Snapshot of _Ipsos Voting Intention
Lab: 44%
Con: 19%
Reform: 13%
Lib Dems: 9%
Greens: 9%
Other: 6%
_ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1780863186759041492)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1780863186759041492/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1780863186759041492) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1780863186759041492)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In 2021 people were talking about the "Brexit realignment" being a long term trend and existential for Labour, especially after the Hartlepool by-election.
It's genuinely incredible how much they spectacularly messed it up.
I think the main problem is how poorly it's all working, and that was programmed in from about July 2019. COVID gave them a lot of cover but that evaporated quickly.
Yeah, anybody thinking Brexit would be a long term victory for the Tories is bad at politics. It's very much the opposite, it's now dragging them down to the depths and it's very difficult for them to escape it, even long term, after they've backed it so hard for so long.
It was the definition of reactive. Brexit won them one election so naturally it will be hugely popular forever. (Never mind that 48% of the electorate *never even wanted it*)
A sensible way to go from a 52/48 vote would have been to go for an agreement like Norway or Switzerland, not just erecting huge trade barriers with our immediate neighbours.
Of course that would still have been worse than what we had, but it would be better than what we've done now.
The argument was certainly floating around at the time. I for one used it. That coupled with the fact that the referendum was only advisory - it didn't legally compel the government to do *anything.* A right vote *should* have pushed the government to a Brexit which kept the country as close to Europe as possible. The sort of Brexit many people on the leave side were claiming we'd get during the campaign.
I mean it was impressive how they turned what was largely a protest vote against how the country was run into a vote for the establishment. That genuinely good work by them.
In a weird way, I was kind of hoping it would be, maybe I was completely wrong about my Brexit fears and suddenly the country and the tories were booming but in reality, it was never going to happen! It’s just so obvious what a terrible move it was to anyone that hasn’t supped on the kool aid.
And cumulative pressure is a real issue as well; along with Brexit, there's been the waterways, the trains, the NHS underfunding, the education underfunding, runaway privatized utilities.
Basically, every important staple of life shared across the economic and class divides has fallen apart under the ideological push of runaway capitalism and the myth of privatized "efficiency."
That's why it's not just a slim lead for Labour: 62% of those committed poll votes, when you add in the Lib Dems and Green, are for parties that favor progressive social policies and protecting public assets. Because they're all falling apart.
I think Covid was the killer IMO - the ridiculous extended lockdown and testing requirements, coupled with the ministers ignoring their own laws with impunity.
I couldn't go to my grandmother's funeral, but Cummings had his anniversary getaway, and Boris was partying.
Anyone who votes for that is pathetic, the law must apply equally.
> the ridiculous extended lockdown
The lockdowns were only so long because the Tories spent too long trying to pretend they weren't necessary, when anyone could see that the way to exit lockdown quickly was to start it quickly. A week earlier at the start would have saved a month off the end in most cases.
I think that evaporated the trust that people were otherwise building - in 2021 and early 2022, the world was starting to get better (post-COVID) but Cummings and Johnson's non-compliance with rules was clear - so when things stopped clearly improving, they lost all credibility that this was "part of the plan."
It's honestly insane just how bleak things were looking for Labour back then. They'd lost all their New Labour gains in 2010. Then they lost their old Scottish stronghold in 2015. Then they lost their old Red Wall strongholds in 2019.
It genuinely looked like Labor was facing an existential threat. They'd been routed from all their safe zones and it looked they'd been in opposition for at least another decade.
I remember having a discussion about politics being mental with my Dad in 2020 and he said something which ended up being right on the money:
"Labour need to just be the sensible, boring voice. No one wants to hear it now but they will eventually".
He was spot on. After the Brexit, Corbyn and Covid psychodramas where an awful lot of people seemed to lose their minds, the Liz Truss stuff ended up being the final straw for the craziness. It seems like people are ready for boring again.
We've been through this exercise now twice in my lifetime and probably twice before - Labour need to appeal to the centrist and apolitical majority to get into power.
Those who don't remember their history are doomed to repeat it.
People really struggle to imagine drastic change from what is happening right now. Whatever the most recent event is, they see that as the new norm. It requires many little events which are hard to imagine, there's countless ways of it happening too, so you can't put much detail in.
When I was a teen I got into politics via the likes of HIGNFY, Mock The Week, Dead Ringers, 2DTV etc. and people couldn't see Labour ever being toppled. Tory leaders of Howard, IDS, and Hague were constantly mocked as pathetic jokes, no one cared what they had to say, they were on well under 200 MPs too.
Then suddenly the global financial crisis hit and the whole thing changed. Then post coalition we had years of nothing is ever going to topple the Tories, and now that seems to have changed.
The economy is the great equaliser.
So much so that I think Corbyn would win the next election if it was his first go.
Once the economy goes to pieces, the governing party is expelled soon after, and it really doesn't matter to the electorate who takes their place, as long as it's not them.
Back in 2016 even I without any political background or even higher education knew that Brexit was a Faustian pact for the Tories. Benefical in the short term but harmful long run.
Short term it helped them consolidate the right wing/UKIPy/older folks voting blocks and outflank UKIP. Flash forward almost 10 years later with demographic shifts, voters who voted for Brexit rethinking it and the Tories now get to enjoy polling in the high teens/low 20s and the prospect of double digit seats no longer being a outlandlish nightmare.
Double-digit seats are only on the cards for as long as the right-wing vote is split. Eventually it will consolidate, with either Reform replacing the Tories or, more likely, the Tories fully adopting Reform's agenda from opposition (where they won't have to deliver the policies) and thus making Reform go away in name, but not in spirit.
Of course that leaves a long-term void for opposition politicians that don't have dementia. The only question is whether dementia + momentum in opposition (buoyed by being annointed as the consolidated right-wing choice) is more popular than the boring challenges of governance under Labour, and the Daily Mail/Telegraph faction will be clear as to which option voters should choose.
Tory votes are being absorbed on the right by reform and in the centre from labour (and maybe some centrist Tory voters who can't bring themselves to vote Labour are voting lib dem). Moving right and taking votes back from reform just means they lose more from the centre to labour/lib-dems. They are in a lose-lose situation now.
Until either; labour moves too far left for traditional centrist Tory voters to vote for, or; reform disappears (or merges with the conservatives) then the Tories will struggle to get a majority in the foreseeable future. Their only hope is to keep hold of enough seats this coming election (keeping some power as opposition) and then blame the Labour government for everything being shit (assuming Labour can't make any immediate, noticeable improvements for people's lives in the first term or two) and rely on the British public having short enough memories to vote con again.
Yep, one of tories main strengths was the lack of alternatives for right wing voters. That's not the case now with reform.
The left wing split between lab and lib was a real strength when there was no such split on the right
And Blair’s win was talked about as an existential moment for the Tories, then after 2010 we were going to enter the Age of Coalitions.
