No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
So it appears that the Labor party of Australia is the latest leftish party to gain from the Trump effect with the centre right leader Dutton even losing his seat.
Having Trump as an enemy is undoubtedly a problem but having him as a friend is not much short of catastrophic.
The Maple MAGA is staging a comeback. Some fawning lickspittle in a safe Liberal riding, who has doubtless been promised fuck knows what, is standing down to trigger a by-election so PP can return to parliament.
Isn't that something of a convention in Canadian politics though ?
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
OK. I was wrong. Not everyone here can admit it.
This is a betting site. Wishful thinking has no place in betting.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
We can use the local election results to test if there's a tipping point for Reform to win a large majority.
Oxfordshire - 18% of the vote turned into 2% of the seats. Cambridgeshire - 23% of the vote, 16% of the seats. Devon - 27% of the vote, 30% of the seats Leicestershire - 33% of the vote, 46% of the seats Derbyshire - 37% of the vote, 66% of the seats.
So it looks like for Reform, 32% would be largest party territory but not majority territory. 34% would get a slim majority and 37% would be needed to get a Starmer 2024 landslide.
It’s obvious, even from here, that Kemi is toast. If the Conservatives wish to survive the next election, they are going to have to replace her with Jenrick.
Jenrick is odious of course, but I’m afraid he’s the only Tory left with a pulse.
Otherwise, the Tories can look forward to annihilation.
Aside: I think Ben Bradley is now out of political jobs, having stepped down as a County Councillor at this election.
I'm not sure where he goes next.
GB News contributor?
They already have the Leanderthal Man building out his retirement pot for Reform from Ashfield, and Gloria de Piero the last Ashfield MP for Labour in their Westminster studio, so they arguably need one who is currently a Conservative.
Ben Bradshaw XMP could do that; he's used to being a multijobber.
If they want the whole quiverful, Zadrozny is also available for the AIs - apart from still being Council Leader.
And then they could have Nick Palmer XMP for a former generation, if they want to be very local.
Starmer is an utter political dud of course, and doesn’t have what it takes to lead the country. His anti-charisma is actually maddening.
However, Labour may believe they are on course for victory in the next election simply because of division on the right. Indeed, that’s been my expectation to date.
However, the scale of Reform’s victory here suggests latent and widespread outrage. I no longer think Labour can be complacent about the “anyone but Farage” coalition coming out in their support.
They need to dump Starmer for Streeting as soon as possible.
Starmer is an utter political dud of course, and doesn’t have what it takes to lead the country. His anti-charisma is actually maddening.
However, Labour may believe they are on course for victory in the next election simply because of division on the right. Indeed, that’s been my expectation,
However, the scale of Reform’s victory here suggests latent and widespread outrage. I no longer think Labour can be complacent about the “anyone but Farage” coalition coming out in their support.
They need to dump Starmer for Streeting as soon as possible.
Streeting is in big danger of losing his seat next time, if he stays in Ilford anyway.
Aside: I think Ben Bradley is now out of political jobs, having stepped down as a County Councillor at this election.
I'm not sure where he goes next.
GB News contributor?
They already have the Leanderthal Man building out his retirement pot for Reform from Ashfield, and Gloria de Piero the last Ashfield MP for Labour in their Westminster studio, so they arguably need one who is currently a Conservative.
Ben Bradshaw XMP could do that; he's used to being a multijobber.
If they want the whole quiverful, Zadrozny is also available for the AIs - apart from still being Council Leader.
And then they could have Nick Palmer XMP for a former generation, if they want to be very local.
It would be like a sketch show sketch with Thatcher, Churchill, Bismark, Napoleon and Robespierre. I'm not making comparisons !
Or a Nottingham High School skit with Davey, Balls, Hoon, Ken Clarke, James Morris, and Lord Frost the Abominable No Man.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
The large majority is surely due to 2019 Tories staying at home or voting Reform? Neither Labour nor the Lib Dems added any votes to their 2019 total, and I don't think they particularly went up in individual seats. The drop in turnout is almost single handedly down to 2019 Tories who didn't vote Reform not voting
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
We can use the local election results to test if there's a tipping point for Reform to win a large majority.
Oxfordshire - 18% of the vote turned into 2% of the seats. Cambridgeshire - 23% of the vote, 16% of the seats. Devon - 27% of the vote, 30% of the seats Leicestershire - 33% of the vote, 46% of the seats Derbyshire - 37% of the vote, 66% of the seats.
So it looks like for Reform, 32% would be largest party territory but not majority territory. 34% would get a slim majority and 37% would be needed to get a Starmer 2024 landslide.
What the local elections really show is that if every county had been as responsive to its voters as Oxfordshire's LibDem-led administration has been over the past four years, Reform would be wiped out.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
Apple’s not falling very far then..
If we had an elected head of state it would likely be Farage right now…
Melvyn Bragg, I think, or possibly Victoria Derbyshire.
Much would depend on the voting system, eg FPTP or STV.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
*waves to fellow Devonian*
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
Indeed kidnapping my father from the care home today to sit in a devon beer garden for a couple of hours
Well done you. He'll love you for it. (Unless the beer is shit - in which case you'll never hear the end of it!!)
But then he’ll love @Pagan2 fpr giving him something to complain about
He likes a pint of doom bar then got him a double glen morangey to finish off, sadly feeding him wasn't such a success as he lost his teeth again
So it appears that the Labor party of Australia is the latest leftish party to gain from the Trump effect with the centre right leader Dutton even losing his seat.
Having Trump as an enemy is undoubtedly a problem but having him as a friend is not much short of catastrophic.
I do believe that having Elon Musk appear at AfD rallies helped stop them getting more than around 20%. They rose in the polls once they fell off Musk's radar for a while, but I see he's stuck his oar in again so they should drop a couple of percentage points...
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
Starmer is an utter political dud of course, and doesn’t have what it takes to lead the country. His anti-charisma is actually maddening.
However, Labour may believe they are on course for victory in the next election simply because of division on the right. Indeed, that’s been my expectation,
However, the scale of Reform’s victory here suggests latent and widespread outrage. I no longer think Labour can be complacent about the “anyone but Farage” coalition coming out in their support.
They need to dump Starmer for Streeting as soon as possible.
Streeting is in big danger of losing his seat next time, if he stays in Ilford anyway.
As Jenrick is for the Tories, Streeting is the only Labour frontbencher with a political pulse.
Labour need to be making plans for a transition now. However, they won’t. Starmer probably thinks he is just warming up, and Streeting probably rubs a few of his colleagues up the wrong way.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
Apple’s not falling very far then..
