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Tipping point? – politicalbetting.com
Tipping point? – politicalbetting.com
Ladies and gentlemen, as was inevitable, we have Ref UK/ Con crossover. The only question in my mind is whether dynamic effects set in and we get Con/ Lib Dem crossover too. I doubt it, but you never know.
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If Trump causes the price of coffee to soar because he's butthurt at one of his other silly policies not working, he's stuffed.
https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/latest-news/445201/fears-that-bbc-will-lose-six-nations/
We're getting genuinely encouraging noises from Reeves now - and I will applaud good growth measures if they're introduced. But she's not going to get money in pockets anywhere near at the speed or amount needed to reverse the deep trend in Labour's polling.
1) The focus group summed Kemi Badenoch as saying 'Reform are right so vote for us'
and
2) Boris Johnson and the Tories are blamed by those who voted for Brexit for promising to reduced immigration then overseeing record breaking immigration. It has permanently lost for the Tories around 40% of voters who voted Tory for the first time in 2017/19.
The moment they get told Farage's views about the NHS then they say nah mate.
One hell of a sport.
I like to think I am more often than not reasonably mild. But I will take my rage about this with my to my dying day.
There were many people trying their best. There were some who were actively evil.
That includes anyone calling for more and harder lockdowns for cynical electoral advantage, and those who turned out to be actual members of the communist party yet inexplicably had a role advising government, who presumably saw an opportunity for the overthrow and remodelling of society.
If you'd had three young children be denied education and interaction with their peers and life opportunities and even fucking playgrounds, you'd be pretty livid too.
He knows the party will ditch Kemi Badenoch if the polling remains like this and the party will turn to him.
Why do you think Vote Leave put the NHS as a central plank of the campaign.
Other than the Dave years, the voters always trust Labour with the NHS.
Beyond that, barring evidence of a complete collapse in the Conservative vote, the polls aren't going to tell us that much. The usual warnings about governments that have to make unpalatable decisions becoming very unpopular between elections, and there being years to go before malcontent voters are forced to contemplate electing an administration rather than registering a protest, surely apply?
The party ain't big enough for the both of them.
It's only a matter of time before she defects.
I topped up yesterday.
These people are the ones who voted for Johnson to get Brexit done, it was purely transactional.
With a wife, young kids, and alimony, he needs it.
I expect Reform will lead the polls in coming months, and perform well, in local and by-elections. But, as we saw with Sinn Fein, that support can fall away, as an election approaches.
So in totality the Tories are flat since July, Reform have surged and Labour have collapsed.
Among the (recently) impossible futures now at least thinkable are: Reform crossover with Labour - might be soon.
Centrist Labour and Tories (and LDs?) discovering, like FF and FG in RoI, that they have crucial things in common like opposition to the excesses of Trumpianism and uncosted populism. (Joint Lab/One Nation Con/LD/SNP declaration of intent to join EFTA/EEA anyone?)
Bandwagon Reform - just like the Trumpian bandwagon effect we are watching open mouthed, including defections from everywhere.
The resurrection of Boris.
Having said that it’s not as dull as Golf and the Magic Weekend brings people and money into Newcastle so it’s not all bad.
And while I accept there are some people who are genuinely evil (DJT for one), I think they are a very small minority, sub 1%. There are a lot more with low ethical values but those are not people who are going to vindictively implement restrictions because they enjoy being nasty.
As for the "...actual members of the communist party yet inexplicably had a role advising government..." stuff, have we slipped back to the 1950s? Why should 'actual members of the communist party' not be allowed to advise the government if they are suitably qualified?
A good walk spoiled.
I know a few of you here love the motor racing. I’m not going to knock it, I’m sure it is most skilled. It is something I have never really got into
Prunes, Suella, prunes.
Also don’t forget the role of the talking heads in the media. Dicks like Piers Morgan ripping on the govt and demanding more and more austere measures while labelling the public ‘Covidiots’
Anyone in her party who tweets or speaks on camera saying Trump is the new messiah and England should worship him and Musk she should sack immediately. Braverman out etc
Paint Reform as Trump Party (English branch). Make Farage own Trump.
If/when Trump chaos 2.0 wrecks world economy and american civil peace and order she will reap the rewards.
As I say, it's a gamble. But she is running out of options.
