I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
You may be right, but for Labour to win outright there would need to be an enormous shift in popular opinion.
To get to 350 seats, Labour would need to make 147 gains. Labour target number 147 is Telford, with a Con Maj of almost 11,000, and 25 of the seats that are available on lower swings than that are held by the SNP.
If Labour can't make any gains from the SNP then Telford becomes the target to reach 325; 350 seats comes with Elmet and Rothwell, held with a Con Maj of over 17,000 and substantially safer than a number of other targets (e.g. Basingstoke, Labour target no.148) which didn't fall to the party even in 1997. For every seat that's more vulnerable to Labour that the Tories manage to hold, they need to take something even safer further down their target list to get to a majority on their own, as well as managing not to lose any of their own marginals of course.
Even this far out from the next election, it seems likely that Labour is going to need, at a minimum, the backing of the SNP bloc to win a vote of confidence in the HoC. Unless Scotland has had another independence vote and departed by 2024, in which case things get a bit easier for Labour. To win a bare majority, Starmer then "only" needs to hold everything he's got and capture every target up to and including Stevenage - though even that would require a swing to Labour marginally in excess of that achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
Quite apart from not wanting to deal with the problem himself, that's actually another good reason (from the point of view of party political advantage at least) for Johnson to ignore any future demands for another Scottish independence referendum. Given current circumstances, keeping Scotland onboard makes life a lot more complicated for Labour: the Tories can obviously reach a Commons majority without it, Labour almost certainly can't, with all the attendant complications for Starmer's relationship with many English voters.
Is there any serious alternative to this set of assumptions?
1) Labour cannot win in England. 2) They can only hope for a majority with the support of SNP, which must involve a 2nd ref which the SNP will probably win. 3) Following which there are no Scottish seats at Westminster, and we return to the position where Labour cannot win in England and there is nowhere else for Labour to turn to for help.
As an English man my biggest concern about Scottish independence is that it leads to a decade of Tory rule south of the border. In time I would expect a realignment into a new competitive multiparty system, but in the short term it will be horrible.
I think it unfair to blame those in the lifeboat as the ship slowly sinks, but do feel a bit of envy.
The problem with juries and fraud trials is that the cases are exceedingly long.
We've seen in the past that randomly selecting 12 people for a 3 year trial destroyed their lives so that can't be done again. So how else do you keep juries in complex cases...
It's hard to credit that there are crimes so complex that they cannot be explained, and defended, in far less time. Is there anything so complex it takes three years to explain?
Oh, I don't doubt it is exceedingly complex and so long for a reason, but it is still hard to see.
I am very keen not to lose money betting on the Presidential election again. Especially after I had done so welling backing trump to win the nomination in 2016.
I want to hear solid reasons as to why Trump can win beyond "the polls are wrong" without any evidence as to why the polls are wrong.
Every incidence of left wingers doing something in America is immediatly greeted with the notion that it playing I to his hands, every poll showing that actually the action is popular with the American public is dismissed.
But the polls weren't really wrong in 2016, they got the voteshares pretty much spot on didn't they, nationally?
Biden is so much further ahead, they'd have to do worse than 2016 (where they were mostly right as I said) and be so wrong as to probably be useless in future. Can't see it myself.
I think we're all in a state of "well it happened last time, it will surely happen again". Putting my objective (as much as possible) hat on, Trump simply does not have the advantages he had last time.
I would not be surprised to see crossover sooner rather than later.
It is clear most people are still very worried by covid and nearly half the country have been financially protected by employment in the public sector or furloughed
Boris has paid a big price for Cummings and his brand has taken a hit
Whether this matters is not clear and the focus over the next few months will be on the economy, help for those suffering, and if covid can be contained
Also Boris will be in place at the end of the year and responsible for the deal or no deal outcome of brexit
The next election is 4 years away and many variable factors will determine just how that election pans out but I am far less worried now Corbyn is history
How might a Biden presidency affect Johnson administration (where have I heard THAT before?) My sense is that election of Bill Clinton was not fatal to John Major, but it didn't do him any favors AND it gave Tony Blair an obvious role model.
Keir Stumer sorta comes across like a Joe Biden with youthful vigor - somewhat like Joe himself back when he was borking Bork. Granted without Biden's working-class cred, but also without a propensity for foot-in-mouth disease.
A Biden presidency would largely ignore Boris and the UK and focus on rebuilding ties and a trade deal with Macron, Merkel and the EU. It would also be very pro Republic of Ireland and insist on a full border in the Irish Sea as per the Withdrawal Agreement and no border at all in Ireland for UK US trade talks to even start.
If Boris wants a UK US trade deal to still be a US priority he needs Trump to be re elected
The problem with juries and fraud trials is that the cases are exceedingly long.
We've seen in the past that randomly selecting 12 people for a 3 year trial destroyed their lives so that can't be done again. So how else do you keep juries in complex cases...
Professional jurors. Also they would have more expertise and experience.
I am very keen not to lose money betting on the Presidential election again. Especially after I had done so welling backing trump to win the nomination in 2016.
I want to hear solid reasons as to why Trump can win beyond "the polls are wrong" without any evidence as to why the polls are wrong.
Every incidence of left wingers doing something in America is immediatly greeted with the notion that it playing I to his hands, every poll showing that actually the action is popular with the American public is dismissed.
But the polls weren't really wrong in 2016, they got the voteshares pretty much spot on didn't they, nationally?
Biden is so much further ahead, they'd have to do worse than 2016 (where they were mostly right as I said) and be so wrong as to probably be useless in future. Can't see it myself.
I think we're all in a state of "well it happened last time, it will surely happen again". Putting my objective (as much as possible) hat on, Trump simply does not have the advantages he had last time.
The national polling was fine but the rust belt polling left something to be desired.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
The sad thing is that people are so hell bent on advertising how much they disagree with people like Trump and Farage, that when left wing, Marxist revolutionary extremists dupe people into parroting their lines behind the facade of a catch all phrase, people would rather stay duped than have to be seen agreeing with Emanuel Goldstein
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
You may be right, but for Labour to win outright there would need to be an enormous shift in popular opinion.
To get to 350 seats, Labour would need to make 147 gains. Labour target number 147 is Telford, with a Con Maj of almost 11,000, and 25 of the seats that are available on lower swings than that are held by the SNP.
If Labour can't make any gains from the SNP then Telford becomes the target to reach 325; 350 seats comes with Elmet and Rothwell, held with a Con Maj of over 17,000 and substantially safer than a number of other targets (e.g. Basingstoke, Labour target no.148) which didn't fall to the party even in 1997. For every seat that's more vulnerable to Labour that the Tories manage to hold, they need to take something even safer further down their target list to get to a majority on their own, as well as managing not to lose any of their own marginals of course.
Even this far out from the next election, it seems likely that Labour is going to need, at a minimum, the backing of the SNP bloc to win a vote of confidence in the HoC. Unless Scotland has had another independence vote and departed by 2024, in which case things get a bit easier for Labour. To win a bare majority, Starmer then "only" needs to hold everything he's got and capture every target up to and including Stevenage - though even that would require a swing to Labour marginally in excess of that achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
Quite apart from not wanting to deal with the problem himself, that's actually another good reason (from the point of view of party political advantage at least) for Johnson to ignore any future demands for another Scottish independence referendum. Given current circumstances, keeping Scotland onboard makes life a lot more complicated for Labour: the Tories can obviously reach a Commons majority without it, Labour almost certainly can't, with all the attendant complications for Starmer's relationship with many English voters.
Is there any serious alternative to this set of assumptions?
1) Labour cannot win in England. 2) They can only hope for a majority with the support of SNP, which must involve a 2nd ref which the SNP will probably win. 3) Following which there are no Scottish seats at Westminster, and we return to the position where Labour cannot win in England and there is nowhere else for Labour to turn to for help.
As an English man my biggest concern about Scottish independence is that it leads to a decade of Tory rule south of the border. In time I would expect a realignment into a new competitive multiparty system, but in the short term it will be horrible.
I think it unfair to blame those in the lifeboat as the ship slowly sinks, but do feel a bit of envy.
Without Scotland Home would have beaten Wilson in 1964 and Heath would have beaten Wilson in February 1974 and Cameron would have won a majority in 2010 as would May in 2017.
Only Blair would have still won his 3 majorities in 1997, 2001 and 2005 in England alone. So to ever take power for any significant period again without Scotland, Labour would have to return to being New Labour effectively
And north of the border, the demise of the Ruth Davidson Party is almost complete: SLab are within MoE (2 points) of retaking second place from the SCons:
Interesting point this. If Starmer can somehow become the pro-Union voice he'll probably pickup a lot more votes in Scotland.
Starmer needs to win over Scottish Remainers who voted No in 2014 and are now voting SNP.
Hardline Scottish nationalists who voted Yes in 2014 will stay voting SNP regardless and Scottish Leavers who voted No in 2014 will stay voting Tory regardless
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
The problems start when they table a motion for a Scottish independence referendum and it gets voted down by a unionist majority and the SNP stop playing nicely.
There may be an anti-tory majority in the next parliament, but it doesn't mean the resulting parties in the majority will be able to pay nicely for more than about 5 minutes. The agendas of the parties would be incompatible.
And that's not all. A Tory majority in England can use the EVEL mechanisms to frustrate a large portion of Labour's legislative agenda. Labour would only be able to get around that problem by using SNP votes to repeal those mechanisms.
The optics of having a UK Government that functions for about 80% of the time nowadays as the Government of England being propped up by Scottish separatist votes are bad enough. Dismantling the only mechanism that exists to correct some of that imbalance would make the situation even worse.
But then there's what happens if Labour and the SNP between them can command a majority *and* the Labour MPs are all successfully whipped to authorise a second independence referendum. We could very easily end up with a situation where the above applies and, on top of that, the Labour Government in London continues to be sustained in office by the SNP whilst simultaneously negotiating the terms of the dissolution of the state with... the SNP. "Pantomime" doesn't even begin to cover it.
I've said before that the Cummings episode ran very deep. People still make jokes about it, and now there are jokes about PM Johnson. And they're not sympathetic jokes, either.
The whole Cummings situation - not just the Durham incident - is a structural disadvantage for the government. We keep hearing how he is the de facto PM. But nobody voted for him. In our political system, if you want that kind of political power you should stand for office. People don't like it.
Or be so brilliant that people will stretch a point.
Cummings thinks he meets this criteria, of course.
It would matter less if he was correct.
What about Alastair Campbell. He ruled by fear.
