UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Barnes]

Citation needed

There's a whole bunch of survey data from the period out there if you want to look in detail, but I'll go with the easiest: there was majority support for a United Ireland in every British Social Attitudes survey up until the Good Friday Agreement.

I.e. don't confuse the chants of 1980s football hooligans - a pretty despised group themselves! - with the social mainstream.

Hahaha!

But very true, IRA terrorism was roundly (and rightly) despised, but that's not the same thing as Republicanism, not matter how much the former claimed it to be. 

[Barnes]

Yeah, those numbers would actually equate to a Conservative majority of near 60.

This election will show commentators, rather definitively, that Britain is and will remain a two-party system, with the two major parties getting near 80% of the vote between them.

[Barnes]

https://twitter.com/SirDavidButler/status/866643815708463104

gonna need some ice for that burn t. may.

The BBC needs to get him back on the air. His surprise appearance at the end of the 2015 program was wonderful.

[Barnes]

Callaghan had a 19-point lead over Thatcher as preferred PM on the eve of the 1979 election. I believe Howard had better net ratings than Blair in 2005.

Wilson bragged endlessly in 1970 about trouncing Heath in the PM preference polls.

[Barnes]

Could we, for once, try not to calculate the political advantage gained from the deaths of dozens of people a few hours after they've been brutally murdered?

[Barnes]

Yeah, honestly, PittsburghSteel, whoever you are, stfu.

As if all the "Is the Midlands like the Alabama of the UK", "Will this be like the 1986 midterms in the US" type comments weren't bad enough from non-British posters.

 

Don't forget "do coal miners vote Tory??"

Truly cracking analysis that we would be the worse without.

Of course, one would hope that we could act like human beings and, you know, have some empathy for 22 people whose bodies are still being pulled out of rubble, but of course not. This is the internet and the most important thing is the worshipping of the self, and, of course, protecting your (heretofore unknown) INALIENABLE RIGHT to calculate how much of a majority will be built on the bones of the dead.

Good show. 

[Barnes]

Parochial Boy is quite right in that a more direct swing correlation will almost certainly result from this election as you can see support for both major parties increasing quite substantially. Britain used to be used to extremely uniform and consistent swing patterns between Labour and the Tories, to the point in the fifties where over 90% of the country voted for the two main parties almost uniformly in most areas.

Of course, this has eroded away to a degree through a variety of reasons: fracturing of the unionist vote in Ulster, Scotland consistently swinging away from southern England starting in 1959, but becoming very pronounced in the '80s, and the relative increase in marginals between a major party and a minor party.

The reduction substantially in the last factor has seen a pretty pronounced return to the earlier system.

[Barnes]

So whatever happened to the theory that the terrorist attack in Manchester was 100% ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED to help the Tories?

We had some hard boiled "analysis" that day, let me tell you.

[Barnes]

Where is all the Very Serious analysis that Corbyn will lose in a landslide for the Tories?

he is going to, i guess....

the UK sys makes it quite possible.

Again, both parties are getting a boost, negating gains that Labour could make.

Now, most of the seat forecasts have errors in their calculations, but this change in polling would see the Conservatives have something like a 150 seat majority over Labour and 50+ seats over all other parties.

Exceptations of breaking 400 seats were always silly and not likely to hold up. 

[Barnes]

This isn't part of Theresa May's grand plan to boost turnout- she's ran a boring, useless campaign, and it frankly shows that there is no-one at the top who's got any GE experience.

Yes the 'it's good news for the Tories that their lead has dramatically shrunk' take is an... odd... one. Of course they are still in position for a solid win, but that isn't what they were looking for from the election.

The thought of obliterating Labour made them far too giddy for their own good! General elections in general usually go out of control, but snap elections in particular.

On a side note, it was good to see Prescott out in the old form this week.

[Barnes]

I wonder whether all this new momentum for Labour could start having any impact in Scotland and start moving unionist votes back to Labour from the Tories in which case Labour could pick up half a dozen Scottish seats. Just wondering

Scottish Labour has many problems which go back a lot further than Corbyn, and as the locals showed, while they might be stabilizing in some parts of Scotland, there's still no place but down!

[Barnes]

The general wisdom is that usually a majority greater than twenty can make it through a Parliament with few problems, and greater than thirty should see you home and dry with regards to other parties. However, the larger the majority, the greater the problems governments tend to run into down the line with their own backbenchers.

For example, the 1959-64 Parliament, following Super Mac's landslide, was much more difficult to mange than any of the tight majorities they had in the fifties.

So, the takeaway from British politics is that you don't want a majority too small or too large!

[Barnes]

It would be nice of course to wait until the actual investigation determined what happened, but why play that game...

At the moment, about five people are reportedly being treated for injuries with no fatalities known at present. The driver of the van has reportedly been arrested by the police and was shirtless.

[Barnes]

Labour braced for significant losses in north and Midlands
Theresa May seen as best leader in Brexit-voting towns, say candidates
 
Conservatives in the London area confirm that Labour’s vote is holding up well in the capital. “Corbyn isn’t as toxic here, even in the outer boroughs,” said one veteran Tory campaigner. “But it will be a very different picture in the Midlands and the north, very different.”

https://www.ft.com/content/39dd413a-47b5-11e7-8519-9f94ee97d996

This turns out to be an incredibly vacuous article the contents of which are very information-light and don't really match up with the headline. So about standard for election coverage then.

"It's going to be very, bigly different, believe me!"