If we had an elected head of state it would likely be Farage right now…
Melvyn Bragg, I think, or possibly Victoria Derbyshire.
Much would depend on the voting system, eg FPTP or STV.
Is Melvyn Bragg still alive? I have a lot of time for him. VD, on the othet hand, strikes me as a bit dim.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
The large majority is surely due to 2019 Tories staying at home or voting Reform? Neither Labour nor the Lib Dems added any votes to their 2019 total, and I don't think they particularly went up in individual seats. The drop in turnout is almost single handedly down to 2019 Tories who didn't vote Reform not voting
Maybe get a friend to explain to you what a percentage is.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
The large majority is surely due to 2019 Tories staying at home or voting Reform? Neither Labour nor the Lib Dems added any votes to their 2019 total, and I don't think they particularly went up in individual seats. The drop in turnout is almost single handedly down to 2019 Tories who didn't vote Reform not voting
Maybe get a friend to explain to you what a percentage is.
No need to be unfunny about it, don't see what percentages have to do with it
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
The mean Green voter is more likely a slightly stupid 40-year old schoolteacher who is still flat sharing.
She is politically quite low information, and for example, doesn’t even know how to vote “anti-Reform”.
She doesn’t have dinner parties.
The stereotype you are evoking votes Lib Dem or Labour, depending on geography.
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
The mean Green voter is more likely a slightly stupid 40-year old schoolteacher who is still flat sharing.
She is politically quite low information, and for example, doesn’t even know how to vote “anti-Reform”.
She doesn’t have dinner parties.
The stereotype you are evoking votes Lib Dem or Labour, depending on geography.
Indeed the green voter is more likely to knit jumpers from their own pubic hair than have dinner parties as they aren't eco friendly for a start and in addition come for dinner I am cooking lentils doesn't lead to a large and eager guest list
Starmer is an utter political dud of course, and doesn’t have what it takes to lead the country. His anti-charisma is actually maddening.
However, Labour may believe they are on course for victory in the next election simply because of division on the right. Indeed, that’s been my expectation,
However, the scale of Reform’s victory here suggests latent and widespread outrage. I no longer think Labour can be complacent about the “anyone but Farage” coalition coming out in their support.
They need to dump Starmer for Streeting as soon as possible.
Streeting is in big danger of losing his seat next time, if he stays in Ilford anyway.
As Jenrick is for the Tories, Streeting is the only Labour frontbencher with a political pulse.
Labour need to be making plans for a transition now. However, they won’t. Starmer probably thinks he is just warming up, and Streeting probably rubs a few of his colleagues up the wrong way.
And the minor difficulty of requiring Labour members to vote for him, as well
@Casino_Royale asked what happened to the British economy after 2008.
The simplest answer is that much of British growth to that point was based on outsized performance of a finance sector experiencing a globalisation-based boom.
After that point, Britain simply lost market share in the global financial services market.
Interestingly there is a similar dichotomy in America where CISA (the US cybersecurity organisation) has been chain-sawed by Elon and told to stick to its core function by the Director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Apparently unknown to her, this does officially include prevention of election interference.
It’s obvious, even from here, that Kemi is toast. If the Conservatives wish to survive the next election, they are going to have to replace her with Jenrick.
Jenrick is odious of course, but I’m afraid he’s the only Tory left with a pulse.
Otherwise, the Tories can look forward to annihilation.
I agree. Enough with principles. Time to get down on all fours and see it from the Reform voters point of view
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
Apple’s not falling very far then..
If we had an elected head of state it would likely be Farage right now…
Melvyn Bragg, I think, or possibly Victoria Derbyshire.
Much would depend on the voting system, eg FPTP or STV.
Is Melvyn Bragg still alive? I have a lot of time for him. VD, on the othet hand, strikes me as a bit dim.
85, and still presenting weekly episodes of In Our Time...
In other Australia news, I was down in Leith this morning, and it is hard to miss the giant Australian car ferry moored up there. It transpires the Australians ordered this to replace those plying the Tasmania to Australia route, but did so years before the facilities needed to cope with such a large ferry were ready in Tasmania, now due for completion in 2027. It was made in Finland, but had to leave there pdq before the sea froze, since it cant cope with the ice. So Australian taxpayers are forking out to have the ship sitting idle in Edinburgh for the foreseeable, it being too big to put to any constructive use in Europe.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
It's the gap - you are right on this.
Bringing Baxter into the equation, fwiw, the PNS (30, 20, 17, 15) gives a Reform majority of 102, with Labour a little over 100 seats and the Tories in single figures all but wiped out.
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
The mean Green voter is more likely a slightly stupid 40-year old schoolteacher who is still flat sharing.
She is politically quite low information, and for example, doesn’t even know how to vote “anti-Reform”.
She doesn’t have dinner parties.
The stereotype you are evoking votes Lib Dem or Labour, depending on geography.
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
There are no certainties, but here is a possible: By the next GE we return to a different sort of 2 party politics, called perhaps 'two camp' politics. The camps being (a) those who will or could vote Reform and (b) everybody else.
In most (English) seats - S, W and NI are differ - the contest resolves into a binary battle, first to establish which are the two relevant candidates, and secondly the battle between them at the poll.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I'm sure you are right. Farage is repulsive to a great number of people of which I am one. If he became PM I would emigrate full time.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
There are no certainties, but here is a possible: By the next GE we return to a different sort of 2 party politics, called perhaps 'two camp' politics. The camps being (a) those who will or could vote Reform and (b) everybody else.
In most (English) seats - S, W and NI are differ - the contest resolves into a binary battle, first to establish which are the two relevant candidates, and secondly the battle between them at the poll.
Looking at the 2019 Euro Elections, BXP got 30.5%, Lib Dems second on 20%, yet the big two rose from the ashes to win a GE each in the next five years, so I think it's a bit much to call it the end of times. I guess there is no incentive for Farage to stand aside for the Tories anymore though, in his mind he gave them the chance to do things properly and they messed it up
In other Australia news, I was down in Leith this morning, and it is hard to miss the giant Australian car ferry moored up there. It transpires the Australians ordered this to replace those plying the Tasmania to Australia route, but did so years before the facilities needed to cope with such a large ferry were ready in Tasmania, now due for completion in 2027. It was made in Finland, but had to leave there pdq before the sea froze, since it cant cope with the ice. So Australian taxpayers are forking out to have the ship sitting idle in Edinburgh for the foreseeable, it being too big to put to any constructive use in Europe.
How soon until we see the first Reform councillor resignations? As in standing down as a councillor as they don't want to do the job.
