This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
And as much as the Tory Party and the ineptitude within it frustrates me, it's still the only realistic option for a centre right moderate like me. I'm not a socialist so cannot vote Labour or Lib Dem, nor am I some deranged Faragist loon.
Without a mainstream winnable centre right option then I'm disenfranchised and democracy dies for me.
That's why I'm praying for 150 and Farage sinking in the sea in Clacton but that looks fanciful and I really fear total wipeout.
Does anyone think a high turnout could be anything other than bad for the Tories?
It would be consistent with the "normally vote tory but sitting on my hands this time" contingent being smaller than expected, which if you were an optimistic tory could be good for them...
I am not saying this though. I haven't a clue. Think I can write off my zero reform seats bet though!
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Not the first day, the Tories had no seats in Scotland in 1997.
Give it a decade and they'll start to come back. The country needs an Opposition and a party of the right as well as one of the left, but the Tories need to find a One Nation Cameron style figure who will bring the party back to appealing to the whole country.
Does anyone have a list of the 15 Reform seats forecast by the latest Survation MRP? I looked on their map but could only find about 3. Maybe the map wasn't updated or something.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
I have been saying all through that when you need ~120 for a majority (~140 including boundary changes) its hard. Especially when you have to smash different parties north and south of the Border.
I have just got in from a day of knocking up (only stopped because one of the legs I broke a couple of years ago is swelling up) and I saw this so apologies if already posted, but it made me laugh.
The one I always remember was Indyref. Pretty much everyone had voted by lunchtime. The numbers we were monitoring at various polling stations just didn’t really move from about 12 to 10pm. It was weird. We had a big GOTV organisation set up but we were struggling for targets. It was the most important and stressful vote of my lifetime.
Don’t indyref have an astonishingly high turnout? So they all showed up before noon…
Yep. Once you had allowed for people very properly on 2 electoral registers and those on none it was an astonishingly high turnout and everyone knew how they were voting in advance. And we all voted early.
Never been involved in anything like it. Never want to be again.
PB ALERT - in honor of US Independence Day AND the UK general election, am sporting a Hawai'ian shirt featuring both the Stars and Stripes AND the Union Jack, the latter in the canton of the royal, territorial and state flag of Hawai'i.
Happy Treason Day you ungrateful colonial.
Assume from your imperialist rancor, that you must have intuited (correctly) that my shirt also features a PINEAPPLE?
The horror! However, be assured that NO pizza pies are implicated.
We have absolutely no signs of a high turnout. Just anecdata and much of it conflicting
One of the most fun things on election day is the way everyone's treasured anecdotes get mercilessly swept away at 10pm by the cold rationalism of the exit poll. 😊
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
This Turnout rumour would surely be more pro Tory, given the large numbers of previous Tory, now don´t know. If they are coming out to vote, that surely suggests a stronger Tory performance and a heavy swing back?
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
And as much as the Tory Party and the ineptitude within it frustrates me, it's still the only realistic option for a centre right moderate like me. I'm not a socialist so cannot vote Labour or Lib Dem, nor am I some deranged Faragist loon.
Without a mainstream winnable centre right option then I'm disenfranchised and democracy dies for me.
That's why I'm praying for 150 and Farage sinking in the sea in Clacton but that looks fanciful and I really fear total wipeout.
Democracy doesn't die just because your preferred option loses.
I'm like you, I want a centre-right sensible party but we don't have one currently.
But when the party is willing to modernise and attract moderate centre-right people then the Tories can return to being a credible party that could enter government again.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
This Turnout rumour would surely be more pro Tory, given the large numbers of previous Tory, now don´t know. If they are coming out to vote, that surely suggests a stronger Tory performance and a heavy swing back?
It'll be slightly weird if there's still a Wimbledon match going on under the lights at 10pm as the exit poll is released. Well, it will be for fans of tennis and politics.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Not the first day, the Tories had no seats in Scotland in 1997.
Give it a decade and they'll start to come back. The country needs an Opposition and a party of the right as well as one of the left, but the Tories need to find a One Nation Cameron style figure who will bring the party back to appealing to the whole country.
+1
They also didn't have any seats in Wales then. I remember Richard Holme a Lib Dem being trolled on question time by a tory (forgot which one) by calling him a Liberal rather than a Liberal Democrat over and over again. He started calling them the English National Party as a retaliation.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Tories are the ultimate Trigger's Broom/Ship of Theseus. Their continuity, consisting of nothing at all except metaphysical abstractions, will in some form continue. Different name, different people, different policies but it goes on, defined only by what it is not.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Tories are the ultimate Trigger's Broom/Ship of Theseus. Their continuity, consisting of nothing at all except metaphysical abstractions, will in some form continue. Different name, different people, different policies but it goes on, defined only by what it is not.