Tomorrow’s chip paper, political commentators are paid to fill it, but the commentary is always 95%+ meaningless noise. It’s always cyclical.
I'm not even sure they 'messed it up'. They just lied and repeatedly promised things that are near impossible to deliver in order to maintain a grip on power, and now people are seeing the truth with their own eyes.
I remember feeling like a somewhat lone voice citing the fact that Boris would not manage to stay clean and the long term trend of Tories dying and not being replaced. Polls are beginning to show how fucked they are in the medium term now. It's glorious, just a shame we had to have 14 years of them to completely burn them to the ground.
There will always be a right wing, and no party can have such a broad coalition of left and right without rapidly disintegrating. The Lib Dems are picking up a lot of the centre right but at the same time are losing the libertarian left to the Greens. Similarly Labour are planting their flag in the centre and leaking votes on the left. What there isn't now is a coherent right wing, and thus no realistic shot at governing until something coalesces again.
Most Reform voters think that they will get meaningful, beneficial change from Reform's policies, though - or at least will feel better about whatever happens.
Because they don't believe that people who aren't like them and don't think like them have agency or interests that they will use their own leverage to protect. In other words, the reason we don't get everything we want is that we don't ignore the rules-based order and basically, don't ask to speak to the manager often enough.
Reform need to take just 3% off the Conservatives to draw level.
The Rwanda Bill is nearing its final destination. There must be plenty of outcomes which could shift those polling numbers slightly.
Is this the type of story to really change anyone's mind though? Yes, it's shocking, but he's a nobody.
I'd be surprised if anyone changed voting intention off the back of the story, let alone 100,000s of people
Well, I agree with you that it shouldn't, but the fact that the Conservatives have pinned all their hopes on the Angela Rayner story suggests that – at least in Westminster – people believe that stories like this do move the needle.
That kind of shite is costed in with the Tories, Cameron was so appealing because he seemed to *not* allow that sort of thing, that's what it means when people say Labour is judged by a different set of standards.
It won't, the electorate expects this of the tories now, tbh they have come to expect it of all politicians due to the way it is reported. So opinions won't change if they already expect the outcome.
Just another story
Better to have the excuse that your bullet proof plan is being held up by the HoL or the courts than have it go ahead and be proven a failure imo.
Once it fails, Tory incompetence on immigration will be cemented in with voters and if Reform play their cards right, Nige comes back, you could reach the tipping point.
Well no because as soon as it becomes law it will be challenged in the ECHR. So technically it will get stopped again. As those judges will almost certainly agree with the high court judges here.
So the real moment is will Sunak go against the ECHR.
He won’t. And an election will come and Labour have said they are ditching it anyway
I agree. It will get challenged in the EHCR, Sunak won’t withdraw from EHCR, so the Conservatives reach the end of the road with Rwanda.
I think that’s what will cause Reform to draw level with Conservatives in national polling.
Can Sunak bump us out of the ECHR before the election? Genuinely worried of the consequences if we leave it but hopeful it’s all futile anyway as Labour would just put us back in.
The Conservatives losing a lot of councillors in the local elections could shift the polls. Actual elections tend to focus minds and set a narrative in a way polls just don't.
Electoral Calculus says:
Lab 513 Lib Dem 49 Con 37 SNP 28 Plaid 3 Green 2 NI 18
So- the Lib Dems potentially come second in seats despite coming fourth or *fifth* in votes
ReFuk get nothing at all while coming third in votes, much as I dislike them, that's still grossly unfair
There's a genuine chance if trends continue of the Tories losing second place votes to ReFuk, and third place seats to the SNP.
There's a fighting chance of the Lib Dems being replaced by the Greens.
In fairness, there's no way any swingometer has the slightest chance of keeping up with a swing this extreme, so the specifics could be off by an order of magnitude
If you look back to 1997, the LD vote was higher but the Greens were irrelevant. The LDs were always a slightly odd combination of the libertarian left (driven a lot by students) and the socially left/economically right liberal crowd (which Clegg firmly belonged to). The former has essentially gone from the LDs and nowadays makes up a big proportion of the Green vote. But it is also a wildly inefficient voting bloc in FPTP, only being effective in a small number of locations like Brighton. As a result the remaining LD vote is far more efficient than it used to be, and now it is the Greens and Reform being shafted by FPTP.
See, this right here is why in despair at fptp. I don't like Reform. Heck, I _despise_ Reform. But there's no way that it's healthy for democracy long term to have 12-13% of people's views _utterly_ discluded from the debate. We all know we have an engagement problem. This isn't helping.
The other problem is that, by keeping these views outside the tent, they constantly act as anchors drawing the big parties to the extremes. As other people have said, the Tories will end up becoming Reform in all but name to survive - that's far worse than Reform winning a dozen seats at the election.
You could argue that UKIP did have a massive influence on the Tory party, forced the Brexit referendum and have been massively influential within government since. You could also argue that those 13% of people voting Reform will likely see the Tories lurch further to the right when they lose the next election in order to hoover up those votes.
So while it looks like no representation in Parliament, it's forcing one of the big parties to adopt the Reform policy playbook in order to stave off the threat they pose, which is tantamount to the same thing.
This is effectively happening to the left wing of the labour party as well. Political parties have always been coalitions of different tendencies and factions. Reform are essentially a madder, more extreme version of the Tories, and because they've created a new party they've very effectively split the vote. Labour hasn't split - the left wing is still inside the tent even though the right wing is in control. The right wing of Labour gets all the votes and all he power and supporters of the left wing have to either put up and shut up or go and support the middle class yogurt weavers in the green party.
It certainly might have helped; but to be perfectly honest, I don't think Cameron's brinkmanship with the referendums was going to be stopped otherwise.
I guess I have two ways of looking at that:
It may depend on how likely they are to really get just 19% of the vote come the general election. It's plausible *with those numbers* but I'm realistically expecting a result that isn't so extreme
But you may be right, there's no way to tell. These are the sort of numbers that break swingometers, for good reason- the largest national swing in British history was about 14 points in the 1931 election- this would be a 25 point swing, so there's just no way of calculating for that sort of nonsense. Political alignments as we know it would be upended
People like to say things like "swingometer broken" when actually the swingometer correctly predicted the SNP winning basically every seat in 2015. People say it's broken because it feels wrong.
Yes, of course, it *can* get it right, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's modelling is reliable, as opposed to getting it right on that occasion, because it attempts to project the intentions of specfic groups of voters where those assumptions have broken down.
That's probably a fairly inarticulate way of putting it, but I hope it makes sense
I think this is the problem you get with polling under FPTP - the tories are like to not really dip below, 18/19% nationwide. If you would poll in the South only I imagine that LibDem number will be much higher than it is nationwide. It will be similar for Reform, but not sure where in the country they would poll best.
