UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[IceAgeComing]

I was telling people last night how I didn't expect to see an election during the Brexit negotiations and I guess I was right - they've called one before they have started!  The Tories will probably win with an increased majority especially if Theresa May avoids any way in which she can be challenged in a high profile way like the debates: which she seems to be doing...  The thing to remember is that generally going into an election things do close up a little: that's not going to help Labour a great deal here though.  One thing that might hurt the Tories is the fact that no one really wants this election: I think that you'll probably see turnout go down and if that "why the f**k are we voting???" feeling is strong that could hurt the government.  That's all hearsay though, I don't know if there's much truth about that in practice...

I'm going to talk about the Greens because why not: hopefully we'll hold onto Brighton Pavilion and considering that we've gone backwards in the polls that might be as good as we'll do: Bristol West is the only real target that we have, Norwich South is possible but needs a big swing.  One odd place that we might end up doing well in is the Isle of Wight: we finished a good third there in 2015 and we're standing the same candidate (I think at least) who's popular locally and with the fall of UKIP we're in a good position to pass them, although naturally not to win the seat.  I can't see the kippers getting any - Clacton was always a personal vote although a split between Carswell and a UKIP candidate might let the Tories in; if anything they've gone backwards in the north since 2015 and that's not a good thing.

The Lib Dems will be the most interesting: just to see what seats that they regain and how important the Brexit thing is.  I have a hunch that they'll probably do better in Remain areas than in Leave ones, but that wouldn't be great for them considering that a chunk of their traditional targets are in places that voted leave - thinking of Cornwall and the like.  They'll pick up a few (they can't really go any more backwards)

I'll do a Scotland post in a few days once I've had a think just to see if we get any rushed polls...

A lot of liberal Americans are jealous of the UK today--a snap election. A lot of liberal Americans wish that the U.S. Constitution had a amendment about a "snap election"--to force Trump and Pence out after 100 days!!!

However, midterms (midterm elections) can't come soon enough for some Americans. Other Americans don't even know what a midterm election is. They're busy watching Kardashian.

Some think of the word midterm as a midterm exam in high school or college!!!

If we had a snap election, Democrats would be wise not to run Hillary Clinton again for a snap election. Maybe Kaine, Warren, or Gillibrand.

We do not have a parliamentary system of government in the U.S. This is why America is unique to other countries. 2018, 2020 is on it's way.

I don't see what any of this boring rubbish has to do with our election; please keep it out of this thread.  Also considering the parliament that we're likely to elect; I doubt any of them are very happy...

[IceAgeComing]

The problem with those sort of seat projections is that they assume uniform swing and I'm pretty sure that you'll see a great deal of variation in the results here: not just regional stuff but also in relation to EU issues.  If the Lib Dems get a 4% national rise that's mostly focused in Remain-voting areas then they'll most likely do better than and one or two gains that a uniform swing points out, especially if they end up going backwards in the areas that voted leave.  We'd need to see some significant regional or constituency polls in order to confirm that though; and we learned last year that you need to take the latter with a pinch of salt when it is in Lib Dem areas.

My prediction is

Torie : 397
Labour : 121
Lib Dem: 60(they come 2nd in popular vote )
SNP: 54
UKIP:11
Others :7

This would be more seats than the Liberals got in 2010; and would require them to win not only 20 odd seats off the tories, but also about 30 off Labour.

Besides UKIP are not getting 11

Others can't get as low as seven either, unless the Tories or UKIP win seats in Northern Ireland.

the tories are clearly the favourites in Belfast West; that's one other that you can tick off

also that is 100% the dumbest seat projection I've seen for this election, and I'm not at all surprised at the person that posted it - if they couldn't manage that in 1983 or 2010, they won't this year.

