Given the concentration of the 2017 vote among strong leave identifiers a more potent threat to the Conservative vote is likely to come in the shape of the Brexit Party. In total over half of the ‘very strong leave’ group give their likelihood of voting for the Brexit Party as 6/10 or higher. Given this also represents almost half of the total 2017 Conservative vote it leaves open the possibility of up to a quarter of 2017 Conservative voters moving to the Brexit Party (polling immediately after the EU Parliament election detected this). Initial polling suggested the change of leadership in the Conservative party could be enough to stem this flow but the danger remains present should the government (be seen as) failing to deliver on its Brexit commitment.
The Cummings strategy I think is to ensure that more 2017 Conservative voters stick with the party (and don't switch to BXP) than 2017 Labour voters stick with them (instead going Lib Dem). There is some polling evidence to support Cummings strategy, which like a lot of his cunning plans depends on people who hate his guts doing what he wants them to do instead of what's in their interest.
The Cummings strategy I think is to ensure that more 2017 Conservative voters stick with the party (and don't switch to BXP) than 2017 Labour voters stick with them (instead going Lib Dem). There is some polling evidence to support Cummings strategy, which like a lot of his cunning plans depends on people who hate his guts doing what he wants them to do instead of what's in their interest.
Cummings badly underestimates Farage, who is a superior political strategist.
Second like Lib Dems... in the popular vote. But not in seats.
It could happen.
It would take a big Tory collapse for the LDs to finish second behind Labour. I guess 20% Tory, 20% Brexit would do the trick.
Not necessarily. If a GE before Brexit resolution. The LDs have a strong vote winner with the revoke/rejoin pledge. I think they will suck in votes from Labour and Greens. The Conservatives could lose massive votes from both sides of their support without a brexit strategy that is seen by brexiteers as strong enough. Any sign of weakening by the leadership will send votes willy nilly to BXP.
This goes, I think, for both Brexit before GE and after.
The LDs are the ones to gain whatever happens by being first to the post with a strong remainer strategy.
I guess there are three other possibilities for Labour voters in the marginals that also suit the Conservatives.
Firstly, they stay at home. I see this as unlikely as Labour in these traditional areas has a good GOTV game and the Tory turnout will also be somewhat depressed (didn't they vote Tory in 2017 to get this sorted by now?)
Secondly, they go for the Brexit Party. The trouble is, it is far from clear they draw more from Labour than the Tories, although they may be less associated with the right than were UKIP as a brand.
Finally, they could go Lib Dem. This is more plausible, but the Lib Dems won't be campaigning hard in the relevant seats and it's not really in the Tories' hands - they are very reliant on Labour running a poor squeeze and the Lib Dems being resilient - they are spectators in a way.
Nnumbers. If the labour polling does not improve and they achieve 25% they will lose a lot of seats.
How many is a lot - twenty, thirty, more than that?
SI suggests 20 or so. Much more than that seems improbable. Labour's core vote is famously resilient.
I just don't see where the Conservatives find enough wins to offset their probable losses in Scotland and to the LDS, plus enough to give them a majority. They will need a very fair wind to achieve that.
If I were any MP but a Conservative, I'd want a referendum first.
Put the blues in a fix. Do they promise to re-trigger Article 50 or have Referendum 3: Refer With A Vengeance? Or do they not?
If they don't, it's spring time for Farage and BP. If they do, it'll piss off a lot of moderate/floating voters who want the matter settled regardless of how, and won't be enthused about voting to prolong/return to the dispute.
Amazing they started it off at 0.5/1.5 really, unless you're expecting the trifecta of Farage returning there, a complete Tory collapse/ Brexit collapse and a change in the voting system to something more favourable really no way you can buy - not even the true tail risk that selling BXP begets.
If I were any MP but a Conservative, I'd want a referendum first.
Put the blues in a fix. Do they promise to re-trigger Article 50 or have Referendum 3: Refer With A Vengeance? Or do they not?
If they don't, it's spring time for Farage and BP. If they do, it'll piss off a lot of moderate/floating voters who want the matter settled regardless of how, and won't be enthused about voting to prolong/return to the dispute.
Are you Tom Watson in disguise? There's a lot of merit in that approach - but I think the temptation to go for a GE straight after Boris has betrayed his "do or die by Oct 31st" pledge - the dumbest any politician has made since Nick Clegg on tuition fees - will prove irresistible.
Nnumbers. If the labour polling does not improve and they achieve 25% they will lose a lot of seats.
How many is a lot - twenty, thirty, more than that?
SI suggests 20 or so. Much more than that seems improbable. Labour's core vote is famously resilient.
I just don't see where the Conservatives find enough wins to offset their probable losses in Scotland and to the LDS, plus enough to give them a majority. They will need a very fair wind to achieve that.
