, not 220.
Besides, the electorate is never wrong unless it is former East Germany
"Comrades, we lost the new election. We need new policies."
"The policies are fine - we need a new electorate."
They always got 99% (after adjustments), so the question didn't arise.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
It is a really interesting insight and many will think an indication of how out of touch the Tories have become. We had something similar from a Tory MP proclaiming how great he was because he had secured a ‘banking hub’ because all the local banks had closed. They seem completely oblivious to the fact that most people expect these things and someone pretending they are a fantastic bonus is just not in tune with the electorate. We expect to see a doctor, dentist, to be able to drink the tap water, swim in the sea, pay the bills if we work hard. Telling us we are lucky to be able to do those things just will not wash.
Will people *please* not vote for Reform as I am on at all prices below 14%.
I know for some of you this will be hard eg @kinabalu, who I'm sure won't alter his vote especially if it means me losing money over it but I am imploring you all.
tia
Do spoiled votes count in that calculation, or do you need people to choose a non-Reform candidate to vote for to help push down the percentage?
1. Reform beat Conservative (don't count draws)? 174 2. Labour finish 3rd or lower (don't count where they didn't stand)? 110 3. Conservatives lose their deposit? 30 4. Lib Dems lose their deposit? 177 5. Reform lose their deposit? 10 6. Labour lose their deposit? 0
How big: 7. Will the largest winning vote margin be? 34000 8. Will the biggest notional majority defeated be (only count where the incumbent party stands)? 24000
How small: 9. Will the smallest winning vote margin be (1st - 2nd)? 0 10. Will the smallest gap between 1st and 3rd be? 900 11. Will the lowest number of votes for any candidate? 2
How many: 12. Parties will be elected (whether or not they take their seats. All true independents are grouped as a single party)? 13 13. Seats will the Conservatives win? 114 14. Seats will Labour win? 431 15. Seats will Lib Dems win? 60 16. Seats will the SNP win? 19 17. Seats will Sinn Fein win? 7 18. Seats will DUP win? 7 19. Seats will Reform come second in? 134
What percentage vote: 20. Will Conservatives get across the UK? 21 21. Will Reform get across the UK? 14 22. Will SNP get in Scotland? 38 23. Will be lowest of any winning candidate? 28 24. Will be highest of any 2nd place candidate? 42 25. Will Speaker get? 78
My prediction is the extremely unpopular Keir Starmer - consensus view at the end of the last thread - will win the biggest majority ever.
There are various explanations feeding into that prediction.
He's relatively unpopular for a LOTO to about to take power they key thing is Sunak/The Tories are the most unpopular PM/government in history.
I think it really depends on what Labour do in government. If they govern as they've campaigned, the honeymoon will be very short indeed. I think some people will give them the benefit of the doubt if the line is "we can't fix 15 years of Tory wrecking overnight", but if some things don't improve quickly I think they're buggered. This is why I hope they don't do a Macron and start banging on about immigration - because it will only make Reform more popular if they do. They can decide to meet people's needs and reduce the blown up grievances people have towards immigrants - it's just will they? It was clear the Tories never would - the only thing they were willing to try was hitting the big "government does harm to outsiders" button. Labour need to use the "government actually helps people" lever.
Some people thought that Sunak was going to be the adult in the room, the calm head in choppy waters. turns out he wasn't. I think many are seeing Starmer in the same way - projecting calm competence on him (he's been ok as LOTO). Being in power is about to test him. He will also have a party with lots of new MP's, some of whom were probably not expecting to be MPs (at least yet). There will be scandals. There will be sleaze. There always is. I hope he is a better PM than we've had for a while. God knows we need it!
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
This is misleading. Starmer may have taken charge of the Overton window, but has not expanded it.
The current OW is a thin lancet, hardly wide enough for an arrow from a longbow. Starmer's OW is the standard issue: private enterprise (regulated); NHS: welfare state; avoid national bankruptcy (fiscal prudence); Green (like jam) mostly tomorrow and the next day.
No-one (even Reform if you ignore the horrible rhetoric) offers anything except the centre ground of western European liberal or social democracy - a gigantic state, and highly regulated capitalism.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
Seriously whoever would have thought at the beginning of the campaign that we would end up with the bookies offering only 5-2, 9-4 on the Lib Dems getting 65 seats or more!! It is an incredible phenomena, almost once in a lifetime. Me I am on 50 -1 at 30 or less.
I laid LDs at 1.9 (41 seats) at start of campaign - Now 1.19 to lay (6.4 to back).
The U/O 59.5 market for LDs is 2.18 @ 59 or less and 1.5 @ 60+
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Another footballing analogy ( I don't like your West Brom one, particularly due to its accuracy). England are playing badly, Harry Kane is having a shocker and they are a goal down. Gareth Southgate doesn't panic and throw on five supersubs because he knows his side will equalise in the 94th minute and he knows they will win in extra time. Rishi is Gareth Southgate is my fear.
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Except there are other parties in there too. More like a Tour stage with Starmer having broken out early and got a lead of several minutes, the Tory Peloton slowly making inroads to that lead but nowhere near fast enough, and a plucky Farage, veteran of many tours and winner of a few sprint stages, making a last ditch break out from the Peloton and making up ground fast while Starmer's legs start showing signs of fatigue.
I know parties tend to renege on changing the voting system when in power - but if the election results are as badly skewed as they look to be, with Labour potentially getting >60% of seats on 40%> of votes, and all the other parties getting much less representation than their vote share - will everyone but Labour end up supporting PR?
Apart from the smallest parties, the certain result of AV PR would be fragmentation of parties. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind.
But if the future looks like votes are going to be more distributed anyway (Reform and Greens not being squeezed enough) then we could start having very strange results under FPTP that don't help parties - it would all depend on vote efficiency. And, for factions within parties, PR could be helpful. New Labour types could jettison the much hated left wing and aim for a government with other centre right parties, and Reform and the Moggs of the Tories could merge without fear. I think the era of big tent political parties is over - and I think Farage, if Ref get 15+% of the vote and only a handful of MPs, will make a HUGE fuss on the issue; and when the right wing care about something the system is more willing to change, alas.
It shouldn't be about helping parties. We vote for individual constituency candidates and we should be doing everything we can to reduce the power of parties not incrrease it.
You sound like George Washington on the subject. Idealistic and unrealistic at the same time.
You can't get rid of parties in politics. What we should be doing is ensuring voters have a sufficiently diverse choice of parties so that there's some chance of actually voting goer something vaguely aligned with their political views. That means PR.
Will people *please* not vote for Reform as I am on at all prices below 14%.
