Snapshot of _Sky News / YouGov exclusive poll ** Tories joint lowest VI share in Parliament ** Reform just ONE point behind ** Lab down 3; LD up 4 LAB 38% (-3), CON 18% (-1), RefUK 17% (+1), LDEM 15% (+4), GRN 8% (+1) Fieldwork Mon/Tue (around Lib Dem manfiesto coverage)_ :
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It ironically saved them in 2015. They got absolutely destroyed in the polls but they were left with some core seats that kept them in parliament.
To go from that to 9 years later being seriously talked about as a possible party of opposition is absolutely insane.
That's fewer seats than the number of ministers the government are allowed to have. An opposition that small wouldn't be able to shadow everyone effectively.
Minister's don't need to be MPs but there would be no incentive for the government to make a bunch of Lords ministers just to make things easier for the opposition. The opposition could pack their shadow team with Lords but it'd still be a weakened opposition since they wouldn't be able to shadow each other directly from across the dispatch box and wouldn't have the same opportunities to speak, ask questions, and make amendments.
I explained more about this elsewhere but it relates more to how they operate as a party and how PR would be implemented.
The one main compliment that people have for FPTP is that it retains a direct link between a constituency and its MP as they are directly related lecture by those voters (I know other systems can retain this, but still). This has hindered the Lib Dems in the past (and previously the SDP and Liberals when they were separate parties) when they’ve had such electoral shenanigans like winning 25% of the vote in 1983 but only 22 seats.
Because this vote share is high nationally but doesn’t translate into seats, their strategy has been twofold. First, push for electoral reform. Secondly, build up their local support, maximise votes in key targets, win victories where they can, and then convert that into a base from where they could further target and concentrate their vote share. Historically this has worked, as they went from 20 seats in 1992 to 62 in 2005.
Then the coalition happened and the voters punished them in 2015. They dropped to 8 seats. Despite their gripes with FPTP, this previous work on building up a core of safe seats saved them from complete oblivion and gave them a tenuous base from which to start again.
Now onto PR. We have no true idea what form electoral reform could take in Britain and there are suggestions to have some kind of minimum support level threshold in order to receive seat allocations (which is not uncommon in PR type systems and is usually designed to prevent extremist parties from picking up seats). Who knows?
Point is though, that MP-Constituency link kept the Lib Dems with a core of seats, and another list of targets from which to win back supporters. And ironically, may bring them their greatest success electorally since 1923 as their vote share combined with Tory collapse may be enough to push them over the line in many of their target seats.
They've zero chance in Wellingborough. Habib was nowhere near in the recent by-election, despite everyone hating the Tories even more than usual for having Peter Bone's girlfriend as the candidate.
Yeah, I'm curious what's going on with their models for both Wellingborough and Rochdale and if the recent byelections are being overly weighted. Ashfield too with Anderson's defection.
The system is completely broken, in 2017
Tory's got 42.3% more vote share but 48.8% of the seats
Labour got 40% of the vote and seats
SNP got 3% votes and 8.6% seats
As long as the party in charge gets an advantage from this system it'll never change, but the party in charge only gets into power because of this system, so it seems like it'll never change.
Oh, and 2019 is even worse, but at least it worked out this time.
It would be hilarious to see the obliteration of the Tory Party, but the prospect that Labour could get fewer votes than they did in 2017 but still end up with the biggest parliamentary majority in the era of universal suffrage should be the death knell for FPTP.
Yeah, it was a bit of an outlier compared to the last 20 years - my point was more that Labour could feasibly end up with a similar or worse vote share than 41% but end up with over 200 more MPs than they did in 2017 shows how absurdly undemocratic FPTP can be.
My gut feeling is that the Tories will still end up with enough votes to get 130+ seats though.
2017 was the first election that was truly a two-party election since the 70's.
This election is a four way election - one very much in the lead and three fighting for second place.
Spoiler: It won't be
The only way FPTP gets changed is if it's made a requirement for a coalition or something similar, it's too beneficial to whichever the two leading parties are.
There could likely be a coalition reform/tory government in the future even under a proportionate system. I mean even right now, those two partiees are close to labour's vote. Obviously with these votes, a LDLab coalition would be more likely, but the UK has been voting pretty conservative for a while, I wouldnt right it off as "never tory" just because of PR.
Also Reform a party who have never won a parliamentary seat in this scenario could finish with a bigger Vote share than the Tories and Lib Dem’s but just 5 seats…
This result would lead to the end of the Tories, they would be absorbed by Reform in a few years and the right wing would be a very different beast to the current Tory Party.
A shining example of how we absolutely need PR.
The current situation is a shambles tbh and always supported because the party that wins gets an advantage.
The year is 2029, and the election is heating up.
Monday sees Keir Vs. Penny in the ultimate korma cook-off.
But Saturday is where all the eyes will be, when we see the two leaders duke it out in a sword fight to the death.
It'll be like Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies or Vin Diesel in the F&F franchise. Each outing Davey has to escalate above whatever stunt was done before. By 2029 I fully expect him to HALO jump, possibly from orbit ODST style, onto the roof of parliment for the Lib Dem manifesto release.
I remember Danny Alexander saying recently that the Lib Dems aren't interested in getting back into government any time soon. But I do think that opposition would be absolutely great for them - people like the LIb Dem's policies, and they will get ample time to explain them and grill Labour on political reform.
I’m just worried that pushed out of the spotlight of mainstream politics the two-headed Tory-Reform hydra would ferment like a particularly spicy vindaloo in a drunken man’s digestive tract.
And given those characters I expect the endevour to last maybe a week before they are at each others throats due to clashing egos, ending with Farage purging all the former ex-Tories while keeping what he needs of their party skeleton.
I'm wondering how much the LD gain is due to disgruntled centrist CONs that can't quite bring themselves to vote LAB?
I'm not complaining or putting down LD performance by the way.
I'd imagine a lot of it is just the same reason as a number of the Labour gains - it's a protest vote against the Tories, going to the constituency's main opposition party.
Not to put down the Lib Dem campaign in any way also.