If they get 25%? Depends how far below, 25 for me represents the level at which they start to collapse dramatically, at 25 theyll probably get 210 or so
The Cummings strategy I think is to ensure that more 2017 Conservative voters stick with the party (and don't switch to BXP) than 2017 Labour voters stick with them (instead going Lib Dem). There is some polling evidence to support Cummings strategy, which like a lot of his cunning plans depends on people who hate his guts doing what he wants them to do instead of what's in their interest.
Cummings badly underestimates Farage, who is a superior political strategist.
Totally agree. Farage is malign but knows how to effectively exploit others' vulnerabilities. His as in the Express yesterday is a masterful example of this. Farage has decided he can convince people that Johnson is weak willed. So he sets an impossible set of demands for a "non-aggression pact' (fascist terminology) and pure Nazi image of Farage the strong leader facing down a craven and degenerate Johnson. So he wins both ways. Either Johnson agrees to Farage's demands in the most humiliating way possible or he will be presented as dithering Theresa May mark II.
The ERG will vote it down on purity grounds The DUP will vote it down on NI/rUK non alignment grounds Labour will vote it down for political advantage The SNP will vote it down because Scotland is outside the single market. Lib Dems will vote it down because they now want to revoke A50. The Gaukeward sqaud will for for it and have the whip restored. The hard Grieveites will vote it down and not have the whip restored.
So it'll help Gauke and a couple of others have the whip restored, and that will be about it. I'm not sure what the Kinnock group within Labour will do but with Mann now in the Lords, Hoey as an honorary DUPer pretty much and the likes of Ronnie Campbell/Dennis Skinners loyalty to Corbyn I doubt their numbers will be enough.
+1 this is a tremendous waste of time for the negotiators.
Nnumbers. If the labour polling does not improve and they achieve 25% they will lose a lot of seats.
How many is a lot - twenty, thirty, more than that?
SI suggests 20 or so. Much more than that seems improbable. Labour's core vote is famously resilient.
I just don't see where the Conservatives find enough wins to offset their probable losses in Scotland and to the LDS, plus enough to give them a majority. They will need a very fair wind to achieve that.
If they get 25%? Depends how far below, 25 for me represents the level at which they start to collapse dramatically, at 25 theyll probably get 210 or so
All depends what everyone else is on too. I am assuming you still have Cons. in the early/mid thirties and in excess of 300?
The Conservatives could do with the Lib Dem revival being strong in northern, Leave, Labour seats. That strips votes from Labour and enables the Tories to get in on 35% of the vote.
Trouble is, intuitively, those seats look LEAST likely to be receptive to the newfound Lib Dem mojo. They are most likely to bear a grudge over "Tory enablers of the bedroom tax etc", least likely to be put off by the Corbyn antisemitism issue, and least likely to find Revoke and Remain appealing.
That's part of the reason why I don't think UNS will be a good guide, and will tend to work against the blues.
With respect to TSE, I think he's wrong on this for one simple reason: Labour is polling about 25%.
The Tories do not necessarily need to win over Labour leavers in any great number (though it's worth noting that Johnson's net rating with Lab leavers (2017GE/2016EURef) is about 30 points higher than Corbyn's is.
What Johnson does need is: - to keep Con losses to the Brexit Party to a minimum: certainly under 10%, ideally under 7%; and - to keep Labour from recovering above the mid-20s.
As long as Labour are down by 15%+ from 2017, it doesn't much matter if those voters have gone Green, Lib Dem, abstain or Con (though obviously Con is best for him): the losses will be so great that simple maths does the rest.
Nnumbers. If the labour polling does not improve and they achieve 25% they will lose a lot of seats.
How many is a lot - twenty, thirty, more than that?
SI suggests 20 or so. Much more than that seems improbable. Labour's core vote is famously resilient.
I just don't see where the Conservatives find enough wins to offset their probable losses in Scotland and to the LDS, plus enough to give them a majority. They will need a very fair wind to achieve that.
If they get 25%? Depends how far below, 25 for me represents the level at which they start to collapse dramatically, at 25 theyll probably get 210 or so
All depends what everyone else is on too. I am assuming you still have Cons. in the early/mid thirties and in excess of 300?
Yeah, 33 plus and somewhere slightly above now, if labour drift down and the LDs fail to break through low 20s then it could get messy
If I were any MP but a Conservative, I'd want a referendum first.
Put the blues in a fix. Do they promise to re-trigger Article 50 or have Referendum 3: Refer With A Vengeance? Or do they not?
If they don't, it's spring time for Farage and BP. If they do, it'll piss off a lot of moderate/floating voters who want the matter settled regardless of how, and won't be enthused about voting to prolong/return to the dispute.