I know for some of you this will be hard eg @kinabalu, who I'm sure won't alter his vote especially if it means me losing money over it but I am imploring you all.
tia
Similarly, if any of you live in Bristol Central or one or more of Brighton Pavilion, Waveney Valley or North Herefordshire, then please vote Green and my book will love you, because THOSE WERE THE ONLY TWO VALUE BETS I WAS ALLOWED TO MAKE
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Another footballing analogy ( I don't like your West Brom one, particularly due to its accuracy). England are playing badly, Harry Kane is having a shocker and they are a goal down. Gareth Southgate doesn't panic and throw on five supersubs because he knows his side will equalise in the 94th minute and he knows they will win in extra time. Rishi is Gareth Southgate is my fear.
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
I have just had the very surprising news that I have had my first ever involvement in a UK election by just being messaged by three family members living in Cheltenham that they switched from Lib Dem to Tory on the basis of voting for Alex Chalk (rather than the Tories as such) on my pleading and they are just back from the polling booth.
Tory majority nailed on now clearly.
Chalk is locally very popular. With only 11% nationally, I fear that several Lib Dem targets may end up being missed. It is why their targeting needed to be so disciplined.
They really need to be in the teens to make big gains, I feel a little bad.
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Another footballing analogy ( I don't like your West Brom one, particularly due to its accuracy). England are playing badly, Harry Kane is having a shocker and they are a goal down. Gareth Southgate doesn't panic and throw on five supersubs because he knows his side will equalise in the 94th minute and he knows they will win in extra time. Rishi is Gareth Southgate is my fear.
As someone on here (huge apologies can't remember who) said: the football analogy is that Lab were 8-0 up at half time and are now 10-0 up in the last minute of the game and are being criticised for taking the ball into the corner. Meanwhile, the Cons keep scoring own goals.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
As a neutral, I always disliked Johnson. I'm glad we've seen the back of him, and that even the most gullible and infantile among us are starting to see through him. There remains some of the damage he did to democracy, but I think it could have been a lot worse.
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
Why choose 1992 as your baseline. What about 1979. Or earlier.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
It's why he quit. He can pretend he would have been 2019 Boris.
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Another footballing analogy ( I don't like your West Brom one, particularly due to its accuracy). England are playing badly, Harry Kane is having a shocker and they are a goal down. Gareth Southgate doesn't panic and throw on five supersubs because he knows his side will equalise in the 94th minute and he knows they will win in extra time. Rishi is Gareth Southgate is my fear.
As someone on here (huge apologies can't remember who) said: the football analogy is that Lab were 8-0 up at half time and are now 10-0 up in the last minute of the game and are being criticised for taking the ball into the corner. Meanwhile, the Cons keep scoring own goals.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
That wasn't about neutral people, it was about Reform switchers. The Tories might not manage to persuade them back, but they've given up trying to convince anyone else. They know it's pointless.
I have just had the very surprising news that I have had my first ever involvement in a UK election by just being messaged by three family members living in Cheltenham that they switched from Lib Dem to Tory on the basis of voting for Alex Chalk (rather than the Tories as such) on my pleading and they are just back from the polling booth.
Tory majority nailed on now clearly.
You persuaded them to vote Tory? You will be awarded the Casino Gold Medal of Endeavour!
It was definitely a vote for him not the party tbh. He’s the sort of Tory we need lots of in the rump that remains if it’s to revive its fortunes.
There will be many more though. BigGs and their wives, Heathener's Surrey Tory.
It's really notable how dark and nervous the mood is over the main opposition parties today, completely at odds with the polling seat predictions. I think there's a sense the electorate are jumpy, they may or may not bother to vote, they may experiment with Reform or the Greens or they may not, they may vote tactically or they may think the election's a done deal and vote with their heart, and they may just decide to give the Tories one last go.
The Tories are bullish because they seldom lose, and the rest of us nervous because we are often in the category of close but no cigar.
You may be right, but why would the electorate make a conscious decision to give the "Tories one last go" unless they bought the tax bombshell, the supermajority fear and Labour having been the government for the last 14 years and they must be removed.
If you take the best final poll share for each non-Labour party, and add 1 to it, then reduce the Labour share so that they reconcile, and plug those shares into Electoral Calculus, you end up with a votes/seat prediction of:
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
Yes I feel like a lot of people don’t get this.
Take the 2019 result. Tories 365 Labour 202.
Now assume that some people just lent the Tories their vote to get Brexit done.
Now assume that some people only voted Tory in the end because they were scared of Corbyn.
Now assume that some people only voted Tory because the Brexit/Reform Party weren’t standing in their seat, which they are now.
Now assume that some moderate Tories would have voted Lib Dem last time, but they couldn’t do it because of their Brexit stance - but now they can.
Straight away - before anything has happened, before you even consider the impact of anything that Boris, Truss, Sunak or Starmer have done in the last 5 years - the overall landscape looks much less favourable for the Tories than in 2019, and better for Labour.
Too many people make the mistake of automatically using the 2019 result as a yardstick - when as you say, it was the result of a lot of unique circumstances at the time
Labour's polling drop during the campaign is almost as steep as the Tories' after Liz Truss's budget.
What if their vote just fails to turn up?
Isn't the suggestion that this represents tactical voting - corresponding to the rise in LD and Green; plus some leakage to Reform.
This is why, without wanting to bang on too much, the LLP vs RefCon numbers are useful. They tell us how much of a polling change is down to shifts within the right or left wing, and how much is genuine moves between the main contenders for government. It's not about saying all those voters move in lockstep.
The Reform and Conservative combined vote is a couple of percentage points higher than it was at the start of the campaign and LLG is a couple of points lower. So there may be some leakage to Reform from Labour, but most of the 5% shift looks like losses to Green and Lib dems (and possibly some to SNP, Plaid and independents)
I know parties tend to renege on changing the voting system when in power - but if the election results are as badly skewed as they look to be, with Labour potentially getting >60% of seats on 40%> of votes, and all the other parties getting much less representation than their vote share - will everyone but Labour end up supporting PR?
Apart from the smallest parties, the certain result of AV PR would be fragmentation of parties. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind.
But if the future looks like votes are going to be more distributed anyway (Reform and Greens not being squeezed enough) then we could start having very strange results under FPTP that don't help parties - it would all depend on vote efficiency. And, for factions within parties, PR could be helpful. New Labour types could jettison the much hated left wing and aim for a government with other centre right parties, and Reform and the Moggs of the Tories could merge without fear. I think the era of big tent political parties is over - and I think Farage, if Ref get 15+% of the vote and only a handful of MPs, will make a HUGE fuss on the issue; and when the right wing care about something the system is more willing to change, alas.
