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Swingers Club News – politicalbetting.com
Swingers Club News – politicalbetting.com
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This is probably all part of the structural changes that come from the demographic erosion of the boomer segment and the rise of millenials as the most powerful voting block. Millenials are on average more likely to be university educated, left leaning remainers with tolerant views about ethnicity and gender identity, holding a grievance against tories who have done nothing but ridicule them for their coffee and avocado toast preferences and excluded them from fair housing. The millenials are only going to get stronger over the next terms of government. There are also moving out of London into neighbouring areas to shift the balance in traditional tory regions.
The hard right boomer platform just isn't sustainable for a political party. My guess: this is a phase change in british politics. If the tories want to survive after being kicked out, they will have to ditch the boomers and rebrand conservativism for the millenials. (Nobody gives a rats arse about gen x of course)
An interesting analysis, but drawing a conclusion rather different from mine. Because swings of such magnitude are very rare, I would say Labour is unlikely to get an overall majority. Not impossible, but unlikely.
A couple of other points:
1) It's not worth considering elections before 1885 for swing, due to the restricted electorate, and in many ways it isn't worth considering elections before 1918 due to the limited number of seats actually contested. In 1900, for example, 243 seats were returned unopposed.
2) This also solves the problem with 1918!
3) I would also note the swing in 1931 was fiendishly complicated as well, due to splits, electoral pacts and the economic crisis. So that swing is not much use as a comparison.
4) The 1945 general election was not only the only election since 1900 held in wartime* but brought an end to the longest parliament since the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1660. It was also the last election at which multiple voting was allowed. I don't think the swing there tells us much either.
5) That means that there is only one election where there was a swing which - if replicated - would give Starmer's Labour a majority. The election concerned was 1997. That swing would give Starmer a majority of one.
That's a formidable task. It's remarkable it's even possible, but even allowing for Rishi Sunak being more deluded than a Republican Senator it seems to me in the words of Lord Peter Wimsey an improbable-possible.
*Technically 1918 was too but there was a ceasefire in effect, so I'm not counting that.
The seat was North East Fife.
The swing was around 17%.
The Liberal concerned lost his seat.
His name? H H Asquith.
The last generation to grow up without tech.
The real baseline in my view is much closer to 2015. Although clearly there are also demographic and psephological shifts in the electorate since then, not least increased volatility.
The Tories are deeply unpopular, and whilst Labour are not themselves popular, the mood is for change. That will give Labour a decent majority.
Depending when you start counting I am either a very late gen x or a very early millennial and don’t fit into the broad stereotype of either.
Actually the result in 2019 was very much what you would have expected based on 2017's Tory vote share once you eliminated the freak 7% or so who voted Labour in a 'stop Brexit' panic. The real story behind all that was the freakishness of 2017.
2019 was, incidentally, very close to what the 1992 election would have looked like without tactical voting (Tory majority of 77). In a sense, that supports your point but because Labour starts from so much further behind in terms of seats they need to do that much more work to catch up.
Another point is that an awful lot of former Labour areas have been drifting away from the party for years. Several reasons for this. One is housing. Many former Labour areas have much lower housing costs so are attracting the moderately affluent and ambitious middle classes who tend to vote Tory, while the cities dominated by the very poor and the liberal rich drift further Labour. Another is simply neglect. Labour have, for example, had a stranglehold on Stoke for years and the city's taken for granted, having useless party grandees like Tristram the Hunt imposed on them (whether they have fared better with Jonathan Gullis is another question)! Demographics and education could also be mentioned - the university seats continue to drift left, manufacturing seats right. Brexit catalysed many of these changes, but it didn't cause them. Morley and Outwood in 2010 and 2015 may be considered the canary in the coal mine. (Indeed, one of the stories of 2017 was how many near misses there were in Tory target seats due to Labour's late surge - Newcastle under Lyme 34 votes was an exceptionally close one, but without even thinking Wolverhampton South East and Wakefield the Tories were a bare 2000 votes from winning seats Labour considered safe).
I am happy to use 2019 as a baseline and consider 2017 the freak. I could be wrong, but all the evidence points the same way.
Which means Starmer still has a huge mountain to climb. Comparable to that of Cameron and Kinnock rather than Blair or Attlee.
Edward Heath pulled it off, but under somewhat different circumstances. That remains the only peacetime election in the age of universal suffrage where a government with a double-digit majority has been replaced by a new government with a double digit majority of its own.