Are you Tom Watson in disguise? There's a lot of merit in that approach - but I think the temptation to go for a GE straight after Boris has betrayed his "do or die by Oct 31st" pledge - the dumbest any politician has made since Nick Clegg on tuition fees - will prove irresistible.
2/3 majority required for an election under FTPA....
The Tories could let Corbyn VoNC them, abstain his QS then proceed to vote down everything he puts forward. His starting numbers are even worse than the Tories -1 majority. It's only preventing a No deal Brexit the majority of the House agrees on.
The Tories could let Corbyn VoNC them, abstain his QS then proceed to vote down everything he puts forward. His starting numbers are even worse than the Tories -1 majority. It's only preventing a No deal Brexit the majority of the House agrees on.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's precisely what Cummings has in mind.
If I were any MP but a Conservative, I'd want a referendum first.
Put the blues in a fix. Do they promise to re-trigger Article 50 or have Referendum 3: Refer With A Vengeance? Or do they not?
If they don't, it's spring time for Farage and BP. If they do, it'll piss off a lot of moderate/floating voters who want the matter settled regardless of how, and won't be enthused about voting to prolong/return to the dispute.
Are you Tom Watson in disguise? There's a lot of merit in that approach - but I think the temptation to go for a GE straight after Boris has betrayed his "do or die by Oct 31st" pledge - the dumbest any politician has made since Nick Clegg on tuition fees - will prove irresistible.
2/3 majority required for an election under FTPA....
Straight majority of those present required for a VONC. Parliament dissolved in 14 days unless someone can win a VOC
The Cummings strategy I think is to ensure that more 2017 Conservative voters stick with the party (and don't switch to BXP) than 2017 Labour voters stick with them (instead going Lib Dem). There is some polling evidence to support Cummings strategy, which like a lot of his cunning plans depends on people who hate his guts doing what he wants them to do instead of what's in their interest.
Yes, people keep saying but Boris's strategy is a re-run of May's 2017 strategy. But I think it's more like Ed Miliband's strategy: resign yourself to a low share of the vote, and pray to God that the opposition vote is split enough and/or is unwilling to tactically-vote enough.
With respect to TSE, I think he's wrong on this for one simple reason: Labour is polling about 25%.
The Tories do not necessarily need to win over Labour leavers in any great number (though it's worth noting that Johnson's net rating with Lab leavers (2017GE/2016EURef) is about 30 points higher than Corbyn's is.
What Johnson does need is: - to keep Con losses to the Brexit Party to a minimum: certainly under 10%, ideally under 7%; and - to keep Labour from recovering above the mid-20s.
As long as Labour are down by 15%+ from 2017, it doesn't much matter if those voters have gone Green, Lib Dem, abstain or Con (though obviously Con is best for him): the losses will be so great that simple maths does the rest.
There's some sense in that, but the Tories are down around 8% from the 2017 election, so we're looking at Labour differentially being down about 7% compared with the Tories.
So the question is whether that's sufficiently uniform to make up for maybe 20-30 losses to the SNP and Lib Dems and more to achieve a majority to pursue a Brexit policy.
The risk for the Tories is that Labour are down by MORE in some of the shires where they briefly replaced the Lib Dems as the main opposition in 2015 and 2017. Will Labour lose that much sleep going from 25% to 5% in some of these places? It might even help nudge up Tory losses to the Lib Dems. Ditto, will they worry about going from 80% to 60% in real fortresses? Perhaps not. The issue is the fairly marginal but traditionally Labour northern towns - here I suspect the Lib Dems won't be stripping as many votes off Labour as in the shires, and this will help Labour hold up okay.
Eh? Surely it's been established by now that the Tory hard-Brexiteers are the swing vote in Parliament, and that (obviously) Remaining is a much greater deterrent to them than "No Deal" is?
"No Deal" was widely thought (including among PBers) to be the only alternative to a Deal at the first two meaningful votes, and that didn't work so well. Only on MV3, when a long extension was on the cards, did the deal get even remotely close to passing.
The Tories could let Corbyn VoNC them, abstain his QS then proceed to vote down everything he puts forward. His starting numbers are even worse than the Tories -1 majority. It's only preventing a No deal Brexit the majority of the House agrees on.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's precisely what Cummings has in mind.
Tories don't need to wait for Corbyn to vonc them. Boris will present his cake-and-eat-it deal and make it a confidence issue. If it's voted down he'll go straight to the Palace and resign. Corbyn will have no option but to form a govt. which will be powerless but charged with an immediate duty to postpone Brexit. After that we can have an election. Incumbency will not be an advantage for Corbyn as he will have none of the trappings of office about him - just a record of voting down Brexit and settling for what will probably be a very long extension.
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
With respect to TSE, I think he's wrong on this for one simple reason: Labour is polling about 25%.