I've got a big TV, an iPad, a laptop, and my phone, all tuned to different aspects of the election. It's like NASA, but with much better wine
My dilemma is when to start drinking. I can't wait til the exit poll that's too far away. I think a gentle couple of G&Ts before supper ariund 8, then a hefty Malbec to go with the Singapore laksa (yes I know, non-canonical, sue me). Then I might go for a Grand Cru Bordeaux or a Gran Reserva Rioja to be slowly imbibed through the night, finishing with a slug of Macallan 30 year old and a Valium to knock me out til noon
TV. BBC for the theme tune. Mobile on PB.
Probably switch the volume off on the TV unless something worth watching.
Or switch it off. During the referendum I switched off TV and got all my reports from PB as I got irritated by the windbags on the panel. You don't really need anything else.
Don't you want to see the drama written on all those faces?
I LOVED the anguish of the Remainers, I drank their tears. It was cold cold lovely revenge after all their cheating and lying for decades
They will get their own revenge now, but I don't give a fuck. We Brexited, and we will never return
Firstly, of course we will return although it’s true that you may be dead before it happens, old man.
Secondly, you were a Remainer until 20 metres from the polling station.
Nothing you post is believable and everything is about you. You’re a sad old man embittered because the world no longer wants to read your tawdry tales of male sexual predation.
We've been through this, petal. I earn more than the PM (by salary!). I just had lunch with my agent at the Groucho, today, where we discussed the likely screen adaptation of my flint knapping memoirs, and the worldwide sales of my new flint knapping guide, already bought by several territories (Poland, Finland, Germany, etc). Sorry
She also gave me brilliant gossip about Starmer, which might unsettle your feminist perspective on the Great Leader manque
Petal???? Even for a seedy old roue like yourself that´s unneccessarily patronising..
The Groucho´s Bernard Manning, Ladies and Gentlemen... slightly less dead, but he´s here all week.
So, she's allowed to call me any name under the sun - "sad, embittered old man, a male sexual predator" etc etc (which is all fine, I don't mind a bit of argy bargy- but note: she started it). But if I dare to call her "petal" in response, somehow I'm the bad guy? Petal???
Do fuck off, you wanking little gnome
You really "lunched well" didn´t you?
But, please don´t project onto other people what we already know is well known to be true about yourself. Its a bit too classic Trumpian.
My least favourite kind of pb commenter is the kind that likes to dish out abuse but then cries and sobs if it is returned. It is utterly effete and pathetic so I’m not surprised an inadequate bore such as yourself is cheering it on
Grow a testicle. I’d say grow a pair but that’s surely beyond you
Not sure if the first part is aimed at me, or Cicero, or 100 other pb’ers whom you regularly abuse but I don’t have any issues with you attempting to critique me. I guess the difficulty for you is that you don’t know who I am, or have any clue. Whereas everyone on pb knows your real name and the idea that you are not a male sexual predator, when you wrote a bestselling book on that very topic, is a joke.
I’ll leave out the testicle growing though. Partly because it would be a tad tricky for me and partly because that kind of boorish male thuggery doesn’t match the brains you claim to possess.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
I’m 62. The Tories have completely dominated my adult life politically. There was the Blair intromission but he never really looked to change the status quo.
The idea that they might not be around anymore, like the SDP of my youth, is quite startling. Anything less than 120 and they are gone for good.
I think I've voted every time I could for 61 years. Councils, Referenda, General Elections. The only time I can remember not doing so was when the Returning Officer wouldn't accept my signature on a postal ballot earlier this year. The first vote I cast was in the GE of 1959, when the qualifying age was 21.
I have missed only one in my voting life, because my wife was in labour (the childbirth process, not the party) which I feel is an OK excuse. It was a foregone-conclusion mayoral election, but even so it still annoys my inner completist.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
I’m 62. The Tories have completely dominated my adult life politically. There was the Blair intromission but he never really looked to change the status quo.
The idea that they might not be around anymore, like the SDP of my youth, is quite startling. Anything less than 120 and they are gone for good.
They could get less than 60 and I'd bet they'll be back in Downing Street by around the time you're 80.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Not the first day, the Tories had no seats in Scotland in 1997.
Give it a decade and they'll start to come back. The country needs an Opposition and a party of the right as well as one of the left, but the Tories need to find a One Nation Cameron style figure who will bring the party back to appealing to the whole country.
I have just got in from a day of knocking up (only stopped because one of the legs I broke a couple of years ago is swelling up) and I saw this so apologies if already posted, but it made me laugh.
We have absolutely no signs of a high turnout. Just anecdata and much of it conflicting
One of the most fun things on election day is the way everyone's treasured anecdotes get mercilessly swept away at 10pm by the cold rationalism of the exit poll. 😊
I bought turnout at 70%+ earlier. I think a lot of people are voting because they think their vote 'might count' this time as so many safe seats and marginals are in play.
Probably won't get that high (bet it's 67% or only a tad higher) but the value was there at north of 20/1 and it was over 72% for the EU referendum.
