Labour 31% Conservative 24% Reform 20% Liberal Democrat 11% Greens 8%
However, from Opinium's own tweet:
These results need to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially compared to our past Voting Intention work, as they are not weighted to our standard weightset.
I am not sure whether we should pay any attention to the polls given they were so far out in the general election. They got the result right but that's it: the percentages were way off.
We shouldn't. But of fun and all that.
But Labour keep having bad weeks and keep being ahead. By less than in 2022/3 (hence the losses in local by-elections), but still ahead.
At some point, that starts telling us something, probably about the predicament the Conservatives are in.
For now I suggest paying attention to the SPLORG index - ie the two figures which are Lab/Con combined and The Rest (SNP, Plaid, LDs, Others, Reform and Green) which used to be about 85/15 and are now more like 56/44, and of course always total 100. If the LabCon figure continues to fall (as it has even since the election) stuff starts to change.
Labour 31% Conservative 24% Reform 20% Liberal Democrat 11% Greens 8%
However, from Opinium's own tweet:
These results need to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially compared to our past Voting Intention work, as they are not weighted to our standard weightset.
I am not sure whether we should pay any attention to the polls given they were so far out in the general election. They got the result right but that's it: the percentages were way off.
We shouldn't. But of fun and all that.
But Labour keep having bad weeks and keep being ahead. By less than in 2022/3 (hence the losses in local by-elections), but still ahead.
At some point, that starts telling us something, probably about the predicament the Conservatives are in.
But we know the polls are likely off, and overstate Labour by 6-7. We have the most tangible proof: the election
If that is still the case, and it is quite plausible, then Labour are down around 23-26 like the Tories, and that shines an entirely different light on everything
What we need is a major polling company to get really forensic and transparent on what went wrong in July, then show us their workings, then fix the problems, and THEN do new and better polls
Voting intention lags approval ratings, and Labour’s ratings are heading into the toilet.
This time next year, I would not be surprised if Labour are third, behind Reform.
You mean, behind Reform and the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives in fourth, presuambly?
Nothing would surprise me now. We may be back to Summer 2019.
I don’t see how Labour avoid polling meltdown. Starmer is too charmless and they have no ideas what to do, apart from really really bad ones (Chagos, WFA, Carbon Capture)
Overall, the right wing vote share is higher than under Blair. Which refutes the argument that demographics are dooming the Right.
That can deliver a big victory to the lead right wing party, if united, or a crushing defeat, if split.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
All the polls are telling me right now is Labour AND the Tories are both in the mire. 30-31 is nowhere near a comfortable score for a new government, and the Tories still hover in the doldrums in the mid 20s.
Something will give eventually, but what remains to be seen.
Did anyone see Have I Got News For You yesterday? One of the most awkward editions I've ever seen, because a lot of people didn't like the idea of laughing at jokes about a Labour government.
am hearing israel national security advisor just called indian counterpart to warn that their retaliation (in iran) is imminent. relayed "we have to do what we have to do."
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Euston has (immediately, as of right now) on the orders of @LouHaigh turned off its annoying giant advertising board that replaced the departure board. But the thing is… it was purposely designed to be annoying, to cover up for lack of investment.
So they just got rid of the departures board because everyone was looking at it, so now everyone has to walk round the station trying to work out which trains go from which platforms? Which idiot came up with that idea?
Very much agree. I could not believe it when I cam back from France earlier this month and the Departures Board which could be seen from everywhere in the Concourse was trying to sell me airfreshner, Glade as it happened. This must be a case, like Gary Linaker with his crisps where most people would make a point of choosing a different brand because of the advertising.
I had incorrectly assumed, having not been there for years, that they’d replaced the old departures board with a new one that also incorporated advertising space, which would make sense. I hadn’t realised that they had left no departures board at all, because why the hell would you have a main line terminus station with 18 platforms and no departures boards?
There were departure boards, just in the middle of the concourse. There was some analysis that found this actually helped with crowding with people spreading out a bit more.
But the giant advertising screens were just a bit ridiculous.
Euston is weirdly secretive about what platform trains are going to depart from - such information is highly prized and the subject of rumour. I think there are paid-for apps which tell you. The result is that once the platform is announced, 400 anxious travellers bolt for the platform in the hope ofgetting a seat. Obviously this is bad for passengers. But I don't see who benefits from such secrecy. Presumably someone thinks this better for Euston than the convetional approach, and I'd love to know why.
Every time I visit London I have to engage in the infamous run to the platforms at Euston when they give you about 5 minutes before the train is departing.
Yes, I've done that many times. You have to get a shift on to make it. Quite exciting. The only time I failed was my own fault. I figured I had just enough time to nip into the M&S halfway down the tunnel and grab a bag of nuts. I figured wrongly. I got the nuts but not the train. Felt pretty bleak ten minutes later, back on the concourse, nibbling those nuts.
It's quite exciting for people who don't have mobility problems but must be difficult for those who do.
Yes, it's ridiculous. A calm steady stroll to the train would be preferable for everybody. It's just about making the best of it - which for me means pretending I'm an American footballer in full flow, twisting and weaving to a touchdown (of my 60+ oyster) on the ticker barrier at the target platform. Others will have their own ways of handling it, I'm sure.
My way of handling it is to travel via Marylebone and thank my lucky stars I have the option. The journey takes half an hour longer but delays and outages are much rarer. I wouldn't argue that privatisation has been an unmitigated success but Chiltern has been exceptional in both service provision and station restoration, thanks to the sadly-missed Adrian Shooter.
Seems the Old Oak Common partial replacement for Euston can't come soon enough.
Mad that would mean Reform are still only on 17 seats, with Labour losing 60 (electoral calculus).
In our system you have to win seats, not votes. It's like tennis, it doesn't matter how many points you win if you don't win games, how many games you win if you don't win sets, and how many sets you win if you don't win matches.
It is what keeps a national matter - politics that is, not tennis - also intensely local. And everyone plays under the same rules.
Labour 31% Conservative 24% Reform 20% Liberal Democrat 11% Greens 8%
However, from Opinium's own tweet:
These results need to be taken with a pinch of salt, especially compared to our past Voting Intention work, as they are not weighted to our standard weightset.
I am not sure whether we should pay any attention to the polls given they were so far out in the general election. They got the result right but that's it: the percentages were way off.
We shouldn't. But of fun and all that.
