UK Politics Unexpected Election edition

[Jen'ari]

17 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

But they had the President that wasn't: Sanders. May was never not going to win, even after Gove helpfully killed Boris' attempt. And Corbyn's opposition were so boring they wouldn't stand out on a beige carpet.

I don't think Sanders appealed to a broad enough voter base to realistically stand a chance of winning though.

I'd say my political leanings are pretty centre right, really I should vote Tory in this election but I will be abstaining because I don't like May or her authoritarian stance on some things.

To be fair to Corbyn I disagree with some of his views but I have to say I agree about his comments on our foreign policy, I think what he said has been unfairly twisted.

[The BlackBear]

3 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

I don't think Sanders appealed to a broad enough voter base to realistically stand a chance of winning though.

I'd say my political leanings are pretty centre right, really I should vote Tory in this election but I will be abstaining because I don't like May or her authoritarian stance on some things.

Are you going to spoil your ballot or just not turn up?

[Jen'ari]

6 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

Are you going to spoil your ballot or just not turn up?

I've not decided yet, I probably should spoil it, depends how busy my day is on the 8th.

[Slick Mongoose]

UKIP have pledged to eliminate VAT on fish & chips.

Finally, politicians speaking my language.

[Which Tyler]

I'd always recommend spoiling the ballot (I always did a home-made "none of the above" option, and selected that. Otherwise when it comes to numbers, you just get written off as apothetic, rather than disillusioned.

 

Hopefully some day, there will be enough spoiled ballots to cause a rethinj

[Pebble thats Stubby]

Well I have now voted.   As in stuffed my postal vote in the big red letterbox.

My choices are

 1) Raving Brexiter - Who claims to be a leading figure in getting the referendum and a general obnoxious twat who wants to close our local A & E.  - Tory   Non-local and only man standing here. (he's gonna win though had a 52% share of the vote in 2015

2) A slightly nicer version of the above and not as extreme in her views re- Brexit    - the UKIP candidate almost local but not.

3) A brixit supporting anti immigration former local councillor  - Labour   (at least she is local)

4) A Lib Dem  lives about 90 miles away and I can't find anything about her, but I assume she was pro-remain.  Last time the Lib Dems only got 3% of the vote here.

 

 

Some choice.    As much as I would love the Lib Dem to get the seat, that’s not gonna happen.  The best I can hope for is the Twat gets less than 50% this time

 

[polishgenius]

Mic drop.


I'm obviously biased, but while he looked a little uncomfortable in parts of the Paxman interview, I thought he did way better, by way of actually talking like a human. Thought he smashed the audience bit.

[Werthead]

I caught the one where Dominic Raab appeared to be having some kind of nervous breakdown on air, got very confused about food banks, lost several key points to Emily Thornberry (which is only mildly less embarrassing than being outwitted by a stuffed iguana), then lost some more to UKIP (which actually is more embarrassing) and refused to look a disabled woman in the eye to justify cuts to social care and assistance to disabled people (despite being asked to by Victoria Derbyshire).

Given that they are still moving towards a win here, the palpable near-panic that has set in amongst senior Conservatives seems an overreaction. Rather than seeing the collapse in the polls as an actual disaster, it's much more likely that the polls were bollocks in the first place and they were never ahead of Labour by 20 points (which always felt unlikely and an artifact of the artificial early post-Brexit high than rooted in reality).

They do at least seem to have shown some sense in holding back on Boris, and certainly kept him away from the bus. I do suspect that May might also be regretting disposing so handily of George Osborne, giving the kicking he's giving them in the press at the moment.

[The Marquis de Leech]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Given that they are still moving towards a win here, the palpable near-panic that has set in amongst senior Conservatives seems an overreaction. Rather than seeing the collapse in the polls as an actual disaster, it's much more likely that the polls were bollocks in the first place and they were never ahead of Labour by 20 points (which always felt unlikely and an artifact of the artificial early post-Brexit high than rooted in reality).

To be fair, Corbyn has been running an excellent campaign, and May has been running a terrible one. Combine that with the media actually having to give both sides a fair go (rather than sticking the boot into Corbyn as per custom), and you've got a recipe for some significant gap narrowing. Even the PLP has broadly stopped its internal sabotage once it turned out that the (leaked) manifesto was actually popular, and that no amount of 1983 comparisons and hysteria would put people off.

