politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The tide is high. How many Labour MPs will be holding on after

rottenborough said:

ThreeQuidder said:

Danczuk gone:

https://twitter.com/SimonDanczuk/status/861606075107336192

Is he running as indie?

Yep. Should be a great subplot.

Pong said:

I'm not convinced Marx would be voting labour in this election.

Worried about a mansion tax?

TOPPING said:

MTimT said:

HurstLlama said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Hurrah, I'm not the only PBer to wear (brown) loafers.

I was just thinking that he looks rather scruffy for a Tory candidate.

Still I suppose we have to make compromises in those parts.

It is alright to wear brown shoes out of Town, isn't it? He would look better if he actually polished the things though.

In town on Fridays, provided you are going to the country that weekend.

Who on earth wouldn't be?!

Doesn't it depend on the time of the year? Surely nice people would not go to the country during the Season, nor during cubbing time.

Anyway, this brown shoes on Friday was just a forerunner of "dress-down Friday" another abomination that we seem to have imported from the USA. Either a dress code matters or it doesn't, the idea that it matters for four days but not on the fifth is a nonsense.

I say is a nonsense but perhaps I should have said was a nonsense. I don't get up to Town much these days but when I do it seems that dress-down days have now been extended include from Monday to Friday.

SimonStClare said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Simon Danczuk✔@SimonDanczuk

My resignation letter from the Labour Party.
4:37 PM - 8 May 2017

Big sigh of relief from LHQ I’d have thought, he’d become the Kim Kardashian of the tabloids.

SimonStClare said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Simon Danczuk✔@SimonDanczuk

My resignation letter from the Labour Party.
4:37 PM - 8 May 2017

Big sigh of relief from LHQ I’d have thought, he’d become the Kim Kardashian of the tabloids.

Why? Has he got a huge arse?

rottenborough said:

ThreeQuidder said:

Danczuk gone:

https://twitter.com/SimonDanczuk/status/861606075107336192

Is he running as indie?

It's Josef not Joseph. Interesting isn't it how high-horse indignation drowns out understanding?

SquareRoot said:

SimonStClare said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Simon Danczuk✔@SimonDanczuk

My resignation letter from the Labour Party.
4:37 PM - 8 May 2017

Big sigh of relief from LHQ I’d have thought, he’d become the Kim Kardashian of the tabloids.

SimonStClare said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Simon Danczuk✔@SimonDanczuk

Not any longer, I believe they’ve separated.

In 2015 UKIP had around 600 candidates that got just under 4m votes, plenty in 5 figures. This time around they'll struggle to get 100 candidates, all but a handful will effectively be paper candidates. I'd suggest an average of 2-3000 per candidate, back to roughly 2010 figures.

That leaves 3.5m + votes up for grabs, 70%+ will vote Conservative but have no idea how that converts into seats. The better informed on here will have a good idea.

https://twitter.com/sophyridgesky/status/861611277453594627

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

TOPPING said:

logical_song said:

Stark_Dawning said:

stodge said:

felix said:

I dare you to listen.

https://order-order.com/2017/05/08/cable-and-olney-recorded-secretly-plotting-to-help-labour/

One or two on here getting a little overexcited:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-2017-liberal-democrats-paper-candidates-constituencies-tactical-voting-vince-cable-a7724276.html

Yes, the LDs will run "paper candidates", lots of them I suspect. These will be in seats where the party is a remote third, fourth or fifth and it isn't an instruction to LD supporters to vote for any party against the Conservatives. These candidates will be in both Labour and Conservative seats.

It's a recognition the party has to concentrate its limited resources on, I would guess, 50 seats where it has any kind of chance. I doubt for instance the LDs will do much campaigning in East Ham but there's a candidate selected.

Will the Conservatives do any campaigning in East Ham - if not, isn't their candidate also a "paper candidate" and, if so, what's the problem ?

This is a desperate attempt by Guido and those of his ilk to build a story out of a non-story.

Nope. Vince has blundered and handed the Tories a dream attack line.

All parties have paper candidates.

Each of those paper candidates, be assured, campaigns as though it is a super-marginal with everything to play for.

Nonsense. It's absolutely commonplace in ALL parties for a no-hope candidate to be told in no uncertain terms by HQ to stop wasting their time and put in the hours in the marginal next door. Those who ignore that friendly advice are given a proper rollocking when it comes to re-approval for the candidate list post-election.

Not the case in my experience.

