UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[vileplume]

Dumb question: wonder if any of the regional parties could keep a deposit in any constituency outside their home area. SNP outside of Scotland might have more appeal to some than other non-Tory parties.

So, wonder if this election result will inspire some to become more supportive of IRV systems over FPTP

SNP in Berwick - a town that's transferred between England and Scotland about 10 times in the last 1,000 years. SNP, also, in Liverpool would do quite well.

this might not hold in June, but Liverpool results seem to be Labour 75, then the other 25% split up, with the second place party at 10%. So there may some voters around there leaving Labour and not voting Tory

Liverpool hates the Tories in extra special way even more extremely than much of Scotland used to prior to their recent rise from the ashes. The Liverpool effect has badly damaged the Tories in nearby seats such as Wirral West, Wirral South, Wallasey, Sefton Central, West Lancashire etc. Thus if their recent polling results hold they should drag themselves into saved deposit territory in Walton and put on a few % in the others but don't expect miracles, Liverpool still despises the Tories.

[vileplume]

As someone who doesn't really understand UK politics, could someone explain to me why Corbyn has been floundering so badly since he got elected?

Well for starters Corbyn and his inner circle's past associations with very unpleasant individuals and extremist/terrorist groups such as the IRA, Hamas and Militant Tendency alone basically guarantees his unpopularity with virtually every swing voter. This coupled with things like refusing to say whether the police should be able to shoot an armed terrorist, wanting to scrap the nuclear deterrent but keep the submarines (essentially wasting millions of pounds of public money on empty vessels), dithering on Brexit in a way that pleases nobody, having no media strategy (traingate etc.), Corbyn having no leadership skills whatsoever and being an atrocious public speaker, having a broadly talentless gaffe prone shadow cabinet (McDonnell, Abbott, Thornberry), McDonnell quoting Chairman Mao in the commons and throwing his 'little red book' at the Tories (Abbott several years ago also said Mao did more good than harm), heaping praise on Castro, the party being hopelessly divided, just generally being utterly useless and incompetent etc. (I could go on for hours) leads to an approval rating in the low teens and disapproval sometimes approaching 80%.

The Tories themselves are far from perfect and have had numerous gaffes and missteps but given how useless Corbyn's Labour are and that their reputation with the public is rock bottom the Tories can get away with it. For example a couple of months back the Tories u-turned on a proposed national insurance rise for the self employed within a week of it being announced which should in normal times have been utterly humiliating for them but Corbyn and Labour couldn't land so much as a scratch on them.

[vileplume]

Yeah, poor Diane is probably a greater liability to us than Jezza himself.

A reminder of another one of Diane's greatest hits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB4o5n2EGyA

[vileplume]

lol: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-must-absolutely-remain-labour-leader-should-he-lose-the-election-says-ally-chris-williamson_uk_59089d43e4b0bb2d0871f129

Chris Williamson is absolutely awful, deluded, arrogant pr*ck. Hopefully the good people of Derby North, who booted him out last time, will again deliver him the crushing defeat he so richly deserves (hopefully by a huge margin). I don't know what Labour was thinking reselecting him there in the first place though at least they haven't parachuted him into a safe seat where he'd definitely be returned to parliament instead of Derby North where he'll very likely lose.

Also seen as the Tory majority is 41 votes it is very likely that it was Chris Williamson with his negative personal vote cost Labour the seat in the first place.

[vileplume]

Well for starters Corbyn and his inner circle's past associations with very unpleasant individuals and extremist/terrorist groups such as the IRA, Hamas and Militant Tendency alone basically guarantees his unpopularity with virtually every swing voter.

To be honest, I think this might not have as much as an impact as all of your points about Corbyn and his leadership team's incompetency.

Not to say that it isn't something that would turn voters against him, but he has been so useless that the Tories haven't even really needed to call attention to it.

I do tend to agree actually which is why all the whinging we hear about the media being nasty to Corbyn is so ludicrous, they haven't even really gone after his weakest point at all (perhaps to ensure he stayed Labour leader...?). Parliament has just been dissolved and the official campaign has just begun so I would be surprised if the Tory press didn't swing into full attack mode in the coming weeks and it's likely we'll be hearing a lot more about Hamas, IRA, Militant etc.

[vileplume]

so, we are now at "labour won't lose votes but gets screwed by the british system"-level.

Yeah. Labour are pretty much where they were in 2015, but as the Conservatives are doing much better, they'll overtake Labour in a number of seats to increase their majority. (If the percentages today come up on election day).

The average of polls has Labour a few points down on 2015 at around 28%.

[vileplume]

I feel like the LibDems have a huge opportunity if they position themselves as the most pro-Remain party, and be the anti/weak Brexit faction. 48% of the country voted for Remain, that's a big constituency to tap into.

