@kelvin You’d have to hope that they’ve plans to offer people alternatives to private cars (including investment in public transport and active travel) for urban journeys at least, to reduce demand for fossil fuels…
@kimbers If they don’t have a candidate in a ‘safe’ seat then they lose it. As I said above, at least one other party puts massive prestige on standing a candidate in every seat, even when it’s futile.
If they don’t have a candidate in a ‘safe’ seat then they lose it
I think it's more about the front pages about the Tory campaign if Sunak can't find enough candidates - will increase chances of other MPs just giving up
The Tory MP that dropped out today-Aaron Bell was tweeting that he was out campaigning until yesterday, what did he encounter on the doorstep that he's suddenly decided?
but Im not convinced the Tories have done anything to shift the dial vs labour, the lib dems or reform
No but what you might have reasonably expected to have happened, when the general election campaign kicked off, was for previously undecided Tory voters to start telling pollsters that they would be voting Tory on July 4th, that would be a typical pattern.
And no it hasn't even begun to happen and we are now in the second week of a six week general election campaign. The Tories really are in dire straits. It seems to be panning out as their worst possible scenario.
theyve never dipped below 30% at a GE in the last 100 years
In the last 200 years!......the Tories have never had less than 30% of the vote in any general election in their entire history!
Remember the UK Conservative Party is currently the most successful political party anywhere in the world. The significance of what looks might possibly happen on July 4th cannot be overstated imo.
I will still be very surprised if they get less than 30% on July 4th but their time is running out and not one single opinion poll since the first week of October last year has put them on 30% or over. Not even pollsters such as Opinium which are more favourable to the Tories than other pollsters.
Keir Starmer might well turn out to be a disappointment, and imo he definitely will be, but the total collapse of the Tory Party will be a price well worth paying imo.
It will herald a new chapter in British political history. Hopefully.
1 MRP out tonight
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1796642867584070036?t=vV54IRP0p56kkTAD-u8kpA&s=19
Labour having a ~300 seat majority , with tories around 70 and Sunak only just keeping his seat by a whisker
The polls will probably tighten, probably
(edited, it was 1 poll)
Keir Starmer might well turn out to be a disappointment, and imo he definitely will be, but the total collapse of the Tory Party will be a price well worth paying imo.
My father, a distinguished political scientist in his day (used to do what is now the John Curtice role), used to say that folk who entered office with high expectations tended to be seen as failures, whereas those who entered as the best of a bad bunch tended to do well. Not a hard and fast rule of course.
I get what you're saying, but I'd argue that Sunak could be classed as the best of a bad bunch, and he's been an utter ****ing joke as a PM!
The polls will probably tighten, probably
Yet, they’re not. I believe the more people see of Lil Rishi the less they’ll like him, because he’s an arrogant, obnoxious, entitled little shit, who can’t remotely connect with normal people.
This election campaign could very easily take a Theresa May trajectory for him
But… you know… Diane Abbot 🙄
used to say that folk who entered office with high expectations tended to be seen as failures, whereas those who entered as the best of a bad bunch tended to do well. Not a hard and fast rule of course.
Interesting. Obviously I don't know the era your father's observations were based on but I strongly support the theory, certainly with regards to party leaders and prime ministers, that all political careers end in failure.
You would struggle to think of a postwar example where the career of a prime minister didn't end in failure. Perhaps the only obvious example is Tony Blair, but he was also probably the prime minister with the highest expectations of anyone when he came to office.
I think we've probably flogged the Abbot horse to death now!
I'm not convinced that it's the none issue which your perceive though. I would have tactically voted Labour as my constituency is a target seat (I'm now a Green, was Labour historically)....I'll not be voting for them though. Elphicke, Abbot, that shithead Akehurst, Thatcher economics from Reeves, I hate Streeting more than a sizeable amount of Tories.....bloke can't wait to start privatising the NHS.....I'll be voting Green. Lot's of people 'on the left' that I chat to are of a similar opinion. Starmer will still win, so no biggie I don't suppose if you're a centre right labour supporter.