It shouldn't be about helping parties. We vote for individual constituency candidates and we should be doing everything we can to reduce the power of parties not incrrease it.
Constitutionally, but in reality - no we don't. And, if anything, PR will decrease the power of parties - because it will force parties to split up and work with each other, it will mean governments can't take huge swathes of the country for granted because geographically it will always vote one way or the other. The idea of a representative for a single geographic area when that individual representative likely gets less than 40% of the vote is silly. The system we have was designed specifically to be less democratic, not more. If you want less hegemonic powerful political parties the only way to do that is to get rid of FPTP - because that is what has been propping them up.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
As a neutral, I always disliked Johnson. I'm glad we've seen the back of him, and that even the most gullible and infantile among us are starting to see through him. There remains some of the damage he did to democracy, but I think it could have been a lot worse.
I loathe him, if you search "solipsistic twat" on PB you will find several instances, and from very early on, of me using the phrase to describe him. And everyone I know who knows him loathes him also. Lazy, not a details man, and didn't surround himself with competent lieutenants to actually get the work done because he couldn't be bothered.
But.
He got Brexit done. It not having been done had been a huge democratic deficit the UK faced from 2016 onwards. Plus of course Corbyn. I am sure many other Cons politicians, if they had been similarly forthright on Brexit, would have been voted in, but it was Boris and for that he deserves credit.
Just voted for Dave; the first time I've ever voted Lib Dem. Definitely a vote for Dave though, not for his party
I voted for the Tory in the town council election. She's also on my mail route and I like her. I also feel sorry for her; she fell quite badly, onto her face, while she was out campaigning for the other town council election we had a few months back
There were four dogs including Edith at the polling station. She went to say hello to one of the others just as I was X-ing. I nearly voted Kruger by mistake
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Another footballing analogy ( I don't like your West Brom one, particularly due to its accuracy). England are playing badly, Harry Kane is having a shocker and they are a goal down. Gareth Southgate doesn't panic and throw on five supersubs because he knows his side will equalise in the 94th minute and he knows they will win in extra time. Rishi is Gareth Southgate is my fear.
As someone on here (huge apologies can't remember who) said: the football analogy is that Lab were 8-0 up at half time and are now 10-0 up in the last minute of the game and are being criticised for taking the ball into the corner. Meanwhile, the Cons keep scoring own goals.
How can the Tories keep scoring own goals if Labour have the ball and are taking it into the corner?
Surely it’s Labour are 8-0 with 10 minutes left having scored one of the goals but 7 Tory own goals. Once it got to 8-0 the Labour players have just been passing the ball and avoiding injuries and cards.
The Tories might get a late goal or two which takes a bit of the gloss off but it’s not going to change the result and just leaves the Tories waiting on other results to see if they get in the champions league next season or are usurped by Lib Dem United.
Labour's polling drop during the campaign is almost as steep as the Tories' after Liz Truss's budget.
What if their vote just fails to turn up?
Isn't the suggestion that this represents tactical voting - corresponding to the rise in LD and Green; plus some leakage to Reform.
Possibly. But it is also interesting compared to Labour in 2017, for example, which saw a massive uptick in votes once the election started. Now, you can argue that was because of tactical voting too, and you can argue that the Tories were only able to fall apart when the "threat" of Corbyn stopped being a thing - but really I do think it's clear that there is no real enthusiasm for Starmer's policy platform compared to Corbyn's platform which did, even if the man himself was considered anathema by many.
LibDems were 20/1 with Bet365 to win Tewkesbury 24th May, I bet a tenner.
That is ace punting, whatever the result.
For the record I think it will be within 2,000 votes either way.
I've got 30 constituency bets and overall they are looking very good indeed - but this good work will negated bigly if just one bet goes the wrong way (Corbyn wins Islington North).
Lib Dems appears to be winning Cheltenham on a landslide, the polls show that, They probably moved workers to Tewkesbury. I fear we have some silly chatter on here.
Will people *please* not vote for Reform as I am on at all prices below 14%.
I know for some of you this will be hard eg @kinabalu, who I'm sure won't alter his vote especially if it means me losing money over it but I am imploring you all.
tia
Don't worry, I'm skipping the Populist Right this time. They've been taking me for granted and I don't like that.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
I know parties tend to renege on changing the voting system when in power - but if the election results are as badly skewed as they look to be, with Labour potentially getting >60% of seats on 40%> of votes, and all the other parties getting much less representation than their vote share - will everyone but Labour end up supporting PR?
Apart from the smallest parties, the certain result of AV PR would be fragmentation of parties. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind.
But if the future looks like votes are going to be more distributed anyway (Reform and Greens not being squeezed enough) then we could start having very strange results under FPTP that don't help parties - it would all depend on vote efficiency. And, for factions within parties, PR could be helpful. New Labour types could jettison the much hated left wing and aim for a government with other centre right parties, and Reform and the Moggs of the Tories could merge without fear. I think the era of big tent political parties is over - and I think Farage, if Ref get 15+% of the vote and only a handful of MPs, will make a HUGE fuss on the issue; and when the right wing care about something the system is more willing to change, alas.
It shouldn't be about helping parties. We vote for individual constituency candidates and we should be doing everything we can to reduce the power of parties not incrrease it.
You sound like George Washington on the subject. Idealistic and unrealistic at the same time.
You can't get rid of parties in politics. What we should be doing is ensuring voters have a sufficiently diverse choice of parties so that there's some chance of actually voting goer something vaguely aligned with their political views. That means PR.
Agreed - look how weak political parties have worked out in the US.
Will people *please* not vote for Reform as I am on at all prices below 14%.
I know for some of you this will be hard eg @kinabalu, who I'm sure won't alter his vote especially if it means me losing money over it but I am imploring you all.
tia
Don't worry, I'm skipping the Populist Right this time. They've been taking me for granted and I don't like that.
Much appreciated. They did mention they could rely on your vote so I appreciate the stand you're taking.
This plunge in the Labour VI AND Starmer's popularity is like a last gasp goal by the likely losers, West Brom, in a game where the attacking side, Aston Villa, is 3-0 up. Suddenly there is that flurry of doubt and anxiety, Labour/Villa abruptly wonder if they might lose, with 4 minutes to go
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Another footballing analogy ( I don't like your West Brom one, particularly due to its accuracy). England are playing badly, Harry Kane is having a shocker and they are a goal down. Gareth Southgate doesn't panic and throw on five supersubs because he knows his side will equalise in the 94th minute and he knows they will win in extra time. Rishi is Gareth Southgate is my fear.