But Labour keep having bad weeks and keep being ahead. By less than in 2022/3 (hence the losses in local by-elections), but still ahead.
At some point, that starts telling us something, probably about the predicament the Conservatives are in.
But we know the polls are likely off, and overstate Labour by 6-7. We have the most tangible proof: the election
If that is still the case, and it is quite plausible, then Labour are down around 23-26 like the Tories, and that shines an entirely different light on everything
What we need is a major polling company to get really forensic and transparent on what went wrong in July, then show us their workings, then fix the problems, and THEN do new and better polls
Voting intention lags approval ratings, and Labour’s ratings are heading into the toilet.
This time next year, I would not be surprised if Labour are third, behind Reform.
You mean, behind Reform and the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives in fourth, presuambly?
Nothing would surprise me now. We may be back to Summer 2019.
I don’t see how Labour avoid polling meltdown. Starmer is too charmless and they have no ideas what to do, apart from really really bad ones (Chagos, WFA, Carbon Capture)
Simply because they have a huge majority, and really quite a lot of Labour MPs just see the job as a pay-check, with the option of bigger pay-checks if you play your cards right.
Edit: And they're going to say whatever the public wants to hear.
When are they going to start saying what people want to hear?
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Did anyone see Have I Got News For You yesterday? One of the most awkward editions I've ever seen, because a lot of people didn't like the idea of laughing at jokes about a Labour government.
Well they’re all going to have to get used to it, because there’s going to be a Labour government for at least five years, and there’s going to be plenty of material with which to mock them.
Thankfully there’s a long tradition in the UK of comedians and satirists taking aim at politicians, and long may it continue!
Just been out and about. Amazing how different it is to being online.
Which reminds me, my local pub has a live band on tonight, so I should really get my fat arse off the sofa and down the road to support the local night-time economy…
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
Labour needs a deal with LDs, and both Lab and Con need a deal with Reform and thankfully none are going to happen. The voters have pretty much sorted the LD/Lab deal, but neithetr the parties nor, I should guess, the voters can sort out the Ref/Lab/Con triangle.
Seriously lovely, ancient, noomy old mosque. Prayer time. Tucked away in the decrepit old town. Lots of men in puffer gilets including me
To coin a phrase, it feels like a “hidden gem”
I've never really seen the point of the puffer gilet. I have got one, but I never wear it. Surely it is one's extremities that are most at risk of getting cold - the more extreme the colder.
It's not about being warm, it's about being seen wearing a Patagonia gilet, mark of the finance bro.
Yes, it’s a real clothes cliché at the moment. Every unoriginal bloke in finance is wearing them - I swear they all watched Billions and think if they wear a gillet then people will think they are a hedgie. It’s actually quite tragic how ubiquitous they are.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Yeah, plums awful. A lady I work with always gives me plums from her allotment every year. I make wine and chutnies from them. She had very few this year. She had some rhubarb. Enough for one batch of wine.
Euston has (immediately, as of right now) on the orders of @LouHaigh turned off its annoying giant advertising board that replaced the departure board. But the thing is… it was purposely designed to be annoying, to cover up for lack of investment.
So they just got rid of the departures board because everyone was looking at it, so now everyone has to walk round the station trying to work out which trains go from which platforms? Which idiot came up with that idea?
Very much agree. I could not believe it when I cam back from France earlier this month and the Departures Board which could be seen from everywhere in the Concourse was trying to sell me airfreshner, Glade as it happened. This must be a case, like Gary Linaker with his crisps where most people would make a point of choosing a different brand because of the advertising.
I had incorrectly assumed, having not been there for years, that they’d replaced the old departures board with a new one that also incorporated advertising space, which would make sense. I hadn’t realised that they had left no departures board at all, because why the hell would you have a main line terminus station with 18 platforms and no departures boards?
There were departure boards, just in the middle of the concourse. There was some analysis that found this actually helped with crowding with people spreading out a bit more.
But the giant advertising screens were just a bit ridiculous.
Euston is weirdly secretive about what platform trains are going to depart from - such information is highly prized and the subject of rumour. I think there are paid-for apps which tell you. The result is that once the platform is announced, 400 anxious travellers bolt for the platform in the hope ofgetting a seat. Obviously this is bad for passengers. But I don't see who benefits from such secrecy. Presumably someone thinks this better for Euston than the convetional approach, and I'd love to know why.
Every time I visit London I have to engage in the infamous run to the platforms at Euston when they give you about 5 minutes before the train is departing.
Yes, I've done that many times. You have to get a shift on to make it. Quite exciting. The only time I failed was my own fault. I figured I had just enough time to nip into the M&S halfway down the tunnel and grab a bag of nuts. I figured wrongly. I got the nuts but not the train. Felt pretty bleak ten minutes later, back on the concourse, nibbling those nuts.
It's quite exciting for people who don't have mobility problems but must be difficult for those who do.
Yes, it's ridiculous. A calm steady stroll to the train would be preferable for everybody. It's just about making the best of it - which for me means pretending I'm an American footballer in full flow, twisting and weaving to a touchdown (of my 60+ oyster) on the ticker barrier at the target platform. Others will have their own ways of handling it, I'm sure.
My way of handling it is to travel via Marylebone and thank my lucky stars I have the option. The journey takes half an hour longer but delays and outages are much rarer. I wouldn't argue that privatisation has been an unmitigated success but Chiltern has been exceptional in both service provision and station restoration, thanks to the sadly-missed Adrian Shooter.
Seems the Old Oak Common partial replacement for Euston can't come soon enough.
Heads up for Sunday 17th November:
Old Oak engineering works mean GWR fast trains (ie. first/last stop Reading) diverted into/out of Euston.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is planning to more aggressively attack former President Donald Trump in the remaining weeks ahead of the November election, a new phase aimed at trying to move the small number of undecided voters her way, according to five Harris campaign officials.
The change is driven, in part, by internal campaign data showing that sharper messaging against Trump could persuade some still-unsure Americans to support Harris, according to three of the campaign officials.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Yeah, plums awful. A lady I work with always gives me plums from her allotment every year. I make wine and chutnies from them. She had very few this year. She had some rhubarb. Enough for one batch of wine.
Apples and pears were tasty but few. Hardly any plums, but Blackberries good here.
Very few insects about. I've hardly seen a bee or wasp all summer.