[SeanF]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

I caught the one where Dominic Raab appeared to be having some kind of nervous breakdown on air, got very confused about food banks, lost several key points to Emily Thornberry (which is only mildly less embarrassing than being outwitted by a stuffed iguana), then lost some more to UKIP (which actually is more embarrassing) and refused to look a disabled woman in the eye to justify cuts to social care and assistance to disabled people (despite being asked to by Victoria Derbyshire).

Given that they are still moving towards a win here, the palpable near-panic that has set in amongst senior Conservatives seems an overreaction. Rather than seeing the collapse in the polls as an actual disaster, it's much more likely that the polls were bollocks in the first place and they were never ahead of Labour by 20 points (which always felt unlikely and an artifact of the artificial early post-Brexit high than rooted in reality).

They do at least seem to have shown some sense in holding back on Boris, and certainly kept him away from the bus. I do suspect that May might also be regretting disposing so handily of George Osborne, giving the kicking he's giving them in the press at the moment.

The 20% leads were froth, I think.

The Tory vote share seems to have settled at 43-46%, which should be enough to win.

[DaveSumm]

16 hours ago, Pebble said:

Well I have now voted.   As in stuffed my postal vote in the big red letterbox.

My choices are

 1) Raving Brexiter - Who claims to be a leading figure in getting the referendum and a general obnoxious twat who wants to close our local A & E.  - Tory   Non-local and only man standing here. (he's gonna win though had a 52% share of the vote in 2015

2) A slightly nicer version of the above and not as extreme in her views re- Brexit    - the UKIP candidate almost local but not.

3) A brixit supporting anti immigration former local councillor  - Labour   (at least she is local)

4) A Lib Dem  lives about 90 miles away and I can't find anything about her, but I assume she was pro-remain.  Last time the Lib Dems only got 3% of the vote here.

 

 

Some choice.    As much as I would love the Lib Dem to get the seat, that’s not gonna happen.  The best I can hope for is the Twat gets less than 50% this time

 

It's interesting how rarely you see voting discussed in terms of your actual MP. It seems daft that you are only allowed to vote in groups, the person in charge of the country and the person in charge of schools and the person in charge of your bins has to all come from the same party. I looked mine up in North East Hampshire, found precious little from the other parties. I did stumble across the rather depressing fact that my constituency isn't just safe for the Conseratives, it was the safest seat in the entire 2015 election. Can't wait to exercise my democratic rights on polling day, whoop de doo. 

[Werthead]

There is a difference between the parliamentary seats and the local councillors, who have a bit more to do with the bins. In my constituency Labour came a distant third in the 2015 election in terms of the Parliamentary seat (but are now polling just about second, surprisingly, as they were about 5,000 votes behind the LibDems) but actually won several new seats at the council elections and are now much more comfortable there.

If the polling is right - and Malt is right that local polling can be unreliable - then Colchester is now a three-horse race which makes life even more difficult for those wanting to get the Tories out, as it might split the vote down the middle.

[Werthead]

YouGov predicting a hung Parliament.

They're using a different modelling system with quite a wide margin of error, and this is the average result. Combined with other polling, a Tory majority remains likely, but it could really not be much more than what they have now.

This is quite astonishing.

[williamjm]

15 minutes ago, Werthead said:

YouGov predicting a hung Parliament.

They're using a different modelling system with quite a wide margin of error, and this is the average result. Combined with other polling, a Tory majority remains likely, but it could really not be much more than what they have now.

This is quite astonishing.

After events over the last couple of years I'm not sure I can really bring myself to believe any poll that seems to be telling me something I want to be true. That's particularly true when this seems to be the only poll predicting a hung Parliament, although there are others that seem to suggest May will only have a small majority.

[Liffguard]

My personal prediction, based on nothing more than gut feeling and reading the papers, is for a Tory majority of around 30 or so. Still a respectable win absent expectations or context, but not the absolute blowout that it originally seemed we were heading for.