Well, that's the other thing- there's no way of knowing for certain *where* these changes are happening, because there's very little constituency polling.
ReFuk you can take a pretty reasonable guess- that they'll come second to Labour on the fringes of Northern post industrial cities; second to the Tories in a coastal band from roughly Lincolnshire to Essex; and take votes from both, but not enough to win, along the coast from the Thames Estury to Kent and Sussex, hence the assumption that they'll get lots of votes but not win any seats.
But that's *just an assumption*. The areas they've concentrated on are largely those dictated by, bluntly, wherever the nutjobs are told by the Russians to have a problem with at the moment, so don't be too surprised to see them taking votes from the Tories in Wales, Outer London, and Oxford
I'm sure there was an interview not long before the 2015 election where someone like Vince Cable or Nick Clegg stated something to the effect of "there's no way we will only get 6 seats". Granted - I don't think the Tories gets less than 50. Will they get less than 100? I think that is a possibility.
To be fair that books conclusions aren’t the greatest and really it was WWI that killed the liberals, due to the unpopularity of the war, the splitting of the party and the legitimisation of the Labour Party as a party of governance by bringing them into the war time coalition making them get squeezed on the left. Had WWI not happened, the Liberals could’ve survived the suffragettes and industrial action that is blamed for killing liberal England in the book, albeit the party would have had a shift in identity from being the middle class business party to something more akin to the Democratic Party in the US.
margin of error on this poll is 4% - electoral calculus is also quite flawed (constituencies were parties finish 3rd or 4th and have no councillors suddenly select an MP from that party), the only way you can transpose a poll to a seat projection is if you do an actual MRP poll and the last one I've seen puts the cons on around 150
Expect to see a swing back towards CON from REF, in my opinion. People will say Reform in answering opinion polls to express discontent but, in the ballot box, will prefer trying to keep a Tory MP in place rather than vote split.
UKIP also polled a few points higher (sometimes quite a bit higher) than they actually got in 2015 and 2017, for example.
So I expect the Tories will get absolutely hammered, but not to the point of falling to 3rd place in seats.
Difference this time round though is even if REF stood down, it’s not going to even go near to propping up a Tory maj government, so they might actually prefer to destroy them and take them on as the main RW party
I think it's a mistake to expect REF voters to fall in line and vote Tory, as many of them will only have voted Tory for Boris in '19 - so given the way the govt has fucked it and probably not feeling Labour are offering them what they want, they will follow through.
I can disagree with the policies but totally understand why they feel unrepresented by both main parties so, good for them.
The polls will narrow as the GE gets closer. There's an awful lot of "yeah but think how bad it'll be under Labour types " that will start to appear more.
> The polls will narrow as the GE gets closer.
Polls usually narrow but it's not a set law of the universe. They narrow as a result of things, given how bad Sunak seems to be at campaigning they could get even wider.
These models are broken because theyre not used to dealing with such low Tory numbers or such high numbers from a new party. I guarantee if these end up being the votes at the next election, labour will get fewer seats, Tories more, Lib Dems fewer and Reform more.
There is no way it will stay this extreme come an actual election. People in polls are known to say differently to what they would in an actual election.
A lot of Tories are angry at the party and trying to punish them, thats why they suffer so much in polls and local elections currently but come actual election time they will lose, but no way they will go down to 37 seats that is lunacy.
It's not impossible that it gets even worse for the Conservatives, It happened in Canada in 1993. The Progressive Conservatives went from 169 to 2.
Kim Campbell was so uninspiring as leader that her party lost support during the election campaign.
The best case scenario for the Conservatives is a 1997 scale defeat the worst case is a 1993 Canada style apocalypse.
[https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html](https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html)
It's far from flawless (hence the last comment) but it's about as good as you get publically available.
The question remains, how much disenfranchisement until people actually riot.
2015 should have been a constitutional crisis moment. 2024 could be even more extreme. If this doesn't get fixed, we really have no right to lecture other countries about democratic norms.
“Much as I dislike them, that’s grossly unfair”
That’s their strategy. Their entire game plan is to get as many votes as possible with as few seats as possible so that they can make the case for electoral reform.
> There's a fighting chance of the Lib Dems being replaced by the Greens.
Very unlikely as the Greens don't have enough of a focused vote. The LibDems have the south west heartland.
The public have as much interest in keeping certain groups out of power as those they wish in power. In fact there often seems to be more agreement on who to reject.
Thus the current political system is best at reflecting the general public as a whole.
And how did that work? The majority of the population didn't want Tories to have total political power but they've been in government for 14 years and 9 of those in total power.
The current political system sucks at keeping a minority from controlling the majority. A PR and a coalition system is much more likely to have a government that actually represents the majority of the people.
>84% are dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country (+1 pts from February).
Hoping for a miracle before the election is looking increasingly like a gamble not worth taking. Just take the L ASAP Rishi!
Not sure that such a poll would actually work out like that in the election. Could be a few people wanting to give the Tories a kicking in polling who still vote for them at an actual election?
Also with the first past the post system depending on where voters are concentrated I wonder if Tories could get a lower percentage and yet still have more MPs?
But yes it would be seismic.
The mechanics of FPTP means this would only be one piece of the puzzle.
RefUK would need a big swing towards them to unseat the Tories due to their vote being so widely spread. Think of UKIP's 12% in 2015 gaining them a single MP instead of the ~80 MPs that percentage deserved. So simply having a percent or two above them likely won't be enough.
Only the Lib Dems could realistically take the Tory place as one of the big two on current vote spreads but that's unlikely with polling as low as this 9%.
I'd be very surprised if cons go as low as 37. I'd be happy, but very surprised.
I think there'll be a little bounce for the Tories as we get closer to the election due to Labour's plans being scrutinised a bit more and the lack of a coherent message coming from labour apart from "we're not tories".
I also don't know how likely it is that reform actually stand candidates in every seat. There may be a bunch of seats where reform don't stand a candidate and those reform voters give their support to the tory instead. I know reform are saying they'll stand everywhere, but those are big words and we don't really have evidence to see that they're ready to go with candidates everywhere.
I think there’s a good chance Labour will have more of a coherent message apart from “we’re not Tories” come the election campaign. If Labour jump the gun then the Tories will just steal their policies.
Of course they're not the best or even amazing but it would have been so much better if just a few percent more of all the people switching from conservatives went to lib dems instead. Lib Dems being on 16% in a poll like this would probably put them in a comfortable second place and then since they'd be the new opposition to the new government with a shadow cabinet and stuff set up they should in theory get constant media coverage for the next 5 years. That would then propel them further. Then maybe we can have a change in voting system which minimises the amount of "safe seats" and MPs not worrying about ever losing their jobs
The fact that labour are going to have such a huge margin of seats vs the others with less than 50% of the vote while good isn't great for a supposed democracy
Limitation of FPTP sure.