GeoffH said:

rottenborough said:

ThreeQuidder said:

Danczuk gone:

https://twitter.com/SimonDanczuk/status/861606075107336192

Is he running as indie?

It's Josef not Joseph. Interesting isn't it how high-horse indignation drowns out understanding?

Not necessarily. Depends how you transliterate it from Cyrillic (or Georgian, for that matter).

Peter_the_Punter said:

Animal_pb said:

Pong said:

I'm not convinced Marx would be voting labour in this election.

There's a decent chance he'd be arguing with other posters on PB.com, though.

And impressed by the general level of debate, I should think.

He would also feel gratified, I'm sure, at how many of his political recommendations put forward in the Communist Manifesto have been put into effect and in some cases simply taken as the norm now - a graduated income tax, for example.

In that sense, you could argue that we're all Marxists now.

I think it was the good Dr. Palmer, gent of this parish, who pointed out on here a couple of years back that many of Labour's ideas of the 1980s, which were then regarded anathema, have since been implemented by the Conservative as well as Labour governments.

wales.

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/861611450183417857

MTimT said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

PB may not be the ideal place to start a symposium on the various contributions of KM to modern economic theory, but if we are going to do so, let's start from what he actually wrote, and not the Daily Mail version.

Unfortunately, Marxists have given Marx a bad name.

Hence the oft quoted 'Je ne suis pas Marxiste!' which Karl is reported to have exclaimed when he saw some of the things being done in his name.

(No, I don't know why he said it in French. Maybe he was in France at the time.)

This might explain it:

"“Je ne suis pas marxiste,” stated Marx, rather annoyed, to his son-in-law Paul Lafargue, when the latter reported the doings of French “Marxists.”"

Thanks, Tim. I often wondered about the context. Now I know.

You should be careful however about displaying such a familiarity with the words of the Messiah/Pariah (delete as appropriate.) You don't want somebody in Langley opening a file on you.

Richard_Nabavi said:

So now the LibDems are going to have to protest that they're not going to prop up Corbyn in a Coalition of Chaos, thereby looking even more confused and disgruntling both sides.

Well done, Vince.

Vince Cable celebrates his 74th birthday tomorrow.

IanB2 said:

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

TOPPING said:

logical_song said:

Stark_Dawning said:

stodge said:

felix said:

I dare you to listen.

https://order-order.com/2017/05/08/cable-and-olney-recorded-secretly-plotting-to-help-labour/

One or two on here getting a little overexcited:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/general-election-2017-liberal-democrats-paper-candidates-constituencies-tactical-voting-vince-cable-a7724276.html

Yes, the LDs will run "paper candidates", lots of them I suspect. These will be in seats where the party is a remote third, fourth or fifth and it isn't an instruction to LD supporters to vote for any party against the Conservatives. These candidates will be in both Labour and Conservative seats.

It's a recognition the party has to concentrate its limited resources on, I would guess, 50 seats where it has any kind of chance. I doubt for instance the LDs will do much campaigning in East Ham but there's a candidate selected.

Will the Conservatives do any campaigning in East Ham - if not, isn't their candidate also a "paper candidate" and, if so, what's the problem ?

This is a desperate attempt by Guido and those of his ilk to build a story out of a non-story.

Nope. Vince has blundered and handed the Tories a dream attack line.

All parties have paper candidates.

Each of those paper candidates, be assured, campaigns as though it is a super-marginal with everything to play for.

Nonsense. It's absolutely commonplace in ALL parties for a no-hope candidate to be told in no uncertain terms by HQ to stop wasting their time and put in the hours in the marginal next door. Those who ignore that friendly advice are given a proper rollocking when it comes to re-approval for the candidate list post-election.

In my experience there are three types of paper candidate. Those that take pride in following HQ instructions such that sometimes they never even set foot in their constituency during the campaign. Those that resign themselves to dutifully fulfilling their duties as a candidate, going to meetings and knocking on doors more or less on their own. And those that go off piste and try and run an energetic local campaign with whatever resources they can drag in from the local area.

.....and those that are told by their wife OK you can stand on condition you don't win. Not usually a problem.

felix said:

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/sophyridgesky/status/861611277453594627

V good of her to echo the Tory message there.

Bah! None of this strong and stable guff. I'm voting Tory to ensure a safe and secure society!

