Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held at the end of November another 800,000 would be hit.
The Help to Buy scheme is also causing huge stress and strain. Loads of people didn't pay their interest free loan, after being advised that its ok, fold it into the mortgage as interest rates are so low, and now costing an arm and a leg.
Also remember, inflation is already priced in to go up in the next few months. No interest rate cuts are coming anytime soon.
Um there is definitely a single interest rate cut coming soon, mortgage rates dropped this week to reflect that fact...
Lowest voteshare for an incoming elected majority government since 1832, even lower than the 34.4% Kinnock's Labour got in 1992 when it was defeated by Major's Tories. Starmer knows he got in because Sunak's government was unpopular, this was no 1997 and there was no Blair like love for him
I was thinking the sensible appointments of Vallance and Timpson....
Jezza would have been hiring tankies like Richard Murphy and Jon Lansman...
Even they wouldn't stoop. John McDonnell on Murphy: "He is not an economic adviser and never has been, because we doubted his judgment, unfortunately. He is a tax accountant, not an adviser. He is actually excellent on tax evasion and tax avoidance, but he leaves a lot to be desired on [macro] policy"
He's right of course. The result is utterly mental. A landslide off a third of the vote.
Modi achieved it on 31% in the past, but what FPTP gives, it can also take away.
FPTP isn't really designed for a situation where the vote is split near equally between several strong candidates. It starts to become more akin to drawing lots.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held at the end of November another 800,000 would be hit.
The Help to Buy scheme is also causing huge stress and strain. Loads of people didn't pay their interest free loan, after being advised that its ok, fold it into the mortgage as interest rates are so low, and now costing an arm and a leg.
Also remember, inflation is already priced in to go up in the next few months. No interest rate cuts are coming anytime soon.
Um there is definitely a single interest rate cut coming soon, mortgage rates dropped this week to reflect that fact...
Sorry I should have said significant interest rate cuts.
Inflation behind the headline number are still not great. Things like service inflation is still really bad at 6%. There is still lot of sticky inflation in the system.
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%....
How on earth did the Tories hold Keighley and only lose 7.8%?
Because Bradford Council closed the household waste recycling centre in Ilkley. And pork barrel money coming to Keighley. And a significant Muslim population in the town.
He's right of course. The result is utterly mental. A landslide off a third of the vote.
When Cameron became PM of a majority govt in 2015 on 36.9% of the vote I don't remember quite so much concern about vote shares.
He didn’t have a 176 majority. Essentially untrammelled power.
A majority is a majority - the rest is just internal party management....
It’s absolutely fair to compare the two, I get that. But the point is to have a landslide with such a low vote is rather unusual, and I think doe# raise questions (that Labour will do their best to ignore, conference votes aside). Why would they change the system now when it’s worked so well?
I think the second tweet in the thread header is the better angle at which to attack this.
"Because so many seats had 3-4 competitive parties, it often took a weirdly low vote share to win.
The average winning vote share this time was just 42%, down from 54% last time. In SW Norfolk, the winner won with 26%"
You can see in the diagram that there are a large group of seats won with less than 35% of the vote.
You may as well have 3-member STV seats and let everyone with nearly a third of the vote be elected, than have it decided by the random difference of a few hundred votes between one party's one third of the vote and another's.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
I was thinking the sensible appointments of Vallance and Timpson....
Jezza would have been hiring tankies like Richard Murphy and Jon Lansman...
Even they wouldn't stoop. John McDonnell on Murphy: "He is not an economic adviser and never has been, because we doubted his judgment, unfortunately. He is a tax accountant, not an adviser. He is actually excellent on tax evasion and tax avoidance, but he leaves a lot to be desired on [macro] policy"
There seems to be some differing recollections...
Jeremy specifically asked me to speak about the subject at three of his rallies. And it's well known there was discussion of an appointment, but I decided I would rather be professor of practice in international political economy at City University instead, from where one of my close colleagues did sit on his advisory panel.
Yes, as I pointed out earlier today, Labour have won just just over 20% of the electorate and under 10m votes. It's a landslide, but not as we've seen them. It is going to make Labour very timid over the next few years and fundamentally the country are going to feel the same as it has over the last 3 years.