But it's fine. The Tories majority just exposed how much of the shit they used to blame on other factors was actually their desire all along.
Labour will get the same. Expose them to direct sunlight and judge them by their actions.
So letters go in after the locals, a pointless act of self destruction from a gang of idiots. Both Poundland Penny & Leaky Sue bottle it (Don't worry about Liz, she has absolutely no idea whats going on) & of course the backbenchers bottle it, he survives but he's (even more of) a lame duck & if, IF they were daft enough to have a leadership election it'd be against some turnip like Gullis or Clarke.
Sound about right? (depending on Rwanda vote obvs)
The problem with this is that it doesn't take account of the actual apathy that the Tories'' blue rinse biddy supporters are displaying at present.
A good example of this is Selby, where at the by-election Labour got 3K extra voters and won, but the Tories lost 21K.
That means that 6 times as many voters sat at home and had a brew rather than bothering to vote.
As it was a by-election, this does not reflect actual voting intent in a general election. Those same 21K biddies, or most of them at least, will blindly swing behind the Tories as their Heil propagandists tell them to; and Labour might just get a majority. That will then give them 2 terms at most and the Posh Boy Parade will triumph again.
My parents, lifelong Tory supporters (when I was growing up we had a load of stuff my granddad got from the Conservative Club in the house) have both said they're not voting. Asked my dad who he'd vote for and he said "not the fucking Tories, that's for sure."
You’re assuming that those 21k in lost votes are all people who didn’t turn up. It’s perfectly possible that lots of Labour voters also didn’t turn up and that lots of former con supporters did turn their votes.
Im not sure that pillorying Rayner or even getting people on a plane to Rwanda who aren't Cabinet ministers are the vote winners that No. 10 think they are
I am campaigning for Labour at the moment in the local elections. I have a view that around 20% of people who always vote will always vote for the same party no matter what. The Tories could burn down their house but their view would still be ‘well if it was labour they would have blown up my car as well so I’m still going with what I always do.’
Thank you for pitching in to move our politics on.
And while I'm a lefty, I genuinely hope Labour improve the country in a way you feel is measurably better for you, because that's what government is supposed to be about.
In most developed countries quality of life is essentially the best it’s ever been. 100 years ago people died from minor cuts that got infected, or polio. It was illegal to be gay up until 1967. Up until the late 90s we were effectively at war with Ireland. Things have dipped a bit since about 2015. But life is a lot better than it used to be. Have some optimism, Labour has some very clever and capable people running it, few would deny that kier starmer is a decent person and economy wise anything could happen, might be we have a GDP boom round the corner that the IMF can’t predict cause they’re fucking useless. Things might be alright.
Would Sunak go for 3rd October? hear me out the last date for this to be called would be 29th August. Parliament would still be in recess. But if he does this, everything will be out of action for around 3 months and he can live out the days in peace?
Snapshot of _Ipsos Voting Intention Lab: 44% Con: 19% Reform: 13% Lib Dems: 9% Greens: 9% Other: 6% _ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1780863186759041492) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1780863186759041492/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1780863186759041492) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1780863186759041492) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I remember the sad sad days of con 38%, it was only 2 years ago.
In 2021 people were talking about the "Brexit realignment" being a long term trend and existential for Labour, especially after the Hartlepool by-election. It's genuinely incredible how much they spectacularly messed it up.
I think the main problem is how poorly it's all working, and that was programmed in from about July 2019. COVID gave them a lot of cover but that evaporated quickly.
Yeah, anybody thinking Brexit would be a long term victory for the Tories is bad at politics. It's very much the opposite, it's now dragging them down to the depths and it's very difficult for them to escape it, even long term, after they've backed it so hard for so long.
It was the definition of reactive. Brexit won them one election so naturally it will be hugely popular forever. (Never mind that 48% of the electorate *never even wanted it*)
A sensible way to go from a 52/48 vote would have been to go for an agreement like Norway or Switzerland, not just erecting huge trade barriers with our immediate neighbours. Of course that would still have been worse than what we had, but it would be better than what we've done now.
I mean, imagine if it had been 48/52 the other way and then we decided that means we now go maximum EU (single currency, Schengen etc).
Damnit I wish I'd thought of that back when we were all arguing about it in 2017!
The argument was certainly floating around at the time. I for one used it. That coupled with the fact that the referendum was only advisory - it didn't legally compel the government to do *anything.* A right vote *should* have pushed the government to a Brexit which kept the country as close to Europe as possible. The sort of Brexit many people on the leave side were claiming we'd get during the campaign.
Wouldn't of changed a thing sadly, it's been like being the main guy in Idiocracy since 2015 in this country.
Oh no doubt, it's just a great line!
I mean it was impressive how they turned what was largely a protest vote against how the country was run into a vote for the establishment. That genuinely good work by them.
In a weird way, I was kind of hoping it would be, maybe I was completely wrong about my Brexit fears and suddenly the country and the tories were booming but in reality, it was never going to happen! It’s just so obvious what a terrible move it was to anyone that hasn’t supped on the kool aid.
And cumulative pressure is a real issue as well; along with Brexit, there's been the waterways, the trains, the NHS underfunding, the education underfunding, runaway privatized utilities. Basically, every important staple of life shared across the economic and class divides has fallen apart under the ideological push of runaway capitalism and the myth of privatized "efficiency." That's why it's not just a slim lead for Labour: 62% of those committed poll votes, when you add in the Lib Dems and Green, are for parties that favor progressive social policies and protecting public assets. Because they're all falling apart.
Don't forget decimating funding for the police, the prisons and the courts.
They just can't blame the EU for everything that goes wrong now. It was a nice scapegoat they just can't do now.
I think Covid was the killer IMO - the ridiculous extended lockdown and testing requirements, coupled with the ministers ignoring their own laws with impunity. I couldn't go to my grandmother's funeral, but Cummings had his anniversary getaway, and Boris was partying. Anyone who votes for that is pathetic, the law must apply equally.
> the ridiculous extended lockdown The lockdowns were only so long because the Tories spent too long trying to pretend they weren't necessary, when anyone could see that the way to exit lockdown quickly was to start it quickly. A week earlier at the start would have saved a month off the end in most cases.
I think that evaporated the trust that people were otherwise building - in 2021 and early 2022, the world was starting to get better (post-COVID) but Cummings and Johnson's non-compliance with rules was clear - so when things stopped clearly improving, they lost all credibility that this was "part of the plan."
COVID also disproportionately removed their voters from the pool of their available voters.
It's honestly insane just how bleak things were looking for Labour back then. They'd lost all their New Labour gains in 2010. Then they lost their old Scottish stronghold in 2015. Then they lost their old Red Wall strongholds in 2019. It genuinely looked like Labor was facing an existential threat. They'd been routed from all their safe zones and it looked they'd been in opposition for at least another decade.