The Tories do not necessarily need to win over Labour leavers in any great number (though it's worth noting that Johnson's net rating with Lab leavers (2017GE/2016EURef) is about 30 points higher than Corbyn's is.
What Johnson does need is: - to keep Con losses to the Brexit Party to a minimum: certainly under 10%, ideally under 7%; and - to keep Labour from recovering above the mid-20s.
As long as Labour are down by 15%+ from 2017, it doesn't much matter if those voters have gone Green, Lib Dem, abstain or Con (though obviously Con is best for him): the losses will be so great that simple maths does the rest.
As always I think your analysis is the best to be found on this website. However, I do not think, even if the Boris Team does that any voters can be discounted except perhaps SNPers. There must be sufficient confidence to make those who voted Brexit last May, or drew willies on the ballot paper to vote for the Conservative candidate in about 460 seats. He must not piss off Brexit voters per se. Yet Boris dares not link to Brexit at all in case of wounding the Tory non Brexit vote in the 460 seats. But the mood blanched at a very recent Tory meeting when it was suggested ANY of the 21 would be allowed back - members, many of whom have been around a lot longer that the 21 were horrified. And these were not extremists, many voted for Hunt !
With respect to TSE, I think he's wrong on this for one simple reason: Labour is polling about 25%.
The Tories do not necessarily need to win over Labour leavers in any great number (though it's worth noting that Johnson's net rating with Lab leavers (2017GE/2016EURef) is about 30 points higher than Corbyn's is.
What Johnson does need is: - to keep Con losses to the Brexit Party to a minimum: certainly under 10%, ideally under 7%; and - to keep Labour from recovering above the mid-20s.
As long as Labour are down by 15%+ from 2017, it doesn't much matter if those voters have gone Green, Lib Dem, abstain or Con (though obviously Con is best for him): the losses will be so great that simple maths does the rest.
At the last election, May gained votes but lost seats as Corbyn's vote increased more. This time round Boris could lose votes but gain seats, if Corbyn's share falls by more
A study by Yale and NYU Stern economists suggested that during that six-year period, the average annual return for offshore hedge funds was 13.6%, whereas the average annual gain for the S&P 500 was 16.5%
I'd have thought the fees were a bit steeper than the average tracker too...
No. So just give a big extension and hope remainers continue to get their shit together.
Which is a very likely outcome now that all the opposition parties apart from the DUP favour either revoke or ref 2. One of these options must now be odds on to materialise in the next 12 months - ref 2 probably.
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
No - the policy is to get Brexit done - and reap the upside in a GE.
After the GE , discipline has to return - hence why moaning remainer MPs have been ditched - they are irrelevant in current Parliament as they aren’t in the tent anyway - TINOs ...
If that passes it sounds like Boris is off the hook then?
The court can sign the letter (allowing Boris to honour his pledge that he would never do it) and presumably as soon as the extension is granted by the EU the Opposition will allow Boris his general election as they've pledged?
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
No - the policy is to get Brexit done - and reap the upside in a GE.
After the GE , discipline has to return - hence why moaning remainer MPs have been ditched - they are irrelevant in current Parliament as they aren’t in the tent anyway - TINOs ...
The braindead are among us! Cummy and the Hypocrite-In-Chief Johnson have killed the Conservative Party while chasing a unicorn. History won't view them well
The Cummings strategy I think is to ensure that more 2017 Conservative voters stick with the party (and don't switch to BXP) than 2017 Labour voters stick with them (instead going Lib Dem). There is some polling evidence to support Cummings strategy, which like a lot of his cunning plans depends on people who hate his guts doing what he wants them to do instead of what's in their interest.
Yes, people keep saying but Boris's strategy is a re-run of May's 2017 strategy. But I think it's more like Ed Miliband's strategy: resign yourself to a low share of the vote, and pray to God that the opposition vote is split enough and/or is unwilling to tactically-vote enough.
Cummings/Johnson doesn't need a landslide. It needs a net gain of ten seats (plus the independents back) to get a majority. A further thirty seats would be nice. Hence the 30% strategy (not even a 50% strategy). It's doable. It remains to be seen whether it gains enough Labour seats on the back of defections to the Lib Dems to compensate for the seats almost certainly lost to the Lib Dems and SNP.
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
It reminds me of the Lib Dem talk in coalition about losing the oppositional lefty voters, and replacing them with middle ground centrists looking for good governance who would vote LD in their grateful droves.
No. So just give a big extension and hope remainers continue to get their shit together.
Which is a very likely outcome now that all the opposition parties apart from the DUP favour either revoke or ref 2. One of these options must now be odds on to materialise in the next 12 months - ref 2 probably.
All DUP MPs voted with the government in every Johnson Government division, but over twice that number of Conservative MPs voted against. I think it is hard to call the DUP an opposition party.
If that passes it sounds like Boris is off the hook then?