As Phoney Moderate says they've been doing that for nearly a year and it hasn't produced anything but a very mild recovery. Plus not very many of the Lib Dems target seats were emphatically remain and many had pretty strong leave votes and perhaps unsurprisingly there has been a significant movement of leave voting 2015 Lib Dem voters to the Tories. This along with the UKIP vote collapsing to the Tories makes it difficult for the Lib Dems to regain many seats.

Another thing that hurts the Lib Dems is the 'remoaner' vote (I hate the term but it is the most easily understood term) is fairly heavily concentrated on the left but the Lib Dems are nowhere in all but a small handful of Labour seats (some of which like Burnley were strongly leave anyway). Most of their targets are Tory held but most Tory remainers are 'reluctant remainers' and not passionate Europeans but any stretch of the imagination and consequently and mostly accept Brexit. Thus the Lib Dems message on Brexit doesn't work overly well with this group of voters.

Treating the 48% as a homogeneous block is a mistake. The kind of people inspired by the Lib Dems 'stop Brexit' message are 'metropolitan social democrats' who hate Corbyn, think for example Polly Toynbee. But these people are not found in much abundance in Lib Dem-Tory marginals and those that there are were probably mostly voting Lib Dem tactically anyway.

[vileplume]

On who would you trust to protect the NHS:
T. May: 42%
J. Corbyn: 39%
(Survation)

What.

It's almost as if Jeremy Corbyn sucks and no one thinks he can do anything right.

yeah, but given that May's actual record on the NHS basically consists of driving it straight into it's biggest crisis ever....

The NHS has been in trouble for years and this is not the fault of one specific person or political party. It is badly in need of reform but the NHS is the 'sacred cow' of British politics such that nobody will dare to begin to make the necessary reforms as the other side will weaponise it and  use it as a political football.

[vileplume]

David Ward, the former Lib Dem MP for Bradford East who Tim Farron barred from standing for the Lib Dems again, is standing for the same constituency as an independent.

Salma Yaqoob, who was the leading figure in Respect in Birmingham, is standing as a "no description" candidate in Bradford West.

The Lib Dems have no candidate in Skipton & Ripon, apparently as part of a deal with the Greens who are not standing in Harrogate & Knaresborough.

That is the most rubbish, most pointless deal imaginable. The Tories will win Skipton and Ripon in a landslide and the Greens will still finish behind Labour.

As for Harrogate did the Lib Dems not see the council elections there last week? They lost the two Knaresborough seats to the Tories leaving them with only two left in the constituency (probably only held because of councillor popularity anyway) while they got crushed in many of the other divisions even ones where the Greens didn't stand!

If the Lib Dems are wasting money, time and resources on Harrogate and Knaresborough their targeting strategy is sh*ttier than I thought possible...

[vileplume]

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

As Barnes said 'liberal' is the wrong word as a lot of what the hard left stands for is extremely authoritarian and thus not liberal. As I understand it in American political jargon 'liberal' has lost it's original meaning which is loosely socially progressive, pro free markets, pro free trade, internationalism etc. and is sadly used instead as a synonym for 'left wing' or  'social democrat'. In British political jargon the distinction remains and 'liberal' and 'left wing' remain two entirely separate things which is why liberal conservatism is not an oxymoron.

But on Labour's '83 manifesto look it up. It's immortalised in British political history as the 'longest suicide note in history'.

[vileplume]

YouGov: Con 49, Labour 31, LDem 9, UKIP 3, Others ??
ComRes: Con 48, Labour 30, LDem 10, UKIP 5, SNP 4, Greens 3
Opinium: Con 47, Labour 32, LDem 8, UKIP 5, SNP 5 Greens 2
ORB: Con 46, Labour 32, LDem 8, UKIP 7, Others ??

@GoodwinMJ
"Lib Dem support is down in all 4 polls this eve & below 10% in 3, with only 25 days left. Sorry but something has gone very, very wrong."

I expect the lib dems to make gains in the south west of London, but i dont know where will they make gains elsewhere...

I expect they'll make a few gains in Scotland vs. the SNP as in a few seats they'll be the heavy recipients of unionist tactical voting.

The only non Lib Dem held seats I would favour them in at the moment are Kingston and Surbiton, Twickenham, Bath, Cambridge, North East Fife, Edinburgh West, East Dunbartonshire. While on the other hand they could be at serious risk of losing Southport and Carshalton & Wallington to the Tories.

Richmond Park will be interesting though, the demographics are much less naturally strong for the Lib Dems than they were 20-30 years ago due it becoming insanely expensive and the pattern of by-election gains is that they usually revert to the party that lost it at the subsequent general election if that party is doing well and the Tories are obviously doing well this year. However Brexit may allow Olney to buck the general rule, we'll have to wait and see.