Other Inflammatory signs included messages that read: 'Hezbollah are not terrorists' and 'I love Hezbollah', as one attendee was also seen wearing a t-shirt comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Yeah, plums awful. A lady I work with always gives me plums from her allotment every year. I make wine and chutnies from them. She had very few this year. She had some rhubarb. Enough for one batch of wine.
Apples and pears were tasty but few. Hardly any plums, but Blackberries good here.
Very few insects about. I've hardly seen a bee or wasp all summer.
A grim spring behind it I think.
Come to think of it, neither have I. One wasp. No flying ant days at all, unless it was on days I was at home.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is planning to more aggressively attack former President Donald Trump in the remaining weeks ahead of the November election, a new phase aimed at trying to move the small number of undecided voters her way, according to five Harris campaign officials.
The change is driven, in part, by internal campaign data showing that sharper messaging against Trump could persuade some still-unsure Americans to support Harris, according to three of the campaign officials.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Apples now, Hat-fulls, Three bushel bag-fulls, tallets ole-fulls, Barn’s floor-fulls, Little heap under the stairs. Hip Hip Hooroo!
Other Inflammatory signs included messages that read: 'Hezbollah are not terrorists' and 'I love Hezbollah', as one attendee was also seen wearing a t-shirt comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Yeah, plums awful. A lady I work with always gives me plums from her allotment every year. I make wine and chutnies from them. She had very few this year. She had some rhubarb. Enough for one batch of wine.
Apples and pears were tasty but few. Hardly any plums, but Blackberries good here.
Very few insects about. I've hardly seen a bee or wasp all summer.
A grim spring behind it I think.
Excellent Blackberries this year, until the rain obliterated them. Few apples, and no plums or damsons.
And now our garden is being invaded by bold foxes and muntjaks.
Seriously lovely, ancient, noomy old mosque. Prayer time. Tucked away in the decrepit old town. Lots of men in puffer gilets including me
To coin a phrase, it feels like a “hidden gem”
I've never really seen the point of the puffer gilet. I have got one, but I never wear it. Surely it is one's extremities that are most at risk of getting cold - the more extreme the colder.
Keeps the core organs (central trunk) while allowing you to move your arms to facilitate manual labour.
So most people in Chelsea don’t need one
The latest gadget seems to be rechargable handwarmers that you can keep in your pockets.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Yeah, plums awful. A lady I work with always gives me plums from her allotment every year. I make wine and chutnies from them. She had very few this year. She had some rhubarb. Enough for one batch of wine.
Apples and pears were tasty but few. Hardly any plums, but Blackberries good here.
Very few insects about. I've hardly seen a bee or wasp all summer.
Has there been an indication from the polling companies that they have looked to address the failures they had at the GE?
… is a very good question
I’ve not seen anything concrete. Some admission that there is a problem, and it needs looking at - and hints they are doing so - but that is all. Hints
It’s not good enough. I am not dissing polling companies, they are businesses that need to make a profit and I know they do their best, but this was a near-systemic failure and quite bizarre. We might as well do without polls if they are gonna miss that badly
On the upside, there is room for an enterprising polling company to work out what went wrong, and get it right, and become the new Gold Standard
Swing of 3% from Labour to Tory since the GE on that poll
Sir Keir will simply have to console himself with a five point lead in the polls, five years until a general election, and a parliamentary majority of 172.
Seriously lovely, ancient, noomy old mosque. Prayer time. Tucked away in the decrepit old town. Lots of men in puffer gilets including me
To coin a phrase, it feels like a “hidden gem”
I've never really seen the point of the puffer gilet. I have got one, but I never wear it. Surely it is one's extremities that are most at risk of getting cold - the more extreme the colder.
Keeps the core organs (central trunk) while allowing you to move your arms to facilitate manual labour.
So most people in Chelsea don’t need one
The latest gadget seems to be rechargable handwarmers that you can keep in your pockets.
Pause
So they've invented...gloves?????
They're more like portable batteries that emit heat. Maybe it's just a way to resell faulty batteries:
Did anyone see Have I Got News For You yesterday? One of the most awkward editions I've ever seen, because a lot of people didn't like the idea of laughing at jokes about a Labour government.
They could well be understating Labour and overstating Reform now. If so it looks like little change since 4th July.
Still, with a GE so very far away it's not of enormous importance. Interesting, yes, always that, but not of enormous importance.
This is the epitome of wishcasting. We have no evidence that they “overstate” Reform other than: you would like this to be the case, as it makes you feel better
We have tons of evidence they overstate Labour, from millions of actual votes in the GE, and the disjunct between local by elections and popularity polling and these VI polls
My best guess - and unlike you I admit it is a total guess - is that Labour are still being overstated but by less. 3-4 points? This is a mere hunch
But if it is right then Labour are down around 26-27 and probably level pegging with the Tories and Reform not far behind, which is truly fascinating
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Swing of 3% from Labour to Tory since the GE on that poll
Sir Keir will simply have to console himself with a five point lead in the polls, five years until a general election, and a parliamentary majority of 172.
The Tories would at least get back to a parliamentary party of 1997 and 2001 levels with the Opinium poll tonight with gains from Labour.
Reform would also gain nearly 10 seats from Labour and Hornchurch and Upminster from the Tories.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is planning to more aggressively attack former President Donald Trump in the remaining weeks ahead of the November election, a new phase aimed at trying to move the small number of undecided voters her way, according to five Harris campaign officials.
The change is driven, in part, by internal campaign data showing that sharper messaging against Trump could persuade some still-unsure Americans to support Harris, according to three of the campaign officials.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Jenrick PM Farage Deputy PM and Foreign Secretary in a Tory and Reform coalition government?
If it gets close that could be the choice or a Labour and LD deal, especially if a Farage and Jenrick pact where Reform don't target seats where the Tories were second to Labour or the LDs in return for the Tories not targeting seats where Reform were second to Labour
They could well be understating Labour and overstating Reform now. If so it looks like little change since 4th July.
Still, with a GE so very far away it's not of enormous importance. Interesting, yes, always that, but not of enormous importance.