Several of us today found a splattering of Reform voters in our knock up. If the LDs are getting the odd Reform voter in their knock up, I'm wondering how many Labour and the Tories are getting.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
I’m 62. The Tories have completely dominated my adult life politically. There was the Blair intromission but he never really looked to change the status quo.
The idea that they might not be around anymore, like the SDP of my youth, is quite startling. Anything less than 120 and they are gone for good.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
And as much as the Tory Party and the ineptitude within it frustrates me, it's still the only realistic option for a centre right moderate like me. I'm not a socialist so cannot vote Labour or Lib Dem, nor am I some deranged Faragist loon.
Without a mainstream winnable centre right option then I'm disenfranchised and democracy dies for me.
That's why I'm praying for 150 and Farage sinking in the sea in Clacton but that looks fanciful and I really fear total wipeout.
Democracy doesn't die just because your preferred option loses.
I'm like you, I want a centre-right sensible party but we don't have one currently.
But when the party is willing to modernise and attract moderate centre-right people then the Tories can return to being a credible party that could enter government again.
Democracy dies if the Tories win, since if they can’t be defeated this time, er gwaetha pawb a phopeth, then they will rule for ever.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Ok thats’s a good question
How bad does it have to get for the Tories for us to wonder if this is it, they are doomed
Under 100 seats? I dunno. They could come back from that; indeed they probably would, slowly
There are three thresholds which, I suggest, could be read as fatal movements:
1. Falling behind the LDs in seats so they become the third party and lose opposition status
2. Falling behind Reform in votes
3. Falling below 50 seats
For me, any of those constitutes a potentially lethal blow. If they get two or three of these they’re finished for sure
I think if they fall behind the Lib-Dems and become the third party in Westminster they are finished as we currently know them but there will always be a party of the center Right that will, at the very least contain elements of the current Tory/Conservative Party.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Tories are the ultimate Trigger's Broom/Ship of Theseus. Their continuity, consisting of nothing at all except metaphysical abstractions, will in some form continue. Different name, different people, different policies but it goes on, defined only by what it is not.
Different what it is not too, over time.
Yes. It's sad in a way. I was brought up in the old Southgate constituency - Anthony Berry of the Telegraph family who was killed by the IRA. Dead safe Tory fiefdom. Everyone I knew read the Telegraph or Times.
In 1970 I attended an election meeting where the Labour candidate said 'One day this seat will return a Labour MP' and everyone laughed.
Now of course a dead safe Labour seat. Funny old world.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
Yes, of course I accept that. However, I do think the Don´t Knows coming out to vote injects major league uncertainty, especially into the seat spreads. It is not just the result itself that matter for many on here, it is exactly how the cookie crumbles.
I think realistically you are looking at 10-15 years of a Labour government coming barring some kind of mega event or series of damaging events which reduces that term.
The talk of higher turnout or busier polling stations than usual is surely a concerted effort to give the Tories a kicking?
The Conservatives will come back, it's just going to take a good 10 years plus when Labour becomes unpopular again and the Conservatives are positioned firmly in the centre/centre right again.
I've got a big TV, an iPad, a laptop, and my phone, all tuned to different aspects of the election. It's like NASA, but with much better wine
My dilemma is when to start drinking. I can't wait til the exit poll that's too far away. I think a gentle couple of G&Ts before supper ariund 8, then a hefty Malbec to go with the Singapore laksa (yes I know, non-canonical, sue me). Then I might go for a Grand Cru Bordeaux or a Gran Reserva Rioja to be slowly imbibed through the night, finishing with a slug of Macallan 30 year old and a Valium to knock me out til noon
TV. BBC for the theme tune. Mobile on PB.
Probably switch the volume off on the TV unless something worth watching.
Or switch it off. During the referendum I switched off TV and got all my reports from PB as I got irritated by the windbags on the panel. You don't really need anything else.
Don't you want to see the drama written on all those faces?
I LOVED the anguish of the Remainers, I drank their tears. It was cold cold lovely revenge after all their cheating and lying for decades
They will get their own revenge now, but I don't give a fuck. We Brexited, and we will never return
Firstly, of course we will return although it’s true that you may be dead before it happens, old man.
Secondly, you were a Remainer until 20 metres from the polling station.
Nothing you post is believable and everything is about you. You’re a sad old man embittered because the world no longer wants to read your tawdry tales of male sexual predation.
We've been through this, petal. I earn more than the PM (by salary!). I just had lunch with my agent at the Groucho, today, where we discussed the likely screen adaptation of my flint knapping memoirs, and the worldwide sales of my new flint knapping guide, already bought by several territories (Poland, Finland, Germany, etc). Sorry
She also gave me brilliant gossip about Starmer, which might unsettle your feminist perspective on the Great Leader manque
Petal???? Even for a seedy old roue like yourself that´s unneccessarily patronising..
