The taking ages to take to the stage and refusing the opportunity to say some words was quite odd.
I know it's a tough moment, but she's not a wallflower. There's a set pattern - thank the returning officer and staff; thank your campaign team; congratulate the victor and wish him the best as he has the pleasure of representing this wonderful constituency; thank your family for their support and joke they'll be seeing much more of you in coming months; leave the stage.
It just looks so much better. People would be going, "Well, I didn't think much of her, but it must be a tough moment and at least she was gracious at the end". As it is, it was all a little undignified.
Yes, it was absolutely graceless and guarantees that the Norfolk Tories would never reselect her. Keep people waiting and then just walking away,. That is not how we do things, no matter how upset one might be. Portillo came back on the strength of his elegant and graceful concession speech. Trusses petulance is her political epitaph.
Apart from anything else, the speech is when you thank the people who have done all the hard, tiring work for you behind the scenes, very often completely unpaid. Like the Oscars, it's deeply boring for the audience, but there will have been a stack of people in that hall going home without the customary thanks that they were expecting.
The initial exit poll had Labour 421 and the Tories 131. So The Tories have under-performed by 10, Labour 8. Decent model.
The Lib Dems though, over-performing by 17!
Why the BBC decided to update it, was baffling, it just made it worse.
It also gave Reform about 300% of the seats they actually got.
I assume that the exit poll is probabalistic to some degree - and that they will have had quite wide error bars on Reform (for understandable reasons) - so I guess that they had something like 100 seats all of which had a 10% chance of going Reform - so they counted that as 10 seats. Obviously the issue is that these are related chances - so really it was a 90% chance of Reform on 4 seats, and a 10% chance of Reform on 100 seats... It will be very instructive over the next few days to look at and understand where Reform is 2nd (mostly to Labour I expect) and how close some of the near misses were.
The other thing to note - which has already been alluded too - is how much of a Southern England party the Lib Dems will be now. When they last had (almost) this many MP's in 2005 - of the 62 seats they had 11 in Scotland, 4 in Wales, and various Northern seats - both rural (Westmorland), Posh Suburbia (Cheadle), and Student (Leeds NW, Withington). They are now primarily the party of the educated, middle class, home counties... In some ways it should make them more coherent as a party - but it might be difficult for them to challenge Labour from the left on some issues in the way that they did previously.
I feel vindicated in predicting that Labour would underperform their worst polls and that the Lib Dems would exceed expectations. It never felt likely that Labour would get 40%+.
I've just realised that the Green party gain in the East of England was a NIMBYist vote against renewable energy development in the constituency! Well the very funny thing is that now he has nothing to lose ploughing on with it.
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
Anyone who had Reform at 5 seats or more will be sweating...
REF under 4.5 is my largest open bet left. Got on at 5, 4, 3.25 and 2.06. Tempted to cash out so i can get some work done rather than refreshing betfair all day
Haven't been on here or posted in a while but had to comment on the election.
This has been the election that has had the most predictable outcome but yet at the same time quite extraordinary. Labour getting so many seats from such a small vote share (polls massively over stated Labour's support). Lowest ever vote share for a majority, let alone a landslide. The start of the rise of Reform. Plus Labour also losing seats to Muslim specific independents.
It seems to me that the number of safe seats has been slashed. So many seats had results on a knife edge. It will be very easy in 4/5 years time if Labour do not do well for them to easily lose a couple of hundred seats. Governing is not easy and Labour don't have the golden economic legacy that there was in 1997 and Starmer doesn't have either the charisma of Blair or the vote share he achieved.
It is all to play for at the next general election.
Remember breathless discussion in 2019 about a new realignment, a new majority, the political genius of Dom and Boris, Labour decades in the wilderness. That was with 360, 370 Tory seats.
I feel vindicated in predicting that Labour would underperform their worst polls and that the Lib Dems would exceed expectations. It never felt likely that Labour would get 40%+.
I'm not a Hunt fan but he stood and fought. You only win if you fight. For that he's a better man than Gove or Brandon Lewis or etc etc etc Maybe some chaff has been expunged
Gracious speech from Sunak - quite a contrast with his two predecessors. Do love the way we do handovers, Sunak to Buckingham Palace in PM’s car through the front door, leaves it in a private car out the back door.
Haven't been on here or posted in a while but had to comment on the election.