As someone on here (huge apologies can't remember who) said: the football analogy is that Lab were 8-0 up at half time and are now 10-0 up in the last minute of the game and are being criticised for taking the ball into the corner. Meanwhile, the Cons keep scoring own goals.
How can the Tories keep scoring own goals if Labour have the ball and are taking it into the corner?
Surely it’s Labour are 8-0 with 10 minutes left having scored one of the goals but 7 Tory own goals. Once it got to 8-0 the Labour players have just been passing the ball and avoiding injuries and cards.
The Tories might get a late goal or two which takes a bit of the gloss off but it’s not going to change the result and just leaves the Tories waiting on other results to see if they get in the champions league next season or are usurped by Lib Dem United.
See William Hill offering50-1 Lib Dems 30 or under. I think that is a good bet.
A very good value loser that one.
Bet365 have Cheltenham at 1-9 for the Lib Dems. All the models (And quite frankly a bit of common sense) show that is almost certainly yellow - and in the first 30 seats for them so you can cover your stake that way.
Seat 14, 18, 11, 3, 11, 15, 5, 12, 6.
1-9 is too long regardless of 50-1 < 30 seats. On a bad night for the Lib Dems they probably still take Cheltenham, so you could win both bets
Edit : Added a tab to show the top 30 LD seats by model if anyone fancies a riskier hedge !
It's on GE 2024 Full, Sheet 3
I can't see how they get more than 30 seats without Cheltenham, you never know I suppose
I have just had the very surprising news that I have had my first ever involvement in a UK election by just being messaged by three family members living in Cheltenham that they switched from Lib Dem to Tory on the basis of voting for Alex Chalk (rather than the Tories as such) on my pleading and they are just back from the polling booth.
Tory majority nailed on now clearly.
Chalk is locally very popular. With only 11% nationally, I fear that several Lib Dem targets may end up being missed. It is why their targeting needed to be so disciplined.
At the risk of egg on my face tomorrow, there is no way in hell that Chalk hangs on. He has a three figure majority and the Conservatives lost the last of their Council seats in Cheltenham in May. He's been an MP for a while so any personal popularity he has is already baked in - he won't suddenly get an incumbency boost in his third election.
This reminds me of Lib Dems comforting themselves that they'd be okay in 2015 as they had respected constituency MPs in many places. It's like thinking a reasonably strong swimmer will be okay in a tsunami - no chance, and a bit of anecdata doesn't change that.
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
On the other hand Labour have only won majority governments with three (and soon to be four) leaders since the party was founded in 1900
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
Why choose 1992 as your baseline. What about 1979. Or earlier.
I suppose I could go back to the time of Disraeli, Lord Liverpool, or perhaps the Marquess of Rockingham, but what would be the point? I think that nine elections is quite enough to demonstrate that the contemporary Conservative Party, as distinct from iterations that are now so far in the past that many First World War veterans were still alive at the time, struggles to win Parliamentary majorities. It's why so many Tories still seem so fixated on Maggie. She was their last reliable winner and there's no sign of a return to form in sight.
LibDems were 20/1 with Bet365 to win Tewkesbury 24th May, I bet a tenner.
That is ace punting, whatever the result.
For the record I think it will be within 2,000 votes either way.
I've got 30 constituency bets and overall they are looking very good indeed - but this good work will negated bigly if just one bet goes the wrong way (Corbyn wins Islington North).
I don't think he will but why not hedge it?
As a rule I don't hedge bets. I let them run, firstly to avoid paying costs twice and secondly because I see each bet as distinct (with any previous bets irrelevant).
I took the Cons at 5/6 in Tewkesbury this morning mainly because I think that's a very good price and I think Bet365 are best priced to offset their pror LibDem liabilities in Tewks.
Have managed to spike my nervousness about the exit poll by putting an offer in for a house, though not expecting to hear back about that until tomorrow.
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
The widespread desire to drive a stake into the heart of the Tory party feels palpable, and for many people that means voting Labour. I think it's possible Labour will get 40%+ today. But we'll see.
Lib Dems appears to be winning Cheltenham on a landslide, the polls show that, They probably moved workers to Tewkesbury. I fear we have some silly chatter on here.
My prediction is the extremely unpopular Keir Starmer - consensus view at the end of the last thread - will win the biggest majority ever.
There are various explanations feeding into that prediction.
He's relatively unpopular for a LOTO to about to take power they key thing is Sunak/The Tories are the most unpopular PM/government in history.
I have mentioned before I think this election is more 1979 than it is 1997, not least because of the strange similarity of characters between Starmer and Thatcher. I believe (?) Callaghan was more popular than Thatcher, but he still lost.
Labour's polling drop during the campaign is almost as steep as the Tories' after Liz Truss's budget.
What if their vote just fails to turn up?
Isn't the suggestion that this represents tactical voting - corresponding to the rise in LD and Green; plus some leakage to Reform.
This is why, without wanting to bang on too much, the LLP vs RefCon numbers are useful. They tell us how much of a polling change is down to shifts within the right or left wing, and how much is genuine moves between the main contenders for government. It's not about saying all those voters move in lockstep.
The Reform and Conservative combined vote is a couple of percentage points higher than it was at the start of the campaign and LLG is a couple of points lower. So there may be some leakage to Reform from Labour, but most of the 5% shift looks like losses to Green and Lib dems (and possibly some to SNP, Plaid and independents)
That is either brilliant or ridiculous. I am not sure which.
Labour vote probably a bit more likely to turn up than in the past due to it's class change and some of its flakiest voters left already.
I still wouldn't be surprised by 36% though
This is an interesting point that I don't think I've seen discussed before. Wonder to what extent the models take it into consideration atm.
They don't seem to consider it at all, as far as I can see. There still seems to be an assumption that differential turnout will favour the Tories - but I suspect it may well run in the opposite direction this time.
Some people thought that Sunak was going to be the adult in the room, the calm head in choppy waters. turns out he wasn't. I think many are seeing Starmer in the same way - projecting calm competence on him (he's been ok as LOTO). Being in power is about to test him. He will also have a party with lots of new MP's, some of whom were probably not expecting to be MPs (at least yet). There will be scandals. There will be sleaze. There always is. I hope he is a better PM than we've had for a while. God knows we need it!
It's funny.
My wife despises Starmer. Hates his guts. She's still going to vote Labour later today mind. She thinks he's an empty suit (she might well be right) with no answers to the problems we face.
But I don't mind him.... yet I'm not going to vote for him or his party.
