UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[mvd10]

damn

[mvd10]

And Fallon was supposed to be a safe pair of hands lol (no pun intended).

Hey, guys, if Gove challenges May with the backing of Osborne(a friend of Gove's now, supposedly), among others such as Johnson, Hammond, and Rudd, would Michael Gove have a good chance of winning?

Not happening lol. Nobody trusts Gove anymore after he brutally backstabbed Johnson (why the flying f**k would Johnson even support Gove?) and the persons you are mentioning probably have a better chance challenging May themselves instead of letting Gove do it. But nobody really cares about Osborne anymore in the Conservative Party, Johnson isn't going to back the man who killed his chances to be PM in 2016 (and he wants to be leader himself) and Rudd is fairly loyal to May (and she also wants to be PM herself). I'm not sure where Hammond's loyalties lie, but I doubt that he would support a rebellion against May. And if they really wanted to get rid of May they'd find someone more suitable than Gove. Maybe Gove can be the fall guy that forces May to resign and triggers a leadership contest, but he wouldn't win the actual contest in that case. The fall guy never wins.

[mvd10]

Sir Michael Fallon has resigned as Defence Secretary.

Is he resigning from Parliament as well? If he does how safe is his seat?

I'm not sure if he will resign from Parliament, but his seat is a safe Conservative seat.

[mvd10]

They have done nothing to alienate their voters, and are at little risk of paralysis. They don't care about Labour/LD partisans or the woke, though.

Canterbury hadn't elected a non-Tory MP since 1868 (it was a two member seat; elected a Liberal and an Independent Conservative) until 2017 when Labour gained it on a 9.3% swing.  Brighton Kemptown was held by the Tories between 2010 and 2017 and seemed to have developed into a key marginal seat: its now Labour by 10,000 votes after a 10.8% swing from the Tories to them.  Enfield Southgate was most likely Tory since forever other than 1997 and 2001 (which were Labour landslides so a little odd); Labour gained it on a 10% swing.  Peterborough has historically only been held by Labour when they've been in government (1929; 1945, October 74, 1997-2001) other than 2017 when Labour gained it.  Hove was held by the Tories forever before 1997 and they held it between 2010 and 2015 and the incumbent Labour MP was defending a 1,200 majority: they held the seat by 20,000 votes - a 15% swing from the Tories to Labour.  There are plenty of examples of seats like this in 2017: Labour gaining some seats that they only tend to win if they form government, some on very large swings equivalent to what they managed in the 1997 election.

Sure the Tories gained votes in the last election - but Labour gained more and the impact of that in a two-party state is that you effectively have a swing to Labour from the Tories (of something like 2%).  It was clear early in the election that we were shifting towards a two-party system in England and Wales; the Tories went all in on getting as many 2015 UKIP votes as possible and ignoring the fact that there are plenty of Liberals who'd willingly have voted Tory if they saw them as a better option to Labour and the 2017 Tory campaign convinced them that they weren't.  They got 60% of 2015 UKIP voters (18% stayed with UKIP and 16% Labour) but that was geographically distributed in such a way where it tended to run up Tory majorities in, say, Basildon while not helping them gain more votes than Labour managed to get in those Brexit-voting marginals that they were going for.  When you factor in the fact that Labour gained the above mentioned seats - some with huge majorities! - and a factor in that was Tory voters not voting or voting for someone else because of their dissatisfaction with the Tory campaign and the government and I don't see how you can say with a straight face that they did nothing to alienate their voters.

