It will all change when those Conservatives MPs get jailed for their 2015 campaign expenses.
That's if they don't all lose their seats first:
' The latest local by elections with an LD gain from UKIP on a whopping 26% swing top off what has been a good week for the LDs. Firstly there have been the Rallings/Thrasher and Lord Robert Hayward May elections’ projection suggesting that the yellows are in for a substantial number of gains on May 4th.
In addition to that we have had news of the private Crosby Textor constituency polling for the Tories suggesting that the party is set to win back a the bulk of the seats lost in the South West and Greater London that were lost to the Tories at GE2015.
That information is, of course, private, but PB sources have it that all but three or four of the seats could be back in LD hands at the next election and we know that it is Tory MPs who made gains last time who are most opposed to an early general election. '
(This, despite my predictions of a pretty good pasting for Labour on the big day, is why I'll still be just a little bit nervous right up until the result's in the bag!)
Corbyn was arrested in the 80s outside the Old Bailey whilst showing solidarity with the Brighton bombers and condemning the show trial of said bombers.
ICM was the only pollster in 1997 to understate the Labour lead.
You mean ICM was the most accurate pollster at the 1997 general election.
That does not contradict my point at all. Labour won the election by 13% compared with ICM's final prediction of a 10% lead. A week earlier ICM caused jitters in the Labour camp when it released a poll showing Labour's lead had fallen to 5%. As a polling organisation , it has its own share of outliers.
ICM was the only pollster in 1997 to understate the Labour lead.
You mean ICM was the most accurate pollster at the 1997 general election.
That does not contradict my point at all. Labour won the election by 13% compared with ICM's final prediction of a 10% lead. A week earlier ICM caused jitters in the Labour camp when it released a poll showing Labour's lead had fallen to 5%. As a polling organisation , it has its own share of outliers.
What does your drinking buddy Clive make of ICM?
I know he got into trouble for making up an ICM poll, probably because he knew they are the gold standard.
Con majority of 136 on these YouGov figures (using the latest YouGov Scotland poll for Scottish shares).
And corbyn stays on...Worst of all worlds for the country.
I think Corbyn was always going to try and stay on no matter what, even if they do sub 30%. It will be rather hilarious to see them try to point to vote share when seats are what matter under FPTP. It's like Corbynistas don't get how the system works.
The membership will decide Labour's fate. If Corbyn isn't gone by conference then it's time for Labour to split.
Suppose Labour's vote share edges up in this election to 32% (from 30.4% in 2015), but they still get walloped because the Conservative vote share is 47%.
Would Corbyn have done objectively worse than Brown and Miliband?
Losing by a landslide certainly looks worse, but perhaps the election results in 2010 and 2015 only looked better because an inherently weak position was flattered by factors not of their doing - the relative strength of third parties in those elections.
But then.. in politics perceptions matter, and even were Corbyn to receive more votes than his two immediate predecessors, if he ends up losing 50 MPs the perception is hardly going to be in doubt.
If this was new labour / bad al run campaign against jezza every single interview with a labour mp or supporter would contain the words IRA sympathizer for the next four weeks even when talking about strictly come dancing or bake off.
Should we be expecting attack ads with videos of news coverage of the Brighton bombing followed by Corbyn's comments on the matter?
Show Maggie's speech to conference alongside Corbyn protesting the trial of the murderers.
Somehow I think evoking Thatcher in this campaign, when the Tories hope to break through in Labour strongholds in the North, might not be the wisest move...
Suppose Labour's vote share edges up in this election to 32% (from 30.4% in 2015), but they still get walloped because the Conservative vote share is 47%.
Would Corbyn have done objectively worse than Brown and Miliband?
Losing by a landslide certainly looks worse, but perhaps the election results in 2010 and 2015 only looked better because an inherently weak position was flattered by factors not of their doing - the relative strength of third parties in those elections.
But then.. in politics perceptions matter, and even were Corbyn to receive more votes than his two immediate predecessors, if he ends up losing 50 MPs the perception is hardly going to be in doubt.
EdM increased the Labour vote and made net gains from the Conservatives but lost twenty odd seats overall.
Suppose Labour's vote share edges up in this election to 32% (from 30.4% in 2015), but they still get walloped because the Conservative vote share is 47%.