I'm trying to think of something that might cause a fit of conniption early in the drama tonight . 'Labour have requested a recount in Rushcliffe' or something like that We need that moment of existential dread early doors
I think 36% is about right for Labour. There is no love for Labour or Starmer. This election has always been about how much people are sick and fed up of the Tories. Even Tories are sick and fed up of each other and that is just that is just the MP's.
What struck me when I saw Boris yesterday was how much I disliked his shtick. And I used to be a fan (and I still think he has great political skills - which he shamefully wasted, along with his majority)
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
As a neutral, I always disliked Johnson. I'm glad we've seen the back of him, and that even the most gullible and infantile among us are starting to see through him. There remains some of the damage he did to democracy, but I think it could have been a lot worse.
I loathe him, if you search "solipsistic twat" on PB you will find several instances, and from very early on, of me using the phrase to describe him. And everyone I know who knows him loathes him also. Lazy, not a details man, and didn't surround himself with competent lieutenants to actually get the work done because he couldn't be bothered.
But.
He got Brexit done. It not having been done had been a huge democratic deficit the UK faced from 2016 onwards. Plus of course Corbyn. I am sure many other Cons politicians, if they had been similarly forthright on Brexit, would have been voted in, but it was Boris and for that he deserves credit.
I think his laziness was a plus, otherwise his kind of charismatic egomania could have been quite dangerous.
I wonder if the biggest story won't be the combined turnout for Labour and Tory...a real possibility of dipping under 55%...if People's Polling get's it right under 50%???
And maybe this could be the last election that their combined totals are actually over 50%..
Some people thought that Sunak was going to be the adult in the room, the calm head in choppy waters. turns out he wasn't. I think many are seeing Starmer in the same way - projecting calm competence on him (he's been ok as LOTO). Being in power is about to test him. He will also have a party with lots of new MP's, some of whom were probably not expecting to be MPs (at least yet). There will be scandals. There will be sleaze. There always is. I hope he is a better PM than we've had for a while. God knows we need it!
It's funny.
My wife despises Starmer. Hates his guts. She's still going to vote Labour later today mind. She thinks he's an empty suit (she might well be right) with no answers to the problems we face.
But I don't mind him.... yet I'm not going to vote for him or his party.
For some reason, Valiant, that fills me with joy and wonder at the miracle of democracy.
It also speaks well of your relationship with Mrs V.
Labour vote probably a bit more likely to turn up than in the past due to it's class change and some of its flakiest voters left already.
I still wouldn't be surprised by 36% though
This is an interesting point that I don't think I've seen discussed before. Wonder to what extent the models take it into consideration atm.
They don't seem to consider it at all, as far as I can see. There still seems to be an assumption that differential turnout will favour the Tories - but I suspect it may well run in the opposite direction this time.
How would a model assume that? Surely they just use things like how likely people say they are to vote, whether they voted last time?
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
I agree; I feel the last couple of decades have been the death throes of the Tory party as Labour basically adopted their economic platform post Thatcher and social progress means the Tory party could no longer (openly) be the "nasty party". What I think people react to is the ideological hegemony that Conservatism has won in the modern era - Blair as an heir to Thatcher and then the harsh austerity that was applied (without a mandate of a big majority to do it) has meant that their politics have had an outsized impact to their vote share. The same with Brexit - the Leave wing of the Tory party didn't win an election until the referendum broke the dam, and Farage didn't need to be an MP to get the influence he had; so they again got to win without a parliamentary majority to back it up. (Those of you who want strong representatives rather than strong parties should really hate referenda for that reason).
I really do think the Tory party will die this election. They may hold on to seats, they will likely be the Opposition, but this is the last hurrah. Labour have their tanks parked on the lawn of Thatcher and Cameron, and Farage on the lawn of Enoch Powell. The Tory party can't really exist in the gap left between those two things. Maybe Farage will allow the Tory party to exist in name, but he'll demand his faction take over, even if electorally his party is the lesser partner. If the Tory party merges with Reform - it will be Reform that is the real party.
I'm trying to think of something that might cause a fit of conniption early in the drama tonight . 'Labour have requested a recount in Rushcliffe' or something like that We need that moment of existential dread early doors
Reform will release film purporting to show ballot boxes from Clacton being snuck out into an unmarked white van by unidentified men. Conspiracy to stop Nige.
It will turn out they are empty insulated food delivery boxes going back to the local pizza joint.
Some people thought that Sunak was going to be the adult in the room, the calm head in choppy waters. turns out he wasn't. I think many are seeing Starmer in the same way - projecting calm competence on him (he's been ok as LOTO). Being in power is about to test him. He will also have a party with lots of new MP's, some of whom were probably not expecting to be MPs (at least yet). There will be scandals. There will be sleaze. There always is. I hope he is a better PM than we've had for a while. God knows we need it!
It's funny.
My wife despises Starmer. Hates his guts. She's still going to vote Labour later today mind. She thinks he's an empty suit (she might well be right) with no answers to the problems we face.
But I don't mind him.... yet I'm not going to vote for him or his party.
I don't think anyone has an answer to the problems we face - but I suspect he may be able to ask the correct questions which is better than the Tory party has done for the last 9 years.
I'm trying to think of something that might cause a fit of conniption early in the drama tonight . 'Labour have requested a recount in Rushcliffe' or something like that We need that moment of existential dread early doors
Tory hold of 15,000 in Broxbourne will get Labour HQ shitting themselves.
My prediction is the extremely unpopular Keir Starmer - consensus view at the end of the last thread - will win the biggest majority ever.
There are various explanations feeding into that prediction.
He's relatively unpopular for a LOTO to about to take power they key thing is Sunak/The Tories are the most unpopular PM/government in history.
I have mentioned before I think this election is more 1979 than it is 1997, not least because of the strange similarity of characters between Starmer and Thatcher. I believe (?) Callaghan was more popular than Thatcher, but he still lost.
Everyone had a fairish idea of what Thatcher's prospectus was, though. I don't really have that sense with Starmer.
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
Why choose 1992 as your baseline. What about 1979. Or earlier.
I suppose I could go back to the time of Disraeli, Lord Liverpool, or perhaps the Marquess of Rockingham, but what would be the point? I think that nine elections is quite enough to demonstrate that the contemporary Conservative Party, as distinct from iterations that are now so far in the past that many First World War veterans were still alive at the time, struggles to win Parliamentary majorities. It's why so many Tories still seem so fixated on Maggie. She was their last reliable winner and there's no sign of a return to form in sight.
In fairness Cameron in 2010 had an absolute mountain to climb following 1997 and made a net gain of 97 seats, still short of a majority but a fine effort given how far back the Tories started and how relatively popular Brown and Labour still were (versus the Tories in 97 or now).