[IceAgeComing]

It actually wouldn't surprise me if the Lib Dems ended up with more seats in Scotland than the Tories at the end of the day: a tactical Lib Dem vote is probably a hell of a lot easier for lots of people to do here than a tactical Tory vote, especially in a UK election where voting Tory would increase their majority.  An outcome of, say, 50 SNP, 3 Lib Dem, 2 Tory and 1 Labour with the Liberals finishing fourth well behind everyone else in the popular vote would make me laugh quite a bit...

I think that there are three SNP seats that the Tories have a good chance with in Scotland: Berwickshire is probably gone since it was a relatively small majority and there are a lot of Lib Dem votes that you'd have to imagine will go more Tory than SNP (this was a Lib Dem seat in 2010, Michael Moore finished third in 2015); Dumfries and Galloway for similar reasons (Labour held it in 2010 which actually was a surprise result: in 2015 the SNP had a 6,000 majority over the Tories with Russell Brown finishing third with 13,000 votes: the question is whether the Tories can pick up a lot of those Labour votes which is probably harder than getting Lib Dem votes) and Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine is also in a similar position - Lib Dems won it in 2010, fell to third in 2015, SNP majority of 7,000 over the Tories with 12,000 Liberal votes.  There are a few more that people are talking about: the North East seats are getting people excited since that's where lots of people voted for Brexit (Banff and Buchan likely was the only constituency that voted for Brexit in Scotland although we can't be 100% sure, there are also high votes for it in places like Moray as well).  The thing with those seats though are that they are the closest thing to "SNP Heartland" that there are in Scotland: the SNP have held Moray and Banff since 1987 and you'd have to imagine that could be a factor - there's also the fact that lots of those MPs were around before 2015 so almost are the main leadership of the SNP in Westminster by default.   People are also mentioning that Gordon is close but I'm not seeing it: while Alex Salmond is the sort of marmite figure that probably generates as strong a personal vote against him as for him, he had an 8,000 majority in 2015, they'd almost need every Tory and Labour vote to beat him and without a Lib Dem incumbent I can see that vote splitting between the Libs and the Tories anyway.  The big issue that I think the Tories might have that people aren't talking about is that this is a Westminster election, so the dynamics are quite a bit different since the UK-wide contest is between Labour and the Tories.  That might put off a chunk of the tactical "unionist" voters (who I don't think really exist as a strong block but meh; there are more ex-Labour voters voting SNP now than Tory and a chunk of the former oppose independence) who would normally vote Labour since voting Tory is helping them win the election rather than preventing the SNP from winning.  Its an untested hypothesis: we can see if it actually is true!

The Libs have two seats I think that could be close as well: Edinburgh West will probably go (ex-SNP MP embroiled in scandal, only a 3,000 majority in 2015 and 6,000 votes each for the Tories and Labour, plus again a Lib Dem tactical vote is easier for someone to make) and Fife North East also as well (basically a similar situation without the scandal: 4,000 SNP majority with 7,000 Tory votes and 3,000 Labour votes and that was with a new Lib Dem candidate).  Dunbartonshire East isn't being talked about much and that could be interesting: former Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson is standing again and in 2015 she did really rather well for a Lib Dem (vote only fell 2%, SNP vote went up 30% and even then the majority was only 2,000) and who knows about the Highland seats; that's an... odd part of the world.  Ought to be noted though that the Lib Dems didn't regain any highlands seats in the Holyrood elections last year while they did get Edinburgh Western and Fife North East, they are different boundaries in this election though but the general trend seems right.

For Labour, eh, they're doing well if they hold Edinburgh South.  The SNP might be able to pick that up though since their 2015 campaign there was a bit of a mess: Labour kind of need to suck up as many votes there as they can from the Tories to hold on and again this is a Westminster election where the national contest is Labour/Tory, so you wonder whether Conservative voters who might vote tactically for Labour in every other election might not want to here.  East Lothian would be their best chance of a gain, but its a laugh to even think about that.