They ought to feel timid, but we’ve seen on here certain labour superfans don’t recognise this yet. A landslide built on a vote of 45% or more of the vote is substantially different from one from 34%. The latter is a lot more susceptible to being eroded.
Yup, this is the calculation the Conservatives are making right now. Detoxify the party, nab a few policies from reform and grab 4-5% from them, unwind tactical voting against them and grab some seats from the Lib Dems and 1%, let Labour become unpopular raising taxes and cutting spending and grab 3-4% from them, motivate the stay home voters from this election and increase their vote by another 3-4% organically and you've got an election winning coalition without needing to actually do very much other than not be in power and not be completely mental.
Does require some common sense and competence from the Conservatives, but you could easily see how Starmer becomes a one-term PM.
In other random news, Milan Malpensa to be renamed Silvio Berlusconi airport.
Italy has an honourable tradition of naming its airports after great men. So you have Rome Leonardo da Vinci, Venice Marco Polo, Bologna Giuglielmo Marconi, Pisa Galileo Galilei and so on. And now we have an airport named after the greatest of them all, Milan Silvio Berlusconi. Also known as Aeroporto Bunga-bunga in case you have time on your hands during a layover.
Phillip Blond @Phillip_Blond · 13h As a friend pointed just pointed out - all the Pop Cons have lost - so dies the liberal economic wing of the Party - I doubt this economic philosophy can return which is welcome news
I don't think any of the team tonight has set the world alight....could boring boring Southgate, like boring boring Starmer, get there by the fact everybody is even crapper.
Phillip Blond @Phillip_Blond · 13h As a friend pointed just pointed out - all the Pop Cons have lost - so dies the liberal economic wing of the Party - I doubt this economic philosophy can return which is welcome news
Phillip Blond @Phillip_Blond · 13h As a friend pointed just pointed out - all the Pop Cons have lost - so dies the liberal economic wing of the Party - I doubt this economic philosophy can return which is welcome news
Phillip Blond @Phillip_Blond · 13h As a friend pointed just pointed out - all the Pop Cons have lost - so dies the liberal economic wing of the Party - I doubt this economic philosophy can return which is welcome news
Lowest voteshare for an incoming elected majority government since 1832, even lower than the 34.4% Kinnock's Labour got in 1992 when it was defeated by Major's Tories. Starmer knows he got in because Sunak's government was unpopular, this was no 1997 and there was no Blair like love for him
He's carried the ming vase over the finish line, but he's still holding it.
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.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Phillip Blond @Phillip_Blond · 13h As a friend pointed just pointed out - all the Pop Cons have lost - so dies the liberal economic wing of the Party - I doubt this economic philosophy can return which is welcome news
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Leadsom, the one whose CV was completely invented? That Leadsom?
It's free and easy to do. It was performative nonsense from Johnson and Patel. Sunak and Cleverly thought it both expensive and moronic. Had the Conservatives remained in office the single flight would have left and that would have been that.
Yes, as I pointed out earlier today, Labour have won just just over 20% of the electorate and under 10m votes. It's a landslide, but not as we've seen them. It is going to make Labour very timid over the next few years and fundamentally the country are going to feel the same as it has over the last 3 years.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Leadsom, the one whose CV was completely invented? That Leadsom?
I haven't offered any thoughts on Leadsom here whatsoever, so what's this bizarre response about?
I honestly think that half the battle for the Tories is to select a likeable person, with a midlands or northern accent, who can think on their feet and has a sense of humour. Bonus if their background makes people think they’re honest. E.g. Ex-Mil.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Leadsom, the one whose CV was completely invented? That Leadsom?
As a mother she was too busy to check its accuracy.
It's free and easy to do. It was performative nonsense from Johnson and Patel. Sunak and Cleverly thought it both expensive and moronic. Had the Conservatives remained in office the single flight would have left and that would have been that.
A massively expensive set of gesture politics, which everyone understood was meaningless and absurd, which is why it was a pathetic failure.
Lowest voteshare for an incoming elected majority government since 1832, even lower than the 34.4% Kinnock's Labour got in 1992 when it was defeated by Major's Tories. Starmer knows he got in because Sunak's government was unpopular, this was no 1997 and there was no Blair like love for him
When was the last time an incumbent government lost 244 seats?
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Leadsom, the one whose CV was completely invented? That Leadsom?