The court can sign the letter (allowing Boris to honour his pledge that he would never do it) and presumably as soon as the extension is granted by the EU the Opposition will allow Boris his general election as they've pledged?
Everyone's a winner Rodders. Everyone's a winner.
He didn't just pledge that *he* would never delay Brexit, he pledged that *nobody* would be able to delay Brexit if he was PM.
Remember, Theresa also argued that she hadn't wanted to delay Brexit and had been forced into it by Parliament.
Eh? Surely it's been established by now that the Tory hard-Brexiteers are the swing vote in Parliament, and that (obviously) Remaining is a much greater deterrent to them than "No Deal" is?
"No Deal" was widely thought (including among PBers) to be the only alternative to a Deal at the first two meaningful votes, and that didn't work so well. Only on MV3, when a long extension was on the cards, did the deal get even remotely close to passing.
Yes I have also come to that conclusion. The only thing that no-deal made more likely was, no-deal. Once Boris is boxed in, it paradoxically makes Brexit more likely, but with a deal.
Awesome - so unelected Scottish judges are now running the country - can’t get any more integrated in the EU than that .
Sounds a real vote winner for remain parties.
Something wrong with them being Scottish? Would ENglish be better?
Presumably it will just end up at the Supreme Court again. The Supreme Court is going to be busy!
Indeed! It's been most interesting seeing the reaction to the discovery that Scots law and its NI oppo have the same status as English law in the UK. One would expect many, erm. Unionists to be better Unionists than that.
No - the policy is to get Brexit done - and reap the upside in a GE.
After the GE , discipline has to return - hence why moaning remainer MPs have been ditched - they are irrelevant in current Parliament as they aren’t in the tent anyway - TINOs ...
That was a good strategy. Theresa May tried hard to implement it, starting from a much stronger position.
No - the policy is to get Brexit done - and reap the upside in a GE.
After the GE , discipline has to return - hence why moaning remainer MPs have been ditched - they are irrelevant in current Parliament as they aren’t in the tent anyway - TINOs ...
That was a good strategy. Theresa May tried hard to implement it, starting from a much stronger position.
It was a strong position till Nick Timothy got hold of the manifesto.
If that passes it sounds like Boris is off the hook then?
The court can sign the letter (allowing Boris to honour his pledge that he would never do it) and presumably as soon as the extension is granted by the EU the Opposition will allow Boris his general election as they've pledged?
Everyone's a winner Rodders. Everyone's a winner.
After three years' tortuous negotiations with HMG a letter suddenly arrives in Brussels with an Edinburgh postmark and the course of history is diverted.
A study by Yale and NYU Stern economists suggested that during that six-year period, the average annual return for offshore hedge funds was 13.6%, whereas the average annual gain for the S&P 500 was 16.5%
I'd have thought the fees were a bit steeper than the average tracker too...
Sure, but there are enough hedge funds that there will always be one that is [randomly] creating huge returns and so there is the hope that this hedge fund is different and will consistently beat the market.
It's the same statistical fallacy that had the US Department of Defence spend years investigating ESP.
So let me get this straight. These people want a Scottish court to sign a surrender letter to the EU on behalf of the UK Parliament.
Is this correct?
What a bunch.
No dipstick, they want the UK government to be law abiding. The Conservative Party that I was once a locally prominent member (if you excuse the expression), used to be the party of law and order before the entryists took over
Interesting choice of words from the judge in Northern Ireland.
"A legal challenge to Brexit that argued the Government's strategy will damage the Northern Ireland peace process has been dismissed as "inherently and unmistakably political"."
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
It reminds me of the Lib Dem talk in coalition about losing the oppositional lefty voters, and replacing them with middle ground centrists looking for good governance who would vote LD in their grateful droves.
8%
8 seats.
Anecdote alert - I spoke to a wealthy, liberal Remain voting Tory who lives in a marginal London seat that Labourt won last time. While he feels the Conservative party has deserted him, he would choose Brexit over Corbyn and so will vote Conservative to get the Labour MP out
No - the policy is to get Brexit done - and reap the upside in a GE.
After the GE , discipline has to return - hence why moaning remainer MPs have been ditched - they are irrelevant in current Parliament as they aren’t in the tent anyway - TINOs ...
That was a good strategy. Theresa May tried hard to implement it, starting from a much stronger position.
It was a strong position till Nick Timothy got hold of the manifesto.
He's like that paperclip in Microsoft Word who used to offer to 'help' you write a letter in Windows 98.
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
It reminds me of the Lib Dem talk in coalition about losing the oppositional lefty voters, and replacing them with middle ground centrists looking for good governance who would vote LD in their grateful droves.
8%
8 seats.
The LibDems' Catch 22 is that the seeds of their destruction are inevitably sown by their electoral success. If they ever do well enough to get into Government - which means some form of coalition - a big chunk of their coalition automatically abandons it in protest.