You're right, Campbell could be really scary, and he had that in common with Cummings. But otherwise their roles are completely different.
Campbell was about communication, spin, the message, and party discipline. He had no real input on policy, other than to give advice about whether things would land well with the public. Blair, Brown and others in a strong cabinet determined policy.
By contrast, it looks as if Cummings is the creative force behind much of the policy thinking behind this government, and most of the Cabinet are just ciphers for his creativity. He is not just a SPAD; he is the brains behind much of the government's agenda.
So a hugely different role from Campbell, and a much more risky one for an unelected adviser.
Sorry, on reflection I should be more succinct.
Campbell was Blair's servant. Cummings is Johnson's master.
Campbell knew where all the bodies were buried. if you don't think he used his power to face down MP's and the press , you need a reality check.
I would not be surprised to see crossover sooner rather than later.
It is clear most people are still very worried by covid and nearly half the country have been financially protected by employment in the public sector or furloughed
Boris has paid a big price for Cummings and his brand has taken a hit
Whether this matters is not clear and the focus over the next few months will be on the economy, help for those suffering, and if covid can be contained
Also Boris will be in place at the end of the year and responsible for the deal or no deal outcome of brexit
The next election is 4 years away and many variable factors will determine just how that election pans out but I am far less worried now Corbyn is history
How might a Biden presidency affect Johnson administration (where have I heard THAT before?) My sense is that election of Bill Clinton was not fatal to John Major, but it didn't do him any favors AND it gave Tony Blair an obvious role model.
Keir Stumer sorta comes across like a Joe Biden with youthful vigor - somewhat like Joe himself back when he was borking Bork. Granted without Biden's working-class cred, but also without a propensity for foot-in-mouth disease.
“...without Biden's working-class cred...”
Huh?
A quick glance at Keith Starmer’s early life clearly indicates that he is most certainly “working class” (which was still a thing in England in the 1960s).
He was obviously very bright, and worked his way towards a good career.
Having cred with the working class has little to do with whether said person is or was working class themselves. People would laugh if Boris claimed to speak for the working class but the working class voters wouldnt. And Corbyn was a middle class guy whod spent his career at impotent protests but people thought he was the greatest labour leader ever.
So I think Starmers upbringing is entirely irrelevant to his appeal and cred. He'll do better with the working class because of time, that he's normal and competent.
To shoot your final point down in flames, can I introduce Boris Johnson? Neither normal, nor competent but loved by the working classes.
Is he "loved by the working classes"?
I am not convinced. More seen as a way to further Brexity wet dreams by a certain subsection. In the end they will tar and feather him for betrayal.
What difference does it make? What does being loved by them even mean? They voted for him in huge numbers, and obviously voters turn away in the end no matter who you are so whether we use the word love or not hardly matters. They trusted him sufficiently to win. That doesn't change if some day they change they mind.
I would see love as a term that means an enduring commitment. It looks more like a one night stand to me.
Foredeck tugging obsequience to the public school boys is still a thing in the English working classes., however much I find it incomprehensible.
I see I’m not the only one whose autocorrect is causing issues!
The sad thing is that people are so hell bent on advertising how much they disagree with people like Trump and Farage, that when left wing, Marxist revolutionary extremists dupe people into parroting their lines behind the facade of a catch all phrase, people would rather stay duped than have to be seen agreeing with Emanuel Goldstein
I'd only give him 5.5/10 for delivery, he misses a few key moments the speechwriter clearly intended by placing emphasis on the wrong words. But frankly given that we hear he is now a rambling incoherent wreck, I'd have expected to give him 1/10, for showing up. This isn't trainwreck by any means.
After 10 years in opposition it would be normal for Labour to start to see poll leads by now. Labour certainly had a few in 1989 for example as did the Tories in 2007.
However while the polls are much closer now under Starmer than they were under Corbyn last year as Remainers who disliked Corbyn and voted LD in 2019 have gone back to Labour, the Tory vote remains virtually unchanged from the last general election.
Unless Tory voters start to move to Labour or the LDs then the Tories will remain ahead. Perhaps the likeliest way that would occur is if we go to WTO terms Brexit and some Tory Remainers switch to the opposition parties (though of course if Boris extended the transition period then some Tory Leavers could move back to the Brexit Party which might also put Labour ahead with no increase in its voteshare)
Have you any idea how the forthcoming economic crash will impact on incumbent governments? I am not sure you will like what you see.
It will not change the cultural shift in votes post Brexit.
Plus Sunak's furlough scheme has reduced the economic impact of Covid and the Tories under Boris will still run on a big spend, low tax, populist agenda
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
To get a majority of one Starmer needs to make a net gain of 124 seats.
To put that in context, only one party has gained that many seats at a single election since the Second World War - Tony Blair in 1997, who gained 145.
It has only happened twice more in the age of universal suffrage - in 1931, when the Conservatives gained 210 seats, and 1945 (during the war but very near the end of it) when Labour gained 239 seats.
That is not to say it is impossible. This government is already a shambles and the shit has yet to really hit the fan. Starmer, meanwhile, is exuding calm competence, moderation and dignity.
It is however going to be bloody difficult and Starmer would be wise not to raise any expectations he will struggle to meet.
Well it's 3.25 on Betfair. In English that is "deemed quite likely" - which is how I would put it if I hadn't looked up the odds first. I'm not backing it right now, tbf, but neither am I laying it.
Cameron managed 108 seats (96 on notional boundaries) when his opponent polled just 29%.
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
To get a majority of one Starmer needs to make a net gain of 124 seats.
To put that in context, only one party has gained that many seats at a single election since the Second World War - Tony Blair in 1997, who gained 145.
It has only happened twice more in the age of universal suffrage - in 1931, when the Conservatives gained 210 seats, and 1945 (during the war but very near the end of it) when Labour gained 239 seats.
That is not to say it is impossible. This government is already a shambles and the shit has yet to really hit the fan. Starmer, meanwhile, is exuding calm competence, moderation and dignity.
It is however going to be bloody difficult and Starmer would be wise not to raise any expectations he will struggle to meet.
Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever.
It will happen. The polls are all over the place these days. The Tories were finished just over a year ago, and almost came last in the European Parliament elections, and then they near enough won a landslide.
The old rules don't apply anymore. You have to look for the zeitgeist.
And when it rains, it will pour.
I think you are right. People saying Labour can't win a majority because it is too big a hill to climb is nonsense.
I'm not even saying it's likely but saying it's nigh unto impossible based upon past precedent is straw clutching. We live in far more volatile times. If the economy is bumping along on the floor due to a combination of he pandemic and Brexit I could very easily see all of Johnson's new best friends in the red wall deserting him in a nano second.
On topic, I now expect Labour to form the next government.
I feel it in my bones: Boris is incompetent and will take the Tory brand down with him, whilst Starmer knows what he's doing.
This article shows poll-leads mean jack. They can be massive, and then evaporate in weeks - and the reverse can happen too.
But, I expect clear Labour leads in 2021 once Brexit has taken its final form, the economy continues to struggle to recover and the Government struggles to deliver its "levelling up" projects.
Sounds about right to me, Casino. And while a 1997 style defeat is unlikely, it is far from impossible.
And north of the border, the demise of the Ruth Davidson Party is almost complete: SLab are within MoE (2 points) of retaking second place from the SCons:
Interesting point this. If Starmer can somehow become the pro-Union voice he'll probably pickup a lot more votes in Scotland.
Starmer needs to win over Scottish Remainers who voted No in 2014 and are now voting SNP.
Hardline Scottish nationalists who voted Yes in 2014 will stay voting SNP regardless and Scottish Leavers who voted No in 2014 will stay voting Tory regardless
While the Scottish LDs target the Scottish Remainers who voted No in 2014 and are now voting Tory.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
And north of the border, the demise of the Ruth Davidson Party is almost complete: SLab are within MoE (2 points) of retaking second place from the SCons:
Interesting point this. If Starmer can somehow become the pro-Union voice he'll probably pickup a lot more votes in Scotland.
He has already peed off 40%+ of remaining Labour voters who want an independence referendum , so seems highly unlikely. Also a toffee nosed millionaire Londoner peer of the realm is unlikely to inspire many, not many redeeming features from a Scottish viewpoint. Just another London arsehole dictating that we cannot make up our own minds and he will tell us what to do.
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
You may be right, but for Labour to win outright there would need to be an enormous shift in popular opinion.
To get to 350 seats, Labour would need to make 147 gains. Labour target number 147 is Telford, with a Con Maj of almost 11,000, and 25 of the seats that are available on lower swings than that are held by the SNP.
If Labour can't make any gains from the SNP then Telford becomes the target to reach 325; 350 seats comes with Elmet and Rothwell, held with a Con Maj of over 17,000 and substantially safer than a number of other targets (e.g. Basingstoke, Labour target no.148) which didn't fall to the party even in 1997. For every seat that's more vulnerable to Labour that the Tories manage to hold, they need to take something even safer further down their target list to get to a majority on their own, as well as managing not to lose any of their own marginals of course.
Even this far out from the next election, it seems likely that Labour is going to need, at a minimum, the backing of the SNP bloc to win a vote of confidence in the HoC. Unless Scotland has had another independence vote and departed by 2024, in which case things get a bit easier for Labour. To win a bare majority, Starmer then "only" needs to hold everything he's got and capture every target up to and including Stevenage - though even that would require a swing to Labour marginally in excess of that achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
Quite apart from not wanting to deal with the problem himself, that's actually another good reason (from the point of view of party political advantage at least) for Johnson to ignore any future demands for another Scottish independence referendum. Given current circumstances, keeping Scotland onboard makes life a lot more complicated for Labour: the Tories can obviously reach a Commons majority without it, Labour almost certainly can't, with all the attendant complications for Starmer's relationship with many English voters.
Is there any serious alternative to this set of assumptions?
1) Labour cannot win in England. 2) They can only hope for a majority with the support of SNP, which must involve a 2nd ref which the SNP will probably win. 3) Following which there are no Scottish seats at Westminster, and we return to the position where Labour cannot win in England and there is nowhere else for Labour to turn to for help.
As an English man my biggest concern about Scottish independence is that it leads to a decade of Tory rule south of the border. In time I would expect a realignment into a new competitive multiparty system, but in the short term it will be horrible.
I think it unfair to blame those in the lifeboat as the ship slowly sinks, but do feel a bit of envy.
Without Scotland Home would have beaten Wilson in 1964 and Heath would have beaten Wilson in February 1974 and Cameron would have won a majority in 2010 as would May in 2017.