I won't make a prediction now until I see the direction of the campaign (and hopefully some numbers from the North East seats, to see if a TORY SURGE is likely to gut all of the old SNP members); but the SNP will go into the next parliament most likely still as the third party with a big, but smaller, block of MPs.

e: the other thing to remember is that the Lib Dems probably won't get the "remain" bounce (as much as one really exists) here: those voters will most likely vote SNP since they really are the pro-Europe party in Scotland now and honestly if you're voting based on Europe then I can't see the INDEPENDENCE thing being a problem.  That will probably hurt the Lib Dems vote totals but not necessarily their seats since a lot of that vote would have ended up being spread in lots of safe seats and not electing anyone while I expect the Lib Dem vote in Scotland to be highly concentrated in Orkney, the seats I mentioned above, and most of the Highlands seats where they traditionally either win or do well while being almost non-existent in every other seat.  In the latter though I'm not entirely sure: I'm looking at the 2016 Holyrood election results there to see what happened the election after they lost them all and its mixed: some places they declined, in others they gained.  Again its hard to say anything firm about Scotland: the party system hasn't really settled down yet and it won't do so for a fair few years.

[IceAgeComing]

Looking forward to cheering on this man again!

Willie's on the sidelines for this one

[IceAgeComing]

in order for Labour to get a majority of 1 they'd need a uniform swing around the levels that Blair got in 1997

I think it's fair to say that using Scotland ended up bad for Labour

[IceAgeComing]

I mean the Greens offered us the pact- and as a condition asked for us to stand down a sitting MP in Bristol East (who's name I can't spell off the top of my head) for the green Candidate.

The Greens have very little to gain from a pact beyond keeping their Brighton Seat

Was the Isle of Wight their best performance in a non-Labour held seat? Surely they could benefit from people desperate to get rid of the, er, scandal-prone Andrew Turner.

The Isle of Wight was our best non-Labour performance (although Norwich South was Lib Dem held in 2010; we jumped into second as the Libs fell to third) although its local issues that caused it - Vix Louthion is very well known and popular locally; the almost total dissapearance of the Liberal Democrats on the island (twenty years ago the Lib Dems won the seat and ten years ago they ran the council and consistently ran the Tories relatively close in General Elections: in 2015 they finished fifth and almost lost their deposit and in local government they could only find like four candidates willing to stand as Liberal Democrats in 2013 (although lots stood for a variety of independent groups: the "Island Independents" were a mix of former Liberals and Tories that couldn't get power from within the local Tory party: lots of the latter defected back to the council over the last few years to give the Tories a clear majority but they refused to take control of the council until the Independent council leader resigned at the start of the year because they couldn't get anything done) led to those staunchly anti-Tory voters having to go somewhere and the Greens were the most appropriate place for a variety of reasons: I think the strength of our candidate and the fact that the local Greens actually tried while Labour didn't made it clear early on that we were probably going to be the biggest non-right party in 2015.  Its not a seat that we're likely to win even with Turner's indescretions: there's apparently very small chats about standing an anti-Turner Independent Conservative but even if that happened we wouldn't be the party to benefit; you'd need an even split between Turner and the Independent Tory; us to gain all of the Labour and Liberal votes and a chunk of the UKIP vote to go to the Greens, all of which are highly unlikely.  Turner's probably safe this election, especially with UKIP going backwards nationally although they might not in the Isle of Wight because he's on the ballot again after promising to go after this term in the 2015 election.

[IceAgeComing]

As I said earlier it's because no voters are beginning to vote as 'unionist' voters. The SNP got 56 seats with 50% of the vote in 2015.

I'm still not convinced of this: most of the "unionist" voters that I know are either voting Labour or SNP in this election; the latter being an anti-Tory vote.  I think that there's a decent number of the latter existing (there has to be: just because of the number of places where the independence vote was in the low 40s but where the SNP got above 50%) and its certainly an ignored demographic.  Especially since this is a Westminster election where the Tories have a strong chance at government unlike Holyrood last year: I still think that as we get close to polling day and that becomes clear to people we'll see that Tory number fall a little bit.