This is the epitome of wishcasting. We have no evidence that they “overstate” Reform other than: you would like this to be the case, as it makes you feel better
We have tons of evidence they overstate Labour, from millions of actual votes in the GE, and the disjunct between local by elections and popularity polling and these VI polls
My best guess - and unlike you I admit it is a total guess - is that Labour are still being overstated but by less. 3-4 points? This is a mere hunch
But if it is right then Labour are down around 26-27 and probably level pegging with the Tories and Reform not far behind, which is truly fascinating
Swing of 3% from Labour to Tory since the GE on that poll
Sir Keir will simply have to console himself with a five point lead in the polls, five years until a general election, and a parliamentary majority of 172.
They could well be understating Labour and overstating Reform now. If so it looks like little change since 4th July.
Still, with a GE so very far away it's not of enormous importance. Interesting, yes, always that, but not of enormous importance.
This is the epitome of wishcasting. We have no evidence that they “overstate” Reform other than: you would like this to be the case, as it makes you feel better
We have tons of evidence they overstate Labour, from millions of actual votes in the GE, and the disjunct between local by elections and popularity polling and these VI polls
My best guess - and unlike you I admit it is a total guess - is that Labour are still being overstated but by less. 3-4 points? This is a mere hunch
But if it is right then Labour are down around 26-27 and probably level pegging with the Tories and Reform not far behind, which is truly fascinating
I'm not that prone to wishcasting. I'd say that's more your game atm. But, yes, these are interesting volatile times in UK politics, you have that right. No call from me yet on GE29.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Yes, you might equally consider LLG as a “they”.
Which would equally be bullshit.
The simple truth is Labour are leading the polls by significant margins when we were assured right here on PB they were “done”.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
And so it begins. My photo for the day: the beginning of the winter stocks of apple crumbles. A was once an apple pie, Pidy Widy Tidy Pidy Nice insidy Apple Pie.
(With apologies to pendants - Edward Lear never wrote about crumbles.)
Decent year for apples; freezer full; enough for crumbles etc all year; risked life and limb yesterday getting the Coxes from the tree.
Mediocre year for my local wild apple trees. A couple,of years ago I made cider from three of them and two were excellent. This year nothing to write home about I don’t think I’ll be doing any.
Blackberries OK this year, though many a little small. Plums no good.
Yeah, plums awful. A lady I work with always gives me plums from her allotment every year. I make wine and chutnies from them. She had very few this year. She had some rhubarb. Enough for one batch of wine.
Apples and pears were tasty but few. Hardly any plums, but Blackberries good here.
Very few insects about. I've hardly seen a bee or wasp all summer.
A grim spring behind it I think.
Most thimgs awful here. Blackberries rubbish.
Sloes look to have had an excellent year though.
Which is strange given they are the same family as Plums which have been pretty poor generally.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Yes, you might equally consider LLG as a “they”.
Which would equally be bullshit.
The simple truth is Labour are leading the polls by significant margins when we were assured right here on PB they were “done”.
Funny old world.
Labour are currently polling 30%. That is worse than they got at every general election from 1992 to 2005, worse than Corbyn got in 2017 AND 2019 and worse than Callaghan got in 1979, no better than Kinnock got in 1987 or Ed Miliband got in 2015 and a mere 1% more than Brown got in 2010.
To suggest that is anything other than disastrous for an incoming government elected by a landslide a mere 3 months ago is ridiculous.
It is clearly the split on the right keeping Labour in majority territory, if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership and does a deal with Farage before the next GE Starmer could be in deep trouble and we would be in hung parliament territory
Has there been an indication from the polling companies that they have looked to address the failures they had at the GE?
… is a very good question
I’ve not seen anything concrete. Some admission that there is a problem, and it needs looking at - and hints they are doing so - but that is all. Hints
It’s not good enough. I am not dissing polling companies, they are businesses that need to make a profit and I know they do their best, but this was a near-systemic failure and quite bizarre. We might as well do without polls if they are gonna miss that badly
On the upside, there is room for an enterprising polling company to work out what went wrong, and get it right, and become the new Gold Standard
Some underestimating how much the really really old (75+ not 65+) would stick with the Conservatives. That never used to matter but the age gradient is now so steep that it does.
Some underestimating how pissed off some Muslims (but not all) were with Labour.
A bit of something else.
I doubt that the pollsters have spent the summer reading terrible thrillers they bought in charity shops. And the "how did you vote in July" question provides a quick'n'dirty fix.
My hunch, as a suburban science master who likes playing with numbers, is that most of the poll shift we've seen has been that crude recalibration, though it would be good to have that confirmed.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
We see the same herding of opinions with regards to Trump
People refusing to acknowledge anything might be to his benefit electorally, and endless commentary about how crap he is and how he is even more doomed than he was before
It’s tedious and silly. I don’t like Trump and I hope he loses, but a site dedicated to political forecasting needs to look reality in the face
In response to intense pressure, technology companies have enacted policies to combat misinformation1,2,3,4. The enforcement of these policies has, however, led to technology companies being regularly accused of political bias5,6,7. We argue that differential sharing of misinformation by people identifying with different political groups8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 could lead to political asymmetries in enforcement, even by unbiased policies. We first analysed 9,000 politically active Twitter users during the US 2020 presidential election. Although users estimated to be pro-Trump/conservative were indeed substantially more likely to be suspended than those estimated to be pro-Biden/liberal, users who were pro-Trump/conservative also shared far more links to various sets of low-quality news sites—even when news quality was determined by politically balanced groups of laypeople, or groups of only Republican laypeople—and had higher estimated likelihoods of being bots. We find similar associations between stated or inferred conservatism and low-quality news sharing (on the basis of both expert and politically balanced layperson ratings) in 7 other datasets of sharing from Twitter, Facebook and survey experiments, spanning 2016 to 2023 and including data from 16 different countries. Thus, even under politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected. Political imbalance in enforcement need not imply bias on the part of social media companies implementing anti-misinformation policies.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
Very wise woman, Mary Wakefield. Genius husband. Great magazine. Handsome new editor
Did Nelson want to step down? It would be a very weird decision to replace him with someone who's not been a journalist for 20 years. I don't like the idea of a multimillionaire buying a successful magazine in order to change it into his own mouthpiece.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
No, we would not
Well not really. There were two Assassination attempts on Ford within 17 days of each other. In both cases the would be assassin was within a couple of feet of the preseident and pulled the trigger. In the first case they had forgotten to chamber a round (or didn't know they had to) and in the second someone saw the gun arm come up and pulled it to one side so the shots missed the President but injured someone standing close to him. And yet to be honest it was hardly headline news for more than a day or so. And this was a serving President.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I doubt it, that was largely a protest vote to get Brexit done which Boris ultimately did.
