"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Given that the Lib Dems have collapsed since 1994 (which was a very good year for them), Labour should be showing a net gain on that point.
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
Free university tuition. Cut in the student loan rate.
They did that last time and the mother and father of the house still voted Tory even if the son or daughter away at university voted Labour
So how come Labour led from 18 - 55 years ?
They didn't, the average age you started voting Tory was 47 at the last general election, not 55.
Even Hague managed to get a 2% lead in the 2000 local elections and Foot won the 1981 local elections by 3% in the popular vote too so Corbyn did worse than Hague and Foot's best local election results
The worst thing about this is he clearly hasn't even watched the video as the ex-Lab Councillor specifically tells him the sources that are leading the attack on him.....
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Given that the Lib Dems have collapsed since 1994 (which was a very good year for them), Labour should be showing a net gain on that point.
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
Comparing this round of elections (ie the London dominated elections) with those previously the number of councillors lost by the government were:
1978 -461 1982 -98 Falklands War reduces losses 1986 -975 1990 -222 1994 -516 1998 -88 Peak Blair popularity 2002 -334 2006 -319 2010 +417 GE on same day allows Labour to make gains 2010 -236 Con -310 LibDem 2014 -35
Labour gained 417 seats in 2010 and 324 in 2014. These 77 are on top of that. These are very good results, make no mistake. We are at 1994 territory now in this particular cycle.
The reason why Labour has a similar number of councillors is that nearly half of this round of elections is in London and London has shifted strongly towards Labour during the last generation.
This is counterbalanced by a pro Conservative shift in much of the rest of the country but which didn't vote this year.
London in all these years had a similar proportion of councillors. Also, London too has a rich harvest of seats. The Lib Dems are also aiming at the Tories.
But while London has moved away from the Conservatives other parts of the country have moved towards them.
And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well.
"And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well"
It's a bit too early for jokes ! How many Labour seats are there in the Lib Dem top 50 targets ?
So what do you think the Sheffield Hallam LibDems, the Leeds NW LibDems and others will be targetting.
You look as if you're making the same mistake as Labour supporters did before 2010 and assuming that the LibDem supporters are really Labour supporters under a veneer of snobbery or rurality.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Do you think this looks like an imminent LibDem gain ?
So that gives you Richmond (and there might be an unwinding of the byelection effect there) and Cheltenham.
And while the Conservatives need to be holding their 2017 seats they need to be regaining others they lost or winning new ones and it wasn't the metropolitan liberals of Stoke South, Mansfield and Walsall North who kept them in government. Or I suspect the metropolitan liberals of Moray, Angus and Banff.
St Ives will likely go yellow next time too
Maybe and maybe not.
There's a long list of seats which we were told would 'go yellow next time' and didn't.
Many LibDem gains have actually been surprises.
They did pretty well in St Ives in 2017. Iirc they were only about 300 votes short.
True although I wonder if Andrew George had a sizeable personal vote. He is 60 this year.
And there's been plenty of places where the LibDems have got close to winning one year, expected to win the next time, but faded away instead.
I'm sure he did. What's slightly bizarre, though, is that St Ives was probably the most marginal of the LD constituencies in 2010, and it's now the most marginal the other way.
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Given that the Lib Dems have collapsed since 1994 (which was a very good year for them), Labour should be showing a net gain on that point.
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
An excellent point. I'd forgotten how well the Lib Dems did in 1994.
So this proves, as we found out in 2015, that the Tories won because of the Lib Dem collapse. Clegg, who slept with the enemy, lost 49 seats to hand Cameron his majority. Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
Comparing this round of elections (ie the London dominated elections) with those previously the number of councillors lost by the government were:
1978 -461 1982 -98 Falklands War reduces losses 1986 -975 1990 -222 1994 -516 1998 -88 Peak Blair popularity 2002 -334 2006 -319 2010 +417 GE on same day allows Labour to make gains 2010 -236 Con -310 LibDem 2014 -35
Labour gained 417 seats in 2010 and 324 in 2014. These 77 are on top of that. These are very good results, make no mistake. We are at 1994 territory now in this particular cycle.
The reason why Labour has a similar number of councillors is that nearly half of this round of elections is in London and London has shifted strongly towards Labour during the last generation.
This is counterbalanced by a pro Conservative shift in much of the rest of the country but which didn't vote this year.
London in all these years had a similar proportion of councillors. Also, London too has a rich harvest of seats. The Lib Dems are also aiming at the Tories.
But while London has moved away from the Conservatives other parts of the country have moved towards them.
And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well.
"And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well"
It's a bit too early for jokes ! How many Labour seats are there in the Lib Dem top 50 targets ?
So what do you think the Sheffield Hallam LibDems, the Leeds NW LibDems and others will be targetting.
You look as if you're making the same mistake as Labour supporters did before 2010 and assuming that the LibDem supporters are really Labour supporters under a veneer of snobbery or rurality.
One of the ways of not answering the question is to deflect it. So how many of the top 50 Lib Dem targets seats are Labour ? 3 / 5 / less than 10 ?
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Given that the Lib Dems have collapsed since 1994 (which was a very good year for them), Labour should be showing a net gain on that point.
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
An excellent point. I'd forgotten how well the Lib Dems did in 1994.
So this proves, as we found out in 2015, that the Tories won because of the Lib Dem collapse. Clegg, who slept with the enemy, lost 49 seats to hand Cameron his majority. Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
Oh, where do we get another Charlie Kennedy ?
Almost all the Charlie Kennedy voters are now voting for Corbyn anyway, the LD general election vote now is down to diehard Liberals and ardent Remainers
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Given that the Lib Dems have collapsed since 1994 (which was a very good year for them), Labour should be showing a net gain on that point.
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
An excellent point. I'd forgotten how well the Lib Dems did in 1994.
So this proves, as we found out in 2015, that the Tories won because of the Lib Dem collapse. Clegg, who slept with the enemy, lost 49 seats to hand Cameron his majority. Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
Oh, where do we get another Charlie Kennedy ?
Between 1998 and 2010, the Conservatives recovered a lot of ground in English County and District Councils from the Lib Dems, partly offset by the Lib Dems gaining seats from Labour during that period. After 2010, the Lib Dems lost further ground to the Conservatives, and lots of ground to Labour. At the moment, the Conservatives have nearly 8,800 councillors, Labour 5,900, Lib Dems 1,900.
There's a lot of contortions going on over the numbers. But I think the real picture without spin is quite interesting. Labour is clearly losing support amongst older working class voters who presumably voted Labour when they were younger. To offset that it is picking up support amongst people who wouldn't have given it the time of day not so long ago. I'm sure Labour party stalwarts would hate to say this, but that seems like a pretty good trade. Their solid working class support was never as solid as it was often taken to be anyway, and while it could be relied on to save the party from disaster it wasn't ever enough to secure it power. At least with a new and broader coalition you can imagine them winning power if they play their cards right.
I'm going to be betting on them playing their cards wrong, but I think we have interesting times ahead.
Free university tuition. Cut in the student loan rate.
They did that last time and the mother and father of the house still voted Tory even if the son or daughter away at university voted Labour
So how come Labour led from 18 - 55 years ?
They didn't, the average age you started voting Tory was 47 at the last general election, not 55.
Even Hague managed to get a 2% lead in the 2000 local elections and Foot won the 1981 local elections by 3% in the popular vote too so Corbyn did worse than Hague and Foot's best local election results
I know you got that from the Yougov article. Only after age 47 does the Tories have a lead in any cohort. However, you cannot ignore the 18-44 subsets.
If totals are counted from the bottom [ 18 ] up, the Tories actually go in the lead from about age 55. Most of these people include students and their parents. It is only amongst grandparents, do the Tories have commanding leads.
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Given that the Lib Dems have collapsed since 1994 (which was a very good year for them), Labour should be showing a net gain on that point.
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
An excellent point. I'd forgotten how well the Lib Dems did in 1994.
So this proves, as we found out in 2015, that the Tories won because of the Lib Dem collapse. Clegg, who slept with the enemy, lost 49 seats to hand Cameron his majority. Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
Oh, where do we get another Charlie Kennedy ?
Indeed in 2015 there were some net gains for Labour from the Tories in England. In 2017 it was the Ruth Davidson party that saved May's bacon by overperforming in Scotland. It is what happens next in Scotland next GE that may well decide the overall balance of power.
I think Jezza couldn't navigate a minority government though, he lacks the requisite ability to compromise. I think all 3 parties will have different leaders by a 2022 GE, it is only an early collapse forcing a snap election that is the joker in the pack, and if that happens we are in unchartered waters.
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
An element of "Do as we say, not as we do" perhaps? Unless we all actually do limit ourselves to £2 stakes.
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
I see Tories everywhere, from the media to the party to its fellow travellers on the Labour backbenchers, have yet again learnt nothing.
The histrionics about the media doesn't help, whoever does it. A top lady from momentum , I forget the name as it was around 5am, complained about the same yet even she called the results mixed. Because they were mixed.