This election campaign could very easily take a Theresa May trajectory for him
May dropped a few points along the way, but even though she was dire, she never dropped below 40%, Sunak has been below 20 on a couple!
If we're still seeing polls like this in a couple of weeks his MPs & canvassers etc are just going to give it up, and they'll start the leadership calls early, I almost feel sorry for him
I have the increasing sensation that the Tories might actually have passed the tipping point and are now in an inescapable free fall.
There was a period where I thought they might survive on account of being too big to collapse, or because of complacency on the part of (labour) voters.
But now I feel a sense of morbid fascination at the prospect of them being utterly wiped out, and I can't be the only one. I suspect people might be even more motivated to vote with the prospect of their annihilation so tantalisingly close, and increasingly so
I actually think a sub 30 % share looks very possible, maybe 25-27%. Perhaps that is slightly optimistic, maybe 28
It will herald a new chapter in British political history. Hopefully.
Very much this.
I was recently reading about Atlee's achievements as PM, the list is frankly staggering in comparison to what has happened in the last 14 years, let alone individual PM's within that period
I remain optimistic that it wasn't a one off
I actually think a sub 30 % share looks very possible, maybe 25-27%. Perhaps that is slightly optimistic, maybe 28
I think low 20s is very possible if the tories start infighting over the state of the polls
It's different now because I don't think the tories have ever faced opposition on the right the way they are with reform
Although at that point people might not bother voting Labour because they've got it in the bsg
I was recently reading about Atlee’s achievements as PM, the list is frankly staggering in comparison to what has happened in the last 14 years
IMO Harold Wilson's achievements were impressive, and he did it in very short periods of time and with tiny barely workable majorities.
What people on LinkedIn seem to be most concerned about is VAT on private schools. That's what people online using their real name, within their network of professional connections including customers and colleagues, are willing to debate. Or at least they feel it's a topic they can discuss without it turning into a pile-on that ruins their reputation.
It’s different now because I don’t think the tories have ever faced opposition on the right the way they are with reform
Exactly this. Even when the Tories were a social democratic party pre-thatcher they never faced a serious threat from the right.
Without Reform UK the Tories would do badly, even perhaps very badly, but not quite as badly as they probably will.
They only have themselves to blame though. They decided to take on Reform UK and tried to beat them at their own game with small boats bollocks, petty racism, etc. They were never going to win trying to make Reform UK's agenda mainstream politics.
If someone convinces me that immigration, asylum seekers, etc, is a really huge problem, as Rishi Sunak desperately tried to convince me, I am going to vote for Nigel Farage, not an Asian son of immigrants who doesn't seem able to get on top of the problem.
Why does this blue strip exist? Why isn't there a similar one to the north of the central belt?
Data from https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast, overlay for curiosity.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/31/general-election-2024-latest-starmer-labour-sunak/
Are GB News and the Daily Telegraph trying to cause panic?
The Tories could win just 66 seats in the general election, the first MRP poll of the campaign suggests.
Although I don't know how they could wangle the results of a huge 10,000 sample.
Why isn’t there a similar one to the north of the central belt?
The proximity of a border?
So the blue stain is caused by English incomers?
Possibly "leakage" of family ties across the border, plus living and working across both sides of it?
^^It's probably one of the more reliable and ever diminishing ways left to maintain some semblance of a Tory party after the GE. Invoke fear.
"The socialists are coming, the Socialists are coming!!"
Why does this blue strip exist?
1) it's only three, sparsely-populated seats so it looks more impressive than it really is
2) this part of Scotland has always spoken English or its forebears - hence lowlanders being described as Sassenachs [Saxons], basically low level "No True Scotsman" trolling
3) a chunk of those people cross the English-Scottish border daily or weekly, and realise how nuts a customs barrier between the two (as a result of Scottish independence, and then Scotland joining the EU) would be.
4) FPTP makes it look more definitive than it is - Dumfries and Galloway was only a 3.5% difference between SNP and Tories.
Mostly 1 and 4, I think.