Would Corbyn have done objectively worse than Brown and Miliband?
Losing by a landslide certainly looks worse, but perhaps the election results in 2010 and 2015 only looked better because an inherently weak position was flattered by factors not of their doing - the relative strength of third parties in those elections.
But then.. in politics perceptions matter, and even were Corbyn to receive more votes than his two immediate predecessors, if he ends up losing 50 MPs the perception is hardly going to be in doubt.
it's not just perceptions tho, as the Brown result was historicially bad aswell. So Corbyn has easy comparisons.
Remember the Tory attack line will be 'There's a terrorist that Corbyn doesn't like'
I don't think that last bit will work as an attack line unless people see the video. He would say it is out of context regardless, but I can see even opponents finding it hard to believe he said it, in any context, without the proof.
Suppose Labour's vote share edges up in this election to 32% (from 30.4% in 2015), but they still get walloped because the Conservative vote share is 47%.
Would Corbyn have done objectively worse than Brown and Miliband?
Losing by a landslide certainly looks worse, but perhaps the election results in 2010 and 2015 only looked better because an inherently weak position was flattered by factors not of their doing - the relative strength of third parties in those elections.
But then.. in politics perceptions matter, and even were Corbyn to receive more votes than his two immediate predecessors, if he ends up losing 50 MPs the perception is hardly going to be in doubt.
Nobody remembers vote shares, it's all about seats.
Suppose Labour's vote share edges up in this election to 32% (from 30.4% in 2015), but they still get walloped because the Conservative vote share is 47%.
Would Corbyn have done objectively worse than Brown and Miliband?
Losing by a landslide certainly looks worse, but perhaps the election results in 2010 and 2015 only looked better because an inherently weak position was flattered by factors not of their doing - the relative strength of third parties in those elections.
But then.. in politics perceptions matter, and even were Corbyn to receive more votes than his two immediate predecessors, if he ends up losing 50 MPs the perception is hardly going to be in doubt.
Nobody remembers vote shares, it's all about seats.
Con majority of 136 on these YouGov figures (using the latest YouGov Scotland poll for Scottish shares).
And corbyn stays on...Worst of all worlds for the country.
I think Corbyn was always going to try and stay on no matter what, even if they do sub 30%. It will be rather hilarious to see them try to point to vote share when seats are what matter under FPTP. It's like Corbynistas don't get how the system works.
The membership will decide Labour's fate. If Corbyn isn't gone by conference then it's time for Labour to split.
Progress wont wait that long.
Already seeing them literally removing Vote Labour garden stakes and replacing them with insert Progress MPs name here ones.
It is obvious the Telegraph story of resigning Labour whip straight away has more than an element of truth to it
it's not just perceptions tho, as the Brown result was historicially bad aswell. So Corbyn has easy comparisons.
I suppose that's what I'm driving at. There are some in Labour who think that having Corbyn as leader is the source of most of their problems, but Labour have had problems for a really long time now.
Should we be expecting attack ads with videos of news coverage of the Brighton bombing followed by Corbyn's comments on the matter?
Show Maggie's speech to conference alongside Corbyn protesting the trial of the murderers.
I liked that below.. it's a good'un
I fear some of the most virulent anti-Thatcherites would find that only increased their Corbyn worship, and its amazing how many of the young are amongst them. Hence satire like this ringing true.
Con majority of 136 on these YouGov figures (using the latest YouGov Scotland poll for Scottish shares).
And corbyn stays on...Worst of all worlds for the country.
I think Corbyn was always going to try and stay on no matter what, even if they do sub 30%. It will be rather hilarious to see them try to point to vote share when seats are what matter under FPTP. It's like Corbynistas don't get how the system works.
The membership will decide Labour's fate. If Corbyn isn't gone by conference then it's time for Labour to split.
Progress wont wait that long.
Already seeing them literally removing Vote Labour garden stakes and replacing them with insert Progress MPs name here ones.
It is obvious the Telegraph story of resigning Labour whip straight away has more than an element of truth to it
I don't think they have the guts, especially if Labour get circa 200 seats. Not enough of a disaster to ruin Corbyn, and even then the plan is supposedly resign the whip not challenge him and see if the membership sides with them.