The Groucho´s Bernard Manning, Ladies and Gentlemen... slightly less dead, but he´s here all week.
So, she's allowed to call me any name under the sun - "sad, embittered old man, a male sexual predator" etc etc (which is all fine, I don't mind a bit of argy bargy- but note: she started it). But if I dare to call her "petal" in response, somehow I'm the bad guy? Petal???
Do fuck off, you wanking little gnome
You really "lunched well" didn´t you?
But, please don´t project onto other people what we already know is well known to be true about yourself. Its a bit too classic Trumpian.
My least favourite kind of pb commenter is the kind that likes to dish out abuse but then cries and sobs if it is returned. It is utterly effete and pathetic so I’m not surprised an inadequate bore such as yourself is cheering it on
Grow a testicle. I’d say grow a pair but that’s surely beyond you
Not sure if the first part is aimed at me, or Cicero, or 100 other pb’ers whom you regularly abuse but I don’t have any issues with you attempting to critique me. I guess the difficulty for you is that you don’t know who I am, or have any clue. Whereas everyone on pb knows your real name and the idea that you are not a male sexual predator, when you wrote a bestselling book on that very topic, is a joke.
I’ll leave out the testicle growing though. Partly because it would be a tad tricky for me and partly because that kind of boorish male thuggery doesn’t match the brains you claim to possess.
Well I know you’re a preposterous lying fantasist who simultaneously claims to go to the opera and have “spa days” - but is also so poor you have to save hot water in thermos flasks
But I don’t mind. You take me much more seriously than I take you. I find you an amusing comic creation - and occasionally you say genuinely interesting things. So it’s all good
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
I’m 62. The Tories have completely dominated my adult life politically. There was the Blair intromission but he never really looked to change the status quo.
The idea that they might not be around anymore, like the SDP of my youth, is quite startling. Anything less than 120 and they are gone for good.
They could get less than 60 and I'd bet they'll be back in Downing Street by around the time you're 80.
Labour were down to 52 seats in 1931, losing 235 MPs... and won a massive landslide 14 years later. There was no inevitability about it all, of course, but nor is there that one hammering is goodnight forever.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
And as much as the Tory Party and the ineptitude within it frustrates me, it's still the only realistic option for a centre right moderate like me. I'm not a socialist so cannot vote Labour or Lib Dem, nor am I some deranged Faragist loon.
Without a mainstream winnable centre right option then I'm disenfranchised and democracy dies for me.
That's why I'm praying for 150 and Farage sinking in the sea in Clacton but that looks fanciful and I really fear total wipeout.
Essie accompanying us to vote. Slightly bittersweet as this is the first time since 2005 that our lovely GSD cross Stella wasn't with me for a general election. But still #dogsatpollingstations
I think I've voted every time I could for 61 years. Councils, Referenda, General Elections. The only time I can remember not doing so was when the Returning Officer wouldn't accept my signature on a postal ballot earlier this year. The first vote I cast was in the GE of 1959, when the qualifying age was 21.
I have missed only one in my voting life, because my wife was in labour (the childbirth process, not the party) which I feel is an OK excuse. It was a foregone-conclusion mayoral election, but even so it still annoys my inner completist.
In November 2004 my landlady at the time gave birth a couple days before Election Day, and was planning to vote at the polls, in one of the last elections before all vote-by mail in WA State.
However, the baby developed jaundice - pretty common with newborns - on Election Day, so she did NOT make it to the polls.
Turned out 2004 was the closest Governor's race in the history of the state, and one of the closest in USA ever - Democrat won (after two recounts) with statewide margin of +133 votes.
I dunno. Queues at polling stations could just as easily be due to the voter ID requirement.
I thought that when I turned up to a queue this morning. But they had four officials working, one walking up and down the line reminding people about photo ID, and I didn’t see anyone saying ‘oh shit’ and heading back home. At the desk there were three officials, one checking ID, one finding the voter on the list and crossing off, and one handing out ballot papers and filling in the stubs and tally. The first official only took a second to glance at the ID; the queue was waiting for the other two to do their work.
The ID increased the work and presumably the cost, but didn’t appear to be holding things up.
“Really quiet, was quite busy before 10am but dribs and drabs since then”
Interesting. This is Starmer’s constituency - so not much enthusiasm for the PM himself. But then this is Primrose Hill so maybe everyone’s eating lobster Thermidor before they vote at 9.45pm
I think realistically you are looking at 10-15 years of a Labour government coming barring some kind of mega event or series of damaging events which reduces that term.
The talk of higher turnout or busier polling stations than usual is surely a concerted effort to give the Tories a kicking?
The Conservatives will come back, it's just going to take a good 10 years plus when Labour becomes unpopular again and the Conservatives are positioned firmly in the centre/centre right again.
I'm not sure, Starmer is coming into power on about 40% of the vote or so. And things are tough for him right away. And the right is split asunder right now
But direction of travel is towards Con doing worse than previously thought.