It may have escaped your notice but Labour lost the last general election - and so need to prove the party can win. If you look at pretty much any polling it shows you that Corbyn polls way behind both the party and issues that may decide whether people vote Labour. The most obvious is Brexit, where staying in the EU is a lot more popular than Jeremy Corbyn. That's not to say going remain or anything else for that matter is an electoral elixir (if it were Vice Cable would be dancing in Downing Street) - but that large chunks of the 2017 Labour GE vote (myself included) are sceptical. We were not expecting Blair numbers (if only) but despite thinking Corbyn is on the wrong track I expected Labour to make real advances given the state of the government. Now, there are other reasons beyond the leader for that, but it's a bad night because expectations are higher. Corbyn proved in 2017 that he wasn't the disaster many had written him off as - now he's trying to prove he's a winner and he failed on Thursday. This is not to say he might not prove he can win in the future -we'll see - you rightly say we'd be foolish to treat any result as an inevitable indicator - but anyone who can't see how it's a very disappointing result for a party claiming to be ready to win the country over to its radical vision is deluded.
There's a lot of contortions going on over the numbers. But I think the real picture without spin is quite interesting. Labour is clearly losing support amongst older working class voters who presumably voted Labour when they were younger. To offset that it is picking up support amongst people who wouldn't have given it the time of day not so long ago. I'm sure Labour party stalwarts would hate to say this, but that seems like a pretty good trade. Their solid working class support was never as solid as it was often taken to be anyway, and while it could be relied on to save the party from disaster it wasn't ever enough to secure it power. At least with a new and broader coalition you can imagine them winning power if they play their cards right.
I'm going to be betting on them playing their cards wrong, but I think we have interesting times ahead.
Except those older working class people are more likely to live in Midlands marginal seats while younger graduate voters are more likely to live in safe Labour inner city seats
The problem with this theory and I have seen cyclefree go down this left wing ideology equals anti semitic route, is just how many Jewish people there are involved. The Marx, Lenin and Trotsky trio for example all I understand are Jewish or have some Jewish heritage (happy to be corrected)
Marx was a raving anti-semite and wrote a whole book on the "Jewish Question".
Well I haven't read it, but I'm surprised that Marx could be a raving anti-semite and yet I've reached my late fifties and this is the first time I have ever heard that suggestion? It's not like Marx is someone who nobody has to an axe to grind with.
I thought Marx was Jewish. His father "converted" to Lutheranism to avoid persecution. But nowadays anybody can be labelled an anti semite.
Any idiot can label someone anything they like. The question is would reasonable people do so.
Some people love to say, for instance, that you cannot criticise Israel in any way without being labelled anti semitic. That is bollocks. I disagree with policies of the Israeli state for instance. Do idiots exist who will call any such criticism, any at all, antisemitic? Probably. But most do not, but anti semites exist who then pretend they are part of the innocent criticised by the idiots .
Many here do. Attacking the Israeli government brings all sorts of opprobrium.
Free university tuition. Cut in the student loan rate.
They did that last time and the mother and father of the house still voted Tory even if the son or daughter away at university voted Labour
So how come Labour led from 18 - 55 years ?
They didn't, the average age you started voting Tory was 47 at the last general election, not 55.
Even Hague managed to get a 2% lead in the 2000 local elections and Foot won the 1981 local elections by 3% in the popular vote too so Corbyn did worse than Hague and Foot's best local election results
I know you got that from the Yougov article. Only after age 47 does the Tories have a lead in any cohort. However, you cannot ignore the 18-44 subsets.
If totals are counted from the bottom [ 18 ] up, the Tories actually go in the lead from about age 55. Most of these people include students and their parents. It is only amongst grandparents, do the Tories have commanding leads.
You cannot ignore them but neither can Labour ignore pensioners either however it is 45 to 65s who are the key swing group.
The LDs couldn't field a full set of candidates in Oxford this week. Including wards in OXWAB. If Moran wants the leadership she needs to secure her own base. That means putting in the work in her constituency.
She really is not present round here.
That's not the picture I see.
The Lib Dems were pretty ruthless in their targeting in Oxford and wider Oxfordshire. They took a seat off Labour on Oxford City and narrowly missed out on three others (Carfax, Holywell, North Oxford; not going to bemoan this too much as I have a lot of time for both Louise Upton, who isn't far off a Lib Dem anyway, and Susanna Pressel). Elsewhere, they took a seat off the Conservatives in Kidlington on Cherwell DC - which previously had no Lib Dem councillors - and three on West Oxfordshire DC.
Yes, they didn't stand in Blackbird Leys (because what is the point of the Lib Dems standing in Blackbird Leys...), and either stood down or didn't campaign in a couple of other areas because of pacts with the Greens. Shame Elise Benjamin didn't get in in Iffley Fields, though.
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
An element of "Do as we say, not as we do" perhaps? Unless we all actually do limit ourselves to £2 stakes.
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
I see Tories everywhere, from the media to the party to its fellow travellers on the Labour backbenchers, have yet again learnt nothing.
The histrionics about the media doesn't help, whoever does it. A top lady from momentum , I forget the name as it was around 5am, complained about the same yet even she called the results mixed. Because they were mixed.
It may have escaped your notice but Labour lost the last general election - and so need to prove the party can win. If you look at pretty much any polling it shows you that Corbyn polls way behind both the party and issues that may decide whether people vote Labour. The most obvious is Brexit, where staying in the EU is a lot more popular than Jeremy Corbyn. That's not to say going remain or anything else for that matter is an electoral elixir (if it were Vice Cable would be dancing in Downing Street) - but that large chunks of the 2017 Labour GE vote (myself included) are sceptical. We were not expecting Blair numbers (if only) but despite thinking Corbyn is on the wrong track I expected Labour to make real advances given the state of the government. Now, there are other reasons beyond the leader for that, but it's a bad night because expectations are higher. Corbyn proved in 2017 that he wasn't the disaster many had written him off as - now he's trying to prove he's a winner and he failed on Thursday. This is not to say he might not prove he can win in the future -we'll see - you rightly say we'd be foolish to treat any result as an inevitable indicator - but anyone who can't see how it's a very disappointing result for a party claiming to be ready to win the country over to its radical vision is deluded.
At the moment it is like arguing who won the battle of Paschendale. At best a lot of effort for not much gain by either side.
The problem the Lib Dems have strategically is Corbyn has parked his tanks on their lawn (given Corbyns views on military intervention, that might not be the best analogy!). The Labour coalition now includes those who were natural Lib Dem supporters - the young, middle class students. It’s difficult to see how they get them back. The tuition debacle continues to hurt them.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Do you think this looks like an imminent LibDem gain ?
So that gives you Richmond (and there might be an unwinding of the byelection effect there) and Cheltenham.
And while the Conservatives need to be holding their 2017 seats they need to be regaining others they lost or winning new ones and it wasn't the metropolitan liberals of Stoke South, Mansfield and Walsall North who kept them in government. Or I suspect the metropolitan liberals of Moray, Angus and Banff.
St Ives will likely go yellow next time too
Maybe and maybe not.
There's a long list of seats which we were told would 'go yellow next time' and didn't.
Many LibDem gains have actually been surprises.
They did pretty well in St Ives in 2017. Iirc they were only about 300 votes short.
True although I wonder if Andrew George had a sizeable personal vote. He is 60 this year.
And there's been plenty of places where the LibDems have got close to winning one year, expected to win the next time, but faded away instead.
I'm sure he did. What's slightly bizarre, though, is that St Ives was probably the most marginal of the LD constituencies in 2010, and it's now the most marginal the other way.
Hereford is probably a safe Tory seat until Jesse Norman retires. Brecon could return to being marginal but I'd bet on a Tory win in 2022 (the 2017 odds were 1.25) unless they get a better candidate.
I agree Cheltenham is within reach, the majority being only 2,600.
An excellent point. I'd forgotten how well the Lib Dems did in 1994.
So this proves, as we found out in 2015, that the Tories won because of the Lib Dem collapse. Clegg, who slept with the enemy, lost 49 seats to hand Cameron his majority. Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
Oh, where do we get another Charlie Kennedy ?
Indeed in 2015 there were some net gains for Labour from the Tories in England. In 2017 it was the Ruth Davidson party that saved May's bacon by overperforming in Scotland. It is what happens next in Scotland next GE that may well decide the overall balance of power.
I think Jezza couldn't navigate a minority government though, he lacks the requisite ability to compromise. I think all 3 parties will have different leaders by a 2022 GE, it is only an early collapse forcing a snap election that is the joker in the pack, and if that happens we are in unchartered waters.
To be fair, the Tories [ with TSE being the exception ] do not give enough credit to Cameron / Osborne / Crosby team. They realised the chink in the very fragile Lib Dem base. Many Lib Dem votes are "borrowed" votes. Someone not necessarily voting for the Lib Dem but AGAINST another party. Cameron / Osborne / Crosby realised that there were Labour supporters in many Lib Dem - Tory marginals, who could not bring themselves to vote Lib Dem in 2015. That is where the win took place.
Free university tuition. Cut in the student loan rate.
They did that last time and the mother and father of the house still voted Tory even if the son or daughter away at university voted Labour
So how come Labour led from 18 - 55 years ?
They didn't, the average age you started voting Tory was 47 at the last general election, not 55.