Remember the Tory attack line will be 'There's a terrorist that Corbyn doesn't like'
I don't think that last bit will work as an attack line unless people see the video. He would say it is out of context regardless, but I can see even opponents finding it hard to believe he said it, in any context, without the proof.
Additionally it will be labelled a smear as it was when it first came up, and people who weren't saying Labour a month ago, but are now, presumably already fit the mould of people who didn't like Corbyn for all sorts of reasons, but are now returning as the brand is more important, and so the impact may not be as much as thought.
On a similar topic, yesterday we were talking about how the UKIP vote share fall in different councils was related to the Tory vote share rise. Here's a quick table I put together showing it - https://goo.gl/l4Ye3f
Ratio of 100% is where the Con rise exactly matches the UKIP fall. 50% means the rise in Con was only equal to half of the fall of UKIP.
Con majority of 136 on these YouGov figures (using the latest YouGov Scotland poll for Scottish shares).
And corbyn stays on...Worst of all worlds for the country.
I think Corbyn was always going to try and stay on no matter what, even if they do sub 30%. It will be rather hilarious to see them try to point to vote share when seats are what matter under FPTP. It's like Corbynistas don't get how the system works.
The membership will decide Labour's fate. If Corbyn isn't gone by conference then it's time for Labour to split.
Progress wont wait that long.
Already seeing them literally removing Vote Labour garden stakes and replacing them with insert Progress MPs name here ones.
It is obvious the Telegraph story of resigning Labour whip straight away has more than an element of truth to it
I don't think they have the guts, especially if Labour get circa 200 seats. Not enough of a disaster to ruin Corbyn, and even then the plan is supposedly resign the whip not challenge him and see if the membership sides with them.
My MP and other Progress ones are replacing the word Labour from garden stakes as we speak.
I fully expect him to leave a Corbyn led party if others do.
Having studied Recall there is f all Labour voters can do about it.
A very relevant analysis from the results of the council elections: Ukip candidates withdrawing outright from wards where the party had previously stood conferred little additional advantage on the Conservatives. HOWEVER, it didn't help the other parties, in terms of conferring any net advantage over Tory candidates, at all.
I had previously been concerned that hard core Ukip backers - who had not already defected to the Tories - might be disproportionately the kind of voters who would still be culturally hostile to voting Conservative, and that a plurality of them might therefore break back to Labour if the Ukip option were to be removed from the ballot paper. This is the first piece of evidence that I've seen relating to the voting propensities of the rump Ukip vote in places where the party won't be putting up a fight and this, at least, suggests that those fears may be unfounded.
Just a thought about the Scottish seats. The SNP and Nicola keep framing the vote as them against the Tories. In the North, East and along the Borders this is helping to push Unionist voters to the Conservatives who are framing the election as them vs indyref2. I think that the SNP are in danger of doing some the Tories work for them in a number of these seats and this could well result more loses for the Nats However having done some canvassing the LD target seats there also seems to be a sizeable number of Tories who realise that the only way to keep the SNP in these seats is to vote for us. It is also noticeable that people are much more freely saying that they hate the SNP than before and the change from 2014/15 is huge. Will this make a difference in SNP/Lab seats I don't know but I think that in SNP vs Con or LD ones, the coalescing of votes around which ever candidate is best placed to beat the Nationalist candidate could have a large impact on the results. In 2 or 3 seats in might not be clear enough which party is best place and this will probably allow the SNP to hold say Edinburgh North and Edinburgh SW Any seat where the Nationalist vote was under 50% is somewhat at risk and especially those below 45% and, whilst it is still very hard to see the SNP ending up on less than 40 seats, it could be that they are closer to that number than 50 come the 9th of June.
A very relevant analysis from the results of the council elections: Ukip candidates withdrawing outright from wards where the party had previously stood conferred little additional advantage on the Conservatives. HOWEVER, it didn't help the other parties, in terms of conferring any net advantage over Tory candidates, at all.