This has been the election that has had the most predictable outcome but yet at the same time quite extraordinary. Labour getting so many seats from such a small vote share (polls massively over stated Labour's support). Lowest ever vote share for a majority, let alone a landslide. The start of the rise of Reform. Plus Labour also losing seats to Muslim specific independents.
It seems to me that the number of safe seats has been slashed. So many seats had results on a knife edge. It will be very easy in 4/5 years time if Labour do not do well for them to easily lose a couple of hundred seats. Governing is not easy and Labour don't have the golden economic legacy that there was in 1997 and Starmer doesn't have either the charisma of Blair or the vote share he achieved.
It is all to play for at the next general election.
Remember breathless discussion in 2019 about a new realignment, a new majority, the political genius of Dom and Boris, Labour decades in the wilderness. That was with 360, 370 Tory seats.
The share of the vote was much larger though.
Compared to this, their vote efficiency was terrible. But Jezza's, Jesus Christ!
The taking ages to take to the stage and refusing the opportunity to say some words was quite odd.
I know it's a tough moment, but she's not a wallflower. There's a set pattern - thank the returning officer and staff; thank your campaign team; congratulate the victor and wish him the best as he has the pleasure of representing this wonderful constituency; thank your family for their support and joke they'll be seeing much more of you in coming months; leave the stage.
It just looks so much better. People would be going, "Well, I didn't think much of her, but it must be a tough moment and at least she was gracious at the end". As it is, it was all a little undignified.
Yes, it was absolutely graceless and guarantees that the Norfolk Tories would never reselect her. Keep people waiting and then just walking away,. That is not how we do things, no matter how upset one might be. Portillo came back on the strength of his elegant and graceful concession speech. Trusses petulance is her political epitaph.
Apart from anything else, the speech is when you thank the people who have done all the hard, tiring work for you behind the scenes, very often completely unpaid. Like the Oscars, it's deeply boring for the audience, but there will have been a stack of people in that hall going home without the customary thanks that they were expecting.
No fizz with Liz for her party workers to thank them for her hard work despite her defeat?
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
I am extremely happy this morning - - and glad to see the back of this frankly awful government that has very little over the fourteen years. Their biggest achievement will have been to stop Jeremy Corbyn - a decision which I disagreed with at the time but in hindsight accept was right.
But SKS has an awful lot to do, if he doesn't want to be a one term PM. This is a majority totally built on sand, with an insanely good operation from Morgan McSweeney who will be looked at as a man who managed to win an election despite such a poor share of the vote. As I said earlier, either he knew this beforehand, or he got lucky with targeting and the individual shares were just enough to get Labour over the line but either way, he's done something Ed Milliband failed to do in 2015 and actually pulled off a 35% strategy (remember that?).
But on the other hand, the expectations are so low for SKS that if he does anything, I suspect he won't find it difficult to increase that share, assuming the Tories don't re-group (which they don't at the moment want to).
Happy? I am fucking ecstatic. The Tories routed with some sensational results. The SNP crushed so hard they fit in a minibus. The LDs on 71 and possibly 72 once Inverness gets counted.
What. A . Night. And I was there watching the Tory and SNP faces...
The initial exit poll had Labour 421 and the Tories 131. So The Tories have under-performed by 10, Labour 8. Decent model.
The Lib Dems though, over-performing by 17!
Why the BBC decided to update it, was baffling, it just made it worse.
It also gave Reform about 300% of the seats they actually got.
I assume that the exit poll is probabalistic to some degree - and that they will have had quite wide error bars on Reform (for understandable reasons) - so I guess that they had something like 100 seats all of which had a 10% chance of going Reform - so they counted that as 10 seats. Obviously the issue is that these are related chances - so really it was a 90% chance of Reform on 4 seats, and a 10% chance of Reform on 100 seats... It will be very instructive over the next few days to look at and understand where Reform is 2nd (mostly to Labour I expect) and how close some of the near misses were.
The other thing to note - which has already been alluded too - is how much of a Southern England party the Lib Dems will be now. When they last had (almost) this many MP's in 2005 - of the 62 seats they had 11 in Scotland, 4 in Wales, and various Northern seats - both rural (Westmorland), Posh Suburbia (Cheadle), and Student (Leeds NW, Withington). They are now primarily the party of the educated, middle class, home counties... In some ways it should make them more coherent as a party - but it might be difficult for them to challenge Labour from the left on some issues in the way that they did previously.
