Election prediction time

[Greg2607]

2 minutes ago, kenny said:

I didn't check the others.

 

Only one was going to be in charge!!!

FML. 

[nnfox]

1 hour ago, David Hankey said:

Oh dear, I see Reeves, the new Chancellor, is already saying "there's not a huge amount of money there" and that's in her first day in Office!!

It's called progress... When the Tories took power last time, didn't Labour leave a note saying "There's no money"?

 

"Not a huge amount" is better than nothing, so at least she has something to work with!

[Daggers]

Kenny is an AI add-on to the forum software package, eh. 

[Bordersfox]

4 minutes ago, nnfox said:

It's called progress... When the Tories took power last time, didn't Labour leave a note saying "There's no money"?

 

"Not a huge amount" is better than nothing, so at least she has something to work with!

We must he very careful reeling off that old 'there is no money' chestnut.  There is a long and rather charming history of outgoing treasury secretaries leaving private, at times tongue in cheek, notes to successors.  This note was very clearly one of those meant to be tongue in cheek.  

 

The privacy of these notes was respected until David Laws decided to read his out to the press because he was a helmet.  As the New Stateman puts it, the whole affair says more about Laws than it does about the state of the Treasury at that time.   Not that it was particularly healthy I am sure! 

 

A slight digression and not a dig at you personally of course.

[Dahnsouff]

Why are the immutable Labour supporters all about ridicule rather than dialogue? Is this just the electoral  equivalent of post coital cigarette?

[kenny]

14 minutes ago, Daggers said:

Kenny is an AI add-on to the forum software package, eh. 

I'm not that bright.

[The Doctor]

1 hour ago, grobyfox1990 said:

And this whole narrative that ‘labour didn’t win the election, the tories lost it’ is so cringey and spurs-esque. People really have no shame. 

eh, it's more an acknowledgement of how the voting system in the UK works. 

 

but, by all means, do tell John Curtice he doesn't understand the last election:

 https://www.thetimes.com/article/5b65534c-199f-48c9-bf77-92138e0a30f4?shareToken=5be06d9c405dbff1957b3d2391d959c4

[Sampson]

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.

[OntarioFox]

Now the smoke's cleared a bit and I've calmed down about the insanity on show in the city yesterday, I've taken a look at Shockat Adam's credentials and, to be fair to him, he seems like a decent fella. I didn't realise he has an NHS background, or that half of his campaign was about the state of it.
 

 

Obviously he's only in power because of the Gaza thing but who knows, he sounds like a decent human being with strong local roots, maybe he'll work constructively with the government on stuff.

 

Which is more than can be said for the new representative for Leicester East, who get exactly what they deserve for choosing a Tory - at least 4-5 years of yelling into the void while the adults get on with trying to fix a broken country.

[Jon the Hat]

11 hours ago, Daggers said:

Because we changed the party.

 

and got rid of the antisemitism 

and Marxism 

[Dahnsouff]

9 minutes ago, OntarioFox said:

Now the smoke's cleared a bit and I've calmed down about the insanity on show in the city yesterday, I've taken a look at Shockat Adam's credentials and, to be fair to him, he seems like a decent fella. I didn't realise he has an NHS background, or that half of his campaign was about the state of it.
 

 

Obviously he's only in power because of the Gaza thing but who knows, he sounds like a decent human being with strong local roots, maybe he'll work constructively with the government on stuff.

 

Which is more than can be said for the new representative for Leicester East, who get exactly what they deserve for choosing a Tory - at least 4-5 years of yelling into the void while the adults get on with trying to fix a broken country.

Isn’t that sort of the whole point of voting in the first place 

[urban.spaceman]

This is the meme I've been waiting for.

 

[Foxdiamond]

15 minutes ago, Sampson said:

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.

It has often been difficult for Labour to get into power. In the last 50 years Labour only been in government for 18 of the 50 years. 

[Dr The Singh]

I hope Labour lives up to its promises and discloses the UK's involvement in the Sikh Genocide by the Indian Government.

 

We need to know the truth.

[urban.spaceman]

[OntarioFox]

21 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Because we changed the party.

 

and got rid of the antisemitism 

and Marxism 

About the only thing that really appealed to me from Labour under Corbyn was the renationalisation of key industries, particularly rail. But I could never bring myself to vote for them under him given his fairly transparent revulsion of defence, dated affixation on restoring carbon-heavy industry and coal mining, and uncanny ability to choose the wrong side on most international matters (Hamas, Russia, North Korea, you name it).