I had previously been concerned that hard core Ukip backers - who had not already defected to the Tories - might be disproportionately the kind of voters who would still be culturally hostile to voting Conservative, and that a plurality of them might therefore break back to Labour if the Ukip option were to be removed from the ballot paper. This is the first piece of evidence that I've seen relating to the voting propensities of the rump Ukip vote in places where the party won't be putting up a fight and this, at least, suggests that those fears may be unfounded.
Interesting.. Dan Hodges on Sky paraphrased.(apologies in advance if anything misquoted but roughly) ...... I've been talking to Labour and Tory MPs up and down the country all week and not one is telling me Labour are doing as well as under Ed Miliband in 2015. Frankly I just don't believe the Labour vote share (in the polls)
Con majority of 136 on these YouGov figures (using the latest YouGov Scotland poll for Scottish shares).
And corbyn stays on...Worst of all worlds for the country.
I think Corbyn was always going to try and stay on no matter what, even if they do sub 30%. It will be rather hilarious to see them try to point to vote share when seats are what matter under FPTP. It's like Corbynistas don't get how the system works.
The membership will decide Labour's fate. If Corbyn isn't gone by conference then it's time for Labour to split.
Progress wont wait that long.
Already seeing them literally removing Vote Labour garden stakes and replacing them with insert Progress MPs name here ones.
It is obvious the Telegraph story of resigning Labour whip straight away has more than an element of truth to it
I don't think they have the guts, especially if Labour get circa 200 seats. Not enough of a disaster to ruin Corbyn, and even then the plan is supposedly resign the whip not challenge him and see if the membership sides with them.
My MP and other Progress ones are replacing the word Labour from garden stakes as we speak.
I fully expect him to leave a Corbyn led party if others do.
Having studied Recall there is f all Labour voters can do about it.
If they are that opposed to him and where he is taking the party, and don't feel they can convince the party to oppose it too, then it is for the best of everyone if they do it, and should have before now, but the brand loyalty has been strong enough to date, and given Corbyn spent decades happy to oppose leaders of his, I remain doubtful it will be overcome even after a defeat by Corbyn if he stays on (which I'm not convinced of, if the defeat is bad enough).
I'm trying hard not to overestimate Labour again like I always do, so I'm still saying 170-180 for their seat numbers, although my unreliable gut says they'd do a little better.
LD campaign so far seems to have consisted of legalising cannabis and taking in another 50,000 refugees at a cost of £4.3 billion. Regardless of the merits of these policies they don't seem likely to improve their popularity.
Some posters on here thought that the PM talking about fox hunting was an error. Is talking about legalising drug use and letting in refugees a political error in a Brexity election? Just asking.
As errors go, I scarcely think anything ranks in the same league as targeting Vauxhall, where the Lib Dems are starting from 4th place and 47 percentage points behind the incumbent.
They could hoover up quite a few Remain voters and hand the seat to the.......Tories
Someone more Tory than Kate?
That may not be possible ? Certainly not more Brexity. If the Tories have a majority of 90, I'd like it to be 92 with that friend of Farage gone.
With the calling of the snap General Election, I wanted to try and set out in detail my position on fracking as a whole and the INEOS application for an exploratory well at Bramleymoor Farm in Marsh Lane in particular. These are my own personal views which I have arrived at after a great deal of research. These views are not shared by the Labour Party nor local Labour councillors. There has been a lot of pressure with the general election on June 8 for me to campaign to ban fracking. It would have been an easy campaign to justify and may well be a vote-winner. But those of you who know me also know that I stand by my principles and would never campaign for something I don’t believe in. I have immersed myself in the subject. I have read reports and talked to campaigners against fracking, the industry, experts, and academics on shale, geology and energy. I have had several meetings with the Energy Minister who is responsible for shale to discuss my concerns and spent much of Easter travelling around North Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire looking at the sites where fracking is due to take place as well as some of the existing oil and gas wells that are dotted around the country.
I know how upset and worried some people are about fracking especially about health, safety, house prices and security. From visiting sites, speaking to engineers and public health experts, I have not heard, seen or read anything that convinces me that shale exploration is any more or less safe than conventional oil and gas drilling. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a technique that has been used since the late 1940s to extract conventional oil and gas. We have had thousands of onshore oil and gas wells drilled over the decades (some of which have been fracked) and currently have over 200 wells around the country pumping quietly away with little or no concern to local residents. There will, without a doubt, be significant disruption during the building phase of a shale site during the clearing, rig building and initial fracking phases, and there will be more than usual heavy lorry movements carrying water and aggregate. This is the part of the development that I have most concerns about and is the subject that I am in close communication with INEOS on.