There was a successful Labour candidate in the 2022 Camden elections that had no intention of being a councillor so resigned on the Saturday after the election. Unsurprisingly the electorate took a dim view of that and Labour came 3rd in the by-election.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
Both Labour and Conservative are being shafted from both ends if you pardon the expression.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
The mean Green voter is more likely a slightly stupid 40-year old schoolteacher who is still flat sharing.
She is politically quite low information, and for example, doesn’t even know how to vote “anti-Reform”.
She doesn’t have dinner parties.
The stereotype you are evoking votes Lib Dem or Labour, depending on geography.
Indeed the green voter is more likely to knit jumpers from their own pubic hair than have dinner parties as they aren't eco friendly for a start and in addition come for dinner I am cooking lentils doesn't lead to a large and eager guest list
I thought knitting yogurt was the standard for Greenery?
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
But the point is that Lib Dems winning instead of the Tories doesn't do anything to Labour's majority.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
I think "almost certainly" is too strong. Farage is a special case, particularly if he continues with the MAGAism. The combined lefty vote could be still be well north of 40%; that doesn't require an unrealistic amount of tactical voting to stop Farage.
I think Reform reached around 32% yesterday - around 7 points above most recent polls. I see no reason why that would be the peak, any more than the 26 or so shown in polls. If Labour continue to f*** up, the Tories languish and external events remain difficult the support for Reform could continue to grow.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
In general, I think people saying "tactical voting defeated the X-party" relies on X getting their normal or expected share of the vote, but the party who beats them being lent votes from a third party in order to make sure X loses. Obviously there is some churn between elections, but the reason for Labours landslide was the 6 million Tory 2019ers who didn't vote Tory in 2024.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
Had they not just lost an election so epically, the 2029 gap in the market could be for a competent, business friendly Tory Government promised to “share the proceeds of growth”, not frighten the horses, and be generally patriotic and anti-Russian/chinese; whilst being trusted with public services.
Basically Cameroon Tories who, unlike Cameron, give a **** about geopolitics and the nation’s defence.
I think our immigration numbers will reduce based on agreements we have struck already and a free ride on unpleasant stuff the EU does in between us and the main migration routes. As a bonus we get to criticise the EU for the very thing we take a free ride on.
Kent is interesting. Total wipeout for the Tories, down 57 seats and control to 5, on level pegging with Green in third place. Labour largely out of contention with 2. Reform dominant on 57.
With the Lib Dems up 6 seats to 12 they are now the primary opposition. They and the Greens have 2 strongholds: the East Kent downs around Canterbury (including my vineyard), and the inner Weald around Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. That’s the only area Con are hanging on too.
I think this is an example of a clear permanent flip. I can’t see the Tories coming back in Kent unless Reform implodes, so complete has been their like-for-like replacement. The electoral geography is also such that Reform will probably be in power indefinitely. If they do fail in running the council, I think the Lib Dems and Greens will chip away at the edges but most of the county’s population centres are not fertile ground for them. So Kent is Reform for the foreseeable.
By contrast I could see Cornwall flipping back in various directions, so too places like Warwickshire.
Kent is interesting. Total wipeout for the Tories, down 57 seats and control to 5, on level pegging with Green in third place. Labour largely out of contention with 2. Reform dominant on 57.
With the Lib Dems up 6 seats to 12 they are now the primary opposition. They and the Greens have 2 strongholds: the East Kent downs around Canterbury (including my vineyard), and the inner Weald around Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. That’s the only area Con are hanging on too.
I think this is an example of a clear permanent flip. I can’t see the Tories coming back in Kent unless Reform implodes, so complete has been their like-for-like replacement. The electoral geography is also such that Reform will probably be in power indefinitely. If they do fail in running the council, I think the Lib Dems and Greens will chip away at the edges but most of the county’s population centres are not fertile ground for them. So Kent is Reform for the foreseeable.
By contrast I could see Cornwall flipping back in various directions, so too places like Warwickshire.
Not sure Cornwall flip back that easily, it really all depends what happens at the next GE
The Boriswave has crossed the Tamar and the locals ent appy
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I'm sure you are right. Farage is repulsive to a great number of people of which I am one. If he became PM I would emigrate full time.
Kent is interesting. Total wipeout for the Tories, down 57 seats and control to 5, on level pegging with Green in third place. Labour largely out of contention with 2. Reform dominant on 57.
With the Lib Dems up 6 seats to 12 they are now the primary opposition. They and the Greens have 2 strongholds: the East Kent downs around Canterbury (including my vineyard), and the inner Weald around Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. That’s the only area Con are hanging on too.
I think this is an example of a clear permanent flip. I can’t see the Tories coming back in Kent unless Reform implodes, so complete has been their like-for-like replacement. The electoral geography is also such that Reform will probably be in power indefinitely. If they do fail in running the council, I think the Lib Dems and Greens will chip away at the edges but most of the county’s population centres are not fertile ground for them. So Kent is Reform for the foreseeable.
By contrast I could see Cornwall flipping back in various directions, so too places like Warwickshire.
Not sure Cornwall flip back that easily, it really all depends what happens at the next GE
The Boriswave has crossed the Tamar and the locals ent appy
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
But the point is that Lib Dems winning instead of the Tories doesn't do anything to Labour's majority.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Reform now completely owns the hard core national populist vote, just as Trump does. It remains to be seen what that vote is, but I’d expect a further surge in polls to closer to 30%. Maybe that’s the ceiling. But that kind of level has been enough to put nationalists in power in multiple countries from the 1930s onwards.
Politics is easy if you’re populist, because you don’t need to triangulate or attempt to please everyone. You can be antagonistic to the majority of the population, and that will endear you to your core vote. Left wing populists like Corbyn show it’s not just a right wing phenomenon either.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
I think "almost certainly" is too strong. Farage is a special case, particularly if he continues with the MAGAism. The combined lefty vote could be still be well north of 40%; that doesn't require an unrealistic amount of tactical voting to stop Farage.
If the gap is 3-4 million votes, yes it does.
You can't, and never have been able to, combine the share of the votes of different parties. It is a fallacy when anyone does it.
Farage is a dreadful special case, I totally agree, and that means he should hopefully be handsomely defeated. But if he is, its because another party got more votes, or nearly as many but more efficiently distributed, not because tactical voting overtakes a voting lead in the many millions of votes.
Trump has saved the monarchy in Canada for sure and probably in Oz/NZ too, it's a source of stability which people value in turbulent times. That 57% will be closer to 67% after Wills and Kate become the king and queen which basically puts the monarchy in all four countries beyond our lifetimes.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
In general, I think people saying "tactical voting defeated the X-party" relies on X getting their normal or expected share of the vote, but the party who beats them being lent votes from a third party in order to make sure X loses. Obviously there is some churn between elections, but the reason for Labours landslide was the 6 million Tory 2019ers who didn't vote Tory in 2024.