Even Hague managed to get a 2% lead in the 2000 local elections and Foot won the 1981 local elections by 3% in the popular vote too so Corbyn did worse than Hague and Foot's best local election results
I know you got that from the Yougov article. Only after age 47 does the Tories have a lead in any cohort. However, you cannot ignore the 18-44 subsets.
If totals are counted from the bottom [ 18 ] up, the Tories actually go in the lead from about age 55. Most of these people include students and their parents. It is only amongst grandparents, do the Tories have commanding leads.
You cannot ignore them but neither can Labour ignore pensioners either however it is 45 to 65s who are the key swing group.
As a matter of interest, how did your own vote go?
I'm not sure I agree. PB has a rather strange animus against bookmakers and their shops (I forget which PBer celebrated their closure) which I can't help but feel has an aspect of snobbery to it. I'm not a fan of FOBTs (guaranteed loss machines, obvs) but they are legal and the people that use them cause no harm to anybody other than themselves and their loved ones. A society that tolerates rowdy pubs and loud music should have no problem with people quietly placing coins in a slot. We celebrate @MaxPB 's six-figure profit on his gamble on the stock of a TLA, but Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine should be banned?
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
Oh for Christ's sake Nick. I've generally liked your comments on here but this is dreadful. If you notice, and this goes for everything, Corbyn rarely says anything that can be pointedly pinned down to unequivocal support for anything other than generally nice things - peace, bread and land as someone once said. It's his schtick and why he's been much more successful than his mentor Tony Benn - who at least had the decency and honesty to explore the logical consequences of his ideas rather than give support for the nice sounding bits and then disown the obvious and morally appalling conclusions. Corbyn is a reverse McCavity - he's always bloody there offering general support to deeply unpleasant people but didn't see or hear their worst behaviour or remarks - even when they are advisers he's personally appointed. We rightly condemn people on the right who associate with extremists and lunatics even if they don't explicitly come out and say it, but you and a section of the left seem unable to do the same with Corbyn. It's dreadful. We know he's quite happy to agree with some of the nastiest people by nodding along - he doesn't have to give a lecture on it. Many of us who want a left wing government but cannot in all good conscience support a man whose closest advisers have supported North Korea are utterly fed up of this apologism.
I'm not sure I agree. PB has a rather strange animus against bookmakers and their shops (I forget which PBer celebrated their closure) which I can't help but feel has an aspect of snobbery to it. I'm not a fan of FOBTs (guaranteed loss machines, obvs) but they are legal and the people that use them cause no harm to anybody other than themselves and their loved ones. A society that tolerates rowdy pubs and loud music should have no problem with people quietly placing coins in a slot. We celebrate @MaxPB 's six-figure profit on his gamble on the stock of a TLA, but Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine should be banned?
They don't want to ban them, they want to lower the bet size
The problem the Lib Dems have strategically is Corbyn has parked his tanks on their lawn (given Corbyns views on military intervention, that might not be the best analogy!). The Labour coalition now includes those who were natural Lib Dem supporters - the young, middle class students. It’s difficult to see how they get them back. The tuition debacle continues to hurt them.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
I agree, and I think my party is a little too Brexit rejectionist focussed, over other issues under Cable.
Brexit is now less than 11 months away, so next years elections will be different. LDs may shift to an EEA type position with rejoin as a long term objective, but it is less clear what Brexit actually happening will do to the big two.
Free university tuition. Cut in the student loan rate.
They did that last time and the mother and father of the house still voted Tory even if the son or daughter away at university voted Labour
So how come Labour led from 18 - 55 years ?
They didn't, the average age you started voting Tory was 47 at the last general election, not 55.
Even Hague managed to get a 2% lead in the 2000 local elections and Foot won the 1981 local elections by 3% in the popular vote too so Corbyn did worse than Hague and Foot's best local election results
I know you got that from the Yougov article. Only after age 47 does the Tories have a lead in any cohort. However, you cannot ignore the 18-44 subsets.
If totals are counted from the bottom [ 18 ] up, the Tories actually go in the lead from about age 55. Most of these people include students and their parents. It is only amongst grandparents, do the Tories have commanding leads.
You cannot ignore them but neither can Labour ignore pensioners either however it is 45 to 65s who are the key swing group.
As a matter of interest, how did your own vote go?
I got 554 votes, the LDs held the seat comfortably but the Tory vote was up a bit on 2014 so it was OK, about par as it was nationally
I'm not sure I agree. PB has a rather strange animus against bookmakers and their shops (I forget which PBer celebrated their closure) which I can't help but feel has an aspect of snobbery to it. I'm not a fan of FOBTs (guaranteed loss machines, obvs) but they are legal and the people that use them cause no harm to anybody other than themselves and their loved ones. A society that tolerates rowdy pubs and loud music should have no problem with people quietly placing coins in a slot. We celebrate @MaxPB 's six-figure profit on his gamble on the stock of a TLA, but Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine should be banned?
They don't want to ban them, they want to lower the bet size
...down to very little: £2 I believe. The technique of banning thru over-onerous legislation is well-known and this does feel like that.
I'm not sure I agree. PB has a rather strange animus against bookmakers and their shops (I forget which PBer celebrated their closure) which I can't help but feel has an aspect of snobbery to it. I'm not a fan of FOBTs (guaranteed loss machines, obvs) but they are legal and the people that use them cause no harm to anybody other than themselves and their loved ones. A society that tolerates rowdy pubs and loud music should have no problem with people quietly placing coins in a slot. We celebrate @MaxPB 's six-figure profit on his gamble on the stock of a TLA, but Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine should be banned?
Investing an betting are completely different. Chances of me losing my money investing in IAG was close to zero, the worst that could have happened was the chance their shares wouldn't rebound and I would have closed out at close to break even, at worst an opportunity cost of being better invested. FOBTs offer no kind of return and exist to fleece gambling addicts. They are a curse to our high streets.
Yes, the fact that the media are spinning it as bad for Labour just shows starkly what a universally anti-Corbyn and pro-Tory media landscape we have (BBC in particular is shameful given its supposed, though laughable, impartial status). Simple fact is that that Labour went forward and Tories backward from already high and low positions respectively.
Labour won the biggest net increase in councillors of any party. The Conservatives suffered a net loss of both councils and councillors, second only to UKIP in the loser stakes.
I see Tories everywhere, from the media to the party to its fellow travellers on the Labour backbenchers, have yet again learnt nothing.
Blame your own parties absolutely dire expectations management - and oh, failure to act on Anti semitism
Comparing this round of elections (ie the London dominated elections) with those previously the number of councillors lost by the government were:
1978 -461 1982 -98 Falklands War reduces losses 1986 -975 1990 -222 1994 -516 1998 -88 Peak Blair popularity 2002 -334 2006 -319 2010 +417 GE on same day allows Labour to make gains 2010 -236 Con -310 LibDem 2014 -35
Labour gained 417 seats in 2010 and 324 in 2014. These 77 are on top of that. These are very good results, make no mistake. We are at 1994 territory now in this particular cycle.
The reason why Labour has a similar number of councillors is that nearly half of this round of elections is in London and London has shifted strongly towards Labour during the last generation.
This is counterbalanced by a pro Conservative shift in much of the rest of the country but which didn't vote this year.
London in all these years had a similar proportion of councillors. Also, London too has a rich harvest of seats. The Lib Dems are also aiming at the Tories.
But while London has moved away from the Conservatives other parts of the country have moved towards them.
And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well.
"And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well"
It's a bit too early for jokes ! How many Labour seats are there in the Lib Dem top 50 targets ?
So what do you think the Sheffield Hallam LibDems, the Leeds NW LibDems and others will be targetting.
You look as if you're making the same mistake as Labour supporters did before 2010 and assuming that the LibDem supporters are really Labour supporters under a veneer of snobbery or rurality.
One of the ways of not answering the question is to deflect it. So how many of the top 50 Lib Dem targets seats are Labour ? 3 / 5 / less than 10 ?
Looks like you're ignoring the point I made.
The LibDems will target whre they can and they aren't Labour in disguise.
The problem the Lib Dems have strategically is Corbyn has parked his tanks on their lawn (given Corbyns views on military intervention, that might not be the best analogy!). The Labour coalition now includes those who were natural Lib Dem supporters - the young, middle class students. It’s difficult to see how they get them back. The tuition debacle continues to hurt them.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
I agree, and I think my party is a little too Brexit rejectionist focussed, over other issues under Cable.
Brexit is now less than 11 months away, so next years elections will be different. LDs may shift to an EEA type position with rejoin as a long term objective, but it is less clear what Brexit actually happening will do to the big two.
The question that matters is what will Brexit not happening do to the Tories?
I'm not sure I agree. PB has a rather strange animus against bookmakers and their shops (I forget which PBer celebrated their closure) which I can't help but feel has an aspect of snobbery to it. I'm not a fan of FOBTs (guaranteed loss machines, obvs) but they are legal and the people that use them cause no harm to anybody other than themselves and their loved ones. A society that tolerates rowdy pubs and loud music should have no problem with people quietly placing coins in a slot. We celebrate @MaxPB 's six-figure profit on his gamble on the stock of a TLA, but Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine should be banned?