The wicked witch of Henley... as o understood she was called at Perpetual
Lowest voteshare for an incoming elected majority government since 1832, even lower than the 34.4% Kinnock's Labour got in 1992 when it was defeated by Major's Tories. Starmer knows he got in because Sunak's government was unpopular, this was no 1997 and there was no Blair like love for him
When was the last time an incumbent government lost 244 seats?
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Leadsom, the one whose CV was completely invented? That Leadsom?
I haven't offered any thoughts on Leadsom here whatsoever, so what's this bizarre response about?
You said: "I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned..."
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
And if you add the Con and Reform numbers together they win. Hooray!
Oh wait, FPTP doesn't work like that. However PR does.
I agree with you. Plus, add the greens and the LDs, the left is infront. The right needs to be winning a majority voteshare overall.
I actually think being divided over two parties will help in the long term - it has certainly helped in the case of Lab/Lib/Green. There are places where the Tories will never get in, and places where Reform won't ever get in.
It's not up to the donors. Even if there was a critical mass willing to go on donation strike, which there isn't, Biden doesn't need their money until after the convention. He can play chicken with them and win.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned - she managed Penny Mordaunt's campaign last time. She resigned as an MP when Sunak called the GE. The plan was probably to ditch Sunak and crown Mordaunt somehow. He got wind of it (perhaps from coincidentally-ennobled 'Lord' Brady) and called the election to head it off. He had already threatened plotters with an early election.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
Leadsom, the one whose CV was completely invented? That Leadsom?
I haven't offered any thoughts on Leadsom here whatsoever, so what's this bizarre response about?
You said: "I think the theory was fairly compelling that there was a coup in the works. Angela Leadsom's name was mentioned..."
Yes? How is indicating that Leadsom was rumoured to be involved in a coup against Rishi, explaining that it was likely that Mordaunt would have been beneficiary as Leadsom had managed her campaign, call for some bizarre wanky comment about Angela Leadsom's CV?
If I'd made a post about how much I admired Leadsom it might be somewhat relevant.
He's right of course. The result is utterly mental. A landslide off a third of the vote.
Modi achieved it on 31% in the past, but what FPTP gives, it can also take away.
FPTP isn't really designed for a situation where the vote is split near equally between several strong candidates. It starts to become more akin to drawing lots.
Recent British electoral history has exposed all the worst flaws in the system:
Scotland 2015 - one nationalist party destroys three separate unionist parties, winning 56 of 59 constituencies - one side of the dominant policy debate gets virtually all the representation
Labour 2024 - a socking great landslide on only a third of the vote, see also below
The total dislocation of vote shares and representation - Reform UK: 14.3% of the popular vote, 0.8% of seats; Lib Dem: 12.2% of the popular vote, 10.9% of seats; Labour: 33.7% of the popular vote, 63.4% of seats
Chingford and Woodford Green - a Conservative incumbent is spared the axe because the vastly larger opposition vote cleaves into two perfect halves between the Labour challenger and the axed predecessor
You can have some real fun and games Baxtering further changes to the vote shares in this election and discover how low Labour could've fallen yesterday whilst still winning comfortably, assuming that the remaining votes continue to be heavily splintered (incidentally, plug the vote shares actually obtained, including the separate Scotland data, into the Electoral Calculus model, and you get Lab 406, Con 125, LD 68, SNP 15, RefUK 9, PC 4, Green 3 and Other 2, which is not a bad approximation of the actual outcome.) Lop another 5% off Labour and give it to RefUK, and Starmer still comes home with a 1979-level overall majority on only 28.7% of the vote.
The system behaves relatively sensibly where there are only two large parties. Introduce a wider selection and, as you suggest, it quickly degenerates into a complete mess.
And if you add the Con and Reform numbers together they win. Hooray!
Oh wait, FPTP doesn't work like that. However PR does.
I agree with you. Plus, add the greens and the LDs, the left is infront. The right needs to be winning a majority voteshare overall.
I actually think being divided over two parties will help in the long term - it has certainly helped in the case of Lab/Lib/Green. There are places where the Tories will never get in, and places where Reform won't ever get in.
I didn't add the Greens and LDs because I was being flippant. However Labour have a legitimacy under the current system. However in my view the current system is illigimate.