I expect some massive shifts this election. And tactical voting to be back to 1997/2001 levels. Except in the SE, low water for the Tories will be some way below 1997 levels. How low? I don’t know but I expect to see some surprising seats change hands. Chelmsford? Tunbridge Wells?
On two party swing Wiki says this:
In the UK, a two-party swing (averaged model) is generally used, which adds one party's increase in share of the vote (expressed as a percentage point) to the percentage-point fall of another party, and divides the total by two.
Why is the total divided by two?
More in Common do break down voting in their tables by Generation rather than conventional bands, albeit starting Gen X in the late rather than mid Sixties.
If a single voter switches from Con to Lab then the Lab lead over Con goes up by two.
I don't therefore expect to see substantial numbers of Labour gains in the south outside the main university areas. Maybe 20-30 in total. The Liberal Democrats maybe the same. Enough to deny the Tories a majority, but not to put Labour in landslide territory.
In the north? Hard to tell. There will be some seats that return to Labour, but others may even drift further away from it. It wouldn't surprise me to see a Tory hold in Stafford and a Labour gain in NuL, for example, although on paper the seats and majorities are similar.
But let's say Labour pick up another 40 seats in the north and Wales, and 25 in Scotland. That's around 100 gained. That would be an impressive achievement and requires a swing of around 8%, which would be the second largest swing of any election since 1945 (in fact it's not far off double - 60% - the next largest of 5% in 1979).
That's still very far short of a majority.
If you want a predictive, value based baseline - somewhere where it is most rational to start assessing what might change and why in 2024 - I think that you run the risk of confusing fact and judgement.
Yes, there might be a record shift from 2019 to 2024, but the future very obviously does not keep repeating the past and records are there to be broken.
I don’t see all that many people these days, but one very common grumble is the state of the roads, especially the number, and depth, of potholes.
Incidentally, what Generation am I; born before WWII. Professional qualification, not degree, although required a couple of years full-time study.
The bizarre irony of that particular election was not only was Sprot not couponed but Unionist leader Bonar Law actually turned up to campaign for Asquith.
And Asquith still got absolutely thumped.
All elections have their own unique circumstances, but both 2017 and 2019 were particularly odd. I think 2015 was our last "normal" election, though even that was odd due to the Coalition.
If a single person on such a flight makes their way back to Calais the entire 400 million pound scheme is a bust.
Jeremy Clarkson jokes about it in his recent column.
Therefore, those who dismiss 2019 as a baseline (to reiterate) are making a serious error. It is a perfectly acceptable baseline and we again come back to Starmer has a mountain to climb.
As we see by the goalpost moving on here. First 2019 wasn't useful. Then I don't understand the depth of anger in the south...
I sway between thinking a) Labour can't possibly win a majority given the swing required, and b) the Conservatives can't possibly stop them given the past two years' poll and the ineptitude of the current leadership.
Truth is, none of us knows. A real-life drama will unfold next year.
(I enjoyed the header, by the way - was it you or TSE wrote the headline?)
Graham Greene in real life.
There’s no magic about historical precedent. It’s just what has happened to happen. There isn’t a mechanism of action by which what has happened before constrains what will happen next time. If very large numbers of people are saying they will vote Labour, and only small numbers say Conservative, I think we have to believe them.
That may well be reversing, partly due to new cohorts of retirees from younger generations, but also reflecting the Labour lead. Starmers swing applies to all age ranges, it isn't just based on the youngsters.
So (this won't happen of course but) if the Tories lost 65 seats, all to the LDs and Labour stayed on 202, Tories would have 300 seats, 100 more than Labour and Labour would lead the next government. But not for long before another election. What larks.
We have people struggling to travel - with the negative economic impact of that - and train manufacturers on the verge of closure due to the lack of orders.
If this country worked, supply would be increased to match demand…
I am in Gloucestershire, which must have one of the worst potholes problems in the country. I am close to the border with Worcestershire, and when I drive north to Evesham, as I often do, I know as soon as I leave Gloucestershire by the state of the roads. It is exactly the same experience as I once had when driving from Berlin into the recently absorbed East Germany. The tires told you immediately when you crossed the old border.
Why would Gloucestershire roads be so much worse than surrounding counties? Is the county really more starved of funds than others?
Fwiw, it is a Conservative County Council, though that may change soon.
It's also why I'm saying we should discount elections before 1945 in considering likely outcomes. I am pointing out that if we do such swings are extremely rare, and such seat gains as Labour require for a majority equally rare. Our system militates against it.