A particular problem with Reform was the lack of a base from last time on top of which to build the swings. I wonder whether they used the Brexit Party vote from 2019 as a base - when, of course, they only stood in Labour held seats. Adding a national swing on top of a base with votes in only half the seats would have made the resulting vote distribution very lumpy - less even - and therefore overstate the likely seats they would win.
Other than that, the Exit Poll was pretty good at estimating the result - but they'd do better not to reveal the seat-by-seat workings since, like many of the MRPs, many of them were nonsense.
The initial exit poll had Labour 421 and the Tories 131. So The Tories have under-performed by 10, Labour 8. Decent model.
The Lib Dems though, over-performing by 17!
Why the BBC decided to update it, was baffling, it just made it worse.
It also gave Reform about 300% of the seats they actually got.
I assume that the exit poll is probabalistic to some degree - and that they will have had quite wide error bars on Reform (for understandable reasons) - so I guess that they had something like 100 seats all of which had a 10% chance of going Reform - so they counted that as 10 seats. Obviously the issue is that these are related chances - so really it was a 90% chance of Reform on 4 seats, and a 10% chance of Reform on 100 seats... It will be very instructive over the next few days to look at and understand where Reform is 2nd (mostly to Labour I expect) and how close some of the near misses were.
The other thing to note - which has already been alluded too - is how much of a Southern England party the Lib Dems will be now. When they last had (almost) this many MP's in 2005 - of the 62 seats they had 11 in Scotland, 4 in Wales, and various Northern seats - both rural (Westmorland), Posh Suburbia (Cheadle), and Student (Leeds NW, Withington). They are now primarily the party of the educated, middle class, home counties... In some ways it should make them more coherent as a party - but it might be difficult for them to challenge Labour from the left on some issues in the way that they did previously.
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
Five, all holds or notional hold (Gordon), Dross the loser
Lib Dems also on five. Orkney and Shetland, Caithness, Mid Dunbartonshire, West Edinburgh and Fife NE. If the Scottish Lib Dems were to win the recount in Inverness, then it would be six,
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
My highlight of last night was her face when the exit poll came out.
That's a woman thinking, "We used to need a 50 seater coach to transport our MPs around, now we could do it in a decent sized campervan... I wish I had one."
So who are the core Conservative voters this year ?
I suggest centre-right voters who are doing well.
Lots of oldies inevitably but also some surprisingly high numbers where housing is affordable and unemployment lower than usual.
The unhappy centre-right voters moved either to Reform or, depending on the area, to either Labour, LibDems or Green.
In my part of Scotland? A chunk of the Conservative vote are not conservative voters - they voted Conservative in fear of the SNP.
But the SNP got demolished. No longer anything to fear. Despite our vote getting squeezed in the NE we still increased our vote. But the fear that was that squeeze has been routed. Crushed. Demolished.
The taking ages to take to the stage and refusing the opportunity to say some words was quite odd.
I know it's a tough moment, but she's not a wallflower. There's a set pattern - thank the returning officer and staff; thank your campaign team; congratulate the victor and wish him the best as he has the pleasure of representing this wonderful constituency; thank your family for their support and joke they'll be seeing much more of you in coming months; leave the stage.
It just looks so much better. People would be going, "Well, I didn't think much of her, but it must be a tough moment and at least she was gracious at the end". As it is, it was all a little undignified.
Liz Truss didn't get to where she is today by being dignified.
Survation are to do a review of their poll and understand why they got it so wrong.
Survation are to do a review of their poll and guess why they got it so wrong.
"It was a late surge and our weight adjustment was slightly inaccurate. There's nothing we can do about the former but we can adjust the latter. Our approach remains strong"
After voting, I did some lunchtime and early afternoon drinking. This led to quite a deep midafternoon snooze
I woke at about seven, having completely forgotten about the election. I made dinner and ate it with half a bottle of wine, and went to bed at 10:30 without even seeing the exit poll
I woke up at 5:15 as usual having remembered about the election and in time for Truss and the disappointing result in East Wiltshire
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
My highlight of last night was her face when the exit poll came out.
That's a woman thinking, "We used to need a 50 seater coach to transport our MPs around, now we could do it in a decent sized campervan... I wish I had one."