Turns out that not only is rail renationalisation still a policy under Starmer, but the sheer state of the network is practically doing their job for them - some franchises (LNER, TransPennine) have already fallen back under public ownership after the original private companies shat the bed and returned the contracts. It's one of those things the Tories could have taken some credit for, but it's so at-odds with their "privatise everything" ideology that they've unsurprisingly kept quiet about it. More of the railway network fell back into public hands under Boris Johnson than any other Prime Minister since Atlee.

Great British Energy is also a great policy. Even if you disagree with the headlong rush towards net-zero, or are worried it may raise bills in the short term, you can't argue that owning our own power generation capabilities is hugely important in an increasingly volatile world - as the huge hikes in our gas-heavy system caused by Putin's invasion showed. It's also frankly farcical that so much of the profit for energy generation in this country goes not even to private firms but often state-owned providers from other countries, primarily EDF in France.

I do wish they'd be more ambitious in applying state intervention to things like the water industry or Royal Mail, but now they're in I'm hoping we see that they've been holding their cards close to their chest until the right-wing media could no longer scare off undecided voters.

Edited 6 July 2024 by OntarioFox

[Dahnsouff]

Oh sh*t, agreeing with @OntarioFox time to sign off

[OntarioFox]

Just now, Dahnsouff said:

Oh sh*t, agreeing with @OntarioFox time to sign off

It's how I feel whenever I hear Farage talk about electoral reform. Go take a shower, you'll feel okay after a good scrub.

[urban.spaceman]

14 hours ago, The Doctor said:

no, vote share is what matters here. if it was a change in labour and starting to appeal to more people, the vote share should have significantly jumped. it's remained static because this landslide isn't driven by more people wanting this labour government, it's driven by the collapse of the tories. you point out the surge of reform, however that is something I've already addressed - the tories haemorrhaged votes to them, and other tories stayed home because of this iteration of them. the idea that the low turn out was actually labour supporters who felt so comfortable that they didn't need to vote for the party not in power is ridiculous copium.

 

what labour have got is a sandcastle majority, no foundations and will be washed away the moment the tide changes, because the voting data indicates that this landslide is ultimately because people wanted to give the tories a good kicking and labour just happened to be there. this shouldn't be a controversial take, it's literally what John Curtice was saying last night and labour would be well served by showing a degree of humility and heeding it if they want more than 1 term in government 

K.

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, The Doctor said:

eh, it's more an acknowledgement of how the voting system in the UK works. 

 

but, by all means, do tell John Curtice he doesn't understand the last election:

 https://www.thetimes.com/article/5b65534c-199f-48c9-bf77-92138e0a30f4?shareToken=5be06d9c405dbff1957b3d2391d959c4

Exactly, so the team that have won a landslide have acknowledged, understood and decisively won the system that we’re playing under. That doesn’t render their victory moot. 

John Curtice is amazing btw 

[Izzy]

Apparently last week before the result, Wes Streeting told the BMA that if he got in as Health Secretary, the very first thing he would do is call them and start talks on the junior doctors dispute.

 

Sure enough, the first thing he did was make the call.

 

It remains to be seen if they'll find an agreement but the point is, he did exactly what he said he'd do.

 

I know it's only a small point but I think that's all most voters want really - politicians who keep their promises.

[Sampson]

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

 

Edited 6 July 2024 by Sampson

[StanSP]

Anyone got any stats that if Reform didn't exist, where their votes might have gone? If a vast majority stuck with Tories, what would the Labour majority have been, if still in place? 

[OntarioFox]

1 minute ago, Sampson said:

I think one thing we’re all ignoring here 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

 

It's a shame there wasn't a more concerted effort to vote tactically around here. I think both Mid-Leicestershire (almost certainly) and Syston & Melton (less likely) may have flipped if Lib Dem & Green supporters had gone for the Labour candidate instead.

I can understand though, as it's only the Lib Dems that have openly contributed to primaries elsewhere in the country, and it's the Greens that are stronger in places like Charnwood. As it is, this is still an annoyingly blue county.

[Trav Le Bleu]

I think the fact that James Timpson, of Timpsons, the key cutting company, has been appointed Minister of Prisons.

 

Note to Alannis... that's irony.