UK Election!

On the Diane Abbott / Keir Starmer story, I wonder who the leaker was, or if it was even a leak.
If I was a Tory agent provocateur I might have been tempted to say KS was blocking DA just to see if I could cause trouble.
Worst that happens is nothing much happens, but possibly you get to set Labour’s left and right against each other, and maybe you even get a chance to have Labour’s left torpedo Labour’s chances in July.
And you know KS will act in a proper manner, distancing himself from the proceedings, which loads of people will see as pretending he wasn’t behind something nasty.

There was no benefit to KS’s people leaking, or Labour’s right, or Labour’s left so far as I can tell. So I wonder, who was the anonymous leaker?

martinhutch
Full Member
No plan survives contact with the enemy, particularly if the enemy is a large proportion of the UK population.

https://x.com/BestForBritain/status/1796565060892147762

Oh dear, thats inconvenient! Lol

It’s highly likely Starmer will meet a similar situation during the election but I’m hoping he is better prepared that the constantly passive aggressive Sunak.

this position about the government having infinite money if only it could believe hard enough is your hobby horse, isn’t it?

solutions can’t possibly exist because according to your false logic there is only one pot of money that has ever been swilling around since the gold standard

I think I’ve mentioned it many many times…Firstly…Seventh…

Quod Borat demonstrandum, Rodders.

… and when you get past [George Galloway] you’ve got deputy leader Chris Williamson. What a delightful bunch

Galloway is simply a self-interested person with zero scruples, but Williamson is bonkers. It is totally wild that self-proclaimed leftists would associate with a man who takes money from the Iranian state to present TV shows on a channel that spreads anti-Semitic propaganda and pushes Iranian government talking points. Any reasonable person should ostracise him, not follow him!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_TV

Quod Borat demonstrandum, Rodders.

Yeah well there’s never a counter-argument is there.

Labour’s GB energy (PFI) launch has gone well!

Private jets on the way to Scotland to a green energy launch. Misdirected URLs.  Terrible posters.

I think the Tory party are exerting way too much influence these days.

Yeah well there’s never a counter-argument is there.

I’m certainly not arguing with you about your pet subject. You have more practice and time than I do. I am saying when you’ve got a pet subject that is the lens through which you see just about everything, like you do, you’re not exactly a typical voter. The fact that a mainstream party hasn’t won you personally over is no surprise and you can’t really draw any conclusions about their electability on that basis.

It is totally wild that self-proclaimed leftists would associate with a man who takes money from the Iranian state to present TV shows on a channel that spreads anti-Semitic propaganda and pushes Iranian government talking points.

What is a “self-proclaimed leftist” as opposed to your ordinary run-of-the-mill leftist, in your hyperbole which looks as if has been lifted straight out of the Daily Mail?

Don’t most leftists admit to being leftists then?

And should I call myself a self-proclaimed leftist – what is the correct protocol?

Not aimed at any one person here, instead at “most of us”, including me.

We are endlessly tying ourselves in knots over the 10% we passionately disagree about whilst ignoring the core 90% we do.

The 10% might seem like the war but in fact it’s just the battle.

Apparently Labour now have a candidate in every seat theyre contesting  (assuming Abbot stands), what happens if the Tories dont get that 190 odd they still need in the 6 days? some are ones they have decent majorities in!

polls over the next few days will be interesting, so far nothing much has changed in the polls

Still perilously little change in voting intention since the start of the campaign…

LAB: -0.1% to 44.5%
CON: +0.2% to 23.4%
RFM: +0.5% to 11.5%
LDM: -0.1% to 9.3%
GRN: -0.3% to 5.9%

Labour lead by 21.1%https://t.co/kz25YAE6Wc pic.twitter.com/YfLN5yV577

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) May 31, 2024

now the election has been called and the tone set things may start tightening as it filters through to voters, but Im not convinced the Tories have done anything to shift the dial vs labour, the lib dems or reform -and its the latter they are focusing on with their policies- theyve never really had competition from the right before- what if reform (or labour + LDs)  grow their vote over the next few weeks? what happens if people vote tactically to unseat them?

IF they stay the same the Tory wipeout is going to be nuts, theyve never dipped below 30% at a GE in the last 100 years , thats what they got when they lost in 1997 on 165 seats, but there was no Reform then, if they end up on 20%, they could end up with a handful (<50) of MPs. What if they fail to get a candidate for all the seats?

I dont think anyone knows what that will actually look like- would a new party form around them?-  or even which MPs would escape the cull, half!! the Tories 50 safest (biggest majority) seats are predicted to fall on current polling, almost all to the Lib Dems.

Of course the polls could well tighten and their defeat might just be bad but not catastrophic- even that would be interesting- Cameron changed the party a lot the last time round.

Very few people own newsapers or TV stations, you need to listen to what they say irrespective of the platform. Every time there’s a flare-up in the ME you get one on here being a little embassador for apartheid but has nothing to do with mtb. We should be flattered that STW is taken so seriously.

Labour promise to increase tax on domestic oil and gas production.

Because unaffordable energy makes poorer people happier, somehow. And making our domestic industry less competitive is also a good thing, somehow.

Using tax as one of the many levers to switch at speed from fossil fuels to renewables makes sense to me.

sorry just realised I posted the wrong graph up there

meant it to be this one

Labour promise to increase tax on domestic oil and gas production

British Gas profits of £750m ; thoughts and prayers

Labour promise to increase tax on domestic oil and gas production.

Because unaffordable energy makes poorer people happier, somehow. And making our domestic industry less competitive is also a good thing, somehow.

you were moaning 4 hours ago about no policy discussions, now you’re moaning about the policies. No pleasing you is there!!

Tax is on production. Gov has ability to set / cap pricing so that companies can’t just pass on the cost in their prices. Seems like a sensible idea both from a tax raising and green PoV – what would you suggest instead?

@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.

The front pages won’t look good, I’ll give you that.

1 MRP out tonight

https://x.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 **** 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.

The little man has one foot in California with his wife’s father’s vast wealth.

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?

Are GB News and the Daily Telegraph trying to cause panic?

the fail are running with same theme too.

Bombshell new study suggests Labour could win almost 500 seats at the Election – effectively wiping out the Tories

^^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!!”