Indeed if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership he is likely to squeeze back some of the Reform vote
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I really do hope you are wrong. A few months ago I would have said you were for sure. I thought they would get a few seats at the GE but not really make a big break through (so I am perhaps guilty of exactly the blindness I criticise even though that was the outcome). But I am shaken by the recent favourable polling about attacks on refugees and asylum seekers and do start to very much worry about what might happen if Labour and the Tories both continue to fail to provide proper leadership and Governance.
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
No, we would not
Well not really. There were two Assassination attempts on Ford within 17 days of each other. In both cases the would be assassin was within a couple of feet of the preseident and pulled the trigger. In the first case they had forgotten to chamber a round (or didn't know they had to) and in the second someone saw the gun arm come up and pulled it to one side so the shots missed the President but injured someone standing close to him. And yet to be honest it was hardly headline news for more than a day or so. And this was a serving President.
And that was in the 1970s. Since then?
The first sassytempt actually came so close to Trump it made him bleed
Incidentally I am open to any explanation for these bizarre incidents. American politics is so fucked up - in no small part by Trump himself, and his mad followers - I would not be surprised if Trump staged one of them. Especially the second. Tho my preferred narrative is still - the Ukrainians are doing it
But the total silence and LACK of speculation is quite odd. And I believe it is because people are terrified of saying anything that might help him, even if they would deny this, even if they are not aware of it
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I doubt it, that was largely a protest vote to get Brexit done which Boris ultimately did.
Indeed if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership he is likely to squeeze back some of the Reform vote
With regards Jenrick: Why buy diet coke when you can buy full fat coke? Farage will always outlflank whoever the Cons put up on the right. Assume that vote is lost, and try to peel off the centrist voters who are currently farage-curious or on the other side, the leafy middle class Waitrose lib-dem curious who will get stuffed at the next budget.
The Tories can't compete with Farage by offering Farage Lite, better to offer a clear alternative.
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
We had several trillion polls around the time of the GE showing Labour on about 40. They got 33.7
That is the point, you don’t seem to have grasped it
"Increase wealth taxes to stop rise of Reform UK, says ex-Labour minister Liam Byrne has warned the chancellor that extra levies on the rich are needed to halt the rise of the populist right"
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Yes, you might equally consider LLG as a “they”.
Which would equally be bullshit.
The simple truth is Labour are leading the polls by significant margins when we were assured right here on PB they were “done”.
Funny old world.
Labour are currently polling 30%. That is worse than they got at every general election from 1992 to 2005, worse than Corbyn got in 2017 AND 2019 and worse than Callaghan got in 1979, no better than Kinnock got in 1987 or Ed Miliband got in 2015 and a mere 1% more than Brown got in 2010.
To suggest that is anything other than disastrous for an incoming government elected by a landslide a mere 3 months ago is ridiculous.
It is clearly the split on the right keeping Labour in majority territory, if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership and does a deal with Farage before the next GE Starmer could be in deep trouble and we would be in hung parliament territory
Are Labour supposed to be gutted by this polling? They lead in every poll, by significant margins, when they have been doing unpopular (but necessary) stuff and being chased around Selfridges by a hypocritical media day after day.
Sir Keir and Lady Vic will look at the polls, and pour another glass of claret.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
No, we would not
Well not really. There were two Assassination attempts on Ford within 17 days of each other. In both cases the would be assassin was within a couple of feet of the preseident and pulled the trigger. In the first case they had forgotten to chamber a round (or didn't know they had to) and in the second someone saw the gun arm come up and pulled it to one side so the shots missed the President but injured someone standing close to him. And yet to be honest it was hardly headline news for more than a day or so. And this was a serving President.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
No, we would not
Trump has de-sensitized people . Everything is a drama with him , it’s constant . And to be blunt most people could care less what happens to him. I know he has a few fans in here but he’s a monster IMO , evil and deserves zero sympathy .
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
We had several trillion polls around the time of the GE showing Labour on about 40. They got 33.7
That is the point, you don’t seem to have grasped it
What you haven't grasped is the pollsters are already changing their methodology and sampling in response to this - Opinium, to be fair, did acknowledge they are still working through the changes.
As to why they missed the Labour share on July 4th, there are some interesting explanations coming forward and everyone has a view.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I really do hope you are wrong. A few months ago I would have said you were for sure. I thought they would get a few seats at the GE but not really make a big break through (so I am perhaps guilty of exactly the blindness I criticise even though that was the outcome). But I am shaken by the recent favourable polling about attacks on refugees and asylum seekers and do start to very much worry about what might happen if Labour and the Tories both continue to fail to provide proper leadership and Governance.
If Labour and Starmer fail to deliver and/or continue to demonstrate as they are doing that they are indeed "all the bloody same" then I dont think Jenrick's tory shower will be the beneficiaries. It's Farage all the way in 2029.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
No, we would not
Well not really. There were two Assassination attempts on Ford within 17 days of each other. In both cases the would be assassin was within a couple of feet of the preseident and pulled the trigger. In the first case they had forgotten to chamber a round (or didn't know they had to) and in the second someone saw the gun arm come up and pulled it to one side so the shots missed the President but injured someone standing close to him. And yet to be honest it was hardly headline news for more than a day or so. And this was a serving President.
And that was in the 1970s. Since then?
The first sassytempt actually came so close to Trump it made him bleed
Incidentally I am open to any explanation for these bizarre incidents. American politics is so fucked up - in no small part by Trump himself, and his mad followers - I would not be surprised if Trump staged one of them. Especially the second. Tho my preferred narrative is still - the Ukrainians are doing it
But the total silence and LACK of speculation is quite odd. And I believe it is because people are terrified of saying anything that might help him, even if they would deny this, even if they are not aware of it
I am not sure it needs much explanation. The USA is so jam packed full of guns, crazies* and crazies with guns* that I am frankly amazed it doesn't happen more often.I assume the only thing stopping it is an inate sense of self preservation on the part of the would be assassins.
*for the record I classify anyone attempting to assassinate a politician in a democracy as a crazy, not just those targetting Trump.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I really do hope you are wrong. A few months ago I would have said you were for sure. I thought they would get a few seats at the GE but not really make a big break through (so I am perhaps guilty of exactly the blindness I criticise even though that was the outcome). But I am shaken by the recent favourable polling about attacks on refugees and asylum seekers and do start to very much worry about what might happen if Labour and the Tories both continue to fail to provide proper leadership and Governance.