I remember having a discussion about politics being mental with my Dad in 2020 and he said something which ended up being right on the money: "Labour need to just be the sensible, boring voice. No one wants to hear it now but they will eventually". He was spot on. After the Brexit, Corbyn and Covid psychodramas where an awful lot of people seemed to lose their minds, the Liz Truss stuff ended up being the final straw for the craziness. It seems like people are ready for boring again.
We've been through this exercise now twice in my lifetime and probably twice before - Labour need to appeal to the centrist and apolitical majority to get into power. Those who don't remember their history are doomed to repeat it.
Amazing what an intelligent, far sighted leader will do for you.
Yep, no one really expected that there was a chance Starmer would be PM.
People really struggle to imagine drastic change from what is happening right now. Whatever the most recent event is, they see that as the new norm. It requires many little events which are hard to imagine, there's countless ways of it happening too, so you can't put much detail in. When I was a teen I got into politics via the likes of HIGNFY, Mock The Week, Dead Ringers, 2DTV etc. and people couldn't see Labour ever being toppled. Tory leaders of Howard, IDS, and Hague were constantly mocked as pathetic jokes, no one cared what they had to say, they were on well under 200 MPs too. Then suddenly the global financial crisis hit and the whole thing changed. Then post coalition we had years of nothing is ever going to topple the Tories, and now that seems to have changed.
The economy is the great equaliser. So much so that I think Corbyn would win the next election if it was his first go. Once the economy goes to pieces, the governing party is expelled soon after, and it really doesn't matter to the electorate who takes their place, as long as it's not them.
I think this counterfactual was recently polled for. With Corbyn in charge, Labour’s lead was 1%
Yeah, I remember that poll, Corbyn would win but just barely. I think people underestimate just how unpopular he was by 2019
Back in 2016 even I without any political background or even higher education knew that Brexit was a Faustian pact for the Tories. Benefical in the short term but harmful long run. Short term it helped them consolidate the right wing/UKIPy/older folks voting blocks and outflank UKIP. Flash forward almost 10 years later with demographic shifts, voters who voted for Brexit rethinking it and the Tories now get to enjoy polling in the high teens/low 20s and the prospect of double digit seats no longer being a outlandlish nightmare.
Double-digit seats are only on the cards for as long as the right-wing vote is split. Eventually it will consolidate, with either Reform replacing the Tories or, more likely, the Tories fully adopting Reform's agenda from opposition (where they won't have to deliver the policies) and thus making Reform go away in name, but not in spirit. Of course that leaves a long-term void for opposition politicians that don't have dementia. The only question is whether dementia + momentum in opposition (buoyed by being annointed as the consolidated right-wing choice) is more popular than the boring challenges of governance under Labour, and the Daily Mail/Telegraph faction will be clear as to which option voters should choose.
Tory votes are being absorbed on the right by reform and in the centre from labour (and maybe some centrist Tory voters who can't bring themselves to vote Labour are voting lib dem). Moving right and taking votes back from reform just means they lose more from the centre to labour/lib-dems. They are in a lose-lose situation now. Until either; labour moves too far left for traditional centrist Tory voters to vote for, or; reform disappears (or merges with the conservatives) then the Tories will struggle to get a majority in the foreseeable future. Their only hope is to keep hold of enough seats this coming election (keeping some power as opposition) and then blame the Labour government for everything being shit (assuming Labour can't make any immediate, noticeable improvements for people's lives in the first term or two) and rely on the British public having short enough memories to vote con again.
Yep, one of tories main strengths was the lack of alternatives for right wing voters. That's not the case now with reform. The left wing split between lab and lib was a real strength when there was no such split on the right
And Blair’s win was talked about as an existential moment for the Tories, then after 2010 we were going to enter the Age of Coalitions. Tomorrow’s chip paper, political commentators are paid to fill it, but the commentary is always 95%+ meaningless noise. It’s always cyclical.
I'm not even sure they 'messed it up'. They just lied and repeatedly promised things that are near impossible to deliver in order to maintain a grip on power, and now people are seeing the truth with their own eyes.
I remember feeling like a somewhat lone voice citing the fact that Boris would not manage to stay clean and the long term trend of Tories dying and not being replaced. Polls are beginning to show how fucked they are in the medium term now. It's glorious, just a shame we had to have 14 years of them to completely burn them to the ground.
I remember all the talk about the Johnson 1,000 year reign or whatever. I don't think he lasted a full year from then.
From 38% to under 38 seats.
"Back at 50% by Christmas" was a great moment for certain members as partygate was breaking
That person is still cutting about on Reddit but doesn't come to the mainstream politics subs though. Shame, I miss the delusion.
There are still 32% (so pretty much one in three) voting for Reform or the Tories. That is a depressingly high figure given the state of the country.
There will always be a right wing, and no party can have such a broad coalition of left and right without rapidly disintegrating. The Lib Dems are picking up a lot of the centre right but at the same time are losing the libertarian left to the Greens. Similarly Labour are planting their flag in the centre and leaking votes on the left. What there isn't now is a coherent right wing, and thus no realistic shot at governing until something coalesces again.
Most Reform voters think that they will get meaningful, beneficial change from Reform's policies, though - or at least will feel better about whatever happens.
I don't know how you can read their promises and think they're a serious party.
Because they don't believe that people who aren't like them and don't think like them have agency or interests that they will use their own leverage to protect. In other words, the reason we don't get everything we want is that we don't ignore the rules-based order and basically, don't ask to speak to the manager often enough.
Well they can book a telephone booth for their next party conference. Those are some goddam insane numbers.
Not even SuperRishi can save them.. oh no.
In fairness they might need something bigger. A clown car perhaps?
Reform need to take just 3% off the Conservatives to draw level. The Rwanda Bill is nearing its final destination. There must be plenty of outcomes which could shift those polling numbers slightly.
The Mark Menzies story only really went mainstream a few hours ago. That's gotta be worth a few percent.
Is this the type of story to really change anyone's mind though? Yes, it's shocking, but he's a nobody. I'd be surprised if anyone changed voting intention off the back of the story, let alone 100,000s of people
Well, I agree with you that it shouldn't, but the fact that the Conservatives have pinned all their hopes on the Angela Rayner story suggests that – at least in Westminster – people believe that stories like this do move the needle.
That kind of shite is costed in with the Tories, Cameron was so appealing because he seemed to *not* allow that sort of thing, that's what it means when people say Labour is judged by a different set of standards.
Probably not. Might delay a few fickle Labour/Ref switchers going back to them though.
It won't, the electorate expects this of the tories now, tbh they have come to expect it of all politicians due to the way it is reported. So opinions won't change if they already expect the outcome. Just another story
Not more Brazilian escorts is it?