He then got all the way over the line in 2015. So it could be said Cameron was a reliable vote winner at elections before, of course, he blew the Tories up with the referendum.
And then Boris, who won the London Mayoral twice and who gained the Tories a net gain of 48 seats in 2019 and a big majority.
I'm trying to think of something that might cause a fit of conniption early in the drama tonight . 'Labour have requested a recount in Rushcliffe' or something like that We need that moment of existential dread early doors
Reform will release film purporting to show ballot boxes from Clacton being snuck out into an unmarked white van by unidentified men. Conspiracy to stop Nige.
It will turn out they are empty insulated food delivery boxes going back to the local pizza joint.
Anyway, total overload. For a sports/politics freak like me (plus enough into music to want to watch some Glasto) this has become a stupidly congested schedule. There needs to be four of me.
I'm off to vote now - for Labour - and then it's all go on various fronts. Have to get off the computer for at least 24 hours.
Wish people luck on their betting, hope everyone makes a net profit, and I will catch you all on the other side, by which I mean on Day 1 of a decade of National Renewal under Keir Starmer and his changed Labour Party that is back in the service of working people.
I know parties tend to renege on changing the voting system when in power - but if the election results are as badly skewed as they look to be, with Labour potentially getting >60% of seats on 40%> of votes, and all the other parties getting much less representation than their vote share - will everyone but Labour end up supporting PR?
Apart from the smallest parties, the certain result of AV PR would be fragmentation of parties. Turkeys and Christmas come to mind.
But if the future looks like votes are going to be more distributed anyway (Reform and Greens not being squeezed enough) then we could start having very strange results under FPTP that don't help parties - it would all depend on vote efficiency. And, for factions within parties, PR could be helpful. New Labour types could jettison the much hated left wing and aim for a government with other centre right parties, and Reform and the Moggs of the Tories could merge without fear. I think the era of big tent political parties is over - and I think Farage, if Ref get 15+% of the vote and only a handful of MPs, will make a HUGE fuss on the issue; and when the right wing care about something the system is more willing to change, alas.
It shouldn't be about helping parties. We vote for individual constituency candidates and we should be doing everything we can to reduce the power of parties not incrrease it.
Constitutionally, but in reality - no we don't. And, if anything, PR will decrease the power of parties - because it will force parties to split up and work with each other, it will mean governments can't take huge swathes of the country for granted because geographically it will always vote one way or the other. The idea of a representative for a single geographic area when that individual representative likely gets less than 40% of the vote is silly. The system we have was designed specifically to be less democratic, not more. If you want less hegemonic powerful political parties the only way to do that is to get rid of FPTP - because that is what has been propping them up.
Also worth noting that as well as the power that the local selection committee has in effectively choosing many MPs, the current voting system transmits much of that power to the centre, since the brutal nature of FPTP and the relative difficulty of standing against the system as an independent conveys massive patronage on the party leadership, which Starmer has used to gain control over his party but we’ve seen similar from the Tories before, especially Johnson’s purge of the moderates.
A preferential voting system gives individuals a much better chance of standing as an independent or indeed taking on their former party if they fall out, due to the transferability of the votes. Especially systems that have multi-member constituencies, such that voters might be receptive to having Corbyn or the anti-Gaza Indy’s as part of the mix in their patch.
As an Indy under FPTP, even if you beat your former party’s official candidate you have the likelihood that the other main party will come through the middle. Thus political party endorsement becomes life or death to our national politicians and so the parties and their whips maintain their grip.
LibDems were 20/1 with Bet365 to win Tewkesbury 24th May, I bet a tenner.
That is ace punting, whatever the result.
For the record I think it will be within 2,000 votes either way.
I've got 30 constituency bets and overall they are looking very good indeed - but this good work will negated bigly if just one bet goes the wrong way (Corbyn wins Islington North).
I don't think he will but why not hedge it?
As a rule I don't hedge bets. I let them run, firstly to avoid paying costs twice and secondly because I see each bet as distinct (with any previous bets irrelevant).
I took the Cons at 5/6 in Tewkesbury this morning mainly because I think that's a very good price and I think Bet365 are best priced to offset their pror LibDem liabilities in Tewks.
You are technically correct, Stocky. Tissue Price was always peaching that gospel. As long as you are braced to take it on the chin when you lose, it's a sound strategy.
5/6 is definitely a good price for Laurence Robertson. When the election was called he had the 33rd safest seat in the country It was number 86 on the LD tarhget list. That doesn't tell the whole story of course, as you know.
Robertson was going to stand down, but I suspect he was persuaded otherwise. A new Tory candidate would undoubtedly have struggled more.
The result is not due until 6am tomorrow and only then if there is no recount.
I'm trying to think of something that might cause a fit of conniption early in the drama tonight . 'Labour have requested a recount in Rushcliffe' or something like that We need that moment of existential dread early doors
Tory hold of 15,000 in Broxbourne will get Labour HQ shitting themselves.
Lab Hold Sunderland central with a 1.8% swing to them from Con
Have managed to spike my nervousness about the exit poll by putting an offer in for a house, though not expecting to hear back about that until tomorrow.
Somewhere in Richmond? Or central London? I hear there will be properties available in both shortly...
Some people thought that Sunak was going to be the adult in the room, the calm head in choppy waters. turns out he wasn't. I think many are seeing Starmer in the same way - projecting calm competence on him (he's been ok as LOTO). Being in power is about to test him. He will also have a party with lots of new MP's, some of whom were probably not expecting to be MPs (at least yet). There will be scandals. There will be sleaze. There always is. I hope he is a better PM than we've had for a while. God knows we need it!
It's funny.
My wife despises Starmer. Hates his guts. She's still going to vote Labour later today mind. She thinks he's an empty suit (she might well be right) with no answers to the problems we face.
But I don't mind him.... yet I'm not going to vote for him or his party.
My other half isn't much of a fan either but he's getting her vote. She'd be green under PR probably.
Keir Starmer now squats like a giant toad across British politics. He has expanded the Overton window in both directions. Praising wealth creators and challenging the NHS to reform, pro-green but putting fiscal prudence first. Where do the Tories find a gap?
The Tories will presumably think 2019 was the answer even though it isn't.
2019 was a freak result created by a combination of the Brexit impasse, Boris Johnson's ability to exploit it, and the widespread revulsion of Tory sympathetic voters for Jeremy Corbyn. Reminder: the Tory GE record since the last Thatcher victory in 1987 is as follows:
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
Yes I feel like a lot of people don’t get this.
Take the 2019 result. Tories 365 Labour 202.