Three things on FOBTs and betting shops:
1) people can easily become addicted and quickly ruin their lives -- this is why there is a popular movement against them 2) bookmakers are increasingly reluctant to take bets on horses or politics or anything else on which they might lose to informed punters like us -- they make so much from FOBTs they do not need to -- this is why proper punters don't like them 3) most subtly, and for me the most important though rarely discussed, FOBTs suck money out of productive local economies
There's a lot of contortions going on over the numbers. But I think the real picture without spin is quite interesting. Labour is clearly losing support amongst older working class voters who presumably voted Labour when they were younger. To offset that it is picking up support amongst people who wouldn't have given it the time of day not so long ago. I'm sure Labour party stalwarts would hate to say this, but that seems like a pretty good trade. Their solid working class support was never as solid as it was often taken to be anyway, and while it could be relied on to save the party from disaster it wasn't ever enough to secure it power. At least with a new and broader coalition you can imagine them winning power if they play their cards right.
I'm going to be betting on them playing their cards wrong, but I think we have interesting times ahead.
Except those older working class people are more likely to live in Midlands marginal seats while younger graduate voters are more likely to live in safe Labour inner city seats
But it isn't just young graduates Labour is appealing to. People running small businesses used to be pretty much 100% Tory voters, and quite often active party members as well. They are still probably a majority, but it's no longer particularly surprising to find the opposite. Younger working class people seem to be lot more pro-Labour than their parents. You'd expect people with immigrant backgrounds but who are now settled and prosperous to drift towards the Conservatives - they don't seem to be doing so as quickly as they used to.
I don't see the current Labour leadership seizing it, but I think there's the makings of a thumping Labour majority waiting for someone to put together the right message.
Comparing this round of elections (ie the London dominated elections) with those previously the number of councillors lost by the government were:
1978 -461 1982 -98 Falklands War reduces losses 1986 -975 1990 -222 1994 -516 1998 -88 Peak Blair popularity 2002 -334 2006 -319 2010 +417 GE on same day allows Labour to make gains 2010 -236 Con -310 LibDem 2014 -35
Labour gained 417 seats in 2010 and 324 in 2014. These 77 are on top of that. These are very good results, make no mistake. We are at 1994 territory now in this particular cycle.
The reason why Labour has a similar number of councillors is that nearly half of this round of elections is in London and London has shifted strongly towards Labour during the last generation.
This is counterbalanced by a pro Conservative shift in much of the rest of the country but which didn't vote this year.
London in all these years had a similar proportion of councillors. Also, London too has a rich harvest of seats. The Lib Dems are also aiming at the Tories.
But while London has moved away from the Conservatives other parts of the country have moved towards them.
And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well.
"And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well"
It's a bit too early for jokes ! How many Labour seats are there in the Lib Dem top 50 targets ?
So what do you think the Sheffield Hallam LibDems, the Leeds NW LibDems and others will be targetting.
You look as if you're making the same mistake as Labour supporters did before 2010 and assuming that the LibDem supporters are really Labour supporters under a veneer of snobbery or rurality.
One of the ways of not answering the question is to deflect it. So how many of the top 50 Lib Dem targets seats are Labour ? 3 / 5 / less than 10 ?
Looks like you're ignoring the point I made.
The LibDems will target whre they can and they aren't Labour in disguise.
It's as if these Labour people didn't learn from 2010-2015.
"They are really pushing for a £100 stake limit? Ridiculous!"
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
An element of "Do as we say, not as we do" perhaps? Unless we all actually do limit ourselves to £2 stakes.
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
I see Tories everywhere, from the media to the party to its fellow travellers on the Labour backbenchers, have yet again learnt nothing.
It may have escaped your notice but Labour lost the last general election - and so need to prove the party can win. If you look at pretty much any polling it shows you that Corbyn polls way behind both the party and issues that may decide whether people vote Labour. The most obvious is Brexit, where staying in the EU is a lot more popular than Jeremy Corbyn. That's not to say going remain or anything else for that matter is an electoral elixir (if it were Vice Cable would be dancing in Downing Street) - but that large chunks of the 2017 Labour GE vote (myself included) are sceptical. We were not expecting Blair numbers (if only) but despite thinking Corbyn is on the wrong track I expected Labour to make real advances given the state of the government. Now, there are other reasons beyond the leader for that, but it's a bad night because expectations are higher. Corbyn proved in 2017 that he wasn't the disaster many had written him off as - now he's trying to prove he's a winner and he failed on Thursday. This is not to say he might not prove he can win in the future -we'll see - you rightly say we'd be foolish to treat any result as an inevitable indicator - but anyone who can't see how it's a very disappointing result for a party claiming to be ready to win the country over to its radical vision is deluded.
At the moment it is like arguing who won the battle of Paschendale. At best a lot of effort for not much gain by either side.
That's very well put - and the problem with that is Labour's in opposition so need to make the breakthrough, somehow. Stalemate isn't good enough. That's why it's a bad night - because it proves the limitations of the current strategy.
The problem the Lib Dems have strategically is Corbyn has parked his tanks on their lawn (given Corbyns views on military intervention, that might not be the best analogy!). The Labour coalition now includes those who were natural Lib Dem supporters - the young, middle class students. It’s difficult to see how they get them back. The tuition debacle continues to hurt them.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
I agree, and I think my party is a little too Brexit rejectionist focussed, over other issues under Cable.
Brexit is now less than 11 months away, so next years elections will be different. LDs may shift to an EEA type position with rejoin as a long term objective, but it is less clear what Brexit actually happening will do to the big two.
The question that matters is what will Brexit not happening do to the Tories?
If you are right about that (and I do not think that you are) the Tories would meltdown.
You know when you have multi-member wards in your council of interest, if you want to calculate the popular vote across each ward or even the council as a whole, do you take the most popular candidate's vote for each party in each ward, or do you tot up both/all three candidates for each party?
I'm guessing Owen got confused somewhere between local elections and london elections
May I congratulate you? Labour's biggest problem is pithily captured in that one quote.
I'm not even convinced that Labour can do much better than this in London and even on yesterday's vote in Wandsworth they'd have lost Battersea back to the blues.
Maybe not in a General Election though - the Tories have consistently outperfomed at Local Elections - in relation to Parliamentary elections - in Wandsworth since the mid-1980s.
I'm not sure I agree. PB has a rather strange animus against bookmakers and their shops (I forget which PBer celebrated their closure) which I can't help but feel has an aspect of snobbery to it. I'm not a fan of FOBTs (guaranteed loss machines, obvs) but they are legal and the people that use them cause no harm to anybody other than themselves and their loved ones. A society that tolerates rowdy pubs and loud music should have no problem with people quietly placing coins in a slot. We celebrate @MaxPB 's six-figure profit on his gamble on the stock of a TLA, but Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine should be banned?
It really has nothing to do with wanting to stop Granny Rosie shoving a pound coin in a slot machine, quite the opposite in fact.
What were talking about here are casino machines playing casino games, that can eat several hundred pounds a *minute* and are causing serious social problems, addiction, vandalism, suicide, assault and even murder of minimum wage employees watching over them.
They’re also a huge target for money launderers, who can wash their drugs cash through the machines and don’t care if they only get £8k back for their £10k “investment”.
Let’s keep casino games in casinos, not dominating every high street.
The problem the Lib Dems have strategically is Corbyn has parked his tanks on their lawn (given Corbyns views on military intervention, that might not be the best analogy!). The Labour coalition now includes those who were natural Lib Dem supporters - the young, middle class students. It’s difficult to see how they get them back. The tuition debacle continues to hurt them.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
I agree, and I think my party is a little too Brexit rejectionist focussed, over other issues under Cable.
Brexit is now less than 11 months away, so next years elections will be different. LDs may shift to an EEA type position with rejoin as a long term objective, but it is less clear what Brexit actually happening will do to the big two.
The question that matters is what will Brexit not happening do to the Tories?
If you are right about that (and I do not think that you are) the Tories would meltdown.
But BINO is quite likely, would that cause meltdown?
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Do you think this looks like an imminent LibDem gain ?
So that gives you Richmond (and there might be an unwinding of the byelection effect there) and Cheltenham.
And while the Conservatives need to be holding their 2017 seats they need to be regaining others they lost or winning new ones and it wasn't the metropolitan liberals of Stoke South, Mansfield and Walsall North who kept them in government. Or I suspect the metropolitan liberals of Moray, Angus and Banff.
St Ives will likely go yellow next time too
Maybe and maybe not.
There's a long list of seats which we were told would 'go yellow next time' and didn't.
Many LibDem gains have actually been surprises.
They did pretty well in St Ives in 2017. Iirc they were only about 300 votes short.
True although I wonder if Andrew George had a sizeable personal vote. He is 60 this year.
And there's been plenty of places where the LibDems have got close to winning one year, expected to win the next time, but faded away instead.
I'm sure he did. What's slightly bizarre, though, is that St Ives was probably the most marginal of the LD constituencies in 2010, and it's now the most marginal the other way.
Only Cornwall North was better for the LibDems in 2010 than St Ives so its not changed that much.