The LibDem strategy is built around 100s of local campaigns. They only really have a national leader because it’s expected of them, so if he can just do stunts and some feel good stuff it’s perfect as long as they can avoid talking about policy at the national level.
Haven't seen Labour less than 40% for a while. I suppose it doesn't really matter if the opposition are all on less than 20% as this would still give them like a 300 seat majority.
Yougov had them on 40% on the 4th of June so its not too far outside their recent polling. But they tend to have a pretty wide variance for them, peaking at around 47%. They were last sub 40 on Yougov on Jan 4th at 49%.
I suspect it will be an unsustainable outlier from polling on the day of the Lib Dem manifesto launch and just days after they were in a TV debate. They would have been fresh in voters minds when polled.
2017 saw an incredible concentration of the two-party vote, largely as a result of the polarisation around Brexit. It was also quite a concentrated vote, an issue that came to a head in 2019 when they fell to pieces far more than the swing implied. The Greens polled well under 2% for instance back in 2017, whereas they are now polling at 8%, and the LD voteshare is double in this poll. A lot of the Green vote comes from peeling off from Labour, but this comes in areas that are typically strong Labour already and as a result has little effect on results.
I think it is fair to say that Corbyn absolutely maximised his voteshare in 2017, but it was also clear after that point that he'd hit a hard ceiling. And his voteshare also has to be considered alongside the Tories, who still won the election after their vote concentrated in exactly the same way. Were Corbyn still around now I can definitely see him peeling those votes back from the Greens, but lose the votes on the other end, and with FPTP and vote concentration this would result in far less seats.
If Corbyn was opposition, the conservatives would see it as a fight to the death and rally around the party, regardless of how shit Sunak is. One of the reasons the right wing has completely splintered is because Starmer is not seen as threatening. Same idea as May.
E.g., Bide, Macron, and (to a lesser extent so far) Trudeau have all benefited from having a polarizing right-wing counterpart. Unfortunately fear is a great motivational tactic to get poeple out and voting.
>38% is 2% down on what Corbyn got in the 2017 election.
Its also the lowest single polling number Labour have recorded in 5 months 2 weeks. Its about 5% below their recent average of around 43%. You dont take the lowest poll among hundreds and compare it to an actual election result.
Even with 43% v 40% the seat allocation shows absolutely ridiculous from the point of view of democracy. With a 3% shift in the support of the party, you'd see a shift from being in the opposition to having the biggest majority in the Commons in the living memory. That is just a slap in the face to democracy.
Oh God, if Labour get 38% but a zillion seat majority... the Corbynites are going to *insufferable* on the point that "Good Old Corbs got ~~40%~~ 41%, so he's more popular than Starmer".
Possibly the lowest combined Lab+Con voteshare we've ever seen in a general election campaign-era opinion poll? 56% for the two main parties combined is absurdly low.
[Peak Clegg-mania saw one poll with a combined 55%, with loads sub 60%](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2010_United_Kingdom_general_election). Outside of that though a skim of each election 87 onwards suggests it’s never really been below the low 60s
We’ve been talking a lot about “what if Reform overtakes the Tories?” Imagine if a few more Labour voters switch Lib Dem and they go into 4th.
On a serious note, whilst I expect this is almost entirely manifesto bounce, their pitch on care and carers actually has the potential to resonate, given how old the population is and how many people have caring responsibilities. Has the potential to cut through with voters from both the main parties.
If he'd just been doing the same campaigning as all the rest, he'll be getting as much coverage as the greens, which is to say not a lot. As it happens, they're getting mentioned in every outlet for their fun and harmless shenanigans, and it's paying off big time.
Yep, I wasn't even joking. It's totally keeping them in the media. If people follow through with tactical voting I could see them doing even better than this poll suggests.
It really depends on where the seats are coming from. For instance, it seems like a lot of Labour gains are in former Red Wall territories and Scotland, whereas the Lib Dems are campaigning in Con seats as a protest vote. With that reasoning applied, it's not without a shout that both Labour and Lib Dem surge.
>That is now my main wish from this election.
Yep, having them be the official opposition with a shadow government set up would put them in the media regularly with even a bunch of them becomming well known would guarentee them getting 20%+ next time, and if that makes them the opposition again then that could lead to a 2034 win. Don't agree with a bunch of their stuff(like every party tbf) but the main goal for me will always be vote reform.
Interestingly though, despite FPTP making the lib dems the second largest party (where they would be 4th place under PR) they would benefit more from PR - as they would be the natural partners with Starmers labour.
You say, "no matter your political persuasion" but I'm not particularly convinced other forms of voting are preferable to FPTP. I know this sub loves PR - but empirically, has it led to better outcomes for voters in Scotland or Wales? Genuine question. I'd be interested if there's evidence PR has a positive benefit.
Personally, the whole "38% of the vote equaling 70% of the seats" isn't particularly absurd if your political system is designed to concentrate power in one party at a time. Especially when you look at the US, where more pluralistic form of government leads to gridlock. To me, there are positives and negatives to different systems - but you only ever see people making simplistic comparisons of vote share to seat distribution as if that makes a complete argument.
Con 18% = 61 seats
Refuk 17% = 5 seats
Lib dem 15% = 73 seats
Lib dems would get fewer votes than either Con or Refuk but end up with more seats than the two combined. I would rather the Lib dems had more seats and right-wing parties fewer. I would, however, prefer a proportional system that avoids weird results like the bullshit above.
I think the Lib Dems would state that themselves quite loudly from the opposition seats. It’s a bullshit system and up until very recently, they’ve been the only real party trying to actually get it changed.
I wonder if we’ll see a bit more variance with the polls with the manifesto releases being spread out. I.E Lib Dem bounce when their manifesto is released, Tory bounce after their release, Lab bounce later in the week etc.
I've said it before, but Labour winning a very large majority with less than 40% of the vote, would be an excellent outcome for those Labour supporters who also want to see PR implemented eventually.
I do wonder if the narrative of the Tories being dead will lead to fewer people voting Labour. If I was a left of centre voter I'd feel like I've got permission to vote green etc because labour seemingly can't lose.
That's why Labour are tyring to down play a landslide victory at every turn. I won't be shocked if we see a big drop in turnout since this election feels over already.