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
My highlight of last night was her face when the exit poll came out.
Some contrast to her triumphalism as Jo Swinson lost her seat.
It was actually refreshing to see virtually no triumphalism or bitterness among the candidates or leaders last night. No nasty little jigs. Even Farage was relatively diplomatic at his acceptance speech. The only hint of hostility was in Rochdale, perhaps understandably.
Still, the political prospects for Liz Truss are much better than for Scottish nationalism.
This, surely, was an opportunity for Sturgeon to admit some responsibility for the state of Scotland and the anger of an electorate let down by her government. Humility, however, is not a trait that comes easily to the former first minister. When Joanna Cherry, who had just lost her Edinburgh seat, said that the policy failings of Sturgeon’s government, the lack of debate within the party and Sturgeon’s style of leadership had contributed to the SNP’s defeat, Sturgeon only smiled thinly and shook her head. “Often you find in these kind of positions you are neither the hero or the villain,” she said. “Of course I take my share of responsibility, but to say it is all my fault is too easy a solution.”
What, then, was her solution? “Look,” she said, “it’s never a mistake that the party of independence puts that front and central in their campaign. Not enough though has been given to make the case and win over the undecided and the strategy to deliver.”
Independence, she added, had not gone away, and “it would be a great mistake to think this election result has killed it off”. In other words, if you find yourself in a hole, keep digging.
I missed Truss because I was at the dentist but I did see the Jess Phillips count which featured the most devastating deployment of the tactical curtsy since the renaissance
I missed Truss because I was at the dentist but I did see the Jess Phillips count which featured the most devastating deployment of the tactical curtsy since the renaissance
I do admire Jess Phillips’ utter unwillingness to put up with anyone’s bullshit.
After the initial clutch of results, it seemed to me that the exit poll figures were likely to be somewhat awry compared with the final outcome and I said as much here. With just two seats yet to ddeclare, apologies from me are definitely the oder of the day. In calculating that Labour were expected to win 410 seats, they were virtually spot on against their current total of 412. They had the Tories winning 131 seats (currently 121) and the LibDems winning 61 seats (currently 71).
Five, all holds or notional hold (Gordon), Dross the loser
Lib Dems also on five. Orkney and Shetland, Caithness, Mid Dunbartonshire, West Edinburgh and Fife NE. If the Scottish Lib Dems were to win the recount in Inverness, then it would be six,
They seem to be saying the Lib Dems lead in Inverness as it stands, but must be a squeaker if they are packing up and coming back in the morning - if it was 100 votes and checking no major blunders, I think the returning officer would soldier on. NE Fife was a two vote win for SNP over Lib Dem in 2017 - wonder if it may be the reverse this time?
I've taken this quote from the Guardian. This is how epochal yesterday was
"Before 2024, an 18.8% Conservative-to-Labour swing recorded in Brent North in 1997 was thought to be the largest such shift in the UK’s postwar voting history.
That record was smashed overnight, with 46 constituencies surpassing this level."
I really don't blame any of the pollsters for their predictive models producing such different results.The voting shares only tell a story. Underneath was the biggest political earthquake of my lifetime and why Andy JS's modelling was so amazing.
The initial exit poll had Labour 421 and the Tories 131. So The Tories have under-performed by 10, Labour 8. Decent model.
The Lib Dems though, over-performing by 17!
Why the BBC decided to update it, was baffling, it just made it worse.
It also gave Reform about 300% of the seats they actually got.
I assume that the exit poll is probabalistic to some degree - and that they will have had quite wide error bars on Reform (for understandable reasons) - so I guess that they had something like 100 seats all of which had a 10% chance of going Reform - so they counted that as 10 seats. Obviously the issue is that these are related chances - so really it was a 90% chance of Reform on 4 seats, and a 10% chance of Reform on 100 seats... It will be very instructive over the next few days to look at and understand where Reform is 2nd (mostly to Labour I expect) and how close some of the near misses were.
The other thing to note - which has already been alluded too - is how much of a Southern England party the Lib Dems will be now. When they last had (almost) this many MP's in 2005 - of the 62 seats they had 11 in Scotland, 4 in Wales, and various Northern seats - both rural (Westmorland), Posh Suburbia (Cheadle), and Student (Leeds NW, Withington). They are now primarily the party of the educated, middle class, home counties... In some ways it should make them more coherent as a party - but it might be difficult for them to challenge Labour from the left on some issues in the way that they did previously.