It worked for Lee Anderson as a backbencher but someone ambitious like Jenrick it wold be career suicide.
To wit, the answer is "neither could you lot when you were in power".
Which for those on the broader liberal left and centre (including a chunk of Cameron Tories) is a reason to herd towards Labour or the Lib Dems in the forced choice of a GE - even if you are upset with them now - and of course the more Reformy the Tories get, the stronger the incentive to herd.
Alternatively, if you buy the actual arguments coming from the populist right about why Britain is in a bad way, then is a reason to vote Reform, not Tory.
But that was a one-off, one-issue election.
This is obfusaction in the extreme - it would require a Sankey diagram of immense complexity to follow all these flows. The only people who you can really describe as Labour voters are those who actually voted for Labour in the last election, and those voters aren't switching over to Reform to anywhere near the extent that Conservative voters are.
The fact is that Conservatives were in bad shape last year, but found a respectable floor of 24% of the vote. And now they've fallen through that floor.
But - fuck me I am being tried here: does she look like a top class security person who will keep the US homeland safe?
Secretary Kristi Noem
@Sec_Noem
·
20h
It is such an honor to be sworn in as the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
https://x.com/Sec_Noem/status/1883297471507648681
Reform's success is about the Consensus of Can't - can't build anything, can't fix anything, can't change anything. Oh, and we need more tax money.
Wondering why that pitch doesn't sell is stupid. Having spent the 20th Cent. telling The People they are all powerful, the establishment view is that The People need to accept what they are allowed to decide. Because it's the Law.
Now Trump is overthrowing the law. How long before someone works out that, with Primary legislation and a majority of 1 in parliament, they can do *anything*?
Reform is the nice polite version before the real storm.
Can it is be avoided? I believe so. We can either have a gradual process of reform of the state within the boundaries of liberal social democracy, or we can have a version of Trumpism. Time to choose.
If voters of a populist or imitative or celebrity following disposition - there are plenty of them - decide that Trump is the example to follow WRT the smack of firm government, at the moment only Reform can benefit from it. The rest of the parties are all, in that crude language, losers.
The chance of that in the UK is not insignificant. And I am not sure populist supporters are all going to tell the pollsters what the angels of their lower natures are telling them.
If that trend continues as a straight line we'd get crossover in a month.
Reality is that it's probably more of a log curve - the softest Lab support is the easiest to peel away, all other things being equal the nearer the core vote they get the slower you would expect them to decline.
Historically (2015—2024) Lab seem to have bottomed out at about 24-25%, so the key question is how much lower than that can they drop now if Farage is eating up their red wall core vote? Certainly there isn't much of a obvious curving trend evidenced in the graph, which suggests they probably have a way further to fall yet.
Anyone who subscribes to world changing socio-political cults has an implicit aversion to abstract truth.
Communists are just a variation in the texture of scumbaggery and lying.
As far as I can see, her approach so far is that Tories need to go back and rediscover their eternal core values. Then the fruits of policy can flow abundantly.
She says time and time again that they have lost their way.
Trump 2.0 is not conservative. It is not Tory. It is not a party of law and order, constitutional monarchy, sensible finance, understated patriotism, love of family (even the errant ones), the small platoons, volunteering, decent people living ethical lives in small communities within traditional and religious values and so on.
Trump is a wrecking ball. He believes in nothing and has no idea what the words 'conserve', 'my place in the cosmos' and 'tradition' mean. He has no faith. He reveres nothing. He hates people who give their time and don't ask for a $ in return.
Trump would think the Home Guard were a bunch of old, sad losers wasting their lives.
A proper Tory would celebrate everything they stand for.
The polling is clear about where the Reform vote is coming from, and where the Labour vote has gone.
So going down the 'let's be more Reformy' route maybe a dead end - because you can't be the insurgents, you're the Conservative Party and have ruled Britain for two thirds of the last 50 years. And by being more Reform you may lose your remaining institutionalist voters while not gaining much in the way of those who support Reform because they want to smash up the system.
It still might be a longshot but their best bet might be ditching the populism - which partly damns your selves - and trying to rebrand as an institutionalist alternative to Labour and the Lib Dems with a more right-wing economic bent. Because it's difficult to see how you get your populist 2019 Boris voters back now Reform are a serious rival.
The purpose of the Law is supposed to be justice. It has become The Law itself, in many areas.
