United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

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Unlike some, I think Labour wins majority although not guaranteed, but I believe they will fall short of 400 seats and I think Tories likely to lose but still win around 200 seats (which for them is really bad).  Now true possible it is an off the charts landslide but lets remember Labour at times in 2008 and 2009 was in even worse shape yet while lost in 2010, they rallied back much of their traditional support.  Reason I think this happens is you have some lifelong Tories who feel party needs to lose, but at same time cannot stomach voting Labour so once clear they will lose, that sort of gives them permission to return home.

It also depends on what role the Lib Dems play--they were part of the 1-2 punch against the Tories in '97, but they were also victims of Labour "homecoming" (as well as the Tories as government-in-waiting) in '10...

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This seems to be based on the assumption that voters fit into neat and tidy categories (both in a voting sense and in a general outlook sense) of 'left/progressive/etc' and 'right/conservative etc'. The Progressive Alliance lot on social media make pretty much the same assumption. It is known, however, from various preferential and ranked-choice voting systems (both here and elsewhere) that many voters don't fit into such categories.

This point needs to be made to those who have a moan about the lines of "OMG if left-wing party B had stood down then left-wing party A would have won" when there is a result under FPTP of something like:

Right-wing party - 49%
Left-wing party A - 28%
Left-wing party B - 23%

The result under a preferential system would probably be something like 54-46% in favour of the right-wing party.

Obviously Reform could cost the Tories some seats, but 100-odd is absurd even if they do poll 10% or more (and that's very doubtful).   

That fallacy is *soooo* Canadian (i.e. the whole Lib/NDP "unite-the-left" argument)

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The map seems to show Labour winning the Isle of Wight...don't they usually get single digits there and its more of a Tory/Lib Dem marginal

Hasn't been a Lib Dem stronghold in a while. The last time the Lib Dems got over 10% of the vote was in 2010. Second place in the last three elections has been UKIP -> Labour -> Labour, and the Lib Dems didn't have a candidate there in 2019. The Greens have performed relatively well there lately, too.

One *does* wonder what might happen if the Lib Dems *do* have candidates there, given the party's base otherwise (i.e. on a local council level)--unless as per recent trends, the Greens are poised to serve as their parliamentary proxy.  (Indeed, I can picture IoW as one of those places where no candidate gets 1/3 or even 30% of the vote)

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Two points about this.

1. Reform are very unlikely to be on 10% nationally if they can't break 20% in this seat.

2. The swing from the Tories to Labour is 24%, considerably larger than the ~16% swing being indicated in the current national polls. Of course that might be at least somewhat due to Reform, but it does show that the Tories have, to perhaps state the obvious, a steeper hill to descend in seats such as this.

Then again, one might argue that the Tories are already overleveraged in a seat like Clacton, particularly given how it was a New Labour two-termer a generation ago.  So there's an element of being brought back down to earth after basking in being a poster child for "Leave Populism"...

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Two points about this.

1. Reform are very unlikely to be on 10% nationally if they can't break 20% in this seat.

2. The swing from the Tories to Labour is 24%, considerably larger than the ~16% swing being indicated in the current national polls. Of course that might be at least somewhat due to Reform, but it does show that the Tories have, to perhaps state the obvious, a steeper hill to descend in seats such as this.

Then again, one might argue that the Tories are already overleveraged in a seat like Clacton, particularly given how it was a New Labour two-termer a generation ago.  So there's an element of being brought back down to earth after basking in being a poster child for "Leave Populism"...

The present Clacton seat would have stayed Tory in 1997 and 2001.

True, but the fact that it's had Labour representation *at all* has got to leave a mark.

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Fun fact.

Age polarisation is so insane it's estimated that nearly 1 in 10 2019 Tory voters have now died.

And, who knows how many of those were Labour/Leave "Red Wall" types.

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So who do Gen Zers in the UK who are from extremely wealthy aristocratic families who went to places like Eton and hang out in Sloan Square all vote for these days?

People like that will be fairly Tory regardless of their age group, but outside of certain parts of central London there really aren't very many of them.