Now assume that some people just lent the Tories their vote to get Brexit done.
Now assume that some people only voted Tory in the end because they were scared of Corbyn.
Now assume that some people only voted Tory because the Brexit/Reform Party weren’t standing in their seat, which they are now.
Now assume that some moderate Tories would have voted Lib Dem last time, but they couldn’t do it because of their Brexit stance - but now they can.
Straight away - before anything has happened, before you even consider the impact of anything that Boris, Truss, Sunak or Starmer have done in the last 5 years - the overall landscape looks much less favourable for the Tories than in 2019, and better for Labour.
Too many people make the mistake of automatically using the 2019 result as a yardstick - when as you say, it was the result of a lot of unique circumstances at the time
Point of order: every election is a set of unique circumstances which lead party coalitions to build or break. Now 2019 may have been a more unstable Tory voting coalition than at other times. But then so might the 2024 Labour coalition. We simply don’t know how events will pan out.
Just seen the Labour van with Rishi's head on a pillow screaming "5 more years of this". They also screened a poll showing Labour and Tories neck and neck here. Seemed effective
When I handed in my postal ballot at a previous election I was told the only permitted official descriptions are “brisk” (slightly busy) and “steady” (slow).
It might be notable that in East Wiltshire, only two candidates live in the constituency: Con and LD (Lab lives in Newham, RefUK in Salisbury, Green in Bristol)
The only address, rather than just constituency, listed was Dave's
I've voted now. After a lifetime of living in marginal seats, and very often voting against the candidate or party I liked least, I felt able to vote for the party I prefer this time - who will certainly lose badly. It was nice.
If everyone in what is now expected to be an ex-marginal seat does what I did and votes for who they prefer we may yet have some very weird vote totals tomorrow morning!
It might be notable that in East Wiltshire, only two candidates live in the constituency: Con and LD (Lab lives in Newham, RefUK in Salisbury, Green in Bristol)
The only address, rather than just constituency, listed was Dave's
East Wiltshire is stupidly large, Salisbury is rather close!
Comments
I still wouldn't be surprised by 36% though
Besides, the electorate is never wrong unless it is former East Germany
"Comrades, we lost the new election. We need new policies."
"The policies are fine - we need a new electorate."
"Enjoy the tap water"
I will get my hat & coat...
Bf's U/O 25.5 market is 23 for under, so to get 51 for 30 or under is generous.
They won't lose, they are 3-1 up and West Brom's best striker is eating a burger behind the stadium, but still. Gnawing doubt, for a few moments....
Strengths: He's serious, which the country needs after nearly a decade of self indulgent politics. Focused. A good organiser and I think results oriented. A pragmatic ideologue (I think he's actually quite left wing, which might surprise people)
Weaknesses: Inflexible, doesn't deal well with changing situations. An Ed Miliband inability to express an idea in simple terms. Inability to do rhetoric. Lack of vision.
They seem completely oblivious to the fact that most people expect these things and someone pretending they are a fantastic bonus is just not in tune with the electorate.
We expect to see a doctor, dentist, to be able to drink the tap water, swim in the sea, pay the bills if we work hard. Telling us we are lucky to be able to do those things just will not wash.
The Spreads have been almost static this morning. The exception has been the LDs who have tiptoed forward to 61-64.
What is Ed up to?
2. Labour finish 3rd or lower (don't count where they didn't stand)? 110
3. Conservatives lose their deposit? 30
4. Lib Dems lose their deposit? 177
5. Reform lose their deposit? 10
6. Labour lose their deposit? 0
How big:
7. Will the largest winning vote margin be? 34000
8. Will the biggest notional majority defeated be (only count where the incumbent party stands)? 24000
How small:
9. Will the smallest winning vote margin be (1st - 2nd)? 0
10. Will the smallest gap between 1st and 3rd be? 900
11. Will the lowest number of votes for any candidate? 2
How many:
12. Parties will be elected (whether or not they take their seats. All true independents are grouped as a single party)? 13
13. Seats will the Conservatives win? 114
14. Seats will Labour win? 431
15. Seats will Lib Dems win? 60
16. Seats will the SNP win? 19
17. Seats will Sinn Fein win? 7
18. Seats will DUP win? 7
19. Seats will Reform come second in? 134
What percentage vote:
20. Will Conservatives get across the UK? 21
21. Will Reform get across the UK? 14
22. Will SNP get in Scotland? 38
23. Will be lowest of any winning candidate? 28
24. Will be highest of any 2nd place candidate? 42
25. Will Speaker get? 78
The current OW is a thin lancet, hardly wide enough for an arrow from a longbow. Starmer's OW is the standard issue: private enterprise (regulated); NHS: welfare state; avoid national bankruptcy (fiscal prudence); Green (like jam) mostly tomorrow and the next day.
No-one (even Reform if you ignore the horrible rhetoric) offers anything except the centre ground of western European liberal or social democracy - a gigantic state, and highly regulated capitalism.
He looks fatter than ever, and it now makes him seem old. The hair now looks profoundly odd, rather than "lovably tousled". And of course whenever he opens his mouth about tax, migration and Wokeness, the inner rightwinger in me screams back at him - we have the highest tax and immigration in history, and you did fuck all about Wokeness. So take a hike, lardbucket
If I feel like that, how do more neutral people feel?
The U/O 59.5 market for LDs is 2.18 @ 59 or less and 1.5 @ 60+
You can't get rid of parties in politics. What we should be doing is ensuring voters have a sufficiently diverse choice of parties so that there's some chance of actually voting goer something vaguely aligned with their political views.
That means PR.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/07/02/chronicle-of-a-bet-foretold-thin-gruel/
1992: tiny, unworkable majority
1997: catastrophic defeat
2001: catastrophic defeat
2005: defeat
2010: minority
2015: tiny, unworkable majority
2017: minority
2019: actual working majority
2024: Sunakocalypse
Nine elections, eight of which have failed to generate a decisive result in favour of the Conservatives. This whole "natural party of government" schtick is a falsehood; if there was ever any validity to it, Tony Blair and social change killed it off.
As we all, I think, appreciate, 2019 only happened through odd circumstances that brought the red and blue wall voters together in a marriage of convenience. Much of what has happened since has been a demonstration of how to try - very badly - to attempt to mollify two voter groups with sometimes opposing needs and values, and end up alienating both. The simultaneous splintering of up to half of the entire Tory vote in all directions at once is the consequence.
