UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[DC Al Fine]

Labour could be squeezed really badly by the Tories here. David Cameron had an image as the archetypal upper class liberal elitist snob. This is something that not only put off some moderate Labour/Conservative swing voters but also led to a section of Conservative voters who switched to UKIP. With May having a strong appeal to both these groups the Tories could really clean up.

Labour has a certain core of very left wing areas, inner London, City of Birmingham, City of Manchester, Liverpool, South Yorkshire, parts of South Wales,Durham and Tyneside. They could hang on to the bulk of their seats in these areas whilst being massacred elsewhere in the Midlands and the North as has already happened elsewhere in the South.

What exactly is May's image?

[DC Al Fine]

Are coal miners in the UK labour conservative or liberal democrats

They are solid tory voters of course, and burn effigies of a former labour PM.

didnt coal miners dislike Reagan here too , and despite that they became solidly gop in the 2000s.

It's a bit different. What you're asking is like wondering if blacks vote mostly GOP.

[DC Al Fine]

In light of the complete garbage Political Compass put out about France, what do you think they'll do for the UK?

[DC Al Fine]

Panelbase/Scotland
SNP - 44%
Con - 33%
Lab - 13%
Lib - 5%

FFS the UK is turning into Canada with these huge swings.

[DC Al Fine]

Who exactly is still voting Labour in Scotland?

[DC Al Fine]

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

My guess as an Anglophone Canadian is f[inks] no.

[DC Al Fine]

Diane Abbott claims her gaffes this morning "reduces the media credibility"

Lol!

[DC Al Fine]

The Tory leader is outpolling Labour on the NHS

[DC Al Fine]

F[inks]ing Political Compass. What a farce. Let's try comparing their analyses

UK 2010


UK 2017


So Labour, has moved from being identical to a bunch of Ulster fundamentalists to being moderate centre left. Also the Tories occupy the same economic position as Ron freaking Paul

[DC Al Fine]

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

[DC Al Fine]

Why would a Labour-SNP coalition be suicide for Labour? (at least not more than say, Labour-Plaid or Labour-SDLP)? Other than having to give Scotland a 2nd referendum (probably after Brexit, so in late 2019 or early 2020), what else would Labour have to do?

And why will the SNP save the Conservatives? Do people in England (who don't already vote Tory) hate the SNP that much as for voting conservative out of spite?

Then again, assuming it' a hung parliament (extremely unlikely), it will probably have the conservatives well ahead, so I guess there will just be a Conservative-DUP government or something like that.

The SNP is deeply unpopular in England. Labour associating itself with the SNP will likely inherit some of that unpopularity. Furthermore, there is a deep feeling in England that Scotland is getting special treatment over England and those fears will only increase if the SNP gets into government and that would be something the Conservatives could easily exploit. Also, by going into coalition with the SNP, Labour would likely be seen as an example of them putting party over country as the SNP wants to break our country up. Not to mention the fact that the Conservatives would be able to position themselves as the sole Unionist party in Scotland and court even more of the Unionist vote.

The SNP factor is blamed as one of the key reasons for the Conservative victory in 2015 and was a key part of their campaign, likely the Conservatives would be able to repeat that now.

IIRC, when the Canadian left tried to put together a coalition that included the separatist Bloc Quebecois, the Tories went from the high 30's to the mid 40's in the polls.

[DC Al Fine]

Worth noting that there was always going to be a weekend (or week) like this; I should have written it down, but any campaign where one side is so far ahead at the start is bound to have a 'wobble' where the media gets excited, and the negative briefing begins. Labour was picking up before the manifesto, and did a very good job of spending the last 3 weeks having an item leading the news every day (free school meals, no tuition fees, no tax rises for the 95%, etc etc) Labour have ran a very good campaign.

Also Theresa May has never ran a national campaign- at all. She didn't have a single hustings for the leadership in 2016, she didn't do any big media roles in the referendum, was never one of the constant media stars.  Combined with the lack of cabinet talent- compare Cameron's team of Hague, Osborne, Johnson with May's Rudd, Hammond and Bojo post brexit then she doesn't have anyone to send on the airwaves.

The social care policy was put in right at the end by Nick Timothy, and was made worse because the manifesto didn't have one big giveaway they could talk about. Some people are saying it's some master plan by Lynton Crosby to get people panicking and going to the polls but tbh it just looks like a cock up by the tories

Is this a common thing? I remember in the Canada 2015 campaign there were people who thought every word Harper said was some sort of Lynton Crosby tactic.

[DC Al Fine]

Question for the UK pollsters. My understanding is that Labour's vote is distributed more efficiently than the Tories' (e.g. compare's Labour's majority in 2005 to the Tory results in 2010 and 2015). However, there has been some indication that traditionally Labour areas are trending Conservative. Will this have any effect on the relative efficiency of each party's vote?

[DC Al Fine]

Labour may be narrowing the gap, but they are not closing it fast enough and there is a real possibility of polls overstating them.

Might be my Tory hackishness talking, but I'm certain that pensioners in the West Midlands are far more likely to turn out in the end than Corbynista university students.

[DC Al Fine]

The social grade breakdowns aren't much use from any pollster but from YouGov are worse than useless and not worth paying attention to. Can explain in tedious detail later.

Please do.

[DC Al Fine]

Does anyone else miss the days when discussion of say UK Elections on Atlas was erudite, informed and for the most part good natured? As it stands this thread is a disgrace; I keep meaning check back a few pages to see if I have replies to make but I'm not sure if I can be bothered.

You were hopefully going to explain why polling data on social grade was unreliable?

[DC Al Fine]

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?

[DC Al Fine]

young people LOVE corbyn...and are not going to vote.

Yes, BECAUSE THEY HAVE EXAMS TO WORRY ABOUT!!!
Puting the election right in the middle of exam week was a dick move, and probably done that way to make sure the CONservatives would win.

Voting takes 10, 20, at most 30 minutes. Students aren't stuck in an exam room for the entire exam season. It's a poor excuse.

Yes, but what will be a higher priority for a student? Voting, or studying for other exams? Surely you can't say that studying is a poor excuse during exam time?

It takes about thirty minutes. Anyone who is studying to the extent that they can't take a 30 minutes break to vote should probably reconsider their work-life balance. It's not really very healthy. And you have other options like mail ballots and voting by proxy.

And, come on, you think people aged 25-65 aren't busy? I have a full time job, a longish commute, and a newborn. I had waaaaayyyy more time in university, even in exam time.

[DC Al Fine]

Survation

CON 40
LAB 39
LIB 8
UKIP 5

Yowza