An interesting concluding two paragraphs:
Nevertheless, experienced Labour figures believe that Starmer’s apparent war on the left has the potential to damage the party even if it doesn’t stop them forming the next government.
“None of this will make a difference to the election result but there is a big list of gripes and problems they are storing up for the future,” said one.
I have long suggested that a huge Labour majority could prove to be a nightmare for Keir Starmer. His best hope to maintain tight discipline is for a small but workable majority, it will also give him the excuse not to carry out any sort of radical government programme.
On the other hand if he gets a three hundred seat majority on July 4th I expect civil war to break in the Labour Party the following Monday. And if there are large scale rebellions over issues such as Gaza there might not be enough Tory MPs to help him out.
This week in the midst of a general election campaign Starmer remarkably managed to unite even blairite politicians (Yvette cooper ffs) against his handling of Diane Abbott mess. The link above is the first time that I have seen Morgan McSweeney's name mentioned with regards to who is pulling Starmer's strings but his hand (and David Evans) is obvious imo.
I reckon the suggestion of "problems they are storing up for the future" probably has a lot of validity. Among many potential problems is the blocking of popular candidates and the imposition of Starmer stooges which have been parachuted in. He might get away with it during the height of a general election campaign but local parties are going to have to live with MPs forced on them for the next 5 years. That can't create a party at peace with itself.
That is my only hope. Starmer gets the party elected, the very high number of Labour MPs then actually want Labour things rather than Tory things and do a rebellion. If there are 400 Labour MPs there is no way the majority of them are going to be Starmer supporters as there must be a reason they chose Labour Party rather than Tory party (admittedly some will have chosen it to give them best chance to be an MP)
Why does this blue strip exist?
Mountain bikers are actually over-compensating shy-Tories.
What's that map based on ? It has some really strange predictions for seats I know. It shows a swing to Labour as you' expect but the Libdems losing a higher proportion of their vote than the Tories in a Tory stronghold. I don't believe it.
You said Tony Blair didn't follow the rule that politicians' careers always end in failure, Ernie. As far as I'm concerned he was the biggest failure in the last 100 years. He betrayed his party's values, betrayed his voters, has more unnecessary blood on his hands, did more to destabilise the world order, lent his poison voice to remain thus facilitating Brexit and made his party unelectable for as long as people remembered what he did... . He and Brown hold the bottom two places in the ranking of favourite prime ministers. Churchill and Atlee first and second.
In fact **** it, I'm voting LibDem even though that map suggests I should vote Labour. Blair, the nastiest most hated living Brit.
Maybe just coincidence but the years Blair was in the country felt a better place to live in.
Maybe just coincidence but the years Blair was in the country felt a better place to live in.
I think it's more to do with the fact the world happened to be having a huge debt fueled party up until 2007 (helped by the fact China was making everything we could want for pennies) and we're still suffering from the hangover.
It's crazy to think of just how unrealistic expectations were between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the financial crisis.
It's completely ridiculous to hark back to 2007 for excuses for the current situation. 14 years of tory and that's really the best you can do?
The "financial crisis" was over and done by 2010ish at the latest.
You might as well blame it on the Suez Canal crisis, or the Boer War
Maybe just coincidence but the years Blair was in the country felt a better place to live in.
Differing perspectives I guess.
Iraq
2003 - 2007 Fatalities: 174, Wounded: 2,602.
Afghanistan
2001 - 2007 Fatalities: 86, Wounded: 834
I'd say the UK ****ing sucked for the individuals, families and those who came home with significant & life changing injuries.
@Edukator Mark Pack (who is the LD President but has a professional interest in polling) is a bit dubious about MRP and regards it as just another tool rather than the magic bullet some other commentators describe.
The “financial crisis” was over and done by 2010ish at the latest.
Depends on how you view things, I guess.
Yes, the stock market had recovered but the standard of living for middle and working classes is still nowhere near where it was prior to 2007. And this is a worldwide phenomenon. You can't blame the Tories for all the problems in the world.
If you are a boomer or gen-Xer then most likely you wouldn't notice. You've already bought a house and you've already got a decent pension pot prior to 2007. You saw blip and then you went back to getting richer and richer.