The current Labour government was never voted in on a wave of popularity, Blair '97 style. It was merely buggins' turn.
They won a majority on just 33% of the vote. Which is not far off what Farage's lot achieved in the 2019 Euros.
So the vote share is out there for Farage, waiting and willing.
An unpopular Labour government in 2029 + a Farage Lite-led Conservative party with no reason to vote for it vs the full fat Reform version could hand the magical 33% to Farage in 2029, tbh.
Incidentally it is incredible how TWO sassytempts on Trump have been completely forgotten, like someone seriously trying to shoot an ex president and extant presidential candidate is perfectly normal, indeed the fact it has happened twice shows how normal it is, and if someone tried to shoot Kamala Harris we’d all shrug in the same way
No, we would not
Trump has de-sensitized people . Everything is a drama with him , it’s constant . And to be blunt most people could care less what happens to him. I know he has a few fans in here but he’s a monster IMO , evil and deserves zero sympathy .
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
We had several trillion polls around the time of the GE showing Labour on about 40. They got 33.7
That is the point, you don’t seem to have grasped it
A lot of them had Lab on 45 at the start of the campaign.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I really do hope you are wrong. A few months ago I would have said you were for sure. I thought they would get a few seats at the GE but not really make a big break through (so I am perhaps guilty of exactly the blindness I criticise even though that was the outcome). But I am shaken by the recent favourable polling about attacks on refugees and asylum seekers and do start to very much worry about what might happen if Labour and the Tories both continue to fail to provide proper leadership and Governance.
The current Labour government was never voted in on a wave of popularity, Blair '97 style. It was merely buggins' turn.
They won a majority on just 33% of the vote. Which is not far off what Farage's lot achieved in the 2019 Euros.
So the vote share is out there for Farage, waiting and willing.
An unpopular Labour government in 2029 + a Farage Lite-led Conservative party with no reason to vote for it vs the full fat Reform version could hand the magical 33% to Farage in 2029, tbh.
Blair won a 66-seat majority in 2005 on 35% of the vote.
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
We had several trillion polls around the time of the GE showing Labour on about 40. They got 33.7
That is the point, you don’t seem to have grasped it
What you haven't grasped is the pollsters are already changing their methodology and sampling in response to this - Opinium, to be fair, did acknowledge they are still working through the changes.
As to why they missed the Labour share on July 4th, there are some interesting explanations coming forward and everyone has a view.
The particular nature of Labour's voting losses to independents?
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Yes, you might equally consider LLG as a “they”.
Which would equally be bullshit.
The simple truth is Labour are leading the polls by significant margins when we were assured right here on PB they were “done”.
Funny old world.
Labour are currently polling 30%. That is worse than they got at every general election from 1992 to 2005, worse than Corbyn got in 2017 AND 2019 and worse than Callaghan got in 1979, no better than Kinnock got in 1987 or Ed Miliband got in 2015 and a mere 1% more than Brown got in 2010.
To suggest that is anything other than disastrous for an incoming government elected by a landslide a mere 3 months ago is ridiculous.
It is clearly the split on the right keeping Labour in majority territory, if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership and does a deal with Farage before the next GE Starmer could be in deep trouble and we would be in hung parliament territory
Are Labour supposed to be gutted by this polling? They lead in every poll, by significant margins, when they have been doing unpopular (but necessary) stuff and being chased around Selfridges by a hypocritical media day after day.
Sir Keir and Lady Vic will look at the polls, and pour another glass of claret.
172. Five more years.
And that is wishcasting the other way.
Labour haven’t done anything major yet. But have managed to step in the puddles with each step.
When it comes to the big things - such as house building - Labour’s large majority is useful. But what happens when 86 MPs are looking at seat loss at the next election, if they follow the unpopular policies?
This is why political capital matters. As does a plan.
Labour haven’t lost the next election. But they have not shown signs of being able to win it, either.
“Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.
She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.””
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
We had several trillion polls around the time of the GE showing Labour on about 40. They got 33.7
That is the point, you don’t seem to have grasped it
Nah.
People are smarter than you expect when they are interested in something. In this case it was kicking the Tories out. Once they had a feel for the local detail and the national picture, they reviewed their choices.
There’s plenty of slim Labour majorities and it is tempting to think those are precarious. I would say that is a hasty view.
We get what we want when we actually want something.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Yes, you might equally consider LLG as a “they”.
Which would equally be bullshit.
The simple truth is Labour are leading the polls by significant margins when we were assured right here on PB they were “done”.
Funny old world.
Labour are currently polling 30%. That is worse than they got at every general election from 1992 to 2005, worse than Corbyn got in 2017 AND 2019 and worse than Callaghan got in 1979, no better than Kinnock got in 1987 or Ed Miliband got in 2015 and a mere 1% more than Brown got in 2010.
To suggest that is anything other than disastrous for an incoming government elected by a landslide a mere 3 months ago is ridiculous.
It is clearly the split on the right keeping Labour in majority territory, if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership and does a deal with Farage before the next GE Starmer could be in deep trouble and we would be in hung parliament territory
Are Labour supposed to be gutted by this polling? They lead in every poll, by significant margins, when they have been doing unpopular (but necessary) stuff and being chased around Selfridges by a hypocritical media day after day.
Sir Keir and Lady Vic will look at the polls, and pour another glass of claret.
“Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.
She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.””
“Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.
She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.””
Guardian
Do you think they'll invade a la 1982???
They will follow the extremely successful path pursued by Mauritius and China and in the end I bet a Labour government - or a shit Tory government - would and will fold
The precedent has been set
It will be disguised as co-sovereignty or a 999 year lease etc etc. Just like Diego Garcia
However there is a major caveat. I bet we’ll elect a hard right government before than. Inshallah
“Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.
She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.””
Guardian
Do you think they'll invade a la 1982???
No, President Milei made clear 'As a presidential candidate, Milei said Argentina had lost the war to the British and must “make every effort to recover the islands through diplomatic channels,” according to state news agency Télam.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I really do hope you are wrong. A few months ago I would have said you were for sure. I thought they would get a few seats at the GE but not really make a big break through (so I am perhaps guilty of exactly the blindness I criticise even though that was the outcome). But I am shaken by the recent favourable polling about attacks on refugees and asylum seekers and do start to very much worry about what might happen if Labour and the Tories both continue to fail to provide proper leadership and Governance.
