United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[DistingFlyer]

https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1206146416793526273?s=19

I love you John. You're a fking hero.

Honestly, as someone who never liked the guy (even back when I liked Corbyn), massive respect. It takes real guts to apologize so thoroughly.

Yeah, it seems pretty clear that McDonnell & Corbyn are trying to very publicly soak up as much of the blame as possible, so that when they leave front-bench politics, the party can start up again with a clean slate. And that's a very f**king admirable & mature strategy.

Seconded (or thirded) - nothing in their front-bench careers became them like the leaving of them, to bastardize a phrase.

[Cassius]

McDonnell, yes. Corbyn... I can’t see much contrition coming from him.

[DistingFlyer]

McDonnell, yes. Corbyn... I can’t see much contrition coming from him.

True; given the rather shameless message issued by his kids (and his other die-hard supporters), I doubt his graciousness will be much more than he showed on the night itself.

[CumbrianLefty]

https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1206146416793526273?s=19

I love you John. You're a fking hero.

Honestly, as someone who never liked the guy (even back when I liked Corbyn), massive respect. It takes real guts to apologize so thoroughly.

Yeah, it seems pretty clear that McDonnell & Corbyn are trying to very publicly soak up as much of the blame as possible, so that when they leave front-bench politics, the party can start up again with a clean slate. And that's a very f**king admirable & mature strategy.

Whatever their other failings, they recognise that the party (and movement) is bigger than any one person. The contrast with a certain leadership aspirant who used "I/me" some two dozen times in a newspaper piece this morning is I think pretty obvious

[Clyde1998]

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.

In every case since 1983, the party leader viewed to be the most capable Prime Minister has ended up as Prime Minister following the election. Only Thatcher in 1979 was seen as less capable than her opponent, however the government itself was very unpopular.

Notably Johnson was seen as less capable than May was in 2017, however Corbyn was down even more since 2017. Johnson may have more popular among Leave voters than May; Ipsos Mori's crosstabs don't show referendum vote for some reason.

The regional breaks were interesting though:

Northern England: Johnson 44% (-5 on 2017 May), Corbyn 33% (-3), Neither 17% (+11)
Midlands + Wales: Johnson 46% (-5), Corbyn 28% (+1), Neither 15% (+4)
Southern England: Johnson 49% (nc), Corbyn 19% (-19), Neither 21% (+17)
Greater London: Corbyn 42% (+1), Johnson 33% (-13), Neither 17% (+13)
Scotland: Corbyn 32% (-22), Johnson 29% (+5), Neither 28% (+17)

There was net movement towards Corbyn over the Conservative leader in the places where Labour lost most of their seats. Obviously these are sub-samples, so have a wide margin of error (the VIs for the regions were in line with the actual outcome), but there's very little fall in Corbyn's rating outside of Southern England and Scotland. Even those who said 'Neither' voted at the same ratio as they did in 2017, a basically 2:1 to Labour.

I'm not 100% sure what to make of the regional variations in most capable PM compared to people's votes, tbh.
Ipsos Mori (Con-Lab):
2019 - Johnson 43%, Corbyn 29%, Neither 19%, DK 6% (+14)
2017 - May 47%, Corbyn 36%, Neither 7%, DK 8% (+11)
2015 - Cameron 42%, Miliband 27%, Clegg 6%, DK 25% (+15)
2010 - Cameron 33%, Brown 29%, Clegg 19%, DK 19% (+4)
2005 - Blair 40%, Howard 21%, Kennedy 16%, DK 23% (-19)
2001 - Blair 51%, Hague 14%, Kennedy 14%, DK 21% (-37)
1997 - Blair 40%, Major 23%, Ashdown 15%, DK 21% (-17)
1992 - Major 38%, Kinnock 27%, Ashdown 20%, DK 16% (-11)
1987 - Thatcher 45%, Kinnock 27%, Owen 13%, Steel 8%, DK 7% (-18)
1983 - Thatcher 46%, Steel 25%, Foot 15%, Jenkins 6%, DK 6% (-31)
1979 - Callaghan 50%, Thatcher 31%, DK 19% (+19)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Corbyn... I can’t see much contrition coming from him.