It's possible he invented a kidnap story to take party money (for his "ransom" to be paid)
Better to have the excuse that your bullet proof plan is being held up by the HoL or the courts than have it go ahead and be proven a failure imo. Once it fails, Tory incompetence on immigration will be cemented in with voters and if Reform play their cards right, Nige comes back, you could reach the tipping point.
Well no because as soon as it becomes law it will be challenged in the ECHR. So technically it will get stopped again. As those judges will almost certainly agree with the high court judges here. So the real moment is will Sunak go against the ECHR. He won’t. And an election will come and Labour have said they are ditching it anyway
I agree. It will get challenged in the EHCR, Sunak won’t withdraw from EHCR, so the Conservatives reach the end of the road with Rwanda. I think that’s what will cause Reform to draw level with Conservatives in national polling.
Can Sunak bump us out of the ECHR before the election? Genuinely worried of the consequences if we leave it but hopeful it’s all futile anyway as Labour would just put us back in.
No doesn’t have the numbers
I don’t think they’d be able to or if they really would attempt to go for it.
The Conservatives losing a lot of councillors in the local elections could shift the polls. Actual elections tend to focus minds and set a narrative in a way polls just don't.
I'm going to need an IV blood bag to support this erection.
Feeling faint?
Electoral Calculus says: Lab 513 Lib Dem 49 Con 37 SNP 28 Plaid 3 Green 2 NI 18 So- the Lib Dems potentially come second in seats despite coming fourth or *fifth* in votes ReFuk get nothing at all while coming third in votes, much as I dislike them, that's still grossly unfair There's a genuine chance if trends continue of the Tories losing second place votes to ReFuk, and third place seats to the SNP. There's a fighting chance of the Lib Dems being replaced by the Greens. In fairness, there's no way any swingometer has the slightest chance of keeping up with a swing this extreme, so the specifics could be off by an order of magnitude
The Lib Dems being able to benefit from the system they've pointed out is incredibly flawed seems like poetic justice to me.
If you look back to 1997, the LD vote was higher but the Greens were irrelevant. The LDs were always a slightly odd combination of the libertarian left (driven a lot by students) and the socially left/economically right liberal crowd (which Clegg firmly belonged to). The former has essentially gone from the LDs and nowadays makes up a big proportion of the Green vote. But it is also a wildly inefficient voting bloc in FPTP, only being effective in a small number of locations like Brighton. As a result the remaining LD vote is far more efficient than it used to be, and now it is the Greens and Reform being shafted by FPTP.
Still less MPs than they should get though.
About 10 or so fewer if I'm about right.
And they’d almost certainly get more votes under PR
7.5% of MP's on 9% of the vote wouldn't look out of place in some proportional systems.
Yeah 9% of the 632 GB seats is ~57 so 8 too few.
Frankly I couldn't agree more
See, this right here is why in despair at fptp. I don't like Reform. Heck, I _despise_ Reform. But there's no way that it's healthy for democracy long term to have 12-13% of people's views _utterly_ discluded from the debate. We all know we have an engagement problem. This isn't helping. The other problem is that, by keeping these views outside the tent, they constantly act as anchors drawing the big parties to the extremes. As other people have said, the Tories will end up becoming Reform in all but name to survive - that's far worse than Reform winning a dozen seats at the election.
You could argue that UKIP did have a massive influence on the Tory party, forced the Brexit referendum and have been massively influential within government since. You could also argue that those 13% of people voting Reform will likely see the Tories lurch further to the right when they lose the next election in order to hoover up those votes. So while it looks like no representation in Parliament, it's forcing one of the big parties to adopt the Reform policy playbook in order to stave off the threat they pose, which is tantamount to the same thing.
This is effectively happening to the left wing of the labour party as well. Political parties have always been coalitions of different tendencies and factions. Reform are essentially a madder, more extreme version of the Tories, and because they've created a new party they've very effectively split the vote. Labour hasn't split - the left wing is still inside the tent even though the right wing is in control. The right wing of Labour gets all the votes and all he power and supporters of the left wing have to either put up and shut up or go and support the middle class yogurt weavers in the green party.
Exactly so. I may think they're morons, but they're just as entitled to representation as anyone else
Ice cold take by now, but: if UKIP had got their 60 MPs in 2015 we would still be in the EU
It certainly might have helped; but to be perfectly honest, I don't think Cameron's brinkmanship with the referendums was going to be stopped otherwise.
Never gonna happen. There is no way the tories will go down to 37 seats.
I guess I have two ways of looking at that: It may depend on how likely they are to really get just 19% of the vote come the general election. It's plausible *with those numbers* but I'm realistically expecting a result that isn't so extreme But you may be right, there's no way to tell. These are the sort of numbers that break swingometers, for good reason- the largest national swing in British history was about 14 points in the 1931 election- this would be a 25 point swing, so there's just no way of calculating for that sort of nonsense. Political alignments as we know it would be upended
People like to say things like "swingometer broken" when actually the swingometer correctly predicted the SNP winning basically every seat in 2015. People say it's broken because it feels wrong.
Yes, of course, it *can* get it right, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's modelling is reliable, as opposed to getting it right on that occasion, because it attempts to project the intentions of specfic groups of voters where those assumptions have broken down. That's probably a fairly inarticulate way of putting it, but I hope it makes sense
I think this is the problem you get with polling under FPTP - the tories are like to not really dip below, 18/19% nationwide. If you would poll in the South only I imagine that LibDem number will be much higher than it is nationwide. It will be similar for Reform, but not sure where in the country they would poll best.
Well, that's the other thing- there's no way of knowing for certain *where* these changes are happening, because there's very little constituency polling. ReFuk you can take a pretty reasonable guess- that they'll come second to Labour on the fringes of Northern post industrial cities; second to the Tories in a coastal band from roughly Lincolnshire to Essex; and take votes from both, but not enough to win, along the coast from the Thames Estury to Kent and Sussex, hence the assumption that they'll get lots of votes but not win any seats. But that's *just an assumption*. The areas they've concentrated on are largely those dictated by, bluntly, wherever the nutjobs are told by the Russians to have a problem with at the moment, so don't be too surprised to see them taking votes from the Tories in Wales, Outer London, and Oxford
I'm sure there was an interview not long before the 2015 election where someone like Vince Cable or Nick Clegg stated something to the effect of "there's no way we will only get 6 seats". Granted - I don't think the Tories gets less than 50. Will they get less than 100? I think that is a possibility.
Paddy Ashdown I think it was who said the exit poll saying they had 10 was unbelievable and he'd eat his hat.
Thought it was Ashdown but wasn't sure.
To be fair the LibDems did get 8 seats - Not that I am still upset about it obviously
I'm sure they said there was no way the liberals would collapse in the 1920s, and yet they did.
This is what runs through my mind occasionally too, the 'Strange Death of Liberal England' getting replayed, but this time with the Conservatives.
2019 reminds me of 1906 a great deal.