The current Labour government was never voted in on a wave of popularity, Blair '97 style. It was merely buggins' turn.
They won a majority on just 33% of the vote. Which is not far off what Farage's lot achieved in the 2019 Euros.
So the vote share is out there for Farage, waiting and willing.
An unpopular Labour government in 2029 + a Farage Lite-led Conservative party with no reason to vote for it vs the full fat Reform version could hand the magical 33% to Farage in 2029, tbh.
Liked because I think your analysis is sound, not because I like the possibility.
“Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.
She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.””
Guardian
Do you think they'll invade a la 1982???
They will follow the extremely successful path pursued by Mauritius and China and in the end I bet a Labour government - or a shit Tory government - would and will fold
The precedent has been set
It will be disguised as co-sovereignty or a 999 year lease etc etc. Just like Diego Garcia
However there is a major caveat. I bet we’ll elect a hard right government before than. Inshallah
Without Falkland Islanders consent they couldn't get co sovereignty through even.
Con + Ref are probably going to be on 50% pretty soon. The question is can they somehow transform that into winning a majority of seats, because at this year's GE they got 39% of the vote and 19% of seats between them.
There is no “they”.
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
To be honest this was the claim made before the last election. None of the commentators seriously thought Reform would do as well as the polls suggested and many on here were confidently claiming they would get no seats at all. There was a huge amount of wishful thinking going on with regard to [the lack of] Reform support. There were also plenty saying that the only seat Reform would win would be Farage's. And yet Reform did gain seats and came far too close in plenty of others.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Post worthy of a +1 rather than just a like.
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
I really do hope you are wrong. A few months ago I would have said you were for sure. I thought they would get a few seats at the GE but not really make a big break through (so I am perhaps guilty of exactly the blindness I criticise even though that was the outcome). But I am shaken by the recent favourable polling about attacks on refugees and asylum seekers and do start to very much worry about what might happen if Labour and the Tories both continue to fail to provide proper leadership and Governance.
If Labour and Starmer fail to deliver and/or continue to demonstrate as they are doing that they are indeed "all the bloody same" then I dont think Jenrick's tory shower will be the beneficiaries. It's Farage all the way in 2029.
Again, as with kyf_100, liked because I think your analysis is sound, not because I like the possibility.
Did anyone see Have I Got News For You yesterday? One of the most awkward editions I've ever seen, because a lot of people didn't like the idea of laughing at jokes about a Labour government.
Saw the programme but not any reluctance to joke about or laugh at Labour.
Comments
LAB 30% (-4)
CON 25% (+1)
REFORM 20% (+6)
LDEM 13%
GREENS : 7%
SNP: 3%
BMG
That can deliver a big victory to the lead right wing party, if united, or a crushing defeat, if split.
Something will give eventually, but what remains to be seen.
It is what keeps a national matter - politics that is, not tennis - also intensely local. And everyone plays under the same rules.
Thankfully there’s a long tradition in the UK of comedians and satirists taking aim at politicians, and long may it continue! Which reminds me, my local pub has a live band on tonight, so I should really get my fat arse off the sofa and down the road to support the local night-time economy…
Old Oak engineering works mean GWR fast trains (ie. first/last stop Reading) diverted into/out of Euston.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:EUS/2024-11-17/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=pax-calls&order=wtt&toc=GW
The change is driven, in part, by internal campaign data showing that sharper messaging against Trump could persuade some still-unsure Americans to support Harris, according to three of the campaign officials.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-campaign-plans-ramp-negative-messaging-trump-rcna174039
Very few insects about. I've hardly seen a bee or wasp all summer.
A grim spring behind it I think.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13927983/Outrage-Palestinian-demonstrators-mass-London-proudly-wielding-anti-Semitic-placards.html
Wonder if they will get 2 years in jail?
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/pornography-and-the-truth-about-the-pelicot-case/
Hat-fulls,
Three bushel bag-fulls,
tallets ole-fulls,
Barn’s floor-fulls,
Little heap under the stairs.
Hip Hip Hooroo!
And now our garden is being invaded by bold foxes and muntjaks.
So they've invented...gloves?????
Sloes look to have had an excellent year though.
Still, with a GE so very far away it's not of enormous importance. Interesting, yes, always that, but not of enormous importance.
I’ve not seen anything concrete. Some admission that there is a problem, and it needs looking at - and hints they are doing so - but that is all. Hints
It’s not good enough. I am not dissing polling companies, they are businesses that need to make a profit and I know they do their best, but this was a near-systemic failure and quite bizarre. We might as well do without polls if they are gonna miss that badly
On the upside, there is room for an enterprising polling company to work out what went wrong, and get it right, and become the new Gold Standard
https://www.amazon.co.uk/hand-warmers/s?k=hand+warmers
We have tons of evidence they overstate Labour, from millions of actual votes in the GE, and the disjunct between local by elections and popularity polling and these VI polls
My best guess - and unlike you I admit it is a total guess - is that Labour are still being overstated but by less. 3-4 points? This is a mere hunch
But if it is right then Labour are down around 26-27 and probably level pegging with the Tories and Reform not far behind, which is truly fascinating
Very many of those saying they will vote Reform are simply fed up with all the establishmanet partied and are registering a NOTA preference. A lot of them won’t be arsed to vote at all, hence Reform might better be renamed Underperform.
If the C+R total reaches 50% it simply means there are even more pissed off people than before; not that there is a majority wanting to see Dodgy Jenrick as Prime Minister.
Reform would also gain nearly 10 seats from Labour and Hornchurch and Upminster from the Tories.
If it gets close that could be the choice or a Labour and LD deal, especially if a Farage and Jenrick pact where Reform don't target seats where the Tories were second to Labour or the LDs in return for the Tories not targeting seats where Reform were second to Labour
Which would equally be bullshit.
The simple truth is Labour are leading the polls by significant margins when we were assured right here on PB they were “done”.
Funny old world.
This sort of thinking is dangerous. At least for those of us who would rather not see Reform gaining seats. It is also the same thinking that was prevelant before the EU Referendum, especially on here. In that instance I was glad that the received wisdom was wrong. In this case I will not be.