I wonder if most 'tactical' voting involves only half conscious conduct rather than calculation and sharp choice.
I live in Cumbria in a currently Labour seat. Leave aside Tim Farron's soft southern enclave in the region, after 2019 all seats were Tory. After 2024 all seats are now Labour. If current projections are correct all seats will be Reform in 2029.
Leaving aside Farron's seat, there is no point in considering the LDs, however LD possible you may be (which I am). It doesn't enter calculations for most people.
So in Cumbria, for the 60%+ who don't want Reform, the only issue will be whether you vote Tory or Labour to ensure Reform doesn't win. Current incumbent advantage says Labour. But this could change. But LDs don't appear in the equation.
That's how sub conscious tactical voting works over last parts of the country.
A nice sunny day in Reform Central. Agent Anderson will be out jogging in his shorts *.
* Golfing would make more sense, since he is across the road from an excellent golf course **. ** That's not doxxing. We have lots of excellent golf courses here, and his new dwelling has been in the Daily Mirror.
Morning -
Not such a sunny day if you are Notts council employee waking up this morning!!
I'll be surprised if Reform councillors don't go in there in on Monday full of DOGE-inspired chainsaw juice and start the purges.
We shall see.
It's a win, win for Reform. When the bins don't get collected they can blame national government.
With Reform, it'll always be someone else's fault.
Now they're getting some semblance of power, they'll need to start taking responsibility for their actions and words. And that won't come easy for Nige's fellow travelers.
I have low expectations; I don't expect to see those expectations exceeded.
I expect Reform will blame central government funding when they start making cuts
What, like every other party in power in local govt ?
Labour did in Durham. So did the coalition.
They’re right too. The model is broken at the moment.
It’s not sustainable and more councils are going to go bankrupt .
Social Care costs will eventually eat all councils.
It's the sort of area where the 3 main parties need to hold a joint decision on how to fix the issue because it needs to be solved and without cross party support it's unsolvable.
if it's impossible politically to fix a trifle like the winter fuel allowance without getting a hammering, i don't see that there is any chance that the parties will work together to fix this
This. The country is unfixable. Still, lovely weather here in Devon this weekend.
*waves to fellow Devonian*
Yep. Who needs to be worrying about our politics, when probably the most clement climate on the planet right now is here on the south coast of England.
Indeed kidnapping my father from the care home today to sit in a devon beer garden for a couple of hours
Well done you. He'll love you for it. (Unless the beer is shit - in which case you'll never hear the end of it!!)
But then he’ll love @Pagan2 fpr giving him something to complain about
He likes a pint of doom bar then got him a double glen morangey to finish off, sadly feeding him wasn't such a success as he lost his teeth again
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
I think "almost certainly" is too strong. Farage is a special case, particularly if he continues with the MAGAism. The combined lefty vote could be still be well north of 40%; that doesn't require an unrealistic amount of tactical voting to stop Farage.
But how is that "combined lefty (and implicitly lefty enough to be strongly anti Reform)" vote distributed? Here in Cambridge I am surrounded by lots of lefty voters, many of whom would likely be inclined to vote tactically to keep out a Reform government -- but none of their votes are usefully countable for that purpose, because neither Reform nor the Tories have a snowball's chance in hell of being anywhere near challenging for the constituency in the first place.
Oh, in other news. The Australian Labor party won big, with its 89 seat tally exceeding the YouGov MRP, and there are still 10 more seats to be counted. Despite getting 1,425,985 votes and 12% of the votes, the Greens have currently won no seats, although they are expected to win in two: Ryan and Wills
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
I think "almost certainly" is too strong. Farage is a special case, particularly if he continues with the MAGAism. The combined lefty vote could be still be well north of 40%; that doesn't require an unrealistic amount of tactical voting to stop Farage.
If the gap is 3-4 million votes, yes it does.
You can't, and never have been able to, combine the share of the votes of different parties. It is a fallacy when anyone does it.
Farage is a dreadful special case, I totally agree, and that means he should hopefully be handsomely defeated. But if he is, its because another party got more votes, or nearly as many but more efficiently distributed, not because tactical voting overtakes a voting lead in the many millions of votes.
All I'm saying is the the tactical voting adjustment you need to make to your model is actually quite small. And that's because of something you hint at - Reform's vote is very flatly distributed (based on GE '24 and some MRP polling) - there isn't a "turquoise wall".
That means a very large number of possible Reform seats are highly sensitive to even a small amount of tactical voting.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
I think "almost certainly" is too strong. Farage is a special case, particularly if he continues with the MAGAism. The combined lefty vote could be still be well north of 40%; that doesn't require an unrealistic amount of tactical voting to stop Farage.
But how is that "combined lefty (and implicitly lefty enough to be strongly anti Reform)" vote distributed? Here in Cambridge I am surrounded by lots of lefty voters, many of whom would likely be inclined to vote tactically to keep out a Reform government -- but none of their votes are usefully countable for that purpose, because neither Reform nor the Tories have a snowball's chance in hell of being anywhere near challenging for the constituency in the first place.
There's also a possibility of tactical voting working in Reform's favour too, if Tory supporters vote Reform in seats where they know they don't have a chance, and Reform vote Tory in their few areas of strength. Anything's possible, I feel I need more data before deciding which is more likely.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
Chopsticks? Serrated knife and fork at the Carvery is more their style.
With 47 of 50 voting centres reporting, the Wills seat is razor-thin, with the Greens at 36.2% first preferences vs 35.3% for the ALP, a swing of 4.9% to the Greens.
I've watched the Prince Harry interview. I quite like him and have some sympathy for his situation. But what do we think of his argument? Is it true that other VIPs who have served this country in a significant capacity and are now retired are provided with a level of protection by the state equivalent to the protection that he feels he and his family deserves - or not?
Only PMs, Defence and NI secretaries (previously) do.
He wants IPP status - which would require the US to pay for his security when he is over there.
Basically he’s a grifter and entitled whinger.
Apple’s not falling very far then..
If we had an elected head of state it would likely be Farage right now…
Melvyn Bragg, I think, or possibly Victoria Derbyshire.
Much would depend on the voting system, eg FPTP or STV.
Is Melvyn Bragg still alive? I have a lot of time for him. VD, on the othet hand, strikes me as a bit dim.
He is. And he's right here in Hampstead. Love to say we'd had a chinwag in The Flask but we haven't.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
Chopsticks? Serrated knife and fork at the Carvery is more their style.