Only Blair would have still won his 3 majorities in 1997, 2001 and 2005 in England alone. So to ever take power for any significant period again without Scotland, Labour would have to return to being New Labour effectively
Unless STV was brought in prior to Scottish Independence (my preferred outcome), that is pretty much what I would expect from English Labour, a return to centre left. Indeed, that seems to be happening already. I remain LD though, as I think Labour too statist in its solutions. I am an Orange Booker at heart.
On topic, I now expect Labour to form the next government.
I feel it in my bones: Boris is incompetent and will take the Tory brand down with him, whilst Starmer knows what he's doing.
This article shows poll-leads mean jack. They can be massive, and then evaporate in weeks - and the reverse can happen too.
But, I expect clear Labour leads in 2021 once Brexit has taken its final form, the economy continues to struggle to recover and the Government struggles to deliver its "levelling up" projects.
Sounds about right to me, Casino. And while a 1997 style defeat is unlikely, it is far from impossible.
It is, a 1997 style defeat would require Labour to gain 200 Tory seats or more and a swing of 16%.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
Yes, but Biden appears to be adding votes where it matters, in the MidWest and the Sunbelt. His vote appears to be more efficient than Clintons.
A long way to go still, and a Trump revival is possible. I think too there is little value in current odds, so don't have much staked yet. Last time I won well by betting on Trump on the Midwest state betting.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
Losing Scotland makes a Starmer premiership much less likely, as he needs a huge swing to get even a majority of 1 in England and Wales.
Far more effective would be for Labour to regain some Scottish seats from the SNP making a Labour and LD combined majority more likely without the need for the SNP
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revoly against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
Of course they are linked, the white working class non graduate vote from ex industrial towns in particular was the key vote for Brexit and indeed the swing vote to Boris in 2019 as it was for Trump in 2016 based on concerns about sovereignty, globalisation and immigration.
The Romney vote was closer to the May or Cameron vote ie much more upper middle class than the working class vote which voted for Boris and Trump.
Plus of course Trump got more votes in 2016 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Florida and Ohio than Romney did in 2012
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
F1 - Red Bull’s protest against the Mercedes’ fancy new steering system was unsuccessful overnight, fill yer boots on the silver black cars to do well this weekend.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
Yes, but Biden appears to be adding votes where it matters, in the MidWest and the Sunbelt. His vote appears to be more efficient than Clintons.
A long way to go still, and a Trump revival is possible. I think too there is little value in current odds, so don't have much staked yet. Last time I won well by betting on Trump on the Midwest state betting.
I hope you are right, and as you say, the signs are there. Surely the Dems could run such a bad campaign as last time!
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
To get a majority of one Starmer needs to make a net gain of 124 seats.
To put that in context, only one party has gained that many seats at a single election since the Second World War - Tony Blair in 1997, who gained 145.
It has only happened twice more in the age of universal suffrage - in 1931, when the Conservatives gained 210 seats, and 1945 (during the war but very near the end of it) when Labour gained 239 seats.
That is not to say it is impossible. This government is already a shambles and the shit has yet to really hit the fan. Starmer, meanwhile, is exuding calm competence, moderation and dignity.
It is however going to be bloody difficult and Starmer would be wise not to raise any expectations he will struggle to meet.
Well it's 3.25 on Betfair. In English that is "deemed quite likely" - which is how I would put it if I hadn't looked up the odds first. I'm not backing it right now, tbf, but neither am I laying it.
Cameron managed 108 seats (96 on notional boundaries) when his opponent polled just 29%.
I’m sticking with ‘bloody difficult.’
Yes but that's more than enough seats to actually stop the Tories. But then I think a majority is impossible.
On topic, I now expect Labour to form the next government.
I feel it in my bones: Boris is incompetent and will take the Tory brand down with him, whilst Starmer knows what he's doing.
This article shows poll-leads mean jack. They can be massive, and then evaporate in weeks - and the reverse can happen too.
But, I expect clear Labour leads in 2021 once Brexit has taken its final form, the economy continues to struggle to recover and the Government struggles to deliver its "levelling up" projects.
Sounds about right to me, Casino. And while a 1997 style defeat is unlikely, it is far from impossible.
It is, a 1997 style defeat would require Labour to gain 200 Tory seats or more and a swing of 16%.
It's not technically impossible, but while ruling it out completely would be wrong, I think people are estimating its chances as far higher than they are and getting a bit excited with Keir's decent start. But some form of cobbled together Labour government is a far higher chance, though I'd personally still put it as less likely than a Toryone.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
I wonder if the October surprise will be a Trump-branded vaccine offered free to all Americans?
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
You may be right, but for Labour to win outright there would need to be an enormous shift in popular opinion.
To get to 350 seats, Labour would need to make 147 gains. Labour target number 147 is Telford, with a Con Maj of almost 11,000, and 25 of the seats that are available on lower swings than that are held by the SNP.
If Labour can't make any gains from the SNP then Telford becomes the target to reach 325; 350 seats comes with Elmet and Rothwell, held with a Con Maj of over 17,000 and substantially safer than a number of other targets (e.g. Basingstoke, Labour target no.148) which didn't fall to the party even in 1997. For every seat that's more vulnerable to Labour that the Tories manage to hold, they need to take something even safer further down their target list to get to a majority on their own, as well as managing not to lose any of their own marginals of course.
Even this far out from the next election, it seems likely that Labour is going to need, at a minimum, the backing of the SNP bloc to win a vote of confidence in the HoC. Unless Scotland has had another independence vote and departed by 2024, in which case things get a bit easier for Labour. To win a bare majority, Starmer then "only" needs to hold everything he's got and capture every target up to and including Stevenage - though even that would require a swing to Labour marginally in excess of that achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
Quite apart from not wanting to deal with the problem himself, that's actually another good reason (from the point of view of party political advantage at least) for Johnson to ignore any future demands for another Scottish independence referendum. Given current circumstances, keeping Scotland onboard makes life a lot more complicated for Labour: the Tories can obviously reach a Commons majority without it, Labour almost certainly can't, with all the attendant complications for Starmer's relationship with many English voters.
Is there any serious alternative to this set of assumptions?
1) Labour cannot win in England. 2) They can only hope for a majority with the support of SNP, which must involve a 2nd ref which the SNP will probably win. 3) Following which there are no Scottish seats at Westminster, and we return to the position where Labour cannot win in England and there is nowhere else for Labour to turn to for help.
As an English man my biggest concern about Scottish independence is that it leads to a decade of Tory rule south of the border. In time I would expect a realignment into a new competitive multiparty system, but in the short term it will be horrible.
I think it unfair to blame those in the lifeboat as the ship slowly sinks, but do feel a bit of envy.
There is a principle in geology called isostatic readjustment. Basically when a large ice sheet sat over northern Britain, it pushed down the crust beneath it and caused southern Britain to rise up. When the ice retreated the whole island, in fact much of northern Europe, pivoted so that the north began to rise again and the south began to sink. It is still happening now. Eventually it will reach a point of equilibrium.
I believe the same effect will occur when Scotland gains independence. Initially the Tories will have an obvious majority in England and Wales. But there will be a readjustment and the balance between left and right will return to pretty much what we have seen since WW2. I am not sure it will need (nor would it be desirable to have) the sort of multiparty system you envisage. The readjustment in the south will happen of its own accord and quite quickly.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
I wonder if the October surprise will be a Trump-branded vaccine offered free to all Americans?
They have bought a lot of the Astra capacity but I doubt it will deliver 300m doses for America by October. I think the UK is first in line, unsurprisingly given it is a UK vaccine and a UK company doing the manufacturing.
£253 million contract for PPE awarded without competitive tendering to a currency trader operating out of a Mauritius tax haven. Apparently brokered by a crony of Liz Truss. We only know about this because of an EU record keeping requirement that presumably doesn't apply after next year.
We're not talking sleaze with this government. This is Russian oligarch levels of corruption.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
Yes, with four months ago it’s not to difficult to look back and see how much things have changed in the last four months!
I think the value bet at the moment might be Republicans as winning party, currently 2.72 on Betfair. Based on “Projected EC votes”.
£253 million contract for PPE awarded without competitive tendering to a currency trader operating out of a Mauritius tax haven. Apparently brokered by a crony of Liz Truss. We only know about this because of an EU record keeping requirement that presumably doesn't apply after next year.
We're not talking sleaze with this government. This is Russian oligarch levels of corruption.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
As I understand current polling Trump still leads on economy questions. And from focus groups 2016 Trump voters will defend his record on basically every issue bar race relations. I _think_ the economy doing well is already baked into Trump's numbers.
I was considering a bet on Trump in Florida but I have backed off that position after seeing the white power video. Whilst pure anecdote the fact that it happened in The Villages was like, wow, big suprise.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
I cannot see a V shaped recovery in any major economy. The Covid crisis has merely been the final straw, and combined with the worldwide trend to Autarky, and will cause some economic tectonic plates to shift. I would expect high unemployment for some years. America will recover first, as usual, but not before November.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
If Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin but still won the state, then Clinton really didn't energise the Dem vote there. Elections are not only won by voting for; they're lost by former supporters not being arsed to go out and vote. In fact, looking at Wisconsin Trump's and Romney's votes were very similar; however Clinton got around 145,00 FEWER votes than Obama did 4 years earlier.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
I wonder if the October surprise will be a Trump-branded vaccine offered free to all Americans?
It’s certainly possible that something like a national vaccine bill gets presented, leaving the House Dems to either agree with funding it or vote it down - that’s a definite win-win for the Republicans.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
If Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin but still won the state, then Clinton really didn't energise the Dem vote there. Elections are not only won by voting for; they're lost by former supporters not being arsed to go out and vote. In fact, looking at Wisconsin Trump's and Romney's votes were very similar; however Clinton got around 145,00 FEWER votes than Obama did 4 years earlier.
Indeed, Trump was the first Republican to win Wisconsin since Reagan
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
If Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin but still won the state, then Clinton really didn't energise the Dem vote there. Elections are not only won by voting for; they're lost by former supporters not being arsed to go out and vote. In fact, looking at Wisconsin Trump's and Romney's votes were very similar; however Clinton got around 145,00 FEWER votes than Obama did 4 years earlier.
It's a pattern repeated across the rust belt. Trump barely moves the he GOP vote share from Romney but Clinton absolutely craters the Dem vote.