[IceAgeComing]

I see the Conservatives winning and holding their majority. However, I don't know if they'll keep their super majority, that remains to be seen.

Ah yes, their incredibly super majority of 10: the smallest majority government since 1974.  If that's a super majority; what would you call Blair's majority in 1997?

[IceAgeComing]

I don't think you can date "modern politics" as starting any time before 1945: before that the party system had been in flu for twenty years - 1935 is when lots of the patterns that would become established for many years first appeared, for example.  You can't look at the 1922 and 1923 election results and say that the third place position of the liberals was "firmly established" - in 1922 a split Liberal party (the Lloyd George liberals who'd supported the 1918 coalition stood as "National Liberals" in this election although it's not always clear which party individual candidates supported and sources are mixed - some are claimed by both, others by neither) only got 30 seats and 2% less than Labour, in 1923 the margin was even closer.  You could claim 1924 or 1929 but I'd argue that the National Government complicates things - certainly the Liberals did a whole lot worse after then; for whatever reason.

[IceAgeComing]

polling crosstabs are incredibly unrepresentative and you should ignore them

[IceAgeComing]

I went 1 Green, 2+3 SNP, 4 Labour, 5 Liberal and 6 Tory - the SNP votes were partially because I know one of the candidates quite closely (mother of a primary school friend, does lots of good stuff) and the current SNP local councillor is good and partially because we have a Labour/Tory coalition that's doing bad things, so Labour don't deserve to be any higher.  I'm pretty sure that my ward will be 1 SNP with the other two seats being between the second SNP, Labour and Tories - on the old boundaries it was 1 SNP/1 Labour/1 Tory in 2012 but the SNP didn't stand a second candidate then while they are now (they need the votes to be balanced for that to happen): Labour were comfortably in in 2012 while the Tories only just got a quota (in a four candidate race): that would suggest that if the SNP get a second then its Labour that will lose out but we aren't really Tory land though so I don't see that happening.  We've got a candidate; I doubt that we'll get a councillor here but I think that we've got a chance of two possibly - we ought to retain our Dunblane and Bofa councillor (four member ward means a lower quota; the seat is basically the northern villages which were traditionally Tory and the university halls which I imagine will be SNP/Green - we got a seat in 2012 but he's standing down because he's an MSP now which might complicate things) and maybe pick up a seat in the city centre.  In terms of Scotland as a whole I haven't a clue - Labour will lose Glasgow and we ought to pick up a few seats everywhere: other than that I don't really know.

[IceAgeComing]

I don't know about the Energy sector; but the other two have always been popular when they've polled them.  I mean not that that will significantly change anything; but they are the sort of policies that Labour ought to have...

[IceAgeComing]

Renationalisation of railways as Labour plans would require them to be in power for three terms - my local company, c2c, has its franchise until 2029...

This is actually something that Brexit would make easier; they could just buy the contract out from them if EU state involvement laws weren't a thing.  It's probably the only good thing that Brexit will lead to mind and it would need a left government in to do it; but it can be done.

Hell; the Scottish Government are apparently looking at whether they could buy out Abellio; that could set a precedent (although Scots law is different from English law etc)

[IceAgeComing]

As far as policies go, this document isn't anywhere close to 1983, but on the other hand, Michael Foot was a far superior leader, so it's tit for tat, I suppose.

Wait 1983 was actually more liberal then 2017

the 2017 manifesto is significantly more liberal than the 1983 one; but that's really the case for literally every party that stood in both elections.

