This election is impossible call and has been fromt he beginning.

While “impossible to call” is always true, looking at these polls, it does seem a bit “Black Knight” to keep repeating it as regards this election.

I fear Friday 13th will bring us calls of… “All right, we’ll call it a draw”… from what’s left of the Corbyn fan base.

Anyway… my postal vote is in for our Labour candidate.

Meanwhile binners – the electorate are facing bare-faced lies reported without challenge.
And Labour have still managed to catch up in the polls!

Here’s the BBC comparing like-for-like in their usual manner:

Brass neck's been one of central features of this campaign – Johnson on checks (remember he DID admit back in Oct there'd be extra checks under Brexit deal however much he obfuscates over it now – define check, and define customs declaration), or Corbyn on watching the Queen

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 9, 2019

Just because JC doesn’t perfectly represent your view of what Labour should be, doesn’t mean you get to decide that the “party leadership can’t or won’t do it”

And Labour have still managed to catch up in the polls!

Going from abysmal to merely terrible isn’t really progress, is it?

I get the feeling that the ground is being prepared for another round of declaring not losing as badly as people predicted to be some kind of victory. The same as last time

He’s voting Labour!! Pointing out why not enough other people are is important.

But he’s not pointing it out. He’s making a completely factually untrue statement.
I’m saying that there are many things at play here – lots of them are completely out of the hands of the Labour leadership.

Going from abysmal to merely terrible isn’t really progress, is it?

It’s the pattern that’s interesting. Different media conduct rules apply during an election.
Last time with May, we saw the BBC become much fairer during the election. The rise in the polls was astounding.
This time, I haven’t seen the same balance restore on the BBC – They seem to be using the same tactics as Boris in that they think they can get away with framing things in the same twisted way as that tweet above.

They are doing pretty well against huge opposing forces in my opinion. I don’t buy any papers, but I do look at all the headlines when I’m at the local co-op. Is it any surprise that people are put off Corbyn? Look at all the ‘Russian links’ headlines on Sunday vs all the ones you never saw about already proven links between the current Tory leadership and Russia.

there are many things at play here

Of course that is true.

lots of them are completely out of the hands of the Labour leadership

Of course that is true.

Now we agree on that…

Corbyn’s history, personality, and approach to important policy matters have turned into a turn off even for many died in the wool Labour voters, never mind those new to voting Labour in 2017, or those with a pattern of voting Tory who need to swap to Labour for Labour to win.

Agree Kelvin

a lot of leave voters going to be turning on Johnson before long

a lot of leave voters going to be turning on Johnson before long

In 2/3 years. But by 5 years we’ll have new gerrymandered seats, and a built in majority of Tory seats based on an even lower share of the vote.

There is also the fear that it can be turned into “politicians are all the same, none of them deliver what they promise” nonsense that is helping Johnson this time around. People think politicians can’t be trusted… and so vote for the biggest liar in politics anyway.

Labour policy on Brexit is now fine with me. Utterly failing to successful challenge Johnson’s pretend policy is not. They need to be showing Leave voters how Johnson is conning them, and, importantly, why they (and all of us) should have a say in the Brexit process, including stopping it if what is being delivered doesn’t work for them (all of us). There are many ways to be “neutral”, but currently it feels a bit “Brexit is fine, have it if you want it, you may as well vote for Johnson’s people because he’s saying it’ll be quick, easy, and purely beneficial… oh, and he’a strong man who’ll stop the Scots and Ulster people from leaving the UK.”

Those online things put me…

SNP>LibDem>Green>Labour

But my Labour vote was easy in a Tory/Labour marginal. Don’t worry about Corbyn, he won’t get a majority, please don’t be put off by thoughts of him as PM. What seat are you in?

If Labour are the biggest party, Corbyn will probably be PM, but the “brakes” placed on him (or more importantly Milne, Murray & Len) will be immense. Other voices in the Labour Party, and which other parties prop up Labour, will be strong.

Realistically, the Conservatives will have the most seats… the election now is all about stopping Johnson getting a majority, or more realistically, making his majority as small as possible to give some power to his opponents to reign in his worst excesses.