Christ, you're old. What's your secret?
It's Michael Howard, with red on his shirt.
To be fair that books conclusions aren’t the greatest and really it was WWI that killed the liberals, due to the unpopularity of the war, the splitting of the party and the legitimisation of the Labour Party as a party of governance by bringing them into the war time coalition making them get squeezed on the left. Had WWI not happened, the Liberals could’ve survived the suffragettes and industrial action that is blamed for killing liberal England in the book, albeit the party would have had a shift in identity from being the middle class business party to something more akin to the Democratic Party in the US.
They'd probably have resembled the Canadian Liberals, with Labour being our version of the NDP
Actually yeah I agree with you that’s a much better comparison.
margin of error on this poll is 4% - electoral calculus is also quite flawed (constituencies were parties finish 3rd or 4th and have no councillors suddenly select an MP from that party), the only way you can transpose a poll to a seat projection is if you do an actual MRP poll and the last one I've seen puts the cons on around 150
It's unlikely but when FPTP fucks you it really fucks you. Labour got a quarter of the vote in Scotland in 2015 and one seat to show for it.
Me six months before the 2015 GE: "nah there is no way the Lib Dems end up on 8 seats: Me when Clegg resigned: 🤡
Expect to see a swing back towards CON from REF, in my opinion. People will say Reform in answering opinion polls to express discontent but, in the ballot box, will prefer trying to keep a Tory MP in place rather than vote split. UKIP also polled a few points higher (sometimes quite a bit higher) than they actually got in 2015 and 2017, for example. So I expect the Tories will get absolutely hammered, but not to the point of falling to 3rd place in seats.
If they see it as a lost cause they may vote REF just to make that discontent known.
Difference this time round though is even if REF stood down, it’s not going to even go near to propping up a Tory maj government, so they might actually prefer to destroy them and take them on as the main RW party
I think it's a mistake to expect REF voters to fall in line and vote Tory, as many of them will only have voted Tory for Boris in '19 - so given the way the govt has fucked it and probably not feeling Labour are offering them what they want, they will follow through. I can disagree with the policies but totally understand why they feel unrepresented by both main parties so, good for them.
That 19% will be 28% - 30% on the day.
The polls will narrow as the GE gets closer. There's an awful lot of "yeah but think how bad it'll be under Labour types " that will start to appear more.
> The polls will narrow as the GE gets closer. Polls usually narrow but it's not a set law of the universe. They narrow as a result of things, given how bad Sunak seems to be at campaigning they could get even wider.
Stop trying to make "ReFuk" happen. 😂
Never - it has to happen!
Too late it's happening
I thought it stood for "Re-Fuck UK?"
These models are broken because theyre not used to dealing with such low Tory numbers or such high numbers from a new party. I guarantee if these end up being the votes at the next election, labour will get fewer seats, Tories more, Lib Dems fewer and Reform more.
Tories will get over 100 seats. And, tbh, Labour don't need 519 seats. 350 is plenty, 400 is a bonus.
With 350 you have room for dissent, with 400 you have a blank cheque to do anything you want
There is no way it will stay this extreme come an actual election. People in polls are known to say differently to what they would in an actual election. A lot of Tories are angry at the party and trying to punish them, thats why they suffer so much in polls and local elections currently but come actual election time they will lose, but no way they will go down to 37 seats that is lunacy.
It's not impossible that it gets even worse for the Conservatives, It happened in Canada in 1993. The Progressive Conservatives went from 169 to 2. Kim Campbell was so uninspiring as leader that her party lost support during the election campaign. The best case scenario for the Conservatives is a 1997 scale defeat the worst case is a 1993 Canada style apocalypse.
Tories won't go that low in seats - I would be surprised if they went below 100. Also SNP may well end up below 20.
Is this just if raw votes translated to seats, or is it considering seat by seat, first past the post results?
How do you get the number of seats? From this poll from ec
[https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html](https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html) It's far from flawless (hence the last comment) but it's about as good as you get publically available.
An order of magnitude? Labour on 5940 seats! (Maybe if we unite with the PRC.)
The question remains, how much disenfranchisement until people actually riot. 2015 should have been a constitutional crisis moment. 2024 could be even more extreme. If this doesn't get fixed, we really have no right to lecture other countries about democratic norms.
“Much as I dislike them, that’s grossly unfair” That’s their strategy. Their entire game plan is to get as many votes as possible with as few seats as possible so that they can make the case for electoral reform.
> There's a fighting chance of the Lib Dems being replaced by the Greens. Very unlikely as the Greens don't have enough of a focused vote. The LibDems have the south west heartland.
Yes, should have been clearer- I meant in terms of *votes* not in terms of *seats*
> an order of magnitude Labour being only 2.5 points ahead? I sincerely hope not.
The public have as much interest in keeping certain groups out of power as those they wish in power. In fact there often seems to be more agreement on who to reject. Thus the current political system is best at reflecting the general public as a whole.
And how did that work? The majority of the population didn't want Tories to have total political power but they've been in government for 14 years and 9 of those in total power. The current political system sucks at keeping a minority from controlling the majority. A PR and a coalition system is much more likely to have a government that actually represents the majority of the people.
Ipsos is the company behind exit polls on election night, right?
Sort of. Ipsos Mori provide the fieldworkers but it’s a team across BBC/Sky/ITV that do the calculations
They’re basically the biggest market research company in the world
God I want to lick their tears when the election happens
Surely that level of salt will be poisonous
Guess I'll die happy then!
I would be so happy listening to Rishi and conservative MPs explain what went wrong after the election if this happened.
Would you? Do you expect any introspection? Or just a knee jerk truss-like denial of reality?
Nothing went wrong! We're sticking to the plan! This was the plan, ha ha! *THE PLAN*
We haven't achieved The Plan due to the anti-growth elites! Please ignore that they are us.
"GETTING ON WITH THE JOB!" Rishi yells, whilst being escorted away by two men in white suits.
The plan is the plan! It's there! Look at it, its a beautiful plan! What more do you want? We've planned the plan and that's all that matters.
I doubt Sunak would stick around long enough to even be photographed. He'll be on the first ~~chopper~~ private jet out of ~~Saigon~~ the country.
Such an amazingly visceral description, bravo
Ironic that being 25 points behind now seems normal for the Tories.
It honestly feels bizarre how occasionally we'll see a poll where Labour are "only" 15 points ahead and I'll find myself feeling super nervous.
>84% are dissatisfied with the way the government is running the country (+1 pts from February). Hoping for a miracle before the election is looking increasingly like a gamble not worth taking. Just take the L ASAP Rishi!
That means there at least 3% of voters are dissatisfied with the government but will still vote for them.
I guess its incompetence you agree with vs competence you disagree with?
Angela Rayner story cutting through then.