I would imagine that your typical young Tory voter is someone from a Tory family who follows the family voting habit and doesn't see enough of a reason to change. There are surely also a few libertarian ideologues out there, or are they Reform or trying to infiltrate the Lib Dems again?

Yes, and in much of London they've been replaced by foreign millionaires (and their families) with ill-gotten gains. Hence why Labour was able to win Kensington in 2017, rather than some sort of mass defection among the people formerly known as the Sloanes.

I don't think people really get the young right. The young, ideological, *actual* right has no interest in the Conservative Party: even the idea of hijacking it to serve as a vehicle for their own ends is a fringe one. They also have very little time for Reform: they like Farage, but not Tice and his circus, and even have a cautious willingness to support George Galloway. The only young people 'on the right' who feel attached to the Conservative Party are media personalities and careerists who want to be politicians. This is the depth of the hole they've dug.

These days, I wonder if what remains of the Sloanes is just "too posh for politics"--they'd rather not dirty their noses with those silly squabbles.  They picture themselves as too cosmopolitan for the bickering and parochial world of electoral politics.

And as for the "young right", they're likewise more "internationalist" in outlook, i.e. if they had a viable domestic Le Pen or Meloni vehicle (which Reform isn't), they'd be all in...

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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.)

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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.

i don't see Canada 1993 at this juncture. Liberal Democrats being official opposition is definitely in the realm of possibility.

Well, I was being quasi-whimsical--and couching things in terms of a '15-repeat acknowledged-unlikelihood.  Which, of course, would mean 56 seats, and something crazy like the Tories and Lib Dems finishing with, who knows, 55 each or something...

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So Reform UK sacked its candidate for York Central for "inactivity" after not returning calls or emails.

...turns out he had been dead since February.

Reform UK admitted it didn’t realize that Tommy Cawkwell, its election candidate in York Central, had perished when he was sacked for lack of activity.

“We can’t afford to have people doing nothing in an election year,” a party spokesperson had told local news outlet the York Press.

But Cawkwell had actually died two months before.

Reform UK spokesperson Gawain Towler said Wednesday night he was “mortified” at the error.

https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-party-fired-candidate-inactive-turns-out-dead-uk/

I can't 💀

Dying is no excuse for not campaigning. Never stop the grind.

I guess Calvin Coolidge Republicanism is Reform's thing...

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How much danger is Truss actually in?

Hard to say. The seat has a marginal history, but that is really a long time ago and its recent results make it look like a seat the Tories ought to hold even in a real meltdown. However I suspect that Truss is genuinely a liability even in her constituency and Bagge does seem to be getting some traction. So there's a possibility he could split the Tory vote and let Labour through the middle or, if he can attract tactical votes, potentially challenge to win himself, but it's very hard to judge how much traction a candidate like that is getting from outside and there is not much history of similar candidates having an impact. (But there also isn't much history of the Tories polling in the low 20s...)

If you're thinking of the 60s and before, that *is* really a long time ago--but then, not so long ago, there's '97's 42.0% vs 37.8%, and the Tories are doing even *worse* now...

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

Would any aspiring leadership candidate be shameless enough to 'arrange' a poll to be released in the next two or three days showing Reform ahead of the Tories? I seem to recall similar tactics being used in the past.

I've rarely seen Electoral Calculus get so broken by a poll.

Put this in and:

Lab 519
LD(!) 57 (calling BS on this)
Con 32
SNP 19
PC 3
Green 2
Northern Ireland 18
Reform 0

Electoral Calculus just isn't designed for results this wild.

Sounds about right to me. If the Tories are on 18%, that implies losing very safe seats where the Lib Dems are by far the nearest opposition. If the Tories are losing seats like Torbay, North Devon, and the Cotswolds seats, then yes the Lib Dems would be getting up to around 40 gains on top of their existing 15 seats.

It also makes more sense once the Lib Dems are in double-digit numbers.

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You might as well call this the "Sock It To Me" election at this point.  And because Sunak (unlike Nixon) has a British accent like Judy Carne, he got soaked ;-)

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Boy, I get this vibe from Rishi Sunak's campaign thus far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbLDH3Os8HU

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Up next, bringing back fox hunting and death penalty.

How about bringing back the cane?

