UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Blair]

Labour, according to polls, is almost reaching Tony Blair's 2005 vote share, 35%. I know that May is making some pretty big U-turns but the Labour campaign isn't also a going very well. Could polling companies be making the same error of 2015: overestimating Labour?

Blair got 36% in Great Britain as a whole- the problem is that election final tallies include Northern Ireland (so get dragged down) but polling doesn't include it. But yes; based on the polling they appear to be reaching that point.

However Blair won 2005 because he still won areas that simply don't vote Labour normally. There's a danger that Corbyn's 35% (which appears to be from Lib Dems+Green voters) will pile up in metro areas. If the final result is 44%-35% we could see some strange results.

Also yes; at this point in the 1987 campaign Labour was at 35%, but got 30% in the end. In fact iirc polls have overestimated Labour by 4-5% in every campaign (bar 2010)

[Blair]

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.

I remember when this was Labour's talking point in 2015 If you combine it with economic competency it generally gives the right result (Blair had very high levels in 2005, I assume Callaghan didn't)

I read in more then one article, the big bounce for Labour in Wales this week  is due the the death of the popular  Labour FT Rhodri Morgan.

I'm by no means an expert in Welsh Labour but I doubt it caused a massive shift of 20 odd points. Welsh Labour does run a very good shop though; and is by far the most effective group outside of London.

[Blair]

At least this is confirming by Theresa May is Gordon Brown theory. An unpopular policy trotted out for no reason, a Chancellor who she wants to sack, a close and loyal team hated by the rest of her party, and a pissed off but weak faction happy to bite at her heels.

[Blair]

Can all the Americans just leave? We've asked so many times.

[Blair]

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. Corbyn's team at least have ran two leadership elections; and know how retail politics works.

This election could have shades of 2010; very good campaign reduces damage by unpopular leader, whilst tory seen as a shoe in fails to meet expectations

[Blair]

I mean there's a situation where Labour could get between 200-230 seats; and the Tories only get 320-330, which would lead to the May getting putsched by her own party; and Corbyn surviving on until conference, or until next year.

I still think the big problem is that everyone is looking at the national vote share; the local elections, combined with Copeland+the regional polling still makes me think that we could end up with Cons 43: Lab 35, and still see some ridiculously lopsided results.

FWIW: The most recent YouGov had Labour getting 11% of the UKIP vote. This will save them from any big landslide (e.g getting less than 150 seats).

I've spend the last day just realizing that I don't understand this election at all.

[Blair]

I mean there's a situation where Labour could get between 200-230 seats; and the Tories only get 320-330, which would lead to the May getting putsched by her own party; and Corbyn surviving on until conference, or until next year.

I still think the big problem is that everyone is looking at the national vote share; the local elections, combined with Copeland+the regional polling still makes me think that we could end up with Cons 43: Lab 35, and still see some ridiculously lopsided results.

FWIW: The most recent YouGov had Labour getting 11% of the UKIP vote. This will save them from any big landslide (e.g getting less than 150 seats).

I've spend the last day just realizing that I don't understand this election at all.

Who would be in the best position to suceed her if that happens? I wouldn't be surprised if Johnson would win. Rudd probably is too close to May and Hammond doesn't seem really interested (he's boring as hell anyway, but I'd gladly take him as PM tbh).

Whilst my knowledge of Tory party inner workings is limited (they're much better at keeping a lid on it, than say Labour) it's clear there isn't an heir, either in Cabinet or as a backbencher.  It could purely end up being Boris on the basis that no-one else would want it; but his stock plunged after Brexit, he's disliked by a lot of Tory MPs and he's been a godawful Foreign Secretary.

I still reckon she'll win; but the reshuffle that's been briefed to happen afterwards will reveal a lot about what's happening. If she promotes Gove back he could somehow become PM in the future.

TL;DR: There's no one

[Blair]

After 2015 I'm really enjoying an election where the entire discussion isn't about opinion polling...

[Blair]

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

 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.

The irony is that I have heard many Scottish Labour activists say they're the only party that doesn't drone on about independence; with the SNP+the tories being the ones who play it as a trump card

[Blair]

I saw a comparison of the YouGov polling in April, and now, and Labour's surge was something like 15% up with C2DE voters- which explains how we got from 24-35%.

I am very skeptical of the argument about social class; namely because in London the areas that still deliever big thumping majorities for Labour are the seats that have well more poor people; they just tend to be ethnic minorities as well

[Blair]

FWIW as hilarous as it seems there's talk that if Corbyn became PM he'd do a complete switch around of the Cabinet- and give top jobs to moderates in the PLP to the ones which are filled by complete idiots 

[Blair]

Corbyn has spent his entire career in public service, often ridiculed for positions that were subsequently vindicated in the court of public opinion (opposing apartheid and the Iraq War, advocating renationalization of major industries, being skeptical of the EU, just to name a few). His view of the world, what constitutes his country's interests, and who ought to be treated as its enemies may be different than yours, but they are legitimate and mainstream - increasingly so, if the polls are to be believed.

Like it or not, Corbyn is a patriot. Deal with it.

On a semi-related note, it seems there is a reason why the Tories are getting so nervous and desperate with their anti-Corbyn hysteria ... Theresa May to relaunch Conservative election campaign amid fears Labour could take lead in opinion polls.

Corbyn has hardly been a public servant- can you name one bill/one activity that the's done in parliament over the last 30 years that's been significant?