Any particular thing, or just super satisfied he won and, in typical fashion, trying to make it seem like Starmer should do everything he, Corbyn, would like because 'the people' have spoken or something?
He can have an engaging, genteel manner, but the way he presents his ideals always comes across to me as extremely vain. I'm told he is actually very humble, but IDK, this is a man whose Peace and Justice website url is still TheCorbynProject.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They will get there, and to be fair Reform UK is the bombshell that blew up the election. The split on the Right secured Labour's landslide, and Farage's lot outpolled the Liberal Democrats by vote share (although the latter ended up with 14 times as many seats.)
It's free and easy to do. It was performative nonsense from Johnson and Patel. Sunak and Cleverly thought it both expensive and moronic. Had the Conservatives remained in office the single flight would have left and that would have been that.
A massively expensive set of gesture politics, which everyone understood was meaningless and absurd, which is why it was a pathetic failure.
Also practical politics from Starmer - costs nothing and was completely unusable for a Labour government. If a flight had taken off, there would defections from his bumper crop of MPs.
Ditching it, on the other hand, will be completely popular across the Labour spectrum.
He's right of course. The result is utterly mental. A landslide off a third of the vote.
Modi achieved it on 31% in the past, but what FPTP gives, it can also take away.
FPTP isn't really designed for a situation where the vote is split near equally between several strong candidates. It starts to become more akin to drawing lots.
Recent British electoral history has exposed all the worst flaws in the system:
Scotland 2015 - one nationalist party destroys three separate unionist parties, winning 56 of 59 constituencies - one side of the dominant policy debate gets virtually all the representation
Labour 2024 - a socking great landslide on only a third of the vote, see also below
The total dislocation of vote shares and representation - Reform UK: 14.3% of the popular vote, 0.8% of seats; Lib Dem: 12.2% of the popular vote, 10.9% of seats; Labour: 33.7% of the popular vote, 63.4% of seats
Chingford and Woodford Green - a Conservative incumbent is spared the axe because the vastly larger opposition vote cleaves into two perfect halves between the Labour challenger and the axed predecessor
You can have some real fun and games Baxtering further changes to the vote shares in this election and discover how low Labour could've fallen yesterday whilst still winning comfortably, assuming that the remaining votes continue to be heavily splintered (incidentally, plug the vote shares actually obtained, including the separate Scotland data, into the Electoral Calculus model, and you get Lab 406, Con 125, LD 68, SNP 15, RefUK 9, PC 4, Green 3 and Other 2, which is not a bad approximation of the actual outcome.) Lop another 5% off Labour and give it to RefUK, and Starmer still comes home with a 1979-level overall majority on only 28.7% of the vote.
The system behaves relatively sensibly where there are only two large parties. Introduce a wider selection and, as you suggest, it quickly degenerates into a complete mess.
This is the truth of FPTP. It’s not that FPTP delivers 2-party systems: it’s that FPTP only makes sense with 2-party systems. The number of seats won on less than a third of the vote is ridiculous.
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 think you underestimate the generational hatred there is for the Conservatives. If Labour f*** up it may not be the Conservatives that benefit.
Let's hope they don't. Although the bar for Labour is very low thanks to Johnson, Truss and Sunak.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They will get there, and to be fair Reform UK is the bombshell that blew up the election. The split on the Right secured Labour's landslide, and Farage's lot outpolled the Liberal Democrats by vote share (although the latter ended up with 14 times as many seats.)
Et voila, there's Carla.
Greens will arguable be more problematic to Starmer in parliament than Farage's noisy crap.
But hey, BBC news values demand that Farage appears in as many headlines and bulletins as is physically possible.
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.
Close 3 way there between Tories, Reform and Labour, pity about Stephen Metcalfe who was a good MP and a former EDFC councillor and his mother a Buckhurst Hill county councillor
Just think, if the Tories had taken the gloves off and attacked Reform, instead of pretending they were fellow travellers, how many more seats would they have won?
Absolutely. Anyone with the political brain of a bird would have realised that. Except the recently ex-PM it seems. They even gave him opportunity to fight back with Farage attacking his background.
You do have to ask: what the FUCK were they thinking?