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Up next, bringing back fox hunting and death penalty.

How about bringing back the cane?

Perhaps burning suspected witches at the stake would get those voters back!

Naw, that's more something the "Nick Fuentes" crowd in the US would advocate.

As for caning, I suppose it'd be Cuthbert Cringeworthy Rees-Mogg's attempt to secure the vote of all those Bash Street Teachers out there ;-)

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Con to Lab switchers care about the economy and public services, while Con to Reform switchers are basically single issue anti-immigration voters.

Relatedly, Reform voters are once again shown to be very disproportionately politically engaged, which makes their underperformance in basically every election even odder (read likely big polling error).

Maybe it's more a matter of the *quality* of said disproportionate political engagement, i.e. a higher share of social-media-monopolizing shut-ins--that is, they're the reason the "do not read the comment threads" news-link rule of thumb exists...

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Was Mitt Romney this bad ? Now that I remember, yes he was that bad.

No, amazingly, he really wasn't. He was brought down by two or three specific, very bad gaffes in what was otherwise a competently-run, if implausibly right-wing, campaign. Sunak is having a "47%"/"corporations are people, my friend"/dog-on-a-hot-car-roof moment seemingly every day.

Romney was "that bad" only to people whose expectations were skewed by a single-loaded right-wing mediasphere--which is why there was such disbelief within the Fox-y realm at his loss (and that disbelief formed the foundation for all subsequent GOP election denialism).

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Con to Lab switchers care about the economy and public services, while Con to Reform switchers are basically single issue anti-immigration voters.

Relatedly, Reform voters are once again shown to be very disproportionately politically engaged, which makes their underperformance in basically every election even odder (read likely big polling error).

Maybe it's more a matter of the *quality* of said disproportionate political engagement, i.e. a higher share of social-media-monopolizing shut-ins--that is, they're the reason the "do not read the comment threads" news-link rule of thumb exists...

But surely such people should be an outsized share of the minority of people who vote in low turnout elections, given they would be so happy to push their opinions. On that note, I see very little pro-Reform comments on social media, but a much larger number of ideologically Reform comments. If even the politically engaged don’t seem to have fully taken notice of Reform, I’m sceptical that more ordinary members of the public with Reform adjacent views are actually intending to vote for them. I mean, Reform are apparently as popular as UKIP were in 2015 according to the polls, but there’s next to no evidence of this in the real world whether data or anecdotes.

I think a lot of them are more like political LARPers than concrete political supporters--like, they see social media as their own Speaker's Corner.  And it's that "have your say" individualistic-wannabe element that's led to so many dissident-right no-hopers running in various recent byelections...

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'Trend is your friend.'

Even if not a single person in the country changed their mind since the election announcement you're still going to get these sorts of variances up or down 2 points. JL is also a few days old; fieldwork ended Saturday. And on balance, the newer polls were polling over the Bank Holiday weekend which had there not been an election, would not have happened (most took a pause in the Bank Holiday earlier this month)

What's worth noting is the variance in party share; a 19% to 28% share for the Tories is effectively one that's worth a third of their potential vote share. Labour's variance of 40% to 47% is closer to 1 in 10.

Reform seem to be quite sticky; given the official starting block for the 2019 election was less traditional, Week 2 polls in 2019 started to see Brexit (starting at a similar position then as now) start to ebb. That's something to look out for in the next few days.

There are 3 reasons why I think Reform is sticky:

1. Since 2005, parties to the right of the Conservatives have gotten a larger share than Goldsmith's Referendum party in 1997, for many voters it won't be the first time to vote that way, UKIP was also sticky in 2015.

2. Reform rose by itself in the opinion polls, it has practically no leader and no organisation, it's a shell. Yet that empty shell still rose without any effort, meaning there's genuine demand.

3. The main issue about Brexit was Brexit, Boris ate that issue and it's votes in 2019. Reform now polling that high without Brexit means it's more complex than just 1 thing.

I'd also wonder about the "age cohort question"; that is, whether it's a parking lot for the UK equivalent of the kinds of young European (particularly male) voters who've been drawn to the "identitarian right", and for thom the Tories are just some stale old thing a la France's Les Républicains...