He's also held batsh**t crazy views that should be consigned to the wastebin of history- e.g supporting genocide deniers in Serbia, laying wreaths for people who carried out Munich Terror attacks, wanting to get rid of NATO

I have to admit I'm finding it harder and harder to vote Labour when it comes down to the idea that A.) My vote will be used as a figure for inflating Corbynism B.) I'd be voting to put Dianne Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn in COBRA meetings

[Blair]

Corbyn has spent his entire career in public service, often ridiculed for positions that were subsequently vindicated in the court of public opinion (opposing apartheid and the Iraq War, advocating renationalization of major industries, being skeptical of the EU, just to name a few). His view of the world, what constitutes his country's interests, and who ought to be treated as its enemies may be different than yours, but they are legitimate and mainstream - increasingly so, if the polls are to be believed.

Like it or not, Corbyn is a patriot. Deal with it.

On a semi-related note, it seems there is a reason why the Tories are getting so nervous and desperate with their anti-Corbyn hysteria ... Theresa May to relaunch Conservative election campaign amid fears Labour could take lead in opinion polls.

Corbyn has hardly been a public servant- can you name one bill/one activity that the's done in parliament over the last 30 years that's been significant?

He's also held batsh**t crazy views that should be consigned to the wastebin of history- e.g supporting genocide deniers in Serbia, laying wreaths for people who carried out Munich Terror attacks, wanting to get rid of NATO

I have to admit I'm finding it harder and harder to vote Labour when it comes down to the idea that A.) My vote will be used as a figure for inflating Corbynism B.) I'd be voting to put Dianne Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn in COBRA meetings

When did he lay wreath on Munich attackers? Are you inventing stuff now to disparage Corbyn?

No I'm not; I really don't need to invent stuff when I've got at least a dozen examples.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/corbyn-attended-ceremony-honouring-munich-terrorist-1.439294

https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/869087783394168832

[Blair]

Guys, if you want to carry on this argument somewhere else, I've got a trash can you can used

I'm sorry. It's my fault. I should have known better than to feed the trolls.

Yes as someone who's been a Labour member since I was 17, has worked for the party and devoted frankly too much energy to it I'm clearly just a troll

[Blair]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2017-the-question-tories-wont-answer-on-migration-a3552146.html

Osborne's editorial in the standard is pretty hard hitting on May; not just on immigration, but on the whole campaign. I do wonder if there will be a by-election for him to jump into in the next couple of years.

[Blair]

In regards to Momentum we used something called PHOwen in the 2016 leadership campaign where you could do phone banking at home on your mobile; and I think we stole the idea from Corbyns campaign in 2015. It's much nicer than sitting in an office with 20 other Labour members struggling to hear who you're talking to.

The my nearest marginal app apparently has 'left' some vulnerable MP's like Wes Streeting, and Neil Coyle off it. Can't imagine why.

[Blair]

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2017-the-question-tories-wont-answer-on-migration-a3552146.html

Osborne's editorial in the standard is pretty hard hitting on May; not just on immigration, but on the whole campaign. I do wonder if there will be a by-election for him to jump into in the next couple of years.

Osborne >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> May. I really hope Osborne's views will be the future of the Tories instead of May's, but I'm afraid that's just not going to happen. Atleast May probably won't win in a landslide.

May's views have been adopted because she was popular. Free market tories where happy to put up with capping electricity bills, and the liberals were relatively okay with the immigration stuff because they expected her to gain 80+ seats.

[Blair]

Big differences between pollsters. 45-33 vs. 42-38... wonder which one it's going to look like.

The 42%-38% poll had 18-24 turnout at 82%... which is higher than the Indyref and frankly is not going to happen. The fact that Labour are still 6% with 82% turnout in our best demographic shows how far behind we are

[Blair]

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.

There wherever there voters want them to be. The party is largely a collection of social democrats (Vince Cable, Tim Farron) and traditional liberals (Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander) which is how the party formed in the 1980s; when the SDP joined the liberal party.

[Blair]

It takes me longer to shower than it does to walk to the polling station down the round; it's like when people say 'oh but students will be leaving uni' it's like yeah, but we're smart enough to work out where it's more beneficial to vote.

The people who generally won't vote will be people who don't give a sh**t about politics; not people too engrossed in revision

[Blair]

According to the Times Red Box podcast that has some former Tory staffer on it May only ever expected to win 60 odd seats; but that goes against the stupid briefing that was done at the start about Watson+Skinner etc losing their seats, and Labour getting wiped out.

It does seem now; at least from polling/various scatters of news that A.) The Tories have ran an awful campaign B.) The Public don't like May as much as they dd C.) Labour have a relatively winning message. I honestly believe that if someone without JC's kooky views on the IRA that this could genuinely work.

However part of me still feels someone at CCHQ is laughing looking at their internal polling; like in 2015

[Blair]

The only thing that will make this election worse is if there's a leadership contest after

[Blair]

What is the unders and overs for May to come out of the election politically undamaged?

• Majority of 100
• Majority of 50
• Better than the current majority
• Any majority will do
• Remain on the Government benches

Anything under a majority of 50 will be a major disappointment; and anything under 40 will be an abject failure where the men in the grey suits will arrive, and kick her out of office.

Ideally for May, she would want, at the least, to have a slightly better majority, but I believe that she would be fine if she had any type of majority.

She really wouldn't- at the start of the campaign CCHQ was going for seats with 8-10K majorities for Labour; and it was expected that they'd gain at least 40-50 seats. I'm sure the tory's internal polls are showing that they're still doing better.

The one take away is don't try and assign seats using models based on vote shares- we did that in 2015 and it completely failed

[Blair]

Theresa May's decision to invoke Article 50 before calling an election must have been the biggest blunder in her political career so far: Not only is it unnecessarily wasting precious negotiation time during the withdrawal timer, but by making Brexit truly irrevocable, it also made a moot point of whatever suspicions (justified or not) the electorate might have had about whether Labour would have made the commitment themselves, which would surely have been a campaign issue otherwise.

I mean even Labour would implement Brexit because we're so scared of facing Scotland .2