I was surprised at the thought of Reformers using such furrin eating instruments as chopsticks.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
What's an EIA plz?
Sorry - I actually meant EA for Equality Act.
An EIA is from the same topic, but means Equality Impact Assessment, which is a thing needed before infrastructure projects. That's one way to worry Councils about anti-wheelchair barriers when one complains, as invariably they don't do them. There was an activist called the Heavy Metal Handcyclist (now deceased) who made it an art form to ask Councils for so much information via FOIs that it would probably take less time to address the barrier.
He used to be willing to go all over the country to help local campaigns by being discriminated against by their barrier, as only the actual disabled person discriminated against can take legal action under the EA 2010 - and disabled people are often poorer and less resilient so can be intimidated by nastygrams from Council Legal Depts. Plus it costs £££ to go to court, which many people do not have.
EIAs are tricky because Council squeezing has removed the officers with the corporate memory, so they use consultants. And they are difficult, and supposed to balance many different needs - in practice they often consult one "disabled" group, and get one viewpoint which does not give a decent balance.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
This country is truly going to the dogs. I've just been served a fruit scone with my cream tea in Lord's Pavillion. Are we so infected with woke ideology that we've forgotten that fruit scones should only be served with butter to avoid being too indulgent.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I'm sure you are right. Farage is repulsive to a great number of people of which I am one. If he became PM I would emigrate full time.
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Their Equality Act position will be interesting. There is a manifesto commitment from 2024 to change it, but it is reaffirmation of the EIA by the Supreme Court that shores up their position on Trans and What Is A Woman?
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
What's an EIA plz?
Sorry - I actually meant EA for Equality Act.
An EIA is from the same topic, but means Equality Impact Assessment, which is a thing needed before infrastructure projects. That's one way to worry Councils about anti-wheelchair barriers when one complains, as invariably they don't do them. There was an activist called the Heavy Metal Handcyclist (now deceased) who made it an art form to ask Councils for so much information via FOIs that it would probably take less time to address the barrier.
He used to be willing to go all over the country to help local campaigns by being discriminated against by their barrier, as only the actual disabled person discriminated against can take legal action under the EA 2010 - and disabled people are often poorer and less resilient so can be intimidated by nastygrams from Council Legal Depts. Plus it costs £££ to go to court, which many people do not have.
EIAs are tricky because Council squeezing has removed the officers with the corporate memory, so they use consultants. And they are difficult, and supposed to balance many different needs - in practice they often consult one "disabled" group, and get one viewpoint which does not give a decent balance.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
But the point is that Lib Dems winning instead of the Tories doesn't do anything to Labour's majority.
Jesus. Farage is about 3900 IQ points smarter than these journalists who try to outsmart him
Her idea of a “gotcha” question was “do you, er, do you, er, do you not think you’re trying to create divisions?”
“No.”
He is quite eloquently saying what almost all his supporters are thinking. A good thing for a leader I'd say
He’s so vastly superior to Starmer, Davey and Badenoch. Which is as much a comment on their total mediocrity
He must be a little worried that the Tories will install Jenrick. I can’t see anyone on the Labour front bench who could trouble him. Streeting?
Farage’s worst nightmare is probably a straight- talking figure of the left who combines centre-left economics with a bit of soft-nationalistic, protectionist flair.
The only one in Labour who possibly could make that work is Rayner; but she’s possibly too tied to the progressive Corbyn-y politics to make a play for it.
Yes - @Stuartinromford yesterday posted some polling on what Reform voters want - what they want appears to be Dr. David Owen.
The Labour party without the progessy politics on immigration and other things would be very successful. But that ain't going to happen. The Labour Party like the progressy politics.
Which is different from what Farage wants, and has echoes of the US. What he seems to want is scything, DOGE-style cuts to council spending, at a time when local government is already financially on its knees. I’m not sure that strategy is going to make many friends, unless the results can be blamed on others, ie “Westminster”.
Indeed. The coalition between Reform and its voters is shaky. Someone offering a similar cultural offer but a more SDP-style economic offer could easily wean their voters away - particularly if it came without any overtones of Trumpism or Putinism.
An intelligent option for Farage, now he has established a beachhead is to pivot to being more or less exactly that.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Reform now completely owns the hard core national populist vote, just as Trump does. It remains to be seen what that vote is, but I’d expect a further surge in polls to closer to 30%. Maybe that’s the ceiling. But that kind of level has been enough to put nationalists in power in multiple countries from the 1930s onwards.
Politics is easy if you’re populist, because you don’t need to triangulate or attempt to please everyone. You can be antagonistic to the majority of the population, and that will endear you to your core vote. Left wing populists like Corbyn show it’s not just a right wing phenomenon either.
The HCNPV correlates to liking Trump. It's about 15%. Not nearly enough for Farage to win but a good base. Keep them and graft on a nice big chunk of pissed off apoliticals and he's there or thereabouts.
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Verona? Nice, historical, pretty, quiet. I'd like it, but what I like and other people like are not the same thing.
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Why not explore a classical civilisation you have not done before?
Theory on the boats: it's not about principles, it's about numbers.
Sustained 10000 each year: no one gives a toss
Sustained 100000 each year (present situation): society is in two camps: those who are willing to break red lines like treaty withdrawal and those who are not.
Sustained 1000000 each year: everyone to the right of Corbyn would stomp on those red lines like cigarette butts.
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
In general, I think people saying "tactical voting defeated the X-party" relies on X getting their normal or expected share of the vote, but the party who beats them being lent votes from a third party in order to make sure X loses. Obviously there is some churn between elections, but the reason for Labours landslide was the 6 million Tory 2019ers who didn't vote Tory in 2024.
I wonder if most 'tactical' voting involves only half conscious conduct rather than calculation and sharp choice.
I live in Cumbria in a currently Labour seat. Leave aside Tim Farron's soft southern enclave in the region, after 2019 all seats were Tory. After 2024 all seats are now Labour. If current projections are correct all seats will be Reform in 2029.
Leaving aside Farron's seat, there is no point in considering the LDs, however LD possible you may be (which I am). It doesn't enter calculations for most people.
So in Cumbria, for the 60%+ who don't want Reform, the only issue will be whether you vote Tory or Labour to ensure Reform doesn't win. Current incumbent advantage says Labour. But this could change. But LDs don't appear in the equation.
That's how sub conscious tactical voting works over last parts of the country.
Yes, probably.
I just take issue with the fact that there was some kind of well organised tactical voting machine at last years election, that allowed Labour to win off 34%. Had the Tories got 36% but Labour's vote was distributed so that they won loads more seats, then fair enough, but the reason for it was the stay at home 2019 Tories.