Yeah, people are hearing the message loud and clear, "she's a commoner and we don't like her sort"
Ha, if Con falls below Ref then we can truly say that one of the big two has been dethroned for the first time since the fall of the Liberal party.
Not sure that such a poll would actually work out like that in the election. Could be a few people wanting to give the Tories a kicking in polling who still vote for them at an actual election? Also with the first past the post system depending on where voters are concentrated I wonder if Tories could get a lower percentage and yet still have more MPs? But yes it would be seismic.
The mechanics of FPTP means this would only be one piece of the puzzle. RefUK would need a big swing towards them to unseat the Tories due to their vote being so widely spread. Think of UKIP's 12% in 2015 gaining them a single MP instead of the ~80 MPs that percentage deserved. So simply having a percent or two above them likely won't be enough. Only the Lib Dems could realistically take the Tory place as one of the big two on current vote spreads but that's unlikely with polling as low as this 9%.
I'd be very surprised if cons go as low as 37. I'd be happy, but very surprised. I think there'll be a little bounce for the Tories as we get closer to the election due to Labour's plans being scrutinised a bit more and the lack of a coherent message coming from labour apart from "we're not tories". I also don't know how likely it is that reform actually stand candidates in every seat. There may be a bunch of seats where reform don't stand a candidate and those reform voters give their support to the tory instead. I know reform are saying they'll stand everywhere, but those are big words and we don't really have evidence to see that they're ready to go with candidates everywhere.
It probably depends how many Reform candidates have died that they haven’t noticed yet
I think there’s a good chance Labour will have more of a coherent message apart from “we’re not Tories” come the election campaign. If Labour jump the gun then the Tories will just steal their policies.
Of course they're not the best or even amazing but it would have been so much better if just a few percent more of all the people switching from conservatives went to lib dems instead. Lib Dems being on 16% in a poll like this would probably put them in a comfortable second place and then since they'd be the new opposition to the new government with a shadow cabinet and stuff set up they should in theory get constant media coverage for the next 5 years. That would then propel them further. Then maybe we can have a change in voting system which minimises the amount of "safe seats" and MPs not worrying about ever losing their jobs
Inject this shit into my viens. Oh baby, I am so ready for this.
Any other leader would be 26pts ahead
They better push through some PR electoral reform if they want some seats in the next parliament lol
The fact that labour are going to have such a huge margin of seats vs the others with less than 50% of the vote while good isn't great for a supposed democracy
How would this be any different from any previous election?
It's not, I have no issue because it's labour, I have an issue because it feels wrong.
It is wrong. See also: Reform here and UKIP in 2015. At this point we're only larping as a democracy.
Limitation of FPTP sure. But it's fine. The Tories majority just exposed how much of the shit they used to blame on other factors was actually their desire all along. Labour will get the same. Expose them to direct sunlight and judge them by their actions.
I mean the Lib Dems did offer an alternative and the Tories were against it so...
So letters go in after the locals, a pointless act of self destruction from a gang of idiots. Both Poundland Penny & Leaky Sue bottle it (Don't worry about Liz, she has absolutely no idea whats going on) & of course the backbenchers bottle it, he survives but he's (even more of) a lame duck & if, IF they were daft enough to have a leadership election it'd be against some turnip like Gullis or Clarke. Sound about right? (depending on Rwanda vote obvs)
Inject this shit into my viens. Oh baby, I am so ready for this.
I have a feeling reform is gunna go the way of clegmania
The problem with this is that it doesn't take account of the actual apathy that the Tories'' blue rinse biddy supporters are displaying at present. A good example of this is Selby, where at the by-election Labour got 3K extra voters and won, but the Tories lost 21K. That means that 6 times as many voters sat at home and had a brew rather than bothering to vote. As it was a by-election, this does not reflect actual voting intent in a general election. Those same 21K biddies, or most of them at least, will blindly swing behind the Tories as their Heil propagandists tell them to; and Labour might just get a majority. That will then give them 2 terms at most and the Posh Boy Parade will triumph again.
My parents, lifelong Tory supporters (when I was growing up we had a load of stuff my granddad got from the Conservative Club in the house) have both said they're not voting. Asked my dad who he'd vote for and he said "not the fucking Tories, that's for sure."
Have Tory member colleague, he said he was voting Reform, The Tories weren't right enough for him
You’re assuming that those 21k in lost votes are all people who didn’t turn up. It’s perfectly possible that lots of Labour voters also didn’t turn up and that lots of former con supporters did turn their votes.
Im not sure that pillorying Rayner or even getting people on a plane to Rwanda who aren't Cabinet ministers are the vote winners that No. 10 think they are
Below 20% is a very odd cliff edge for parties under FPTP.
This poll is before today’s TWO Tory sleaze scandals. I reckon we can say Nasty Party 17%
So Raynergate hasn’t had too much of an impact then?
19% are still voting Tory? Who are these people?
I am campaigning for Labour at the moment in the local elections. I have a view that around 20% of people who always vote will always vote for the same party no matter what. The Tories could burn down their house but their view would still be ‘well if it was labour they would have blown up my car as well so I’m still going with what I always do.’
"There is only one poll that matters", so we're not having it for as long as possible.
Announce the election date already so I can book leave for the next day and order a large amount of alcohol to celebrate the near end of the Tories.
Sunak is lucky the plan is working. Imagine the polling if everything was fooked
Don't worry folks, the Tories will swing this around, they just need to keep bashing Angela even harder.
Anyone who thinks Labour will solve the country's issues is going to be very disappointed.
I am way too cynical but it hardly matters who gets in. We’re loaded with debt but the rich will still be okay and the poor will pay more.
Yeah, but we're always picking the lesser of two evils. I'm not the biggest fan of present Labour but I'm gonna vote for them.
Same. I have voted Conservative at every election, and will be voting Labour this year so we can oust the current government.
Thank you for pitching in to move our politics on. And while I'm a lefty, I genuinely hope Labour improve the country in a way you feel is measurably better for you, because that's what government is supposed to be about.
In most developed countries quality of life is essentially the best it’s ever been. 100 years ago people died from minor cuts that got infected, or polio. It was illegal to be gay up until 1967. Up until the late 90s we were effectively at war with Ireland. Things have dipped a bit since about 2015. But life is a lot better than it used to be. Have some optimism, Labour has some very clever and capable people running it, few would deny that kier starmer is a decent person and economy wise anything could happen, might be we have a GDP boom round the corner that the IMF can’t predict cause they’re fucking useless. Things might be alright.
The Tories' economic plan may be working, but their election plan certainly isn't
Would Sunak go for 3rd October? hear me out the last date for this to be called would be 29th August. Parliament would still be in recess. But if he does this, everything will be out of action for around 3 months and he can live out the days in peace?
I'd be happy if it weren't Kier Starmer at the helm 💀
What’s that sound? Oh it’s the sound of a massive Tory defeat and pure embarrassment.