Labour are going to tax the shit out of savers aren't they?
Que? What have they said?
I'd expect things as early as tomorrow, or perhaps Monday. And it will be from the time it is announced. I'd suggest sorting out tax cliff edges would be good to be done simultaneously.
When El Gordo made the BoE independent, it was on the Monday.
Um - it's already been said that the Budget is will be in September / October because thats the time frame the OBR requires. But nice to see you scaremongering already.
Such a weird stream of bitter doomcasting on here tonight.
There was no entry on the BBC News live feed at 5.59. It appears that Boulay is simply lying.
It read as obvious sarcasm/joke to me.
Obviously even if Reeves was going to do that, she wouldn't phrase it so bluntly.
If the Tory rampers are going to make random shit up the site is much diminished. It's one thing speculating but couching it as reality is bollocks.
Only retards would have believed it and if they were so thick they should not be allowed on a computer
If Starmer doesn't get illegal migration under control Farage will probably be PM within 5 years. He also needs to get legal migration under control to some extent.
Surely if he makes the country terrible people won't want to come, so the worse he does the better his election prospects?
People have been saying how awful the country is for ages, yet they still keep coming.
They won't all the time there is free housing, health and benefits on offer.
My late grandmother was in a south London "jobcentre" in the 1950s, queuing to sort out her NI when a young West Indian chap came in and asked everyone incredulously "Is this where you get money for nothing? He could barely believe it himself.
It was a straw in the wind.
Nostalgia is fundamental to humans.
There was a time when we had full employment, good affordable housing, equality, and the country was at ease with itself, even though no one can really point to when that was - and when you do look at previous eras in detail, you can see all kinds or troubling issues.
My view - Starmer will run a very tedious boring centre-right government, raising a few taxes (because of the debt) but not doing much that makes anyone happy and Starmer is a wet fish
It won’t be popular and with no “f the tories” they lose a few percent on both left and the right
Leading to an even more chaotic 2029 election where weird stuff happens all over the place as multi way contests become the norm
Maybe I’m wrong and this Lab govt will surprise and be more popular than expected but I don’t see it
I’m hopeful they’ll be a fairly decent government, but the risk is that they could be like the LibDems in coalition, who did a tremendous amount of good work behind the scenes tinkering with complicated stuff to make it slightly better; the sort of job both they and Starmer enjoy. But come the election not much of it will be worth many votes.
There’s no doubt the coalition was a well-run government, and stories abound within the party of how LibDem juniors calmed their flaky and impetuous Tory counterparts and simply focused on managing well and getting small sensible stuff done while squashing potential blunders and embarrassments.
There was no electoral advantage in a well-run government for the junior coalition partner - even now the transition from sensible stability to chaotic psychodrama is rightly blamed on thr Tories but rarely attributed to the absence of the stabilising LibDems.
The advantage Starmer has is that the kudos for things being managed better will fall into his lap. But he will need people in his team with imagination and bigger dreams, to persuade him to go for a few big reforming wins, rather than just tinker.
That’s a problem with all governments. Do things competently, and people give you little credit, because they assume there’s no problem.
Pretty sure its not been a problem for the last few governments.
If 1997 is any guide, many people who were hesitant about Labour before the election, complaining that it wasn’t offering much different from the Tories, will be swept along by the euphoria of the democratic catharsis afterwards. After a “change” election, many more people remember voting for the new government than actually did. Just as Blair did, Starmer will enter an imperial phase.
Before we are all swept along too far, however, it is worth listening to one voice of warning. James Kanagasooriam, the political analyst who identified the much-misunderstood red wall before the last election, now says: “Labour is building a monumental sandcastle.”
He says that many people made the mistake in 2019 of thinking that Boris Johnson had put together a lasting coalition, built on the foundation of Brexit, making deep inroads into Labour’s working-class base while retaining Tory support in the middle class. But that coalition was “wide and shaky”, Kanagasooriam says.
Regarding Tommy Tugend, he gives me the overwhelming impression of being utterly bought by China. It's only an impression, but his recent public thoughts about their UK spying programme - "It's such a bloody nuisance, I wish they'd stop" - like it's some embarrassing foible of an otherwise lovable uncle, rather than a long term plan to undermine the British economy and state, was fairly chilling.
I don't think that is entirely fair. It is the words of someone who has lived a gilded life and never had to worry about being plunged into darkness on a freezing winters day because there isn't enough money to feed the meter.
Last thing we need right now is a dripping wet who puts idealistic notions of decency above the welfare of the nations people.
So said the Nazis, who put the welfare of the nation's people above any form of decency. That turned out well for them, and the world, didn't it?
There has to be a balance between putting your people first, and what is decent (which I take to be correct, moral and proper).
Arrgh. 4 more years of Trump. We live in interesting times.
A priority for the new government is to push arms production so we can keep Ukraine going if the US drops the ball.
You know what, Fuck Biden, and Fuck the Democrats
The former is a demented lying clown, and the second have enabled those lies and told more lies of their own, covering up the President's obvious senility with outright mendacity. It's a terrible and grievous conspiracy, easilly as villainous, stupid and immoral as Watergate (indeed far worse in its consequences)
So we get Trump and the Democrats will get eviscerated. It is what they deserve. The trouble is the rest of us don't need or deserve Trump, but this is what the Democrat party has wrought. It is ALL on them
The problem is partly that it seems the second set in your list - the Dem party - is not hard-faced enough to tell good old uncle Joe to do one because he is going to lose through being too fucking old.
We will all live to regret that decision.
Trump 2.0 is a dead cert I now think unless Dems grow a pair.
Or too many people get protection from the consequences of nefarious activities that would go if he was no longer POTUS
Several good Starmer appointments, in addition to the (reasonable bag) of political ones:
James Timpson OBE @JamesTCobbler has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation) in the Ministry of Justice @MoJGovUK
Sir Patrick Vallance KCB has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Science) in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology @SciTechgovuk
Inevitably the Vallance one has brought out the COVIDiots.
True, although the usual pattern with single-issue experts brought into government is that they get overwhelmed and frustrated by the whole stack of administrative and political impediments that they will meet when they push toward their favoured way of changing everything, and after a couple of years they walk away.
The good thing about this new style of playing football, emulating cricket for the first eighty-five minutes before ending with an exciting goal in the closing seconds, is that you only need to switch on and watch five minutes from the end.