Rather Cornwall North has moved strongly to the Conservatives.
I wonder why St Ives is still so LibDem - rich outsiders moving in and making housing unaffordable for locals might be a factor.
So this proves, as we found out in 2015, that the Tories won because of the Lib Dem collapse. Clegg, who slept with the enemy, lost 49 seats to hand Cameron his majority. Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
There's a lot of contortions going on over the numbers. But I think the real picture without spin is quite interesting. Labour is clearly losing support amongst older working class voters who presumably voted Labour when they were younger. To offset that it is picking up support amongst people who wouldn't have given it the time of day not so long ago. I'm sure Labour party stalwarts would hate to say this, but that seems like a pretty good trade. Their solid working class support was never as solid as it was often taken to be anyway, and while it could be relied on to save the party from disaster it wasn't ever enough to secure it power. At least with a new and broader coalition you can imagine them winning power if they play their cards right.
I'm going to be betting on them playing their cards wrong, but I think we have interesting times ahead.
Except those older working class people are more likely to live in Midlands marginal seats while younger graduate voters are more likely to live in safe Labour inner city seats
But it isn't just young graduates Labour is appealing to. People running small businesses used to be pretty much 100% Tory voters, and quite often active party members as well. They are still probably a majority, but it's no longer particularly surprising to find the opposite. Younger working class people seem to be lot more pro-Labour than their parents. You'd expect people with immigrant backgrounds but who are now settled and prosperous to drift towards the Conservatives - they don't seem to be doing so as quickly as they used to.
I don't see the current Labour leadership seizing it, but I think there's the makings of a thumping Labour majority waiting for someone to put together the right message.
Yes but while some of those groups might vote for say Chuka Umunna or Andy Burnham or Sadie Khan they will not vote for Corbyn
There's a lot of contortions going on over the numbers. But I think the real picture without spin is quite interesting. Labour is clearly losing support amongst older working class voters who presumably voted Labour when they were younger. To offset that it is picking up support amongst people who wouldn't have given it the time of day not so long ago. I'm sure Labour party stalwarts would hate to say this, but that seems like a pretty good trade. Their solid working class support was never as solid as it was often taken to be anyway, and while it could be relied on to save the party from disaster it wasn't ever enough to secure it power. At least with a new and broader coalition you can imagine them winning power if they play their cards right.
I'm going to be betting on them playing their cards wrong, but I think we have interesting times ahead.
Hmmm. That analysis neglects the point that Labour's soft underbelly is now on the centre-left - there are lot of traditional Labour supporters who are liberally minded and didn't turn out or voted Lib Dem on Thursday. The big lesson New Labour failed to learn is not to take voters for granted as in 2010 that base went Lib Dem or didn't vote - combined with the loss of working class support (dating back to the Thatcher) that caused the Lab vote to plummet. Corbyn's leadership is doing the same thing but losing votes that should be theirs elsewhere.
"The ‘Nick Timothy Strategy’ was fundamentally correct in its assessment of how the plates of British politics are moving but the execution of that strategy was extremely poor, not least during the election campaign last year."
The reason why Labour has a similar number of councillors is that nearly half of this round of elections is in London and London has shifted strongly towards Labour during the last generation.
This is counterbalanced by a pro Conservative shift in much of the rest of the country but which didn't vote this year.
London in all these years had a similar proportion of councillors. Also, London too has a rich harvest of seats. The Lib Dems are also aiming at the Tories.
But while London has moved away from the Conservatives other parts of the country have moved towards them.
And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well.
"And the LibDems will also be aiming at Labour as well"
It's a bit too early for jokes ! How many Labour seats are there in the Lib Dem top 50 targets ?
So what do you think the Sheffield Hallam LibDems, the Leeds NW LibDems and others will be targetting.
You look as if you're making the same mistake as Labour supporters did before 2010 and assuming that the LibDem supporters are really Labour supporters under a veneer of snobbery or rurality.
One of the ways of not answering the question is to deflect it. So how many of the top 50 Lib Dem targets seats are Labour ? 3 / 5 / less than 10 ?
Looks like you're ignoring the point I made.
The LibDems will target whre they can and they aren't Labour in disguise.
It's as if these Labour people didn't learn from 2010-2015.
You would have thought they would have learned from tim going all in on a equation 2010 LibDem = 50% 2015 LibDem + 50% 2015 Lab.
I'm guessing Owen got confused somewhere between local elections and london elections
May I congratulate you? Labour's biggest problem is pithily captured in that one quote.
I'm not even convinced that Labour can do much better than this in London and even on yesterday's vote in Wandsworth they'd have lost Battersea back to the blues.
Maybe not in a General Election though - the Tories have consistently outperfomed at Local Elections - in relation to Parliamentary elections - in Wandsworth since the mid-1980s.
I was just quoting Curtice. I think yesterday showed Labour would have little else to gain in London.
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
Oh for Christ's sake Nick. I've generally liked your comments on here but this is dreadful. If you notice, and this goes for everything, Corbyn rarely says anything that can be pointedly pinned down to unequivocal support for anything other than generally nice things - peace, bread and land as someone once said. (snip)
Nope. I was replying to Cyclefree who said he praises Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership. He doesn't. You agree he doesn't.
You're making a different point, as I understand it - that if he doesn't outright attack them, then you feel he's implicitly giving them comfort. He thinks that there's quite enough Western powers attacking them without his feeling he has to chime in. I think it would be electorally sensible if he did some more Putin/Assad/Hamas-bashing, but one of his irritating charms (yes, both) is that he doesn't think about saying things for electoral effect - he says what he thinks is important and leaves to other to decide if they agree.
Incidentally, I'm actually more pro-Assad than he is. I think Assad is probably the least available evil in Syria. Corbyn doesn't think that - he merely thinks it's a choice of unacceptable evils and we shouldn't get involved at all, and certainly not in order to flex our muscles, punch above our weight, and all the other tired cold war metaphors.
I don't buy into this idea that you need some incredible local election results otherwise you will lose the next general election.
Edit: *I did laugh at Matt Zarb in his MAGA hat...
Stephen Fisher:
Opposition parties normally win local elections. Since records began, albeit only since 1982, the oppositions that have gone on to win the next general election have won double digit leads in all the preceding local elections, starting with those in the immediate post-election year. Not only is Labour far from having a 10-point lead, the fact that it has no lead at all should be deeply disappointing.
Of course the past is no guide for future performance - but it should certainly give pause for thought.
Agree on Matt Zarb-Cousin - tho he should have posted it himself, rather than leaving it to Guido...
Doesn't that only give us a sample size of 2, which seems a bit small to make any calls off.
Blair and then Cameron are the only changes of government, those changes of government also saw the governing party lose a substantial number of seats, Labour doesn't really need the Conservatives to lose that many seats.
If we want to see the kind of seat losses for the government and seat gains for the opposition that Blair and Cameron made, assuming the sample size of 2 give us an infallible rule, then we would need the kind of leads he is talking about.
For something like a Conservative drop of 50 seats and a Labour gain of say 70 seats we wouldn't need the leads of Cameron and Blair, that is for a majority government as well. If Labour fell short the SNP, PC and the Green MP would back a Labour government.
We'll agree to disagree on the other thing, starting to get a little circular.
I am perfectly content if Labour supporters view these results as 'great', or indeed 'the best since 1971'.....
Do you believe the Tories are on course for an overall majority on the basis of these results, then?
That's far to early to say. The conventional wisdom would be that an incumbent government would not have much to worry about, on the basis of these results, but the conventional wisdom was that last year's local elections were pointing to a Conservative landslide.
The Tories had a stronger performance in both 1960 & 1961 but still went on to lose in 1964.
1) people can easily become addicted and quickly ruin their lives -- this is why there is a popular movement against them 2) bookmakers are increasingly reluctant to take bets on horses or politics or anything else on which they might lose to informed punters like us -- they make so much from FOBTs they do not need to -- this is why proper punters don't like them 3) most subtly, and for me the most important though rarely discussed, FOBTs suck money out of productive local economies
1) People can become addicted to anything, including Star Trek, pineapple on pizzas and playing with one's bongos in an Essex forest. The existence of addicts is not sufficient: the scale of the problem must be sufficiently large to outweigh the imposition. How many people are destroyed by FOBTs?
2) Your point may be true on a relative basis (bookies like FOBTs, people like us...not so much), but is plainly untrue on an absolute basis, at least since 2000-ish. The expansion in Gibraltar-registered bookies and online gambling have expanded dramatically the opportunity for political punting. For example, recently Shadsy opened a book on the Friday on whether Rudd would resign/fired by Tuesday. That's an extraordinarily buoyant betting ecosystem.
3) A bookmakers shop provides employment to two or three people behind the counter provides services to a small-ish amount of people per day, and the profits go to the national company running that branch. In terms of profitability (back of envelope calcs here, apols for errors), they are more productive than a charity shop or a shoe shop, less productive than a Mickey D's or newsagents, and around the level of a nail bar(ish). The local contributions is about the same: they pay local council tax, employ locals, and the punters buy food an drink from local shops. Getting rid of them will not make the local economy better, it'll make them worse.