She was a once in a generation terrible candidate. Her awful campaign strategy fooled me. I thought she was campaigning in the rust belt because they were beyond solid, in reality it was because she was a fucking moron.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
If Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin but still won the state, then Clinton really didn't energise the Dem vote there. Elections are not only won by voting for; they're lost by former supporters not being arsed to go out and vote. In fact, looking at Wisconsin Trump's and Romney's votes were very similar; however Clinton got around 145,00 FEWER votes than Obama did 4 years earlier.
It's a pattern repeated across the rust belt. Trump barely moves the he GOP vote share from Romney but Clinton absolutely craters the Dem vote.
She was a once in a generation terrible candidate. Her awful campaign strategy fooled me. I thought she was campaigning in the rust belt because they were beyond solid, in reality it was because she was a fucking moron.
Trump got more votes than Romney in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
As I understand current polling Trump still leads on economy questions. And from focus groups 2016 Trump voters will defend his record on basically every issue bar race relations. I _think_ the economy doing well is already baked into Trump's numbers.
I was considering a bet on Trump in Florida but I have backed off that position after seeing the white power video. Whilst pure anecdote the fact that it happened in The Villages was like, wow, big suprise.
I agree with that, my point isn't about people switching over to Trump, it's that so much of Biden's support base is drawn from anti-Trump voters and that will vary from 1/10 hate Trump to 11/10 hate Trump. It isn't about Trump's own voters turning out, it's about what proportion of the anti-Trump coalition turns out on the day, at the moment Biden has captured almost all of them because of the race stuff, the virus and the resulting economic hit. By election day the 1/10-3/10 anti-Trump voters will probably care a lot less and if the economy turns then it could go all the way up to 6/10 anti-Trump voters sitting on their hands on election day.
This cohort is going to disproportionately white, suburban and middle class and that is the swing cohort in a lot of the states that Trump won by small margins last time around.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
£253 million contract for PPE awarded without competitive tendering to a currency trader operating out of a Mauritius tax haven. Apparently brokered by a crony of Liz Truss. We only know about this because of an EU record keeping requirement that presumably doesn't apply after next year.
We're not talking sleaze with this government. This is Russian oligarch levels of corruption.
There wasn't time for a competitive tender, or have they already forgot about the clamour for PPE a few months ago?
Damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Remember all the companies screaming at the press only a few months ago, about why government weren’t buying their PPE - when most of them were a front for a friend of a friend of a manager at a Chinese factory, promising supplies after payment at ridiculous prices, sent though the back door.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
A Starmer premiership would align the UK back with the single market within a few months of being elected, maybe even with free movement.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
Talking of Russia ... Stodge's thought-provoking header yesterday talked about Johnson's political philosophy. I am more interested in Dominic Cummings because clearly he is informing the government's thinking far more than Johnson. What is he is up to? What is he trying to achieve and why?
This is an interesting blog on a certain type of reformer in the 1960's Soviet Union that seems to have parallels with Cummings. Those reforms failed through their own contradictions.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
I think my biggest worry is that the US economy turns around in September, Trump will get the credit and a lot of those less motivated anti-Trump voters sit on their hands because "he got he economy up and running again" and that will be mostly white suburban middle class types in the rust belt. It's legitimately the reason my betting on this election is in the tens of pounds and that's been on Pence to be the next president.
I admire your optimism for the economic turn around. Trump, or no Trump, I hope you are right. It will also prove miracles can happen.
I am very keen not to lose money betting on the Presidential election again. Especially after I had done so welling backing trump to win the nomination in 2016.
I want to hear solid reasons as to why Trump can win beyond "the polls are wrong" without any evidence as to why the polls are wrong.
Every incidence of left wingers doing something in America is immediatly greeted with the notion that it playing I to his hands, every poll showing that actually the action is popular with the American public is dismissed.
But the polls weren't really wrong in 2016, they got the voteshares pretty much spot on didn't they, nationally?
Biden is so much further ahead, they'd have to do worse than 2016 (where they were mostly right as I said) and be so wrong as to probably be useless in future. Can't see it myself.
I think we're all in a state of "well it happened last time, it will surely happen again". Putting my objective (as much as possible) hat on, Trump simply does not have the advantages he had last time.
Mugabe. That's a way that Trump wins.
He is probably close enough, and due to the Electoral College, means that he only needs a hemi-demi-semi-Mugabe.
Purge Democrats from the register. Close polling stations in Democrat areas. Intimidate Democrat voters queueing to vote. Use the courts to stop the counting of postal votes.
Would it be enough to prevent a huge landslide sweeping him away? Probably not, but if he holds onto the support that still approves of him it could easily be close enough to be enough.
And once it's done the political commentators will have plenty of other explanations - Biden the uninspiring candidate, low turnout, why are white guys such racists that they vote for Trump. Most people will not really want to believe that the election was stolen. Anyone who says it was will look like a crank.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
It would be ignored by Boris and Unionists would be told to boycott it.
Given Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Madrid's in Catalonia Boris would look relatively moderate if he had to tell Sturgeon to sod off and ignore any illegal indyref. Though Sturgeon has said she will only hold indyref2 with Westminster consent anyway.
I would not be surprised to see crossover sooner rather than later.
It is clear most people are still very worried by covid and nearly half the country have been financially protected by employment in the public sector or furloughed
Boris has paid a big price for Cummings and his brand has taken a hit
Whether this matters is not clear and the focus over the next few months will be on the economy, help for those suffering, and if covid can be contained
Also Boris will be in place at the end of the year and responsible for the deal or no deal outcome of brexit
The next election is 4 years away and many variable factors will determine just how that election pans out but I am far less worried now Corbyn is history
How might a Biden presidency affect Johnson administration (where have I heard THAT before?) My sense is that election of Bill Clinton was not fatal to John Major, but it didn't do him any favors AND it gave Tony Blair an obvious role model.
Keir Stumer sorta comes across like a Joe Biden with youthful vigor - somewhat like Joe himself back when he was borking Bork. Granted without Biden's working-class cred, but also without a propensity for foot-in-mouth disease.
It will be too late to effect brexit but I would hope it would help to restore relationships, not just here in the UK but worldwide after the disaster that is Trump
Hopefully the US will become a less confrontational country and to be honest any future trade deal would no doubt be based on firmer grounds than anything with Trump
As for Starmer he is far more acceptable than Corbyn, but I very much doubt he will be up against Boris. I hope 2021 will see Boris step away as he will have concluded Brexit and I doubt he is in it for the longhaul anyway
His self-delusion about being the new Churchill would tend to indicate otherwise.
Yes, I wouldnt expect the polls to change much before the end of the year.
For most people it doesn't really feel that Brexit is done. There has been no discernable change yet, so Johnson keeps that "Get Brexit Done" vote. That all changes in January. Where those votes go then will be interesting, but I expect them to fade.The economic hit and misery will be in full force by then too. Sub 30% Tory vote very possible by then.
Pinning a lot of hopes on this 'economic hit and misery' aren't you?
No, I find it profoundly depressing talking to my patients about it all. One this week had a daughter made redundant from a London fashion house, unable to get work anywhere. A furniture shop owner who hasn't sold anything for months, an employee at the Leicester Theatre that went into administration, etc etc. All this before furlough ends too.
And everyone knows that this is an issue across the world due to covid
Rishi Sunak is to address this later this week
The big problem this government seems to have that it believes it can rule by just giving speeches and annoucements rather than actually implementing the things they announce.
The media are expansive this morning over HMG releasing lockdown
The problem is precisely prioritising the media reaction against how their actions play out in the real world.
Yepp. The Tories are copying the worst aspects of the Blair years: trappings over substance. Like Blair, it’ll all end in tears.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
If Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin but still won the state, then Clinton really didn't energise the Dem vote there. Elections are not only won by voting for; they're lost by former supporters not being arsed to go out and vote. In fact, looking at Wisconsin Trump's and Romney's votes were very similar; however Clinton got around 145,00 FEWER votes than Obama did 4 years earlier.
It's a pattern repeated across the rust belt. Trump barely moves the he GOP vote share from Romney but Clinton absolutely craters the Dem vote.
She was a once in a generation terrible candidate. Her awful campaign strategy fooled me. I thought she was campaigning in the rust belt because they were beyond solid, in reality it was because she was a fucking moron.
Trump got more votes than Romney in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania
It's a pattern repeated across the rust belt. Trump barely moves the he GOP vote share from Romney but Clinton absolutely craters the Dem vote.
She was a once in a generation terrible candidate. Her awful campaign strategy fooled me. I thought she was campaigning in the rust belt because they were beyond solid, in reality it was because she was a fucking moron.
TBF her campaign was definitely doing a lot of work in PA and still lost it, so even if she hadn't overlooked WI and to a lesser extent MI she'd still have lost.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
A Starmer premiership would align the UK back with the single market within a few months of being elected, maybe even with free movement.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
Even more sweeping statements. Where has Starmer announced alignment with the single market? Although it would make perfect sense and I do hope you are correct.
I am still not sure it helps Starmer over Scotland anyway. The people of Scotland having been royally shafted by a Westminster government may decide they do not want to come back for more, even if the colour of the government's stripe changes.
Personally, I think there's some mileage in this for him. The reaction in the USA has been far worse than here.
This is pure Stephen Miller, and it will go down well with his core but it will not get him the suburban college educated whites that are slipping away from him.
They are gone. It's the white male non-college he needs to hold onto in massive numbers (and these are slipping).
I think there's so much confirmation bias on Trump on this site.
Doesn't help that one or two posters have taken it upon themselves to attack anyone who suggests otherwise (you know who you are) too.
This is a betting site.
Agreed, apparently saying that Trump might not lose is the same as saying you support him to some posters.
Agreed 100%
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
Not only that, but the system is different. We've seen several times recently that it doesn't matter how many votes Biden piles up in California and New York; if he doesn't win in enough States, even by half-a-dozen votes, the Electoral College will stay the way it did last time. What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
That is story crafting. Trump got less vote than Romney in Wisconsin but still won the state.
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
If Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin but still won the state, then Clinton really didn't energise the Dem vote there. Elections are not only won by voting for; they're lost by former supporters not being arsed to go out and vote. In fact, looking at Wisconsin Trump's and Romney's votes were very similar; however Clinton got around 145,00 FEWER votes than Obama did 4 years earlier.
It's a pattern repeated across the rust belt. Trump barely moves the he GOP vote share from Romney but Clinton absolutely craters the Dem vote.
