Sampson

Badenoch is very likely to lose her seat I thought

100% agreed. Feel sorry for the Rory Stewart, Ruth Davidson and Anna Soubry moderate types who’ve had their party wrestled away from them by the right wing populists like Braverman, Patel and Rees-Mogg.

I think the make up of the Tory party after tonight is going to be one of the key things on the fallout tomorrow. Whether it’s the moderates or the right of the party left and which way they lurch. Part of my thinks their only real hope is to get into bed with Reform and move even further into right wing populism depressingly.

The laws are quite strict on what broadcasters and news websites can report on on polling day until the polls close and the exit poll comes out. So it’s usually just to give the news something to rapport on during polling day. I see little harm in it.

I’m the opposite. I considered Rishi more of a moderate before this campaign, but all he has done has lie lie lie about this £2,000 guff and constantly repeated it even after everyone knows it’s a lie. Then he’s just banged on about immigration and shown he just wants to cut taxes for the wealthy, tried to please the populist right and Johnson/Farage fans than the moderates, which after Farage came into the picture proved a bit of a disaster. I think he’s really had the most awful campaign, seen the final remaining moderate voters jump ship, set up the Tory party to lurch off to the right after the campaign and really blown any possible image that he had of being a reasonable moderate into becoming a hard right populist serial liar. Been massively not impressed by the direction he took this campaign and how he’s only caused more division within the Tory party.

I disagree. I think they’re the loudest voters and most vocal about who they’re voting for out there

I disagree tbh. I think people should have the right not to vote if they don’t feel informed enough. And tbh democracy only works properly if people are properly informed and understand at least roughly what they are voting for. Everyone should have the right to not feel like they have to get involved though. I would advise against voting just because you feel like you have to if you don’t feel informed enough.

If you said this about any other group you’d be getting a knock on your door from PREVENT. If this isn’t fascism I don’t know what is.

No.

What happens if Tories and LibDems get the same number of seats? I know it’s unlikely but hypothetically, who becomes the official opposition?

Have you read the article though? It praises Sunak and Farage and then says what’s wrong with Labour. It’s the most begrudging and bitter backing you’re ever likely to read. You can tell they really don’t want to back him but feel pressured by public opinion.

The thing that depresses me most is that Reform are polling higher than UKIP did in 2015. Basically proves how ridiculous Cameron’s gamble was. Brexit has happened and it hasn’t stemmed the right of the party at all, it only made them stronger.

King of agree. They really should’ve just gone all in and campaigned as the pro-EU and/or the “we actually do need to raise taxes to sort out public services” party tbh. Both were serious gaps in the campaign that needed filling and it also would’ve pushed Labour.

I don’t know enough about French politics, but Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart on the latest The Rest is Politics episode were arguing Macron isn’t a centrist in terms of trying to find middle ground, but a centrist in terms of more of a radical who espouses both radical left and radical right opinions and he’s been trying to play the hard left and hard right against each other by one moment allegedly saying something the hard left like and hard right hate like “France’s crimes in Algeria were abhorrent and we need to apologise for them” and then the next moment allegedly saying something like “immigration is awful” etc. something the hard right love but the hard left hate And that it’s massively backfired as a tactic and only given mainstream credence to those opinions and why would you vote for someone who agrees with half of these things, when you can vote for the real thing? Now these previously extremist opinions have been made by the supposed centrist establishment? Sunak has made a lot of the same mistakes in this campaign I think - gone on about immigration and the Rwanda scheme, which has only helped Reform and hindered the Tories, because he’s normalising the opinion into mainstream politics, but he’s never going to beat Farage on those kind of issues, so it only causes voters to jump from Tory to Reform.

Yeh but their traditional Conservative Party has basically withered away in France which is the point. I’m expecting right wing younger people are probably much more likely to vote reform than Tories. Just feels like the Tories have become a party trying to only appeal to the baby boomers and that gen x, millennials and gen z just won’t vote for them (i think a lot of it is due to the housing market being perceived to have been hoovered up and had the ladder pulled up to the treehouse by the baby boomers) and find them damaged goods. Which is obviously disastrous for the Tories as their voter base dies out, they’ve have to completely redesign themselves and likely take a long time to win those generations round.