The problem the Lib Dems have strategically is Corbyn has parked his tanks on their lawn (given Corbyns views on military intervention, that might not be the best analogy!). The Labour coalition now includes those who were natural Lib Dem supporters - the young, middle class students. It’s difficult to see how they get them back. The tuition debacle continues to hurt them.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
I agree, and I think my party is a little too Brexit rejectionist focussed, over other issues under Cable.
Brexit is now less than 11 months away, so next years elections will be different. LDs may shift to an EEA type position with rejoin as a long term objective, but it is less clear what Brexit actually happening will do to the big two.
The question that matters is what will Brexit not happening do to the Tories?
If you are right about that (and I do not think that you are) the Tories would meltdown.
But BINO is quite likely, would that cause meltdown?
Only amongst the headbangers. Most of the country will shrug, and wonder what all the fuss was about.
By the way, BBC says that, following Tower Hamlets, Labour has a net gain of +77 seats, compared to the Lib Dems' +75 seats.
Are the Lib Dems still the "clear winners"?
Yes. Labour increased their number of seats by only 3% from 2273 to 2350.
The LibDems increased their's by 16% from 461 to 536.
On that basis the Greens were the clear winners having jumped from 31 to 39 - ie 26%!
Good point. For the full picture (as I've said before, not just today) one must use absolute and relative terms. For smaller parties, any movement is proportionately large. The LibDems have done well in their weight-class, but are not players in the same sense that Lab and Con are.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The Tory vote is now back in its more traditional bastions and that makes a majority very difficult.
May really is not the answer to these problems. In fact she adds to them with some particular problems of her own. If the Tories go into the next election with her as leader the Tories are playing with fire and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
Which seats that Cameron gained from the LibDems are now 'in play' ?
Solihull ? Berwick ? Harrogate ? Colchester ? Hereford ? Montgomery ? Brecon ? All those in SW England ?
You keep conflating SW London with where the LibDems had MPs.
In reality the LibDems continue to do terribly in many areas of former strength.
Well Richmond obviously but also Cheltenham, South Cambs and Watford. Most the areas you mention were not voting yesterday. We will see how they do next year. The problem the Tories have is that, unlike 1992, they are already a minority government. It takes relatively few losses for them to lose power altogether.
Watford is now a Tory/Labour marginal at parliamentary elections.
You know when you have multi-member wards in your council of interest, if you want to calculate the popular vote across each ward or even the council as a whole, do you take the most popular candidate's vote for each party in each ward, or do you tot up both/all three candidates for each party?
If all the competing parties put up as many candidates as there are places, then there is no question that the appropriate method is to total the vote for all the candidates for each party.
The problem arises when there is a mixture of full slates and lone candidates from smaller parties or independents. Taking the top candidate from each is a well used short cut, that doesn't understate the potential support for parties that put up a single candidate, at the expense of introducing some inaccuracy for the larger parties. A slightly better way of doing this would be to take the average vote for each party, but of course that involves a bit more work.
Oh for Christ's sake Nick. I've generally liked your comments on here but this is dreadful. If you notice, and this goes for everything, Corbyn rarely says anything that can be pointedly pinned down to unequivocal support for anything other than generally nice things - peace, bread and land as someone once said. (snip)
Nope. I was replying to Cyclefree who said he praises Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership. He doesn't. You agree he doesn't.
You're making a different point, as I understand it - that if he doesn't outright attack them, then you feel he's implicitly giving them comfort. He thinks that there's quite enough Western powers attacking them without his feeling he has to chime in. I think it would be electorally sensible if he did some more Putin/Assad/Hamas-bashing, but one of his irritating charms (yes, both) is that he doesn't think about saying things for electoral effect - he says what he thinks is important and leaves to other to decide if they agree.
Incidentally, I'm actually more pro-Assad than he is. I think Assad is probably the least available evil in Syria. Corbyn doesn't think that - he merely thinks it's a choice of unacceptable evils and we shouldn't get involved at all, and certainly not in order to flex our muscles, punch above our weight, and all the other tired cold war metaphors.
I realise that - and was trying to say why that argument really isn't good enough - and it isn't about Syria in particular - I think even those who support action know there's not a happy ending and that it's such a complex conflict that anyone telling you they're certain about what should be done is lying. People can respectfully disagree. The point is that he does more than implicitly give these people comfort - he befriends them or appoints them as advisers and stands alongside them so often that he does an awful lot of damage without having to open his mouth and give an unequivocal endorsement. Andrew Murray was a member of the Communist Party until 2016 who is on record supporting North Korea. We wouldn't accept Theresa May appointing a former EDL activist who had done nothing to recant his past views and rightly get angry when Tories have dog whistled at the far right. It's not about electoral effect, it's about what's morally right and wrong, and it's pretty worrying and terrifying that a lot of people on the left can't, or choose not to see how compromised he is and the corrosive effect it has.
Saw Jezza on TV earlier. He seemed far from flustered; indeed there was a twinkle in his eye. He knows that if you'd have said, even four years ago, that the Far Left would achieve this result in a British election you find yourself put straight in the giggle jacket. Jezza is just biding his time. He's waited over half a century to get where he's got. Patience. A little longer matters not a whit.
Realistically I think this batch of local elections was pretty mixed for all of the main parties. All of the three main parties have moved both forwards and backwards in different areas of the country.
I think the Conservatives should feel relieved that things were not worse for them (and, contrary to some thinking on here, I believe a gain from UKIP is worth as much to a party as a gain from anyone else - they all count). They're certainly not on the road to a Commons majority though.
I think Labour should be feeling a bit concerned that there are huge areas of the country where people are very, very, worried by Corbyn. Winning in London isn't enough if you go backwards in large swathes of the rest of England.
As for we Lib Dems - well we are enjoying having net gains but we fully understand that these are concentrated in small pockets and we have a long way to go. The main thing for us is that these results show that we can win again now where and when we are able to concentrate our limited resources. Winning a few places at a time was always going to have to be our road to recovery and, as others have said, we can see where next to target fairly clearly.
And UKIP... well all I can do is laugh. They won't be missed.
When you think about it for more than a second you realise that May should have gone to Barnet. Not only was it a Tory win in the capital of a Council Labour expected to take, it would have emphasised the negativities that are now surrounding Corbyn and kept that theme in the media. But May simply has no idea how to campaign. Her "victory" speech yesterday was painful, bordering on embarrassing. She is intensely uncomfortable doing that kind of stuff and it shows.
As I said yesterday I think that these results were in fact a lot worse for the Tories than they appeared on the surface. Briefly:
123 UKIP losses really should have been gains for all. Instead they simply hid the extent of the losses the Tories suffered.
The significant step forward by the Lib Dems, who did better and better ending up the clear winners of the day, is very bad news for the Tories. Those seats that Cameron won in 2015 are now very much back in play.
The collapse of UKIP has made the Tory vote much less efficient. We see this by comparing 2015 with 2017. It wasn't just that Labour did much better. Cameron's 37% was much better distributed for winning a majority than May's 42%. Similarly yesterday the Tories had the biggest increase in the share of the vote compared with 2014 but they lost seats and Councils.
This is because Cameron and Osborne could reach out beyond the Tory heartlands to metropolitan liberals. It cost them a slew of votes to UKIP but it didn't cost them any seats. The re and the hope that fear and distaste of Corbyn is enough. It may not be.
If the situation was reversed, and the Conservatives had reached parity with Labour, eight years into a Labour government, the consensus would be that it was a terrrrrible night for the Conservatives.
As I said last night, the Conservatives have gone from having 8,809 councillors to having 8,778. There are much worse fates for a governing party.
Indeed. Despite understandable relief at holding onto most flagship councils clearly it was not a triumphant night for them, DavidL is right to point out problems they need to address, but the context is not irrelevant and minor losses are, as Curtice pointed out, credible as performances go 8 years in.
However, the results need to be viewed in the context of the electoral cycle. This year's Tory losses are in addition to those lost back in 2014 - which in turn came on top of those lost in 2010!
No, I think the plan was for a £30 limit (the current limit is £100, and £30 wouldn't change them too fundamentally). But MPs want to neuter the machines with a £2 limit instead.
I fail to see what value those machines have, apart from as a source of revenue for the bookmakers. A £2 limit is generous.
Everyone here in favour of the £2 limit (which I think is just about all of us) should write to their MP this weekend on the subject. If the denizens of a political gambling website can’t care about this issue, then no-one will except the industry lobbyists.
...
Surely the point was about stakes on theSE machines, not stakes generally.
Yes, the fact that the media are spinning it as bad for Labour just shows starkly what
Labour won the biggest net increase in councillors of any party. The Conservatives suffered a net loss of both councils and councillors, second only to UKIP in the loser stakes.
I see Tories everywhere, from the media to the party to its fellow travellers on the Labour backbenchers, have yet again learnt nothing.
...
The histrionics about the media doesn't help, whoever does it. A top lady from momentum , I forget the name as it was around 5am, complained about the same yet even she called the results mixed. Because they were mixed.
The results are mixed but the reason they are 'bad' for Jeremy Corbyn.