That doesn't mean such an outcome is impossible, merely that it shouldn't be favourite. Don't look at just the polls, look at the practicalities too.
650 seats, so the winning post is 326.
For the Libs, Scots etc to get over 100 combined would be pretty crazy. That leaves 550.
So to deny Labour a majority, the Conservatives have got to get more than 225. That's better than Major '97, Hague or Howard. That also doesn't smell right.
And yes, Labour winning a majority requires a crazy swing to happen all at once. But it's what the polls and by elections are showing. And, unlike 1997, there is a lot of fruit that isn't so much low-hanging as falling to the ground of its own accord.
Everest is the highest mountain in the world, but K2 is thought to be more challenging to climb.
Neither are as bad as Staffs though. They resurfaced the Cannock to Penkridge road just six months ago (closing it for six weeks in the process) and it's already riddled with potholes again. Absolutely appalling work.
But whenever anyone produces a historical precedent argument, I am reminded of the xkcd cartoon.
Far too weak a word.
Who on the right can stand up to Braverman, Farage and the divisive menagerie.
Let’s assume that a flight actually leaves for Rwanda and that the foreign invaders are successfully dumped in Kigali. Two separate considerations which feel unlikely at the moment.
But if they do. The nutters foaming on about Rwanda expect that all foreign vermin will be removed to foreign straight away and that boats will stop immediately. And that won’t happen.
When the slogan is as moronic and absolutist as STOP THE BOATS the only satisfaction is to stop the boats. Completely. And with it the reason to stop the boats which is to remove the vermin. Which can’t be done.
However much the Tories try to spin any progress they make, the Nigel and ReFUK will be there demanding more.
Studying UNS does make voting behavior seem far more stable than it really is. Often that volatility does cancel out, but that is not necessarily the case.
It will keep happening - indeed, it will grow - until someone in office gets a grip on migration.
This will shortly become Labour's problem. And putting your fingers in your ears isn't a strategy.
If the new divide is Labour for working age people, Conservatives for the retired, that's only a bit of a problem for the blue team. Gen X is smaller than the boomer generation, but not decisively so.
If, on the other hand, the Conservatives have strapped themselves to the boomers, they will need to do something to avoid dying with them.
Many UK voters would be rather disappointed to discover how little difference it made, in the same way that a lot of Leavers are puzzled as to why Brexit has not resulted in a discernible reduction in the number of forriners around.
Because once it happens, it gets to capacity in... What? A day? A week?
And then what?
At the start of the results the Conservatives were getting more that expected and a minion was painting extra numbers on the swingometer to keep up.
The Rwanda deal commits us to take and resettle a number of refugees from Rwanda, who most likely would be from the wars in Eastern DRC.
I wonder what the Faragist press will make of that.
Brexit. Millions of never voters turning out not just to vote but to literally blow up the political ecosystem. Then 2 elections later the same millions of never voters turning out again. Hordes of people on council estates who never ever vote coming out to vote for the first time ever to vote Conservative.
Madness. Crazy. Impossible. But it happened.
Set aside the statistics and the political norms and well this election no that election. People have seen that voting for the impossible can actually deliver.
It isn’t just the polls - which are stark. It’s the mood. Listen to what people are saying. What they are complaining about. That sense of hopelessness. A revolution is coming. Because like with Brexit and the subsequent confirmatory election in 2019, the need to vote outweighs the inertia which prevents people voting.
The Daily Star - the newspaper for people who do not vote - is hyper political and openly partisan for the “fuck the Tories” party. Don’t tell me politics is done for those millions of previously non-voters. It isn’t.
An administration quietly, methodically working towards a state where this is sustainable and depoliticised is an anathema to the new right.
If we take the polling at face value, then this analysis of historical swings suggests the next election will have a record swing. That could be because we’ve had an unusual period of politics (Brexit, the oddities of 2017/9, the rise of the Brexit Party/Reform), including other unprecedented events (COVID-19, PM turnover, PM law-breaking, tax levels, immigration levels).
But maybe also people’s voting behaviours have changed. The idea that you can’t have large swings comes down to the idea that most people won’t change how they vote. The “practicalities” of which you speak are of getting people to vote for a different party than last time. Maybe, in the modern era, after some unprecedented referendums, in a world of social media, people are just much more changeable in how they vote. I note that two out of the three highest ever Conservative->Labour swings in by-elections have been in this Parliament, and three out of the four highest Conservative->LibDem swings too. Isn’t that evidence that the electorate has become “swingier”?
