Incoming extinction level event for the Tories – politicalbetting.com
Comments
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2010 was on new boundaries. He was still pretty close.viewcode said:
Be careful. SJC's exit polls had the advantage of unchanged boundaries for 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019. The new boundaries are going to fudge things up a bit. ☹️Casino_Royale said:
I always believe Sir John Curtice.Eabhal said:
Even if the exit poll comes out with similar numbers many of us - me included - won't believe it.OnlyLivingBoy said:It's odd, I see these MRP results and I simply don't believe the result will be anything like this. But I can't really say why. And what if that's because it's just unlike results we've seen before? What if this time really is different? I forecast for a living, and the hardest thing to know is when the paradigm has genuinely shifted, when your data are being drawn from a different distribution from before. In this case it's complicated by emotional involvement, too.
So I continue to say no, the result will not look like this. But if it is, we can't say we weren't warned.
I'm trying to remember my reaction to the SNP 58/59 in 2015. I probably didn't believe it then. They got 56 in the end.
He knows precisely what he's doing, and his exit polls are as accurate as they can be.1 -
Also dodgy for Didcot and Wantage, where Labour leads on the national figures but EC has inserted a shift based on 2019 voting which actually makes Tories an implausible poor 3rd with LDs 1st and Lab 2nd and the virtually invisible Reform on 11%. Local estimates suggests s 3-way marginal with Labour narrownly ahead.Foxy said:
I don't think it right on Romsey and Southampton North either. I think the LDs will do well there.Casino_Royale said:Just going through the MRP in electoral calculus and some of the result seem non-sensical: whopping leads for Labour in Portsmouth North, but next door in Fareham the Tories cling on.
They're also using 23% for the Conservatives, 45% for Labour and 11% for Reform - so that skews it a fair bit - and a low figure of 9% for the LDs.
Again, Epsom and Ewell still looks like value for the LDs at 9/1 - that's two MRPs that have had them leading it closely, after tactical voting now - and it seems just the sort of seat in Surrey that could swing heavily to them.
I've topped up.0 -
I think that the challenge for a right wing party in Britain is that the issues driving right wing populism with the young in mainland Europe don't play particularly well here. The antiimmigrant culture war stuff worked with older white men here, the Reform demographic, but plays very poorly with the young here, who are much more culturally liberal.SouthamObserver said:
There is definitely a place for a strong centre right party in the UK. What it looks like is the issue. The Boomer generation is passing into history. All that generation's assumptions, ways of seeing the world and experiences are therefore doing the same. The Tories need to win over the under-50s. If Labour wins this general election, the under-50s becomes the under-55s. That is the challenge. Right now, they are talking to the generation PB posters like myself and Leon belong to. And we are part of a dying demographic.MattW said:
That's excoriating. And possible.Sean_F said:Perhaps, like the 1920’s Liberals, a party just stops representing any significant element of the population. The Conservatives’ strategy of talking right, acting left, and lining their own pockets seems to have reached the end of the road.
Centre right politics is probably pointless now, in the UK.
My analysis back post-Brexit was that there was an opportunity for a broader N-S voting coalition around right of centre.
But that opportunity is now gone with the coming tumbling of the red wall, the self-consignment of the Tories to the 'place of gnashing and grinding of teeth'
by their leadership, and the imagined rise of the latest version of the more radical right.
So now I'm looking for something anchored more around the centre-left core of Labour.
The younger generations are not natural socialists though. They are less wedded to national institutions like the BBC, political parties, military, Monarchy or NHS, and naturally consumerist. While they want housing, they do not want social housing. No one aspires to that.
So if the Tories are to have a future they need to align themselves better with socially liberal people with economic aspirations. This needs to extend way beyond the top few percent. You cannot win an election with those.
The next 5 years are going to be dominated by cheeseparing austerity because of the policies chosen on tax and spending by Hunt, and implicitly endorsed by Reeves. Interest rates will restore a bit of sense to the housing market and make saving worthwhile. This will be grim, but is necessary medicine.
In 2028-9 there will be a desire for an alternative, but it needs to be a socially liberal one that merges freedom of lifestyle with economic freedom and opportunity. Starmer reinvented Blairism, to which the successful political response was Cameronism. That is the direction that would work.3 -
And Donald Trump.ydoethur said:Just looking at the South African result.
Boy, Jacob Zuma makes Alex Salmond look like a fecking amateur.0 -
Trump hasn't run for a third party (yet).Malmesbury said:
And Donald Trump.ydoethur said:Just looking at the South African result.
Boy, Jacob Zuma makes Alex Salmond look like a fecking amateur.0 -
"With ballots now counted from 98% of voting districts, here's how the top five parties currently stand:
ANC - 40%
DA - 22%
MK - 15%
EFF - 9%
IFP - 4%
These figures from the electoral commission have changed since we updated you last evening, when results from 75% of the voting districts were in.
Since then, ANC has fallen from 42% to 40%, the MK Party has edged up a little to 15% while EFF remains at 9% of the vote share."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-690764730 -
That would require a government who wasn't terrified of nationalisation. But I agree, any rational analysis would suggest that this new plan is a daft idea virtually guaranteed to be bad value for money for taxpayers/customers.OldKingCole said:
Good morning fellow opinion poll watchers!Foxy said:
The leak (!) is that Thames Water is not going to be fined for 5 years, and allowed overflows in order to keep the company viable, rather than go insolvent.StillWaters said:
So what is OFWAT’s plan given that it hasn’t been announced to the market?Foxy said:
The Lib Dem campaign features water quite heavily. It is just the sort of light green issue that works well in target seats.Mexicanpete said:
The red tape was cut.TOPPING said:
A regulatory visit every week sounds like a whole bunch of red tape waiting to be cut.Mexicanpete said:
I deal with waste regulators. They are underfunded. When the Environment Agency came about in 1996 I would get a regulatory visit once a week. At that same site they get a regulatory visit on average once a year. Is there any wonder if there is no scrutiny things turn bad.JosiasJessop said:
That's not quite the same thing, as it ignores the last clause in my comment.Mexicanpete said:...
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-why-do-water-companies-spill-sewage-into-rivers-and-seas-and-how-does-uk-water-quality-compare-to-other-countries#:~:text=Water companies are sometimes allowed,spills are happening too often.JosiasJessop said:
I'm still of the belief that the 'shit in the rivers crisis' is mostly invented. Yes, there's too much pollution being sent in, but is it really much more than before, given the way that reporting the incidents has changed?Monksfield said:
The oddest thing about Aaron’s resignation letter was the pop at the Environment Agency re: Walley’s Quarry.rkrkrk said:Aaron Bell standing down
Regulation is at the heart of the issue. You cannot moan about the failure of a regulator to deliver effective regulation when you and your party routinely denigrate regulation as evil red tape that ties honest businesses in knots. The Tory Government that Aaron supports has promoted a culture of ineffective regulation. The Environment Agency and other environmental regulators are not encouraged to do their jobs effectively.
This failure to recognise the appropriate balance between enterprise and regulation has consequences, such as the shit in rivers crisis. Which has cost them many votes.
And it’s one of the main reasons I will never vote Tory.
(Not that I'm calling for progress on stopping this shit from happening.)
Sewage has routinely been released into water for years, especially during high-rainfall events. AIUI reporting of these was manually done - or at least, was *supposed* to be manually done. The accusation was that many releases wre not reported, or the amounts dramatically under-reported.
A program started to allow automated monitoring of such releases, which means that the figures are properly reported.
https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2021/03/31/event-duration-monitoring-lifting-the-lid-on-storm-overflows/
The argument is that the figures do not show a massive real increase in the amount released; just that the amount released is not being properly reported for the first time. The increase occurring whilst the program is being implemented in the mid-2010s may well point to this, and the fact decreases occur towards the end of the program.
But yes, we need to dump less shit in the water.
And here we are with rivers and streams full of sewerage and "stop the stink" campaigns in Stoke and Haverfordwest.
Emblematic too as to how the Tories have been running down the country, feeding bungs to shareholders and literally shit service to customers.
OFWATs plan for Thames Water is a scandal that we will hear more of.
https://www.cityam.com/thames-water-and-ofwat-tight-lipped-on-plans-to-cut-fines-and-avoid-nationalisation/
Would it not be be better for the Government to compulsorily purchase Thames Water for a nominal amount and use the present staff, who must be sick of the whole thing, to make it a functional water supplier again.