Where does the Conservative Party go from here? Probably spinning off into some populist right, conspiracist cul-de-sac as they chase the Reform vote, leaving homeless centre-right voters to sit on their hands or drift off to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. There's always the terrifying possibility that there's enough of a MAGA Republican style vote in this country to get such an entity somewhere close to power, but I have to believe that's not true. American culture is more divided, much more violent and is full of really nasty religious bigots; Britain has an established history of here today, gone tomorrow hard and far right projects.
Just so long as British politics doesn't throw up another full slate of manifestly unsuitable Prime Ministerial options like it did in 2019, there's some reason to be hopeful that a populist hard right Tory party can be contained, until it gets its senses back or dwindles away to nothing. But that's a conversation for another time. First the Tories have to have their catfight and decide what they are now for - and, you never know, they might just surprise us and not pick the most extreme and repellant candidate they can find for their next leader. Stranger things have happened.
CON 25% (218 seats)
LAB 23% (215)
LDM 15% (72)
GRN 10% (4)
RFM 21% (98)
Perhaps not for the exit poll tonight, but it could be where we're heading if Starmer's first term is not all he is hoping for.
Take the 2019 result. Tories 365 Labour 202.
Now assume that some people just lent the Tories their vote to get Brexit done.
Now assume that some people only voted Tory in the end because they were scared of Corbyn.
Now assume that some people only voted Tory because the Brexit/Reform Party weren’t standing in their seat, which they are now.
Now assume that some moderate Tories would have voted Lib Dem last time, but they couldn’t do it because of their Brexit stance - but now they can.
Straight away - before anything has happened, before you even consider the impact of anything that Boris, Truss, Sunak or Starmer have done in the last 5 years - the overall landscape looks much less favourable for the Tories than in 2019, and better for Labour.
Too many people make the mistake of automatically using the 2019 result as a yardstick - when as you say, it was the result of a lot of unique circumstances at the time
The Reform and Conservative combined vote is a couple of percentage points higher than it was at the start of the campaign and LLG is a couple of points lower. So there may be some leakage to Reform from Labour, but most of the 5% shift looks like losses to Green and Lib dems (and possibly some to SNP, Plaid and independents)
An anagram for you:
Worst UK bias turn
But.
He got Brexit done. It not having been done had been a huge democratic deficit the UK faced from 2016 onwards. Plus of course Corbyn. I am sure many other Cons politicians, if they had been similarly forthright on Brexit, would have been voted in, but it was Boris and for that he deserves credit.
I voted for the Tory in the town council election. She's also on my mail route and I like her. I also feel sorry for her; she fell quite badly, onto her face, while she was out campaigning for the other town council election we had a few months back
There were four dogs including Edith at the polling station. She went to say hello to one of the others just as I was X-ing. I nearly voted Kruger by mistake
Surely it’s Labour are 8-0 with 10 minutes left having scored one of the goals but 7 Tory own goals. Once it got to 8-0 the Labour players have just been passing the ball and avoiding injuries and cards.
The Tories might get a late goal or two which takes a bit of the gloss off but it’s not going to change the result and just leaves the Tories waiting on other results to see if they get in the champions league next season or are usurped by Lib Dem United.
Evergreen comment.
Happy general election day!
Seat 14, 18, 11, 3, 11, 15, 5, 12, 6.
1-9 is too long regardless of 50-1 < 30 seats. On a bad night for the Lib Dems they probably still take Cheltenham, so you could win both bets
Edit : Added a tab to show the top 30 LD seats by model if anyone fancies a riskier hedge !
It's on GE 2024 Full, Sheet 3
I can't see how they get more than 30 seats without Cheltenham, you never know I suppose
This reminds me of Lib Dems comforting themselves that they'd be okay in 2015 as they had respected constituency MPs in many places. It's like thinking a reasonably strong swimmer will be okay in a tsunami - no chance, and a bit of anecdata doesn't change that.
Atlee
Wilson
Blair
Starmar?
It's all swings and roundabouts...
I took the Cons at 5/6 in Tewkesbury this morning mainly because I think that's a very good price and I think Bet365 are best priced to offset their pror LibDem liabilities in Tewks.
Have managed to spike my nervousness about the exit poll by putting an offer in for a house, though not expecting to hear back about that until tomorrow.
My wife despises Starmer. Hates his guts. She's still going to vote Labour later today mind.
She thinks he's an empty suit (she might well be right) with no answers to the problems we face.
But I don't mind him.... yet I'm not going to vote for him or his party.
We need that moment of existential dread early doors
And maybe this could be the last election that their combined totals are actually over 50%..
It also speaks well of your relationship with Mrs V.
I really do think the Tory party will die this election. They may hold on to seats, they will likely be the Opposition, but this is the last hurrah. Labour have their tanks parked on the lawn of Thatcher and Cameron, and Farage on the lawn of Enoch Powell. The Tory party can't really exist in the gap left between those two things. Maybe Farage will allow the Tory party to exist in name, but he'll demand his faction take over, even if electorally his party is the lesser partner. If the Tory party merges with Reform - it will be Reform that is the real party.
It will turn out they are empty insulated food delivery boxes going back to the local pizza joint.
I don't really have that sense with Starmer.
He then got all the way over the line in 2015. So it could be said Cameron was a reliable vote winner at elections before, of course, he blew the Tories up with the referendum.
And then Boris, who won the London Mayoral twice and who gained the Tories a net gain of 48 seats in 2019 and a big majority.
I'm off to vote now - for Labour - and then it's all go on various fronts. Have to get off the computer for at least 24 hours.
Wish people luck on their betting, hope everyone makes a net profit, and I will catch you all on the other side, by which I mean on Day 1 of a decade of National Renewal under Keir Starmer and his changed Labour Party that is back in the service of working people.
A preferential voting system gives individuals a much better chance of standing as an independent or indeed taking on their former party if they fall out, due to the transferability of the votes. Especially systems that have multi-member constituencies, such that voters might be receptive to having Corbyn or the anti-Gaza Indy’s as part of the mix in their patch.
As an Indy under FPTP, even if you beat your former party’s official candidate you have the likelihood that the other main party will come through the middle. Thus political party endorsement becomes life or death to our national politicians and so the parties and their whips maintain their grip.
5/6 is definitely a good price for Laurence Robertson. When the election was called he had the 33rd safest seat in the country It was number 86 on the LD tarhget list. That doesn't tell the whole story of course, as you know.
Robertson was going to stand down, but I suspect he was persuaded otherwise. A new Tory candidate would undoubtedly have struggled more.
The result is not due until 6am tomorrow and only then if there is no recount.
The only address, rather than just constituency, listed was Dave's
If everyone in what is now expected to be an ex-marginal seat does what I did and votes for who they prefer we may yet have some very weird vote totals tomorrow morning!