For those under the age of 40 the financial crisis is very much still ongoing.
If you are a boomer or gen-Xer then most likely you wouldn’t notice. You’ve already bought a house and you’ve already got a decent pension pot prior to 2007. You saw blip and then you went back to getting richer and richer.
Oh I don’t know. I’m a Gen Xer and I lost my business and pretty much everything but the clothes I was stood up in. As did a lot of similarly aged people I know in the same situation. It’s still massively impacting my life now
It totally destroyed my mental health. If it wasn’t for certain people I probably wouldn’t be here
You honestly don’t think the financial crisis affected anyone over 40?
I’ve read some bollocks on here over the years, but I think that probably qualifies for some kind of award
Again, NOT TALKING ABOUT INDIVIDUALS!
The fact is, if you are a gen-Xer or a boomer you are statistically far far far more likely to be wealthy compared to a millennial. That doesn't mean you as an individual are more wealthy than the average millennial.
If people are going to get upset every time age is mentioned in a thread where we are talking about an election (where age is the single most reliable indicator of which way a person is likely to vote) then it is just going to be a never-ending series of people lining up to throw their toys out the pram.
Maybe, as has been suggested multiple times before, we should stop making sweeping generalisations about generational groupings. If you did it about race or sexuality or gender, it would be pretty offensive - I hope doing the same thing about Boomers or Gen Xers is not as offensive as all that, but it plays the same game in a lower league.
The fact is, if you are a gen-Xer or a boomer you are statistically far far far more likely to be wealthy compared to a millennial
Well duh, of course they are, as a group the boomers and gen-Xers have accumulating wealth for longer. Yes it's undeniable the boomers as a group are in a better position financially then the following generations will be but it wasnt a planned wealthy, they just got so constantly harping on about doesnt really help.
A lot of it has been compounded by government stupidity, if mortgage leading had been controlled properly by government to sensible multiples of demonstrable income house prices wouldn't be anywhere near as high as they are now. House pricing is driven by demand (which could also have been reduced if the government's had actively built more houses) and ability to pay. House prices arent based on what the cost, they are based on what people can borrow.
This wasn't done to deliberately make boomers wealthy, it's occurred because governments were weak, didn't intervene, pandered to Nimbys and liked the over inflated value of housing in the national balance sheet.
We need to focus on the root causes of the wealth inequality not the symptoms.
Maybe, as has been suggested multiple times before, we should stop making sweeping generalisations about generational groupings.
It's a thread about an election. Age is the single most reliable indicator of which way a person is going to vote.
If you are older you are also STATISTICALLY MORE LIKELY (sorry, if I don't shout everyone just assumes I mean them as an individual) to be wealthier.
How the **** do you talk about an election in this climate without mentioning age? Like I said before, it's like trying to talk about elections in the 70s without mentioning what people did for a living.
I'd be surprised if there weren't shifts in attitude even amongst the boomers. I know a few people who're pissed off about eg £16k for an op or wait forever, grandkids' student fees, care costs disinheriting their children, family members being screwed by landlords, state pension being so low. There are boomers even in Sheffield but not a single Tory elected. There is hope yet.
I agree, but in fairness Brucewee did say 'most likely'. Maybe it should have been 'in many cases' or 'many boomers or gen x-ers' but the sentiment is there.
I know some Gen x-ers from both camps for sure, and can equally say that by a spin of the coin their situations could be reversed had things gone the other way. I think realising that is part of what makes this Gen x-er happy that I was lucky but less likely to pull up the ladder now, YMMV.
"the standard of living for middle and working classes is still nowhere near where it was prior to 2007. And this is a worldwide phenomenon."
This is just absolute complete unadulterated bollocks.
Up to the last decade, people had been getting richer, living standards improving, life expectancy growing, pretty much year on year since the start of recorded history. Yes you get the odd blip with a recession but nothing that really lasts.
You appear to have fallen hook line and sinker for the Tory gaslighting that we should all be getting poorer and unhealthier, apart from a few of the very richest.