[vileplume]

Really? I would have guessed the Torygraph. Isn't the Daily Mail the paper of angry old men?

No the Daily Mail is the only major paper that has a majority female readership. Your typical Daily Mail reader is a fairly affluent, Conservative voting, middle age, middle class woman who lives somewhere in the Home Counties.

Plus I think the Mail did back Labour in '97 whereas the Telegraph has always backed the Tories.

[vileplume]

So who exactly is voting Labour this time who didn't last time?

It can't just be Green switchers, because they must surely be massively outnumbered by the millions of working class voters allegedly defecting to the Tories.

Of course, the polls could be wrong again, or it could be the gain in vote share is driven mostly by a very probable decline in turnout.

ORB usually shows higher Labour vote shares than other pollsters so 34% is probably on the high side. But while UKIP's collapse primarily helps the Tories it probably benefits Labour's vote share a bit too (probably not seats though). This along with a straight Green to Labour switching, the Lib Dems completely tanking and there only being a small to modest number of straight Labour to Tory switchers means that a Labour vote share in the low 30s is now very possible.

[vileplume]

i know this is premature and labour's gains could be invisible in terms of seats but.....can we guess, which regions could be modestly swinging pro-labour?

Doubt there are any as Labour at 34% is probably too high. London, South East, South West are probably showing the smallest Tory swings as in London's case there is a low UKIP vote and in the other two the Tories can't go much higher than they already are and Labour can't go much lower.

[vileplume]

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour-support-just-13-per-cent-among-uk-jews-1.439325

Survation poll of Jewish voters. Unsurprisingly Corbyn epically tanking:

Tory: 77% (+10)
Labour: 13% (-5)
Lib Dem: 7% (+5)

While the Jewish population in Britain is small they are quite heavily concentrated in several constituencies such as Bury South, Finchley and Golders Green, Hendon, Hertsmere (the first three of these being marginal/semi-marginal).

Jewish voters believe that Labour is the most anti-Semitic party (worse than UKIP) whilst the Tories are the least anti-Semitic.

[vileplume]

I was in St. Albans today and saw an overwhelming number of Lib Dem signs. Probably doesn't mean much. Perhaps it's just that Liberal signs stand out better than Conservative ones which blend in, and probably Liberals are more willing to advertise their political opinions than Conservatives.

This. The Lib Dems always win the sign war in St Albans even in years like 2015 when they crashed to third. This year though (in the Marshalswick area at least) there are actually quite a few Tory signs which you don't usually see.

[vileplume]

Guardian/ICM

Conservatives - 45% (-2%)
Labour - 33% (NC)
Lib Dems - 8% (-1%)
UKIP - 5% (+1%)
Greens - 3% (+1%)

Doesn't seem like Manchester has given the Tories the kind of boost we might have expected

ICM generational gap in a chart

I can't see the Tories doing as badly as 15% with the 18-25 group (nor will Labour do as well as 73%). As a bit of context YouGov estimates that the Tories got 32% of the 18-29 vote in 2015. Even allowing for Brexit, seen as their vote share is up nationally it is difficult to see their vote share amongst the 18-25 group going below ~25%.

[vileplume]

Worth pointing out that Labour had lost the Jewish vote well before Corbyn became Labour - they went an estimated 70%-22% in favour of the Tories back in 2015

And this is despite the fact that Ed Milliband could have been considered Jewish - although the fact that he was generally not probably explains at least part of the reason why self-identified Jews in the UK tend to vote well to the right of American Jews.

Also, does every single post in this thread need to be made in reference to the American equivalent? Different countries are, you know, different.

It is true that the Jewish vote was already strongly Tory but Corbyn is pushing it towards being a monolithic Conservative voting block. Plus the anti-Semitism scandals since Corbyn became leader will have made the damage much harder to reverse.

I haven't seen any polls for this election but the Hindu vote (and possibly the Sikh vote too) up to now seems to be trending Tory too which could spell trouble for Labour both for the purposes of this election and in the long term in places like Harrow. The Muslim vote and the black vote remain strongly Labour (though nothing on the level that they are in the U.S) though I imagine this is at least partly due to these voters being highly concentrated in deprived, inner city constituencies where the Tories do horribly with everyone anyway regardless of the ethnicity/religion.

[vileplume]

A quick question: how would one place Lib Dems on the ideological scale? I assume they are between Blair's Labour and Corbyn's Labour, but not entirely sure.