[IceAgeComing]

Looks like Stirling is going to be five candidates:

Wendy Chamberlain (Lib Dem)
Chris Kane (Lab)
Stephen Kerr (Con)
Steven Paterson (SNP)
Kirstein Rummery (Women's Equality)

I'll most likely vote SNP: our MP isn't too bad and since its a Tory target voting for them is the sensible thing to do to keep them out.  The Tory candidate is pretty well known locally (stood for Westminster and Holyrood before; although finishing far behind Labour in those cases); I don't know about the Labour or Liberals but I'm pretty sure the latter have stood non-locals in the last few elections (I think our 2016 candidate lived in the Gordon seat which is a long way away) but neither have any real chance: the Women's Equality Party are... interesting, they don't seem that bad actually.

[IceAgeComing]

It's not as simple as "move to the right on migration and you win!!!!!!", they already have done that and it quite clearly hasn't worked.  As a party it's always going to be an issue that you'll struggle with, you have to square the circle between the people who've moved away from Labour on that kind of cultural issue and people who would be more reluctant to support Labour if they went down that route - that's probably more than some would think and both groups are needed for Labour to form a government.  Being a left-wing UKIP runs the risk of alienating more people than it brings back...

I'd argue that Labour's biggest mistake in the past was not responding to the increasing importance of migration as an issue (2005 is probably the big one; the Howard campaign used it a lot more than any mainstream campaign ever) with a positive defence of migration, but instead running around like a headless chicken trying to out-Tory the Tories on it.  That both hurt Labour's credibility generally; plus it basically conceded the whole framing of the issue to the anti-migration side.  I mean I'm broadly pro-migration (I'm looking for work outside the UK so I'd by a hypocrite if I wasn't really) so maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see it being any worse for the party...

Spoiler alert: the model is rubbish, the poll is a joke, Ashcroft is wasting his money and there's a special layer of Hell reserved exclusively for people who hawk around poll subsambles as the revealed truth.

Yeah, it has the Tories leading in London and the North East (!!!); that ought to affect how you look at it.

[IceAgeComing]

One question for the British posters: I keep seeing forecasts saying the SNP is going to lose anywhere from 5-15 seats. Do you think that's accurate, and who would gain these seats? My grasp at Scottish politics isn't great and less so given all the new shifts we're seeing.

A lot of those forecasts are based on a uniform national (UK-wide in this context) swing; which has a habit of exaggerating things when you're talking about a Scotland-only party that got 5% of the UK vote in the last election.

The SNP will lose a few, Berwickshire will definately go as will West Aberdeenshire and Dumfries and Galloway - past that it gets complicated since we're talking about seats with very big SNP majorities and the Tories well behind (sometimes in third place) so it'd depend on the distribution of that vote - if it was more skewed to the old Tory North East then they could gain lots; but lots of those seats have big SNP names in them which might limit the potential Tory vote.  East Renfrewshire might go; but its a different seat to the old Tory safe seat which might help the SNP.

The Libs have three targets: Edinburgh West (won in the "Edinburgh Western" Holyrood seat and most of the wards in the council elections, 2015 SNP MP standing down over a corruption scandal); North East Fife (Liberals again did well in the local elections here and gained the Holyrood version of the seat; before the last election they'd held it since 1987) and East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson is standing again and she performed the best out of any Lib Dem incumbent MP in 2015 - her vote only well by 2%; she lost because of a 30% increase in the SNP vote and you can't really ever survive that sort of vote share rise - they also did well in the locals here).  Past that they have nothing - they gained no votes last year, and although local elections in the Highlands are dominated by Independents the partisan races that did exist had the SNP ahead everywhere bar Caithness; which was a split between all three unionist parties and I doubt that will help anyone.  They ought to do better than a uniform swing would demonstrate because of that - they're focusing on these three seats and have a good chance of picking up tactical anti-SNP votes.

Labour would be doing good to hold Edinburgh South (local polling, as much as it is worth, have them ten points ahead there); the best chance at any kind of gain would be East Lothian but I doubt that it will happen this year.

