UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Barnes]

Why is Labour supporting this?

I know whenever we have these over-confident snap elections in Canada, the governing party gets turfed. See Ontario 1990 and Alberta 2015.

Because the official opposition cannot say no to a GE, it's like admitting they're pointless

Snap elections are incredibly unpopular. The Tories can spin that any way they like, but I can't see it overcoming the population's disgust with having to go to the polls again. Now Labour can't use this issue as leverage.

Political messaging aside, the motion cannot pass without Labour's backing so they would be directly responsible for blocking it. This would then lead May to pull a Schroeder 2005 and get her party to vote against her government which would be pretty amusing.

[Barnes]

Number 10 dousing water on having a TVdebate this time.

Those things always seemed more suited to Cameron's brand of campaigning.

[Barnes]

The other factors that go into having this election besides the opportunity to give Labour a thrashing are to quiet down rebels on the Tory backbenches and to give May a natural opportunity to restructure the ministry.

[Barnes]

Debate on the motion "That there be an early general election" will start just after PMQs at 12:30 with a 90 minute debate and a division at around 2:00.

Also, IMC held a snap poll (hehe) today showing 55% of voters agree with May calling an election and 15% disagree.

[Barnes]

Here's the working timetable to the election:

Wednesday 19 April: Debate on the dissolution motion in the House of Commons

Tuesday 3 May: Last possible sitting of the House and the Lords

Wednesday 4 May: Parliament is dissolved at one minute past midnight

Thursday 11 May (4 pm): Deadline for nominations

Monday 22 May: Deadline for registering to vote

Thursday 8 June: polling day

[Barnes]

There's pretty much no way that a credible poll could be produced and processed within the space of a couple of hours fwiw...

The Guardian canteen seems to be in favor of the election I guess!

[Barnes]

Because "politics is not a game!"

[Barnes]

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/854371831196913664

This is not an encouraging rumour.

Jesus, Jeeza...

[Barnes]

By the way, the magic number for the dissolution motion to pass is 434; the Tories and Labour combined have 560 seats at the moment, so only a rebellion of truly biblical proportions could sink this.

Mike Gapes (Labour MP) is going to vote against the motion to stick it to Corbyn one more time before he retires. Lol  

[Barnes]

Rumors that Zac Goldsmith will recontest Richmond as a Tory.

[Barnes]

Corbyn's strategy of not talking about Brexit when May staged it as a Brexit election is perplexing to say at least. I don't think "save the NHS" would carry as much weight as he thinks.

That slogan was worn out by 1950, in my opinion...

[Barnes]

Corbyn's strategy of not talking about Brexit when May staged it as a Brexit election is perplexing to say at least. I don't think "save the NHS" would carry as much weight as he thinks.

That slogan was worn out by 1950, in my opinion...

In fairness, the NHS crisis this winter was so historically bad that a Kinnock or a Blair (certainly) would have brought the government to it's knees on that one.

Oh it's absolutely a legitimate issue, I agree. But the political impact isn't great just saying "Save the NHS" over and over. Remember "48 hours to save the Pound"!

[Barnes]

Lol this election was just scheduled, but will still finish before the GA-6 runoff.

And it will still be the longest election campaign in recent memory--just edging out 1997.

[Barnes]

Telegraph News‏Verified account @TelegraphNews  18s18 seconds ago
More
 Ukip to win 'handful' of seats at June election, Paul Nuttall says

Been there done that

UKIP can consider itself lucky if they even hold MPs at all after the election

They've already lost their only MP so they're starting at zero!

I do hope this election finally puts a nail in the coffin about the "rise of UKIP" nonsense.

[Barnes]

In fairness, the NHS crisis this winter was so historically bad that a Kinnock or a Blair (certainly) would have brought the government to it's knees on that one.

And was a direct result of governmental incompetence. Oh well.

This is a pattern, I guess, under Corbyn. The last two budgets have had embarrassing u-turns and the winter health crisis was wholly the Government's fault, and yet in each instance little political advantage is gained by Labour.

[Barnes]

The poor Boy George (Osborne) will have to get up at 4 am starting in May to edit his newspaper and then hit the hustings in Tatton.

[Barnes]

Labour MPs have been told they will be automatically re-selected as candidates in their constituencies for the general election on 8 June.

Well there you go.

[Barnes]

One random question: Doesn't this mean that the Scottish and Welsh elections are going to happen in May 2020? If memory serves, they have terms of four years but got into an odd scheduling issue with general elections appearing to happen regularly every five years. Does anyone know about this?

The terms of both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were extended to five years last year to avoid clashing with the proposed 2020 date. So those elections will be in May 2021.

[Barnes]

One random question: Doesn't this mean that the Scottish and Welsh elections are going to happen in May 2020? If memory serves, they have terms of four years but got into an odd scheduling issue with general elections appearing to happen regularly every five years. Does anyone know about this?

The terms of both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were extended to five years last year to avoid clashing with the proposed 2020 date. So those elections will be in May 2021.

Got it, thank you

You're welcome.

[Barnes]

If you want to input numbers and have lovely maps pop up, this is probably the best choice

http://principalfish.co.uk/electionmaps/?map=predictit

Ooh, how lovely! Thanks mate!

[Barnes]

It was a tradition in the pre-Coalition days that the Lib Dems would rise during GE campaigns.

With 1997 being a good example of that.  The Libs polled pretty dreadfully over the whole campaign which masked the reality of tactical voting in Con/Lib Dem marginals. Their overall vote share barely increased from '92 but they doubled their seats.

[Barnes]

It was a tradition in the pre-Coalition days that the Lib Dems would rise during GE campaigns.

With 1997 being a good example of that.  The Libs polled pretty dreadfully over the whole campaign which masked the reality of tactical voting in Con/Lib Dem marginals. Their overall vote share barely increased from '92 but they doubled their seats.

I remember the underpolling of Labour, at one point it looked like there was going to be a lab-lib coalition afterwards (I think Ashdown even suggested it)

Blair and Ashdown had held talks before the election to form a coalition if there was a hung parliament and Blair was reportedly enamored enough with it to still consider it even when it was clear Labour would win in a landslide. The true magnitude of their victory however swept all of that away.

They did have a joint committee examine electoral reform chaired by Roy Jenkins, but like most electoral reform in Britain it come to nothing.

[Barnes]

Would it be possible to move the predictions to another thread and possibly douse water on the useless Corbyn flame war going on?

[Barnes]

Jeremy Corbyn rejects "progressive alliance" with SNP

Of course, most of this speculation is completely useless, but I wouldn't expect any statement from Labour to prevent the Tories from pulling the same lines from their 2015 playbook.

[Barnes]

Also, it's been confirmed that the by-election in Manchester Gorton willl be cancelled by having the House vote to rescind the writ.