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The War at Home: Labour Defences (Part One) – politicalbetting.com

In 1997 Labour won a landslide with 146 gains and no losses. It stands to reason really: Their vote share rose by 8.8% nationally and with the bulk of voters deciding on national issues or loyalties that rising tide lifted all boats.
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I know of two people who are bitterly anti-migration to the UK, likely to vote Reform, but who are themselves migrants in other countries. One migrant is a pilot currently living in Germany. The other migrant is a rather well known MAGAloon on this board.
The irony.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/17/ed-daveys-gameshow-approach-to-election-makes-a-modest-splash
I live in a safe London seat but my vineyard is in Canterbury. The evidence from local rural sign boards is Rosie Duffield should be comfortably cruising to another victory.
Though long term Canterbury is perhaps a bit of an anomaly. Cathedral city, county cricket ground, vineyards, hilly, relatively prosperous, quite a few Lib Dems on the council. I think if it were a. further West, b. a little more prosperous it would be nailed on Lib Dem country.
Where is the Vatican Olly Cromwell?
The Pope faces UN investigation over his personal authorisation of allegedly unlawful wiretaps during a Vatican investigation into the “corrupt” sale of a £300 million central London property.
Lawyers for Raffaele Mincione, a British financier accused of defrauding the Vatican, have filed a complaint to the UN about alleged abuses committed during the trial by Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.
Rodney Dixon KC, a leading human rights barrister, has accused the Pope of personally authorising unlawful wiretaps of Mr Mincione’s phone during the investigation into alleged wrongdoing at the Vatican.
During the trial, it emerged that Pope Francis himself handed powers to investigators allowing them to tap phones, intercept emails and arrest anyone they wanted to without approval from a judge. The powers were based on “rescritti” – ancient laws that the Pope could use as divine monarch of the Vatican.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/16/pope-accused-illegally-wiretapping-phones/
I thought this graphic might make for an interesting visual comparison.
The one glaring difference is Reform and their impact on the Cons vote, and why I might be very wrong in saying this result is going to be closer to 1997. The impact on the Labour share is visually clear from this but because the Conservatives are also taking a hit, the Labour position looks stronger (at present)
Mods please note that this is ONE Screenshot single image
(And for the 1 in 6 or so who vote by post, voting day is approximately now.)
I do, however, need to point out we have seen some swing back - note BigG’s change of vote
Latest review of US House legislation shows GOP proposals to:
- Require US Treasury to print $500 bills with Trump's portrait
-Rename Dulles Airport in Virginia after Trump
-Rename US coastal economic zones after Trump
-Award Trump a Congressional Gold Medal
https://x.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1802488326005440741
Fluently and beautifully written though.
General Election 2024: What the polls tell us about what will happen on 4 July
https://news.sky.com/story/general-election-2024-what-the-polls-tell-us-about-what-will-happen-on-4-july-13153029
Your point Andy?
Mine would be: Obvs I’d be delighted to be proven wrong but I don’t think Labour will win by as much as polls currently suggest. Although I did mention y’day that I think they will do worse on vote share than 1997 (c. 37-39% maybe sneaking 40%) but better on seats won (c.400+).
I think the Conservatives will do better than their current polling c. 25%, perhaps up to 27% … maybe 100+ seats. Maybe 150+
Could be talking complete rubbish!
Somehow reminiscent of this other story in the DT today, in terms of indignation at the obvious:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/17/photographer-disqualified-from-ai-image-contest/
'A photographer whose shot of a headless flamingo won a competition for Artificial Intelligence generated images has been disqualified because the picture was genuine.'
Partly in following the ebb and flow so closely. But also in having a partisan loyalty that, when push comes to shove, takes an awful lot to overcome.
(Really hope I've phrased that in a way that doesn't cause offence.)
At the same time in the 2017GE campaign the Tory leads were 9, 12 and 13 points, so we can see that a lot of the narrowing of the lead in that campaign had happened by this point.
And, interestingly, she has deployed the same argument as BigG that ‘anyway it won’t make any difference.’
I think you’re right to mention partisan loyalty and I wonder therefore if a fair % of Conservative voters will return to the fold over the next fortnight.
