Long Range Insight into Tactical Voting at the Next General Election – politicalbetting.com
Long Range Insight into Tactical Voting at the Next General Election – politicalbetting.com
Next GE still most likely 3rd May 2029 in my book. Though General Election voting over both Saturday and Sundays is definitely coming to UK at some point, Burnham may spring it on us.
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Edit - I actually think it's going to be 2027 - given the state of Reform's source of funds an early election with all the gory details about Reform's money provided Burnham is not yet voter repulsive it's a chance for him to get a clear mandate, destroy the Tories a bit more AND give him 5 years to do some of the really awkward changes that have long leadtimes.
To actually do something will take years. To change the system so that doing something doesn’t have to take years… will take years.
Burnham appears to be going for - “I have a plan which means re-electing me. And here is the start of it.”
Even the best polls have Labour level pegging with Reform. That means at any election, there would be a fearful slaughter among Labour MPs, at best.
A contrast to SKS who’d simply say ‘due process has been followed’
A potential risk is that Burnham's saying lots of nice things, but it's much easier to say such than to follow through (especially when funding's required). It'll be interesting to see how well or poorly he does on that.
Maybe they are doing all that behind the scenes, but…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aEJwI0X75Y
from https://bsky.app/profile/garius.bsky.social/post/3mrcb4a6m2k2d
There is AI managing the battery usage and it's not working..
If Burnham can keep dripping out small but positive changes and avoid too many crises we might see Labour edge into a reasonable lead in the polls and decide to go for it.
But even in the best case it seems likely that a lot of Labour MPs would lose their seats so there is that against.
The regulations need a fundamental overhaul.
I take back all my criticisms of AI.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
Some seem to have a more positive view of Badenoch now, but we'll see if that continues.
One point to pick out of @MoonRabbit's analysis for which many thanks.
The LD vote has always been the softest of all - even when I worked in Sutton (2026: Conservatives zero) we never took anything for granted and kept grinding away at the local campaigning.
There's little or no "tribal loyalty" in many of the LD areas won in 2024 from the Conservatives and we know from 2015 these areas can be lost again if the perfect storm hits. Council election results in constituencies held by the LDs suggest the party is working hard and successfully to hold those votes but there can and must be no complacency (as there was from 2010-15).
The party's positioning as the election approaches will be critical (and, I'd argue, the Conservatives face the same problem). The LD-Labour relationship is as fraught as the Conservative-Reform relationship and assumptions (prejudices) widely banded about by some on here the LDs are "certain" to support Labour are as absurd as those who claim the Conservatives are "certain" to back Reform.
I don't think either can be assumed at this time or at any time until and even after the votes are cast.
At this stage, psephological entrails notwithstanding, anyone who is confident they know the 2028 or 2029 election result would be well advised to go and visit that shop where you can buy a bridge.
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism.
And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression.
FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
https://x.com/trustintrump47/status/2079983817759044081?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
And right now the Tories are stretching that definition of nadir.
Vance uses New World. The commentator North America.
Not the same thing at all.
test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1,politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.Give it 6 months and see how their donations row pans out. It could be that this finishes Farage, and causes quite a bit of trouble. Or he could remain in post, tatnished, but as he effectively is Reform, the party may not be able to turf him out.
Ironically it may have been easier for Starmer to govern with a smaller Lab majority than what he won. If Burnham starts to make the right moves, I can see him eating into the Reform tally, even if it only takes Labour two or three points ahead. There will be more scrutiny on Reform at the next election than there is at present - that is something Farage is not a fan of.
Palestine Action seems to have driven the ruling classes a little bit mental.
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
There were many, many cultures in the intervening land. Quite probably, the First (North) Americans were not aware the Aztecs existed.
Northern_Al
Credit where's it's due - after a shaky start, Badenoch has become a much better politician. I'm even starting to see little glimpses of humanity and humour which are always welcome.
She now faces however a political operator in Burnham and she will need to raise her game as he learnt at the feet of Tony Blair who frankly would eat Badenoch as a mid-morning snack.
The other side of this is the hydra of the Conservative Party past and future - the past record will be used constantly and consistently by political opponents to remind people of the failure (perceived or actual?) of the Conservative-led administrations especially after 2019.
Badenoch has to define a "new" Conservative ("New Tories, New Danger"?) path. At the moment we've heard some of the sweeteners on stamp duty for example but we know little or nothing about how this will be paid. At some point, Badenoch will have to front up and say whose benefits will be cut, when and by how much and from the party which gave us fiscal drag, how tax policy will be changed.
Squaring the circle of recognising the failings of the past while offering a distinctive policy programme (not just Reform-lite) is the challenge.
The outlines are there but as someone once said, "where's the beef?".
Burnham needs to be brave and call an election where victory looks far from certain.
I recently, for the first time, listened to the lyrics of Neil Young's "Cortez the killer". It tells of how the Aztecs and other Amerindian people lived in peace and harmony with one another before Cortez came. It is, as I understanf it, ahistorical guff. Thr Aztecs were vicious brutes - which is why Cortez and his small band did nit meet unifird heroic resistance from the natives.
But my knowledge of pre-Columbian America is slight, and if anyone can recommend a decent history I would be interested.