A specific challenge for Starmer (ie Streeting) is can he prevent any extra resources that they can find going on paying extra to staff for doing no more, rather than building up services.
That will be repeated across the piece.
The Junior Docs have been using fiddled figures in their ~35% (?) claims throughout eg aiui by using RPI not CPI for inflation, and they need to recognise at least that.
Where will this go?
Probably a settlement like the Scottish government made with the juniors, or the Consultants in England.
Basically a payrise that matches inflation for the last 2 years, and a commitment to matching CPI going forward.
The strikes have cost twice as much so far as a 35% pay increase would have, but no one expects 35% in one year, just a commitment to more than match CPI. Think of it as a triple lock for essential workers.
There are also non-pay aspects of juniors terms and conditions that could make a major difference at little cost.
Pretty amazing result for independents this election.
Did non-Islamic independents do well? Corbyn. Other than him?
There was one other: Alex Easton in Northern Ireland. Former DUP candidate, who left the DUP for not being hardline enough, but didn’t want to join the even more hardline TUV.
Am amazed by the number of posters who didn't predict this election well* but are super confident about the election in five years time.
*I didn't predict this one well.
I've realised the best way to predict the overall shares and seats is to go through each seat individually on their merits, and then (often) get a surprise when you see the overall result, a bottom-up approach you could say, rather than immediately predicting the overall result. The former approach is less likely to be affected by biases you might have.
Brilliant! You could back it up with some detailed analysis and then you just need to find a catchy three-letter acronym before your new approach to seat predictions is ready to change the world…oh, wait…
The dawn awakens.. 40pc cgt on the value of your house increase when you sell it. Middle England will go nuts..
Be careful for what you voted for.....
Although I presume the Labour Party plans to win the next election, so you never know
"Tax them till their pips squeak" ring any bells?
There really is no point to these sorts of scare stories now. They were nonsense last week, but electorally useful, but with no GE for 5 years futile now.
We have a Labour government until 2029, and one that plans to get re-elected.
I see Ed Miliband is Energy Secretary again. I'd criticise him for closing down power stations and not building enough capacity last time, but it seems every party is rubbish at energy.
Labour are going to tax the shit out of savers aren't they?
Que? What have they said?
I'd expect things as early as tomorrow, or perhaps Monday. And it will be from the time it is announced. I'd suggest sorting out tax cliff edges would be good to be done simultaneously.
When El Gordo made the BoE independent, it was on the Monday.
Um - it's already been said that the Budget is will be in September / October because thats the time frame the OBR requires. But nice to see you scaremongering already.
Such a weird stream of bitter doomcasting on here tonight.
There was no entry on the BBC News live feed at 5.59. It appears that Boulay is simply lying.
It read as obvious sarcasm/joke to me.
Obviously even if Reeves was going to do that, she wouldn't phrase it so bluntly.
If the Tory rampers are going to make random shit up the site is much diminished. It's one thing speculating but couching it as reality is bollocks.
Only retards would have believed it and if they were so thick they should not be allowed on a computer
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
AFAICS, Biden is now actually WORSE than my 86-year-old Mum, bless her, and she is in special housing
The problem is that people with dementia often don't realise the extent of their mental decline... because dementia. They can get incredibly angry that people are trying to take away their agency. And it fuels paranoia.
The Democrats do need to cauterize this wound, and sooner rather than later. On the positive side, I think cauterization is now inevitable: the only really question is how much they damage themselves between now and then.
Precisely right
With your super-IQ you ought to have been able to craft a concise on-the-money analysis like that, rather than making eight long posts in a row just ranting about the obvious.
Meanwhile, why not just cut and paste “FECK! DRINK!” into the thread now and again, and the rest of us will fill in the bit about Biden being old?
My view - Starmer will run a very tedious boring centre-right government, raising a few taxes (because of the debt) but not doing much that makes anyone happy and Starmer is a wet fish
It won’t be popular and with no “f the tories” they lose a few percent on both left and the right
Leading to an even more chaotic 2029 election where weird stuff happens all over the place as multi way contests become the norm
Maybe I’m wrong and this Lab govt will surprise and be more popular than expected but I don’t see it
I’m hopeful they’ll be a fairly decent government, but the risk is that they could be like the LibDems in coalition, who did a tremendous amount of good work behind the scenes tinkering with complicated stuff to make it slightly better; the sort of job both they and Starmer enjoy. But come the election not much of it will be worth many votes.
There’s no doubt the coalition was a well-run government, and stories abound within the party of how LibDem juniors calmed their flaky and impetuous Tory counterparts and simply focused on managing well and getting small sensible stuff done while squashing potential blunders and embarrassments.
There was no electoral advantage in a well-run government for the junior coalition partner - even now the transition from sensible stability to chaotic psychodrama is rightly blamed on thr Tories but rarely attributed to the absence of the stabilising LibDems.
The advantage Starmer has is that the kudos for things being managed better will fall into his lap. But he will need people in his team with imagination and bigger dreams, to persuade him to go for a few big reforming wins, rather than just tinker.
That’s a problem with all governments. Do things competently, and people give you little credit, because they assume there’s no problem.
True! Lots of research shows that customers are more grateful for good service in correcting a fuck-up than they are for flawless service in the first place. Which, sadly, must read across into politics?
At least the Tories got the fucking-things-up bit nailed.
Pretty amazing result for independents this election.
Did non-Islamic independents do well? Corbyn. Other than him?
There was one other: Alex Easton in Northern Ireland. Former DUP candidate, who left the DUP for not being hardline enough, but didn’t want to join the even more hardline TUV.
Just for once, the DUP and TUV put ego aside, to back him. The result he achieved was excellent, but aided by Farry being a bad fit for his constituency. Overall, Lagan Valley excepted, it was not a very good election for Alliance.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
They were like this with Feinstein too. She clearly had dementia for several years but nobody told her to stand down. There’s a culture of deference to seniors in the US that drives this reluctance to show someone the door.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
AFAICS, Biden is now actually WORSE than my 86-year-old Mum, bless her, and she is in special housing
The problem is that people with dementia often don't realise the extent of their mental decline... because dementia. They can get incredibly angry that people are trying to take away their agency. And it fuels paranoia.