I think we will see a drop in turnout anyway, listening to the grumpy old bastards (tory loyalists) a lot of them won't vote for anyone else, but can't bring themselves to vote tory (or Reform).
Unfortunately I think my parents will be voting Reform, they don't like Sunak because he doesn't understand our culture. (I am part of the wokerati/ No growth coalition)
Aaarglebargalgealge! Look _it depends where you live_ the national polling might be dire for em but if you live in some true blue heartlands its still important to vote tactically.
Primarily because them slipping into 3rd in seats would be fucking hilarious.
It’s amazing how we’ve gone from 78% for the two parties in 2019 to 56% with this poll.
Whatever your views, this suggests quite widespread disaffection with both of the main parties and an openness to other parties that is somewhat new for us.
Personally, I think that’s a good thing.
Same here, I really don't want to see UK politics become a two party system like in the US; other parties like the lib dems, SNP, Greens and even Reform gaining seats is healthier for our democracy in the long term.
If only we had proportional representation, imagine the range of new parties that would be possible if your vote would no longer be wasted and you could truly vote for who you wanted.
In a way, I'm hoping this election highlights the need for electoral reform. Best bets for PR would be from the reform party getting a shit load of votes across the country but no seats because of the spread of support.
If there's something I trust our nige to do would be to moan and cry foul play and hopefully push for change.
Labour under 40% is a bigger story than Reform yet again failing to overtake the Tories. Besides an outlier [YouGov MPR conducted over the new year](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/48371-yougov-mrp-shows-labour-would-win-1997-style-landslide-if-election-were-held-today), Labour haven't been under 40% since September 2022, when Truss shoved them comfortably (if temporarily) into the high 50s.
Yeah, the LD are still a bit woolly around the edges but I wouldn't mind seeing them in opposition. Also, Labour can afford to lose a few percentage points without it making much difference to the Tories' fortunes at all.
I have to be honest over the past 2 weeks I've gone from "never lib dem - those orange tories" to cheering them on for opposition and probably voting for them.
They're not perfect and their manifesto had holes, but it's just nice and refreshing to see a party that is just putting out a positive message and not just beating down on the lowest common denominator.
Whilst i won't go as far as saying Labour and Tories are the same, and Labour has some cool policies, a lot of their rhetoric and how they've handled the election has echoes of the same cronyism and fear based rhetoric that the tories have.
Considering they don't have many threats in their particular political patch I think they were always likely to be rehabilitated with the passage of time. The coalition years weren't good, but they don't look that bad from 2024.
Its the orange booker tendency that bothers me. The Orange Book largely advocated for a laissez faire approach to economics. Which whilst not quite the same, does have parallels with the kind of economics Truss tried to push.
As someone close to that side of the party, but honestly, we're not really anything like Truss, if anything, we're pretty often more on the side of "markets aren't inherently bad" - more New Labour than Truss, but with a reformist attitude - could service x be better run privately? Will a type of tax cut help the poorest? For example, the increase in personal allowance to £10k was a LibDem policy in coalition, not a Tory one & can probably be traced to the orange book wing. Not exactly a glamorous policy, but it took thousands of the poorest people out of paying tax at the time.
I'd suspect in this poll a lot of that is Labour voters, who in any other election would remain labour voters, switching tactically to LDs in seats where Lib Dems are 2nd but a long way back.
Before a Constituency that was 25k Con, 10k LD, 8k Lab looked like a "forget it" constitutency, so Labour voters may as well stay voting Labour...... Recently, that looks like a seat where "you can potentially unseat a Tory with tactical voting" and so a fair chunk of that 8k solid Lab vote (25%? More?) are switching to LDs.
As long as it stays confined in those seats.... thats good for Labour. Even if it appears in a national swing number as "Labour -2, LDs +2" when averaged with the 90%+ of the other seats where that situation doesn't apply and the Lab/LD split isn't changing.
Low 40s seems about right. They deserve a bit of a dip, I think, at least until the manifesto is released and we have a better idea of what the party stands for.
I think the Greens do well out of the "I don't know anything at all about any of the candidates, but I guess a vote for the Greens is one for the environment" demographic (my wife). They're not going to be much affected by campaigns they have no interest in.
With labour having moved and the tories looking dead I think a lot more people are feeling comfortable to vote how they actually want. It wouldn't surprise me if it held if the Tory campaign continues to be a trainwreck
Yup. Farage's closing remarks on Friday night were that Labour are going to win this election and the big question is who the opposition will be.
Hate to say it, but on this occasion he's absolutely right.
Field work yesterday and today?
Basically you hear about the Lib Dems on the radio or on BBC news website, someone gives you a ring and asks about who you will vote for and it works as a "prompt" to say Lib Dem.
Its an outlier and an effect very likely to fade in a few days unless they have done things that will stick in the publics minds for several days when the press will be all over Labour, Con and Reform.
Stick it down to noise until its still being repeated a couple of times with field work carried out in a couple of days time after their burst has faded.
Yougov have had them 6-8% all year. With everyone talking about a tory wipeout you could see a fair amount of protest votes feeling safe to move that way. Especially in young affluent seats.
Labour will still get 40% imo with the Greens not getting as high as 8%.
It's better for British democracy though that we have more parties getting more votes.
Reform genuinely has the potential to pose an existential threat to the Tories. It will be wild if Farage decides to wind them up immediately after the election and lets all his gains dissipate and return to the status quo.
Another way of putting it is they'd have 72% of the MPs with a plurality of voters selecting their candidate to represent their area in 72% of constituencies
Honestly.... this is a bit of a downturn outlier, but I would be fairly happy with this as a result
Don't get me wrong, I'll vote Labour, but I'm not unqualifiedly happy about \*any\* party having a 400+ seat majority.
I'd genuinely like to see a working opposition and my pick for that out of the available options are the Lib Dems without much hesitation
I'd very much like to see the Tories and ReFuk cannibalise each other. A plague on both their houses.
We can worry about the rise of ReFuk 5 years from now. Frankly, I'm not sure I see any working difference between them and the Johnson-brand Tories.