But spreading scare stories for which there is no reliable evidence about increases in cancer rates and low-birth-weight babies is unforgiveable. I have not seen credible evidence to If it creates a whole new industry with good jobs, if it is good for Derbyshire, then I support it. Our next step has to be setting up a strong Community Liaison Group to negotiate with INEOS If shale exploration is going to happen, let’s make sure that we get the most out of it. NATASCHA ENGEL Labour Party Parliamentary candidate
Another supporter of Scottish independence living in the South West of England?
What are the odds?
He'll still win Wells, but his comments were utterly disgraceful.
They were. It's funny, but there's one or two Lib Dems who were convinced they only lost Wells at the last GE purely because of the whole Miliband in Salmond's pocket ad.
With the calling of the snap General Election, I wanted to try and set out in detail my position on fracking as a whole and the INEOS application for an exploratory well at Bramleymoor Farm in Marsh Lane in particular. These are my own personal views which I have arrived at after a great deal of research. These views are not shared by the Labour Party nor local Labour councillors. There has been a lot of pressure with the general election on June 8 for me to campaign to ban fracking. It would have been an easy campaign to justify and may well be a vote-winner. But those of you who know me also know that I stand by my principles and would never campaign for something I don’t believe in. I have immersed myself in the subject. I have read reports and talked to campaigners against fracking, the industry, experts, and academics on shale, geology and energy. I have had several meetings with the Energy Minister who is responsible for shale to discuss my concerns and spent much of Easter travelling around North Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire looking at the sites where fracking is due to take place as well as some of the existing oil and gas wells that are dotted around the country.
I know how upset and worried some people are about fracking especially about health, safety, house prices and security. From visiting sites, speaking to engineers and public health experts, I have not heard, seen or read anything that convinces me that shale exploration is any more or less safe than conventional oil and gas drilling. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a technique that has been used since the late 1940s to extract conventional oil and gas. We have had thousands of onshore oil and gas wells drilled over the decades (some of which have been fracked) and currently have over 200 wells around the country pumping quietly away with little or no concern to local residents. There will, without a doubt, be significant disruption during the building phase of a shale site during the clearing, rig building and initial fracking phases, and there will be more than usual heavy lorry movements carrying water and aggregate. This is the part of the development that I have most concerns about and is the subject that I am in close communication with INEOS on.
But spreading scare stories for which there is no reliable evidence about increases in cancer rates and low-birth-weight babies is unforgiveable. I have not seen credible evidence to If it creates a whole new industry with good jobs, if it is good for Derbyshire, then I support it. Our next step has to be setting up a strong Community Liaison Group to negotiate with INEOS If shale exploration is going to happen, let’s make sure that we get the most out of it. NATASCHA ENGEL Labour Party Parliamentary candidate
Another supporter of Scottish independence living in the South West of England?
What are the odds?
I seem to run into them all the time, including at elected representative level. I think before the SCON surge it's where the scottish Tories and Lib Dems had been hiding.
"I fully expect him to leave a Corbyn led party if others do"
Isn't that the problem we have seen several times before going back to 2008. Lots of people quietly back the rebellion but nobody has the guts to lead it. If this "progressive" block is actually going to happen then someone is going to have to stand up and say, "Follow me girls and boys". Now who is going to have the guts to do that because if the idea fails that person's political career will be finished and they will be cast into the utter darkness reserved for traitors to the cause immediately.
With the calling of the snap General Election, I wanted to try and set out in detail my position on fracking as a whole and the INEOS application for an exploratory well at Bramleymoor Farm in Marsh Lane in particular. These are my own personal views which I have arrived at after a great deal of research. These views are not shared by the Labour Party nor local Labour councillors. There has been a lot of pressure with the general election on June 8 for me to campaign to ban fracking. It would have been an easy campaign to justify and may well be a vote-winner. But those of you who know me also know that I stand by my principles and would never campaign for something I don’t believe in. I have immersed myself in the subject. I have read reports and talked to campaigners against fracking, the industry, experts, and academics on shale, geology and energy. I have had several meetings with the Energy Minister who is responsible for shale to discuss my concerns and spent much of Easter travelling around North Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire looking at the sites where fracking is due to take place as well as some of the existing oil and gas wells that are dotted around the country.
