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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The pact that will make the Commons seat predictors a lot less
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The pact that will make the Commons seat predictors a lot less useful next time
A story that’s got hidden in all the Brexit news was this on SkyNews about Heidi Allen, the South Cambridgeshire ex-CON MP whoo this week joined the LDs.
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Corbyn will love that
Which seats do you envisage Plaid Cymru taking because of this deal?
The "Welsh" LibDems are the most anglocentric of the Welsh parties. Their voters are hardly likely to vote PC.
PC's target seats (e.g. Ynys Mon, Llanelli) are all Leave. And there are hardly any LibDems there.
PC long harboured hopes of breaking into Labour's seats in the Valleys. This pact is hardly going to help them do that.
My prediction is that PC will lose 2 seats (Ceredigion and Leave-voting Carmarthen East & Dinefwr) and Adam Price will be the first party leader to resign after the election..
This is a really ill thought-out pact from Plaid Cymru's perspective. The SNP would never stand aside for a Unionist party, and nor should Plaid Cymru.
There is no evidence that it had the slightest effect. Indeed, most Plaid voters (there are hardly any Greens in B&R) seem to have stayed at home. Labour voters switching to the Liberal Democrats was the killer punch.
That's not to say it couldn't work elsewhere, of course, but how many people really will pay attention to this? I'm guessing it will be a very few, in a very small number of constituencies.
Admittedly in a close election that might be important.
- Isle of Wight
- Bristol West
- Sheffield Central. Allows the Lib Dems to focus on Sheffield Hallam and benefits from the popularity of Magic Magid.
- Camborne & Redruth and the Plymouth seats. Again, allows the Lib Dems to focus on their targets in the SW and gives the Greens a chance of developing a local vote.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the Greens offered a London seat, too. Islington North would be amusing.If a pact, then Tories win most seats in the GE but with no majority and lead a minority government with Brexit Party (if they get seats) and DUP confidence and supply.
If no pact, then Labour win most seats but with no majority and lead a minority government with Lib Dems and SNP (and maybe Greens and PC) C&S
I think Oxford West & Abingdon at GE2017 is a more instructive comparison than Brecon & Radnorshire, tbh.
PC obviously don't stand in England anyway so in England we're effectively looking at the Greens not standing in approx 50 seats and the LDs not standing in maybe 10.
Green vote isn't big enough for its absence to make a difference in many seats.
Let's say 1/3 Plaid Cymru's vote is Leave, 2/3 Remain (realistic IMO).
Assume most PC Leavers don't vote because of this "Remainer Alliance".
Plaid Cymru will then end up with circa 12k in CE&D.
I think the Tory vote will be close to 12k in CE&D. The Labour vote in 2017 was already 12k, but I assume that will fall a bit.
https://twitter.com/johnrentoul/status/1181999819709173760?s=21
Will it be Swinson only in any leader debates to represent the Remain Alliance?
I agree it will be a tight marginal, very possibly a three way marginal, but I expect Plaid to hold.
What might damage them of course is that ongoing police investigation into
that certifiable lunaticer, the esteemed former Chief Executive Mark James. Having ducked the chance to get rid of him over previous legal issues, Plaid in Carmarthenshire definitely own the total car crash he has turned into. But how much impact that will have on Jonathan Edwards, who after all has been a longstanding and pretty trenchant critic of James, is difficult to judge.What will Labour leavers do? Modest switching to the Tories would be enough to see the Tories through.
Nonetheless, my point is that this pact seems to offer nothing for Plaid Cymru.
I can see no seat that PC are MORE likely to take because of it.
However, I can see seats where PC will lose vote share.
Yes, an interesting move brokered by Heidi and perhaps showing what a strong recruit she is to the LDs.
Back to today's musings and Johnson once again plays to his talent of saying what he thinks the audience in front of him (or behind him when he is at the Despatch Box) wants to hear.
He is thus able to bamboozle the One Nation group by telling them the Conservatives will never be the Party of a No Deal Brexit (no laughing in the cheap seats, please) while playing Mr Tough to the ERG brigade.
His fence sitting resembles Corbyn's though he is much more blatant about having one cheek on each side of the fence.
The crunch for the One Nation Tories will come when Boris flounces out of the EU Council without a Deal - will they rally to his patriotic side or show some cojones by disavowing him publicly and splitting?
I'm also disappointed the drama and theatre of Champions Day at Ascot is going to be upstaged by events at Westminster. I can well imagine Boris coming back breathless from Brussels excoriating the Europeans, wrapping himself in the Union Jack and claiming only he "speaks for Britain".