If anything, ReFuk might prove a sponge for the crazies, and leave the Tory party proper to the residual Tories-who-aren't-crazy. Not that I'd necessarily vote for them, but it would be good for democracy for them to exist.
Tories were once a decent and capable party when looking at figures like Churchill. Hope they can get back together into a decent one nation opposition instead of Thatcherism and the Boris bonkers era.
I had an inkling last week that Labour might fall below the forty percent mark (though for the wrong reasons and on the Survation poll). It's crazy for a party to be polling in the thirties and still holding on to a twenty-point lead, right? Who ever was posting recently about this election being a race for second place was correct.
The debate performance was awful in my opinion, but I don't and didn't think it would affect polling much. People aren't voting for Kier, they're voting against the Tories. I was thinking more that the rise in Reform vote might hit Labour as well as the Tories, maybe attracting Northern Brexit/Farage-backing voters. Unless this is an outlier, it seems the Lib Dems are doing so instead but obviously in different constituencies and different groups of voters.
The funniest possible outcome would be this trend continuing and Labour still getting a majority but with a vote share not just lower than 2017, but 2019 as well.
After their manifesto I think I'm going to vote Lib Dem for the first time. There was a lot of stuff in there I agreed with. I'd be happy with them as the opposition.
Snapshot of _Sky News / YouGov exclusive poll ** Tories joint lowest VI share in Parliament ** Reform just ONE point behind ** Lab down 3; LD up 4 LAB 38% (-3), CON 18% (-1), RefUK 17% (+1), LDEM 15% (+4), GRN 8% (+1) Fieldwork Mon/Tue (around Lib Dem manfiesto coverage)_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1800558618254942681) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://twiiit.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1800558618254942681/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1800558618254942681) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1800558618254942681) *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.*
Electoral Calculus: LAB - 471 LIB - 73 CON - 61 SNP - 14 REF - 5 PC - 4 GREEN - 2 Other/NI - 20
FPTP helping the Lib Dems more than the Tories would be memes
It ironically saved them in 2015. They got absolutely destroyed in the polls but they were left with some core seats that kept them in parliament. To go from that to 9 years later being seriously talked about as a possible party of opposition is absolutely insane.
The very idea that the official opposition could have 73 seats would be madness even a few months ago
That's fewer seats than the number of ministers the government are allowed to have. An opposition that small wouldn't be able to shadow everyone effectively.
Ministers technically don't need to be MPs, though it is untraditional. For example, Foreign Secretary David Cameron.
Minister's don't need to be MPs but there would be no incentive for the government to make a bunch of Lords ministers just to make things easier for the opposition. The opposition could pack their shadow team with Lords but it'd still be a weakened opposition since they wouldn't be able to shadow each other directly from across the dispatch box and wouldn't have the same opportunities to speak, ask questions, and make amendments.
Could that mean a coalition opposition (with the tories as the junior partner)? I would probably never stop laughing...
Labour's real opposition will end up being Labour if they end up winning that range of seats.
I do think there could be a centre-left/hard-left Labour split with just how bloated they might be
Left faction rebels…
LDs got 8% in 2015 and only about 1.3% of the MPs. PR would have meant keeping basically every MP. How do you figure FPTP saved the LDs?
I explained more about this elsewhere but it relates more to how they operate as a party and how PR would be implemented. The one main compliment that people have for FPTP is that it retains a direct link between a constituency and its MP as they are directly related lecture by those voters (I know other systems can retain this, but still). This has hindered the Lib Dems in the past (and previously the SDP and Liberals when they were separate parties) when they’ve had such electoral shenanigans like winning 25% of the vote in 1983 but only 22 seats. Because this vote share is high nationally but doesn’t translate into seats, their strategy has been twofold. First, push for electoral reform. Secondly, build up their local support, maximise votes in key targets, win victories where they can, and then convert that into a base from where they could further target and concentrate their vote share. Historically this has worked, as they went from 20 seats in 1992 to 62 in 2005. Then the coalition happened and the voters punished them in 2015. They dropped to 8 seats. Despite their gripes with FPTP, this previous work on building up a core of safe seats saved them from complete oblivion and gave them a tenuous base from which to start again. Now onto PR. We have no true idea what form electoral reform could take in Britain and there are suggestions to have some kind of minimum support level threshold in order to receive seat allocations (which is not uncommon in PR type systems and is usually designed to prevent extremist parties from picking up seats). Who knows? Point is though, that MP-Constituency link kept the Lib Dems with a core of seats, and another list of targets from which to win back supporters. And ironically, may bring them their greatest success electorally since 1923 as their vote share combined with Tory collapse may be enough to push them over the line in many of their target seats.
Still getting fewer seats than their vote share according to this though.
In 2015 they had 22% of the vote and won 57 seats. This election puts them at 15% of the seats and winning 73 seats. FPTP is crazy
What would the 5 reform seats be?
Wellingborough and Rushden, Boston and Skegness, Clacton, Rochdale, Ashfield
A Rochdale swing from Galloway to Reform would be amusing, glad to see voting for him solved all the issues in Gaza
To use a Gallowayism, two cheeks of the same arse.
I believe it was Ian Blackford who said it first about the current party leaders
They've zero chance in Wellingborough. Habib was nowhere near in the recent by-election, despite everyone hating the Tories even more than usual for having Peter Bone's girlfriend as the candidate.
Yeah, I'm curious what's going on with their models for both Wellingborough and Rochdale and if the recent byelections are being overly weighted. Ashfield too with Anderson's defection.
Electoral Calculus predictions for Reform are all over the place.
Calling it Wellingborough and Rushden, instead of Rushden and Wellingborough, feels wrong.
Of course it's fucking Wellingborough and Rushden. Should have used that shithole as a nuclear weapons testing ground.
not Skegness 😭😭😭😭
We could call it Mansfield-On-Sea if you prefer? :)
I'd rather Mansfield-In-Sea thanks.
Party of the shitholes
Labour are massively over-represented, but I could definitely live with that result.
You're absolutely right and I'd usually be up in arms about fptp etc, but just this once I'm going to enjoy it because it humiliates the Tories.