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I'm not sure why Chris Bryant is getting that wound-up about this - unless he had a relevant Shadow Cabinet role.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
He has a point on some of the schemes, but it isn't totally ludicrous (and isn't likely to change under Labour) for there to be a degree of competition between local authorities for funding of projects (as opposed to ongoing services). Say central government is funding flood mitigation schemes, in a sense why not have a competition to see which project is the best use of funds.Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
The money spent developing projects isn't necessarily wasted even if the funding bid is unsuccessful. Plans aren't just binned - they can be implemented in other (often more modest) forms with existing funds, improved upon, or used as the basis for future bids.
The Towns Fund is England only aiui; his attention should be on the Welsh Government, surely?
He's right about it being used as a smokescreen / sticky plaster wrt local authority funding cuts, however.1 -
Even the 1992 exit polling debacle was more to do with post-hoc massaging of the model, to keep it in line with pre-elevction polling, IIRC.Casino_Royale said:
I always believe Sir John Curtice.Eabhal said:
Even if the exit poll comes out with similar numbers many of us - me included - won't believe it.OnlyLivingBoy said:It's odd, I see these MRP results and I simply don't believe the result will be anything like this. But I can't really say why. And what if that's because it's just unlike results we've seen before? What if this time really is different? I forecast for a living, and the hardest thing to know is when the paradigm has genuinely shifted, when your data are being drawn from a different distribution from before. In this case it's complicated by emotional involvement, too.
So I continue to say no, the result will not look like this. But if it is, we can't say we weren't warned.
I'm trying to remember my reaction to the SNP 58/59 in 2015. I probably didn't believe it then. They got 56 in the end.
He knows precisely what he's doing, and his exit polls are as accurate as they can be.
(Awaits barrage of correction...)0 -
I suspect that what Reeves says now won't be what we see come the budget in October - simply put the forthcoming cuts that the NI cuts were based on cannot be achieved...Foxy said:
I think that the challenge for a right wing party in Britain is that the issues driving right wing populism with the young in mainland Europe don't play particularly well here. The antiimmigrant culture war stuff worked with older white men here, the Reform demographic, but plays very poorly with the young here, who are much more culturally liberal.SouthamObserver said:
There is definitely a place for a strong centre right party in the UK. What it looks like is the issue. The Boomer generation is passing into history. All that generation's assumptions, ways of seeing the world and experiences are therefore doing the same. The Tories need to win over the under-50s. If Labour wins this general election, the under-50s becomes the under-55s. That is the challenge. Right now, they are talking to the generation PB posters like myself and Leon belong to. And we are part of a dying demographic.MattW said:
That's excoriating. And possible.Sean_F said:Perhaps, like the 1920’s Liberals, a party just stops representing any significant element of the population. The Conservatives’ strategy of talking right, acting left, and lining their own pockets seems to have reached the end of the road.
Centre right politics is probably pointless now, in the UK.
My analysis back post-Brexit was that there was an opportunity for a broader N-S voting coalition around right of centre.
But that opportunity is now gone with the coming tumbling of the red wall, the self-consignment of the Tories to the 'place of gnashing and grinding of teeth'
by their leadership, and the imagined rise of the latest version of the more radical right.
So now I'm looking for something anchored more around the centre-left core of Labour.
The younger generations are not natural socialists though. They are less wedded to national institutions like the BBC, political parties, military, Monarchy or NHS, and naturally consumerist. While they want housing, they do not want social housing. No one aspires to that.
So if the Tories are to have a future they need to align themselves better with socially liberal people with economic aspirations. This needs to extend way beyond the top few percent. You cannot win an election with those.
The next 5 years are going to be dominated by cheeseparing austerity because of the policies chosen on tax and spending by Hunt, and implicitly endorsed by Reeves. Interest rates will restore a bit of sense to the housing market and make saving worthwhile. This will be grim, but is necessary medicine.
In 2028-9 there will be a desire for an alternative, but it needs to be a socially liberal one that merges freedom of lifestyle with economic freedom and opportunity. Starmer reinvented Blairism, to which the successful political response was Cameronism. That is the direction that would work.2 -
No. Lifestyle choices like driving a flash car. Wearing high fashion and a bling watch. Taking expensive holidays. And yes, paying for private education. All discretionary spend.BartholomewRoberts said:
"Lifestyle choices" like needing to pay rent or mortgages?SandyRentool said:
Well no. You may not have major outgoings at present, but you may be saving up for a deposit on your own home, for example.tlg86 said:
But isn't that what that quote implies? I live with my parents. I don't have a mortgage. Take that principle to it's logical conclusion and my tax rate should be through the roof.SandyRentool said:
A slice of your pie is given to someone with no pie. You still have plenty to fill your plate. And in many cases, still way more than enough.tlg86 said:
Because what's the point of having the ability if the benefits are taken from you?SandyRentool said:
Would you care to explain why it is wrong?tlg86 said:
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798448223609302Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
...of election bribes to a bunch of Tory constituencies.
The policy is wrong, morally and economically.
Gove says it’s like an unfinished cathedral. It’s much worse than that.
A far better principle would be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.
No, it would not.
We aren't advocating 99% income tax rates.
Ability to pay is gauged on a macro rather than micro level. Hence you end up with highly paid people claiming that they are virtually on the bread line, due to their lifestyle choices.
"Lifestyle choices" like bringing up children?
One of the biggest differences in living expenses is simply if you're paying for the roof over your head or not. If you live rent or mortgage free then costs are completely different to if you need to spend a grand or more a month on rent/mortgage.
Earning £500 a month extra doesn't make up for spending £1000 a month extra.1 -
Electoral Calculus have an article https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_tactical_20240531.html looking at the tactical vote situation.NickPalmer said:
Also dodgy for Didcot and Wantage, where Labour leads on the national figures but EC has inserted a shift based on 2019 voting which actually makes Tories an implausible poor 3rd with LDs 1st and Lab 2nd and the virtually invisible Reform on 11%. Local estimates suggests s 3-way marginal with Labour narrownly ahead.Foxy said:
I don't think it right on Romsey and Southampton North either. I think the LDs will do well there.Casino_Royale said:Just going through the MRP in electoral calculus and some of the result seem non-sensical: whopping leads for Labour in Portsmouth North, but next door in Fareham the Tories cling on.
They're also using 23% for the Conservatives, 45% for Labour and 11% for Reform - so that skews it a fair bit - and a low figure of 9% for the LDs.
Again, Epsom and Ewell still looks like value for the LDs at 9/1 - that's two MRPs that have had them leading it closely, after tactical voting now - and it seems just the sort of seat in Surrey that could swing heavily to them.
I've topped up.
In England, we discovered that Reform voters were the least likely to vote tactically with only 34% saying they would vote for another party. This bodes poorly for Rishi Sunak, especially given recent policy announcements that are designed to cajole Reform voters into lending him their support. Fewer than a quarter of Reform supporters would consider voting Conservative tactically.
On the other hand, we found that many Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green voters were minded to vote tactically with 45%-50% of them saying they would. This tactical voting is almost entirely anti-Conservative.
In Scotland, the group most likely to behave tactically were Labour and Liberal Democrat voters who appeared to be willing to lend support to one another in a likely bid to boost unionist candidates. On the pro-independence side, SNP and Green voters were quite inclined to switch between each other's parties.
People in Wales are less inclined to vote tactically, although the sample size is fairly small.
Another key finding is that voters are confused about which party to vote tactically for. This is partly due to the new constituency boundaries, and partly due to the big changes in public opinion since 2019.2 -
My other half and daughter have their Irish citizenship because my partner was a "registered foreign birth". I'm very pleased for them and not at all gnashing my teeth.LostPassword said:
No. I still have 17 months until I qualify for Irish citizenship. Until then I am only as free to travel and work as anyone else with a British passport.Roger said:
You're a lucky person. You can travel and work as freely as I used to be able to.LostPassword said:
Roger. I live in Ireland.Roger said:
Don't you notice the absence of bright young Europeans working in your town and city centres? Do you think Americans would be happy if you were restricted to living in the State of Georgia and to live or work elsewhere was made difficult? Don't you see how it would slowly become a backwater?LostPassword said:
Roger. It's not exactly a surprise that the small minority of people who can afford to live on the Cote d'Azur are we happy as Larry. It's not representative of a huge difference between Europe and Britain created by Brexit.Roger said:
You wouldn't notice as half the population seem to have second -or in many cases first-homes on the Cote d'Azur. My neighbours there are irish. just had their place renovated by Rumanian builders.LostPassword said:
Greetings from joyous and cosmopolitan Ireland where the happy population is fighting with the gardaí to prevent any building works they suspect is intended to house asylum seekers.Roger said:It's much easier to see for those who spend timen in other EU countries where it hasn't changed and see that it's so much more joyous and cosmopolitan.