I don't think there was more of an incentive for Lab+LD to vote tactically in 2024 than there was in 2019. Probably less of one actually
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Why not explore a classical civilisation you have not done before?
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
This country is truly going to the dogs. I've just been served a fruit scone with my cream tea in Lord's Pavillion. Are we so infected with woke ideology that we've forgotten that fruit scones should only be served with butter to avoid being too indulgent.
I like the way you got it on there that you're in the Lord's pavilion.
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Verona? Nice, historical, pretty, quiet. I'd like it, but what I like and other people like are not the same thing.
I've spent many holidays in Verona. It is really nice.
But you run out of new places to eat after 4 days, and things to do after 2.
Rome and Sorrento is actually a great idea. If Vesuvius, Pompeii and the Roman Forum/Colliseum/Vatican/St. Peters Sq isn't enough wow factor, to be honest I think you'll need to save up for spaceflight.
If you're looking for jaw dropping scenery however, Vancouver Island would get my vote.
Given that Reform outperformed the polls, can we expect to see some methodology adjustments that will boost their polling figures and make everyone’s numbers look more like Find Out Now?
Theory on the boats: it's not about principles, it's about numbers.
Sustained 10000 each year: no one gives a toss
Sustained 100000 each year (present situation): society is in two camps: those who are willing to break red lines like treaty withdrawal and those who are not.
Sustained 1000000 each year: everyone to the right of Corbyn would stomp on those red lines like cigarette butts.
Same for all immigration since the dawn of time. In fact Enoch Powell constantly made the point it was about numbers not difference of skin colour or religion. There is a tipping point where the amount of immigrants per year has a negative effect on the lives of the existing population. The debate is where that tipping point is
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Verona? Nice, historical, pretty, quiet. I'd like it, but what I like and other people like are not the same thing.
I've spent many holidays in Verona. It is really nice.
But you run out of new places to eat after 4 days, and things to do after 2.
Rome and Sorrento is actually a great idea. If Vesuvius, Pompeii and the Roman Forum/Colliseum/Vatican/St. Peters Sq isn't enough wow factor, to be honest I think you'll need to save up for spaceflight.
If you're looking for jaw dropping scenery however, Vancouver Island would get my vote.
I'm in Sorrento now. We have previously done Pisa, Florence, Cortona and Rome by train. That was great.
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Why not explore a classical civilisation you have not done before?
No Overall Control - No Change (though was initially Conservative in 2021).
Cornwall is always a law unto itself. A last redoubt for the liberals (a hangover from Methodism I reckon), yet quite often it goes quite Tory and once every couple of decades Labour does well
Given the appalling Tory collapse and the dire unpopularity of Labour you’d expect the Lib Dems to triumph
They’ve done well but they’ve been beaten by an entirely new party. Reform. This will deeply unnerve all three trad parties in Cornwall; my whole family is in shock (they’re quite political and have a range of views - eg my reform voting niece is ecstatic and my Tory voting brother in law is in despair)
In other words, the old NOTA party, LibDem, was eclipsed by the new NOTA party, Reform.
Yes, but the big thing is the shock. As I say my family is quite political. My 30 year old niece - young mum, two small kids, v bright and funny - has been voting Reform for a while. She follows politics closely
My brother in law is a Tory member etc
No one expected this. There was no sense this massive change was coming - people expected the Tories to suffer and Reform to prosper - but this? Wow
I think the reform "surge" has been exacerbated by the FPTP aspect. I am looking at the numerical analysis (specifically Bucks to start with) and the closeness of all the scores is quite startling. I can see this happening in 2029 unless Labour gets its act together.
Except both Curtice and Thrasher crunched the numbers and it wasn't that. With their projected national vote share models, they had Reform on between 30-32%, Labour / Tories sub 20 on around 18%/17% (their worst performances ever).
I meant the closeness of the scores in each electoral ward, leading to a more volatile set of results
But there were others that Reform didn't win that were close. They could have easily won 2-3 more of the Mayoral races.
I don't think FPTP did exacerbate thing when you are 14% clear in the national projected vote share you are going to win lots of wards.
Reform got 32% in the projected national vote share. That’s a lower vote share than the LOSING party in the 1945 general election, and in 1950, 1951, 1955, 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974 twice, 1979, 1992 and 2017, and lower than the winning party in every election since the war. Winning with 32% requires some FPTP magic.
Labour got a 170 seat majority in 2024 with 34%...
It did, and that was very definitely with FPTP magic.
I would hope everyone here could admit (even if it has to be through gritted teeth in some cases) that Labour's current majority is in large part due to tactical voting against the Tories.
And also that if Reform stood any real chance of winning a general election, there would be tactical voting on an even larger scale against Reform.
I think that’s wishful thinking.
There would be tactical voting against reform - whether it was organised enough to ensure reform was defeated is a different matter.
The question was whether Reform could win on 32%. Someone noted that Labour had won a large majority on 34%.
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
No, they did not win a large majority because of tactical voting against the Tories.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Exactly
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Not sure about this. There were many examples of the libdem votes shooting up to overtake the tories so there must have been some tactical voting.
In general, I think people saying "tactical voting defeated the X-party" relies on X getting their normal or expected share of the vote, but the party who beats them being lent votes from a third party in order to make sure X loses. Obviously there is some churn between elections, but the reason for Labours landslide was the 6 million Tory 2019ers who didn't vote Tory in 2024.
I wonder if most 'tactical' voting involves only half conscious conduct rather than calculation and sharp choice.
I live in Cumbria in a currently Labour seat. Leave aside Tim Farron's soft southern enclave in the region, after 2019 all seats were Tory. After 2024 all seats are now Labour. If current projections are correct all seats will be Reform in 2029.
Leaving aside Farron's seat, there is no point in considering the LDs, however LD possible you may be (which I am). It doesn't enter calculations for most people.
So in Cumbria, for the 60%+ who don't want Reform, the only issue will be whether you vote Tory or Labour to ensure Reform doesn't win. Current incumbent advantage says Labour. But this could change. But LDs don't appear in the equation.
That's how sub conscious tactical voting works over last parts of the country.
Real tactical voting on a mass scale does exist, but it takes years to build up.
Scotland had it, first against the Conservatives, later against the SNP.
But it only really works if you have a party that is on less than 35% that people actively dislike, and where the challenger is clear.
This country is truly going to the dogs. I've just been served a fruit scone with my cream tea in Lord's Pavillion. Are we so infected with woke ideology that we've forgotten that fruit scones should only be served with butter to avoid being too indulgent.
I like the way you got it on there that you're in the Lord's pavilion.