Well indeed. Exactly my point. Of course that analytical political genius known as @Leon would like the Tories to cosy up to them and doesn't agree. The Tories need to hit them hard, but they need an articulate leader who has the balls to do it. Not sure who that would be.
Rishi shortly resigns as an MP.
Penny Mordaunt gets the call for the by-election. Which she wins comfortably. And then the Party leadership.
You heard it here first.
Why do you expect Sunak to stand down? He's young, he wasn't PM for that long, he should stick around. I don't get the obsession with Mordaunt. She stood for the leadership before and made little impression.
"made little impression"? She was a couple of MPs changing their mind from going to the members with Rishi.
How many of those 113 MPs voting for Truss would now hop in the Tardis to change their vote? In treble figures is my estimate.
When my son was living in Fratton (Portsmouth South- not North) he knew people who knew Mordaunt and I met her in Ye Olde Spotted Dogge inn, she seemed very clubable but her reputation was for laziness and being something of a carpetbagger. Her laziness was amply demonstrated by her very poor "fight, fight, fight" speech at last year's conference Tugenhadt ticks lots of boxes.
She'd have won comfortably were it not for the strong Reform showing, which in turn might have been fuelled by her Wokery.
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?
Close 3 way there between Tories, Reform and Labour, pity about Stephen Metcalfe who was a good MP and a former EDFC councillor and his mother a Buckhurst Hill county councillor
Just think, if the Tories had taken the gloves off and attacked Reform, instead of pretending they were fellow travellers, how many more seats would they have won?
Absolutely. Anyone with the political brain of a bird would have realised that. Except the recently ex-PM it seems. They even gave him opportunity to fight back with Farage attacking his background.
You do have to ask: what the FUCK were they thinking?
Well indeed. Exactly my point. Of course that analytical political genius known as @Leon would like the Tories to cosy up to them and doesn't agree. The Tories need to hit them hard, but they need an articulate leader who has the balls to do it. Not sure who that would be.
Rishi shortly resigns as an MP.
Penny Mordaunt gets the call for the by-election. Which she wins comfortably. And then the Party leadership.
You heard it here first.
Why do you expect Sunak to stand down? He's young, he wasn't PM for that long, he should stick around. I don't get the obsession with Mordaunt. She stood for the leadership before and made little impression.
"made little impression"? She was a couple of MPs changing their mind from going to the members with Rishi.
How many of those 113 MPs voting for Truss would now hop in the Tardis to change their vote? In treble figures is my estimate.
When my son was living in Fratton (Portsmouth South- not North) he knew people who knew Mordaunt and I met her in Ye Olde Spotted Dogge inn, she seemed very clubable but her reputation was for laziness and being something of a carpetbagger. Her laziness was amply demonstrated by her very poor "fight, fight, fight" speech at last year's conference Tugenhadt ticks lots of boxes.
She'd have won comfortably were it not for the strong Reform showing, which in turn might have been fuelled by her Wokery.
It's not a natural seat for Labour.
I know we cannot assume every single Reform vote would have been a Tory vote, but I do think it is pretty safe to conclude if the Tories can deal with the Reform threat - somehow - then a lot of seats are back in play even without other recovery actions.
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.
What is Farage going to do about it? Strafe the boats.
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.
BBC say 33.7% and the difference must be cause by Central Suffolk, ie whether or not to include the disowned candidate, who still appeared on the ballot paper as Labour.
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.
I mean, yes, he is, as the others are 60,59,57, and 66, but why not 'youngest of the Reform MPs'? They're the first elected MPs they've had, of course being the youngest he's the youngest in Reform's history.
Fun anecdote about his mum and dad observing the count though.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
Probably. They still had 2 or 3 plausible time periods in which to call it, end of September, beginning of November, January.
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.
Well, we're still pretty appealing compared to most places, it's just everything we do is kind of low grade crappy thesedays, but happily it was not a totally serious suggestion.
Close 3 way there between Tories, Reform and Labour, pity about Stephen Metcalfe who was a good MP and a former EDFC councillor and his mother a Buckhurst Hill county councillor
Just think, if the Tories had taken the gloves off and attacked Reform, instead of pretending they were fellow travellers, how many more seats would they have won?
Absolutely. Anyone with the political brain of a bird would have realised that. Except the recently ex-PM it seems. They even gave him opportunity to fight back with Farage attacking his background.