The LibDems are now the NIMBY party.
That’s the Greens. Although the LibDems do come in a roaring second on that score.
The taking ages to take to the stage and refusing the opportunity to say some words was quite odd.
I know it's a tough moment, but she's not a wallflower. There's a set pattern - thank the returning officer and staff; thank your campaign team; congratulate the victor and wish him the best as he has the pleasure of representing this wonderful constituency; thank your family for their support and joke they'll be seeing much more of you in coming months; leave the stage.
It just looks so much better. People would be going, "Well, I didn't think much of her, but it must be a tough moment and at least she was gracious at the end". As it is, it was all a little undignified.
Yes, it was absolutely graceless and guarantees that the Norfolk Tories would never reselect her. Keep people waiting and then just walking away,. That is not how we do things, no matter how upset one might be. Portillo came back on the strength of his elegant and graceful concession speech. Trusses petulance is her political epitaph.
Apart from anything else, the speech is when you thank the people who have done all the hard, tiring work for you behind the scenes, very often completely unpaid. Like the Oscars, it's deeply boring for the audience, but there will have been a stack of people in that hall going home without the customary thanks that they were expecting.
Exactly, it is just good manners.
But then, for Liz Truss it is only about herself, which is why she was bundled out of the door so fast. .
So who are the core Conservative voters this year ?
I suggest centre-right voters who are doing well.
Lots of oldies inevitably but also some surprisingly high numbers where housing is affordable and unemployment lower than usual.
The unhappy centre-right voters moved either to Reform or, depending on the area, to either Labour, LibDems or Green.
Need to look at where they did better than average - Darlington, Keighley etc
Keighley - local factors - e.g., Bradford Council closing the tip in Ilkley plus Hamas voters in Keighley town itself. Plus the MP taking credit for everything, such as the funding for the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway - pork barrel politics.
After the initial clutch of results, it seemed to me that the exit poll figures were likely to be somewhat awry compared with the final outcome and I said as much here. With just two seats yet to ddeclare, apologies from me are definitely the oder of the day. In calculating that Labour were expected to win 410 seats, they were virtually spot on against their current total of 412. They had the Tories winning 131 seats (currently 121) and the LibDems winning 61 seats (currently 71).
My advice before the election was you won't make much of a profit betting against Sir John Curtice.
Five, all holds or notional hold (Gordon), Dross the loser
Lib Dems also on five. Orkney and Shetland, Caithness, Mid Dunbartonshire, West Edinburgh and Fife NE. If the Scottish Lib Dems were to win the recount in Inverness, then it would be six,
They seem to be saying the Lib Dems lead in Inverness as it stands, but must be a squeaker if they are packing up and coming back in the morning - if it was 100 votes and checking no major blunders, I think the returning officer would soldier on. NE Fife was a two vote win for SNP over Lib Dem in 2017 - wonder if it may be the reverse this time?
Wendy Chamberlain crushed the SNP.. 54.7% of the vote.
No, just missed it. The contrasting fortunes of Truss and Hunt should give conservatives cause to reflect before they go off down rabbit holes.
Competence matters as does conduct.
And Hunt has had them both pretty consistently since 2010.
Truss didn't show competence in office or acceptable conduct afterwards.
And the poor conduct after may have been more relevant to her fate than being out of her depth in number 10.
I'd have thought so. She lost by 630, with 6,282 for the Turnip Taliban. Had she kept a bit quiet, shown a bit of humility, been seen around Thetford a bit, I don't doubt people would have rallied around a bit and she'd have won by a fair margin.
Right now that’s done. Next PM predictions. I’ll stick my neck out and predict Boris Johnson.
...and then you woke up.
It’s an honest guess. Who do you think?
I have no idea who or when, except Johnson is a disgraceful busted flush. If the Conservatives redux a Johnson premiership they are well and truly finished.
So this was a useful test of the idea of RefCon and LLG blocs. A PR voting pattern in a FPTP election.
Final scores on the doors are LLG 52.7%, RefCon 38%. But the polls were GB and this is UK with 2.5% going to Northern Ireland, so the adjusted GB numbers are LLG 54, RefCon 39. That's somewhat higher for RefCon than the polls, and lower for LLG. So a polling miss on left vs right.