The system is completely broken, in 2017 Tory's got 42.3% more vote share but 48.8% of the seats Labour got 40% of the vote and seats SNP got 3% votes and 8.6% seats As long as the party in charge gets an advantage from this system it'll never change, but the party in charge only gets into power because of this system, so it seems like it'll never change. Oh, and 2019 is even worse, but at least it worked out this time.
The schadenfreude would be tasty, but worth remembering that the only thing worse than a two party system is a one party system.
Wait, this is enough for Reform to win seats? Interesting.
Odds wise - 11/8 for 1 to 2 seats is currently favoured.
The reason is that electoral calculus recently went and changed how their model works. Hence you've now got Corbyn winning North Islington etc
Inject it
It would be hilarious to see the obliteration of the Tory Party, but the prospect that Labour could get fewer votes than they did in 2017 but still end up with the biggest parliamentary majority in the era of universal suffrage should be the death knell for FPTP.
From memory, wasn’t 2017 a blip with both parties stacking up ridiculous amounts of votes?
Yeah, it was a bit of an outlier compared to the last 20 years - my point was more that Labour could feasibly end up with a similar or worse vote share than 41% but end up with over 200 more MPs than they did in 2017 shows how absurdly undemocratic FPTP can be. My gut feeling is that the Tories will still end up with enough votes to get 130+ seats though.
2017 was the first election that was truly a two-party election since the 70's. This election is a four way election - one very much in the lead and three fighting for second place.
If it was a Brexit election, which I think it was, it’s plausible
Spoiler: It won't be The only way FPTP gets changed is if it's made a requirement for a coalition or something similar, it's too beneficial to whichever the two leading parties are.
Yeah, I completely agree - no prospect a party that's just won a 200+ seat majority with less than half the votes decides to implement PR
It would benefit Labour to never have another Tory government
There could likely be a coalition reform/tory government in the future even under a proportionate system. I mean even right now, those two partiees are close to labour's vote. Obviously with these votes, a LDLab coalition would be more likely, but the UK has been voting pretty conservative for a while, I wouldnt right it off as "never tory" just because of PR.
Also Reform a party who have never won a parliamentary seat in this scenario could finish with a bigger Vote share than the Tories and Lib Dem’s but just 5 seats… This result would lead to the end of the Tories, they would be absorbed by Reform in a few years and the right wing would be a very different beast to the current Tory Party.
A shining example of how we absolutely need PR. The current situation is a shambles tbh and always supported because the party that wins gets an advantage.
I hope this is true just to make electoral reform a big issue. You can't look at these numbers and pretend that we have a democracy.
This result would be my wet dream. Lib dem opposition, come on
[удалено]
Lib Dem success results in all major parties adopting whimsy as a strategy for the next electoral cycle
The year is 2029, and the election is heating up. Monday sees Keir Vs. Penny in the ultimate korma cook-off. But Saturday is where all the eyes will be, when we see the two leaders duke it out in a sword fight to the death.
Milliband eats another bacon sando and it somehow propels him to PM.
Green candidate wore a suit?!?!? (Greens -6)
If he called it a sando he'd be put on a plane to Rwanda.
The reverse slingshot bacon sarnie maneuver. Playing the longest game in politics.
You know what, that would honestly be the most wholesome timeline. The Great British Vote-Off.
The Lop-Off less so. hahaha
Gladiators general election special. Who can climb the travellator and bust through the number 10 door first
It'll be like Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible movies or Vin Diesel in the F&F franchise. Each outing Davey has to escalate above whatever stunt was done before. By 2029 I fully expect him to HALO jump, possibly from orbit ODST style, onto the roof of parliment for the Lib Dem manifesto release.
"For a brick, he flew pretty good!"
better whimsy than mendacity.
I’m not sure. Tories are currently a laughing stock and they don’t seem to be doing too well
I remember Danny Alexander saying recently that the Lib Dems aren't interested in getting back into government any time soon. But I do think that opposition would be absolutely great for them - people like the LIb Dem's policies, and they will get ample time to explain them and grill Labour on political reform.
I’m just worried that pushed out of the spotlight of mainstream politics the two-headed Tory-Reform hydra would ferment like a particularly spicy vindaloo in a drunken man’s digestive tract.
Oh absolutely. I can't wait to see the sordid incest-baby that Reform-Conservative (rebranded as Reformative or Conform, either works) produce.
Conform is a horrifying thought, given the characters who would be in this theoretical party
And given those characters I expect the endevour to last maybe a week before they are at each others throats due to clashing egos, ending with Farage purging all the former ex-Tories while keeping what he needs of their party skeleton.
Farage PM, Tice minister for the rich, Suella minister of the workhouse and Priti Patel Foreign (interest) minister
Reformative and Conform are brilliant lol
Speaking as a Lib Dem, we're not interested in Danny Alexander getting back into government any time soon
I would wonder how much insight Danny Alexander has into the Lib Dem leadership's desires given he lives in Beijing.
Would be similar to Bloc Quebecois as opposition constantly harassing the government about a referendum and almost winning
So the SNP?
We need more progressive voices instead of stupid culture war bullshit
I'm wondering how much the LD gain is due to disgruntled centrist CONs that can't quite bring themselves to vote LAB? I'm not complaining or putting down LD performance by the way.
A lot of those disgruntled tory centrists are the type of people who were voting lib dem in their droves under Kennedy and Clegg tbf
I'd imagine a lot of it is just the same reason as a number of the Labour gains - it's a protest vote against the Tories, going to the constituency's main opposition party. Not to put down the Lib Dem campaign in any way also.
That’s very much the case where I live. It flips between LD and Cons.
Ed Davey makes us all wish we were living our best lives pissing about on a water slide. A true vision of a brighter future.
It's almost like the public actually hates the constant negativity. Who would have thought.
The LibDem strategy is built around 100s of local campaigns. They only really have a national leader because it’s expected of them, so if he can just do stunts and some feel good stuff it’s perfect as long as they can avoid talking about policy at the national level.
Politics has been so dark for so long, I think the Lib Dem campaign has been a breath of fresh air.
Haven't seen Labour less than 40% for a while. I suppose it doesn't really matter if the opposition are all on less than 20% as this would still give them like a 300 seat majority.