50-99 seats 2.06 100-149 seats 2.94
I will only believe that if the exit poll shows the Lib Dems several points up on the 11% average that they have been getting in the polls this week. At 11% there just is not enough votes to go round to collect 60+ seats.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Ok thats’s a good question
How bad does it have to get for the Tories for us to wonder if this is it, they are doomed
Under 100 seats? I dunno. They could come back from that; indeed they probably would, slowly
There are three thresholds which, I suggest, could be read as fatal movements:
1. Falling behind the LDs in seats so they become the third party and lose opposition status
2. Falling behind Reform in votes
3. Falling below 50 seats
For me, any of those constitutes a potentially lethal blow. If they get two or three of these they’re finished for sure
Yeah I would agree with that. In particular, if they fall behind the Lib Dem’s in seats and lose LOTO they will seriously struggle to be heard or a part of the conversation.
Something will probably rise from the ashes but it won’t be the Tory party as we have known it.
I think realistically you are looking at 10-15 years of a Labour government coming barring some kind of mega event or series of damaging events which reduces that term.
The talk of higher turnout or busier polling stations than usual is surely a concerted effort to give the Tories a kicking?
The Conservatives will come back, it's just going to take a good 10 years plus when Labour becomes unpopular again and the Conservatives are positioned firmly in the centre/centre right again.
10 years? Ha! There'll be crossover before Christmas...
I'm slightly surprised at the talk of high turnout, the story yesterday was that turnout was likely to be down. Perhaps the voter ID requirements are slowing things up?
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
Yes, of course I accept that. However, I do think the Don´t Knows coming out to vote injects major league uncertainty, especially into the seat spreads. It is not just the result itself that matter for many on here, it is exactly how the cookie crumbles.
Do we actually know turnout is high, or is this all anecdotal? This quite often happens at General Elections - people go to the polling station, it's a lot busier than when they voted in the locals two months ago, and they over-interpret. Yes, it will be busier than in May, fairly obviously.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Ok thats’s a good question
How bad does it have to get for the Tories for us to wonder if this is it, they are doomed
Under 100 seats? I dunno. They could come back from that; indeed they probably would, slowly
There are three thresholds which, I suggest, could be read as fatal movements:
1. Falling behind the LDs in seats so they become the third party and lose opposition status
2. Falling behind Reform in votes
3. Falling below 50 seats
For me, any of those constitutes a potentially lethal blow. If they get two or three of these they’re finished for sure
Yeah I would agree with that. In particular, if they fall behind the Lib Dem’s in seats and lose LOTO they will seriously struggle to be heard or a part of the conversation.
Something will probably rise from the ashes but it won’t be the Tory party as we have known it.
Hold on one second though, the Tories could have 200 seats and the next Tory government won't be the Tory party as we have known it.
Quite rightly too, the Tory party as we have known it is getting kicked out.
Cameron won by modernising the party. Whoever is the next Tory PM will win by doing the same, when the party is ready (and the country is ready to kick out Labour).
I think realistically you are looking at 10-15 years of a Labour government coming barring some kind of mega event or series of damaging events which reduces that term.
The talk of higher turnout or busier polling stations than usual is surely a concerted effort to give the Tories a kicking?
The Conservatives will come back, it's just going to take a good 10 years plus when Labour becomes unpopular again and the Conservatives are positioned firmly in the centre/centre right again.
10 years? Ha! There'll be crossover before Christmas...
Will that affect either of the two Tory MPs in the next parliament?
I have just got in from a day of knocking up (only stopped because one of the legs I broke a couple of years ago is swelling up) and I saw this so apologies if already posted, but it made me laugh.
PB ALERT - in honor of US Independence Day AND the UK general election, am sporting a Hawai'ian shirt featuring both the Stars and Stripes AND the Union Jack, the latter in the canton of the royal, territorial and state flag of Hawai'i.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
The exit poll is much more likely to say “Labour majority of three figures” at which point we know this is a massive election and we need to know; if the Tories are dead, if the Lib Dem’s are the opposition, if reform have massively broken through - in seats or votes - and if the SNP are crushed, and also smaller but intense dramas like Cabinet ministers losing seats
This is a site for politics geeks. We love this stuff. Generally we get overexcited - but not this time. This is a genuinely pivotal election which could transform our politics. I’ve no idea why you are playing it down like it’s normal and boring. It isn’t
The Lib Dems really fucked this up. If they’d offered a rejoin referendum and immediate single market membership I am sure they would have got 1-2m more votes and overtaken the Tories. They still might. But they missed a massive open goal
But direction of travel is towards Con doing worse than previously thought.
50-99 seats 2.06 100-149 seats 2.94
I will only believe that if the exit poll shows the Lib Dems several points up on the 11% average that they have been getting in the polls this week. At 11% there just is not enough votes to go round to collect 60+ seats.
Presumably there are if they shed a load of tactical voters in all the seats where they aren't competitive, which is most of them.