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Agree that the young aren't naturally socialist.Foxy said:
I think that the challenge for a right wing party in Britain is that the issues driving right wing populism with the young in mainland Europe don't play particularly well here. The antiimmigrant culture war stuff worked with older white men here, the Reform demographic, but plays very poorly with the young here, who are much more culturally liberal.SouthamObserver said:
There is definitely a place for a strong centre right party in the UK. What it looks like is the issue. The Boomer generation is passing into history. All that generation's assumptions, ways of seeing the world and experiences are therefore doing the same. The Tories need to win over the under-50s. If Labour wins this general election, the under-50s becomes the under-55s. That is the challenge. Right now, they are talking to the generation PB posters like myself and Leon belong to. And we are part of a dying demographic.MattW said:
That's excoriating. And possible.Sean_F said:Perhaps, like the 1920’s Liberals, a party just stops representing any significant element of the population. The Conservatives’ strategy of talking right, acting left, and lining their own pockets seems to have reached the end of the road.
Centre right politics is probably pointless now, in the UK.
My analysis back post-Brexit was that there was an opportunity for a broader N-S voting coalition around right of centre.
But that opportunity is now gone with the coming tumbling of the red wall, the self-consignment of the Tories to the 'place of gnashing and grinding of teeth'
by their leadership, and the imagined rise of the latest version of the more radical right.
So now I'm looking for something anchored more around the centre-left core of Labour.
The younger generations are not natural socialists though. They are less wedded to national institutions like the BBC, political parties, military, Monarchy or NHS, and naturally consumerist. While they want housing, they do not want social housing. No one aspires to that.
So if the Tories are to have a future they need to align themselves better with socially liberal people with economic aspirations. This needs to extend way beyond the top few percent. You cannot win an election with those.
The next 5 years are going to be dominated by cheeseparing austerity because of the policies chosen on tax and spending by Hunt, and implicitly endorsed by Reeves. Interest rates will restore a bit of sense to the housing market and make saving worthwhile. This will be grim, but is necessary medicine.
In 2028-9 there will be a desire for an alternative, but it needs to be a socially liberal one that merges freedom of lifestyle with economic freedom and opportunity. Starmer reinvented Blairism, to which the successful political response was Cameronism. That is the direction that would work.
But your vision of the economic future is far too bleak imo.
Competent govt will give us all kinds of dividends. If Reeves and Starmer realise they need to invest for growth, I think in 5 years time we will be in a much better place.0 -
I am surprised that some of the smaller parties, particularly Reform, are not making more of these types of polls. Sunak is going round the country saying that any non Tory vote is a vote for Starmer. But that logic only works if there is a serious chance of a Tory majority after the election. If the Tories cannot win a Tory vote is, by the logic of their own campaign, a ‘wasted’ vote. It will not prevent a Labour victory. If that becomes widely accepted then the scare tactics of the conservative campaign cease to have a purpose and the millions being spent on internet adds attacking Labour are wasted. Then the choice becomes who do people actually believe better represents their views. I have been looking at Ed Davey with a sense of slight bafflement up until now, but maybe it’s not so strange after all. Who is closer to the views of the people of the U.K. a billionaire trying to bully them into voting for him, even though it’s obvious he cannot win, or the bloke doing normal stuff with normal people, and listening to what they have to say. If I were running any of the campaigns of the smaller parties this poll would be on the front of every leaflet. It says this election is different, Labour have won, it’s the chance of the electorate to vote for what they actually believe in for once. By all means vote Tory if they stand for what you believe in. But don’t allow yourself to be bullied out of fear, as the result is a formality.2
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Excuse my butting in, but surely having children is a lifestyle choice?SandyRentool said:
No. Lifestyle choices like driving a flash car. Wearing high fashion and a bling watch. Taking expensive holidays. And yes, paying for private education. All discretionary spend.BartholomewRoberts said:
"Lifestyle choices" like needing to pay rent or mortgages?SandyRentool said:
Well no. You may not have major outgoings at present, but you may be saving up for a deposit on your own home, for example.tlg86 said:
But isn't that what that quote implies? I live with my parents. I don't have a mortgage. Take that principle to it's logical conclusion and my tax rate should be through the roof.SandyRentool said:
A slice of your pie is given to someone with no pie. You still have plenty to fill your plate. And in many cases, still way more than enough.tlg86 said:
Because what's the point of having the ability if the benefits are taken from you?SandyRentool said:
Would you care to explain why it is wrong?tlg86 said:
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798448223609302Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
...of election bribes to a bunch of Tory constituencies.
The policy is wrong, morally and economically.
Gove says it’s like an unfinished cathedral. It’s much worse than that.
A far better principle would be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.
No, it would not.
We aren't advocating 99% income tax rates.
Ability to pay is gauged on a macro rather than micro level. Hence you end up with highly paid people claiming that they are virtually on the bread line, due to their lifestyle choices.
"Lifestyle choices" like bringing up children?
One of the biggest differences in living expenses is simply if you're paying for the roof over your head or not. If you live rent or mortgage free then costs are completely different to if you need to spend a grand or more a month on rent/mortgage.
Earning £500 a month extra doesn't make up for spending £1000 a month extra.1 -
It's the old problem of talking to people about a subject on which they have already made up their mind rather than addressing a subject which can sway votes.Roger said:Interesting. Maurice Saatchi on how he lost the election for Michael Howard twenty odd years ago.
" I did not dispel the illusion of research, which said that, as immigration was the number one issue in deciding how people vote, it should be the number one topic."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/jun/20/uk.conservatives4 -
There is a difference between tactical voting based on where each party came in 2019, adjusted for new boundaries, and that based on current 2024 voting.Verulamius said:
Electoral Calculus have an article https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_tactical_20240531.html looking at the tactical vote situation.NickPalmer said:
Also dodgy for Didcot and Wantage, where Labour leads on the national figures but EC has inserted a shift based on 2019 voting which actually makes Tories an implausible poor 3rd with LDs 1st and Lab 2nd and the virtually invisible Reform on 11%. Local estimates suggests s 3-way marginal with Labour narrownly ahead.Foxy said:
I don't think it right on Romsey and Southampton North either. I think the LDs will do well there.Casino_Royale said:Just going through the MRP in electoral calculus and some of the result seem non-sensical: whopping leads for Labour in Portsmouth North, but next door in Fareham the Tories cling on.
They're also using 23% for the Conservatives, 45% for Labour and 11% for Reform - so that skews it a fair bit - and a low figure of 9% for the LDs.
Again, Epsom and Ewell still looks like value for the LDs at 9/1 - that's two MRPs that have had them leading it closely, after tactical voting now - and it seems just the sort of seat in Surrey that could swing heavily to them.
I've topped up.
In England, we discovered that Reform voters were the least likely to vote tactically with only 34% saying they would vote for another party. This bodes poorly for Rishi Sunak, especially given recent policy announcements that are designed to cajole Reform voters into lending him their support. Fewer than a quarter of Reform supporters would consider voting Conservative tactically.
On the other hand, we found that many Liberal Democrat, Labour and Green voters were minded to vote tactically with 45%-50% of them saying they would. This tactical voting is almost entirely anti-Conservative.
In Scotland, the group most likely to behave tactically were Labour and Liberal Democrat voters who appeared to be willing to lend support to one another in a likely bid to boost unionist candidates. On the pro-independence side, SNP and Green voters were quite inclined to switch between each other's parties.
People in Wales are less inclined to vote tactically, although the sample size is fairly small.
Another key finding is that voters are confused about which party to vote tactically for. This is partly due to the new constituency boundaries, and partly due to the big changes in public opinion since 2019.
Labour does better in the latter scenario whilst the Lib Dems do better in the former. There is a 20 seat difference for Labour between the two.
It would seem that Nick's seat in Wantage and Didcot could be one of those seats.
Local campaigning with appropriate bar charts are the order of the day to get the "right" message across.1 -
What about living in London?SandyRentool said:
No. Lifestyle choices like driving a flash car. Wearing high fashion and a bling watch. Taking expensive holidays. And yes, paying for private education. All discretionary spend.BartholomewRoberts said:
"Lifestyle choices" like needing to pay rent or mortgages?SandyRentool said:
Well no. You may not have major outgoings at present, but you may be saving up for a deposit on your own home, for example.tlg86 said:
But isn't that what that quote implies? I live with my parents. I don't have a mortgage. Take that principle to it's logical conclusion and my tax rate should be through the roof.SandyRentool said:
A slice of your pie is given to someone with no pie. You still have plenty to fill your plate. And in many cases, still way more than enough.tlg86 said:
Because what's the point of having the ability if the benefits are taken from you?SandyRentool said:
Would you care to explain why it is wrong?tlg86 said:
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798448223609302Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
...of election bribes to a bunch of Tory constituencies.