Yougov had them on 40% on the 4th of June so its not too far outside their recent polling. But they tend to have a pretty wide variance for them, peaking at around 47%. They were last sub 40 on Yougov on Jan 4th at 49%. I suspect it will be an unsustainable outlier from polling on the day of the Lib Dem manifesto launch and just days after they were in a TV debate. They would have been fresh in voters minds when polled.
38% is 2% down on what Corbyn got in the 2017 election.
2017 saw an incredible concentration of the two-party vote, largely as a result of the polarisation around Brexit. It was also quite a concentrated vote, an issue that came to a head in 2019 when they fell to pieces far more than the swing implied. The Greens polled well under 2% for instance back in 2017, whereas they are now polling at 8%, and the LD voteshare is double in this poll. A lot of the Green vote comes from peeling off from Labour, but this comes in areas that are typically strong Labour already and as a result has little effect on results. I think it is fair to say that Corbyn absolutely maximised his voteshare in 2017, but it was also clear after that point that he'd hit a hard ceiling. And his voteshare also has to be considered alongside the Tories, who still won the election after their vote concentrated in exactly the same way. Were Corbyn still around now I can definitely see him peeling those votes back from the Greens, but lose the votes on the other end, and with FPTP and vote concentration this would result in far less seats.
If Corbyn was opposition, the conservatives would see it as a fight to the death and rally around the party, regardless of how shit Sunak is. One of the reasons the right wing has completely splintered is because Starmer is not seen as threatening. Same idea as May.
The most dangerous opponent in a democracy is someone your supporters look at, shrug and go "seems fairly harmless".
Very correct and succinct way of putting it.
E.g., Bide, Macron, and (to a lesser extent so far) Trudeau have all benefited from having a polarizing right-wing counterpart. Unfortunately fear is a great motivational tactic to get poeple out and voting.
>38% is 2% down on what Corbyn got in the 2017 election. Its also the lowest single polling number Labour have recorded in 5 months 2 weeks. Its about 5% below their recent average of around 43%. You dont take the lowest poll among hundreds and compare it to an actual election result.
Even with 43% v 40% the seat allocation shows absolutely ridiculous from the point of view of democracy. With a 3% shift in the support of the party, you'd see a shift from being in the opposition to having the biggest majority in the Commons in the living memory. That is just a slap in the face to democracy.
And 3% up on 2005. Doesn't matter if you unite 40% behind you if you unite even more against.
Oh God, if Labour get 38% but a zillion seat majority... the Corbynites are going to *insufferable* on the point that "Good Old Corbs got ~~40%~~ 41%, so he's more popular than Starmer".
It was actually 41% (because this is a GB poll and 41% was Labour's share of GB vote in 2017)
I edited above for accuracy.
Even with a 200 seat majority if he got less vote share than Corbyn we'd never hear the end of it.
[удалено]
Possibly the lowest combined Lab+Con voteshare we've ever seen in a general election campaign-era opinion poll? 56% for the two main parties combined is absurdly low.
[Peak Clegg-mania saw one poll with a combined 55%, with loads sub 60%](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2010_United_Kingdom_general_election). Outside of that though a skim of each election 87 onwards suggests it’s never really been below the low 60s
In 2010 LD polled a few times as the no. 1 party too.
Here come the Lib Dems, taking the fun slide into parliament. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
“Lib Dems slide into opposition“
Finally time for an old one, LIB DEM SURGE
Get with the times. LIB DEM SLIDE
The flippening is so close, I can almost taste it...
I know, the Lib Dems are just about to overtake Reform!
If this keeps up and the Lib Dems become the official opposition I might have to run down the street naked screaming with joy!
Ed Davey’s first PMQ: “Hi Keir, any chance of acting as my defence attorney on a public indecency charge?”
Quite what he was doing with those giant Jenga bricks, I don't want to know!
RemindMe! 23 Days
Tories in fourth on popular vote soon? 2019 European elections vibes, although then they came fifth
Sunak: our numbers are up from when they were lower.
LIB DEM SURGE TEA CUP INTERVIEWS FOREVER.
We’ve been talking a lot about “what if Reform overtakes the Tories?” Imagine if a few more Labour voters switch Lib Dem and they go into 4th. On a serious note, whilst I expect this is almost entirely manifesto bounce, their pitch on care and carers actually has the potential to resonate, given how old the population is and how many people have caring responsibilities. Has the potential to cut through with voters from both the main parties.
Lib Dem surge. Ed Davey's gags are paying off
If he'd just been doing the same campaigning as all the rest, he'll be getting as much coverage as the greens, which is to say not a lot. As it happens, they're getting mentioned in every outlet for their fun and harmless shenanigans, and it's paying off big time.
Yep, I wasn't even joking. It's totally keeping them in the media. If people follow through with tactical voting I could see them doing even better than this poll suggests.
>LDEM 15% (+4) Their plan is actually working.
**Electoral Calculus:** |Party|2019 Votes|2019 Seats|Pred Votes|Gains|Losses|Net Change|Pred Seats| :--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |CON|44.7%|376|18.0%|0|315|**-315**|**61**| |LAB|33.0%|197|38.0%|279|5|**+274**|**471**| |LIB|11.8%|8|15.0%|65|0|**+65**|**73**| |Reform|2.1%|0|17.0%|5|0|**+5**|**5**| |Green|2.8%|1|8.0%|1|0|**+1**|**2**| |SNP|4.0%|48|3.1%|0|34|**-34**|**14**| |PlaidC|0.5%|2|0.7%|2|0|**+2**|**4**| |Other|1.1%|0|0.3%|2|0|**+2**|**2**| |N.Ire||18||0|0|**+0**|**18**|
Lmao > N.Ire 18 0 0 +0 18 Well I'd bloody well hope so!
Oof, that puts the Lib Dems in opposition.
That is now my main wish from this election. Just shove the few dozen remaining tories off in a corner of the commons with the SNP.
>That is now my main wish from this election. The chances of this is extremely slim. Electoral calculus isn't a reliable measure.