I know how upset and worried some people are about fracking especially about health, safety, house prices and security. From visiting sites, speaking to engineers and public health experts, I have not heard, seen or read anything that convinces me that shale exploration is any more or less safe than conventional oil and gas drilling. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a technique that has been used since the late 1940s to extract conventional oil and gas. We have had thousands of onshore oil and gas wells drilled over the decades (some of which have been fracked) and currently have over 200 wells around the country pumping quietly away with little or no concern to local residents. There will, without a doubt, be significant disruption during the building phase of a shale site during the clearing, rig building and initial fracking phases, and there will be more than usual heavy lorry movements carrying water and aggregate. This is the part of the development that I have most concerns about and is the subject that I am in close communication with INEOS on.
But spreading scare stories for which there is no reliable evidence about increases in cancer rates and low-birth-weight babies is unforgiveable. I have not seen credible evidence to If it creates a whole new industry with good jobs, if it is good for Derbyshire, then I support it. Our next step has to be setting up a strong Community Liaison Group to negotiate with INEOS If shale exploration is going to happen, let’s make sure that we get the most out of it. NATASCHA ENGEL Labour Party Parliamentary candidate
I'm laughing at 5% of Ukippers being in the hard Remain column.
Takes all sorts.
Cognitive dissonance is alive and well.
Also having looked at Eoin Clarke's twitter, he's so far gone it's unreal.
I hope he keeps it together well enough to post his despair should the Tories win a huge majority. I don't even want them to have a huge majority as such, but some people act in a manner where I feel enjoying their grief at a political event is ok.
Comments
(This, despite my predictions of a pretty good pasting for Labour on the big day, is why I'll still be just a little bit nervous right up until the result's in the bag!)
Those bankers who Labour bailed out.
Labour to include a Financial Transactions Tax, so-called Robin Hood/ Tobin tax to fund public services in manifesto, claim £5bn/yr raised.
I know he got into trouble for making up an ICM poll, probably because he knew they are the gold standard.
Vote Moldova!
Or are Labour still fighting the 2010 election?
The membership will decide Labour's fate. If Corbyn isn't gone by conference then it's time for Labour to split.
Would Corbyn have done objectively worse than Brown and Miliband?
Losing by a landslide certainly looks worse, but perhaps the election results in 2010 and 2015 only looked better because an inherently weak position was flattered by factors not of their doing - the relative strength of third parties in those elections.
But then.. in politics perceptions matter, and even were Corbyn to receive more votes than his two immediate predecessors, if he ends up losing 50 MPs the perception is hardly going to be in doubt.
Wouldn't have happened if we were a Republic.
More
Marks out of 12 for this French girl? I'd give her 1.
Is he regarded as a successful Labour leader ?
This is from 2015, but you get the gist.
Already seeing them literally removing Vote Labour garden stakes and replacing them with insert Progress MPs name here ones.
It is obvious the Telegraph story of resigning Labour whip straight away has more than an element of truth to it
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/people-with-no-idea-who-thatcher-was-ecstatic-that-shes-dead-2013040865066
They'd not be the targets of such ads of course.
On a similar topic, yesterday we were talking about how the UKIP vote share fall in different councils was related to the Tory vote share rise. Here's a quick table I put together showing it - https://goo.gl/l4Ye3f
Ratio of 100% is where the Con rise exactly matches the UKIP fall. 50% means the rise in Con was only equal to half of the fall of UKIP.
I fully expect him to leave a Corbyn led party if others do.
Having studied Recall there is f all Labour voters can do about it.
A very relevant analysis from the results of the council elections: Ukip candidates withdrawing outright from wards where the party had previously stood conferred little additional advantage on the Conservatives. HOWEVER, it didn't help the other parties, in terms of conferring any net advantage over Tory candidates, at all.