That is going to benefit Lab, LD, Greens more in the log term. The Tory MP ceiling in he event that happens will probably be no more than 250, as it likely will be for Labour too
Cortez and chums rapidly accreted allies. Who did much of the actual fighting against the Aztecs.
Did them naughty Aztecs also steal and eat people's pets?
Blair with none of other people's money to waste would have been a very different political animal from Blair with a golden economic legacy. His method of governing, of dodging every tough decision (except over Iraq, which, tellingly, was his nemesis), simply would not have worked post-2008.
We will never know what Austerity Blair would have been like, but I can't see him being remembered as such a political genius now.
Still, nobody's perfect.
And I suspect that a general election will help Labour in the local elections as well..
They got less than 2% of the vote in Newcastle.
Judicious deployment of the word "some" may have helped.
My guess is that an early election is much less probable than a later one.
He was of course no longer Prime Minister in 2008 and Brown was left to deal with that shitshow for which, as far as the impact on the UK was concerned, he had to take a lot of the responsibility.
To be fair to Badenoch, no Conservative leader could have prevailed against Blair in 2001 and had Iraq not happened, I suspect there'd have been a third landslide in 2005.
Labour do have one electoral advantage over the Conservatives - they are still the largest party in the progressive voting block and so have more opportunity to squeeze votes than the Conservatives as the smaller party in the social conservatives block.
I don't see any spring shoots for the Conservatives in 2026 English local elections. Where they gained a couple of seats from Labour largely reflects Labour voters shifting to Green with the Tories coming through the middle I think. A win's a win, so that's OK, but they lost a lot more seats to Reform from an already low base.
The best that can be said for the Conservative local elections result was that it could have been worse (and Labour actually did worse). But they went further backwards - this isn't a springboard for success.
⏩ REF 26% (nc) 🌹 LAB 24% (+2) 🌳 CON 22% (nc) 🔶 LIB DEM 11% (-1) 🟢 GREEN 11% (-1) 🟡 SNP 2% (nc)
N = 3,118 | 21-22/7 | Changes w 12/7
https://x.com/luketryl/status/2080192728185315628?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
Even during the Troubles, when you had lawyers who were actual members of the various Community Organisations, I don't recall them being prosecuted.
Davey is -5. Farage -22, Polanski -22.
https://x.com/luketryl/status/2080192742752157967?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
The ancient Peruvians had a thing about specific chid sacrifice, by the way.
I don't know of any evidence of either in North America.
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/contempt-case-against-silk-can-continue/5127142.article
Interestingly he works for Garden Court Chambers, that's the same law firm from which the immigration judge worked for who decided "family" extended to adult brothers and sisters and let in 18 Gazans under ECHR.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/327108067908?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-153316-527457-8&mkcid=2&itemid=327108067908&targetid=4585032216575484&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=40855&poi=&campaignid=555777369&mkgroupid=1302922579628295&rlsatarget=pla-4585032216575484&abcId=10644544&merchantid=87779&msclkid=7381e6a427b6175dfd9a8cc5f61cf3ff
From my equally slight knowledge of pre-Columban America, I've formed the impression that the Aztecs were, as suggested above, vicious brutes, somewhat unusual in being so and consequently "unpopular" with their neighbours.
"Look Lando, I can see you're really upset about this..."
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
Hugo got this bit well wrong.
'people from Cambridge will instead drop humblebragging hints and hope you figure it out for yourself.'
https://x.com/hugorifkind/status/2080196191187300658?s=20Hugo Rifkind
@hugorifkind
One of those columns that lots of people are emailing me about but hardly anybody seems wants to post about publicly. Funny, that.
https://thetimes.com/article/422563
And I heard him on R5 a couple of days ago. I suspect mainly its because our pathetic media can only handle one story at a time and that's currently Burnham.
It's quite possible that Burnham will be as bad/worse on the supposed hot button issues (fossil fuels, Middle East, trans), but he will get away with it because he despatched the hated Sir Keir.
But equally politics could change it all in a few weeks or months.
Were I in Burnham's place I'd try and quite rapidly push though on political funding and media reforms (including social media), which imo are an existential threat to this country's democratic tradition.
Adjacently I wonder if Andy B will start speaking far more clearly than did SKS about the Russian threat. I think he will be more subtle on the USA threat, which is perhaps more unapologetic and overt.
But there are other events coming that could markedly change things, for example the USA mid-term elections.
While I don't think it automatic that the Tories would then instantly recover pole position - Reform's vote contains many NOTA folks, some left-leaning ones, some who would go even further right to Restore, and many who probably wouldn't vote at all if the Farage factor goes away - recovering it's dominant position on the right-wing side of politics is surely a precondition to any significant Tory recovery?
The key one is that it's a heck of a comedown for a party that won a chunky landslide less than a decade ago.
The other is... Where to dig in? What does a Conservative seat look like? For Lib Dems, it's easy- leafy streets leading to a farmers market and a beach of Waitrose. Similarly Reform- either a golf club or a boarded-up shopping precinct. Polanski's Greens- gentrifying inner cities with lots of cargo bikes.
It's harder for Labour, because they did so well in 2024. How do you do a composite picture of 2/3 of the country? But what does a Conservative seat look like- except for one that the Lib Dems or Reform haven't taken yet?
The poll today and Deltapoll show a very similar divide between Ref-Con and Lab-LD-Green so it continues to be a divided country and the movement to Burnham has come from "left" voters.