Enfield North

https://comparethetacticals.com/enfield-north

Looks to me that in your seat voting Labour makes the most sense. This election is not the time to vote for a distant third placed party in a FPTP system when so much is at stake if we return too many blue MPs.

If Labour are the biggest party, Corbyn will probably be PM,

Libdems and SNP will not work with Torys so unless Boris wins an actual workable majority Labour will be forming the government even if they are not the biggest party. My gut feel is that part of the price of that would be for Corbyn to quit but who knows.

I don’t trust the libDems not to roll over at the first sniff of power.

I don’t trust the libDems not to roll over at the first sniff of power.

If it gets us a referendum in 2020, with another general election a few months after that, fine by me. The Tories winning seats because people won’t vote LibDem (for fear of them propping up the Tories) to stop the Tories winning seats is how Cameron got his majority. It’s maddening that the action of people to the coalition years worked so well for the Tories… they cleaned up mostly by taking seats off the LibDems.

It’s like getting the bus
There might not be one going directly to your destination, but you shouldn’t get the one going to the other way out of pique

Helping Johnson get his majority, because you don’t want Corbyn to be PM… is like walking bare footed everywhere because you don’t like the colour of your shoes.

[everyone else make up their own tortured analogy to bash the message home – if in your seat the Labour candidate can deny Johnson a seat, ignore your concerns and get on and vote Labour, please – if you are in a seat where the choices are different – do whatever you need to do to deny Johnson a little bit of power]

In 97 etc Labour were beating credible opponents. In 2017 Labour were trying to beat a Tory part in chaos that had caused chaos with a leader who turned out to be useless.

In 2017 we had the confusion of Brexit which has clearly seriously muddied the waters in how people vote.

6 weeks or so ago I was of the opinion that a more centrist, likable leader would of walked this election for Labour, but now I’m not so sure.

Brexit has skewed everything.

What policies could a centre-left Labour party possibly offer to a remainer Conservative to get them to switch?

We’ve seen that the so called Tory ‘moderates’ haven’t switched en-masse to the Lib Dems, despite effectively offering a manifesto that should 100% appeal to them perfectly. Ok, so Tory polls have been buoyed by the Breixt party decision not to stand but by how much?

Brexit party vote was around 13% throughout Sept-November. Cons about 35%. Brexit now down to 3 and Cons to 43%. The ‘moderate’ remainer Torys simply haven’t switched to the Lib Dems, just as they would not have switched to a centre left Labour party, and even if they did it would still make the polls roughly even.

Not a walk in the park like so many seem to think.

Chris Williamson (DerbyNorth MP – kicked out of labour, now running as a independent) was posting fliers through doors yesterday, and i managed to catching him before he got to the next house. I got into a polite conversation where i outlined the fact that he would split the vote and get a tory win for Derbyshire north. He seemed utterly convinced that he would win. It frustrates me how little co-ordination there is against the hard brexiting Tory government. I think Derby North will get a torys MP, because Lib dems and Chris Williamson are too selfish to stand down and let the likely competitive candidate stand against the Torys.

Any other election and i think its fair everyone has a party to vote for. But this is not the same as other elections.

It’s FPTP… what the big two parties can achieve as regards voters swapping parties at a general election is entirely different to what a smaller third party like the LibDems can, at this kind of election.

That’s true, but I still struggle to see where a reamin hard centre-left Labour would get it’s votes from.

If we take that chart, and assume that all 30% Labour leavers go Tory and all remainer Torys go Labour then it cancels it out. Torys still get Brexit voters, Labour still pick up some Lib Dem voters.

We are still in a similar boat. Why would a leave voting Tory vote for a pro-remain Labour? What possible policies could they offer, what level of charismatic leader would that require?

Where else could they get votes from?

Due to FPTP the number of seats obviously don’t work out proportionally, but this idea that 2017 was an abject failure by Corbyn doens’t really add up.

Meaningless twaddle. He wasn’t PM, was he? So it can’t be counted as a win, even with the most generous of spin.

As noted above, a credible opposition would have already deported Boris and his mates to the colonies.

In a Lib/Lab marginal I’d go Lib this time if the objective was to remain.

That could easily help hand Tories a majority which would guarantee you’d not get your remain objective.

No it can’t. It’s a lib/lab marginal, the clue is in the name.