She was a once in a generation terrible candidate. Her awful campaign strategy fooled me. I thought she was campaigning in the rust belt because they were beyond solid, in reality it was because she was a fucking moron.
Trump got more votes than Romney in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan and Pennsylvania
And north of the border, the demise of the Ruth Davidson Party is almost complete: SLab are within MoE (2 points) of retaking second place from the SCons:
Interesting point this. If Starmer can somehow become the pro-Union voice he'll probably pickup a lot more votes in Scotland.
Undoubtedly. But it all depends *where* he picks them up. He doesn’t want or need them in the Highlands or Moray. The trick for the three Unionist parties is building support in the correct places, which is exceedingly difficult and impossible to judge from national polling. The SNP don’t have this problem: we have to fight like tigers absolutely everywhere.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
To be recognised Internationally it has to be confirmed in a referendum approved by Westminster but in your scenario, Westminster should cede the referendum but remember the SNP manifesto will be to hold said referendum and in a 60 - 40 result that should happen but it does not follow 60 - 40 will vote yes
I have maintained for decades that Scotland will not vote for independence and even more so post covid but of course many disagree with me and that is the nature of the argument
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
A Starmer premiership would align the UK back with the single market within a few months of being elected, maybe even with free movement.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
Even more sweeping statements. Where has Starmer announced alignment with the single market? Although it would make perfect sense and I do hope you are correct.
I am still not sure it helps Starmer over Scotland anyway. The people of Scotland having been royally shafted by a Westminster government may decide they do not want to come back for more, even if the colour of the government's stripe changes.
Starmer has voted for single market alignment in every Commons vote on it and voted against a No Deal Brexit in every vote on it.
Scotland will always have over 40% for independence but I would expect a narrow No vote if Starmer was PM and allowed indyref2 with devomax and the UK back in the single market
I would not be surprised to see crossover sooner rather than later.
It is clear most people are still very worried by covid and nearly half the country have been financially protected by employment in the public sector or furloughed
Boris has paid a big price for Cummings and his brand has taken a hit
Whether this matters is not clear and the focus over the next few months will be on the economy, help for those suffering, and if covid can be contained
Also Boris will be in place at the end of the year and responsible for the deal or no deal outcome of brexit
The next election is 4 years away and many variable factors will determine just how that election pans out but I am far less worried now Corbyn is history
How might a Biden presidency affect Johnson administration (where have I heard THAT before?) My sense is that election of Bill Clinton was not fatal to John Major, but it didn't do him any favors AND it gave Tony Blair an obvious role model.
Keir Stumer sorta comes across like a Joe Biden with youthful vigor - somewhat like Joe himself back when he was borking Bork. Granted without Biden's working-class cred, but also without a propensity for foot-in-mouth disease.
It will be too late to effect brexit but I would hope it would help to restore relationships, not just here in the UK but worldwide after the disaster that is Trump
Hopefully the US will become a less confrontational country and to be honest any future trade deal would no doubt be based on firmer grounds than anything with Trump
As for Starmer he is far more acceptable than Corbyn, but I very much doubt he will be up against Boris. I hope 2021 will see Boris step away as he will have concluded Brexit and I doubt he is in it for the longhaul anyway
His self-delusion about being the new Churchill would tend to indicate otherwise.
Yes, I wouldnt expect the polls to change much before the end of the year.
For most people it doesn't really feel that Brexit is done. There has been no discernable change yet, so Johnson keeps that "Get Brexit Done" vote. That all changes in January. Where those votes go then will be interesting, but I expect them to fade.The economic hit and misery will be in full force by then too. Sub 30% Tory vote very possible by then.
In Scotland I can see the Tories drifting back to core vote levels: 15 to 18 percent.
May 2021 could be a bloodbath for the hapless Jack and Carlaw. More importantly for the long term I can see the SCons taking a total pounding at the May Scottish local elections, where they have strong representation. That’ll totally cripple their key activists and local media operations.
38% of Scots voted Leave, the Tories under Carlaw got 25% last year, still their second highest vote in Scotland since 1992.
Their core vote is hardline Unionist and pro Brexit, it will not fall below 20%
Talking of Russia ... Stodge's thought-provoking header yesterday talked about Johnson's political philosophy. I am more interested in Dominic Cummings because clearly he is informing the government's thinking far more than Johnson. What is he is up to? What is he trying to achieve and why?
This is an interesting blog on a certain type of reformer in the 1960's Soviet Union that seems to have parallels with Cummings. Those reforms failed through their own contradictions.
It's strikingly reminiscent not just of the Soviet Union, but of the 1950s and 1960s Rand Corporation, data bureaucracy mindset that so many western liberals fought in the 1960s.
And north of the border, the demise of the Ruth Davidson Party is almost complete: SLab are within MoE (2 points) of retaking second place from the SCons:
Interesting point this. If Starmer can somehow become the pro-Union voice he'll probably pickup a lot more votes in Scotland.
Undoubtedly. But it all depends *where* he picks them up. He doesn’t want or need them in the Highlands or Moray. The trick for the three Unionist parties is building support in the correct places, which is exceedingly difficult and impossible to judge from national polling. The SNP don’t have this problem: we have to fight like tigers absolutely everywhere.
As long as Salmond and Cherry don’t split the party.
After 10 years in opposition it would be normal for Labour to start to see poll leads by now. Labour certainly had a few in 1989 for example as did the Tories in 2007.
However while the polls are much closer now under Starmer than they were under Corbyn last year as Remainers who disliked Corbyn and voted LD in 2019 have gone back to Labour, the Tory vote remains virtually unchanged from the last general election.
Unless Tory voters start to move to Labour or the LDs then the Tories will remain ahead. Perhaps the likeliest way that would occur is if we go to WTO terms Brexit and some Tory Remainers switch to the opposition parties (though of course if Boris extended the transition period then some Tory Leavers could move back to the Brexit Party which might also put Labour ahead with no increase in its voteshare)
Brexit suspended the old political "normal". Cameron, May and Cummings seem like three completely different governments rather than the continuation of one Conservative one. I am expecting Labour to tale a decent, but not insurmountable, lead by the end of this year.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
It would be ignored by Boris and Unionists would be told to boycott it.
Given Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Madrid's in Catalonia Boris would look relatively moderate if he had to tell Sturgeon to sod off and ignore any illegal indyref. Though Sturgeon has said she will only hold indyref2 with Westminster consent anyway.
Your language and attitude is so intolerant and at times verges on being nasty
You only speak for some in the party and there are many others of us in the party who have a far more mature way of looking at this matter and want democracy exercised
And as I say Independence will not win in a 2021/22 referendum
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
You may be right, but for Labour to win outright there would need to be an enormous shift in popular opinion.
To get to 350 seats, Labour would need to make 147 gains. Labour target number 147 is Telford, with a Con Maj of almost 11,000, and 25 of the seats that are available on lower swings than that are held by the SNP.
If Labour can't make any gains from the SNP then Telford becomes the target to reach 325; 350 seats comes with Elmet and Rothwell, held with a Con Maj of over 17,000 and substantially safer than a number of other targets (e.g. Basingstoke, Labour target no.148) which didn't fall to the party even in 1997. For every seat that's more vulnerable to Labour that the Tories manage to hold, they need to take something even safer further down their target list to get to a majority on their own, as well as managing not to lose any of their own marginals of course.
Even this far out from the next election, it seems likely that Labour is going to need, at a minimum, the backing of the SNP bloc to win a vote of confidence in the HoC. Unless Scotland has had another independence vote and departed by 2024, in which case things get a bit easier for Labour. To win a bare majority, Starmer then "only" needs to hold everything he's got and capture every target up to and including Stevenage - though even that would require a swing to Labour marginally in excess of that achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
Quite apart from not wanting to deal with the problem himself, that's actually another good reason (from the point of view of party political advantage at least) for Johnson to ignore any future demands for another Scottish independence referendum. Given current circumstances, keeping Scotland onboard makes life a lot more complicated for Labour: the Tories can obviously reach a Commons majority without it, Labour almost certainly can't, with all the attendant complications for Starmer's relationship with many English voters.
Is there any serious alternative to this set of assumptions?
1) Labour cannot win in England. 2) They can only hope for a majority with the support of SNP, which must involve a 2nd ref which the SNP will probably win. 3) Following which there are no Scottish seats at Westminster, and we return to the position where Labour cannot win in England and there is nowhere else for Labour to turn to for help.
Yes. Starmer makes significant progress in England. And then puts the squeeze on the SNP. "Do you want the Tories out, yes or no?. Stop havering about referendums, yes or no?"
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
A Starmer premiership would align the UK back with the single market within a few months of being elected, maybe even with free movement.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
Even more sweeping statements. Where has Starmer announced alignment with the single market? Although it would make perfect sense and I do hope you are correct.
I am still not sure it helps Starmer over Scotland anyway. The people of Scotland having been royally shafted by a Westminster government may decide they do not want to come back for more, even if the colour of the government's stripe changes.
Starmer has voted for single market alignment in every Commons vote on it and voted against a No Deal Brexit in every vote on it.
Scotland will always have over 40% for independence but I would expect a narrow No vote if Starmer was PM and allowed indyref2 with devomax and the UK back in the single market
I think you are underestimating the bad blood Johnson will have mustered between Westminster and the people of Scotland under your WTO plan.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
To be recognised Internationally it has to be confirmed in a referendum approved by Westminster but in your scenario, Westminster should cede the referendum but remember the SNP manifesto will be to hold said referendum and in a 60 - 40 result that should happen but it does not follow 60 - 40 will vote yes
I have maintained for decades that Scotland will not vote for independence and even more so post covid but of course many disagree with me and that is the nature of the argument
International recognition is a step further than I was considering. In the scenario I presented, there is a obviously a pro-independence population. Even if HYUFD is right and Unionists are urged to boycott some will not and it will come down to numbers. If it looks like almost half of the total Scottish adult population has voted to Leave the Union surely even PM Johnson will have to pause.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
It would be ignored by Boris and Unionists would be told to boycott it.
Given Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Madrid's in Catalonia Boris would look relatively moderate if he had to tell Sturgeon to sod off and ignore any illegal indyref. Though Sturgeon has said she will only hold indyref2 with Westminster consent anyway.
Your language and attitude is so intolerant and at times verges on being nasty
You only speak for some in the party and there are many others of us in the party who have a far more mature way of looking at this matter and want democracy exercised
And as I say Independence will not win in a 2021/22 referendum
No, I speak for the Tory government based on its manifesto commitment of 2019 to ban indyref2 based on the fact 2014 was a once in a generation vote.