The Democrats do need to cauterize this wound, and sooner rather than later. On the positive side, I think cauterization is now inevitable: the only really question is how much they damage themselves between now and then.
Precisely right
With your super-IQ you ought to have been able to craft a concise on-the-money analysis like that, rather than making eight long posts in a row just ranting about the obvious.
Meanwhile, why not just cut and paste “FECK! DRINK!” into the thread now and again, and the rest of us will fill in the bit about Biden being old?
What I find interesting is that he still maintains he won it on those numbers because of his service in the constituency, and keeping on working during the campaign, and a couple of other bits.
And that the Labour vote being split down the middle 12,000 and 12,000 had little to do with it, when his majority went from 1k to 5k.
An interesting level of delusion on the Tory Right.
Yes that annoyed me, even he must have known the real reason why he won. Although there were some surprises in similar seats. What was the story in Harrow East and Hendon (only just Labour)?
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
Pretty amazing result for independents this election.
Did non-Islamic independents do well? Corbyn. Other than him?
There was one other: Alex Easton in Northern Ireland. Former DUP candidate, who left the DUP for not being hardline enough, but didn’t want to join the even more hardline TUV.
Just for once, the DUP and TUV put ego aside, to back him. The result he achieved was excellent, but aided by Farry being a bad fit for his constituency. Overall, Lagan Valley excepted, it was not a very good election for Alliance.
Just for once? Parties standing aside is pretty common in NI Westminster elections. The TUV didn’t stand at all last time. Also in 2019, the DUP didn’t stand in F&ST, the UUP didn’t stand in Belfast N and SF didn’t stand in Belfast S.
Back in 2024, the parties that did worse were the DUP and the SDLP. The SDLP seem to be becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
If he oversees increasing housing shortages, a 30% depreciation in the pound with a consequent massive burst of inflation, strict food and fuel rationing and a government riddled with splits and corruption, I doubt if he'll be re-elected.
A specific challenge for Starmer (ie Streeting) is can he prevent any extra resources that they can find going on paying extra to staff for doing no more, rather than building up services.
That will be repeated across the piece.
The Junior Docs have been using fiddled figures in their ~35% (?) claims throughout eg aiui by using RPI not CPI for inflation, and they need to recognise at least that.
Where will this go?
Probably a settlement like the Scottish government made with the juniors, or the Consultants in England.
Basically a payrise that matches inflation for the last 2 years, and a commitment to matching CPI going forward.
The strikes have cost twice as much so far as a 35% pay increase would have, but no one expects 35% in one year, just a commitment to more than match CPI. Think of it as a triple lock for essential workers.
There are also non-pay aspects of juniors terms and conditions that could make a major difference at little cost.
Questioning that middle paragraph for completeness.
A 35% rise would cost 50% of the strike cost every year forever, so it's one off vs a permanent annual cashflow.
I think Rachel Reeves should announce that as well as VAT on school fees, anyone with kids at private school should pay triple council tax.
No sense or logic to it but the epic meltdown in response at the Telegraph and their commentators would be a sight to behold and so many would spontaneously combust in outrage that several seats would become more marginal.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
Farage gets a free pass over the unworkability of many of his ideas/policies. But this is also true of many of the minor parties who have historically promised things like higher public spending without tax rises. They just seem to get humoured and not taken seriously.
I think Rachel Reeves should announce that as well as VAT on school fees, anyone with kids at private school should pay triple council tax.
No sense or logic to it but the epic meltdown in response at the Telegraph and their commentators would be a sight to behold and so many would spontaneously combust in outrage that several seats would become more marginal.
It is hard to see how you could make many more seats marginal after that result.
Pretty amazing result for independents this election.
Did non-Islamic independents do well? Corbyn. Other than him?
There was one other: Alex Easton in Northern Ireland. Former DUP candidate, who left the DUP for not being hardline enough, but didn’t want to join the even more hardline TUV.
Just for once, the DUP and TUV put ego aside, to back him. The result he achieved was excellent, but aided by Farry being a bad fit for his constituency. Overall, Lagan Valley excepted, it was not a very good election for Alliance.
Zadrozny in Ashfield got 6k votes ... 15%. 2019: was 13k ... 27%.
That's down on previous performances, and I take it to be somewhat less than core vote - since he is currently very controversial, and numbers of Ashfield Independent supporters are unhappy with his impending criminal charges.
I think he probably lost some to Reform, especially at this end of the constituency.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
Not if just as many Reform voters - 30% in your example - would have voted for the opposing candidate and the rest would have stayed at home. Which is what the research suggests would happen.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
When the SNP candidate in Inverness says he won't be able to make the count, it sort of implies he probably hasn't won, (despite defending a majority of 12,865 votes).
This post comes with heavy caveats. Nothing is ever official until it is properly declared.
However, the BBC is reporting this about that the SNP have conceded defeat ahead of tomorrow’s recount in the Inverness, Skye and Ross West seat where Angus Macdonald is our candidate. This is the latest incarnation of the seat held between 1983 and 2015 by Charles Kennedy and has enormous emotional resonance for the party.
It seems likely the constituency will go to the Liberal Democrats – although the result is not expected to be officially announced until after a second recount which will begin at 10:30 on Saturday.
SNP candidate Drew Hendry said he would be unable to attend the recount due to an “unmovable prior commitment”.
Assuming this comes to pass the LiBDems are gradually recovering the highland seats lost in the meltdown. Wonder what the prospects are of gradually building support back in Argyll.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Fortunately that's also the ideal mentality and experience you'd need to find a way through it all.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
Not if just as many Reform voters - 30% in your example - would have voted for the opposing candidate and the rest would have stayed at home. Which is what the research suggests would happen.
The analogy with 1983 is a good one. A split opposition delivered a thumping Tory majority, but surveys showed that the SDP/Lib vote wouldn't have gone to Lab but fairly equally.
I note that while the myth is that Thatchers huge majority was delivered by flag waving euphoric patriots after the Falklands war, actually there was a swing against with a lower percentage voting Con in 1983 than 1979.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
Not if just as many Reform voters - 30% in your example - would have voted for the opposing candidate and the rest would have stayed at home. Which is what the research suggests would happen.
Yep. We saw evidence of that while knocking up in Guildford. A number of ours voted Reform. Now if the LDs find that I'm sure Labour will have many.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
I think there's interesting correlation to be done around Local Council Seats vs MPs.