I’m very interested in the demographic data following the election. The country has become so polarised by age since the 2016 referendum, in a way it never has before, that I’m wondering if the Tories have passed the point of no return.

In the Tory parties final hours governing this country perhaps ever let’s remember one thing; There was one man who brutalised this country and lay its public services to waste with years of brutal austerity leading to excess deaths of 600,00+ British people when history has shown countries who continued with Gordon Brown’s Keynesian QE methods fared historically better and caused less pain and suffering. There was one man who created a culture of division and took billions of out the countries economy with a referendum on a minor party issue which all polls showed the uk weren’t particularly interested in and was way down the list as the 5th or 6th issue at the 2015 election according to pollsters. Even against the strong advice of his chancellor and deputy PM. There was one man who cowardly resigned and went off into the sunset leaving the vacuum behind for the hard right and populists to purge the moderates from the Tory party and grapple control of it. In all the dismay over Truss and Boris, history should remember the atrocious legacy that David Cameron (and George Osborne) has had on this country and especially the appalling brutality of austerity

Yeh just seen that as well, the biggest poll so far of the election and genuine chance the LibDems form the opposition.

The main thing I think about Trump getting in is that it’s likely bye bye Ukraine, especially with the EU also lurching to the hard right. Remember those optimistic days when Putin first invaded and we also said “he underestimated the west wanting to back Ukraine and he doesn’t want a long drawn out war”? Hope I’m wrong but I feel like this winter could be a real struggle for Ukraine. I feel for those in other bordering countries who are probably frightened as **** Putin is going to recuperate then continue too.

Ok fair enough my guess is 18% then, which will be similar to Reform and probably around 4-8% above Lib Dems. Overall I’d probably guess - Labour 36% Conservatives 18% Reform 17% Lib Dems 13%

I think some people are in for quite a shock come Thursday if they still think Tories are getting 30% of the vote. I would be very surprised if the Tory share is anywhere near 30%. Most polls put it somewhere between 16-22% with that largely only being because of the over 65s, polls have shown Tories are barely scraping 10% of the vote in under 50s. Again, no one has seen election figures like this in their lifetime and it’s not just in the UK - it’s all over Europe. Formerly fringe parties are making huge gains and traditional parties which have been popular since the industrialised era are collapsing. I don’t think you can rely on “the silent majority” anymore, demographics have changed, new generations are voting and social media has greatly changed how people get their news and information and well, democracy is a lot more unstable than it was in 2015.

The thing is, it doesn’t cut through. Everyone feels worse off in their pocket than they did 15 years ago, everyone feels the hatred and nastiness that’s festered in society, everyone feels the negative energy in the country, people aren’t fools, they feel their lives worse off under the Tories.

Huh? I’m talking about representation of 2024 nor 2019, people have been saying “it won’t be as bad as predicted” for months bur the polls consistently show the Tories getting ridiculously small vote shares and that below the under 65 age brackets, people voteshare towards Tory is barely into double digits. It isn’t budging. People need to realise traditional voting patterns and traditional adages about how the country vote and the “silent minority of Tory voters” no longer apply. The political landscape has changed since 2016

All the polls suggest Reform vote will be comfortably less than 20% and will be less then the Tories. There’s no way it will be close to 30%. No poll has predicted they’ll get more than 7 seats yet either. Lib Dem’s and SNP will have many times more seats than them. Reform will likely be the 5th-7th biggest party in terms of seats depending on the Greens, local Welsh and N. Irish parties

I think a big problem with the current Labour campaign is they are sticking to the old adage “you win from the centre” and “Britain is a small c conservative country” But tbh since 2016, I don’t think you can rely on those things anymore, it’s clear that we are operating in very different times now, social media and demographic changes have torn down the status quo and you can’t rely on these old adages anymore. Tories purged the moderates from their party and became a hard right party and the only reason they’re losing is because Farage has split the vote. Corbyn did also spark a left wing movement for a while in 2017 which probably also will be resurrected in the future. Macron did the same in France and tried to hold onto this adage however it he pandered to the hard right too much to the point at which he’s now just seen as a lighter version of it.