None whatsoever, actually.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

Or voted for minor parties of various hues. I suspect - well I already have a lot of anecdotal evidence for this - that a lot of people of that political heritage went into the polling booth intending to vote Labour and found they couldn't and just marked a cross elsewhere almost randomly...

[Intell]

There were clear increases in tory vote, especially in cosnticuences there wasn't a Brexit party or where the Brexit party was weak.


Most leave labour marginals, Brexit party not a factor

Wallsall North

+4415

Stoke on Trent North

+2061

Dudley North

+5044

Great Grimsby

+3170

Mansfield

+7157

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

There were clear increases in tory vote, especially in cosnticuences there wasn't a Brexit party or where the Brexit party was weak.


Most leave labour marginals, Brexit party not a factor

Wallsall North

+4415

Stoke on Trent North

+2061

Dudley North

+5044

Great Grimsby

+3170

Mansfield

+7157

Seems to me like both things were going on, perhaps to different extents in different specific seats. There were some pretty dramatic upticks in Tory vote totals in these types of seats, but also nationwide turnout fell for the first time since 2001 and turnout was generally lower in Leave areas than Remain ones.

[Intell]

There were clear increases in tory vote, especially in cosnticuences there wasn't a Brexit party or where the Brexit party was weak.


Most leave labour marginals, Brexit party not a factor

Wallsall North

+4415

Stoke on Trent North

+2061

Dudley North

+5044

Great Grimsby

+3170

Mansfield

+7157

Seems to me like both things were going on. There were some pretty dramatic upticks in Tory vote totals in these types of seats, but also nationwide turnout fell for the first time since 2001 and turnout was generally lower in Leave areas than Remain ones.

Yes, both of these were definitely a factor. There is also times where we see turnout decline for a certain party and increasing for another. In these seats it could be the case (not necessarily) that the Brexit turnout increase, and the labour leave vote stayed home or voted for the tories/brexit and this allowed the tories to win throughout the 'red wall'.

[Clyde1998]

There were clear increases in tory vote, especially in cosnticuences there wasn't a Brexit party or where the Brexit party was weak.


Most leave labour marginals, Brexit party not a factor

Wallsall North

+4415

Stoke on Trent North

+2061

Dudley North

+5044

Great Grimsby

+3170

Mansfield

+7157

Seems to me like both things were going on. There were some pretty dramatic upticks in Tory vote totals in these types of seats, but also nationwide turnout fell for the first time since 2001 and turnout was generally lower in Leave areas than Remain ones.

Yes, both of these were definitely a factor. There is also times where we see turnout decline for a certain party and increasing for another. In these seats it could be the case (not necessarily) that the Brexit turnout increase, and the labour leave vote stayed home or voted for the tories/brexit and this allowed the tories to win throughout the 'red wall'.

It will be interesting to see if there are any figures on turnout by each party.

YouGov published some numbers in 2017, which showed that most parties had about equal numbers of their 2015 voters not turning out with the exceptions of UKIP and the SNP:

[Antonio the Sixth]

2015 is not a good baseline though, since it had abysmal turnout to begin with.

[Intell]

There were clear increases in tory vote, especially in cosnticuences there wasn't a Brexit party or where the Brexit party was weak.


Most leave labour marginals, Brexit party not a factor

Wallsall North

+4415

Stoke on Trent North

+2061

Dudley North

+5044

Great Grimsby

+3170

Mansfield

+7157

Seems to me like both things were going on. There were some pretty dramatic upticks in Tory vote totals in these types of seats, but also nationwide turnout fell for the first time since 2001 and turnout was generally lower in Leave areas than Remain ones.

Yes, both of these were definitely a factor. There is also times where we see turnout decline for a certain party and increasing for another. In these seats it could be the case (not necessarily) that the Brexit turnout increase, and the labour leave vote stayed home or voted for the tories/brexit and this allowed the tories to win throughout the 'red wall'.

It will be interesting to see if there are any figures on turnout by each party.

YouGov published some numbers in 2017, which showed that most parties had about equal numbers of their 2015 voters not turning out with the exceptions of UKIP and the SNP:

30% SNP people didn't turn out, fyck me we were so close to having a labour government in 2017.

[CumbrianLefty]

2015 is not a good baseline though, since it had abysmal turnout to begin with.