If you dislike what you voted for you should not have voted for that Tory manifesto
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
To get a majority of one Starmer needs to make a net gain of 124 seats.
To put that in context, only one party has gained that many seats at a single election since the Second World War - Tony Blair in 1997, who gained 145.
It has only happened twice more in the age of universal suffrage - in 1931, when the Conservatives gained 210 seats, and 1945 (during the war but very near the end of it) when Labour gained 239 seats.
That is not to say it is impossible. This government is already a shambles and the shit has yet to really hit the fan. Starmer, meanwhile, is exuding calm competence, moderation and dignity.
It is however going to be bloody difficult and Starmer would be wise not to raise any expectations he will struggle to meet.
Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever.
It will happen. The polls are all over the place these days. The Tories were finished just over a year ago, and almost came last in the European Parliament elections, and then they near enough won a landslide.
The old rules don't apply anymore. You have to look for the zeitgeist.
And when it rains, it will pour.
I'm inclined to agree with this. Since Blair exited the stage there have been several major swings in party support. It would be a surprise not to see another one - though perhaps Johnson can reinvent himself again and stay on top.
The only caveat I'd make is that there is potential for a culture war divide. We can see how that reduces the scope for large swings in support in the US. I don't know how likely it is, but it's a risk.
Talking of Russia ... Stodge's thought-provoking header yesterday talked about Johnson's political philosophy. I am more interested in Dominic Cummings because clearly he is informing the government's thinking far more than Johnson. What is he is up to? What is he trying to achieve and why?
This is an interesting blog on a certain type of reformer in the 1960's Soviet Union that seems to have parallels with Cummings. Those reforms failed through their own contradictions.
Linked to that, if you haven't read Francis Spufford's book "Red Plenty", you really should.
Once it's pointed out, the parallels between Cumming's wails that it could all be so much more efficient if only he was in charge of everything, Soviet optimisation, even the remarkable success of certain businesses are hard to ignore.
The trouble is that, if that is the plan, it's hard to see it working, because there are just too many competing needs in society. Unlike Moscow potato supply, or building a massive computer chip business, there isn't a single metric to make as large or small as possible.
It's possible that two of the UK's Covid disasters have come from this. "Prevent overwhelming of the NHS" was a Key Performance Indicator. But one of the ways of doing that- shipping people out into care homes willy-nilly- created more misery than it solved. Maximising headline testing capacity was achieved at the price of making it less useful, because patient data don't seem to have been attached to the tests in a workable way.
This might not be what's going on, but if it is, the likely mode of failure is the No 10 centre wanting all data passing through it (which seems to be happening) and then metaphorically falling apart as a result.
If we ever see Dom singing "Daisy Daisy", watch out.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
A Starmer premiership would align the UK back with the single market within a few months of being elected, maybe even with free movement.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
Even more sweeping statements. Where has Starmer announced alignment with the single market? Although it would make perfect sense and I do hope you are correct.
I am still not sure it helps Starmer over Scotland anyway. The people of Scotland having been royally shafted by a Westminster government may decide they do not want to come back for more, even if the colour of the government's stripe changes.
Starmer has voted for single market alignment in every Commons vote on it and voted against a No Deal Brexit in every vote on it.
Scotland will always have over 40% for independence but I would expect a narrow No vote if Starmer was PM and allowed indyref2 with devomax and the UK back in the single market
I think you are underestimating the bad blood Johnson will have mustered between Westminster and the people of Scotland under your WTO plan.
Johnson will ban indyref2 so it does not matter what bad blood he generates Scots would only get a say if Starmer was PM and granted indyref2 and Boris was gone
After 10 years in opposition it would be normal for Labour to start to see poll leads by now. Labour certainly had a few in 1989 for example as did the Tories in 2007.
However while the polls are much closer now under Starmer than they were under Corbyn last year as Remainers who disliked Corbyn and voted LD in 2019 have gone back to Labour, the Tory vote remains virtually unchanged from the last general election.
Unless Tory voters start to move to Labour or the LDs then the Tories will remain ahead. Perhaps the likeliest way that would occur is if we go to WTO terms Brexit and some Tory Remainers switch to the opposition parties (though of course if Boris extended the transition period then some Tory Leavers could move back to the Brexit Party which might also put Labour ahead with no increase in its voteshare)
Brexit suspended the old political "normal". Cameron, May and Cummings seem like three completely different governments rather than the continuation of one Conservative one. I am expecting Labour to tale a decent, but not insurmountable, lead by the end of this year.
Very likely. For perfectly understandable reasons people have suffered this year. They will some of them hold the government responsible.
Whether people will still feel like that come the next GE is more difficult to determine.
I am very keen not to lose money betting on the Presidential election again. Especially after I had done so welling backing trump to win the nomination in 2016.
I want to hear solid reasons as to why Trump can win beyond "the polls are wrong" without any evidence as to why the polls are wrong.
Every incidence of left wingers doing something in America is immediatly greeted with the notion that it playing I to his hands, every poll showing that actually the action is popular with the American public is dismissed.
But the polls weren't really wrong in 2016, they got the voteshares pretty much spot on didn't they, nationally?
Biden is so much further ahead, they'd have to do worse than 2016 (where they were mostly right as I said) and be so wrong as to probably be useless in future. Can't see it myself.
I think we're all in a state of "well it happened last time, it will surely happen again". Putting my objective (as much as possible) hat on, Trump simply does not have the advantages he had last time.
Yes. Forget all this "people are being emotional" bullshit, the bias is working the other way, both on here and in the betting markets. Because there was a shock last time people are treating the best objective data - the polling - as if it's more likely to be way out than broadly right. Exactly the same occurred - and for the same reason - with our general election. There the evidence from the get-go was for a big Tory win and this remained the case right until polling day. Yet you could back this outcome even on the eve of the vote at generous odds against. It happened of course. Big Tory win. The polls were right. Back to WH2020. If you were to decant every drop of emotion you had into a jar and focus on pricing up a Trump win in the way a cold calculating killer does as he plots his next hit - think Edward Fox in The Jackal - going purely by the hard evidence available in the public domain, you would get in Betfair parlance 4.25. I know this because I have done it. 4.25 - this is what Trump should be right now. But he's 2.84. Far too short. Too short in the market and (driven by the same bias) too many PB posters still giving him a great chance and expecting it to be close.
And north of the border, the demise of the Ruth Davidson Party is almost complete: SLab are within MoE (2 points) of retaking second place from the SCons:
Interesting point this. If Starmer can somehow become the pro-Union voice he'll probably pickup a lot more votes in Scotland.
Undoubtedly. But it all depends *where* he picks them up. He doesn’t want or need them in the Highlands or Moray. The trick for the three Unionist parties is building support in the correct places, which is exceedingly difficult and impossible to judge from national polling. The SNP don’t have this problem: we have to fight like tigers absolutely everywhere.
As long as Salmond and Cherry don’t split the party.
Wishful thinking.
There are a large number of things keeping the SNP glued together, not least the despicably incompetent and anti-Scottish Westminster government. The more strident Johnson and his new pal Starmer become the less likely that we will fall out amongst ourselves. Starmer’s biggest mistake to date has been endorsing the hopeless Richard Leonard’s mindless Unionism. Not just because it suppresses the SLab vote, but more importantly it acts as glue keeping Scottish patriots focused on the big goal.
Every time the great charlatan Johnson appears on the telly, the likelihood of internal SNP bickering diminishes. Carlaw must wish he’d just disappear until mid-May next year.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
It would be ignored by Boris and Unionists would be told to boycott it.
Given Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Madrid's in Catalonia Boris would look relatively moderate if he had to tell Sturgeon to sod off and ignore any illegal indyref. Though Sturgeon has said she will only hold indyref2 with Westminster consent anyway.
Your language and attitude is so intolerant and at times verges on being nasty
You only speak for some in the party and there are many others of us in the party who have a far more mature way of looking at this matter and want democracy exercised
And as I say Independence will not win in a 2021/22 referendum
No, I speak for the Tory government based on its manifesto commitment of 2019 to ban indyref2 based on the fact 2014 was a once in a generation vote.
If you dislike what you voted for you should not have voted for that Tory manifesto
"Banning indyref2' ould easily be described as the heel of the English jackboot. Think how you would feel if it was the other way round.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
To be recognised Internationally it has to be confirmed in a referendum approved by Westminster but in your scenario, Westminster should cede the referendum but remember the SNP manifesto will be to hold said referendum and in a 60 - 40 result that should happen but it does not follow 60 - 40 will vote yes
I have maintained for decades that Scotland will not vote for independence and even more so post covid but of course many disagree with me and that is the nature of the argument
International recognition is a step further than I was considering. In the scenario I presented, there is a obviously a pro-independence population. Even if HYUFD is right and Unionists are urged to boycott some will not and it will come down to numbers. If it looks like almost half of the total Scottish adult population has voted to Leave the Union surely even PM Johnson will have to pause.
No of course not as over half the Scottish population will not have voted to Leave the Union
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
To be recognised Internationally it has to be confirmed in a referendum approved by Westminster but in your scenario, Westminster should cede the referendum but remember the SNP manifesto will be to hold said referendum and in a 60 - 40 result that should happen but it does not follow 60 - 40 will vote yes
I have maintained for decades that Scotland will not vote for independence and even more so post covid but of course many disagree with me and that is the nature of the argument
International recognition is a step further than I was considering. In the scenario I presented, there is a obviously a pro-independence population. Even if HYUFD is right and Unionists are urged to boycott some will not and it will come down to numbers. If it looks like almost half of the total Scottish adult population has voted to Leave the Union surely even PM Johnson will have to pause.
To be honest I do not see an obvious pro independence population but a pro referendum one possibly.
The 'grass is greener' comes to mind but there are mind boggling obstacles to Scotland succeeded ourside of the union and if you thought the Irish border was a problem wait until you come to the Scots English hard border with custom checks on 60% of Scots exports and 'bureau de change' for euro to the pound
And that is before differential tax rates in RUK favour, especially on business
I give it a couple of months, and I think Jenrick and corruption will be major factors.
Corruption, self-interest, incompetence, bad economy, "time for a change".. decent Labour leader etc.
Remind you of something?
It could be a solid Labour win in 2024 (not a landslide, because.. culture wars) but very solid - say, 350 seats or so.
Yep. The ruling out of a Labour majority I often come across is imo stale thinking.
You may be right, but for Labour to win outright there would need to be an enormous shift in popular opinion.