Did you not notice that, to get justice for the Sub Post Masters, Parliament had to overturn their convictions by fiat? That was a grave day for the Rule Of Law.
It feeds it grows
It clouds all that you will know
Deceit deceive
Decide just what you believe
I see faith in your eyes
Never your hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail
Follow the god that failed
Find your peace
Find your say
Find the smooth road in your way
Trust you gave
A child to save
Left you cold and him in grave
Kemi would have to convince enough people that conservatism is actually possible in the world as it now is, with policies to match; and convince people that the Tory party is competent to deliver it very well and have the people in place to do it.
It would be a bit like trying to revive the county of Middlesex, cricket with the County Championship in one division at its core, or rugby union for amateurs only. All highly desirable, but not doable.
But of course in strict [edit] principle MPs are elected to represent their constituents. Not as members of political parties.
Edit: possibly an exception for list MSPs (not sure what trhey do in London and Wales). But it's certainly not always enforced.
https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast
The Tories on voteshare are also far closer to Reform and Labour than the LDs are to the Tories
There are probably worse ways to start a Monday then al fresco breakfast in Hawke’s Bay.
I see some of us are still tediously plodding on spouting out “left” and “right” as though they are terms of great historical and political significance. They might have been once - they aren’t any longer.
Politics evolves just as any other organism has to in the face of external change. The old certainties become new uncertainties.
Do I seriously think a Reform Government would improve the lot of the citizens of Great Britain? At the moment, no, because, apart from some vague ideas about “stopping the boats” which, as we know, is a tiny part of the immigration issue, I’ve not the slightest clue what a Reform Government would do in office.
As with the various incarnations of the Liberals from the 1970s to 2010, they can be whatever you want them to be now - when they are forced into the granularity, we will see what they really are - some will like it, others won’t.
At the moment, it doesn’t matter - it didn’t matter when the Alliance was going to win a landslide in 1981, it didn’t matter when the Conservatives were third in 1986.
Hong Kongers with money, Ukrainian refugees, exorbitant fee paying students, health and care workers could all have been defended.
Instead they babbled on endlessly about asylum seekers and then failed to do anything about them.
It wouldn't surprise me if most people think that most immigrants came via rubber dinghy.
A USA Presidential run can be all about an individual, a UK HoC campaign requires a team with the party leader being only first among equals.
Who would Reform's Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary etc be ?
No, Johnson still nurses delusions of being the second Churchill. I expect that he will appear as a Conservative candidate at the next GE if not before. A desperate Tory party eclipsed by Reform may well choose that poison instead of the ignominy of being third fiddle.
Much of Labour's current vote is also largely pro-EU and includes the likes of public sector and unionised workers, poorer WWC who rely on welfare, students, young professionals who like working from home etc. These groups would get utterly hammered by a Reform government. The turkeys ain't voting for Christmas.
Boris makes people lose all their usual critical faculties.
I recall all the “strange death of Tory England” articles written around 2005 or so, and the last rites for Labour in 2019.
Plus you could argue that the original error was ending free movement as was sold as putting an end to immigration, but without a significant and painful change in our economic and social model (which will now be necessary, but is difficult and takes time) you were always going to have to grant lots of visas to fill certain labour market shortages - but with no reciprocity taking down net figures or people coming quickly in and out for transient work.
Boris sold the people a pup with Brexit, claiming it would solve lots of things it quite clearly wouldn't, and the Tories are suffering the consequences.
I would be entirely willing to believe Reform were stealing Tory votes except that for the Tories to then remain flat they have to be gaining votes somewhere. Are you arguing that the Ref increase is all ex-Tory, and being offset in the Tory pot by Lab-> Tory switching?
Same problem with the Lib-dems, but the other way round - I'd expect some Lab -> Lib switching, but if that's occuring, where are the existing Lib voters going? Ref seems unlikely, but then they are putting on votes from somewhere.
You would expect Reform to appeal to certain types of Red Wall traditional Labour voters. Working Class, Socially Conservative, not very keen on immigration. IMHO, it's fairly obvious that a lot of these voters will be those who switched to Boris in 2019, returned to Lab in 2024 and are now indicating they will vote Reform. I'd be genuinely fascinated if someone has a coherent alternative analysis, because I honestly can't see one from the information available.