The policy is wrong, morally and economically.
Gove says it’s like an unfinished cathedral. It’s much worse than that.
A far better principle would be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.
No, it would not.
We aren't advocating 99% income tax rates.
Ability to pay is gauged on a macro rather than micro level. Hence you end up with highly paid people claiming that they are virtually on the bread line, due to their lifestyle choices.
"Lifestyle choices" like bringing up children?
One of the biggest differences in living expenses is simply if you're paying for the roof over your head or not. If you live rent or mortgage free then costs are completely different to if you need to spend a grand or more a month on rent/mortgage.
Earning £500 a month extra doesn't make up for spending £1000 a month extra.0 -
They are left with the "one-party state" line, which is what they used to use in Scotland about the SNP.johnt said:I am surprised that some of the smaller parties, particularly Reform, are not making more of these types of polls. Sunak is going round the country saying that any non Tory vote is a vote for Starmer. But that logic only works if there is a serious chance of a Tory majority after the election. If the Tories cannot win a Tory vote is, by the logic of their own campaign, a ‘wasted’ vote. It will not prevent a Labour victory. If that becomes widely accepted then the scare tactics of the conservative campaign cease to have a purpose and the millions being spent on internet adds attacking Labour are wasted. Then the choice becomes who do people actually believe better represents their views. I have been looking at Ed Davey with a sense of slight bafflement up until now, but maybe it’s not so strange after all. Who is closer to the views of the people of the U.K. a billionaire trying to bully them into voting for him, even though it’s obvious he cannot win, or the bloke doing normal stuff with normal people, and listening to what they have to say. If I were running any of the campaigns of the smaller parties this poll would be on the front of every leaflet. It says this election is different, Labour have won, it’s the chance of the electorate to vote for what they actually believe in for once. By all means vote Tory if they stand for what you believe in. But don’t allow yourself to be bullied out of fear, as the result is a formality.
0 -
What about living? That’s a lifestyle choice.tlg86 said:
What about living in London?SandyRentool said:
No. Lifestyle choices like driving a flash car. Wearing high fashion and a bling watch. Taking expensive holidays. And yes, paying for private education. All discretionary spend.BartholomewRoberts said:
"Lifestyle choices" like needing to pay rent or mortgages?SandyRentool said:
Well no. You may not have major outgoings at present, but you may be saving up for a deposit on your own home, for example.tlg86 said:
But isn't that what that quote implies? I live with my parents. I don't have a mortgage. Take that principle to it's logical conclusion and my tax rate should be through the roof.SandyRentool said:
A slice of your pie is given to someone with no pie. You still have plenty to fill your plate. And in many cases, still way more than enough.tlg86 said:
Because what's the point of having the ability if the benefits are taken from you?SandyRentool said:
Would you care to explain why it is wrong?tlg86 said:
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798448223609302Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
...of election bribes to a bunch of Tory constituencies.
The policy is wrong, morally and economically.
Gove says it’s like an unfinished cathedral. It’s much worse than that.
A far better principle would be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.
No, it would not.
We aren't advocating 99% income tax rates.
Ability to pay is gauged on a macro rather than micro level. Hence you end up with highly paid people claiming that they are virtually on the bread line, due to their lifestyle choices.
"Lifestyle choices" like bringing up children?
One of the biggest differences in living expenses is simply if you're paying for the roof over your head or not. If you live rent or mortgage free then costs are completely different to if you need to spend a grand or more a month on rent/mortgage.
Earning £500 a month extra doesn't make up for spending £1000 a month extra.1 -
Not legallyMalmesbury said:
What about living? That’s a lifestyle choice.tlg86 said:
What about living in London?SandyRentool said:
No. Lifestyle choices like driving a flash car. Wearing high fashion and a bling watch. Taking expensive holidays. And yes, paying for private education. All discretionary spend.BartholomewRoberts said:
"Lifestyle choices" like needing to pay rent or mortgages?SandyRentool said:
Well no. You may not have major outgoings at present, but you may be saving up for a deposit on your own home, for example.tlg86 said:
But isn't that what that quote implies? I live with my parents. I don't have a mortgage. Take that principle to it's logical conclusion and my tax rate should be through the roof.SandyRentool said:
A slice of your pie is given to someone with no pie. You still have plenty to fill your plate. And in many cases, still way more than enough.tlg86 said:
Because what's the point of having the ability if the benefits are taken from you?SandyRentool said:
Would you care to explain why it is wrong?tlg86 said:
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798448223609302Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
...of election bribes to a bunch of Tory constituencies.
The policy is wrong, morally and economically.
Gove says it’s like an unfinished cathedral. It’s much worse than that.
A far better principle would be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.
No, it would not.
We aren't advocating 99% income tax rates.
Ability to pay is gauged on a macro rather than micro level. Hence you end up with highly paid people claiming that they are virtually on the bread line, due to their lifestyle choices.
"Lifestyle choices" like bringing up children?
One of the biggest differences in living expenses is simply if you're paying for the roof over your head or not. If you live rent or mortgage free then costs are completely different to if you need to spend a grand or more a month on rent/mortgage.
Earning £500 a month extra doesn't make up for spending £1000 a month extra.
0 -
Mebyon Kernow doing well I see....Andy_JS said:"With ballots now counted from 98% of voting districts, here's how the top five parties currently stand:
ANC - 40%
DA - 22%
MK - 15%
EFF - 9%
IFP - 4%
These figures from the electoral commission have changed since we updated you last evening, when results from 75% of the voting districts were in.
Since then, ANC has fallen from 42% to 40%, the MK Party has edged up a little to 15% while EFF remains at 9% of the vote share."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-69076473
0 -
Is it? I think the point is sks looks comfortably middle class and ok to Tory waverers whereas Rayner is scarily working class and northern and an obvious TrotskyistToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=610 -
They really are running the most desperate, and terrible, campaign.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
I can’t imagine any of the remaining tories on here can possibly think that one is funny or clever.
And it just reiterates what many people think: that they are a thoroughly nasty party who have lost touch with the country and lost touch with reality.
Sorry but it needs to be said.2 -
Or where and in what type of property you choose to live more generally.tlg86 said:
What about living in London?SandyRentool said:
No. Lifestyle choices like driving a flash car. Wearing high fashion and a bling watch. Taking expensive holidays. And yes, paying for private education. All discretionary spend.BartholomewRoberts said:
"Lifestyle choices" like needing to pay rent or mortgages?SandyRentool said:
Well no. You may not have major outgoings at present, but you may be saving up for a deposit on your own home, for example.tlg86 said:
But isn't that what that quote implies? I live with my parents. I don't have a mortgage. Take that principle to it's logical conclusion and my tax rate should be through the roof.SandyRentool said:
A slice of your pie is given to someone with no pie. You still have plenty to fill your plate. And in many cases, still way more than enough.tlg86 said:
Because what's the point of having the ability if the benefits are taken from you?SandyRentool said:
Would you care to explain why it is wrong?tlg86 said:
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798448223609302Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
...of election bribes to a bunch of Tory constituencies.
The policy is wrong, morally and economically.
Gove says it’s like an unfinished cathedral. It’s much worse than that.
A far better principle would be ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’.
No, it would not.
We aren't advocating 99% income tax rates.
Ability to pay is gauged on a macro rather than micro level. Hence you end up with highly paid people claiming that they are virtually on the bread line, due to their lifestyle choices.
"Lifestyle choices" like bringing up children?
One of the biggest differences in living expenses is simply if you're paying for the roof over your head or not. If you live rent or mortgage free then costs are completely different to if you need to spend a grand or more a month on rent/mortgage.
Earning £500 a month extra doesn't make up for spending £1000 a month extra.
We could fit into a smaller home. We could live in a cheaper area. We chose not to. As a result, we have greater outgoings. But we aren't asking for a tax break on the back of this.0 -
Anyhoooo,
I can’t spend a lot of time on here as I’m busy but could we possibly pull together from the wide range of brilliance on here the top 10 constituency betting tips?
I’m struggling to get betting traction in this election. I don’t find the general markets currently offering me anything very much attractive.
I’ve seen Richmond and Northallerton offered at 4/1 Labour which might ‘just’ be worth a wee flutter although the odds are not exactly spectacular.
But where else is looking attractive? What are the top tips?