To get to 350 seats, Labour would need to make 147 gains. Labour target number 147 is Telford, with a Con Maj of almost 11,000, and 25 of the seats that are available on lower swings than that are held by the SNP.
If Labour can't make any gains from the SNP then Telford becomes the target to reach 325; 350 seats comes with Elmet and Rothwell, held with a Con Maj of over 17,000 and substantially safer than a number of other targets (e.g. Basingstoke, Labour target no.148) which didn't fall to the party even in 1997. For every seat that's more vulnerable to Labour that the Tories manage to hold, they need to take something even safer further down their target list to get to a majority on their own, as well as managing not to lose any of their own marginals of course.
Even this far out from the next election, it seems likely that Labour is going to need, at a minimum, the backing of the SNP bloc to win a vote of confidence in the HoC. Unless Scotland has had another independence vote and departed by 2024, in which case things get a bit easier for Labour. To win a bare majority, Starmer then "only" needs to hold everything he's got and capture every target up to and including Stevenage - though even that would require a swing to Labour marginally in excess of that achieved under Tony Blair in 1997.
Quite apart from not wanting to deal with the problem himself, that's actually another good reason (from the point of view of party political advantage at least) for Johnson to ignore any future demands for another Scottish independence referendum. Given current circumstances, keeping Scotland onboard makes life a lot more complicated for Labour: the Tories can obviously reach a Commons majority without it, Labour almost certainly can't, with all the attendant complications for Starmer's relationship with many English voters.
Is there any serious alternative to this set of assumptions?
1) Labour cannot win in England. 2) They can only hope for a majority with the support of SNP, which must involve a 2nd ref which the SNP will probably win. 3) Following which there are no Scottish seats at Westminster, and we return to the position where Labour cannot win in England and there is nowhere else for Labour to turn to for help.
As an English man my biggest concern about Scottish independence is that it leads to a decade of Tory rule south of the border. In time I would expect a realignment into a new competitive multiparty system, but in the short term it will be horrible.
I think it unfair to blame those in the lifeboat as the ship slowly sinks, but do feel a bit of envy.
Move north! We need good doctors. There is plenty of space in the lifeboat.
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I realise that PM Johnson is only interested in the 'will of the people' when it's with him, but what would happen if an SNP Govt., confirmed by next years Holyrood elections went ahead with one anyway? And, on a 70%+ turnout won .... say 60-40 Yes?
It would be ignored by Boris and Unionists would be told to boycott it.
Given Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Madrid's in Catalonia Boris would look relatively moderate if he had to tell Sturgeon to sod off and ignore any illegal indyref. Though Sturgeon has said she will only hold indyref2 with Westminster consent anyway.
Your language and attitude is so intolerant and at times verges on being nasty
You only speak for some in the party and there are many others of us in the party who have a far more mature way of looking at this matter and want democracy exercised
And as I say Independence will not win in a 2021/22 referendum
No, I speak for the Tory government based on its manifesto commitment of 2019 to ban indyref2 based on the fact 2014 was a once in a generation vote.
If you dislike what you voted for you should not have voted for that Tory manifesto
"Banning indyref2' ould easily be described as the heel of the English jackboot. Think how you would feel if it was the other way round.
Scotland voted to stay in the UK in 2014 and must respect the wishes of the UK government elected by a majority last year
I am very keen not to lose money betting on the Presidential election again. Especially after I had done so welling backing trump to win the nomination in 2016.
I want to hear solid reasons as to why Trump can win beyond "the polls are wrong" without any evidence as to why the polls are wrong.
Every incidence of left wingers doing something in America is immediatly greeted with the notion that it playing I to his hands, every poll showing that actually the action is popular with the American public is dismissed.
But the polls weren't really wrong in 2016, they got the voteshares pretty much spot on didn't they, nationally?
Biden is so much further ahead, they'd have to do worse than 2016 (where they were mostly right as I said) and be so wrong as to probably be useless in future. Can't see it myself.
I think we're all in a state of "well it happened last time, it will surely happen again". Putting my objective (as much as possible) hat on, Trump simply does not have the advantages he had last time.
Yes. Forget all this "people are being emotional" bullshit, the bias is working the other way, both on here and in the betting markets. Because there was a shock last time people are treating the best objective data - the polling - as if it's more likely to be way out than broadly right. Exactly the same occurred - and for the same reason - with our general election. There the evidence from the get-go was for a big Tory win and this remained the case right until polling day. Yet you could back this outcome even on the eve of the vote at generous odds against. It happened of course. Big Tory win. The polls were right. Back to WH2020. If you were to decant every drop of emotion you had into a jar and focus on pricing up a Trump win in the way a cold calculating killer does as he plots his next hit - think Edward Fox in The Jackal - going purely by the hard evidence available in the public domain, you would get in Betfair parlance 4.25. I know this because I have done it. 4.25 - this is what Trump should be right now. But he's 2.84. Far too short. Too short in the market and (driven by the same bias) too many PB posters still giving him a great chance and expecting it to be close.
Have you priced in the effect of Trump working to prevent the election from being free and fair?
£253 million contract for PPE awarded without competitive tendering to a currency trader operating out of a Mauritius tax haven. Apparently brokered by a crony of Liz Truss. We only know about this because of an EU record keeping requirement that presumably doesn't apply after next year.
We're not talking sleaze with this government. This is Russian oligarch levels of corruption.
Talking of Russia ... Stodge's thought-provoking header yesterday talked about Johnson's political philosophy. I am more interested in Dominic Cummings because clearly he is informing the government's thinking far more than Johnson. What is he is up to? What is he trying to achieve and why?
This is an interesting blog on a certain type of reformer in the 1960's Soviet Union that seems to have parallels with Cummings. Those reforms failed through their own contradictions.
The data bureaucracy mindset did take two powers to the moon - what Cummings is fond of quoting - but applied to the domestic sphere it partly spurred a cultural backlash.
Gove's and Cummings' should take note ; let's see if their iteration will be any more popular or effective.
Talking of Russia ... Stodge's thought-provoking header yesterday talked about Johnson's political philosophy. I am more interested in Dominic Cummings because clearly he is informing the government's thinking far more than Johnson. What is he is up to? What is he trying to achieve and why?
This is an interesting blog on a certain type of reformer in the 1960's Soviet Union that seems to have parallels with Cummings. Those reforms failed through their own contradictions.
Linked to that, if you haven't read Francis Spufford's book "Red Plenty", you really should.
Once it's pointed out, the parallels between Cumming's wails that it could all be so much more efficient if only he was in charge of everything, Soviet optimisation, even the remarkable success of certain businesses are hard to ignore.
The trouble is that, if that is the plan, it's hard to see it working, because there are just too many competing needs in society. Unlike Moscow potato supply, or building a massive computer chip business, there isn't a single metric to make as large or small as possible.
It's possible that two of the UK's Covid disasters have come from this. "Prevent overwhelming of the NHS" was a Key Performance Indicator. But one of the ways of doing that- shipping people out into care homes willy-nilly- created more misery than it solved. Maximising headline testing capacity was achieved at the price of making it less useful, because patient data don't seem to have been attached to the tests in a workable way.
This might not be what's going on, but if it is, the likely mode of failure is the No 10 centre wanting all data passing through it (which seems to be happening) and then metaphorically falling apart as a result.
If we ever see Dom singing "Daisy Daisy", watch out.
Thanks. I have a copy of Red Plenty that I haven't read yet. Sounds interesting, and topical!
Agree with David's post, which I think is fantastic and very astute.
It's possible Labour forms the next Government - but not as a majority. If the Tories lose a total of around 65 seats or more, they will find it extremely difficult to form a Government, even if they have the most seats.
With the Tories on 300 seats, Labour on 267, it would be a mess of a Parliament.
SNP would likely take most Scottish seats, so that puts Labour/SNP up to probably 317, Lib Dems take a few and there's a technical majority of anti-Tory votes. In this scenario, I don't feel there would be a formal arrangement, I suspect Labour would dare the other parties to vote their policies down.
Of course the best thing for Labour is to get the Lib Dems on more seats. The less reliant on SNP seats, the better - and the easier it is for the Tory majority to tumble with less Labour gains.
Ergo, they need some kind of pact, even if unofficial.
Agreed, assuming the polling is predicting a hung parliament, some sort of Lib/Lab pact, especially in many of the Southern seats where Lab are a clear third, in exchange for Labour stating clearly and unequivocally that they’ll refuse to work with the SNP.
Running the Lib Dems as a proxy Labour Party for Southern England might get Labour a bit closer to depriving the Tories of their majority, but it doesn't solve their fundamental problem: the Conservatives are highly unlikely to be so badly mauled that either Lab or Lab+LD = a majority. Absent that prospect, the SNP will float like a toxic miasma all around Labour's next GE campaign in England and infect the whole thing with its off-putting smell.
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
In 2010 there were over 50 LD MPs, most of which were in what are now Con seats. If a few dozen paper Lab candidates in southern England were enough to give 50 LDs again, then Lab only need 270 or thereabouts, which isn’t too unreasonable if the Con government can’t deliver for the Red Wall in the Midlands.
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
No, it is impossible to hold Scotland against its wiil, other than in the shortest term.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
Indeed, a Starmer Premiership which returns the UK to the single market effectively ensures Scotland would vote No in any indyref2 anyway.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
You are making some sweeping assumptions here.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
A Starmer premiership would align the UK back with the single market within a few months of being elected, maybe even with free movement.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
Even more sweeping statements. Where has Starmer announced alignment with the single market? Although it would make perfect sense and I do hope you are correct.
I am still not sure it helps Starmer over Scotland anyway. The people of Scotland having been royally shafted by a Westminster government may decide they do not want to come back for more, even if the colour of the government's stripe changes.
Starmer has voted for single market alignment in every Commons vote on it and voted against a No Deal Brexit in every vote on it.
Scotland will always have over 40% for independence but I would expect a narrow No vote if Starmer was PM and allowed indyref2 with devomax and the UK back in the single market
I think you are underestimating the bad blood Johnson will have mustered between Westminster and the people of Scotland under your WTO plan.
Johnson will ban indyref2 so it does not matter what bad blood he generates Scots would only get a say if Starmer was PM and granted indyref2 and Boris was gone
Johnson the coward who runs away. You sum him up perfectly but does he really want that as his legacy?
Comments
I think it unfair to blame those in the lifeboat as the ship slowly sinks, but do feel a bit of envy.
Oh, I don't doubt it is exceedingly complex and so long for a reason, but it is still hard to see.