66% compared to 67.5% last week, not a vast difference (and 2017 was 69%, in the same ballpark)

[Antonio the Sixth]

2015 is not a good baseline though, since it had abysmal turnout to begin with.

66% compared to 67.5% last week, not a vast difference (and 2017 was 69%, in the same ballpark)

Huh, for some reason I seemed to remember there had been a much bigger jump in 2017. My bad.

[CumbrianLefty]

2001 and 2005 were the real comedy bad GE turnouts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There were clear increases in tory vote

No one is saying otherwise. Do they not teach reading comprehension in Australia?

[Lord Halifax]

Question to British posters: Is it a reasonable assumption that Labour will have a better chance of regaining lost ground in the North than in the Midlands and South Yorkshire?

[CumbrianLefty]

Question to British posters: Is it a reasonable assumption that Labour will have a better chance of regaining lost ground in the North than in the Midlands and South Yorkshire?

Actually I'm a bit counter-intuitive about this - many of Labour's almost hilariously bad Midlands results have the strong flavour of a Brexit protest vote, whereas *some* of the northern losses are actually much more about long term demographic change (and the main surprise about at least a few of them is that they weren't tempted by the Tories considerably sooner)

[rob in cal]

  CumbrianLeftie, could you give us an example of some of those northern seats that might be trending long term toward the Tories, and what makes them likely to do so compared to other Tory gaines in the midlands?

[mileslunn]

A few questions for some British posters here.

1.  Why such the large divergence in the two Plymouth seats both in votes and in direction?

2.  Beside Brexit, how did Tory vote nearly triple in a decade in Stoke upon Trent?

3.  How come Black Country saw swings around 20 points towards Tories.  I though it had a large BAME population which would have blunted this somewhat.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. Sutton & Devonport is a university constituency, while Mercer has been a high profile and unorthodox parliamentarian of the sort that can outperform in good years for his party.

2. Corbyn is hated in most places, of course, but he does seem to be particularly unpopular in the outlying parts of the Midlands. I was about to note that this is ironic as he's actually from an outlying part of the Midlands (East Shropshire), but, of course, that is almost certainly a subconscious reason not an irony. The level of electoral consolidation has been so rapid that one cannot point to any long-term factor, though the Potteries are certainly becoming much more 'normal' economically and socially than they once were. Also worth observing that a lot of these places are notably fertile recruiting grounds for the armed forces - something that is also true of South Yorkshire and the North East, of course.

3. Around ten points, not twenty. But why should, for instance, retired Sikh foundry workers not have the same melancholic feeling that 'Labour is not Labour' as other groups of people who are so similar in all respects but one? British Indian voters are individuals too and have agency.

[CumbrianLefty]

Examples of now Tory seats which are at least partly driven by long term demographic change include Bishop Auckland, the S Yorkshire "Valley" seats, and of course the much mythologised Bolsover.

(and this sort of thing is not new - when George Brown lost Belper in 1970, his comment that "its not the Belper I knew anymore" was more than just the sentimentality that he was prone to indulge in)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Examples of now Tory seats which are at least partly driven by long term demographic change include Bishop Auckland, the S Yorkshire "Valley" seats, and of course the much mythologised Bolsover.

(and this sort of thing is not new - when George Brown lost Belper in 1970, his comment that "its not the Belper I knew anymore" was more than just the sentimentality that he was prone to indulge in)

Though in the case of Bolsover it's mostly demographic change of a different sort and a massive electoral backlash against it. Shirebrook is about a quarter Eastern European by some estimates now.

Of course in all cases these are background factors that lead to increased vulnerability in bad circumstances; it isn't as if any of these issues have emerged over the past two years, or even the past five. Although I'll accept that the intensity of the backlash radiating out from Shirebrook like one of those Cold War fallout maps kind of has increased quite a bit during the latter period.

Mind you, there's no reason why new build areas in some of these places should be so hostile to Labour; they are generally not that affluent. This takes us back to Mr Tony who, of course, based so much of his strategy around the changes he could see in his own constituency (which, ah, yes, right). He's unfashionable now, and that's entirely his own fault, but on that... he had a point.

[CumbrianLefty]

And if you want an example of such movement in the *opposite* direction (especially since you wouldn't think such places existed going on much media coverage) have a look at what Worthing is doing.