Please NO partisan party guff. This is a betting request.1 -
I like this culpability view on voting. It doesn’t get the credit/ acknowledgment it deserves.LostPassword said:
In your position I think I would look to find out as much as I could about the respective Labour and Lib Dem candidates, and see if that helped me to make the decision.kle4 said:
I'm not really sure how I should vote.LostPassword said:
Labour did so badly in 2019, and the swings to them this time are so large, that anyone looking to vote tactically by looking at the result last time, or the notional result last time on the new boundaries, will be seriously misled, and so attempts to tactical vote could actually save a lot of incumbents from the Labour wave.TimS said:
Those are odd results. How on earth do the SNP do better with tactical voting? Isn’t the entire anti-SNP voting pattern in Scotland driven by unionist tactical voting?ToryJim said:These are the figures with and without tactical voting
🚨📊 || MRP Poll from @ElectCalculus
/ @FindoutnowUK:
Without Tactical Voting
🌹 LAB: 493 (+297)
🌳 CON: 72 (-300)
🔶 LDM: 39 (+31)
🎗️ SNP: 22 (-26)
🌼 PLC: 4 (+2)
🌍 GRN: 2 (+1)
With Tactical Voting:
🌹 LAB: 476 (+280)
🌳 CON: 66 (-306)
🔶 LDM: 59 (+51)
🎗️ SNP: 26 (-22)
🌼 PLC: 3 (+1)
🌍 GRN: 2 (+1)
I've always lived in a safe Tory seat, it (or its predecessor seat) have been Tory since 1924 (auspicious!). So I don't tend to worry about whether my vote would or would not make a difference, it typically would not. In 2017 I voted Tory in it, because even though my vote would not be needed for the Tory to win, I felt my antipathy to Corbyn was such I should my vote where my mouth was, and to share in the culpability if things then all went pear shaped.
So on a similar basis I should perhaps vote Labour, as I do think it's time the Tories lose and nationally they are the game in town. They are also second in the seat, and I don't think I've actually voted Labour before in an election. But the LDs are much stronger locally. I voted for them in 2010 and 2015 hoping for a Lib-Con coalition. So on a tactical level it might be better to vote for them, unless the national tide is so strong that even without much local influence Labour retain the main anti-Tory vote.
I'll go with my gut on the day.
We have responsibilities and those that stand away, claiming superiority to the selection of state are shirkers.
0 -
it's very catty and snipey, which just about sums up the tory campaign.megasaur said:
Is it? I think the point is sks looks comfortably middle class and ok to Tory waverers whereas Rayner is scarily working class and northern and an obvious TrotskyistToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=610 -
It's increasingly hard to rule out the possibility that those at the top of the Conservative Party are insane.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
The incoming doom will do that to people.1 -
Just back from work visit to Germany. 2nd visit in a year. Country feels like it's unravelling to at least the same degree as the UK. Doesn't mean Brexit was a good idea, far from it, but that other countries are facing other pressures which cause similar damage.LostPassword said:
Roger. It's not exactly a surprise that the small minority of people who can afford to live on the Cote d'Azur are we happy as Larry. It's not representative of a huge difference between Europe and Britain created by Brexit.Roger said:
You wouldn't notice as half the population seem to have second -or in many cases first-homes on the Cote d'Azur. My neighbours there are irish. just had their place renovated by Rumanian builders.LostPassword said:
Greetings from joyous and cosmopolitan Ireland where the happy population is fighting with the gardaí to prevent any building works they suspect is intended to house asylum seekers.Roger said:It's much easier to see for those who spend timen in other EU countries where it hasn't changed and see that it's so much more joyous and cosmopolitan.
1 -
Yes Rayner is more working class and left wing, but if she were some Machiavellian puppet master wouldn’t the Labour plan be less cautious? Most voters are not as credulous as that Tory messaging assumes.megasaur said:
Is it? I think the point is sks looks comfortably middle class and ok to Tory waverers whereas Rayner is scarily working class and northern and an obvious TrotskyistToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=610 -
I would suggest looking for seats where Labour losing votes over Gaza might let the Tories in through the back door.Heathener said:Anyhoooo,
I can’t spend a lot of time on here as I’m busy but could we possibly pull together from the wide range of brilliance on here the top 10 constituency betting tips?
I’m struggling to get betting traction in this election. I don’t find the general markets currently offering me anything very much attractive.
I’ve seen Richmond and Northallerton offered at 4/1 Labour which might ‘just’ be worth a wee flutter although the odds are not exactly spectacular.
But where else is looking attractive? What are the top tips?
Please NO partisan party guff. This is a betting request.1 -
Yes, but this stuff is coming from the people at the bottom of the party. The only person they could find to run the twitter account spends their time emailing memes to their younger relatives, none of which are ever responded to.Stuartinromford said:
It's increasingly hard to rule out the possibility that those at the top of the Conservative Party are insane.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
The incoming doom will do that to people.1 -
Not insane but somewhat desperate.Stuartinromford said:
It's increasingly hard to rule out the possibility that those at the top of the Conservative Party are insane.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
The incoming doom will do that to people.1 -
Their problem is that they are a bunch of spotty public school boys and girls who are so far up themselves in the Westminster bubble that they have no idea what resonates outside. The vast majority of people do not hate Angela Rayner - they do not know who she is. Most people were not outraged by Diane Abbott's treatment - most people didn't care if they even heard about it and the details registered.Heathener said:
They really are running the most desperate, and terrible, campaign.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
I can’t imagine any of the remaining tories on here can possibly think that one is funny or clever.
And it just reiterates what many people think: that they are a thoroughly nasty party who have lost touch with the country and lost touch with reality.
Sorry but it needs to be said.
Its a media campaign when they needed to address popular concerns. They are so obsessed with 'winning the air war' that they don't understand that doing so without addressing the real issues just wastes the days as we count down.
FON tend to be at the Lab end of polling and this MRP looks based on an outlier but the basic picture of probable results is not getting brighter for Mr Sunak and all his clever boys and girls.
What's the market on Levido defecting to Lab before polling day?1 -
I’ve clipped your post to respond to this bit as I’m not sure you’re correct about this Foxy.Foxy said:
I think that the challenge for a right wing party in Britain is that the issues driving right wing populism with the young in mainland Europe don't play particularly well here. The antiimmigrant culture war stuff worked with older white men here, the Reform demographic, but plays very poorly with the young here, who are much more culturally liberal.SouthamObserver said:
There is definitely a place for a strong centre right party in the UK. What it looks like is the issue. The Boomer generation is passing into history. All that generation's assumptions, ways of seeing the world and experiences are therefore doing the same. The Tories need to win over the under-50s. If Labour wins this general election, the under-50s becomes the under-55s. That is the challenge. Right now, they are talking to the generation PB posters like myself and Leon belong to. And we are part of a dying demographic.MattW said:
That's excoriating. And possible.Sean_F said:Perhaps, like the 1920’s Liberals, a party just stops representing any significant element of the population. The Conservatives’ strategy of talking right, acting left, and lining their own pockets seems to have reached the end of the road.
Centre right politics is probably pointless now, in the UK.
My analysis back post-Brexit was that there was an opportunity for a broader N-S voting coalition around right of centre.
But that opportunity is now gone with the coming tumbling of the red wall, the self-consignment of the Tories to the 'place of gnashing and grinding of teeth'
by their leadership, and the imagined rise of the latest version of the more radical right.
So now I'm looking for something anchored more around the centre-left core of Labour.
The younger generations are not natural socialists though. They are less wedded to national institutions like the BBC, political parties, military, Monarchy or NHS, and naturally consumerist. While they want housing, they do not want social housing. No one aspires to that.
[…]
You’ve equated socialism with national institutions and I’m not sure that’s a very contemporary definition?
I think young people are incredibly strong on society and social conscience, extending not just across human interaction but with nature and our planet. That social-ism is one of the defining messages of younger people today.
But equating that to an old school 1945 Attlee Big State nationalisation or indeed nationalism? No. There I agree.