What has this election told us about tactical voting? It's that Labour and the Lib Dems have got their tactical dance so in-step that they are practically operating as a single party. Extreme efficiency. But little or no evidence of any tactical voting between Labour and Green, and virtually none between Con and Reform.
That tactical vote surely cannot account for the difference between 35% and 41% can it?
I think the clue was there in the poll (was it @IanB2 who posted it?) Showing 39% LAB, but only 30% were real Lab, the rest preferring other parties as first choice, mostly Green. It looks to me that about half decided to go with their real preference.
Were the Scottish sab samples more accurate than the full Scottish voting intention polls. I distinctly remember many Scottish subsamples having the SNP on 2%?
I am extremely happy this morning - - and glad to see the back of this frankly awful government that has very little over the fourteen years. Their biggest achievement will have been to stop Jeremy Corbyn - a decision which I disagreed with at the time but in hindsight accept was right.
But SKS has an awful lot to do, if he doesn't want to be a one term PM. This is a majority totally built on sand, with an insanely good operation from Morgan McSweeney who will be looked at as a man who managed to win an election despite such a poor share of the vote. As I said earlier, either he knew this beforehand, or he got lucky with targeting and the individual shares were just enough to get Labour over the line but either way, he's done something Ed Milliband failed to do in 2015 and actually pulled off a 35% strategy (remember that?).
But on the other hand, the expectations are so low for SKS that if he does anything, I suspect he won't find it difficult to increase that share, assuming the Tories don't re-group (which they don't at the moment want to).
We’ve gone from 2017, the last great 2 party contest, in England at least, to complete fragmentation.
That’s how Labour has nailed it on 35%.
But does it continue to fragment? Or will blocs coalesce again in 2029? I could see there being alot of tactical voting next time. In all directions.
We had over 5,000 comments in the 12 hours after the exit poll came out and the PB servers coped.
And to you, impressed by the number of threads you spammed out overnight and the efficient closure of comments.
I've been grateful to PB for every election night since 2010. This time is different and not just because of Labour. The team have done spectacularly. Thank you.
Raworth disappointed there's no redux - it's raining, there's no flags waving in Downing Street etc.
One suspects rules have changed a bit on who is allowed into downing street.
Certainly a less cohesive, lower-trust society than we were in 1997. And that's an inditement on the 1997-2010 Labour governance that they're waxing so nostalgic about and of course the 14 years since.
Five, all holds or notional hold (Gordon), Dross the loser
Lib Dems also on five. Orkney and Shetland, Caithness, Mid Dunbartonshire, West Edinburgh and Fife NE. If the Scottish Lib Dems were to win the recount in Inverness, then it would be six,
They seem to be saying the Lib Dems lead in Inverness as it stands, but must be a squeaker if they are packing up and coming back in the morning - if it was 100 votes and checking no major blunders, I think the returning officer would soldier on. NE Fife was a two vote win for SNP over Lib Dem in 2017 - wonder if it may be the reverse this time?
Wendy Chamberlain crushed the SNP.. 54.7% of the vote.
I didn't mean in NE Fife this time but in Inverness!
Yes, Chamberlain has been a really good Lib Dem performer, and decent MP from what I hear. She'd have been reasonably safe even if the SNP had held up better in general.
Right now that’s done. Next PM predictions. I’ll stick my neck out and predict Boris Johnson.
...and then you woke up.
It’s an honest guess. Who do you think?
I have no idea who or when, except Johnson is a disgraceful busted flush. If the Conservatives redux a Johnson premiership they are well and truly finished.
It doesn’t feel obvious to me that Starmer has a sufficiently stable voting coalition at this stage to be a 10 year PM.
But it’s also not obvious that what’s left of the Tory parliamentary party has what it takes to rebuild their voting coalition.
You might not like it but I think he’s a pretty plausible bet. He would want it for one thing. And Covid era parties will be ancient history by 2028/9.
Comments
The other thing to note - which has already been alluded too - is how much of a Southern England party the Lib Dems will be now. When they last had (almost) this many MP's in 2005 - of the 62 seats they had 11 in Scotland, 4 in Wales, and various Northern seats - both rural (Westmorland), Posh Suburbia (Cheadle), and Student (Leeds NW, Withington). They are now primarily the party of the educated, middle class, home counties... In some ways it should make them more coherent as a party - but it might be difficult for them to challenge Labour from the left on some issues in the way that they did previously.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4871169#Comment_4871169
I suggest centre-right voters who are doing well.