Took Tim Farron 2 weeks to work out what to say about Cable and the Greens. Vince was making noises about LDs standing aside on April 23rd.

http://www.itv.com/news/2017-05-08/no-coalitions-farron-insists-after-cable-hints-at-lib-dem-alliances-with-labour/

MarkSenior said:

Reading Martin Boon's write up on today's poll , he seems to be saying they have got Labour's vote share right but have Conservatives too high and Lib Dems too low . He says they are seriously considering methodology changes . Meanwhile this latest poll had a record number of Lib Dems for recent polls 175 ( 12% ) weighted down to 136 ( 9% ) .

Methodological changes during a campaign? What could possibly go wrong!

"It's absolutely commonplace in ALL parties for a no-hope candidate to be told in no uncertain terms by HQ to stop wasting their time and put in the hours in the marginal next door."

But it must be pretty unusual to tell them to go to the next door marginal and campaign for a different party.

paulyork64 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/SimonDanczuk/status/861606075107336192

I backed Con gain in Rochdale just this lunchtime. Not sure if this helps or not.

Depends if UKIP put up a candidate in the seat.

TheScreamingEagles said:

paulyork64 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/SimonDanczuk/status/861606075107336192

I backed Con gain in Rochdale just this lunchtime. Not sure if this helps or not.

Depends if UKIP put up a candidate in the seat.

Well I've backed it again anyway.

paulyork64 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

paulyork64 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/SimonDanczuk/status/861606075107336192

I backed Con gain in Rochdale just this lunchtime. Not sure if this helps or not.

Depends if UKIP put up a candidate in the seat.

Well I've backed it again anyway.

Good luck.

Rochdale was one of the few constituencies in 2015 that had a National Front candidate.

TOPPING said:

RobD said:

felix said:

Scott_P said:

https://twitter.com/sophyridgesky/status/861611277453594627

V good of her to echo the Tory message there.

Bah! None of this strong and stable guff. I'm voting Tory to ensure a safe and secure society!

The Long Term Economic Plan, meanwhile, lasted until June 24th 2016.

Now it's the Long Term Economic Guideline. Do keep up!

RobD said:

MarkSenior said:

Reading Martin Boon's write up on today's poll , he seems to be saying they have got Labour's vote share right but have Conservatives too high and Lib Dems too low . He says they are seriously considering methodology changes . Meanwhile this latest poll had a record number of Lib Dems for recent polls 175 ( 12% ) weighted down to 136 ( 9% ) .

Methodological changes during a campaign? What could possibly go wrong!

Yes , his commentary is well worth a read .

Will the LibDem and Labour campaign spend have to be included in the Tories' declaration?

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm sort of assuming now that quite a few leading Lib Dems have sold their seat count on the spreads.

How bad would it have to get for them to be on zero seats?

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm sort of assuming now that quite a few leading Lib Dems have sold their seat count on the spreads.

What do you make of 11/4 over 50% vote share for The Tories?

GB or UK?

TheValiant said:

I do wonder as to Labour's seat losses.

Regrettably, coming from Merseyside badly taints my opinion of their seat losses. Round here, swings to the 'Tories' are low and just don't happen. I think the only seat that should be lost here is Wirral West (And the UKPR forum for that seat suggests madly enough that Margaret Greenwood might not actually lose it - with a majority of just 417 and supporting Corbyn - she should be toast). Likewise Wirral South should be very much in play but a local friend reports that Alison McGovern is well liked and has built up a personal vote, which along with the Merseyside effect should see her safe.

Wirral South is No. 46 on the Conservative target list. Those on here talking about 'only' 50 seat losses for Labour should see her gone too, but I don't think she will be.

I do suspect that I see a strong local 'We vote Labour because we vote Labour' effect but I also wonder if that won't translate nationally too, to save Labour from a sub 200 seat meltdown.

There will be Non-uniform swing.

Labour will lose safer seats elsewhere, and retreat to the urban conurbations

David_Evershed said:

felix said:

peter_from_putney said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

So now the LibDems are going to have to protest that they're not going to prop up Corbyn in a Coalition of Chaos, thereby looking even more confused and disgruntling both sides.

Well done, Vince.

Vince Cable celebrates his 74th birthday tomorrow.

Felicidades! Of course he was kn own in the coalition for his duplicitousness. In the absence of any words from Farron I guess we can assume he was speaking for the general party line - the Libs will support Labour candidates where they are not in the running. If it quacks like a duck.......

Why would the Lib Dems want to oppose Conservatives more than oppose Labour?

Don't they want to win over Conservatives to their cause. The Conservative elector pool is much bigger than the Labour pool in which to fish. So Lib Dems should avoid aligning with Labour or Green because it puts off potential sof Conservatives considering the Lib Dems.

Splits on the left... such a beautiful thing.