Socialism as Statism is dead to the young. Socialism as a mycelial supra-network is absolutely alive.3 -
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept2 -
I am drinking kvass!0
-
As Jesus was a good socialist, that suggests a bad poll for Labour.Scott_xP said:
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept0 -
They also have to take into account the boundary changes and how they go about working that out is way beyond me? They won’t be comparing like for like.LostPassword said:
An article on the details of how the exit poll works would be interesting, to answer questions like this. Would take a bit of research.Eabhal said:
I wonder if the exit poll is set up to take account of potentially huge swings like this. They will have to poll a much larger number of constituencies, including some of the very safest seats.Casino_Royale said:
I always believe Sir John Curtice.Eabhal said:
Even if the exit poll comes out with similar numbers many of us - me included - won't believe it.OnlyLivingBoy said:It's odd, I see these MRP results and I simply don't believe the result will be anything like this. But I can't really say why. And what if that's because it's just unlike results we've seen before? What if this time really is different? I forecast for a living, and the hardest thing to know is when the paradigm has genuinely shifted, when your data are being drawn from a different distribution from before. In this case it's complicated by emotional involvement, too.
So I continue to say no, the result will not look like this. But if it is, we can't say we weren't warned.
I'm trying to remember my reaction to the SNP 58/59 in 2015. I probably didn't believe it then. They got 56 in the end.
He knows precisely what he's doing, and his exit polls are as accurate as they can be.0 -
.
Competition is fine as a principle - but in this particular case it was indeed a waste of a lot of time and money for most of the losers.bondegezou said:
Your assuming that the competition system produces the right answer. This is rarely the case. It's a lot of time wasted for a system that ends up picking no better.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
He has a point on some of the schemes, but it isn't totally ludicrous (and isn't likely to change under Labour) for there to be a degree of competition between local authorities for funding of projects (as opposed to ongoing services). Say central government is funding flood mitigation schemes, in a sense why not have a competition to see which project is the best use of funds.Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
The money spent developing projects isn't necessarily wasted even if the funding bid is unsuccessful. Plans aren't just binned - they can be implemented in other (often more modest) forms with existing funds, improved upon, or used as the basis for future bids.
And as a transformative scheme, 'levelling up‘ was a complete failure.0 -
I didn’t realise that Jesus was a Conservative.Scott_xP said:
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept0 -
And increasingly irrational.ToryJim said:
Not insane but somewhat desperate.Stuartinromford said:
It's increasingly hard to rule out the possibility that those at the top of the Conservative Party are insane.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
The incoming doom will do that to people.
(Which is not the same thing.)0 -
No it bloody isn’t. The idea Starmer is weak, and in pocket of Rayner and The Left is extremely powerful spin to get out there. The Conservative campaign should double down on this, over and over.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
Labour will bomb, when Rayner succeeds Starmer as leader.0 -
We need some sort of moderation of poll ramping. The pollsters have worked out that it drives traffic and it's just going to get worse.Scott_xP said:
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept
(Not your fault Scott)1 -
The MRP was a weird one. I don’t think (m)any of us really believe it and it’s not, after all, a fresh poll as such? More a data mine.AramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
I’m sceptical about it tbh.0 -
Wasn't this yesterday?Farooq said:
Half the time these poll ramping tweets fizzle to something distinctly underwhelming. It's attention seeking and needs to be discouraged.Scott_xP said:
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept0 -
No, it wasHeathener said:
The MRP was a weird one. I don’t think (m)any of us really believe it and it’s not, after all, a fresh poll as such? More a data mine.AramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
I’m sceptical about it tbh.
1) A new poll, sample 10,000
2) Pushed through a MRP model
3) Then through a tactical voting model
0 -
Because he's an MP and shadow minister, not a member of the Welsh Assembly ?MattW said:
I'm not sure why Chris Bryant is getting that wound-up about this - unless he had a relevant Shadow Cabinet role.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
He has a point on some of the schemes, but it isn't totally ludicrous (and isn't likely to change under Labour) for there to be a degree of competition between local authorities for funding of projects (as opposed to ongoing services). Say central government is funding flood mitigation schemes, in a sense why not have a competition to see which project is the best use of funds.Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
The money spent developing projects isn't necessarily wasted even if the funding bid is unsuccessful. Plans aren't just binned - they can be implemented in other (often more modest) forms with existing funds, improved upon, or used as the basis for future bids.
The Towns Fund is England only aiui; his attention should be on the Welsh Government, surely?
He's right about it being used as a smokescreen / sticky plaster wrt local authority funding cuts, however.0 -
I suggest that a lot of ‘comfortably off’ people have a sneaking regard for Rayner. Pulled herself up by her own bootstraps and all that.ToryJim said:
Yes Rayner is more working class and left wing, but if she were some Machiavellian puppet master wouldn’t the Labour plan be less cautious? Most voters are not as credulous as that Tory messaging assumes.megasaur said:
Is it? I think the point is sks looks comfortably middle class and ok to Tory waverers whereas Rayner is scarily working class and northern and an obvious TrotskyistToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
Not like the gilded youth in that famous picture of Cameron and Johnson in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford!2 -
Totally agree.Eabhal said:
We need some sort of moderation of poll ramping. The pollsters have worked out that it drives traffic and it's just going to get worse.Scott_xP said:
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept
(Not your fault Scott)
I wish we could also strip out the partisan stuff from people who have openly admitted to campaigning for a particular party, or at least politely ask them to tone it down a few notches.
More serious is when we start to get postal returns and into the count when people clearly attempt to influence the markets for personal gain with misleading posts.
There were some iffy examples during the London mayoral elections including, I’m sorry to say, on here.0 -
Did they add the date and take off the time as well?Eabhal said:
No, it wasHeathener said:
The MRP was a weird one. I don’t think (m)any of us really believe it and it’s not, after all, a fresh poll as such? More a data mine.AramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
I’m sceptical about it tbh.
1) A new poll, sample 10,000
2) Pushed through a MRP model
3) Then through a tactical voting model1 -
I think that we are more likely to get the Social Democrat Rachel succeeding the Socialist Sir Keir.MoonRabbit said:
No it bloody isn’t. The idea Starmer is weak, and in pocket of Rayner and The Left is extremely powerful spin to get out there. The Conservative campaign should double down on this, over and over.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
Labour will bomb, when Rayner succeeds Starmer as leader.2 -
Tbf, I think it has a little bit more legitimacy in a FPTP system.Farooq said:
I hated that nonsense. It's a democracy with proportional representation, for fuck's sake. Just because for a few years the SNP blew all their opposition away by being Not Shit, doesn't mean there was a problem.Eabhal said:
They are left with the "one-party state" line, which is what they used to use in Scotland about the SNP.johnt said:I am surprised that some of the smaller parties, particularly Reform, are not making more of these types of polls. Sunak is going round the country saying that any non Tory vote is a vote for Starmer. But that logic only works if there is a serious chance of a Tory majority after the election. If the Tories cannot win a Tory vote is, by the logic of their own campaign, a ‘wasted’ vote. It will not prevent a Labour victory. If that becomes widely accepted then the scare tactics of the conservative campaign cease to have a purpose and the millions being spent on internet adds attacking Labour are wasted. Then the choice becomes who do people actually believe better represents their views. I have been looking at Ed Davey with a sense of slight bafflement up until now, but maybe it’s not so strange after all. Who is closer to the views of the people of the U.K. a billionaire trying to bully them into voting for him, even though it’s obvious he cannot win, or the bloke doing normal stuff with normal people, and listening to what they have to say. If I were running any of the campaigns of the smaller parties this poll would be on the front of every leaflet. It says this election is different, Labour have won, it’s the chance of the electorate to vote for what they actually believe in for once. By all means vote Tory if they stand for what you believe in. But don’t allow yourself to be bullied out of fear, as the result is a formality.
Now that the SNP have finally joined everyone else in being Actually Quite Shit the other parties are getting a look in again. That doesn't happen in a one party state. a one party state is where you get the same people all the time because there's no opposition allowed.
And so it will be with Westminster, no matter how big Labour win if they do indeed win. Democracy will be fine. The Tories will be back. There will be no extinction. It'll be (temporary) exile at worst.
But the Tories had 14 years to fix that, so....0 -
Oh okay thanks. Any reason why it hasn’t been uploaded to the wiki opinion poll list?Eabhal said:
No, it wasHeathener said:
The MRP was a weird one. I don’t think (m)any of us really believe it and it’s not, after all, a fresh poll as such? More a data mine.AramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
I’m sceptical about it tbh.
1) A new poll, sample 10,000
2) Pushed through a MRP model
3) Then through a tactical voting model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
0 -
Yeah.SandyRentool said:
I think that we are more likely to get the Social Democrat Rachel succeeding the Socialist Sir Keir.MoonRabbit said:
No it bloody isn’t. The idea Starmer is weak, and in pocket of Rayner and The Left is extremely powerful spin to get out there. The Conservative campaign should double down on this, over and over.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
Labour will bomb, when Rayner succeeds Starmer as leader.