Lots of oldies inevitably but also some surprisingly high numbers where housing is affordable and unemployment lower than usual.
The unhappy centre-right voters moved either to Reform or, depending on the area, to either Labour, LibDems or Green.
But Morgan McSweeney clearly did not.
Maybe some chaff has been expunged
I reckon if you're a mudslinger and a liar it's easy to stop once it's obvious you have nothing to gain by it.
Compared to this, their vote efficiency was terrible. But Jezza's, Jesus Christ!
What. A . Night. And I was there watching the Tory and SNP faces...
Other than that, the Exit Poll was pretty good at estimating the result - but they'd do better not to reveal the seat-by-seat workings since, like many of the MRPs, many of them were nonsense.
That was my moment. Truss was just icing on the cake. He was malevolent. She was just stupid.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2024/07/how-britain-voted-and-why-my-post-vote-poll/
Truss is one Conservative I would not have voted for.
Braverman is another.
Each has failed on both competence and conduct.
FTSE 100, 250 and all share all up slightly but generally unmoved.
GBP up just under half a cent against USD and 0.1 cents against the Euro, so again pretty unmoved.
Markets treating the election as a borefest.
But the SNP got demolished. No longer anything to fear. Despite our vote getting squeezed in the NE we still increased our vote. But the fear that was that squeeze has been routed. Crushed. Demolished.
Lib Dems went tactical voting mad, Reform just voted for what they wanted.
Now finds himself as a back bencher in Holyrood.
After voting, I did some lunchtime and early afternoon drinking. This led to quite a deep midafternoon snooze
I woke at about seven, having completely forgotten about the election. I made dinner and ate it with half a bottle of wine, and went to bed at 10:30 without even seeing the exit poll
I woke up at 5:15 as usual having remembered about the election and in time for Truss and the disappointing result in East Wiltshire
C U L8r
And not analysing by ethnicity is a big miss.
Go slower, do more.
Worrying about Palestinians doesn't make you a Hamas supporter in the same worrying about Israel and her people doesn't make you a genocide enabler.
Decent chap.
Impossible Circumstances.
With just two seats yet to ddeclare, apologies from me are definitely the oder of the day. In calculating that Labour were expected to win 410 seats, they were virtually spot on against their current total of 412. They had the Tories winning 131 seats (currently 121) and the LibDems winning 61 seats (currently 71).
"Before 2024, an 18.8% Conservative-to-Labour swing recorded in Brent North in 1997 was thought to be the largest such shift in the UK’s postwar voting history.
That record was smashed overnight, with 46 constituencies surpassing this level."
I really don't blame any of the pollsters for their predictive models producing such different results.The voting shares only tell a story. Underneath was the biggest political earthquake of my lifetime and why Andy JS's modelling was so amazing.
How Starmer slaughtered the Tories Inside Labour's march to victory
But then, for Liz Truss it is only about herself, which is why she was bundled out of the door so fast. .
We had over 5,000 comments in the 12 hours after the exit poll came out and the PB servers coped.
Con 243
Lab 297
LD 32
SNP 53
Oth 25
https://x.com/Dylan_Difford/status/1809141596216087018
Raworth disappointed there's no redux - it's raining, there's no flags waving in Downing Street etc.
Starmer 412 seats!
Dumfries was once a Labour stronghold but its been Tory for a while now.
That’s how Labour has nailed it on 35%.
But does it continue to fragment? Or will blocs coalesce again in 2029? I could see there being alot of tactical voting next time. In all directions.
https://www.veriangroup.com/press-release/uk-polling-02-july-2024
1) Only one photo per post
2) The extra photos must be election related.
Certainty is the big benefit
Yes, Chamberlain has been a really good Lib Dem performer, and decent MP from what I hear. She'd have been reasonably safe even if the SNP had held up better in general.
But it’s also not obvious that what’s left of the Tory parliamentary party has what it takes to rebuild their voting coalition.
You might not like it but I think he’s a pretty plausible bet. He would want it for one thing. And Covid era parties will be ancient history by 2028/9.
Also, last election a majority went into another majority is 1966 to 1970 is it?