RobD said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm sort of assuming now that quite a few leading Lib Dems have sold their seat count on the spreads.

What do you make of 11/4 over 50% vote share for The Tories?

GB or UK?

Hmm I don't know!

IanB2 said:

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

Carolus_Rex said:

SirNorfolkPassmore said:

TOPPING said:

logical_song said:

All parties have paper candidates.

Each of those paper candidates, be assured, campaigns as though it is a super-marginal with everything to play for.

Nonsense. It's absolutely commonplace in ALL parties for a no-hope candidate to be told in no uncertain terms by HQ to stop wasting their time and put in the hours in the marginal next door. Those who ignore that friendly advice are given a proper rollocking when it comes to re-approval for the candidate list post-election.

Unless, presumably, they win!

That certainly happens at local council level with very popular local figures whose appeal has been underestimated by the party. It's all much more volatile. Just to give an example, I don't suppose UKIP were predicting that their one and only council seat on Thursday wouldn't be a hold but a gain.

I very much doubt, even in 1997, that it has happened nationally in recent times. There are seats parties have been pleasantly surprised to win, but not that they have won having seen as so hopeless that they were demanding the candidate stop mucking about.

I've seen examples, however, of people being ordered out of seats that were wrongly assumed to be reasonably secure, and that were lost.

It certainly doesn't happen very often in the Liberal Democrats, for sure. Charles Kennedy in 1983 was however an interesting case - he only got back to the country from studying in the US a few weeks before the election; it was a new seat but mostly comprised of a predecessor in which the Liberals had come fourth with about 15%. To my knowledge it wasn't on the target list and was the SDP's only gain of the election. Whether he expected to win, I don't really know. Most people assume it was some quirk of highland politics.

Interesting. Apparently in 1997 the New Labour gains that really stunned Alistair Campbell were St Albans and Wimbledon. I'm guessing St Albans was fought on new boundaries though - Peter Lilley was no longer the candidate and if he'd done the chicken run it wouldn't have been much of a surprise.

ThreeQuidder said:

This looks like a fairer test than some of the spin we've seen:

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/861618328191815680

So 58% are either indifferent, don't know or none of these, and that is people interested in polls.

2% are excited, heaven knows what sort of dull lives they must lead.

CarlottaVance said:

https://twitter.com/ICMResearch/status/861610514450874368

Does OGH still view ICM as being the Gold Standard as regards pollsters, I think we should be told?

Peter_the_Punter said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

PB may not be the ideal place to start a symposium on the various contributions of KM to modern economic theory, but if we are going to do so, let's start from what he actually wrote, and not the Daily Mail version.

Unfortunately, Marxists have given Marx a bad name.

Hence the oft quoted 'Je ne suis pas Marxiste!' which Karl is reported to have exclaimed when he saw some of the things being done in his name.

(No, I don't know why he said it in French. Maybe he was in France at the time.)

French used to be an important language?

*innocent face*

Scott_P said:

twitter.com/wisermonkeys/status/861608831381639169

Is that peak Nat I spot?

freetochoose said:

ThreeQuidder said:

This looks like a fairer test than some of the spin we've seen:

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/861618328191815680

So 58% are either indifferent, don't know or none of these, and that is people interested in polls.

2% are excited, heaven knows what sort of dull lives they must lead.

Given how little the average Brit actually knows about or follows French politics, the finding that a quarter of them (edit/ a third, including the delighteds) are pleased with the outcome is actually quite remarkable. They can't all be PB punters counting their winnings.

TheValiant said:

I do wonder as to Labour's seat losses.

Regrettably, coming from Merseyside badly taints my opinion of their seat losses. Round here, swings to the 'Tories' are low and just don't happen. I think the only seat that should be lost here is Wirral West (And the UKPR forum for that seat suggests madly enough that Margaret Greenwood might not actually lose it - with a majority of just 417 and supporting Corbyn - she should be toast). Likewise Wirral South should be very much in play but a local friend reports that Alison McGovern is well liked and has built up a personal vote, which along with the Merseyside effect should see her safe.

Wirral South is No. 46 on the Conservative target list. Those on here talking about 'only' 50 seat losses for Labour should see her gone too, but I don't think she will be.

I do suspect that I see a strong local 'We vote Labour because we vote Labour' effect but I also wonder if that won't translate nationally too, to save Labour from a sub 200 seat meltdown.

My model posted earlier does indeed include Wirral South as a Labour hold against the general flow.