That I think has a lot to do with some LD victories, and especially (without sweating the detail) the Greens.
Is the increased Green Councillor base a harbinger of more success next time round - up in EW from ~450 to 800+ since 2021?
Equally, how will Reform build their own Councillor base? Defecting Tories perhaps?
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
Is it? He sounds increasingly determined to carry on, if anything - but then, he is demented. My demented mother would insist, if asked, that she's "just a bit forgetful, and getting older", she would never admit to dementia and would be insulted if asked. Yet she is now incapable of living without significant support, because she has dementia
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
Obama (and similarly Hillary Clinton) saying anything would probably be actively counterproductive in that respect given their past history over earlier nominations. (And NYT public campaign is blatantly now fuelling his determination to cling on.)
But it's been very clear since the debate that he can't do another term.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Listening to the C4 "what ahppens next" extended coverage, Sue Gray as Chief of Staff may be problematic.
Especially her habit of not writing anything down.
Is that a problem or smart when you are in the world of politics...you never know what scandal might hit and then you end up all your stuff coming out...see all the numpties mixing work and social WhatsApps. Even Vallance was forced to reveal his chunks of personal diary entries to COVID inquiry.
Tony Blair was smart, no phone at all.
I never understand why people who have any public profile don't use the auto delete tw@tter services. Because you never know in years to come, somebody digs up some dodgy tweet, perhaps taken out of context, or the terminology that is acceptable has changed and you get loads of incoming.
What I find interesting is that he still maintains he won it on those numbers because of his service in the constituency, and keeping on working during the campaign, and a couple of other bits.
And that the Labour vote being split down the middle 12,000 and 12,000 had little to do with it, when his majority went from 1k to 5k.
An interesting level of delusion on the Tory Right.
Yes that annoyed me, even he must have known the real reason why he won. Although there were some surprises in similar seats. What was the story in Harrow East and Hendon (only just Labour)?
Harrow East - Ulez, Khan, well thought of MP, high Hindu%, high professional %. Essentially it was both top down and bottom up perfect for the Tories - not only did Blackman win he increased his majority.
* Bob Blackman * Conservative and Unionist Party 25466 (elected) Primesh Patel Labour Party 13786 Roger Clark Reform UK 2188 Sabira Lakha Independent 2097 Sebastian Newsam Green Party 2006 Reetendra Nath Banerji Liberal Democrats 1511 Sarajulhaq Parwani Workers Party of Britain 723
When the SNP candidate in Inverness says he won't be able to make the count, it sort of implies he probably hasn't won, (despite defending a majority of 12,865 votes).
This post comes with heavy caveats. Nothing is ever official until it is properly declared.
However, the BBC is reporting this about that the SNP have conceded defeat ahead of tomorrow’s recount in the Inverness, Skye and Ross West seat where Angus Macdonald is our candidate. This is the latest incarnation of the seat held between 1983 and 2015 by Charles Kennedy and has enormous emotional resonance for the party.
It seems likely the constituency will go to the Liberal Democrats – although the result is not expected to be officially announced until after a second recount which will begin at 10:30 on Saturday.
SNP candidate Drew Hendry said he would be unable to attend the recount due to an “unmovable prior commitment”.
Assuming this comes to pass the LiBDems are gradually recovering the highland seats lost in the meltdown. Wonder what the prospects are of gradually building support back in Argyll.
Argyll is an odd one. Alan Reid had yet another go this time but they fell behind Labour despite addimg a littld to the vote. It was never that strongly held as a LD seat (touching 40% once) and even in their retreat times the SCons have got a good chunk of the vote here so i tbink it will depend on what emerges from the DRoss debacle. The East coast and NE may prove more fertile for them
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Agree. The Lib Dem vote will be stickier than the Reform vote.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
How are you feeling Casino? All things considered, not a totally terrible outcome for your team.
Those of us on the other side who had been wishcasting a Tory ELE have been proved well wide of the mark.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
The notion that politics is about "doing political things" to game the system and ensure you win next time rather than "doing things and being judged on the results" is at the heart of what has gone wrong with the Tories.
The lesson from Thatcher/Blair should be that you need to *communicate what you have done*. Not that you need to *communicate instead of doing*.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
The notion that politics is about "doing political things" to game the system and ensure you win next time rather than "doing things and being judged on the results" is at the heart of what has gone wrong with the Tories.
The lesson from Thatcher/Blair should be that you need to *communicate what you have done*. Not that you need to *communicate instead of doing*.
Its the same as the adage "this is a good election to lose" is nonsense. You literally can't effect anything from the outside, all your can do is gripe. Once in power you have loads of levers at your disposal, it is then how you use them.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Lord the Pickler Pickles has suggested as one of his ten points for recovery they need PPCs in place in all targets by March 2026 working the seats
Dr. Foxy, point of order: we don't yet know if Starmer is a good, bad, or indifferent administrator.
Even ignoring his time as DPP we see plenty of evidence.
In the last 4 years SKS has transformed a broken quixiotic party machine infested by cranks and Trots into a professional electoral machine that just delivered a thumping majority by careful targeting and messaging.
He has had all his key people in post for a year in their shadow positions ready to hit the ground running in government.
So I think plenty of evidence that he is a good manager.
If 1997 is any guide, many people who were hesitant about Labour before the election, complaining that it wasn’t offering much different from the Tories, will be swept along by the euphoria of the democratic catharsis afterwards. After a “change” election, many more people remember voting for the new government than actually did. Just as Blair did, Starmer will enter an imperial phase.
Before we are all swept along too far, however, it is worth listening to one voice of warning. James Kanagasooriam, the political analyst who identified the much-misunderstood red wall before the last election, now says: “Labour is building a monumental sandcastle.”
He says that many people made the mistake in 2019 of thinking that Boris Johnson had put together a lasting coalition, built on the foundation of Brexit, making deep inroads into Labour’s working-class base while retaining Tory support in the middle class. But that coalition was “wide and shaky”, Kanagasooriam says.
This should come as a surprise to nobody. You cannot be all things to different groups of people without the fault lines coming to the surface. The needs of the red wall were very different to those of the home counties. In the end the Tories pissed them both off equally by focusing on performative stuff for the antis. And chasing the antis never works because someone like Farage will always offer the antis simpler analysis than you do.