Any arrangement with Corbyn will mean goodbye to all the remainy Tory types and their newly won seats in the SW. A real conundrum. And, by the way, the AV referendum did for any change in the voting system for "a generation", so that escape route is closed.
I think the levels of support for Tories vs. TBP will be directly affected by the Brexit supporting media: Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Express. The Brexit supporting media cannot give overwelming support to the PM and Tories at the same time as they do to Farage and TBP. If they dilute their support by trying to back both they may strangle Brexit as Labour, LD or SNP come through the middle.
On Labour seats being targeted. I cannot see why traditionally Labour inclined voters would support the Tories, when Tories think the rich dont have enough money and should be given more money at the expense of the poor Labour voters!
Sadly there are still 26% of morons. Most of them support no-deal Brexit no doubt!
I believe they are indeed prejudiced and biased but also fair and impartial! Not sure what that makes me.
Prejudice and bias are fundamental human characteristics, they do not disappear because someone is a judge. Within that framework they are trying to be fair and impartial.
The Boris-Cummings 'strategy' is frankly completely bonkers. The strategy seems to be to start by alienating a large chunk of faithful Tory voters, some of whom like me had been voting Conservative for decades, on of the off-chance that they can be replaced by Leavers who have never voted Tory in their lives, who will want the most extreme from of Brexit, and who are attracted by silencing parliament and sacking of distinguished Cabinet ministers, all against a brain-dead self-imposed arbitrary deadline which is unrealistically soon and will be missed.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
It reminds me of the Lib Dem talk in coalition about losing the oppositional lefty voters, and replacing them with middle ground centrists looking for good governance who would vote LD in their grateful droves.
8%
8 seats.
Anecdote alert - I spoke to a wealthy, liberal Remain voting Tory who lives in a marginal London seat that Labourt won last time. While he feels the Conservative party has deserted him, he would choose Brexit over Corbyn and so will vote Conservative to get the Labour MP out
Anedote alert: I am a liberal, remain voting ex Tory activist, that lives in a not very marginal seat. I will be voting LD until the Conservative Party returns to being a broad church party of business and strong economics. Until then it offers not much advantage over Corbyn.
So let me get this straight. These people want a Scottish court to sign a surrender letter to the EU on behalf of the UK Parliament.
Is this correct?
What a bunch.
No dipstick, they want the UK government to be law abiding. The Conservative Party that I was once a locally prominent member (if you excuse the expression), used to be the party of law and order before the entryists took over
So let me get this straight. These people want a Scottish court to sign a surrender letter to the EU on behalf of the UK Parliament.
Is this correct?
What a bunch.
No dipstick, they want the UK government to be law abiding. The Conservative Party that I was once a locally prominent member (if you excuse the expression), used to be the party of law and order before the entryists took over
I shall leave aside your insult which I guarantee you would not say to my face.
I don’t care a hoot whether you are or are not a Conservative party member. Why on earth would I? And locally prominent? Whoo hoo for you.
The fact of the matter is that they are causing a loss of faith in our legal and parliamentary system by searching out loopholes to embarrass our nation. Parliamentarians are elected to run the nation. Not them. They are merely egotists who are using this to forward their own political agenda with no consequent loss to themselves.
I don’t even know why I am bothering answering you as you are obviously such an unpleasant and embittered being that nothing will get through your distorted thought process.
With respect to TSE, I think he's wrong on this for one simple reason: Labour is polling about 25%.
The Tories do not necessarily need to win over Labour leavers in any great number (though it's worth noting that Johnson's net rating with Lab leavers (2017GE/2016EURef) is about 30 points higher than Corbyn's is.
What Johnson does need is: - to keep Con losses to the Brexit Party to a minimum: certainly under 10%, ideally under 7%; and - to keep Labour from recovering above the mid-20s.
As long as Labour are down by 15%+ from 2017, it doesn't much matter if those voters have gone Green, Lib Dem, abstain or Con (though obviously Con is best for him): the losses will be so great that simple maths does the rest.
It all has worrying echoes of Miliband's 35% strategy in GE2015 to me, but in reverse.
I'm not going to reply to that on Twitter because smug 40-something men arguing with young women never goes down well (probably with good reason), but I don't think that's a particularly helpful thread for two reasons. First:
"Everyone does it" doesn't mean the site analytics data doesn't also provide useful political insight as well as usability research. Spoiler: it does.
"Everyone does it" doesn't mean the site analytics data can't be combined with other datasets to provide really, really useful political insight. Datasets that you might have to hand if, say, you're someone with a track record of Facebook-powered research.
It is, I guess, possible that Cummings and Johnson asked for GDS to turbocharge their analytics capability simply because they want to improve usability on gov.uk (wouldn't be hard), but personally I'm sceptical.