I had previously been concerned that hard core Ukip backers - who had not already defected to the Tories - might be disproportionately the kind of voters who would still be culturally hostile to voting Conservative, and that a plurality of them might therefore break back to Labour if the Ukip option were to be removed from the ballot paper. This is the first piece of evidence that I've seen relating to the voting propensities of the rump Ukip vote in places where the party won't be putting up a fight and this, at least, suggests that those fears may be unfounded.
The SNP and Nicola keep framing the vote as them against the Tories. In the North, East and along the Borders this is helping to push Unionist voters to the Conservatives who are framing the election as them vs indyref2. I think that the SNP are in danger of doing some the Tories work for them in a number of these seats and this could well result more loses for the Nats
However having done some canvassing the LD target seats there also seems to be a sizeable number of Tories who realise that the only way to keep the SNP in these seats is to vote for us.
It is also noticeable that people are much more freely saying that they hate the SNP than before and the change from 2014/15 is huge. Will this make a difference in SNP/Lab seats I don't know but I think that in SNP vs Con or LD ones, the coalescing of votes around which ever candidate is best placed to beat the Nationalist candidate could have a large impact on the results. In 2 or 3 seats in might not be clear enough which party is best place and this will probably allow the SNP to hold say Edinburgh North and Edinburgh SW
Any seat where the Nationalist vote was under 50% is somewhat at risk and especially those below 45% and, whilst it is still very hard to see the SNP ending up on less than 40 seats, it could be that they are closer to that number than 50 come the 9th of June.
'Why don’t you f*** off back to Scotland': Tory MP blasts schoolgirl wanting Scottish independence'
http://tinyurl.com/mmjcmka
I'm trying hard not to overestimate Labour again like I always do, so I'm still saying 170-180 for their seat numbers, although my unreliable gut says they'd do a little better.
What are the odds?
These are my own personal views which I have arrived at after a great deal of research. These views are not shared by the Labour Party nor local Labour councillors.
There has been a lot of pressure with the general election on June 8 for me to campaign to ban fracking. It would have been an easy campaign to justify and may well be a vote-winner. But those of you who know me also know that I stand by my principles and would never campaign for something I don’t believe in. I have immersed myself in the subject. I have read reports and talked to campaigners against fracking, the industry, experts, and academics on shale, geology and energy.
I have had several meetings with the Energy Minister who is responsible for shale to discuss my concerns and spent much of Easter travelling around North Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire looking at the sites where fracking is due to take place as well as some of the existing oil and gas wells that are dotted around the country.
I know how upset and worried some people are about fracking especially about health, safety, house prices and security. From visiting sites, speaking to engineers and public health experts, I have not heard, seen or read anything that convinces me that shale exploration is any more or less safe than conventional oil and gas drilling.
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a technique that has been used since the late 1940s to extract conventional oil and gas. We have had thousands of onshore oil and gas wells drilled over the decades (some of which have been fracked) and currently have over 200 wells around the country pumping quietly away with little or no concern to local residents.
There will, without a doubt, be significant disruption during the building phase of a shale site during the clearing, rig building and initial fracking phases, and there will be more than usual heavy lorry movements carrying water and aggregate. This is the part of the development that I have most concerns about and is the subject that I am in close communication with INEOS on.
But spreading scare stories for which there is no reliable evidence about increases in cancer rates and low-birth-weight babies is unforgiveable. I have not seen credible evidence to
If it creates a whole new industry with good jobs, if it is good for Derbyshire, then I support it.
Our next step has to be setting up a strong Community Liaison Group to negotiate with INEOS
If shale exploration is going to happen, let’s make sure that we get the most out of it.
NATASCHA ENGEL
Labour Party Parliamentary candidate
What an unpleasant man
Also having looked at Eoin Clarke's twitter, he's so far gone it's unreal.
"I fully expect him to leave a Corbyn led party if others do"
Isn't that the problem we have seen several times before going back to 2008. Lots of people quietly back the rebellion but nobody has the guts to lead it. If this "progressive" block is actually going to happen then someone is going to have to stand up and say, "Follow me girls and boys". Now who is going to have the guts to do that because if the idea fails that person's political career will be finished and they will be cast into the utter darkness reserved for traitors to the cause immediately.