United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[CumbrianLefty]

Away from the 52-48 poll headline, Corbyn did quite well on most of the other questions.

It likely won't make much difference, but won't actually hurt. Whereas if he had bombed it would have done.

[CumbrianLefty]

That's the Borisograph to you

[CumbrianLefty]

FWIW those constituency polls don't exactly suggest the Tories are running away with it as certain national surveys indicate. And btw to one poster above, 38-35-24 isn't *really* a "three way tossup"

[CumbrianLefty]

True enough, but Southport (which voted narrowly leave) only has a 1% Lab to Tory swing.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour won't win just one Scottish MP with 21% of the vote, you can take that to the bank now.

[CumbrianLefty]

True enough, but Southport (which voted narrowly leave) only has a 1% Lab to Tory swing.

Southport most definitely voted Remain.  

Some local observers are not convinced, and also think Bootle went narrowly remain rather than leave (despite most estimates claiming the latter) Anyhow, the real point is that by any definition it isn't the sort of "remain heartland" where the Tories might underperform in this election.

[CumbrianLefty]

FWIW the 2017 exit poll leaked in the form of people saying 'bloody hell that's a shock' about 2 hours before.

Though IIRC there was a split on what that "shock" meant - some Tories were genuinely predicting 400+ seats just minutes before the polls closed......

[CumbrianLefty]

The polls were pretty widespread, but the average suggested a clear Tory majority. Kind of like now...

There had been polls showing only very small Tory leads  (1% and 2%) so the writing on the wall was there it's just most people (including me) chose to ignore it. The YouGov forecast also fairly accurately predicted what was coming though most people thought it was a joke. This time the Tory lead hasn't dipped that low in any poll (well at least yet) and has remained much more steady over the course of the campaign. Whilst I am ruling nothing due to there being a chance that all polling is massively out, the fundamentals do look more rosy for the Tories than at this point in 2017.

There are three main possibilities of the polling being wrong (and in Labour's favour) at this point:

1) the uncertainties of weighting the 2016 referendum more than three years on;
2) polls overestimating the elderly turnout and/or understating how many young people will vote;
3) not taking fully into account a notably high number of new registrations (again, mostly youth)

All are possible, none can be relied on. But given that there is at least a chance they will apply, as a Tory I would be nervous at any poll putting them much less than 10 points ahead......

(and numbers 2 and 3 of those factors, if true, would also play into Labour's superior ground game)

[CumbrianLefty]

The polls can be wrong. Relying on them being wrong and wrong in your favour is not a good strategy.

Conservative minority government is the best possible outcome now for Labour.

Nobody is "relying" on anything. But all those points are serious possibilities, not blind faith.

Quite a few Labour people now genuinely think that the polls are understating their position at least a bit - that wasn't really the case at the start of the campaign.

Re your last point - barring a real miracle I agree the Tories will be the biggest party. The tantalising prospect is if they were to fall just short of a majority even *with* DUP support - what then?

[CumbrianLefty]

In the above scenario Tories *and* DUP wouldn't have a majority - so the question is if all the other non-Tory parties could cobble something together for at least as long as it takes to get another referendum on Brexit. Though the likelihood of another GE not long after that would have to be pretty high.

[CumbrianLefty]

Part of the question is, compared to 2017, how much is people being terrified of Boris Johnson a motivator for people to turn out when compared to the enthusiasm around Corbyn that was present in 2017 and almost totally absent this time.

Well up to a point. There are still big attendances for Labour meetings/rallies at this election, and in some cases even more people are turning out to campaign for the party than was the case two years ago.

[CumbrianLefty]

Glad you're enjoying it.

I always find elections fascinating

One final question before I shut up for the time being - IF the polls mostly get it wrong in similar fashion to 2017, the time may have come to ask "are 'shy Labour' voters now a thing?".

[CumbrianLefty]

Boris Johnson's ghoulish reaction to the image of the boy in the hospital is about the worst possible story for the Tories in the most critical period of the campaign because it puts the spotlight on the NHS' problems while suggesting that Boris Johnson will do nothing to solve them. Considering that 8-12% of voters remain Undecided and that the Tory lead is ~8 points when Undecideds are taken into account, this could be devastating for the Tories...

Seems like the sort of story that cuts through for a week tbh. I expect the Tories to try to slam a bunch of rats on the table to change the topic. The extent to which they do this will reveal how damaging the story is.

They already tried one - inventing an "assault" on one of Matt Hancock's SPADs by a "Labour activist" for which they were supposedly arrested. Only problem - it was false from start to finish and *proved* to be so by video coverage - but not before Laura K and Bobby P (inter alia) had been suckered by it.