I think many of us in Britain are still trying to figure that out. Beyond being very pro-EU and broadly socially liberal most of their campaigns are run around local politics (potholes, bin collection etc.) and telling different groups of voters exactly what they want to hear. For example it is quite common for them to put out leaflets in inner city areas attacking Labour from the left whilst in the suburbs/home counties they present themselves more as a nicer version of the Tories. This is why they collapsed so badly in 2015 because the coalition they had built in the '97-'10 period was made up areas with vastly diverging ideological leans e.g. student heavy left wing areas like Bristol West, well to do right leaning areas like Cheadle, rural farming areas like Somerton and Frome and gritty working class areas like Burnley. Thus when they had to actually govern their electoral coalition broke apart and scattered in all directions with those of a more right leaning persuasion going Tory, those of a more left leaning persuasion going Labour/Green and the general anti-establishment, protest vote going UKIP.

[vileplume]

British Jews used to vote Labour by similar margins. Labour, especially under Corbyn but even before then the 'anti-Zionist' 'boycott Israel' nutjobs have been getting more and more closing linked with the left and the Labour party.

I suspect that in the Democratic Party the breaks have been put on much more against this tendency because the Jewish vote is proportionately much higher and the Muslim vote proportionately much lower than in the UK. I suspect that once this tendency reaches a certain critical mass within the Democrats you'll see a similar migration of Jewish votes in the US.

Don't underestimate the vast cultural and political difference between British Jews and American Jews. This is the most important factor. Everything else is less important. But the difference between the Tories and the Republicans matters a great deal too.

Could you elaborate on the cultural differences?

I can't really comment on American Jews however I suspect that if the Republican Party was anything like the UK Conservative Party (i.e. secular, more socially liberal, more pragmatic etc.) and the Democratic Party was anything like the UK Labour Party (i.e. run by the Bernie wing, much more sceptical of Israel, a small but vocal minority with anti-Semitic views etc.) then I suspect that American Jews would have already realigned themselves into a solidly Republican voting block as they have realigned over here.

[vileplume]

Yes, I believe the trend among Hindu voters came up very clearly at the mayoral election last year. Although, having said that, I feel that the Hindu (or even British Indian) vote is becoming quite class bound, as places like Feltham and Heston or Ealing Southall, which have large Hindu (although admittedly larger Sikh) populations have not been trending Tory at all.

I have also seen it proposed that British Asians whose families immigrated from Kenya or Uganda tend to be a much stronger Conservative constituency than those who came from the subcontinent, which would explain the trend in Harrow in particular.

I agree with regards to class Brent (which is poorer than Harrow) has not seen any noticeable reversal in the huge trend against the Tories which happened in the late 90s and early 00s though the trend does seem to have stopped and the Tories position doesn't seem to be getting any worse. It does increasingly seem as though wealthier Hindus will become increasingly Tory whilst poorer ones will remain Labour (which I guess is similar to the rest of society).

I heard that too about Ugandan Asians indeed Priti Patel is of Ugandan Asian decent. Perhaps the reason they are strongly Tory is because it was a Conservative government that took them in when they were expelled by Idi Amin in 1972 but more likely is the fact that they were the social/economic elite of Uganda prior to their expulsion (according to Wikipedia they made up 1% of the population but earned 20% of the income) which predisposed them to vote Conservative. .

With regards to the sub-continent I think there might also be a north-south dynamic going on. I think those with roots in the north are more Tory whilst those with roots in the south are more Labour (don't quote me on this though as I don't know for sure).

[vileplume]

How reasonable is this seat projection from Yougov? It suggests Labour gaining a lot of seats and Tories falling short of a majority. https://mobile.twitter.com/SamCoatesTimes/status/869662208892030976

The voting intention data in that YouGov model has the Tories only 4% ahead:
CON 42%
LAB 38%
LD 9%
Collected over last week.





its another worthless poll


here in Plymouth Moor View, a seat the tories gained from labour in 2015 with a majority of 1,026 (2.4%)
both tory and labour activists predict the tories will win by 8-10% majority

this poll doesn't reflect the reality in the marginals

 

Plus I suspect the Times has an ulterior motive in publishing this on their front page namely to scare the Tory vote out of complacency to ensure that they actually vote to 'stop Corbyn' despite the Tories terrible campaign. Notice this seat 'projection' is cleverly placed next to a story about Corbyn and anti-Semitism. Whilst Tory high command may be totally clueless the Tory media is not.

[vileplume]

Sigh this is a load of drivel. They have Labour getting 30% in Bridgwater and West Somerset for example. For a bit of context they didn't even get that in 1997 even when the boundaries were better for them (boundary changes in 2010 took in the monolithically Tory Exmoor).

[vileplume]

The more I look the more it becomes apparent that they've just 'plucked numbers out of thin air'. As an other example they have the Tories up 10% to 60% in Sittingbourne and Sheppy yet unchanged in Dartford which has similar demographics, similar Brexit vote and only a slightly smaller 2015 UKIP vote in 2015.

Even if you accept the 41-38 split (which I think is very wrong anyway) their constituency numbers would still be way off.

Also their geography is in places as horrendously bad as their constituency numbers. Since when was Stroud south of Bristol?