Sampson

Straight numbers also is an imperfect way of doing it because you’re assuming voters just want one party to get into power at the expense of anything else. For example, I voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 assuming Labour were their natural allies and a Lab-LibDem coalition was the most likely outcome. I would categorically not have voted for them if I’d had the hindsight to know they’d happily go into coalition with the Tories - was true of many LibDem voters in 2010. It was a mistake on my part but taught me to take into account tactical voting and potential coalitions in the future. To an extent tactical voting is kind of essential to democracy because it’s not and shouldn’t really be a choice of just which party you want to get into power, an informed voter has to be able to take into account potential power sharing arrangements and coalitions into their voting preferences.

Yeah both these elections have given me faith somewhat at least for a few years. A lot of it I think is that the left and centre have learnt to vote tactically in a way they perhaps weren’t in the past.

Anyone else gone down the Reform UK Mark Matlock and Helen Burns rabbit hole today? Post-2015 politics is so wild sometimes.

I mean they probably do know them well enough to call them by the first name tbf: I’d imagine Alan Shearer and Harry Kane have met each other many times.

Never mind.

Plus the massively self-inflicted Tory mess that is Brexit that is costing the UK around £25-100billion per year depending on which figures you look at.

The size of majorities make no real difference neither does the size of the opposition. Even if you argue more discenting voices provide more convincing arguments, the government votes with the whip anyway so it makes no difference if they actually convince a few MPs. Besides, if you think the Tories are useless, don’t you then think it’s a good thing the LibDems have got way more seats so the voices come from a wider array of opinions and not just from the Tories?

I think one interesting thing is the tactical voting between Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat voters. There were actually an awful lot of seats where Labour won and LibDems got really low votes in the north and ones where LibDems won and Labour got really low votes in the south. Now of course Labour generally do better in the North and LibDems generally do better in the south but the actual low number of votes for the other party suggested there was quite a lot of tactical voting going on. And many Green voters voted LibDem or Labour to win the seat. There’s been way more tactical voting going on than we’ve seen in previous elections. According to yougov around 22% of all votes were tactical votes. https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49886-one-in-five-voters-say-they-are-voting-tactically-at-the-2024-general-election

I think the most interesting thing is that it’s essentially become a 5 party system in the uk rather than a 2 or 3 party system and that’s naturally seeing parties win on a lower vote share. I don’t know if it will continue in future elections but it has created this weird situation where Labour have a massive vote share but feels precarious. I doubt Labour will lose office in 2029 but I can easily see them losing their majority and having to go into coalition with the Lib Dems and/or Greens.

Ok well in that case I think I’d probably agree with you. Though don’t know about the class background of all of them, I don’t think anyone would deny there’s a long way to go with regards to racial equality in politics.

Again, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about repeating this vague coded language. Why not just say which demographic you think it favours?

I’m genuinely confused at what you’re getting at. Not even being glib but can’t even work out what you’re chatting about.

People who didn’t go to Oxbridge?

Thank **** for that. Tens of millions of tax payer money we can save from a gimmicky policy that everyone on earth knew wasn’t even feasible

Still cannot get my head round how a Christian can vote for Reform. It’s like the most anti-Christian message imaginable, none of it is about helping the less well off, the sick or bringing people together. In fact it’s about privatising healthcare, and going after people because they were born in a different set of imaginary lines to you.

I’d much rather talk about going back and having a look at the other referendum tbh.

I agree that Labour and LibDem are probably closer together than Tories and Reform right now. I do wonder if one of the big stories is that LibDems have played this election really well actually. They’re back to their pre-2015 wipeout levels in terms of seats again and have made themselves look like they can win seats and are not just a wasted vote again. Feels like they’ve shaken off a lot of the tuition fees scarring. As Labour start canvassing the centre-right vote, I wonder if LibDems will pivot towards trying to catch the middle class, university educated left for the next election.

Personally I think the opposite of what’s said above and think way too many people vote for short-term National and local issues over the long-term global issues which are the actual profound issues that will affect how we, our children and grandchildren will all live. Climate change and population ageing will affect all of our, our children’s and grandchildren’s lives far more than debates about taxes and immigration.

Yeh exactly the 2 biggest issues of our time and the ones that should be debated endlessly by the parties and dominating any election right now are climate change and population ageing But apart from Reform claiming net zero is a scam in some small section in the middle of their manifesto that he barely got questioned on, neither topic ever got any discussion at all, it’s depressing.

You guys are overthinking it. Don’t worry. Leo Ulloa has nerves of steel, he’ll step up and slot the penalty home.

The danger would be 3rd behind Lib Dems which a couple of polls have predicted but seems very unlikely. Reform don’t have enough concentrated vote for it to translate into seats.

Talking of which

They’re not allowed to report things like that on polling day are they?

Surprised she believes in voting in her libertarian utopia. She barely believes in there being a place for government at all as the markets will solve everything.

I must’ve read wrong then. Frightening thought that she could become Tory leader tbh.