Has it occurred to you that it will probably cause a spike in visitors to the Site? Imagine all those people googling Swingers Clubs and being directed here. Ah well, it will make a change from Russian Trolls.
Airlines fearing reputational damage are said to be refusing to supply aircraft — and the MoD doesn’t want to be involved either
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/latest-setback-to-the-tory-rwanda-plan-there-are-no-planes-cxpwnkpfc (£££)
He quoted an anti-Corbyn Labour MP saying (I’m paraphrasing): if Corbyn had won the 2019 election the party truly would have been lost.
It’s why (I think) the Tories have a far harder job to root out their barmy faction. The barmy faction, because of very unusual historical circumstances (deadlock of Brexit), actually won an election.
The Tories will return to a centre-right party I expect (though am by no means certain), but it’s going to be a far harder road than Labour’s has been post-Corbyn. Cummings and Johnson can take a lot of the blame for that I think.
"Kicking them up the arse" is a powerful motivator, if not a particularly coherent or useful one.
The corollary of your revolutionary change idea is that frustration will build quickly with Starmer/Reeves, but benefitting left wing rather than right wing populist.
At present there are 198 properly signed up Labour MPs in Parliament, with some outliers in very safe Labour seats who have been expelled for various reasons. That means the Tories have got 152x that financial advantage across the country. In Scotland the SNP have 41 more of the same benefits as Labour. It won't save them but it makes the mountain Labour have to climb truly precipitous.
The absolute vote share in each seat is what it is. I think swing psychology assumes there is frictional drag in each voter. That to move from one party to another involves an effort of will. Therefore the further votes have to move from the last election, the more friction acts against the result.
Maybe there’s some truth in this. But maybe less if a. those voters have already moved around a bit in the last couple of elections, b. they have already voted Labour in local elections.
Polls have swung wildly since the Brexit vote, suggesting voter friction may not be what it was.
I don't think that the government is either willing or able to do this, but imagine that every single illegal who enters the UK goes on a plane to Rwanda the following day, without fail.
Yes, a few would try again - and end up back in Rwanda again. It wouldn't take all that long before word started getting back to the places these people come from, that the expensive and dangerous route to Europe and then to the UK was just a really expensive and dangerous way to get to Rwanda. And that would over time (probably months rather than years) cut off the flow of migratnts willing to try.
It's also a bit like the nuclear deterrent - people had to let off a few big bangs to demonstrate that the systems worked, and then they are built into policy decisions for as long as they are around. In a similar way, I'd imagine we'd have to ship a few thousand people to Rwanda in the first year, after which we would hardly be shipping anybody at-all, because almost no one would be wasting their time trying to come, and the gangs currently running the small boat would presumably go back to other forms of organised crime.
At least if there is a big swing to Starmer Labour it would be expected from broadcasters point of view
The whole argument is that putting some people on a plane will stop all people getting in a boat.
One person from a plane getting on a boat nullifies the entire argument.
We don't have sufficient police / border force resource to catch all the small boats
We don't have anywhere to securely intern all the arrivals and won't be getting anywhere ever as no-one wants a gulag in their locale
We don't have sufficient Border Force staff to process people
We don't have capacity in the courts system to legally declare people alien
We don't have aircraft to fly people to Rwanda
Rwanda doesn't have the capacity to take even a fraction of the numbers assuming it still wants to participate at all
So even if the bill gets through parliament - and that looks very unlikely - it still cannot function as intended. To say nothing of the massive holes in the bill which Starmer tore open at PMQs a few weeks ago. Do have to ask if the Tories proposing this bill have actually read it...
Critics say the comments, made in 2017, show the budget watchdog is biased toward public spending and ‘not fit for purpose’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/16/corbyn-debt-plans-could-boost-gdp-said-obr-economist/ (£££)
By the mid 2030s if Labour are in government and still in power you would expect the Tories to see swingback to them
And remember also that we have FPTP. FPTP produces big changes in seats for more moderate changes in vote shares.
Ofcom has published a list of swearwords by degree of offensiveness, which really is a f****** great service for non-native speakers. So here it is (thread)
https://x.com/hhesterm/status/1736293337689182593?s=46
Of course the medium term consequences as debt, borrowing, inflation and interest rates spiral out of control would be rather different but any economist who said anything else, well, wouldn't be an economist.
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone
Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all, it's just another brick in the wall
Certainly those who have persuaded themselves this is ever going to work in a meaningful sense certainly need an education.
Labour need to have answers to this, or you might find those Tory and Reform voter numbers grow rather quickly.