Hopefully, the opposition parties will let the silly windbag blow himself out and start challenging him on when he is writing the letter asking for an extension and does he need to borrow a pen to do so?
We have been told over and over that Labour voters are not vitally interested in the EU. I wonder if we're all missing a very obvious lesson from that - if Labour leave voters get disillusioned with Labour, it's the left wing they're going to turn to regardless of the official party line on Brexit.
Edit - yes, I fully agree with your main point and have said it myself before. The only realistic Plaid target is Ynys Mon and that's (a) Leave and (b) hasn't voted Liberal in many decades.
Much more common than us are people who see the Wagnum PI story, with its blend of celebrity, shade, internet detectivism, infinite retweetability and tabloid hoo-hah, as a proper top story.
Pick someone in the country at random and they are 20/1 a political nerd and maybe only 3/1 a messy bitch who loves drama.
Brexit has been a litany of stupidity, but that is probably the stupidest thing yet. And the most rapturously, myopically, thunderfuckingly irresponsible.
It makes little difference to the Boris v Corbyn battle as the LDs refuse to back either as PM
OGHatha Christie ....
My cape .... thank you ...
What will cowardly Corbyn do?
Had Remain actually legitimately won, rather than us remaining because politicians won’t let us leave despite leave winning, it surely would have been acceptable for UKIP to have a policy of leaving if they won a majority.
There’s plenty of evidence to show the voters don’t like being gamed. I suspect it’ll be far less significant than people think, even if it’s pulled off in all of those 70+ seats.
I think that being part of a Remain-Alliance could help Plaid win votes from Labour Remainers. Combined with the general fall in Labour support it gives Plaid a good chance of taking the seat.
What to say
So does ANYONE still think Bercow is a fit person for speaker?
In the unlikely event we win then revoke is marginally less insane than the No Deal we are being promised from the other side - economically anyway. It’s decisive but so’s the alternative at this point.
https://order-order.com/2019/10/09/islington-tories-call-mentally-ill-people-neutered/
This will be clearly stated in the manifesto so if people want to Revoke in sufficient numbers to provide a Parliamentary majority for the LDs that will be clear.
Where we are lacking clarity is in Labour and Conservative policies - Labour's is a complete mystery while Conservative policy is whatever Boris tells the audience listening to him at any given moment.
I'd consider the lack of a coherent policy from either of the two so-called "main" parties far more worrying.
If you hold a referendum to confirm a change you are in favour of - like say an Assembly for North-East England - then neither result creates a constitutional crisis. If you win, you implement the change you want to implement. If you lose then you don't do anything. Simple.
It was bonkers to create a situation where a referendum brought down the government.
Fortunately there are few policemen in rural Cumbria and those that exist are busy investigating thefts of scones from tea shops.
So I may get away with it.
But, sshhhhh, don't tell anyone.
That is going to lead to a truly sterile debate...
At the end of the day he allowed MPs to debate and vote on the key issue of our times .
MPs can vote how they like , Bercow hasn’t some super power to force them to vote a certain way .
Seems reasonable then that for the next extension there'll be a greater focus on "what is this extension actually going to change".
And compared to Michael Martin he was a colossus.
Leaving with No Deal will not allow us to retain under our current deal with the EU - any return would be for full on integration.
Even on a quarter of the vote Labour would still get around 200 seats and the SDP then were far bigger than the Green Party are today.
The country is still split pretty evenly on Brexit but far more remainers would still vote Lab or Con than would change their vote to this pact and very few leavers would now vote for the pact parties.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1182017714136719361
I think the reason why this argument fails is that Labour Remainers in Ynys Mon have a Labour Remainer MP in Albert Owen
Now admittedly Albert Owen is standing down, but unless his successor is very different in views, I don't see any real reason why a Labour Remainer should switch to Plaid Cymru.
https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1181985801103646720
https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1181986602232532994
- Albert Camus, 1952
https://twitter.com/SenatorRomney/status/1182015168466882560
My money would be on SuperMac increasing the Tory majority.
Read his autobiography, read the contemporary interviews at the time.
One of Cameron's fears was if a party won a majority on circa 35% of the vote with a manifesto pledge to Leave the EU, at least with a referendum you have to get a majority of votes not a plurality.
As an aside Coleen Rooney isn't very good detective in the past, she failed to realise her husband was repeatedly cheating on her, usually with prostitutes.
Is there any evidence she's improved her detective skills?
I heard it was true that he didnt prepare at all from a civil servant I know. Cameron used to just laugh when people warned him Leave were going to win, so they said.