Labour needs to deliver on health and support growth. An early step should be to negotiate better arrangements with the EU to enable small businesses to trade - in perishables and artisan goods.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Lord the Pickler Pickles has suggested as one of his ten points for recovery they need PPCs in place in all targets by March 2026 working the seats
They need to find actually talented people. Despite the large majority the Tories got in 2019, so much absolute dross. And now a lot of the remaining decent ones have stepped down e.g. Javid.
I see Ed Miliband is Energy Secretary again. I'd criticise him for closing down power stations and not building enough capacity last time, but it seems every party is rubbish at energy.
He'll be having breakfast meetings every day until he's got a plan set in stone.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
I think there's interesting correlation to be done around Local Council Seats vs MPs.
That I think has a lot to do with some LD victories, and especially (without sweating the detail) the Greens.
Is the increased Green Councillor base a harbinger of more success next time round - up in EW from ~450 to 800+ since 2021?
Equally, how will Reform build their own Councillor base? Defecting Tories perhaps?
Yes, Reform only has 6 councillors (according to CoPilot). Would Farage even welcome a large number of councillors since they could form an alternative power base to the chief executive of Reform UK Limited. It might also become tedious for him to have to disown greater numbers as their social media posts get examined.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Agree. The Lib Dem vote will be stickier than the Reform vote.
And more likely to survive the grim reaper over the next 5 years. The Tories need to recruit a million voters in the next 5 years just to stand stil electorally.
Dr. Foxy, point of order: we don't yet know if Starmer is a good, bad, or indifferent administrator.
Even ignoring his time as DPP we see plenty of evidence.
In the last 4 years SKS has transformed a broken quixiotic party machine infested by cranks and Trots into a professional electoral machine that just delivered a thumping majority by careful targeting and messaging.
He has had all his key people in post for a year in their shadow positions ready to hit the ground running in government.
So I think plenty of evidence that he is a good manager.
One thing that is different and we saw this with Gordon Brown and Sunak...Being PM require constant daily decisions, it is relentless. That is quite different for instance than being chancellor where you can spend months planning. Being opposition leader, again you can take your time really to sort things out, the spotlight isn't really on you for large periods of time.
He was very poor during COVID, where it did require to be more dynamic every day. Hunt for instance was much better with sensible interventions. Maybe he has learned since then.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
How are you feeling Casino? All things considered, not a totally terrible outcome for your team.
Those of us on the other side who had been wishcasting a Tory ELE have been proved well wide of the mark.
Good morning BP. I think the ELE talk was a sort of understandable blood lust and hubris as things spiralled out of control for the Tories. I know if it looked as bad for Labour I would probably be wishcasting the same in the whirl of the election campaign but these parties will always have a big inbuilt support and as ever it’s the unaligned who decide who wins.
I guess/hope that you and other Labour supporters realistically are ok with the Tories being weak but not destroyed as there is the hope that they can stay vaguely sensible and not be replaced by something the left and large parts of the country would find infinitely less palatable.
Dr. Foxy, that may be used to support your assertion Starmer's a good manager (of his party) which is why I didn't contest that claim. Administration of the government is another matter.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
I think there's interesting correlation to be done around Local Council Seats vs MPs.
That I think has a lot to do with some LD victories, and especially (without sweating the detail) the Greens.
Is the increased Green Councillor base a harbinger of more success next time round - up in EW from ~450 to 800+ since 2021?
Equally, how will Reform build their own Councillor base? Defecting Tories perhaps?
Yes, Reform only has 6 councillors (according to CoPilot). Would Farage even welcome a large number of councillors since they could form an alternative power base to the chief executive of Reform UK Limited. It might also become tedious for him to have to disown greater numbers as their social media posts get examined.
Apologies, it looks like I might have got the wrong limited party, maybe it should be Reform UK Party Limited.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
That is my concern with a government made up of lawyers and then people who don't seem to have ever had a big job. There is a distinct lack of any real business experience*. The nature inclination is always more laws, more regulation, which doesn't always marry well with being "pro growth". Hopefully Reeves can keep them from overdoing it.
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
How are you feeling Casino? All things considered, not a totally terrible outcome for your team.
Those of us on the other side who had been wishcasting a Tory ELE have been proved well wide of the mark.
Good morning BP. I think the ELE talk was a sort of understandable blood lust and hubris as things spiralled out of control for the Tories. I know if it looked as bad for Labour I would probably be wishcasting the same in the whirl of the election campaign but these parties will always have a big inbuilt support and as ever it’s the unaligned who decide who wins.
I guess/hope that you and other Labour supporters realistically are ok with the Tories being weak but not destroyed as there is the hope that they can stay vaguely sensible and not be replaced by something the left and large parts of the country would find infinitely less palatable.
Not to blow my own Trumpet on Leicester East but when i was here posting during Truss the Tories gsined a local by election in Leicester East from nowhere despite being sub 20 polling and i suggested it could go against the head if Webbe stood as an indy. I was, i believe, mocked for such frippery
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
That is my concern with a government made up of lawyers and then people who don't seem to have ever had a big job. There is a distinct lack of any real business experience*. The nature inclination is always more laws, more regulation, which doesn't always marry well with being "pro growth". Hopefully Reeves can keep them from overdoing it.
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
Both parties are dominated by Lawyers, and SPADS, but part of the problem with the Tories was that their business experience was usually in financial services or in government contracts rather than the wider economy. Hence their inability to deliver levelling up.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
That is my concern with a government made up of lawyers and then people who don't seem to have ever had a big job. There is a distinct lack of any real business experience*. The nature inclination is always more laws, more regulation, which doesn't always marry well with being "pro growth". Hopefully Reeves can keep them from overdoing it.
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
Both parties are dominated by Lawyers, and SPADS, but part of the problem with the Tories was that their business experience was usually in financial services or in government contracts rather than the wider economy. Hence their inability to deliver levelling up.
Which is what I said below about the dross. There were people with good outside experience, Javid, Hunt, but too much dross in 2019. The split over Brexit lost a lot of talent.
Sunak parachuting his mates into seats was the opposite of what the Tories needing to be doing.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
It could also have been much better for them. While I am dubious about reading Reform shares across to Con, the fact is that had just 30% of Reform voters backed Con in Cannock Chase Amanda Milling would have held the seat. You can see that pattern in many seats across the country (not least, next door in Lichfield).