There's also the fact that if the post-election demographic polling is correct: things... aren't great for the Tories long term.  Using Ipsos-Mori data for this as that tends to be what you use for these things: there's a massive age divide building with Labour being +35% with 18-25 year olds; and the Tories +36% with 65+.  That breaks down by class as well: all social classes under 35 voted Labour by a big margin (Labour got 52% of young ABs which is, well, not normal, those people should be your young Tories) while the Tories got all classes 55+ - including the working class.  Not to say that a class divide doesn't still exist because it does: but it seems like in 2017 the age split was much stronger.  The issue is that a younger base naturally benefits Labour here: the Tories need to convert people to vote for them if they want to win the next election; and younger people are less likely to agree with the sort of old fashioned policies (even little things like BLUE PASSPORTS) designed to appeal to people who've got a falsely rosy memory of the 1950s.  Its also hard for governments - especially governments like the Tories who've been in office for seven years and 'won' three straight elections - to build that support while in government.  That age divide began to display itself in 2015 so its not even a Brexit thing - although I think the same factors that developed it then and deepen it now also contributed to the EU referendum result - and the current Tory party which is very insular and out of step with most younger people - even the few young Tories - on things like migration and Europe makes it harder still for them to get that support.  They can't even rely on attacking the last Labour government anymore: they left office eight years ago and it'll be at least nine by the time that the next election happens and by that point it just looks desperate.

Incidentally 26% of 2017 Tory voters voted Remain so your implication that those people aren't Tories isn't actually true as that's a pretty significant chunk.  There are a surprisingly large number of 'woke' Tories, especially when you get into the centre of cities and those are the places where the Conservatives have been hemmoraging seats, with the party arrogantly assuming that they'd just displace Labour in safe Labour seats to replace them.

Are those young AB voters really natural young Tories? I remember a YouGov poll that showed Tories made massive almost no gains among ABC1 voters and/or university-educated voters, but the Tory gains were roughly equal among all income groups. I imagine a lot of young university educated voters work in fields that aren't necessarily Tory-friendly, and they may not even be that wealthy. Still, I agree that the Tories have a huge problem with young voters and (former?) Tory remain constituencies.

[mvd10]

How do young people feel about this? As far as I know they voted 70% Labour in 2017 and they're probably extremely loyal to Corbyn. Ironically young people seem to be least tolerant to racism in general (atleast when Muslims are targeted) so I wonder how they feel about this.

[mvd10]

Wasn't Raab supposed to be an ultraconservative? Or am I confusing him with someone else?

But seriously, is Raab even remotely qualified for this lol?

[mvd10]

They don't seem to include the Tory voter breakdowns in leadership preferences.

Anyway if there's one thing I learned from meeting and engaging with British voters of most political stripes is that literally no one respects Boris Johnson or thinks he is anything but a joke and an idiot.

But then again Rees-Mogg is from 1885 and Ruth Davidson isn't in parliament, so there's really no else who can fill the vacuum that I'm aware of

You're completely right about Boris. His decent from would-be PM to virtual pariah has been nothing short of remarkable.

If it came to it (and it just might this week) it would be a free for all at first. Over time, however, the choices would be narrowed to a 'remainer' and 'leaver' option. Who ends up being the standard bearer for each is a genuine open question, but my money would be on Justine Greening or Amber Rudd in the former category, and Michael Gove or Rees-Mogg in the latter.

All of them, it should be noted, would enter office facing a parliamentary deadlock and virtually guaranteed to call a new election, which the Tories would very likely lose.

Can they try Javid? I guess there are a lot of drawbacks but it looks like the Tories options are all very bleh. But I guess he will be toast soon as the new Home Secretary.

[mvd10]

UK, YouGov poll, European Union membership referendum:
Scenario: Remain vs. May Deal

Remain: 62% (+12)
Leave (May Deal): 38% (-12)

(24% undecided not included)
Fieldwork: 6-7 December 2018

Well, the EU is not going to agree to anything significantly different from May's deal, so the choice is either Remain or Crash out. That is what they should be polling.

So the question is, are you feeling lucky?

If May's deal is only getting 38%, then the crash faction is getting much lower.

Are we sure? There probably are a lot of butthurt Brexiteers who would just refuse to vote because May's deal would make the UK a ''vassal state'' according to them.