Right. Cadwalladr is clearly an "innocent abroad" in tech reporting. She has no idea what she's writing about. Someone clued-up could wipe the floor with her, if they were writing consistently about all this. Which. They. Aren't.
Kinnock and the rest of Labour MPs in Leave seats need to understand that Labour Leavers are less ardent about Leave than their Tory counterparts .
I don't think it's all about electoral calculation given Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) is in the group. Like Nick Boles they think the result simply must be implemented.
Comments
It could happen.
The Conservative voter analysis that mirrors the Labour one (above) that should worry number 10. Tribalism is alive and well:
https://medium.com/@psurridge/volatility-and-vote-switching-part-ii-conservative-2017-voters-f70d735e70cb
Given the concentration of the 2017 vote among strong leave identifiers a more potent threat to the Conservative vote is likely to come in the shape of the Brexit Party. In total over half of the ‘very strong leave’ group give their likelihood of voting for the Brexit Party as 6/10 or higher. Given this also represents almost half of the total 2017 Conservative vote it leaves open the possibility of up to a quarter of 2017 Conservative voters moving to the Brexit Party (polling immediately after the EU Parliament election detected this). Initial polling suggested the change of leadership in the Conservative party could be enough to stem this flow but the danger remains present should the government (be seen as) failing to deliver on its Brexit commitment.
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1172153941855014912?s=20
This goes, I think, for both Brexit before GE and after.
The LDs are the ones to gain whatever happens by being first to the post with a strong remainer strategy.
Firstly, they stay at home. I see this as unlikely as Labour in these traditional areas has a good GOTV game and the Tory turnout will also be somewhat depressed (didn't they vote Tory in 2017 to get this sorted by now?)
Secondly, they go for the Brexit Party. The trouble is, it is far from clear they draw more from Labour than the Tories, although they may be less associated with the right than were UKIP as a brand.
Finally, they could go Lib Dem. This is more plausible, but the Lib Dems won't be campaigning hard in the relevant seats and it's not really in the Tories' hands - they are very reliant on Labour running a poor squeeze and the Lib Dems being resilient - they are spectators in a way.
SI suggests 20 or so. Much more than that seems improbable. Labour's core vote is famously resilient.
I just don't see where the Conservatives find enough wins to offset their probable losses in Scotland and to the LDS, plus enough to give them a majority. They will need a very fair wind to achieve that.
Put the blues in a fix. Do they promise to re-trigger Article 50 or have Referendum 3: Refer With A Vengeance? Or do they not?
If they don't, it's spring time for Farage and BP. If they do, it'll piss off a lot of moderate/floating voters who want the matter settled regardless of how, and won't be enthused about voting to prolong/return to the dispute.
Amazing they started it off at 0.5/1.5 really, unless you're expecting the trifecta of Farage returning there, a complete Tory collapse/ Brexit collapse and a change in the voting system to something more favourable really no way you can buy - not even the true tail risk that selling BXP begets.
https://twitter.com/leonardocarella/status/1172154579196272643?s=20
There's a lot of merit in that approach - but I think the temptation to go for a GE straight after Boris has betrayed his "do or die by Oct 31st" pledge - the dumbest any politician has made since Nick Clegg on tuition fees - will prove irresistible.
Behold the octopus camouflage talents of Morris Dancer!
Thou shalt never know the true me!
Trouble is, intuitively, those seats look LEAST likely to be receptive to the newfound Lib Dem mojo. They are most likely to bear a grudge over "Tory enablers of the bedroom tax etc", least likely to be put off by the Corbyn antisemitism issue, and least likely to find Revoke and Remain appealing.
That's part of the reason why I don't think UNS will be a good guide, and will tend to work against the blues.
The Tories do not necessarily need to win over Labour leavers in any great number (though it's worth noting that Johnson's net rating with Lab leavers (2017GE/2016EURef) is about 30 points higher than Corbyn's is.
What Johnson does need is:
- to keep Con losses to the Brexit Party to a minimum: certainly under 10%, ideally under 7%; and
- to keep Labour from recovering above the mid-20s.
As long as Labour are down by 15%+ from 2017, it doesn't much matter if those voters have gone Green, Lib Dem, abstain or Con (though obviously Con is best for him): the losses will be so great that simple maths does the rest.
It's only preventing a No deal Brexit the majority of the House agrees on.
So the question is whether that's sufficiently uniform to make up for maybe 20-30 losses to the SNP and Lib Dems and more to achieve a majority to pursue a Brexit policy.