Biden is so much further ahead, they'd have to do worse than 2016 (where they were mostly right as I said) and be so wrong as to probably be useless in future. Can't see it myself.
I think we're all in a state of "well it happened last time, it will surely happen again". Putting my objective (as much as possible) hat on, Trump simply does not have the advantages he had last time.
If Boris wants a UK US trade deal to still be a US priority he needs Trump to be re elected
I despise Trump and hope he loses but I would not risk a single penny on this market this year. My thoughts are too strong to be objective - and the site I come to for objective analysis isn't objective either.
We are not Americans. The attempts to make contrasts between American and British politics or thinking that Americans must get rid of Trump in November because he's so self-evidently awful are just illogical if you want to predict accurately what will happen.
https://twitter.com/thejeremyvine/status/1279293135181484032?s=21
Only Blair would have still won his 3 majorities in 1997, 2001 and 2005 in England alone. So to ever take power for any significant period again without Scotland, Labour would have to return to being New Labour effectively
Hardline Scottish nationalists who voted Yes in 2014 will stay voting SNP regardless and Scottish Leavers who voted No in 2014 will stay voting Tory regardless
The optics of having a UK Government that functions for about 80% of the time nowadays as the Government of England being propped up by Scottish separatist votes are bad enough. Dismantling the only mechanism that exists to correct some of that imbalance would make the situation even worse.
But then there's what happens if Labour and the SNP between them can command a majority *and* the Labour MPs are all successfully whipped to authorise a second independence referendum. We could very easily end up with a situation where the above applies and, on top of that, the Labour Government in London continues to be sustained in office by the SNP whilst simultaneously negotiating the terms of the dissolution of the state with... the SNP. "Pantomime" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Plus Sunak's furlough scheme has reduced the economic impact of Covid and the Tories under Boris will still run on a big spend, low tax, populist agenda
I’m sticking with ‘bloody difficult.’
I'm not even saying it's likely but saying it's nigh unto impossible based upon past precedent is straw clutching. We live in far more volatile times. If the economy is bumping along on the floor due to a combination of he pandemic and Brexit I could very easily see all of Johnson's new best friends in the red wall deserting him in a nano second.
And while a 1997 style defeat is unlikely, it is far from impossible.
What Trump appears to be doing is what he did last time. Reach out to the people who aren't doing all that well, and convince them that it's the nasty THEM who are to blame.
Even in 1997 Blair only got a swing of 10%
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
Ruling with the cooperation of the SNP's bloc of MPs creates all of the problems that I've just suggested below; refusing to play ball with them, on the other hand, doesn't mean that there's no alternative for the SNP, given that they won't put the Conservatives back into bat. They can leave Starmer in office but not in power for a couple of years - so long as the EVEL mechanisms are left in place, a majority of Tory MPs in England can wreck much of Starmer's programme without this having much effect on Scotland - and then bring him down by supporting a VoNC at a time of their choosing.
If Scottish Labour cannot find a way back into the game - and there's nothing at present to suggest that they can - then Labour's best hope of getting a sniff of power during this decade arguably lies in Scottish independence and the consequent removal of these problems. That is, whilst almost anything is possible given the current volatile political situation, the likelihood of Labour being able to command a Commons majority without SNP votes does nonetheless seem pretty remote.
A long way to go still, and a Trump revival is possible. I think too there is little value in current odds, so don't have much staked yet. Last time I won well by betting on Trump on the Midwest state betting.
Far more effective would be for Labour to regain some Scottish seats from the SNP making a Labour and LD combined majority more likely without the need for the SNP
The story people keep telling themselves is that Trump's election was a white working class revolt against the Liberal elite.
But that doesn't work. There was nothing remarkable about the demographics of Trump's 2016 vote compared to Romney in 2012.
People so want Trump and Brexit to be part of a "moment" that they have linked them. I suspect there are a number of people on both sides of the spectrum who see defeat for Trump in November as a blow against Brexit.
Which it wouldn't be, as they are not linked.
The Romney vote was closer to the May or Cameron vote ie much more upper middle class than the working class vote which voted for Boris and Trump.
Plus of course Trump got more votes in 2016 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Florida and Ohio than Romney did in 2012
Lab need to be totally unequivocal about not working with the SNP though, or they’ll lose a million potential English votes. In a completely hung Parliament, an immediate second election would be preferable to Starmer, as opposed to spending months being held to ransom by the Scottish Nationalists followed by a second election anyway.
Paradoxically, I think a Unionist victory in Sindyref3 is more likely under a Labour Westminster government with a more positive European policy.
This isn't 2015, and Sturgeon polls well south of the border. Indeed sometimes more popular here than north of it! A bit of sane Social Democracy is much envied.
I believe the same effect will occur when Scotland gains independence. Initially the Tories will have an obvious majority in England and Wales. But there will be a readjustment and the balance between left and right will return to pretty much what we have seen since WW2. I am not sure it will need (nor would it be desirable to have) the sort of multiparty system you envisage. The readjustment in the south will happen of its own accord and quite quickly.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/07/03/uk-wins-oneweb-bidding-war/
We're not talking sleaze with this government. This is Russian oligarch levels of corruption.
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1279313731894349826
I think the value bet at the moment might be Republicans as winning party, currently 2.72 on Betfair. Based on “Projected EC votes”.
The likeliest scenario for a Scottish Yes vote is WTO terms Brexit under Boris but of course Boris will refuse to grant indyref2 anyway
I was considering a bet on Trump in Florida but I have backed off that position after seeing the white power video. Whilst pure anecdote the fact that it happened in The Villages was like, wow, big suprise.
She was a once in a generation terrible candidate. Her awful campaign strategy fooled me. I thought she was campaigning in the rust belt because they were beyond solid, in reality it was because she was a fucking moron.
If Johnson does indeed screw Scotland with a WTO trade deal, the train may have already left the station, and Starmer will be powerless to stop it.
This cohort is going to disproportionately white, suburban and middle class and that is the swing cohort in a lot of the states that Trump won by small margins last time around.
Remember all the companies screaming at the press only a few months ago, about why government weren’t buying their PPE - when most of them were a front for a friend of a friend of a manager at a Chinese factory, promising supplies after payment at ridiculous prices, sent though the back door.
Hence the resentment would shift almost overnight from Remainers and Scots to hard Brexiteers who would remain in control of the Tories in opposition for some time to come
This is an interesting blog on a certain type of reformer in the 1960's Soviet Union that seems to have parallels with Cummings. Those reforms failed through their own contradictions.
https://twitter.com/Sime0nStylites/status/1279133705618030592
He is probably close enough, and due to the Electoral College, means that he only needs a hemi-demi-semi-Mugabe.
Purge Democrats from the register. Close polling stations in Democrat areas. Intimidate Democrat voters queueing to vote. Use the courts to stop the counting of postal votes.
Would it be enough to prevent a huge landslide sweeping him away? Probably not, but if he holds onto the support that still approves of him it could easily be close enough to be enough.
And once it's done the political commentators will have plenty of other explanations - Biden the uninspiring candidate, low turnout, why are white guys such racists that they vote for Trump. Most people will not really want to believe that the election was stolen. Anyone who says it was will look like a crank.
Given Beijing's actions in Hong Kong and Madrid's in Catalonia Boris would look relatively moderate if he had to tell Sturgeon to sod off and ignore any illegal indyref. Though Sturgeon has said she will only hold indyref2 with Westminster consent anyway.
hope you are correct.
I am still not sure it helps Starmer over Scotland anyway. The people of Scotland having been royally shafted by a Westminster government may decide they do not want to come back for more, even if the colour of the government's stripe changes.
I have maintained for decades that Scotland will not vote for independence and even more so post covid but of course many disagree with me and that is the nature of the argument
Scotland will always have over 40% for independence but I would expect a narrow No vote if Starmer was PM and allowed indyref2 with devomax and the UK back in the single market
You only speak for some in the party and there are many others of us in the party who have a far more mature way of looking at this matter and want democracy exercised
And as I say Independence will not win in a 2021/22 referendum
And then puts the squeeze on the SNP.
"Do you want the Tories out, yes or no?.
Stop havering about referendums, yes or no?"
If you dislike what you voted for you should not have voted for that Tory manifesto
The only caveat I'd make is that there is potential for a culture war divide. We can see how that reduces the scope for large swings in support in the US. I don't know how likely it is, but it's a risk.
Once it's pointed out, the parallels between Cumming's wails that it could all be so much more efficient if only he was in charge of everything, Soviet optimisation, even the remarkable success of certain businesses are hard to ignore.
The trouble is that, if that is the plan, it's hard to see it working, because there are just too many competing needs in society. Unlike Moscow potato supply, or building a massive computer chip business, there isn't a single metric to make as large or small as possible.
It's possible that two of the UK's Covid disasters have come from this. "Prevent overwhelming of the NHS" was a Key Performance Indicator. But one of the ways of doing that- shipping people out into care homes willy-nilly- created more misery than it solved. Maximising headline testing capacity was achieved at the price of making it less useful, because patient data don't seem to have been attached to the tests in a workable way.
This might not be what's going on, but if it is, the likely mode of failure is the No 10 centre wanting all data passing through it (which seems to be happening) and then metaphorically falling apart as a result.
If we ever see Dom singing "Daisy Daisy", watch out.
Whether people will still feel like that come the next GE is more difficult to determine.
There are a large number of things keeping the SNP glued together, not least the despicably incompetent and anti-Scottish Westminster government. The more strident Johnson and his new pal Starmer become the less likely that we will fall out amongst ourselves. Starmer’s biggest mistake to date has been endorsing the hopeless Richard Leonard’s mindless Unionism. Not just because it suppresses the SLab vote, but more importantly it acts as glue keeping Scottish patriots focused on the big goal.
Every time the great charlatan Johnson appears on the telly, the likelihood of internal SNP bickering diminishes. Carlaw must wish he’d just disappear until mid-May next year.
The 'grass is greener' comes to mind but there are mind boggling obstacles to Scotland succeeded ourside of the union and if you thought the Irish border was a problem wait until you come to the Scots English hard border with custom checks on 60% of Scots exports and 'bureau de change' for euro to the pound
And that is before differential tax rates in RUK favour, especially on business
The data bureaucracy mindset did take two powers to the moon - what Cummings is fond of quoting - but applied to the domestic sphere it partly spurred a cultural backlash.
Gove's and Cummings' should take note ; let's see if their iteration will be any more popular or effective.