Let's get away from perceptions and look at real facts:
Start with 1994. Labour having made 516 net gains
Labour net gains/ losses
1998 -88 2002 -334 2006 -319
Total Net Losses = 741
2010 +417 2014 +324 2018 +77
Total Net Gains = 818
So, Labour's position in this particular cycle at this moment is 77 better than it was after the 1994 landslide.
QED. [ By-elections excluded]
Labour got 40% in 1994 under John Smith, Corbyn got 35% so did clearly worse than Smith did.
May's 35% on Thursday though was 7% better than the 28% Major got in 1994
One small detail you have missed out. So how come Labour did so much better in the actual number of councillors ? Have they been more efficient ?
Back in 1994, London voted much the same way as the rest of England. 24 years on, London has shifted strongly towards Labour and the rest of England has shifted towards the Conservatives.
But the early 1990s followed a decade of 'loony left' antics by London Labour councils.
I think Carrie might get the award for having the least sleep of anyone is the last three days. She’s not gone more than a couple of hours without Tweeting since Thursday morning! (Unless of course the whole CCHQ comms team use her account).
I see Tories everywhere, from the media to the party to its fellow travellers on the Labour backbenchers, have yet again learnt nothing.
It may have escaped your notice but Labour lost the last general election - and so need to prove the party can win. If you look at pretty much any polling it shows you that Corbyn polls way behind both the party and issues that may decide whether people vote Labour. The most obvious is Brexit, where staying in the EU is a lot more popular than Jeremy Corbyn. That's not to say going remain or anything else for that matter is an electoral elixir (if it were Vice Cable would be dancing in Downing Street) - but that large chunks of the 2017 Labour GE vote (myself included) are sceptical. We were not expecting Blair numbers (if only) but despite thinking Corbyn is on the wrong track I expected Labour to make real advances given the state of the government. Now, there are other reasons beyond the leader for that, but it's a bad night because expectations are higher. Corbyn proved in 2017 that he wasn't the disaster many had written him off as - now he's trying to prove he's a winner and he failed on Thursday. This is not to say he might not prove he can win in the future -we'll see - you rightly say we'd be foolish to treat any result as an inevitable indicator - but anyone who can't see how it's a very disappointing result for a party claiming to be ready to win the country over to its radical vision is deluded.
At the moment it is like arguing who won the battle of Paschendale. At best a lot of effort for not much gain by either side.
That's very well put - and the problem with that is Labour's in opposition so need to make the breakthrough, somehow. Stalemate isn't good enough. That's why it's a bad night - because it proves the limitations of the current strategy.
Corbyn is doing better than Gaitskell managed in the first two years of the 1959 Parliament Labour suffered substantial losses to the Tories in both 1960 & 1961 - yet still won the 1964 election.
Corbyn is doing better than Gaitskell managed in the first two years of the 1959 Parliament Labour suffered substantial losses to the Tories in both 1960 & 1961 - yet still won the 1964 election.
Honest question...
How valid or worthwhile do you really believe comparisons with events of 57/58 years ago really are? I have my doubts.
Corbyn is doing better than Gaitskell managed in the first two years of the 1959 Parliament Labour suffered substantial losses to the Tories in both 1960 & 1961 - yet still won the 1964 election.
Honest question...
How valid or worthwhile do you really believe comparisons with events of 57/58 years ago really are? I have my doubts.
But the electoral cycle was still there. If an Opposition could recover in 1960 & 1961 to win a General Election a few years later , why should it not be possible today? There are more recent examples - Labour did better in 1992 than was being implied by the data from mid-1988. Likewise the Tories had a much better result at the 2005 GE than might have been expected in mid-2002.
There is an inbuilt advantage for the Tories: 2-tier local government in rural areas, unitaries in the large conurbations.
Also district councils have much smaller wards.
I remember going to the 1997 Tory conference (not a total celebration but interesting, all the same), when I was 23 and had just been selected to stand in a safe Labour seat on Bradford Council. I got speaking to some councillor, probably in his sixties, about campaigning. He told me that my job was to speak to every elector in the ward before polling day. He then asked me how many there were. I said about twelve thousand. The way he said "thousand?!" suggested that he was used to wards an order of magnitude smaller.
I have sent a Tweet to Stephen Bush correcting his assertion that 2017 was the first instance of an Opposition having fared better at a General Election than at the previous Local Elections. He had forgotten Ted Heath - who won the June 1970 election despite quite heavy Tory losses at the May 1970 Urban Local Elections.
Realistically I think this batch of local elections was pretty mixed for all of the main parties. All of the three main parties have moved both forwards and backwards in different areas of the country.
I think the Conservatives should feel relieved that things were not worse for them (and, contrary to some thinking on here, I believe a gain from UKIP is worth as much to a party as a gain from anyone else - they all count). They're certainly not on the road to a Commons majority though.
I think Labour should be feeling a bit concerned that there are huge areas of the country where people are very, very, worried by Corbyn. Winning in London isn't enough if you go backwards in large swathes of the rest of England.
As for we Lib Dems - well we are enjoying having net gains but we fully understand that these are concentrated in small pockets and we have a long way to go. The main thing for us is that these results show that we can win again now where and when we are able to concentrate our limited resources. Winning a few places at a time was always going to have to be our road to recovery and, as others have said, we can see where next to target fairly clearly.
And UKIP... well all I can do is laugh. They won't be missed.
I have sent a Tweet to Stephen Bush correcting his assertion that 2017 was the first instance of an Opposition having fared better at a General Election than at the previous Local Elections. He had forgotten Ted Heath - who won the June 1970 election despite quite heavy Tory losses at the May 1970 Urban Local Elections.
1) People can become addicted to anything, including Star Trek, pineapple on pizzas and playing with one's bongos in an Essex forest. The existence of addicts is not sufficient: the scale of the problem must be sufficiently large to outweigh the imposition. How many people are destroyed by FOBTs?
2) Your point may be true on a relative basis (bookies like FOBTs, people like us...not so much), but is plainly untrue on an absolute basis, at least since 2000-ish. The expansion in Gibraltar-registered bookies and online gambling have expanded dramatically the opportunity for political punting. For example, recently Shadsy opened a book on the Friday on whether Rudd would resign/fired by Tuesday. That's an extraordinarily buoyant betting ecosystem.
3) A bookmakers shop provides employment to two or three people behind the counter provides services to a small-ish amount of people per day, and the profits go to the national company running that branch. In terms of profitability (back of envelope calcs here, apols for errors), they are more productive than a charity shop or a shoe shop, less productive than a Mickey D's or newsagents, and around the level of a nail bar(ish). The local contributions is about the same: they pay local council tax, employ locals, and the punters buy food an drink from local shops. Getting rid of them will not make the local economy better, it'll make them worse.
Interesting to see a coherent case put for FOBTs by someone not (I assume) with an interest. Some helpful data are here:
The £1.8bn losses (presumably after deducting prizes) will be spread over a fairly small subset of the population - I don't know, but I doubt if more than 1% of adults are regular users, which would be 500,000. If that's right, then on average they are losing £3000/year, which sounds pretty hefty to me. The chart showing FOBTs outpacing all betting at sports is pretty striking for what is after all just one type of machine in a video arcade.
Given his support for gay rights one wonders how he manages to reconcile that with his praise for Russia, Iran, Syria and the Palestinian leadership, all of whom hate gays and take active steps to make their lives miserable.
I think you'll struggle to find many examples of his praising the leadership of these countries/groups - he was once polite to Hamas at a meeting and has ageeed it was unwise, and that's about it. Can you find a quote where he's said he positively likes Assad or Putin? What he's consistently done is oppose armed intervention against them, which is a mix of near-pacifism and Nato-scepticism.
Generally speaking, all the conflicts they're involved in have some nasty characters on both sides (nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent); the Western leadership tends to attack one side, prompting leftists to redress the balance.
"nobody looking at the Ukraine issue in detail can identify either side as consistently decent"
Oh, FFS. No side in any conflict is ever 'consistently decent' - war is sadly messy. But when you are looking at a pseudo-Russian invasion of, and interference with, a sovereign country then there is 'mostly decent' versus 'outright evil'.
Considering Russia "invaded" a country which is 90% Russian and was part of Russia until 1954 when Khruschev gave it to Ukraine simply to increase the numbers of Russians in that country.
I don't think Crimeans ever felt they were anything other than Russians. One feel sorry about the Tatars though.
Remind me, what was the rationale for invading Iraq ?
Been out, so only just coming back to this:; but you really need to think about what you've written there: from your ignorance of the situation (e.g. Donblass) to its final dollop of whataboutery. Your post typifies the way some leftists are willing to ignore - ad even condone evil acts because the people committing the evil are not us.
Taking into account the seat reduction in Bexley, the scores in London were Con -89, Lab +57, Lib Dem + 35, Green + 7, UKIP -12.
What were the shares of the votes in London?
Also, what were the National gains/losses if seats formerly held by UKIP are excluded?
Labour led by 15% across London, but I don't have the full figures.
I guess multi-candidate wards complicate the equation, though you could just take the votes for the best performing candidate for each party
I'll try and crunch the numbers.