I'll be voting independent myself. The Lib Dems and Labour were fourth and fifth respectively in my constituency during the last election, whereas the centre-left independent candidate came second place (though still with less than half the votes of the Tory winner).

[The Anti-Targ]

With a FPP system, basing predictions on national polling, which in the UK seems to have suffered from some accuracy problems, seems a bit fraught. You do get that swing metric where you can reasonably predict a result. But the question is whether the swing predicted by polling is sufficiently accurate to reasonably predict an outcome.

It does seem though, that Jeremy Corbyn is a brand that resonates with a lot of people. Perhaps if parts of Labour had not been trying to take Corbyn down over the last year or so they would be in an even better position than they are now.

 

 

[ljkeane]

Jeremy Corbyn's a brand that doesn't resonate with me and I'm a Labour voter. I'm reasonably confident he'd be a shit Prime Minister. Of course I don't like the Tories' and May doesn't strike me as overly capable either so all in all I'm not particularly enjoying this election.

Hopefully Labour performing slightly better than expected, or perhaps the Conservatives performing worse than expected, while still losing isn't sufficient for Corbyn to stay as party leader.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

YouGov predicting a hung Parliament.

They're using a different modelling system with quite a wide margin of error, and this is the average result. Combined with other polling, a Tory majority remains likely, but it could really not be much more than what they have now.

This is quite astonishing.

Amazing how quickly and dramatically the electoral landscape seems to have changed. It wasn't that long ago that it seemed a legitimate question to ask if Labour was going to remain a viable party.

What would actually happen if the result was very similar to what YouGov is predicating? It doesn't look like there's any potential coalition that is plausible to think of. Are minority governments allowed under UK law or would there have to be another election?

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

My personal prediction, based on nothing more than gut feeling and reading the papers, is for a Tory majority of around 30 or so. Still a respectable win absent expectations or context, but not the absolute blowout that it originally seemed we were heading for.

I think that does seem quite a plausible outcome.

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

What would actually happen if the result was very similar to what YouGov is predicating? It doesn't look like there's any potential coalition that is plausible to think of. Are minority governments allowed under UK law or would there have to be another election?

As far as I know there hasn't been a minority government in a long time, but there's no law against it. I suspect a minority government might lead to another election before too long.

If the Conservatives were a handful of seats short of a majority then they'd probably try to form a coalition with the two Unionist parties from Northern Ireland who might have about 10 seats between them. Other than that I agree it's difficult to see many potential coalitions, I think the Lib Dems have learned their lesson.

Corbyn would have more potential of getting the backing of other parties, although he'd have to be doing even better than the YouGov poll predicts. If he could get within 50 seats of a majority then it's possible the SNP would back him as Prime Minister even if neither Labour nor the SNP would contemplate an actual coalition - it's not as if the SNP are going to back a Tory PM.

[The Marquis de Leech]

6 hours ago, Fez said:

What would actually happen if the result was very similar to what YouGov is predicating? It doesn't look like there's any potential coalition that is plausible to think of. Are minority governments allowed under UK law or would there have to be another election?

The last minority government in the UK was the dying days of John Major's Government (which had lost a lot of seats in by-elections), and before that the 1970s Labour Government (which governed as an elected minority from February to October 1974, then won a majority of 4 in October, which it had lost in by-elections by 1976. The Government lasted until 1979). So there's plenty of recent precedent for this sort of thing - it was the 2010-2015 coalition that was unprecedented outside world wars and depressions.

Anyway, I'm sceptical of these numbers (I'd still bet on a smallish Tory majority), but if they come to pass, May is in real trouble.

Note that it isn't 326 to win, because Sinn Fein don't take their seats, and the Speaker doesn't vote. So the actual figure will be 323. If the Tories are on 310, they will literally need confidence and supply from both the Liberal Democrats (who know all about the consequences of helping Tories), and the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland. Alternatively, the Liberal Democrats could abstain on confidence and supply, bring the magic number down to 318, and the Tories and the Democratic Unionists can get across the line - barely.

The alternative is Labour somehow cobbling together a "let's screw the Tories" agreement, which includes everyone apart from the Tories and the DUP. It would last exactly five seconds, because we all know what the SNP's price will be, and how others would react to that.