Who here in December 2019 predicted that the Tories would be reduced to just 121 seats by July 2024?
To suggest that is anything other than disastrous for an incoming government elected by a landslide a mere 3 months ago is ridiculous.
It is clearly the split on the right keeping Labour in majority territory, if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership and does a deal with Farage before the next GE Starmer could be in deep trouble and we would be in hung parliament territory
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/latest-insights/our-2024-election-polling-lessons-learned/
Quick summary:
A bit of late swing.
Some underestimating how much the really really old (75+ not 65+) would stick with the Conservatives. That never used to matter but the age gradient is now so steep that it does.
Some underestimating how pissed off some Muslims (but not all) were with Labour.
A bit of something else.
I doubt that the pollsters have spent the summer reading terrible thrillers they bought in charity shops. And the "how did you vote in July" question provides a quick'n'dirty fix.
My hunch, as a suburban science master who likes playing with numbers, is that most of the poll shift we've seen has been that crude recalibration, though it would be good to have that confirmed.
People refusing to acknowledge anything might be to his benefit electorally, and endless commentary about how crap he is and how he is even more doomed than he was before
It’s tedious and silly. I don’t like Trump and I hope he loses, but a site dedicated to political forecasting needs to look reality in the face
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07942-8
In response to intense pressure, technology companies have enacted policies to combat misinformation1,2,3,4. The enforcement of these policies has, however, led to technology companies being regularly accused of political bias5,6,7. We argue that differential sharing of misinformation by people identifying with different political groups8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 could lead to political asymmetries in enforcement, even by unbiased policies. We first analysed 9,000 politically active Twitter users during the US 2020 presidential election. Although users estimated to be pro-Trump/conservative were indeed substantially more likely to be suspended than those estimated to be pro-Biden/liberal, users who were pro-Trump/conservative also shared far more links to various sets of low-quality news sites—even when news quality was determined by politically balanced groups of laypeople, or groups of only Republican laypeople—and had higher estimated likelihoods of being bots. We find similar associations between stated or inferred conservatism and low-quality news sharing (on the basis of both expert and politically balanced layperson ratings) in 7 other datasets of sharing from Twitter, Facebook and survey experiments, spanning 2016 to 2023 and including data from 16 different countries. Thus, even under politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected. Political imbalance in enforcement need not imply bias on the part of social media companies implementing anti-misinformation policies.
No, we would not
While people were debating the outcome of a second referendum the other day, I can't help but remember the 2019 European Parliament elections where Farage's lot came top on 30% and the Tories a miserable 4th on 8%. While the figures don't transpose directly into FPTP, it would have given Farage's vehicle a 100-200 majority if translated to a westminster election.
I could easily see this becoming the outcome of 2029 if neither the Tories nor Labour get their act together.
Indeed if Jenrick wins the Tory leadership he is likely to squeeze back some of the Reform vote
We have three separate opinion polls all conducted within the same range by three different polling companies all showing a clear Labour lead over the Conservatives with Reform a close third and yet some on here are claiming, without a scintilla of evidence, Labour and the Conservatives are actually more or less tied.
Last week's local council by-elections did show Labour was struggling to get its vote out but were the beneficiaries of this discontent the Conservatives? No, it was Reform and the Greens who won seats.
We have, I believe, 18 local by-elections this coming Thursday including some Con-LD contests so we may or may not get a clearer picture of how things stand after those contests.
And that was in the 1970s. Since then?
The first sassytempt actually came so close to Trump it made him bleed
Incidentally I am open to any explanation for these bizarre incidents. American politics is so fucked up - in no small part by Trump himself, and his mad followers - I would not be surprised if Trump staged one of them. Especially the second. Tho my preferred narrative is still - the Ukrainians are doing it
But the total silence and LACK of speculation is quite odd. And I believe it is because people are terrified of saying anything that might help him, even if they would deny this, even if they are not aware of it
The Tories can't compete with Farage by offering Farage Lite, better to offer a clear alternative.
We had several trillion polls around the time of the GE showing Labour on about 40. They got 33.7
That is the point, you don’t seem to have grasped it
Liam Byrne has warned the chancellor that extra levies on the rich are needed to halt the rise of the populist right"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/05/increase-wealth-taxes-to-stop-rise-of-reform-uk-says-ex-labour-minister
Sir Keir and Lady Vic will look at the polls, and pour another glass of claret.
172. Five more years.
As to why they missed the Labour share on July 4th, there are some interesting explanations coming forward and everyone has a view.
*for the record I classify anyone attempting to assassinate a politician in a democracy as a crazy, not just those targetting Trump.
They won a majority on just 33% of the vote. Which is not far off what Farage's lot achieved in the 2019 Euros.
So the vote share is out there for Farage, waiting and willing.
An unpopular Labour government in 2029 + a Farage Lite-led Conservative party with no reason to vote for it vs the full fat Reform version could hand the magical 33% to Farage in 2029, tbh.
A thing is not remarkable, if it happens all the time.
https://x.com/LeftieStats/status/1842526045028684047
Labour haven’t done anything major yet. But have managed to step in the puddles with each step.
When it comes to the big things - such as house building - Labour’s large majority is useful. But what happens when 86 MPs are looking at seat loss at the next election, if they follow the unpopular policies?
This is why political capital matters. As does a plan.
Labour haven’t lost the next election. But they have not shown signs of being able to win it, either.
“Argentina’s foreign minister, Diana Mondino, promised “concrete action” to ensure that the Falklands, the British-controlled archipelago that Argentina calls the Malvinas and claims as its own, are handed to Buenos Aires.
She said: “Following the path we have already taken, with concrete actions and not empty rhetoric, we will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas Islands.””
Guardian
People are smarter than you expect when they are interested in something. In this case it was kicking the Tories out. Once they had a feel for the local detail and the national picture, they reviewed their choices.
There’s plenty of slim Labour majorities and it is tempting to think those are precarious. I would say that is a hasty view.
We get what we want when we actually want something.
The precedent has been set
It will be disguised as co-sovereignty or a 999 year lease etc etc. Just like Diego Garcia
However there is a major caveat. I bet we’ll elect a hard right government before than. Inshallah
However he would hope Starmer and Lammy could be pushed to concede via diplomatic channels
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/americas/falklands-milei-argentina-sovereignty-roadmap-intl-latam/index.html
Falkland Islanders would declare UDI first