I suppose there was an element of humble brag but it was mostly just to illustrate quite how far this heresy has spread.
So, since there isn't much going on, can I ask the advice of the PB cognoscenti about holidays?
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Turkey, if you've not been
It's cheap and the south will still be warm and sunny in October (and delightfully empty)
Do a few days on the Med Coast, do Cappadoccia, and do Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler - the last-named in particular will blow your minds (if you have ANY interest in history) and you will never forget them: they are, without doubt, the greatest and most exciting archaeological discovery in history - they CHANGE history
Include 2-3 days in Istanbul as a stopover for big city fun, if you have the chance. It's endlessly fascinating
Rome is world class and a must-visit if you've not been, but if you have then Hmm. Sorrento is overrated and touristy
Kent is interesting. Total wipeout for the Tories, down 57 seats and control to 5, on level pegging with Green in third place. Labour largely out of contention with 2. Reform dominant on 57.
With the Lib Dems up 6 seats to 12 they are now the primary opposition. They and the Greens have 2 strongholds: the East Kent downs around Canterbury (including my vineyard), and the inner Weald around Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. That’s the only area Con are hanging on too.
I think this is an example of a clear permanent flip. I can’t see the Tories coming back in Kent unless Reform implodes, so complete has been their like-for-like replacement. The electoral geography is also such that Reform will probably be in power indefinitely. If they do fail in running the council, I think the Lib Dems and Greens will chip away at the edges but most of the county’s population centres are not fertile ground for them. So Kent is Reform for the foreseeable.
By contrast I could see Cornwall flipping back in various directions, so too places like Warwickshire.
Not sure Cornwall flip back that easily, it really all depends what happens at the next GE
The Boriswave has crossed the Tamar and the locals ent appy
Comments
The point I'm making is that Labour achieved a large majority on a small vote percentage largely because there was strong tactical voting against the Tories.
If Reform were deemed to be in contention there would be even stronger tactical voting against them. I think it would be out of the question for them to win a majoirty on 32%.
Oxfordshire - 18% of the vote turned into 2% of the seats.
Cambridgeshire - 23% of the vote, 16% of the seats.
Devon - 27% of the vote, 30% of the seats
Leicestershire - 33% of the vote, 46% of the seats
Derbyshire - 37% of the vote, 66% of the seats.
So it looks like for Reform, 32% would be largest party territory but not majority territory. 34% would get a slim majority and 37% would be needed to get a Starmer 2024 landslide.
It’s obvious, even from here, that Kemi is toast.
If the Conservatives wish to survive the next election, they are going to have to replace her with Jenrick.
Jenrick is odious of course, but I’m afraid he’s the only Tory left with a pulse.
Otherwise, the Tories can look forward to annihilation.
Ben Bradshaw XMP could do that; he's used to being a multijobber.
If they want the whole quiverful, Zadrozny is also available for the AIs - apart from still being Council Leader.
And then they could have Nick Palmer XMP for a former generation, if they want to be very local.
Starmer is an utter political dud of course, and doesn’t have what it takes to lead the country. His anti-charisma is actually maddening.
However, Labour may believe they are on course for victory in the next election simply because of division on the right. Indeed, that’s been my expectation to date.
However, the scale of Reform’s victory here suggests latent and widespread outrage. I no longer think Labour can be complacent about the “anyone but Farage” coalition coming out in their support.
They need to dump Starmer for Streeting as soon as possible.
London, Oxford and somewhere in Sussex (my wife is looking for last-minute AirBnB avails).
Looking forward to seeing whether the country resembles the increasingly poor accounts provided by PB regulars.
Or a Nottingham High School skit with Davey, Balls, Hoon, Ken Clarke, James Morris, and Lord Frost the Abominable No Man.
Much would depend on the voting system, eg FPTP or STV.
For Labour, I think those lost to the right need to be persuaded to return, so policies that appeal are required. Meanwhile, we need to gamble on the hand-wringing, muesli-munching
virtue-signalling dinner party crowd to see sense, and not cut off their noses to spite their face by pissing away their votes on Green, and returning to the Labour fold at the GE.
Labour need to be making plans for a transition now.
However, they won’t. Starmer probably thinks he is just warming up, and Streeting probably rubs a few of his colleagues up the wrong way.
She is politically quite low information, and for example, doesn’t even know how to vote “anti-Reform”.
She doesn’t have dinner parties.
The stereotype you are evoking votes Lib Dem or Labour, depending on geography.
The simplest answer is that much of British growth to that point was based on outsized performance of a finance sector experiencing a globalisation-based boom.
After that point, Britain simply lost market share in the global financial services market.
MPs heard different views from the online harms regulator and the UK government about whether and how the Online Safety Act obliges platforms to deal with disinformation
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623592/Government-and-Ofcom-disagree-about-scope-of-Online-Safety-Act
Online safety is the new trans women!
Interestingly there is a similar dichotomy in America where CISA (the US cybersecurity organisation) has been chain-sawed by Elon and told to stick to its core function by the Director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Apparently unknown to her, this does officially include prevention of election interference.
They won a large majority because they got nearly 50% more votes than the Tories did.
Getting 34% of the vote is enough, barring shocking distribution of the votes, if your rival only gets 24% of the votes.
If Reform gets 32% and Labour gets 31% then tactical voting might determine who gets more overall.
If Reform gets 32% and nobody else gets more than 20% then they'll almost certainly win a majority.
Labour won a large majority because they retained most of their 2019 vote while the Tories lost almost half theirs, either to Reform or DNV. The Lib Dems also retained most of their 2019 vote, and that was enough.
Had the Tories retained a similar proportion of their 2019 vote, they would have won a majority, but their voters stayed at home, so Labour did
Bringing Baxter into the equation, fwiw, the PNS (30, 20, 17, 15) gives a Reform majority of 102, with Labour a little over 100 seats and the Tories in single figures all but wiped out.
In most (English) seats - S, W and NI are differ - the contest resolves into a binary battle, first to establish which are the two relevant candidates, and secondly the battle between them at the poll.
I return you to my proposal to abolish local and regional government altogether and have efficient, benevolent, identical, government by Whitehall.
Policies will get examined, and the UK voting public is less inclined to quasi religious politics than our MAGA friends.
Farage and Reform will, I suggest: renounce Trumpism and Putin, back NATO and what there is of the western alliance, renounce changing the funding mechanism for health care, support government dirigisme when necessary for infrastructure, clearly renounce racism, support regulated capitalism, go easy on grammar schools for everywhere, support a universal welfare state.