You do have to ask: what the FUCK were they thinking?
Well indeed. Exactly my point. Of course that analytical political genius known as @Leon would like the Tories to cosy up to them and doesn't agree. The Tories need to hit them hard, but they need an articulate leader who has the balls to do it. Not sure who that would be.
Rishi shortly resigns as an MP.
Penny Mordaunt gets the call for the by-election. Which she wins comfortably. And then the Party leadership.
You heard it here first.
Why do you expect Sunak to stand down? He's young, he wasn't PM for that long, he should stick around. I don't get the obsession with Mordaunt. She stood for the leadership before and made little impression.
"made little impression"? She was a couple of MPs changing their mind from going to the members with Rishi.
How many of those 113 MPs voting for Truss would now hop in the Tardis to change their vote? In treble figures is my estimate.
When my son was living in Fratton (Portsmouth South- not North) he knew people who knew Mordaunt and I met her in Ye Olde Spotted Dogge inn, she seemed very clubable but her reputation was for laziness and being something of a carpetbagger. Her laziness was amply demonstrated by her very poor "fight, fight, fight" speech at last year's conference Tugenhadt ticks lots of boxes.
Clubbable and lazy are OK attributes for someone keeping the leadership seat warm in a suddenly irrelevant party. The key requirement is not to do any more damage while things work themselves out.
I remember 2010. We said the Tories were in for one term. Fourteen years later they’re out.
Lesson for today’s Tories, Prepare for a long slog, there are no shortcuts. It’s unlikely to be one term. The first task is to not swing to the extremes and your comfort zone. The brutal reality is your friend.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
The big shift: The Liberal Democrats are now the New Shit.
Oh I won’t have that! You LibDems have been shits for years!
Yes ma'am. Long before I joined and when I was slagging them off. Has to be said though.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
The big shift: The Liberal Democrats are now the New Shit.
Oh I won’t have that! You LibDems have been shits for years!
Yes ma'am. Long before I joined and when I was slagging them off. Has to be said though.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
Ed Davey should stand down as leader now, just in case the next election for the party is of Sunakian proportions. Quit whilst he's ahead.
I'm confident Starmer will achieve more on illegal migration than the Tories did, for the simple reason that it would be impossible to be more incompetent on than subject that the last government.
Mail claims the sudden July election was "because Oliver Dowden, who was deputy prime minister and Sunak's closest political friend, had discovered that every month fixed term mortgage rates were ending for 135,000 homeowners."
Average rise from 2.7% to 6% and it meant that if an election was held in November another 800,000 would be hit.
Most of these people will know what is coming; it would be highly naïve to assume that people are not aware of how these things work. The interest rate shock is now over two years old. Plus the lowest current 5 year fixed term interest rate is now just over 4%.
My takeaway is that Sunak and Dowden panicked.
Probably. They still had 2 or 3 plausible time periods in which to call it, end of September, beginning of November, January.
I think Sunak was equally just fed up - or frightened that letters where arriving with Sir Brady...
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
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
Comments
Jezza would have been hiring tankies like Richard Murphy and Jon Lansman...
😃😃😃😃😃😃
Inflation behind the headline number are still not great. Things like service inflation is still really bad at 6%. There is still lot of sticky inflation in the system.
(I think this is comprehensive)
Winners:
- Tewkesbury 7/1 – won – entirely down to @Peter_the_Punter
- 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 did flag it as an unexpected hold a while back.
"Because so many seats had 3-4 competitive parties, it often took a weirdly low vote share to win.
The average winning vote share this time was just 42%, down from 54% last time. In SW Norfolk, the winner won with 26%"
You can see in the diagram that there are a large group of seats won with less than 35% of the vote.
You may as well have 3-member STV seats and let everyone with nearly a third of the vote be elected, than have it decided by the random difference of a few hundred votes between one party's one third of the vote and another's.
Jeremy specifically asked me to speak about the subject at three of his rallies. And it's well known there was discussion of an appointment, but I decided I would rather be professor of practice in international political economy at City University instead, from where one of my close colleagues did sit on his advisory panel.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/07/21/john-mcdonnell-is-right-we-do-disagree-on-macroeconomic-policy/
All is not lost.
