United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[Pericles]

The Tories have to have been through the worst parliament for any government (and the nation too unfortunately) in modern times. Even they're waiting to be put out of their misery.

[Pericles]

Haven't most of the smarter MPs already given up hope?

[Pericles]

Isaac Levido reportedly told Tory MPs that the public are "looking for reasons to vote for us".

I'm f**king dying LMAO.

[Pericles]

I found this article to be a decently informative take on boundary changes. It's got good maps of target seats and some useful demographic statistics.

These two sets of graphs show how the target seats for Labour and the LibDems compare to the national average (the axis is the percentage point difference with the national average). Usefully, the target seats have also been grouped into three different categories. The information is unsurprising, but useful to have quantified.


Obviously it's hard to know if demographic polling data is accurate yet, but this graph here could also help predict trends.

As for issue importance, the economy is overwhelmingly the top priority with all demographics. Immigration appears to have edged out the others for a distant second. In any case, the government has extremely poor approval ratings on all the issues and on almost all rates worse than Labour.

[Pericles]

Lmao, someone appears to have pranked Sunak into recording a Cameo-style video for Nigel Farage. This can't be real, surely?

[Pericles]

Horrific trends for the Tories and what a humiliation to just throw away a realignment. I know that Labour getting only 44% of 2017-2019 switchers will be made the story by some people, of course that's way better than the 29% the Tories are clinging to with this group.

[Pericles]

Personally I think 4 years is actually a good way to do it, 5 is a bit too long and 3 like we have in NZ is too short. There is no 'science' to this though so I don't think you can prove benefits to term lengths either way.

This election will also be interesting as the switch from one landslide to another will likely mean it's the biggest swing in modern times.

[Pericles]

Usual caveats apply, but we have a constituency poll of Godalming & Ash (Jeremy Hunt's new seat) by Survation for 38 Degrees:

Lib Dem 35% (+1)
Con 29% (-24)
Lab 23% (+15)
Reform UK 8% (+8)
Green 3% (+1)
(changes from 2019 notional)

I imagine bar charts are being made out of this already.

Isn't it speculated that Hunt wil retire to avoid this kind of result, any news on that?

[Pericles]

This kind of terrible polling is terrible news for the government in a fifth year of its term. Did Major ever see such dire results in 1997, or had he already started to recover by this point?

This parliamentary term is an absolutely cursed time to be a government, and the Tories did not help themselves at all. It does actually feel plausible that this will be worse than 1997, though what limit there is to the wipeout won't be known until the result comes in. I also am inclined to believe it more after seeing the huge record-breaking swing in NZ last year against a much better government, though of course these are different countries.

[Pericles]

Tory economic credibility is in ruins.

Also ironic how Sunak was the most popular Chancellor in years.

[Pericles]

I doubt Tory MPs are dumb enough to actually unseat Sunak without a replacement, but I could see enough panic that he ends up getting subjected to a confidence vote. That would be another setback going into an election campaign.

[Pericles]

Interesting that Rees-Mogg came out against a leadership change-

Rees-Mogg said any attempt to hold yet another contest would backfire: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. The idea that changing the prime minister now would make the Conservatives more popular, with an election in view, is madness. It would be destructive for the Tories.”

Tory MPs slam 'bonkers' plots to replace Sunak

[Pericles]

A few more letters being sent after this one?
https://twitter.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387

[Pericles]

1997 is increasingly looking like an optimistic scenario for the Tories.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1774143859053715776
The Tories are still Official Opposition, good poll for them.

[Pericles]

A few more letters being sent after this one?
https://twitter.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387

Worth nothing, now we have the crosstabs, just how grim it looks under the hood too:

• Tories on 10% among under 50s, only 2% ahead of the Greens.
• Reform lead the Conservatives in the North of England.
• Reform have a larger share of the male vote than the Tories.
• The Tories only lead Reform by 6% among those over 65.

With these number Liberals Democrats would be the official opposition. I have to wonder if Sunak would keep his own seat.

For all one knows, we might have a *real* 1993 Canadian situation where *SNP* is the official opposition.  (That is, if they were operating on 2015 near-clean-sweep fumes.  Which they aren't.)

I can’t see the SNP becoming official opposition.

Yeah, if anything, I think the MRP has them with too many seats. Just off the cuff, I’m thinking they’ll get more like 30 than 40. I also think that the Lib Dems have a good shot at getting more seats than the SNP.

The over/under on the Tories and 100 seats is a good question though. I don’t doubt that they’ll still be the official opposition at this rate. I suppose there’s a chance of Canada 1993 happening in regards to the number of Tory seats, but I wouldn’t bank on it right now.

According to the MRP, while 15 cabinet ministers are predicted to lose their seats, 9 out of the remaining 13 have 'hyper marginal' majorities of less than 5%. Predicted results for ministers included here

[Pericles]

Convergence gets closer-
https://twitter.com/lara_spirit/status/1785894700496388140

[Pericles]

At least the PM should announce at the beginning of the year when the election will be held. That won't happen, because it removes the opportunity for political games. It should though, it would provide certainty to businesses and the public.

[Pericles]

At least the PM should announce at the beginning of the year when the election will be held. That won't happen, because it removes the opportunity for political games. It should though, it would provide certainty to businesses and the public.

You guys have it right though. I think a 3-year term is best. Five years is too long for a government to be in office without facing the electorate, especially when the PM elected at the time has been gone nearly two years. If you're going to have a 5-year term, maybe add a provision where a change in the PM requires an election within a set time (maybe six months, but certainly no longer than a year). In the same sense, I think the US does it wrong by having national elections every two years. That's too far in the other direction.

I actually think four years is the right balance, something the US does right. I don't think NZ voters would agree to changing it though.

[Pericles]

Labour's vote is becoming more efficient, as if a uniform swing wouldn't be bad enough for the Tories.

[Pericles]

Sunak being soaked in the rain really sets the mood. What a classic moment.

[Pericles]

Where can I find the notional margins for this election's seats, and ideally demographic data by seat too?

[Pericles]

Ol Nigey will not be standing.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1793554758923588029

He bottled it.

[Pericles]

It's fascinating how Labour can run the 'are you better off than you were 14 years ago' line when 2010 was the middle of the GFC.

[Pericles]

We're already on reset 1.0 of this campaign, how many will we get before it's over?