I’m sorry but that Rayner line is the most desperate thing I’ve seen probably from any mainstream electioneering party in my lifetime.
Tells me the tories are just on a different planet at the moment to the rest of us.0 -
The Lib Dems might be Winning Here, outside their candidate's house, but they've just sent him (well, "Dear Friend") a card asking him to help campaign in Winchester!
1 -
That would be the Tories' last hope.Clutch_Brompton said:
Their problem is that they are a bunch of spotty public school boys and girls who are so far up themselves in the Westminster bubble that they have no idea what resonates outside. The vast majority of people do not hate Angela Rayner - they do not know who she is. Most people were not outraged by Diane Abbott's treatment - most people didn't care if they even heard about it and the details registered.Heathener said:
They really are running the most desperate, and terrible, campaign.ToryJim said:This messaging from the Tories is insane
https://x.com/cchqpress/status/1796823955807817900?s=61
I can’t imagine any of the remaining tories on here can possibly think that one is funny or clever.
And it just reiterates what many people think: that they are a thoroughly nasty party who have lost touch with the country and lost touch with reality.
Sorry but it needs to be said.
Its a media campaign when they needed to address popular concerns. They are so obsessed with 'winning the air war' that they don't understand that doing so without addressing the real issues just wastes the days as we count down.
FON tend to be at the Lab end of polling and this MRP looks based on an outlier but the basic picture of probable results is not getting brighter for Mr Sunak and all his clever boys and girls.
What's the market on Levido defecting to Lab before polling day?0 -
That’s a great tip. Thank you.SandyRentool said:
I would suggest looking for seats where Labour losing votes over Gaza might let the Tories in through the back door.Heathener said:Anyhoooo,
I can’t spend a lot of time on here as I’m busy but could we possibly pull together from the wide range of brilliance on here the top 10 constituency betting tips?
I’m struggling to get betting traction in this election. I don’t find the general markets currently offering me anything very much attractive.
I’ve seen Richmond and Northallerton offered at 4/1 Labour which might ‘just’ be worth a wee flutter although the odds are not exactly spectacular.
But where else is looking attractive? What are the top tips?
Please NO partisan party guff. This is a betting request.1 -
Anglers who are obsessive about our waterways would be my canary in the coal mine, and they seem absolutely convinced of the enshittification. Most of them have been pursuing their craft since childhood so would be in a good position to see change.Carnyx said:
The watersports people certainly seem to think there is a lot more shite bobbing around than there used to be. And that they are getting the runs more often. Anecdata, though, to some extent.LostPassword said:
One of the predicted consequences of global warming for Britain is more intense rainfall events. So all other things being equal you would expect an increase in the rainfall events that lead to sewage release.JosiasJessop said:
That's not quite the same thing, as it ignores the last clause in my comment.Mexicanpete said:...
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-why-do-water-companies-spill-sewage-into-rivers-and-seas-and-how-does-uk-water-quality-compare-to-other-countries#:~:text=Water companies are sometimes allowed,spills are happening too often.JosiasJessop said:
I'm still of the belief that the 'shit in the rivers crisis' is mostly invented. Yes, there's too much pollution being sent in, but is it really much more than before, given the way that reporting the incidents has changed?Monksfield said:
The oddest thing about Aaron’s resignation letter was the pop at the Environment Agency re: Walley’s Quarry.rkrkrk said:Aaron Bell standing down
Regulation is at the heart of the issue. You cannot moan about the failure of a regulator to deliver effective regulation when you and your party routinely denigrate regulation as evil red tape that ties honest businesses in knots. The Tory Government that Aaron supports has promoted a culture of ineffective regulation. The Environment Agency and other environmental regulators are not encouraged to do their jobs effectively.
This failure to recognise the appropriate balance between enterprise and regulation has consequences, such as the shit in rivers crisis. Which has cost them many votes.
And it’s one of the main reasons I will never vote Tory.
(Not that I'm calling for progress on stopping this shit from happening.)
Sewage has routinely been released into water for years, especially during high-rainfall events. AIUI reporting of these was manually done - or at least, was *supposed* to be manually done. The accusation was that many releases wre not reported, or the amounts dramatically under-reported.
A program started to allow automated monitoring of such releases, which means that the figures are properly reported.
https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2021/03/31/event-duration-monitoring-lifting-the-lid-on-storm-overflows/
The argument is that the figures do not show a massive real increase in the amount released; just that the amount released is not being properly reported for the first time. The increase occurring whilst the program is being implemented in the mid-2010s may well point to this, and the fact decreases occur towards the end of the program.
But yes, we need to dump less shit in the water.
This would be compounded by new housing developments which, if poorly planned, would increase the surface runoff, and so also increase the frequency of sewage release events.
Both of these can be anticipated, and so investment should have been planned to deal with them, but it means that, a priori, we shouldn't be surprised by an increase in these events.
My Scottish fisher pals are much more concerned with agricultural run off and fish farms north of the border.1 -
Son of a successful man but with no actual job, he spends his time on an extended gap year to find himself whilst hanging round with prostitutes. Probably has an article in the Spectator.SandyRentool said:
I didn’t realise that Jesus was a Conservative.Scott_xP said:
This guy works at OpiniumAramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
@CWP_Weir
Jesus wept
Just doing some double checks, but jesus wept2 -
NEW THREAD
0 -
Just linking the MRP to the discussion on the last thread, I see that it has Bicester and Woodstock as a narrow Lab win before the tactical voting model is applied. After the "anti-Con" tactical voting adjustment, it becomes a Con win. Make of that what you will...0
-
That was speculation not a leak. Thames Water can’t be treated differently to the other companies.Foxy said:
The leak (!) is that Thames Water is not going to be fined for 5 years, and allowed overflows in order to keep the company viable, rather than go insolvent.StillWaters said:Foxy said:
The Lib Dem campaign features water quite heavily. It is just the sort of light green issue that works well in target seats.Mexicanpete said:
The red tape was cut.TOPPING said:
A regulatory visit every week sounds like a whole bunch of red tape waiting to be cut.Mexicanpete said:
I deal with waste regulators. They are underfunded. When the Environment Agency came about in 1996 I would get a regulatory visit once a week. At that same site they get a regulatory visit on average once a year. Is there any wonder if there is no scrutiny things turn bad.JosiasJessop said:
That's not quite the same thing, as it ignores the last clause in my comment.Mexicanpete said:...
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-why-do-water-companies-spill-sewage-into-rivers-and-seas-and-how-does-uk-water-quality-compare-to-other-countries#:~:text=Water companies are sometimes allowed,spills are happening too often.JosiasJessop said:
I'm still of the belief that the 'shit in the rivers crisis' is mostly invented. Yes, there's too much pollution being sent in, but is it really much more than before, given the way that reporting the incidents has changed?Monksfield said:
The oddest thing about Aaron’s resignation letter was the pop at the Environment Agency re: Walley’s Quarry.rkrkrk said:Aaron Bell standing down
Regulation is at the heart of the issue. You cannot moan about the failure of a regulator to deliver effective regulation when you and your party routinely denigrate regulation as evil red tape that ties honest businesses in knots. The Tory Government that Aaron supports has promoted a culture of ineffective regulation. The Environment Agency and other environmental regulators are not encouraged to do their jobs effectively.
This failure to recognise the appropriate balance between enterprise and regulation has consequences, such as the shit in rivers crisis. Which has cost them many votes.
And it’s one of the main reasons I will never vote Tory.
(Not that I'm calling for progress on stopping this shit from happening.)
Sewage has routinely been released into water for years, especially during high-rainfall events. AIUI reporting of these was manually done - or at least, was *supposed* to be manually done. The accusation was that many releases wre not reported, or the amounts dramatically under-reported.
A program started to allow automated monitoring of such releases, which means that the figures are properly reported.
https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2021/03/31/event-duration-monitoring-lifting-the-lid-on-storm-overflows/
The argument is that the figures do not show a massive real increase in the amount released; just that the amount released is not being properly reported for the first time. The increase occurring whilst the program is being implemented in the mid-2010s may well point to this, and the fact decreases occur towards the end of the program.
But yes, we need to dump less shit in the water.
And here we are with rivers and streams full of sewerage and "stop the stink" campaigns in Stoke and Haverfordwest.
Emblematic too as to how the Tories have been running down the country, feeding bungs to shareholders and literally shit service to customers.
OFWATs plan for Thames Water is a scandal that we will hear more of.
https://www.cityam.com/thames-water-and-ofwat-tight-lipped-on-plans-to-cut-fines-and-avoid-nationalisation/
So what is OFWAT’s plan given that it hasn’t been announced to the market?