[CumbrianLefty]

It would likely be closer without a certain person's vanity candidacy?

[CumbrianLefty]

So, Jon Ashworth...

He has maybe minimised the fallout by appearing in public and taking it on the chin, rather than hiding away as a CERTAIN VERY PROMINENT TORY POLITICIAN would surely have done.

(and I bet a few Tories have said some very quotable things about BoJo "off the record", no?)

[CumbrianLefty]

Worth remembering that this MRP estimate is based on a national vote share of Con43/Lab34.

If things turn out to actually be significantly closer than that......

[CumbrianLefty]

It's gonna be a slaughter for Labor... isn't it

Far from certain to put it mildly.

I mean, it is *possible* most certainly (the polls could possibly even be wrong in that they are *under*stating the Tory position) but it is acknowledged by observers that Tory HQ has been distinctly jittery in the last few days.....

[CumbrianLefty]

So what are the main agenda items of this newly expanded Conservative majority, that history will remember them for?  

Managed democracy.

And no, unfortunately I'm not even joking.

[CumbrianLefty]

So what are the main agenda items of this newly expanded Conservative majority, that history will remember them for?  

Managed democracy.

And no, unfortunately I'm not even joking.

What does the Workington result mean to you?

Too many people putting "GEEHHDDDBBBRRREEEHHHXXIITTDUUUNNNNNN!!" above their genuine interest. Johnson has read the Trump playbook all too well.

[CumbrianLefty]

Any chance Boris will clip the wings of Blair Supreme Court after they dealt him that blow

The process to select British Supreme Court members is thankfully nonpartisan right now, and we can only hope it stays that way.

Page 48 of the Tory manifesto (which I hope will one day become as infamous as it deserves to be) doesn't make one massively optimistic on that score unfortunately.

[CumbrianLefty]

The "this defeat was all about Corbyn" take has to explain why we got the very different results we did (in strongly pro-Brexit seats especially) two and a half years ago when we *also had him as leader*.

Now, it is quite likely he became (even) more electorally toxic in the intervening period. But given how differently "leave" areas performed in this election to "remain" ones, I can't help feeling this sort of ignores Occam's Razor. In 2017 we promised to respect the referendum result, this time we did not.

(or at least were overwhelmingly perceived as not doing so by those who voted for Brexit)

This enabled Johnson to run the sort of campaign that May had wanted to, but couldn't, last time.

[CumbrianLefty]

The "this defeat was all about Corbyn" take has to explain why we got the very different results we did (in strongly pro-Brexit seats especially) two and a half years ago when we *also had him as leader*.

That's simple. There was an assumption that Corbyn would not last the post-election fall out, and many Labour candidates ran their own campaign as a result.

That is a factor, yes. But I seriously think it was dwarfed by Brexit this time.

[CumbrianLefty]

The antisemitism stuff got considerably worse for Labour in the last couple of years. There was also the Salisbury attack.

Yes, these are also relevant (though FWIW if we are doing anecdata, I have had one person mention the Skrpal business to me unprompted *ever*) Its just that I don't think ignoring the elephant in the room is helpful - if there's one group that had an even worse election than Labour, its the #FBPE brigade. And whither those "PRO-REMAIN LABOUR WOULD BE 20 POINTS AHEAD" takes now?

[CumbrianLefty]

A lot them didn't switch to the Tories with Johnson - the Tory vote went up less than 400,000. Many of them just stayed at home.

A lot of people did switch their vote to the conservatives. Boris lost tory remainers but those were in strongly upper middle class tory held areas in the south but he gained a lot in working class pro-brexit constituencies and then you had pro-brexit remainers that hated the tories but didnt want to vote labour because of their support of a second referendum so they parked their votes for the Brexit party. and considering the curse of FPTP in anglosphere countries it was devasting enough.

[CumbrianLefty]

A lot them didn't switch to the Tories with Johnson - the Tory vote went up less than 400,000. Many of them just stayed at home.

A lot of people did switch their vote to the conservatives. Boris lost tory remainers but those were in strongly upper middle class tory held areas in the south but he gained a lot in working class pro-brexit constituencies and then you had pro-brexit remainers that hated the tories but didnt want to vote labour because of their support of a second referendum so they parked their votes for the Brexit party. and considering the curse of FPTP in anglosphere countries it was devasting enough.

Those who voted Remain but are accepting of Brexit?

Maybe, but I would describe them slightly differently if so.

(and certainly don't think such people voted BxP, in the main)