The risk for the Tories is that Labour are down by MORE in some of the shires where they briefly replaced the Lib Dems as the main opposition in 2015 and 2017. Will Labour lose that much sleep going from 25% to 5% in some of these places? It might even help nudge up Tory losses to the Lib Dems. Ditto, will they worry about going from 80% to 60% in real fortresses? Perhaps not. The issue is the fairly marginal but traditionally Labour northern towns - here I suspect the Lib Dems won't be stripping as many votes off Labour as in the shires, and this will help Labour hold up okay.
The article was bollocks.
Honestly if you cannot describe properly what a hedge fund does then do not even talk about it.
But the original tweet went viral
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1172145121820839936
"No Deal" was widely thought (including among PBers) to be the only alternative to a Deal at the first two meaningful votes, and that didn't work so well. Only on MV3, when a long extension was on the cards, did the deal get even remotely close to passing.
Maybe 2021 if we have to have a 3rd referendum if remain lose next summer.
Even in its own terms, this could only have (partially) worked before October 31st; after that Boris will either have missed his do-or-die deadline and therefore lose all the extreme Leavers for whom that is a religious requirement, or somehow managed to defy the law and failed to deliver the required Article 50 letter. How many more MPs and supporters will give up on him if he defies the law in that way? And even if he does defy the law, it is unlikely that parliament and the courts will simply let us crash out.
https://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/comment/2486789/#Comment_2486789
A study by Yale and NYU Stern economists suggested that during that six-year period, the average annual return for offshore hedge funds was 13.6%, whereas the average annual gain for the S&P 500 was 16.5%
I'd have thought the fees were a bit steeper than the average tracker too...
After the GE , discipline has to return - hence why moaning remainer MPs have been ditched - they are irrelevant in current Parliament as they aren’t in the tent anyway - TINOs ...
Sounds a real vote winner for remain parties.
The court can sign the letter (allowing Boris to honour his pledge that he would never do it) and presumably as soon as the extension is granted by the EU the Opposition will allow Boris his general election as they've pledged?
Everyone's a winner Rodders. Everyone's a winner.
8%
8 seats.
I think it is hard to call the DUP an opposition party.
Remember, Theresa also argued that she hadn't wanted to delay Brexit and had been forced into it by Parliament.
Is this correct?
What a bunch.
It's the same statistical fallacy that had the US Department of Defence spend years investigating ESP.
Yours is a woeful argument more suited to the United States.
"A legal challenge to Brexit that argued the Government's strategy will damage the Northern Ireland peace process has been dismissed as "inherently and unmistakably political"."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/12/belfast-court-dismisses-third-legal-challenge-brexit-unmistakably/
Any arrangement with Corbyn will mean goodbye to all the remainy Tory types and their newly won seats in the SW. A real conundrum. And, by the way, the AV referendum did for any change in the voting system for "a generation", so that escape route is closed.
I think the levels of support for Tories vs. TBP will be directly affected by the Brexit supporting media: Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Sun and Daily Express. The Brexit supporting media cannot give overwelming support to the PM and Tories at the same time as they do to Farage and TBP. If they dilute their support by trying to back both they may strangle Brexit as Labour, LD or SNP come through the middle.
On Labour seats being targeted. I cannot see why traditionally Labour inclined voters would support the Tories, when Tories think the rich dont have enough money and should be given more money at the expense of the poor Labour voters!
Prejudice and bias are fundamental human characteristics, they do not disappear because someone is a judge. Within that framework they are trying to be fair and impartial.
I don’t care a hoot whether you are or are not a Conservative party member. Why on earth would I? And locally prominent? Whoo hoo for you.
The fact of the matter is that they are causing a loss of faith in our legal and parliamentary system by searching out loopholes to embarrass our nation. Parliamentarians are elected to run the nation. Not them. They are merely egotists who are using this to forward their own political agenda with no consequent loss to themselves.
I don’t even know why I am bothering answering you as you are obviously such an unpleasant and embittered being that nothing will get through your distorted thought process.
Established parties are being rendered irrelevant by social change
Tim Bale"
https://unherd.com/2019/09/a-dire-warning-for-our-old-political-system/
https://twitter.com/SophieWarnes/status/1172119790208659456
Right. Everyone does it.
"Everyone does it" doesn't mean the site analytics data doesn't also provide useful political insight as well as usability research. Spoiler: it does.
"Everyone does it" doesn't mean the site analytics data can't be combined with other datasets to provide really, really useful political insight. Datasets that you might have to hand if, say, you're someone with a track record of Facebook-powered research.
It is, I guess, possible that Cummings and Johnson asked for GDS to turbocharge their analytics capability simply because they want to improve usability on gov.uk (wouldn't be hard), but personally I'm sceptical.
https://twitter.com/SophieWarnes/status/1172118687177990145
Right. Cadwalladr is clearly an "innocent abroad" in tech reporting. She has no idea what she's writing about. Someone clued-up could wipe the floor with her, if they were writing consistently about all this. Which. They. Aren't.