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
I think talking about consolidating the victory is the wrong way of looking at things (just as it was the wrong way of looking at things to judge the prospect of a Labour victory on the basis of the large number of seats they needed to gain).
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I agree. The point is not to consolidate the victory, but rather to use that victory to transform the country.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
The notion that politics is about "doing political things" to game the system and ensure you win next time rather than "doing things and being judged on the results" is at the heart of what has gone wrong with the Tories.
The lesson from Thatcher/Blair should be that you need to *communicate what you have done*. Not that you need to *communicate instead of doing*.
This is a great point that I think is being completely missed by many commentators. We have had such a long period of political scheming, spinning and jostling, with a lot of elections in a relatively short period, that people have forgotten that a government can increase its support by actually getting stuff done
Isle of Wight East interesting - precisely the same Conservative vote as IoW West but the anti-Tory vote was almost perfectly split asunder with the greens. Greens were second though so I assume they'll target it heavily again next time round - may be tricky as the Tories are not in Gov't to boot out mind.
No wonder the lady in front of @IanB2 had no idea which way to vote. Not even particularly obvious with the benefit of hindsight.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
How are you feeling Casino? All things considered, not a totally terrible outcome for your team.
Those of us on the other side who had been wishcasting a Tory ELE have been proved well wide of the mark.
Good morning BP. I think the ELE talk was a sort of understandable blood lust and hubris as things spiralled out of control for the Tories. I know if it looked as bad for Labour I would probably be wishcasting the same in the whirl of the election campaign but these parties will always have a big inbuilt support and as ever it’s the unaligned who decide who wins.
I guess/hope that you and other Labour supporters realistically are ok with the Tories being weak but not destroyed as there is the hope that they can stay vaguely sensible and not be replaced by something the left and large parts of the country would find infinitely less palatable.
Some opposition?
They will get there - I believe a low tax, small gov, small and medium business friendly Tory party will reappear.
Yougov question for my wife this morning, who ran the best election campaign? None of the won by a comfortable amount with over 30% of the poll.
Personally, I would have answered the Lib Dems and Ed Davey in particular. Their result was truly spectacular given both their starting point and how they have struggled to be heard in the last 5 years after losing 3rd place in Parliament. They got 9%.
The Labour party got the most (inevitably) at 20% but to me their campaign was let the Tories keep f****** it up and don't scare the horses. Kind of reminds me of nearly every team in the Euros, far too cautious and boring.
1% of the answers was the SNP. There's always some.
Do we have any profiles of the Rump Tory MPs as a group, yet?
I don't know all the individuals well enough to judge, short of looking up lists of group members and cross-correlating, which would take a long time.
The only current market on BET365 for my bonus £30 in the next 30 days is Next Permanent Tory Leader .Jeremy Hunt at 11:1 looks ... possible. More information required !
Independent up from 0 to 6 seats. Are they all Gaza-fixated?
Dewsbury, Blackburn, Perry Barr, Leicester yes probably Corbyn, wider interests North Down, Indie Unionist
You have to wonder whether Ashworth even realised he was in trouble in Leicester South.
Whilst a few people had flagged the likelihood of a surprise in East can’t remember anyone mentioning South. Foxy?
Is Ashworth the chap they were wheeling out on the radio all the time who sounded like the most miserable man in the world? Like his life was a country music song where his dog had died, his girl has left him and his crops failed ? Maybe the people of Leicester South just couldn’t bear the misery anymore.
Independent up from 0 to 6 seats. Are they all Gaza-fixated?
Leicester South - yes but more to do with the implosion of Leicester Labour and community division (watch out Liz Kendall) Blackburn - yes, direct result of the locals indy gains in May. Craig Murray got third on 18% for Workers here, he and the indy had a major falling out over who was the 'real' Gaza campainger so the overall size of the win is massive with 1st and 3rd Dewsbury - 100% Perry Barr - 100%, part of the wider Birmingham issue Labour have with Yakoob almost taking Ladywood and Workers were within 1000 votes or so of taking out both Philiips in Yardley and Byrne in Hodge Hill Corbyn - not so much NI - no, unionist/ DUP splitter
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
I can see the Conservatives gaining large numbers of Labour seats, mostly in the midlands and north, next time.
But struggling to regain many of those middle class southern seats the LibDems now have.
With the effect that after 2029 the Conservatives are a much more northern and working class oriented party.
I don't know how Conservative members, 'thinkers', politicians and leadership would deal with such a shift,
Independent up from 0 to 6 seats. Are they all Gaza-fixated?
Dewsbury, Blackburn, Perry Barr, Leicester yes probably Corbyn, wider interests North Down, Indie Unionist
You have to wonder whether Ashworth even realised he was in trouble in Leicester South.
Whilst a few people had flagged the likelihood of a surprise in East can’t remember anyone mentioning South. Foxy?
I did post a few times that Shockat Adam was running a very strong campaign. I thought Labour would win though.
In retrospect, deploying Lab canvassing teams out of the city to Harborough Oadby and Wigston was a error.
The interesting one is Leicester West, where Liz Kendall romped home without serious challenge. While less South Asian than East or South, it is still pretty multi-ethnic. I think that the difference is that the CLP is more functional there. The feuding in the East CLP is totally toxic.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
That is my concern with a government made up of lawyers and then people who don't seem to have ever had a big job. There is a distinct lack of any real business experience*. The nature inclination is always more laws, more regulation, which doesn't always marry well with being "pro growth". Hopefully Reeves can keep them from overdoing it.
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
Both parties are dominated by Lawyers, and SPADS, but part of the problem with the Tories was that their business experience was usually in financial services or in government contracts rather than the wider economy. Hence their inability to deliver levelling up.
I don't think the Tory failure to deliver leveling up was because they didn't have the right kind of background experience. It seemed more like they just didn't actually care enough about doing the thing they promised to do to win the election. Look at HS2 -- outright cancelling that and spending the money on southern pothole filling is "we don't care", not "we don't have the experience to do the job effectively".
Independent up from 0 to 6 seats. Are they all Gaza-fixated?
Dewsbury, Blackburn, Perry Barr, Leicester yes probably Corbyn, wider interests North Down, Indie Unionist
You have to wonder whether Ashworth even realised he was in trouble in Leicester South.