Play nice
xx
Slough, Birmingham generally (particularly Ladywood, Yardley), parts of London where strong Independants are running, Leicester, Rochdale, Oldham, Blackburn.
They probably hold everything or nearly everything but that's where they'll underperform imo.
I was expecting that pensioner Tories would return to the fold in large numbers and spare the party a good hiding in this election. There's no sign of this happening at all. At this stage, Conservative hopes rest entirely on the Reform vote suggested in the polls actually consisting of disappointed right wingers who defect back to them again in the privacy of the polling booth.
We often see these exclamations of not voting Tory with lots of outrage and then those voters find an issue on which to justify their coming back to the party .
I think this is why most on here are expecting a bigish Labour majority, but discounting the ludicrous (seeming) talk of super majorities.
But we will find out fairly soon. Is Reform the new Alliance from the 80's?
Specifically if the Tories are on say 70 seats and the LDs on 68 seats and the Alliance on 3 seats who is the official opposition?
The second is that humanity is irredeemably horrible.
He is the thinking man's Daily Mail. There is more wisdom about life today in the writings of Julian of Norwich (b 1343) than this graceless misanthrope.
In their view, they came here to be British, not to import their culture and demand the place turns into their home country. They came here because it *wasn't* Peru.
Must be one of the few highly productive industries left in the UK? And would mean less energy security. Madness.
If the Speaker were to ask for my personal advice, then I would say that the decision should be on the basis of which opposition leader could reasonably be expected to have the loyalty of the greatest number of MPs, and I would judge this by the number of MPs who were subject to that leader's whipping operation.
So, for example, when May had an agreement with the DUP for their support after the 2017GE, the DUP were not subject to the Tory whip, and so I wouldn't count that sort of agreement for this counting of numbers.
I would only make Ed Davey the leader of the opposition in your scenario if the APNI MPs took the Liberal Democrat whip in the Commons.
In practice I think my definition is strict enough to rule out most opposition coalitions.
The 1937 Act also contains an important provision to decide who is the Leader of the Opposition, if this is in doubt. Under section 10(3) "If any doubt arises as to which is or was at any material time the party in opposition to His Majesty's Government having the greatest numerical strength in the House of Commons, or as to who is or was at any material time the leader in that House of such a party the question shall be decided for the purposes of this Act by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and his decision, certified in writing under his hand, shall be final and conclusive".
The act is the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937.
'I've never asked anyone to do this...could you give me a moo?'
Former police officer Dan demonstrates his exceptional ability to communicate with animals for @NickFerrariLBC after telling a tale of how he once used a PA system to clear cattle off the M11.
I got asked my voting intention by Yougov this morning, and the question included an option for postal voting.
They asked both a generic "if there were an election tomorrow" type question and a "how will you (and how certain are you to) vote" - specific to my constituency.
Per wiki.
I'd have thought same rules as forming a government, and a coalition can be the opposition
There's an interesting briefing note at https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06057/ but that starts from the assumption that the title of Opposition is always conferred on the second largest party.
I think you could make a good case for a coalition opposition, largely on the basis that if you can have a Coalition Government with the Ministers shared out between parties, there's no reason to bar it to an Opposition. There is also strong precedent in local government where the formation of "groups" of different parties, often to gain the Opposition role, is common (for example, the LibDems and Greens have together formed a group on a couple of Oxfordshire councils).
Vote early, before the black swan event next week.
"Lib Dems call for rural fuel duty relief expansion"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedd744kq40o
I was an agent in a seat with an electorate of 80,000 on several occasions and there were only about 200 overseas electors on the register and I doubt more than a handful actually voted. The Tories brought in overseas registration because. like voter ID, they thought it would benefit them but, like voter ID, this did not give them the boost that they hoped for.
I will be proudly voting Labour this time.
Might stop us winning Keighley. That, and the closure of the council recycling centre in Ilkley meaning that the well-healed residents have to come over the moor to dump their rubbish. Could be a surprise Tory hold?
No new licences, but current production will continue.
Patience is a virtue at this stage in the game.