It will stick to: leaving ECHR, much tougher on asylum seekers, be selective (covertly racist) on inward migration, back to 1950s on behaviour in the public square, legislated wokery, social disorder and crime.
It will struggle on tax, social care, growth, spending, deficit and debt. Don't we all.
Basically Cameroon Tories who, unlike Cameron, give a **** about geopolitics and the nation’s defence.
I think our immigration numbers will reduce based on agreements we have struck already and a free ride on unpleasant stuff the EU does in between us and the main migration
routes. As a bonus we get to criticise the EU for the very thing we take a free ride on.
With the Lib Dems up 6 seats to 12 they are now the primary opposition. They and the Greens have 2 strongholds: the East Kent downs around Canterbury (including my vineyard), and the inner Weald around Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells. That’s the only area Con are hanging on too.
I think this is an example of a clear permanent flip. I can’t see the Tories coming back in Kent unless Reform implodes, so complete has been their like-for-like replacement. The electoral geography is also such that Reform will probably be in power indefinitely. If they do fail in running the council, I think the Lib Dems and Greens will chip away at the edges but most of the county’s population centres are not fertile ground for them. So Kent is Reform for the foreseeable.
By contrast I could see Cornwall flipping back in various directions, so too places like Warwickshire.
The Boriswave has crossed the Tamar and the locals ent appy
Blimey!
That's a kicking and a half. Well done Albanese.
Politics is easy if you’re populist, because you don’t need to triangulate or attempt to please everyone. You can be antagonistic to the majority of the population, and that will endear you to your core vote. Left wing populists like Corbyn show it’s not just a right wing phenomenon either.
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1918502592335724809
You can't, and never have been able to, combine the share of the votes of different parties. It is a fallacy when anyone does it.
Farage is a dreadful special case, I totally agree, and that means he should hopefully be handsomely defeated. But if he is, its because another party got more votes, or nearly as many but more efficiently distributed, not because tactical voting overtakes a voting lead in the many millions of votes.
I live in Cumbria in a currently Labour seat. Leave aside Tim Farron's soft southern enclave in the region, after 2019 all seats were Tory. After 2024 all seats are now Labour. If current projections are correct all seats will be Reform in 2029.
Leaving aside Farron's seat, there is no point in considering the LDs, however LD possible you may be (which I am). It doesn't enter calculations for most people.
So in Cumbria, for the 60%+ who don't want Reform, the only issue will be whether you vote Tory or Labour to ensure Reform doesn't win. Current incumbent advantage says Labour. But this could change. But LDs don't appear in the equation.
That's how sub conscious tactical voting works over last parts of the country.
https://x.com/margaretsiegien/status/1918506324196732956/photo/1
Oh, in other news. The Australian Labor party won big, with its 89 seat tally exceeding the YouGov MRP, and there are still 10 more seats to be counted. Despite getting 1,425,985 votes and 12% of the votes, the Greens have currently won no seats, although they are expected to win in two: Ryan and Wills
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/election/results-2025
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2025/results
That means a very large number of possible Reform seats are highly sensitive to even a small amount of tactical voting.
Plus Farage at Durham was all over launching an attack on whatever they mean this week by "DEI".
And it is quite subtle what autonomy they have and what will get away with at Local Authorities within the existing rules. The Tice soliloquy on resistance to solar farms shows how little they understand that area.
It will be scalpel not chopsticks, and they mainly have chopsticks.
Serrated knife and fork at the Carvery is more their style.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/federal/2025/guide/will
An EIA is from the same topic, but means Equality Impact Assessment, which is a thing needed before infrastructure projects. That's one way to worry Councils about anti-wheelchair barriers when one complains, as invariably they don't do them. There was an activist called the Heavy Metal Handcyclist (now deceased) who made it an art form to ask Councils for so much information via FOIs that it would probably take less time to address the barrier.
He used to be willing to go all over the country to help local campaigns by being discriminated against by their barrier, as only the actual disabled person discriminated against can take legal action under the EA 2010 - and disabled people are often poorer and less resilient so can be intimidated by nastygrams from Council Legal Depts. Plus it costs £££ to go to court, which many people do not have.
EIAs are tricky because Council squeezing has removed the officers with the corporate memory, so they use consultants. And they are difficult, and supposed to balance many different needs - in practice they often consult one "disabled" group, and get one viewpoint which does not give a decent balance.
It is our Ruby wedding in October. Plan A was that we were going to the US but Trump has really put us off that. What we are looking for is something romantic with lots to do, not a beach or pool type holiday, not obsessed with wildlife, good food, not too much travelling, somewhere between £3k and £5k per head. Something memorable.
We are looking at Rome and Sorrento as a 2 centre holiday in Italy. It looks really nice but it is maybe lacking that wow factor, especially in October.
Any ideas welcome.
Greece and Crete or similar?
@Leon ?
Sustained 10000 each year: no one gives a toss
Sustained 100000 each year (present situation): society is in two camps: those who are willing to break red lines like treaty withdrawal and those who are not.
Sustained 1000000 each year: everyone to the right of Corbyn would stomp on those red lines like cigarette butts.
I just take issue with the fact that there was some kind of well organised tactical voting machine at last years election, that allowed Labour to win off 34%. Had the Tories got 36% but Labour's vote was distributed so that they won loads more seats, then fair enough, but the reason for it was the stay at home 2019 Tories.
I don't think there was more of an incentive for Lab+LD to vote tactically in 2024 than there was in 2019. Probably less of one actually
But you run out of new places to eat after 4 days, and things to do after 2.
Rome and Sorrento is actually a great idea. If Vesuvius, Pompeii and the Roman Forum/Colliseum/Vatican/St. Peters Sq isn't enough wow factor, to be honest I think you'll need to save up for spaceflight.
If you're looking for jaw dropping scenery however, Vancouver Island would get my vote.
But he's the solution to "No idea, but I know a man who might know."
I'd say cycle the full length of the Rhine, or cruise on it, the Danube currently being quite frisky - but that might not match.
Scotland had it, first against the Conservatives, later against the SNP.
But it only really works if you have a party that is on less than 35% that people actively dislike, and where the challenger is clear.
It's cheap and the south will still be warm and sunny in October (and delightfully empty)
Do a few days on the Med Coast, do Cappadoccia, and do Gobekli Tepe and the Tas Tepeler - the last-named in particular will blow your minds (if you have ANY interest in history) and you will never forget them: they are, without doubt, the greatest and most exciting archaeological discovery in history - they CHANGE history
Include 2-3 days in Istanbul as a stopover for big city fun, if you have the chance. It's endlessly fascinating
Rome is world class and a must-visit if you've not been, but if you have then Hmm. Sorrento is overrated and touristy