Phillip Blond
@Phillip_Blond
·
13h
As a friend pointed just pointed out - all the Pop Cons have lost - so dies the liberal economic wing of the Party - I doubt this economic philosophy can return which is welcome news
https://x.com/Phillip_Blond/status/1809132939277435023
Starmer kills Rwanda policy within hours of walking into No 10.
Whilst I would have supported such a move, and think Sunak is despicable for plunging his party into this to avoid the embarrassment of a leadership challenge, I am glad that it didn't happen and that we are where we are. Reform now have a parliamentary base. It'll be up to them what they do with it - I hope they'll prove active and worthwhile representatives for their constituencies. And the Tories have endured a catastrophic defeat, that despite the ludicrous contortions of PB's sopping wet brigade, Sunak, CCHQ and the centrists own. None of that would have happened if Sunak had been ousted.
(Oh, ok penalty)
It's in his nature.
Policy, beyond the generic, can wait three years.
Piers Morgan
Oh wait, FPTP doesn't work like that. However PR can.
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 actually think being divided over two parties will help in the long term - it has certainly helped in the case of Lab/Lib/Green. There are places where the Tories will never get in, and places where Reform won't ever get in.
If I'd made a post about how much I admired Leadsom it might be somewhat relevant.
Scotland 2015 - one nationalist party destroys three separate unionist parties, winning 56 of 59 constituencies - one side of the dominant policy debate gets virtually all the representation
Labour 2024 - a socking great landslide on only a third of the vote, see also below
The total dislocation of vote shares and representation - Reform UK: 14.3% of the popular vote, 0.8% of seats; Lib Dem: 12.2% of the popular vote, 10.9% of seats; Labour: 33.7% of the popular vote, 63.4% of seats
Chingford and Woodford Green - a Conservative incumbent is spared the axe because the vastly larger opposition vote cleaves into two perfect halves between the Labour challenger and the axed predecessor
You can have some real fun and games Baxtering further changes to the vote shares in this election and discover how low Labour could've fallen yesterday whilst still winning comfortably, assuming that the remaining votes continue to be heavily splintered (incidentally, plug the vote shares actually obtained, including the separate Scotland data, into the Electoral Calculus model, and you get Lab 406, Con 125, LD 68, SNP 15, RefUK 9, PC 4, Green 3 and Other 2, which is not a bad approximation of the actual outcome.) Lop another 5% off Labour and give it to RefUK, and Starmer still comes home with a 1979-level overall majority on only 28.7% of the vote.
The system behaves relatively sensibly where there are only two large parties. Introduce a wider selection and, as you suggest, it quickly degenerates into a complete mess.
He can have an engaging, genteel manner, but the way he presents his ideals always comes across to me as extremely vain. I'm told he is actually very humble, but IDK, this is a man whose Peace and Justice website url is still TheCorbynProject.
Et voila, there's Carla.
Ditching it, on the other hand, will be completely popular across the Labour spectrum.
Let's hope they don't. Although the bar for Labour is very low thanks to Johnson, Truss and Sunak.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68007463
But hey, BBC news values demand that Farage appears in as many headlines and bulletins as is physically possible.
It's not a natural seat for Labour.
We still hear about bloody AV!
How would you feel about Prime Minister Robert Jenrick and Deputy PM Farage in a Con-Ref love-in?
At 38-years-old, Mr Murdock is the youngest elected MP in Reform’s history.
https://inews.co.uk/news/meet-reform-uk-mps-farage-tice-anderson-lowe-election-3152840
I mean, yes, he is, as the others are 60,59,57, and 66, but why not 'youngest of the Reform MPs'? They're the first elected MPs they've had, of course being the youngest he's the youngest in Reform's history.
Fun anecdote about his mum and dad observing the count though.
Your hugely impressive prediction of the election badly underestimated the performance of the Greens in Bristol. Do you have a theory as to why?
Subtext: how could you account for and model a particularly strong local campaign? Might that be the missing piece?
Thanks
Lesson for today’s Tories, Prepare for a long slog, there are no shortcuts. It’s unlikely to be one term. The first task is to not swing to the extremes and your comfort zone. The brutal reality is your friend.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
*I didn't predict this one well.
It's a rule both for politics and commenting on politics.
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 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