Goldfish Memories by He Jiyan
https://bruces.medium.com/goldfish-memories-by-he-jiyan-d11e6888bac6
*Machine-translated from a Chinese webpost on the Internet Archive, because this post was almost immediately censored and obliterated in China. It appeared (and disappeared) in May 2024.
..Let me ask you a little question first:
If we search for the word “Jack Ma” on Baidu and set the time from 1998 to 2005, how many pieces of information can we find? Is it 100 million, 10 million, or 1 million?
...Using Baidu search, the selected date range is “May 22, 1998 to May 22, 2005”, which contains information about Jack Ma. There is a total of 1 piece (data on May 22, 2024).
...If something is important to us and it is dying, is there anything we can do to save it?
Someone has made such an attempt. There is a website in the United States called “Internet Archive”, which is translated into Chinese as “Internet Archive”, which saves many original web pages. But I tried it, and found that very few of the original Chinese web pages were saved, and it was very troublesome to use. The search function was very primitive and inefficient, almost as if it had not been saved...
The Tory vote share will swell as some people come home, and will perhaps be even higher if lots of people saying they will vote Reform and Green does not bother to vote in the end. High 20s. Perhaps even 30s in a ultra low turnout election. A pure guess but my bets will keep things interesting if the exit poll turns out to be an anti-climax.
The legislation says party with most MPs in opposition, so I believe that means taking the whip. That would mean Scottish Tories and Lib Dems would fairly clearly be included in their respective parties but DUP and Alliance would not.
But that's just a snapshot in time. It would also bring party discipline and suspensions into play. It's been increasingly common, where there are significant allegations, for MPs to have the whip administratively suspended pending investigation.
I wonder whether the Speaker may take a view that the largest party at the start of the parliamentary session will be Official Opposition throughout it? It would provide stability, and a lot rides on it including salaries, Short money etc - it'd be potentially chaotic if the position depended on a suspension of the whip, a death, a by-election etc.
That isn't really the point - the whole basis of funding local Govenrment needs to be re-thought, a root and branch review of what's done, why it's done and how it's paid for.
When you have a situation where Child and Adult Social Care is swallowing up to two thirds of the whole budget for some counties, something has gone drastically wrong.
The Conservatives have, to their utter shame, completely failed, despite promises, to address this in their period in Government and we must now hope Labour has to do the dirty work (so to speak).
The whole range of issues needs addressing - residential care, specialist care, dementia care, domiciliary care, SEN - the whole thing is a mess and needs a root and branch review and rethink.
Should surely be more like 800/1.
Once the ratio of overhead to output starts rising things can quickly become uneconomic.
Especially when there's no future to invest in and when the possibility of windfall taxes is always high.
Also what I didn't realise is there is a Liberal Democrat party in Northern Island. They don't stand candidates but support the Alliance and several key people are members of both parties.
I love PB because I learn stuff everyday, even if it only encouraged me to look myself.
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
4m
Swing since last election: Con->Lab 16%
So any seat with Con majority over Lab of up to 32% is vulnerable on uniform swing
https://x.com/JohnRentoul?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
The "winners" (in East Ham at any rate) will be the Greens and the Newham Independents and I could see one or other snatching second from the Conservatives but it's more lucky they'll be just behind the Conservative.
In West Ham & Beckton I expect the Newham Independent candidate to finish second - Stratford & Bow is harder to call, the Green will do well in Stratford but Bow will be stronger for the pro-Gaza Independent.
https://x.com/TelePolitics/status/1802627754451509275
Get him back.
As liberals who fear collectivism more than conservatism Labour is ruled out (obvs). I dislike the idiotic simplicity and appeal to ignorance of populism so Reform is out. Speaking personally, I've fallen out with the LibDems who have become unhinged from liberalism so they are out. The Greens are even more batshit than the worst on the Labour side so they are out. The SDP and (true) Liberal Party are not standing in my constituency.
So who does that leave? The Conservatives or Lord Buckethead (or some such). Or go to the booth and draw your best cock and balls sketch over the ballot paper.
Overall, I'm trying to ignore it and concentrate on my golf.
Has he got his own office down at BBC HQ? Might as well have.
What's the logic there ?