[IceAgeComing]

For what its worth, I got:

86% SNP (who I'm rather reluctantly voting for)
84% Plaid
82% Labour
80% Greens (my party, not standing in my seat)
76% Shinners
68% Libs
40% DUP
38% for the Dead Nazi Party
31% Scum
31% UKIP

Also this thing calls me a "left-wing authoritarian" which makes very little sense to me really.  The "where voters side with you!" thing is also a total joke, both since its broken down by postal areas (?), and because of the fact that its self-selecting its silly - apparently I agree most with people in Glasgow and Dumfries and Galloway which, eh, are totally different politically...

[IceAgeComing]

The first place that'd swing to Labour is London; for a variety of reasons (Brexit might play a role, smaller UKIP vote plus I'd imagine that the sort of Tory party that May is leading isn't very popular in London) but that wouldn't swing the election.

If Labour loses seats Corbyn will go; although a gain in vote share probably would embolden the left in the party - at least, more than a 1983-esque share would.

[IceAgeComing]

Having canvassed in a few elections myself (started with the indyref, did 2016 and the locals this year with the Greens; I get this election off thankfully because as committed as I am, going to campaign in Glasgow isn't something that I'm that interested in doing at the moment) my conclusion is that any "conversations" you have with people who you're canvassing for aren't particularly useful as information on the general situation - if everyone who told us "well I'd vote Green but it'd be a wasted vote!" (which it isn't in either of the two elections that I was campaigning for) actually voted Green then we'd have finished third in the last election.  The Tories had the same thing in 1997 - some of them who were actively campaigning dismissed the polls because people were saying that they'd vote for them on the doorstep and then... not.  I mean those things are people saying positive things and then not doing them, but I'd imagine that there's a chance of the opposite - people not liking Corbyn and willing to say that to Labour people, but then when faced with the choice between the local Labour candidate and the Tories, they'll realise that they probably dislike the latter more.  The more that Brexit doesn't feature in the campaign (which it hasn't really, although again I'm in Scotland and things here are obviously very different) the better for Labour really - although again I think people have a habit of overstating its importance really...

What's interesting here is that the SNP seem to be the only party focusing their campaign on things that are reserved matters (the four points on their leaflet seem to be austerity, opposition to a hard Brexit, the Rape Clause and Pensions) while ignoring independence entirely, while the Tories have gone fully down the "PROTECT ARE UNION" road.  I mean this is Stirling which wasn't a pro-independence area really (60% No, although my area probably was more than that) which would explain that, but it just interested me.

[IceAgeComing]

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??"

[IceAgeComing]

Diane Abbott and Amber Rudd I assume, much more sensible than two random Australians

I'm assuming that's an outlier but we'll see - should scare the Tories a lot though.

[IceAgeComing]

age-based polarisation is not a healthy thing; but not surprising considering the way that this government has treated young people in the last seven years

[IceAgeComing]

I'm personally hoping that a positive Labour result like that would lead to the party coming together behind him, since although he wasn't great he looked a hell of a lot better when the party was vaguely united behind him.  Although I'm 99% sure that you'd just get another challenge, really.

Although I"m not voting Labour, so I'm probably not worth listening to...

[IceAgeComing]

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 have deep, deep problems and I don't see this changing things for them.  Labour's traditional appeal wasn't to "unionist voters" but to your traditional working class voters and they've mostly gone to the SNP at this point - it honestly wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of those voters didn't actually support independence - my Mum is doing this at this point: just totally alienated by Scottish Labour only ever talking about "A SECOND REFERENDUM" and not the issues, which the SNP surprisingly do.  There's also the fact that the Tories are rising and you might have the whole "the SNP are bad and we aren't fond of them, but at least they aren't the Tories" thing going on.

I only see two Labour seats in Scotland in any remotely realistic scenario: I think that they'll hold onto Edinburgh South and have a small chance in East Lothian - past that, I see nothing.  The old heartland seats in the west are all SNP by huge margins now, and I can't see them getting anywhere near the swing they'd need even if they closed the gap.