But direction of travel is towards Con doing worse than previously thought.
50-99 seats 2.06 100-149 seats 2.94
I will only believe that if the exit poll shows the Lib Dems several points up on the 11% average that they have been getting in the polls this week. At 11% there just is not enough votes to go round to collect 60+ seats.
Lib Dems are going to lose so many deposits though. The efficiency will be off the charts
I think realistically you are looking at 10-15 years of a Labour government coming barring some kind of mega event or series of damaging events which reduces that term.
The talk of higher turnout or busier polling stations than usual is surely a concerted effort to give the Tories a kicking?
The Conservatives will come back, it's just going to take a good 10 years plus when Labour becomes unpopular again and the Conservatives are positioned firmly in the centre/centre right again.
10 years? Ha! There'll be crossover before Christmas...
In 1966 my father, who had become a Conservative after the death of his miner father, assured me that there’d never be another Conservative government. I’m afraid I laughed at him. I’d voted, and worked for, the Liberal candidate.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
Yes, of course I accept that. However, I do think the Don´t Knows coming out to vote injects major league uncertainty, especially into the seat spreads. It is not just the result itself that matter for many on here, it is exactly how the cookie crumbles.
Do we actually know turnout is high, or is this all anecdotal? This quite often happens at General Elections - people go to the polling station, it's a lot busier than when they voted in the locals two months ago, and they over-interpret. Yes, it will be busier than in May, fairly obviously.
It's anecdotal. Could all be bullshit and a false alarm, and either higher or lower than usual or just "usual".
However, I no longer think it'll be a sub 60% washout based on what I've seen today and above 70% was value IMHO, so I bought.
Does anyone have a list of the 15 Reform seats forecast by the latest Survation MRP? I looked on their map but could only find about 3. Maybe the map wasn't updated or something.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Scary times.
I plan for the worst but hope for the best.
Which isn't ideal when you're trying to bet on this election.
I’m 62. The Tories have completely dominated my adult life politically. There was the Blair intromission but he never really looked to change the status quo.
The idea that they might not be around anymore, like the SDP of my youth, is quite startling. Anything less than 120 and they are gone for good.
The Lib Dems really fucked this up. If they’d offered a rejoin referendum and immediate single market membership I am sure they would have got 1-2m more votes and overtaken the Tories. They still might. But they missed a massive open goal
No, raking that up again would've likely repelled a lot of soft Tory switchers. The Lib Dems will have been working these Southern targets for a long time, if they thought there was serious value in being more pro-EU they'd have had no compunctions about doing it.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
Yes, of course I accept that. However, I do think the Don´t Knows coming out to vote injects major league uncertainty, especially into the seat spreads. It is not just the result itself that matter for many on here, it is exactly how the cookie crumbles.
Do we actually know turnout is high, or is this all anecdotal? This quite often happens at General Elections - people go to the polling station, it's a lot busier than when they voted in the locals two months ago, and they over-interpret. Yes, it will be busier than in May, fairly obviously.
Of course it's anecdotal. There are no official figures, unlike many other countries. Earlier today everyone was saying how slow turnout was.
The Lib Dems really fucked this up. If they’d offered a rejoin referendum and immediate single market membership I am sure they would have got 1-2m more votes and overtaken the Tories. They still might. But they missed a massive open goal
They could have tried to turn it into a dividing line with Labour on honesty. It would also have been good positioning for the coming parliament because they could have blamed every economic issue on Starmer not being honest about Brexit, whether or not it's true.
This really could be the day the Tory party dies as a national party. Even now its quite hard to get one’s head around that.
Ok thats’s a good question
How bad does it have to get for the Tories for us to wonder if this is it, they are doomed
Under 100 seats? I dunno. They could come back from that; indeed they probably would, slowly
There are three thresholds which, I suggest, could be read as fatal movements:
1. Falling behind the LDs in seats so they become the third party and lose opposition status
2. Falling behind Reform in votes
3. Falling below 50 seats
For me, any of those constitutes a potentially lethal blow. If they get two or three of these they’re finished for sure
Yeah I would agree with that. In particular, if they fall behind the Lib Dem’s in seats and lose LOTO they will seriously struggle to be heard or a part of the conversation.
Something will probably rise from the ashes but it won’t be the Tory party as we have known it.
Hold on one second though, the Tories could have 200 seats and the next Tory government won't be the Tory party as we have known it.
Quite rightly too, the Tory party as we have known it is getting kicked out.
Cameron won by modernising the party. Whoever is the next Tory PM will win by doing the same, when the party is ready (and the country is ready to kick out Labour).
That’s true. The Tories need to remember what they are for. Small government, low taxes, sound finances, small businesses, equality of opportunity, compassion, meaningful defence and a united country working together.
They need to get over the obsession with Europe, it’s done, fighting “woke” nonsense and performative cruelty. They have lost sight of their purpose, their base and the national interest.