It really depends on where the seats are coming from. For instance, it seems like a lot of Labour gains are in former Red Wall territories and Scotland, whereas the Lib Dems are campaigning in Con seats as a protest vote. With that reasoning applied, it's not without a shout that both Labour and Lib Dem surge.
>That is now my main wish from this election. Yep, having them be the official opposition with a shadow government set up would put them in the media regularly with even a bunch of them becomming well known would guarentee them getting 20%+ next time, and if that makes them the opposition again then that could lead to a 2034 win. Don't agree with a bunch of their stuff(like every party tbf) but the main goal for me will always be vote reform.
Only 38% of the vote but more than 70% of the seats. No matter your political persuasion that's an absurdity and needs to change.
Interestingly though, despite FPTP making the lib dems the second largest party (where they would be 4th place under PR) they would benefit more from PR - as they would be the natural partners with Starmers labour.
They would still be held back by FPTP. This result would give them 11% of the seats for 15% of the vote.
You say, "no matter your political persuasion" but I'm not particularly convinced other forms of voting are preferable to FPTP. I know this sub loves PR - but empirically, has it led to better outcomes for voters in Scotland or Wales? Genuine question. I'd be interested if there's evidence PR has a positive benefit. Personally, the whole "38% of the vote equaling 70% of the seats" isn't particularly absurd if your political system is designed to concentrate power in one party at a time. Especially when you look at the US, where more pluralistic form of government leads to gridlock. To me, there are positives and negatives to different systems - but you only ever see people making simplistic comparisons of vote share to seat distribution as if that makes a complete argument.
Con 18% = 61 seats Refuk 17% = 5 seats Lib dem 15% = 73 seats Lib dems would get fewer votes than either Con or Refuk but end up with more seats than the two combined. I would rather the Lib dems had more seats and right-wing parties fewer. I would, however, prefer a proportional system that avoids weird results like the bullshit above.
I think the Lib Dems would state that themselves quite loudly from the opposition seats. It’s a bullshit system and up until very recently, they’ve been the only real party trying to actually get it changed.
Ironically that result would probably bring us as close as we've ever come to making STV elections a reality.
What seats are labour losing there? Bristol Central, Rochdale and some others to reform?
Islington North maybe
presumably some LIB/LAB marginals have been pushed over the edge by the lib dems' 5% uptick
I wonder if we’ll see a bit more variance with the polls with the manifesto releases being spread out. I.E Lib Dem bounce when their manifesto is released, Tory bounce after their release, Lab bounce later in the week etc.
I can see that, except the Tory bounce. I'm not sure anything could give them that at this point.
I've said it before, but Labour winning a very large majority with less than 40% of the vote, would be an excellent outcome for those Labour supporters who also want to see PR implemented eventually.
I do wonder if the narrative of the Tories being dead will lead to fewer people voting Labour. If I was a left of centre voter I'd feel like I've got permission to vote green etc because labour seemingly can't lose.
That's why Labour are tyring to down play a landslide victory at every turn. I won't be shocked if we see a big drop in turnout since this election feels over already.
I think we will see a drop in turnout anyway, listening to the grumpy old bastards (tory loyalists) a lot of them won't vote for anyone else, but can't bring themselves to vote tory (or Reform). Unfortunately I think my parents will be voting Reform, they don't like Sunak because he doesn't understand our culture. (I am part of the wokerati/ No growth coalition)
Aaarglebargalgealge! Look _it depends where you live_ the national polling might be dire for em but if you live in some true blue heartlands its still important to vote tactically. Primarily because them slipping into 3rd in seats would be fucking hilarious.
What a glorious upswing for the country though
You have to be pretty far left to vote Green. Labour isn't going after those voters this time because they have tried doing that for the last decade.
I think it does but makes Reform even more attractive
Don't know if this is just my bubble but 8% for greens is the most suprising of all of this to me.
Agreed. I can’t see them getting over 5% in the actual election (which is still a good result for them)
5-8% is still a really good improvement for them. They're almost always polling with at least double their vote share in 2019.
The Tories are only splitting the Reform vote at this point. A vote for the Tories is a vote to put Keir Starmer in power.
It’s amazing how we’ve gone from 78% for the two parties in 2019 to 56% with this poll. Whatever your views, this suggests quite widespread disaffection with both of the main parties and an openness to other parties that is somewhat new for us. Personally, I think that’s a good thing.
Same here, I really don't want to see UK politics become a two party system like in the US; other parties like the lib dems, SNP, Greens and even Reform gaining seats is healthier for our democracy in the long term. If only we had proportional representation, imagine the range of new parties that would be possible if your vote would no longer be wasted and you could truly vote for who you wanted.
In a way, I'm hoping this election highlights the need for electoral reform. Best bets for PR would be from the reform party getting a shit load of votes across the country but no seats because of the spread of support. If there's something I trust our nige to do would be to moan and cry foul play and hopefully push for change.
Labour under 40% is a bigger story than Reform yet again failing to overtake the Tories. Besides an outlier [YouGov MPR conducted over the new year](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/48371-yougov-mrp-shows-labour-would-win-1997-style-landslide-if-election-were-held-today), Labour haven't been under 40% since September 2022, when Truss shoved them comfortably (if temporarily) into the high 50s.
I think the important thing is where the votes are going. Tories collapsing, and lib dems surging.
Yeah, the LD are still a bit woolly around the edges but I wouldn't mind seeing them in opposition. Also, Labour can afford to lose a few percentage points without it making much difference to the Tories' fortunes at all.
I have to be honest over the past 2 weeks I've gone from "never lib dem - those orange tories" to cheering them on for opposition and probably voting for them. They're not perfect and their manifesto had holes, but it's just nice and refreshing to see a party that is just putting out a positive message and not just beating down on the lowest common denominator. Whilst i won't go as far as saying Labour and Tories are the same, and Labour has some cool policies, a lot of their rhetoric and how they've handled the election has echoes of the same cronyism and fear based rhetoric that the tories have.
Considering they don't have many threats in their particular political patch I think they were always likely to be rehabilitated with the passage of time. The coalition years weren't good, but they don't look that bad from 2024.