Whilst a few people had flagged the likelihood of a surprise in East can’t remember anyone mentioning South. Foxy?
Is Ashworth the chap they were wheeling out on the radio all the time who sounded like the most miserable man in the world? Like his life was a country music song where his dog had died, his girl has left him and his crops failed ? Maybe the people of Leicester South just couldn’t bear the misery anymore.
Ashworth was alright. He appeared to be somebody who managed to be friends across the political spectrum which I don't think is a bad thing (if you remember he got shafted when he was recorded talking about how bad / mad Corbyn was).
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Farage is a rabble rouser, a fanner of fires. An exploiter of grievance.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
He is a talented campaigner much like Johnson albeit with a different style, but that is very different to competent administration.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
The problem Starmer has that Attlee didn't is a blizzard of regulation, human rights laws and equality laws that has appeared since which require exhaustive study and demonstration of x,y,z followed by appeals and judicial appeals etc before he can do anything much, meaning it takes years to get anything to the shovels in ground stage.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
Yes and they will be implementing more regulation, not removing it.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
That is my concern with a government made up of lawyers and then people who don't seem to have ever had a big job. There is a distinct lack of any real business experience*. The nature inclination is always more laws, more regulation, which doesn't always marry well with being "pro growth". Hopefully Reeves can keep them from overdoing it.
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
Both parties are dominated by Lawyers, and SPADS, but part of the problem with the Tories was that their business experience was usually in financial services or in government contracts rather than the wider economy. Hence their inability to deliver levelling up.
I don't think the Tory failure to deliver leveling up was because they didn't have the right kind of background experience. It seemed more like they just didn't actually care enough about doing the thing they promised to do to win the election. Look at HS2 -- outright cancelling that and spending the money on southern pothole filling is "we don't care", not "we don't have the experience to do the job effectively".
I think we will hear more and more about the wastage of the levelling up money.
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
Liberal Democrats stick to seats like shit to a stick, though, so if I were the Tories I'd be fighting back on the ground from, like, today.
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
No it was quite easy really. You invited them into Government. Not a trick to pull off twice I wouldn't have thought.
Independent up from 0 to 6 seats. Are they all Gaza-fixated?
Dewsbury, Blackburn, Perry Barr, Leicester yes probably Corbyn, wider interests North Down, Indie Unionist
You have to wonder whether Ashworth even realised he was in trouble in Leicester South.
Whilst a few people had flagged the likelihood of a surprise in East can’t remember anyone mentioning South. Foxy?
I did post a few times that Shockat Adam was running a very strong campaign. I thought Labour would win though.
In retrospect, deploying Lab canvassing teams out of the city to Harborough Oadby and Wigston was a error.
The interesting one is Leicester West, where Liz Kendall romped home without serious challenge. While less South Asian than East or South, it is still pretty multi-ethnic. I think that the difference is that the CLP is more functional there. The feuding in the East CLP is totally toxic.
So that's where all the people who moved out of Ashfield went .
Isle of Wight East interesting - precisely the same Conservative vote as IoW West but the anti-Tory vote was almost perfectly split asunder with the greens. Greens were second though so I assume they'll target it heavily again next time round - may be tricky as the Tories are not in Gov't to boot out mind.
No wonder the lady in front of @IanB2 had no idea which way to vote. Not even particularly obvious with the benefit of hindsight.
Reform were second. Green and Lab were effectively joint third.
Anyone got a list of the top 10 lowest winning percentages?
SW Norfolk obvs, presumably this will be in there at a shade over 30%.
Comments
There was a time when we had full employment, good affordable housing, equality, and the country was at ease with itself, even though no one can really point to when that was - and when you do look at previous eras in detail, you can see all kinds or troubling issues.
Before we are all swept along too far, however, it is worth listening to one voice of warning. James Kanagasooriam, the political analyst who identified the much-misunderstood red wall before the last election, now says: “Labour is building a monumental sandcastle.”
He says that many people made the mistake in 2019 of thinking that Boris Johnson had put together a lasting coalition, built on the foundation of Brexit, making deep inroads into Labour’s working-class base while retaining Tory support in the middle class. But that coalition was “wide and shaky”, Kanagasooriam says.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/keir-starmer-poll-sunak-labour-tories-election-b2563201.html
There has to be a balance between putting your people first, and what is decent (which I take to be correct, moral and proper).
Basically a payrise that matches inflation for the last 2 years, and a commitment to matching CPI going forward.
The strikes have cost twice as much so far as a 35% pay increase would have, but no one expects 35% in one year, just a commitment to more than match CPI. Think of it as a triple lock for essential workers.
There are also non-pay aspects of juniors terms and conditions that could make a major difference at little cost.
We have a Labour government until 2029, and one that plans to get re-elected.
Clearly all the talk of an easy Labour win cost them seats , either by depressing turnout or allowing particularly the Greens to not tactically vote .
It could have been much worse for the Tories .
Turnout only approached respectable levels in competitive seats , it was rather depressing to see overall turnout barely scratching 60% .
Plus it would have stopped insane house price rises after.
Meanwhile, why not just cut and paste “FECK! DRINK!” into the thread now and again, and the rest of us will fill in the bit about Biden being old?
At least the Tories got the fucking-things-up bit nailed.
We come back again to the volatility of the electorate, possibly more volatile than at any time since the pre-First World War era. Labour have a lot of hard work to do to consolidate this victory.
Although there were some surprises in similar seats. What was the story in Harrow East and Hendon (only just Labour)?
Labour are presumably going to be in power for 4-5 years. I think the result of the next election will be determined by what happens in that time, and the psephological details of the election we've just had will be of minor importance (except perhaps regarding tactical voting).
I don’t think I’ve ever heard him propose a solution to anything. That would be hard work, and he’s not in it for hard work.
Back in 2024, the parties that did worse were the DUP and the SDLP. The SDLP seem to be becoming increasingly irrelevant.
We have 5 years to evaluate the opposite. A poor campaigner but talented manager and administrator is in charge. Starmer has a lot in common with Attlee. The world is different to 1945 but when Clement took over the challenges dwarfed current ones in every way, yet in 5 years Britain was transformed.
A 35% rise would cost 50% of the strike cost every year forever, so it's one off vs a permanent annual cashflow.