Tonight I will be at the count where Douglas Ross, Andrew Bowie and hopefully Stephen Flynn all lose…
Good luck, but go prepared to be disappointed. Standing in a GE is an activity with very little relationship between effort and reward, let alone merit and reward.
As a matter of simple mathematics, if the LibDems are forecast to win a shedload of MPs on barely more than a tenth of the vote, LibDems everywhere else are going to poll extraordinarily badly. Just think of your lack of votes as doing your bit to make the sums work out better for the target seats!
Point of order. Where did I claim that we would beat these three candidates? Ross is toast. When people are raising Duguid outside the polling station as their motivation to vote you know that Ross is toast.
I got introduced to a member of Banff and Buchan Tory Association. Across the square from their HQ. He was not voting for Ross either…
The new MRP has just said that the Tories will hold ANME, as one of only two Con seats in Scotland, so they may have egg on their faces if the SNP are going to win.
As I said before, if Corbyn loses to Starmer in his seat and Starmer loses to Corbyn nationwide then SKS fans and Corbyn fans will both have to explain this to each other.
This is pretty sound on lawyers, but TSE is wrong to suggest that all great lawyers have to be quick on their feet. Barristers and others who centre on court appearance are indeed so - and a mighty bunch they are too. But there is a unsung body of lawyers, mostly solicitors but barristers also, who are still essentially characters out of Dickens who spend their time thinking about strict settlements made with regard to the heirs of Lord Emsworth in 1345 and whether cattle taken in withernam are irreplevisable. They are mostly slow on their feet, take their time over lunch and Lincoln's Inn would not be the same without them.
As we’ve seen at the Post Office Inquiry, there’s a long line of internal counsel, internal prosecutors, internal investigators, and many layers of management lawyers above them, all of whom have all completely failed to live up to the standards expected of their profession.
Although we’ve also seen Jason Beer KC, who should be Sir Jason as soon as the inquiry is complete.
Failing upwards....we have to stop this trend.
Look at Mrs MET, Mr Natwest, etc....everything they have touched has been a shit show. Howard Davies literally went from f##k up to f##k up. FSA, LSE, Natwest.
I thought of the Post Office situation when I was reading the story of the British WWII agents in the Netherlands, which I mentioned earlier. Like the German ones in the UK, they were all captured and either turned or impersonated. They’d be sent out with various security precautions - words or formats to use in their early morse messages which they were supposed to use to indicate that they were at liberty - when they (or some German imposter) failed to use them, SOE would radio back things like “you’ve forgotten to use your security code”. As the war went on, the Germans had great fun sending back all sorts of nonsense - which they called Englandspiel - as more and more bits of evidence accumulated back at SOEHQ that there was something dodgy about the Dutch agents, it was always dismissed because the truth was too awful for anyone to face up to. Until eventually what was really a scandal was finally acknowledged.
iirc it was the same chap running the show who let Kim Philby escape.
Higher than expected turn out is ringing very big 1992 bells to me.
This is going to be a long and tense night.
No it won't. We'll know the result at 10pm, and it'll almost definitely be either a huge Labour majority or a smaller than expected but perfectly servicable Labour majority. I mean, there will be much interest to be had in the seat by seat detail, but you won't need to stay up to know who'll be in Number 10 tomorrow.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
The exit poll is much more likely to say “Labour majority of three figures” at which point we know this is a massive election and we need to know; if the Tories are dead, if the Lib Dem’s are the opposition, if reform have massively broken through - in seats or votes - and if the SNP are crushed, and also smaller but intense dramas like Cabinet ministers losing seats
This is a site for politics geeks. We love this stuff. Generally we get overexcited - but not this time. This is a genuinely pivotal election which could transform our politics. I’ve no idea why you are playing it down like it’s normal and boring. It isn’t
I assume that like last time they will give predicted seat numbers for all the parties so we should have a good handle on a lot of those questions straight away.... in 2 hours 42 minutes time
Essie accompanying us to vote. Slightly bittersweet as this is the first time since 2005 that our lovely GSD cross Stella wasn't with me for a general election. But still #dogsatpollingstations
It's hard to beat Australian polling booth pictures of Bondi Beach lifeguards in their Speedos.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/articles/c134014e5djo
Without a mainstream winnable centre right option then I'm disenfranchised and democracy dies for me.
That's why I'm praying for 150 and Farage sinking in the sea in Clacton but that looks fanciful and I really fear total wipeout.
I am not saying this though. I haven't a clue. Think I can write off my zero reform seats bet though!
https://jonskeet.uk/election2024
You drove out an important half, a half which kept you closer to power.
As you know, I suspect that you will have a long time to consider this.
Never mind England, it's tonight that fires up the mid-life anarchist in me:
https://youtu.be/FEIM69KitrI?si=nfDggVp8AWFiVyf2
I have just got in from a day of knocking up (only stopped because one of the legs I broke a couple of years ago is swelling up) and I saw this so apologies if already posted, but it made me laugh.