Additional Thames Water is not going bankrupt. Just the shareholders are going to be wiped out and the debt providers will have to take a haircut. That’s their risk.
They are just playing politics to try and get more money. Probably will end up in the intray for the new government0 -
Holyrood was designed never to have a majority government.Farooq said:
I hated that nonsense. It's a democracy with proportional representation, for fuck's sake. Just because for a few years the SNP blew all their opposition away by being Not Shit, doesn't mean there was a problem.Eabhal said:
They are left with the "one-party state" line, which is what they used to use in Scotland about the SNP.johnt said:I am surprised that some of the smaller parties, particularly Reform, are not making more of these types of polls. Sunak is going round the country saying that any non Tory vote is a vote for Starmer. But that logic only works if there is a serious chance of a Tory majority after the election. If the Tories cannot win a Tory vote is, by the logic of their own campaign, a ‘wasted’ vote. It will not prevent a Labour victory. If that becomes widely accepted then the scare tactics of the conservative campaign cease to have a purpose and the millions being spent on internet adds attacking Labour are wasted. Then the choice becomes who do people actually believe better represents their views. I have been looking at Ed Davey with a sense of slight bafflement up until now, but maybe it’s not so strange after all. Who is closer to the views of the people of the U.K. a billionaire trying to bully them into voting for him, even though it’s obvious he cannot win, or the bloke doing normal stuff with normal people, and listening to what they have to say. If I were running any of the campaigns of the smaller parties this poll would be on the front of every leaflet. It says this election is different, Labour have won, it’s the chance of the electorate to vote for what they actually believe in for once. By all means vote Tory if they stand for what you believe in. But don’t allow yourself to be bullied out of fear, as the result is a formality.
Now that the SNP have finally joined everyone else in being Actually Quite Shit the other parties are getting a look in again. That doesn't happen in a one party state. a one party state is where you get the same people all the time because there's no opposition allowed.
And so it will be with Westminster, no matter how big Labour win if they do indeed win. Democracy will be fine. The Tories will be back. There will be no extinction. It'll be (temporary) exile at worst.
If our Unionists are worried about one-party states, as opposed to lying through their teeth, they really need to sort out the FPTP at Westminster at once.1 -
It's in the seat predictions section.Heathener said:
Oh okay thanks. Any reason why it hasn’t been uploaded to the wiki opinion poll list?Eabhal said:
No, it wasHeathener said:
The MRP was a weird one. I don’t think (m)any of us really believe it and it’s not, after all, a fresh poll as such? More a data mine.AramintaMoonbeamQC said:
We got ourselves all worked up over that Electoral Calculus last night, Opinium this evening can't be as interesting...can it?Eabhal said:I think my body needs another poll. This feels like when I developed a severe sugar dependency in my early 20s.
I’m sceptical about it tbh.
1) A new poll, sample 10,000
2) Pushed through a MRP model
3) Then through a tactical voting model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Seat_predictions1 -
With Roger I can never work out - is it an act or does he truly believe it?1
-
How would you allocate resources between different projects if you didn’t have a view of the benefits and costs?bondegezou said:
Your assuming that the competition system produces the right answer. This is rarely the case. It's a lot of time wasted for a system that ends up picking no better.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
He has a point on some of the schemes, but it isn't totally ludicrous (and isn't likely to change under Labour) for there to be a degree of competition between local authorities for funding of projects (as opposed to ongoing services). Say central government is funding flood mitigation schemes, in a sense why not have a competition to see which project is the best use of funds.Nigelb said:Bryant isn't always right, but this thread about levelling up is spot on.
Can Labour do significantly better, though ?
(They probably can't do worse.)
Few policies have made me so angry as the Tories’ ‘levelling up’. 🧵
They turned it into a competition between local authorities who wasted millions on developing plans that were going nowhere. They doled out taxpayers’ cash to the constituencies of their favourite MPs...
https://x.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1796798439650472044
The money spent developing projects isn't necessarily wasted even if the funding bid is unsuccessful. Plans aren't just binned - they can be implemented in other (often more modest) forms with existing funds, improved upon, or used as the basis for future bids.0 -
Forgive me. Consider the sentence amended to "the boundaries for 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 were the same, but in 2024 they will be different".ydoethur said:
2010 was on new boundaries. He was still pretty close.viewcode said:
Be careful. SJC's exit polls had the advantage of unchanged boundaries for 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019. The new boundaries are going to fudge things up a bit. ☹️Casino_Royale said:
I always believe Sir John Curtice.Eabhal said:
Even if the exit poll comes out with similar numbers many of us - me included - won't believe it.OnlyLivingBoy said:It's odd, I see these MRP results and I simply don't believe the result will be anything like this. But I can't really say why. And what if that's because it's just unlike results we've seen before? What if this time really is different? I forecast for a living, and the hardest thing to know is when the paradigm has genuinely shifted, when your data are being drawn from a different distribution from before. In this case it's complicated by emotional involvement, too.
So I continue to say no, the result will not look like this. But if it is, we can't say we weren't warned.
I'm trying to remember my reaction to the SNP 58/59 in 2015. I probably didn't believe it then. They got 56 in the end.
He knows precisely what he's doing, and his exit polls are as accurate as they can be.0 -
I said a little more!Farooq said:
No, not really. FPTP doesn't mean the end of elections. A comfortable majority is functionally the same as a huge majority, and it doesn't stop elections and reversal of electoral fortunes.Eabhal said:
Tbf, I think it has a little bit more legitimacy in a FPTP system.Farooq said:
I hated that nonsense. It's a democracy with proportional representation, for fuck's sake. Just because for a few years the SNP blew all their opposition away by being Not Shit, doesn't mean there was a problem.Eabhal said:
They are left with the "one-party state" line, which is what they used to use in Scotland about the SNP.johnt said:I am surprised that some of the smaller parties, particularly Reform, are not making more of these types of polls. Sunak is going round the country saying that any non Tory vote is a vote for Starmer. But that logic only works if there is a serious chance of a Tory majority after the election. If the Tories cannot win a Tory vote is, by the logic of their own campaign, a ‘wasted’ vote. It will not prevent a Labour victory. If that becomes widely accepted then the scare tactics of the conservative campaign cease to have a purpose and the millions being spent on internet adds attacking Labour are wasted. Then the choice becomes who do people actually believe better represents their views. I have been looking at Ed Davey with a sense of slight bafflement up until now, but maybe it’s not so strange after all. Who is closer to the views of the people of the U.K. a billionaire trying to bully them into voting for him, even though it’s obvious he cannot win, or the bloke doing normal stuff with normal people, and listening to what they have to say. If I were running any of the campaigns of the smaller parties this poll would be on the front of every leaflet. It says this election is different, Labour have won, it’s the chance of the electorate to vote for what they actually believe in for once. By all means vote Tory if they stand for what you believe in. But don’t allow yourself to be bullied out of fear, as the result is a formality.
Now that the SNP have finally joined everyone else in being Actually Quite Shit the other parties are getting a look in again. That doesn't happen in a one party state. a one party state is where you get the same people all the time because there's no opposition allowed.
And so it will be with Westminster, no matter how big Labour win if they do indeed win. Democracy will be fine. The Tories will be back. There will be no extinction. It'll be (temporary) exile at worst.
But the Tories had 14 years to fix that, so....
The thing that should give the Tories heart following a potential thumping is that 2019-2024 has shown us that big swings away from the government are really achievable. Labour could win 500 seats in July and be out of power completely in 2029. The electorate holds the whip hand. Everything that's happening is not only comfortably within the bounds of a well functioning democracy, but superb news for anyone who is depressed about an outcome and who hopes for something very different next time around. The potential for a large victory less than 5 years after a drubbing is objectively fantastic. It's a sign of democratic vigour.0 -
This Times article is an eye-opener:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/conservatives-anti-immigration-reform-social-media-campaign-labour-pqb2btt28
If you've assumed that the cash the Tories and Labour are throwing at social media will make a difference, you're completely wrong.
The two skint parties, Reform and the SNP, are smashing it where it matters - Facebook.0 -
We were fed a reductive neoliberal perspective of Environment Agency vs Householder and our Rivers are dying.
The Tories are toast.
Even if the real origin of the underlying corruption is Russian oil and US chemical money funded lobbying undermining democratic control I’m okay with the Tories taking the shit in the face for their intellectual laziness.
I expect more than idle grift from our MPs.
I am confident Sir K can do strategy. The first hope I’ve had for decades. Roll on a bloody landslide.
Climate Change is going to underpin our lives for generations. We need strategy.
1