Some individual borough scores are Harrow 47% Lab to 45% Con, Barnet 44% Con to 39% Lab, Enfield 55% Lab to 34% Con, Croydon 44% Lab to 40% Con, Westminster 43% Con to 41% Lab, Richmond 47% Lib Dem to 38% Con.
Richmond Park was probably very close on those results - especially if the reports of hundreds of EU votes per ward are correct.
Without looking at the individual wards it seems that the Conservatives have totally collapsed in both Enfield and Ilford but are holding on better in the Chingford and Woodford area.
The next census will show some significant demographic changes I expect.
IDS will be retiring next time unless he wants to lose.
The Tories only lost 2 seats in Waltham Forest where most of his Chingford and Woodford Green seat is, so that is encouraging for IDS in some respects.
The Tories did badly in Redbridge, losing 14 seats but that borough mainly incorporates Ilford North and Ilford South which the Tories would now need a landslide majority of over 100 seats to regain from Labour
They lost 13 seats compared with 2014. 12 v. 25
Popular vote in Redbridge (going by leading candidates in each ward):
Lab 55.17% Con 34.30% LD 5.07% Grn 2.73% Ind 2.72%
Comments
For comparison, the position of the other two parties is
LD
1998 -114
2002 +37
2006 +2
2010 -132
2014 -310
2018 +74
Total Net Gains = -443
Con
1998 +256
2002 +238
2006 +316
2010 -121
2014 -236
2018 -35
Total Net Gains = +418
Even Hague managed to get a 2% lead in the 2000 local elections and Foot won the 1981 local elections by 3% in the popular vote too so Corbyn did worse than Hague and Foot's best local election results
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5693315/Labours-libel-plot-muzzle-newspapers-press-pay-hefty-legal-bills-sued.html
Except the Guardian - that bastion of impartiality.
You look as if you're making the same mistake as Labour supporters did before 2010 and assuming that the LibDem supporters are really Labour supporters under a veneer of snobbery or rurality.
Labour's loss went to the SNP - not the Tories as is normally assumed.
Oh, where do we get another Charlie Kennedy ?
I'm going to be betting on them playing their cards wrong, but I think we have interesting times ahead.
If totals are counted from the bottom [ 18 ] up, the Tories actually go in the lead from about age 55. Most of these people include students and their parents. It is only amongst grandparents, do the Tories have commanding leads.
I think Jezza couldn't navigate a minority government though, he lacks the requisite ability to compromise. I think all 3 parties will have different leaders by a 2022 GE, it is only an early collapse forcing a snap election that is the joker in the pack, and if that happens we are in unchartered waters.
The Lib Dems were pretty ruthless in their targeting in Oxford and wider Oxfordshire. They took a seat off Labour on Oxford City and narrowly missed out on three others (Carfax, Holywell, North Oxford; not going to bemoan this too much as I have a lot of time for both Louise Upton, who isn't far off a Lib Dem anyway, and Susanna Pressel). Elsewhere, they took a seat off the Conservatives in Kidlington on Cherwell DC - which previously had no Lib Dem councillors - and three on West Oxfordshire DC.
Yes, they didn't stand in Blackbird Leys (because what is the point of the Lib Dems standing in Blackbird Leys...), and either stood down or didn't campaign in a couple of other areas because of pacts with the Greens. Shame Elise Benjamin didn't get in in Iffley Fields, though.
They are doing better in those areas where they were strong in the 90s and early 2000s - affluent parts of the middle-class South where there is a strong liberal streak despite some Tory leanings. The Brexit effect will be helping them - a lot of those voters are naturally remain and won’t want to support the Tories at this current juncture.
What they need to do to help them further in these places, but also in some traditionally friendly territory in urban England, is find a weapon against Labour as well as the Tories. Why do those people not move straight to Labour in the current circumstances? Anti-Brexitism is one part of the puzzle, but they need more for a bigger revival.
I agree Cheltenham is within reach, the majority being only 2,600.
https://audioboom.com/posts/6838134-know-your-frenemy-nick-clegg-talks-to-george-osborne
Brexit is now less than 11 months away, so next years elections will be different. LDs may shift to an EEA type position with rejoin as a long term objective, but it is less clear what Brexit actually happening will do to the big two.
The LibDems will target whre they can and they aren't Labour in disguise.
1) people can easily become addicted and quickly ruin their lives -- this is why there is a popular movement against them
2) bookmakers are increasingly reluctant to take bets on horses or politics or anything else on which they might lose to informed punters like us -- they make so much from FOBTs they do not need to -- this is why proper punters don't like them
3) most subtly, and for me the most important though rarely discussed, FOBTs suck money out of productive local economies
I don't see the current Labour leadership seizing it, but I think there's the makings of a thumping Labour majority waiting for someone to put together the right message.
https://order-order.com/2018/05/05/libdems-only-winners/
What were talking about here are casino machines playing casino games, that can eat several hundred pounds a *minute* and are causing serious social problems, addiction, vandalism, suicide, assault and even murder of minimum wage employees watching over them.
They’re also a huge target for money launderers, who can wash their drugs cash through the machines and don’t care if they only get £8k back for their £10k “investment”.
Let’s keep casino games in casinos, not dominating every high street.
Rather Cornwall North has moved strongly to the Conservatives.
I wonder why St Ives is still so LibDem - rich outsiders moving in and making housing unaffordable for locals might be a factor.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/05/04/better-worse-tories-now-brexit-party/
You're making a different point, as I understand it - that if he doesn't outright attack them, then you feel he's implicitly giving them comfort. He thinks that there's quite enough Western powers attacking them without his feeling he has to chime in. I think it would be electorally sensible if he did some more Putin/Assad/Hamas-bashing, but one of his irritating charms (yes, both) is that he doesn't think about saying things for electoral effect - he says what he thinks is important and leaves to other to decide if they agree.
Incidentally, I'm actually more pro-Assad than he is. I think Assad is probably the least available evil in Syria. Corbyn doesn't think that - he merely thinks it's a choice of unacceptable evils and we shouldn't get involved at all, and certainly not in order to flex our muscles, punch above our weight, and all the other tired cold war metaphors.
https://order-order.com/2018/05/05/local-government-seats-totals/
2) Your point may be true on a relative basis (bookies like FOBTs, people like us...not so much), but is plainly untrue on an absolute basis, at least since 2000-ish. The expansion in Gibraltar-registered bookies and online gambling have expanded dramatically the opportunity for political punting. For example, recently Shadsy opened a book on the Friday on whether Rudd would resign/fired by Tuesday. That's an extraordinarily buoyant betting ecosystem.
3) A bookmakers shop provides employment to two or three people behind the counter provides services to a small-ish amount of people per day, and the profits go to the national company running that branch. In terms of profitability (back of envelope calcs here, apols for errors), they are more productive than a charity shop or a shoe shop, less productive than a Mickey D's or newsagents, and around the level of a nail bar(ish). The local contributions is about the same: they pay local council tax, employ locals, and the punters buy food an drink from local shops. Getting rid of them will not make the local economy better, it'll make them worse.
The problem arises when there is a mixture of full slates and lone candidates from smaller parties or independents. Taking the top candidate from each is a well used short cut, that doesn't understate the potential support for parties that put up a single candidate, at the expense of introducing some inaccuracy for the larger parties. A slightly better way of doing this would be to take the average vote for each party, but of course that involves a bit more work.
I think the Conservatives should feel relieved that things were not worse for them (and, contrary to some thinking on here, I believe a gain from UKIP is worth as much to a party as a gain from anyone else - they all count). They're certainly not on the road to a Commons majority though.
I think Labour should be feeling a bit concerned that there are huge areas of the country where people are very, very, worried by Corbyn. Winning in London isn't enough if you go backwards in large swathes of the rest of England.
As for we Lib Dems - well we are enjoying having net gains but we fully understand that these are concentrated in small pockets and we have a long way to go. The main thing for us is that these results show that we can win again now where and when we are able to concentrate our limited resources. Winning a few places at a time was always going to have to be our road to recovery and, as others have said, we can see where next to target fairly clearly.
And UKIP... well all I can do is laugh. They won't be missed.
How valid or worthwhile do you really believe comparisons with events of 57/58 years ago really are? I have my doubts.
I remember going to the 1997 Tory conference (not a total celebration but interesting, all the same), when I was 23 and had just been selected to stand in a safe Labour seat on Bradford Council. I got speaking to some councillor, probably in his sixties, about campaigning. He told me that my job was to speak to every elector in the ward before polling day. He then asked me how many there were. I said about twelve thousand. The way he said "thousand?!" suggested that he was used to wards an order of magnitude smaller.
Pause.
Bloody well done, sir...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/25/uk-gamblers-fobt-dcms-losses
The £1.8bn losses (presumably after deducting prizes) will be spread over a fairly small subset of the population - I don't know, but I doubt if more than 1% of adults are regular users, which would be 500,000. If that's right, then on average they are losing £3000/year, which sounds pretty hefty to me. The chart showing FOBTs outpacing all betting at sports is pretty striking for what is after all just one type of machine in a video arcade.
Popular vote in Redbridge (going by leading candidates in each ward):
Lab 55.17%
Con 34.30%
LD 5.07%
Grn 2.73%
Ind 2.72%