Never been involved in anything like it. Never want to be again.
The horror! However, be assured that NO pizza pies are implicated.
What am I getting wrong here?
I'm like you, I want a centre-right sensible party but we don't have one currently.
But when the party is willing to modernise and attract moderate centre-right people then the Tories can return to being a credible party that could enter government again.
How bad does it have to get for the Tories for us to wonder if this is it, they are doomed
Under 100 seats? I dunno. They could come back from that; indeed they probably would, slowly
There are three thresholds which, I suggest, could be read as fatal movements:
1. Falling behind the LDs in seats so they become the third party and lose opposition status
2. Falling behind Reform in votes
3. Falling below 50 seats
For me, any of those constitutes a potentially lethal blow. If they get two or three of these they’re finished for sure
50-99 - 2.32
100-149 - 3.9
150-199 - 8
200-249 - 34
250-299 - 130
Personally the showing ID added about a second or two to the entire experience.
Voting was very brisk but we were moving through rapidly. It was simply lots of people arriving around the same time that made it brisk.
But direction of travel is towards Con doing worse than previously thought.
50-99 seats 2.06
100-149 seats 2.94
I’ll leave out the testicle growing though. Partly because it would be a tad tricky for me and partly because that kind of boorish male thuggery doesn’t match the brains you claim to possess.
The idea that they might not be around anymore, like the SDP of my youth, is quite startling. Anything less than 120 and they are gone for good.
At worst it is 1931 in reverse.
1992 is a poor comparator. It looked, throughout, like a close election on the polls and the narrative. The only surprise was that it wasn't quite a close as people thought and the Tories won a small but working majority. There might have been some differential turnout in that but it was largely polling methodology error.
Sure, if the bongs go at ten and the headline is "Labour majority of 4" then it will indeed be squeaky bums all round. But that is extremely unlikely. If they go and it says "Labour majority of 40" then that's a big surprise and the Tories will be pleased to have defied expectations - but it won't be a tense night and the removal van will still be at Downing Street at dawn as expected.
Probably won't get that high (bet it's 67% or only a tad higher) but the value was there at north of 20/1 and it was over 72% for the EU referendum.
It's not impossible it just comes in.
Of course there were a few events in those 14 years however ...
1993 (Canada) - 13 years later Conservatives were back in office.
Discussion on Murdoch/Sun endorsement of Starmer;
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/media-confidential/67150/election-2024-its-the-sun-wot-lost-it
In 1970 I attended an election meeting where the Labour candidate said 'One day this seat will return a Labour MP' and everyone laughed.
Now of course a dead safe Labour seat. Funny old world.
Prepare yourself.
We will give you no respite.
The talk of higher turnout or busier polling stations than usual is surely a concerted effort to give the Tories a kicking?
The Conservatives will come back, it's just going to take a good 10 years plus when Labour becomes unpopular again and the Conservatives are positioned firmly in the centre/centre right again.
But I don’t mind. You take me much more seriously than I take you. I find you an amusing comic creation - and occasionally you say genuinely interesting things. So it’s all good
"As voters heads to the polls in the UK, politicians and their campaigns are silenced by a media blackout"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-04/uk-polls-open-british-election-voting-begins-sunak-starmer-/104052592
However, the baby developed jaundice - pretty common with newborns - on Election Day, so she did NOT make it to the polls.
Turned out 2004 was the closest Governor's race in the history of the state, and one of the closest in USA ever - Democrat won (after two recounts) with statewide margin of +133 votes.
The ID increased the work and presumably the cost, but didn’t appear to be holding things up.
Something will probably rise from the ashes but it won’t be the Tory party as we have known it.
Please. That's a Russian bot-bot!
Quite rightly too, the Tory party as we have known it is getting kicked out.
Cameron won by modernising the party. Whoever is the next Tory PM will win by doing the same, when the party is ready (and the country is ready to kick out Labour).
This is a site for politics geeks. We love this stuff. Generally we get overexcited - but not this time. This is a genuinely pivotal election which could transform our politics. I’ve no idea why you are playing it down like it’s normal and boring. It isn’t
https://x.com/istreasatuatha/status/1808805754712834413?s=61
Actually, its only a Portillo Moment if it comes from the Portilleux region in France otherwise its just sparkling seat loss
He'll be quaking in his boots.
I’m afraid I laughed at him.
I’d voted, and worked for, the Liberal candidate.
However, I no longer think it'll be a sub 60% washout based on what I've seen today and above 70% was value IMHO, so I bought.
One of the joys of Starmer is these loons and the Novara types have been totally marginalised.
Watch the hubris.
They need to get over the obsession with Europe, it’s done, fighting “woke” nonsense and performative cruelty. They have lost sight of their purpose, their base and the national interest.
Not quite there yet. Thankfully.