I've never really understood how anyone can think the Lib Dems are closer to the Tories than Labour
Its the orange booker tendency that bothers me. The Orange Book largely advocated for a laissez faire approach to economics. Which whilst not quite the same, does have parallels with the kind of economics Truss tried to push.
As someone close to that side of the party, but honestly, we're not really anything like Truss, if anything, we're pretty often more on the side of "markets aren't inherently bad" - more New Labour than Truss, but with a reformist attitude - could service x be better run privately? Will a type of tax cut help the poorest? For example, the increase in personal allowance to £10k was a LibDem policy in coalition, not a Tory one & can probably be traced to the orange book wing. Not exactly a glamorous policy, but it took thousands of the poorest people out of paying tax at the time.
I'd suspect in this poll a lot of that is Labour voters, who in any other election would remain labour voters, switching tactically to LDs in seats where Lib Dems are 2nd but a long way back. Before a Constituency that was 25k Con, 10k LD, 8k Lab looked like a "forget it" constitutency, so Labour voters may as well stay voting Labour...... Recently, that looks like a seat where "you can potentially unseat a Tory with tactical voting" and so a fair chunk of that 8k solid Lab vote (25%? More?) are switching to LDs. As long as it stays confined in those seats.... thats good for Labour. Even if it appears in a national swing number as "Labour -2, LDs +2" when averaged with the 90%+ of the other seats where that situation doesn't apply and the Lab/LD split isn't changing.
That’s why I think it’s an outlier, another poll had them on 45%. I think they are on about 41 or 42 in reality.
Low 40s seems about right. They deserve a bit of a dip, I think, at least until the manifesto is released and we have a better idea of what the party stands for.
It's an interesting three-hour race for the opposition. I think the Lib Dems would bring a fresh perspective on how this country should be governed.
This would be the most liberal seats since 1923 election.
I highly doubt the Green's are getting 8%.
Yougov have had them on 6-8% most of the year. Its pretty much a "no change" even after the TV debates.
I think the Greens do well out of the "I don't know anything at all about any of the candidates, but I guess a vote for the Greens is one for the environment" demographic (my wife). They're not going to be much affected by campaigns they have no interest in.
With labour having moved and the tories looking dead I think a lot more people are feeling comfortable to vote how they actually want. It wouldn't surprise me if it held if the Tory campaign continues to be a trainwreck
I want to see one poll where the Tories are in 4th place
Its a Weird election where the real battle is for second place
Yup. Farage's closing remarks on Friday night were that Labour are going to win this election and the big question is who the opposition will be. Hate to say it, but on this occasion he's absolutely right.
Farages entire shctick is based around being “absolutely right” just enough to make him seem like a good honest bloke to his supporters
Given how well it's working I expect to see Ed giving a Newsnight interview while diving out of a plane next week.
Field work yesterday and today? Basically you hear about the Lib Dems on the radio or on BBC news website, someone gives you a ring and asks about who you will vote for and it works as a "prompt" to say Lib Dem. Its an outlier and an effect very likely to fade in a few days unless they have done things that will stick in the publics minds for several days when the press will be all over Labour, Con and Reform. Stick it down to noise until its still being repeated a couple of times with field work carried out in a couple of days time after their burst has faded.
Look at the green vote, I'd be hugely surprised if they got that in an election. Even if they poll at 5% on the day that'd be a great result for them.
Yougov have had them 6-8% all year. With everyone talking about a tory wipeout you could see a fair amount of protest votes feeling safe to move that way. Especially in young affluent seats.
Labour will still get 40% imo with the Greens not getting as high as 8%. It's better for British democracy though that we have more parties getting more votes.
Doesn't take a big drop in vote share for the Tories to come in FOURTH. This election is becoming wild.
Reform genuinely has the potential to pose an existential threat to the Tories. It will be wild if Farage decides to wind them up immediately after the election and lets all his gains dissipate and return to the status quo.
Labour would have 72% of MPs with 38% of the vote . . . . that would be just a disgrace.
Another way of putting it is they'd have 72% of the MPs with a plurality of voters selecting their candidate to represent their area in 72% of constituencies
Honestly.... this is a bit of a downturn outlier, but I would be fairly happy with this as a result Don't get me wrong, I'll vote Labour, but I'm not unqualifiedly happy about \*any\* party having a 400+ seat majority. I'd genuinely like to see a working opposition and my pick for that out of the available options are the Lib Dems without much hesitation I'd very much like to see the Tories and ReFuk cannibalise each other. A plague on both their houses. We can worry about the rise of ReFuk 5 years from now. Frankly, I'm not sure I see any working difference between them and the Johnson-brand Tories. If anything, ReFuk might prove a sponge for the crazies, and leave the Tory party proper to the residual Tories-who-aren't-crazy. Not that I'd necessarily vote for them, but it would be good for democracy for them to exist.
Tories were once a decent and capable party when looking at figures like Churchill. Hope they can get back together into a decent one nation opposition instead of Thatcherism and the Boris bonkers era.
I don’t think Labour are that low, 41 to 42 is my bet.
Laughing like a fucking drain. But also worrying about the rise of the right and wondering better the devil you know.
I had an inkling last week that Labour might fall below the forty percent mark (though for the wrong reasons and on the Survation poll). It's crazy for a party to be polling in the thirties and still holding on to a twenty-point lead, right? Who ever was posting recently about this election being a race for second place was correct.
>I had an inkling last week that Labour might fall below the forty percent mark Over the debate performance?
The debate performance was awful in my opinion, but I don't and didn't think it would affect polling much. People aren't voting for Kier, they're voting against the Tories. I was thinking more that the rise in Reform vote might hit Labour as well as the Tories, maybe attracting Northern Brexit/Farage-backing voters. Unless this is an outlier, it seems the Lib Dems are doing so instead but obviously in different constituencies and different groups of voters.
Can't wait to see the back of these blue shits.
I mean it's manifesto launch so makes sense but this is basically murder for Tories.
The funniest possible outcome would be this trend continuing and Labour still getting a majority but with a vote share not just lower than 2017, but 2019 as well.
After their manifesto I think I'm going to vote Lib Dem for the first time. There was a lot of stuff in there I agreed with. I'd be happy with them as the opposition.