The non-pay aspects sound interesting.
We shall see.
But nobody ever has been (and most of them were a great deal worse than he was) so that's inconclusive.
No sense or logic to it but the epic meltdown in response at the Telegraph and their commentators would be a sight to behold and so many would spontaneously combust in outrage that several seats would become more marginal.
That's down on previous performances, and I take it to be somewhat less than core vote - since he is currently very controversial, and numbers of Ashfield Independent supporters are unhappy with his impending criminal charges.
I think he probably lost some to Reform, especially at this end of the constituency.
Unfortunately Starmer is of a mindset that wants more of such regulation not less.
There has been a lot of carping about a low turnout election with a low mandate for Labour, but that Ming vase has been delivered with precision and a thumping majority. The Tories are at a low ebb, but one that keeps them as the opposition rather than obliterating them and being replaced by Faragism. Both LDs and Reform are strong enough to make it very difficult for the Tories.
I agree that the next election is a long way off, but the clear victors are Lab, LD, Greens and Independents who have all run very tightly targeted campaigns and reaped the benefits in the form of seats. Con, Reform and SNP ran poorly targeted campaigns with little or no local activity and wound up with a very poor return.
I note that while the myth is that Thatchers huge majority was delivered by flag waving euphoric patriots after the Falklands war, actually there was a swing against with a lower percentage voting Con in 1983 than 1979.
That I think has a lot to do with some LD victories, and especially (without sweating the detail) the Greens.
Is the increased Green Councillor base a harbinger of more success next time round - up in EW from ~450 to 800+ since 2021?
Equally, how will Reform build their own Councillor base? Defecting Tories perhaps?
It took bloody ages and a lot of hard work over almost two decades to evict them all last time.
Tony Blair was smart, no phone at all.
I never understand why people who have any public profile don't use the auto delete tw@tter services. Because you never know in years to come, somebody digs up some dodgy tweet, perhaps taken out of context, or the terminology that is acceptable has changed and you get loads of incoming.
* Bob Blackman * Conservative and Unionist Party 25466 (elected)
Primesh Patel Labour Party 13786
Roger Clark Reform UK 2188
Sabira Lakha Independent 2097
Sebastian Newsam Green Party 2006
Reetendra Nath Banerji Liberal Democrats 1511
Sarajulhaq Parwani Workers Party of Britain 723
The East coast and NE may prove more fertile for them
Those of us on the other side who had been wishcasting a Tory ELE have been proved well wide of the mark.
The lesson from Thatcher/Blair should be that you need to *communicate what you have done*. Not that you need to *communicate instead of doing*.
In the last 4 years SKS has transformed a broken quixiotic party machine infested by cranks and Trots into a professional electoral machine that just delivered a thumping majority by careful targeting and messaging.
He has had all his key people in post for a year in their shadow positions ready to hit the ground running in government.
So I think plenty of evidence that he is a good manager.
Labour needs to deliver on health and support growth. An early step should be to negotiate better arrangements with the EU to enable small businesses to trade - in perishables and artisan goods.
He was very poor during COVID, where it did require to be more dynamic every day. Hunt for instance was much better with sensible interventions. Maybe he has learned since then.
I voted labour and I really hope Starmer and Reeves can deliver. I’m not optimistic but I do expect an improvement on the Tories.
I guess/hope that you and other Labour supporters realistically are ok with the Tories being weak but not destroyed as there is the hope that they can stay vaguely sensible and not be replaced by something the left and large parts of the country would find infinitely less palatable.
Corbyn, wider interests
North Down, Indie Unionist
* Timpson aside, and I think he is a bit of a different animal. He runs a very successful medium sized business, which we need more of, but that is different from both "big business" (which we need, for lots of inward invest) and the small businesses that make up much of the UK economy.
Some more external hires like Vallance and Timpson would be good.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ed3dPoQSbmeOQKdZ3klOspS6uZDJ6x5W5xacgX-oWk4/edit?usp=sharing
Tab "Democracy club 3" has (most of) the individual results by candidate now. Any non obvious errors or corrections let me know
Whilst a few people had flagged the likelihood of a surprise in East can’t remember anyone mentioning South. Foxy?
Sunak parachuting his mates into seats was the opposite of what the Tories needing to be doing.
No wonder the lady in front of @IanB2 had no idea which way to vote. Not even particularly obvious with the benefit of hindsight.
Personally, I would have answered the Lib Dems and Ed Davey in particular. Their result was truly spectacular given both their starting point and how they have struggled to be heard in the last 5 years after losing 3rd place in Parliament. They got 9%.
The Labour party got the most (inevitably) at 20% but to me their campaign was let the Tories keep f****** it up and don't scare the horses. Kind of reminds me of nearly every team in the Euros, far too cautious and boring.
1% of the answers was the SNP. There's always some.
I don't know all the individuals well enough to judge, short of looking up lists of group members and cross-correlating, which would take a long time.
The only current market on BET365 for my bonus £30 in the next 30 days is Next Permanent Tory Leader
I may have to look at Presidential Markets
Blackburn - yes, direct result of the locals indy gains in May. Craig Murray got third on 18% for Workers here, he and the indy had a major falling out over who was the 'real' Gaza campainger so the overall size of the win is massive with 1st and 3rd
Dewsbury - 100%
Perry Barr - 100%, part of the wider Birmingham issue Labour have with Yakoob almost taking Ladywood and Workers were within 1000 votes or so of taking out both Philiips in Yardley and Byrne in Hodge Hill
Corbyn - not so much
NI - no, unionist/ DUP splitter
But struggling to regain many of those middle class southern seats the LibDems now have.
With the effect that after 2029 the Conservatives are a much more northern and working class oriented party.
I don't know how Conservative members, 'thinkers', politicians and leadership would deal with such a shift,
In retrospect, deploying Lab canvassing teams out of the city to Harborough Oadby and Wigston was a error.
The interesting one is Leicester West, where Liz Kendall romped home without serious challenge. While less South Asian than East or South, it is still pretty multi-ethnic. I think that the difference is that the CLP is more functional there. The feuding in the East CLP is totally toxic.
NEW THREAD
Anyone got a list of the top 10 lowest winning percentages?
SW Norfolk obvs, presumably this will be in there at a shade over 30%.