I've done it on the basis of 2015 UKIP vote, with those seats with more than 2/3rds of a standard deviation below the average UKIP vote (like Wirral South) getting a 2.5% swing, those 2/3rds of a standard deviation above an 8.5% swing, and those with a broadly typical UKIP vote a 5.5% swing in line with polls putting the Tory lead at about 17-18%.

The bad news for Labour is Wirral South is not typical. Only Tooting and Westminster North join it as "surprise" holds (i.e. less than UNS needed). Meanwhile, there are 14 "surprise" defeats - Batley & Spen, Dudley N, Great Grimsby, Hartlepool, Mansfield, Newport E, Oldham E, Penistone & Stocksbridge, Stalybridge & Hyde, Wolverhampton NE, Workington, and Worsley & Eccles.

It's a bit back-of-a-fag packet so not to be taken too seriously... but it does illustrate that there's an imbalance. If Labour do indeed suffer badly in seats with a higher than typical UKIP vote, it is not fully compensated for by doing better (or less badly) in seats with a lower than average UKIP vote.

To cut a long story short, Wirral South is NOT typical - it's rather unusual.

Mr. D, the Lib Dems still haven't worked out that the Conservatives are their adversaries, but Labour are their rivals.

It's an obvious but critical thing to grasp. This country isn't leftwing enough for the two big parties to be of the left. For the Lib Dems to aspire to government in their own right they must first supplant Labour.

freetochoose said:

ThreeQuidder said:

This looks like a fairer test than some of the spin we've seen:

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/861618328191815680

So 58% are either indifferent, don't know or none of these, and that is people interested in polls.

2% are excited, heaven knows what sort of dull lives they must lead.

When you think how little people in general know about political figures in their own country, it seems a bit strange to be using their 'opinions' of foreign politicians as a guide to anything much.

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm sort of assuming now that quite a few leading Lib Dems have sold their seat count on the spreads.

What do you make of 11/4 over 50% vote share for The Tories?

I haven't bet on it but I think that's pretty fair. Given the Lib Dems' determination to ruin their campaign at every turn, UKIP's orderly winding-up and severe doubts over the reliability of Labour's voters, the Conservatives might well outperform polls in practice. The vote share has to go somewhere.

Today's poll has them on 49 w UKIP on 8... IMO UKIP cannot get 8

We mostly agree UKIP will be lucky to get zilch. We mostly agree Labour will be well below the 30% they've been touching in some polls. We mostly agree the SNP will fall back. And only a few brave souls so far think the Tories can beat 50%.

A LibDem surge is becoming a mathematical necessity?

Scott_P said:

twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/861615068282327040

twitter.com/meanwhilescotia/status/861536995746754560

Not sure. Three of those could easily be described as winners.

BBC: - Tim Farron says there will be no pacts with other parties after two senior Lib Dems were recorded discussing support for a Labour candidate.

Ex-business secretary Sir Vince Cable said he would find it "difficult to vote against" a Labour candidate whose views were "very close" to his own.

Lib Dem Richmond Park candidate Sarah Olney suggested the use of "paper candidates" or "not campaigning".

But Mr Farron said: "Let me be clear: no pact, no deal, no coalition."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39848939

RobD said:

Not sure. Three of those could easily be described as winners.

Not yesterday. Over the longer term perhaps

Charles said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

PB may not be the ideal place to start a symposium on the various contributions of KM to modern economic theory, but if we are going to do so, let's start from what he actually wrote, and not the Daily Mail version.

Unfortunately, Marxists have given Marx a bad name.

Hence the oft quoted 'Je ne suis pas Marxiste!' which Karl is reported to have exclaimed when he saw some of the things being done in his name.

(No, I don't know why he said it in French. Maybe he was in France at the time.)

French used to be an important language?

*innocent face*

ta geuele! (even more innocent face, if that's possible.)

AlastairMeeks said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

I'm sort of assuming now that quite a few leading Lib Dems have sold their seat count on the spreads.

What do you make of 11/4 over 50% vote share for The Tories?

I haven't bet on it but I think that's pretty fair. Given the Lib Dems' determination to ruin their campaign at every turn, UKIP's orderly winding-up and severe doubts over the reliability of Labour's voters, the Conservatives might well outperform polls in practice. The vote share has to go somewhere.

imagine if they get 52%. LOL.

https://twitter.com/DFosterEvans/status/861574079870107653

TheScreamingEagles said:

https://twitter.com/DFosterEvans/status/861574079870107653

Indeed, the establishment is utterly unprepared. It is a long time since a party won 50% of the vote.