[Politics] General Election 2024 - 4th July

[Bodian]

If that actually happens where do they sit in the commons. Do they all squeeze onto the govt benches? They'd be squashed in like sardines, looking at half empty benches the other side.

Minor issue I know but these admin type things bother me

There isn't actually a rule about this - it's just another of our 'traditions' that members of the same party sit together. I suspect what will happen is Labour will fill up the whole 'Government' side - then start down the other side from the end furthest away from the speaker. Then the Tories (or Lib Dems!) will be opposite the Labour Ministers by the speaker - with the Lib Dems (or the Tories!) in the middle of the opposition side.

Then again, only about 2/3 of the MPs can actually fit in and sit down at any one time anyway.

 

[aolstudios]

Disappointing that the Lib Dems are still in second place when they are the best party to challenge a massive Labour majority. If 1996 is anything to go by, the Tories will be an ineffective opposition for up to a decade.

Unfortunately, the hard left can’t understand pragmatism. They need the villains (Tories) to be strong or else their Marxist messages will blow away in the wind. The SNP is only popular when juxtaposed next to a right wing and profoundly incompetent UK Tory government. If the UK has a reasonable government, the SNP’s story is lost. The same goes for the messages from the hard left and they know it.

At the point where the total annihilation of the Tory Party is on the agenda, this witless clown is doing everything he can to reduce the Labour majority to ensure that the Tory opposition is a strong as possible by begging his zombie followers to waste their votes on Greens or Independents rather than on voting out Tories.



Sir Keir says ‘Country above Party’ because the Tories have been putting their party priorities above the interests of the country for years with the lowlight being the disastrous Brexit referendum.

But Jones’ priorities are bad too:

1. Marxism (ideology)
2. Having a hard Left Labour
3. International Politics
4. Great Britain

It’s time for Jones to just be honest and ask is putrid swarm to vote Tory. Without a strong enemy, he and his ilk become irrelevant.

Spot on.
Him & his mates are no more use to & care for the poor & vulnerable than Jacob Rees Mogg

 

[nwgull]

But in both of those cases, the margins hugely narrowed as we got closer to the election, which always happens when the Tories are polling poorly. There will be a difference in the numbers a week before the election compared to now, and that’s not even allowing for “shy Tories” which, in my opinion, will play a part in this election regardless of recent precedence.

Worth checking the records on this, because for 2017 the Tory vote gradually declined throughout the campaign. For 2019 it did increase a bit after Brexit Partyy implicitly endorsed Johnson by not running a candidate in Tory-held seats, but after this point it held firm in the 42-45% range.

 

[Machiavelli]

I disagree. Pollsters continuously adapt their analysis of raw data to improve accuracy account for stuff like shy-Tory effect. That article you linked to is 7 years old, so is a bit out-of-date and doesn’t include the most recent U.K. GEs - 2017 and 2019 - where Tory percentage was very accurate in last week of polling:

In 2017, the average percentage for Tories in the week running up was almost spot on; and in this case he Labour vote was underestimated by about 5%

In 2019 the average for both was accurate to within 1%.

Good post.
Exit polls always more accurate than opinion polls because they're asking a more precise question. But these rest on what's going on in c144 key marginals. Given there might be more of these this election even exit poll might be more difficult this time.
Worth adding that Opinium use a different methodology that has Labour majority far lower than other pollsters

 

[nwgull]

Good post.
Exit polls always more accurate than opinion polls because they're asking a more precise question. But these rest on what's going on in c144 key marginals. Given there might be more of these this election even exit poll might be more difficult this time.
Worth adding that Opinium use a different methodology that has Labour majority far lower than other pollsters

I’m genuinely impressed with how accurately the exit polls manage to extrapolate from those marginals. They’ve been accurate to within a handful of seats last couple of GEs, haven’t they?

Will be interesting to see how Opinium’s new methodology plays out, as they have generally been an outlier in so far as giving Labour a lower lead. Having said that, this was released just now:

 

[Eeyore]

Shy tories has been a phenomenon since 1992 (there were examples in 83 and 87 but tories were on course to win anyway).

But 1992 and to a degree 2015 saw late switchers from labour to tory (and in 2015, lib dem and green to tory) between opinion poll and exit poll/reality. As the blog above shows there was also an incorrect level of weighting in the 2015 poll and overallocated labour voters. In 2010 there was an over allocation of lib dems based on perceived cleggmania)

There is a similar possibility this time but they need to be at less than a 12 point gap (which is where a labour majority becomes possible due to historic spread of votes) for it to have an effect on the 'winner' as it were

There's a few factors at play here. In 1997 the polls held and it's clear that we are at the end of the term of one of the most unpopular governments since forever. Much like 1997, the public are fed up with things beyond policy. I don't think it can be understated how the handing out of gongs to pals, as an example, affects the sub-conscious. It's about trust and the corruption within the Tory party.

Labour aren't being elected because folk like them, they are being elected because folk just cannot so much as look at the Tories anymore. They just despise them. And Brexit is done. How the Tories ever thought they could hold the Red Wall is beyond me.

Here is my take on the winning of elections in my time and the headline issue:

1979- Winter of discontent. If Callaghan had gone earlier he may have been okay. Folk didn't want Thatcher but Labour lurched from crisis to crisis and couldn't control the unions

1983: Falklands War (successful media campaign that painted Thatcher as glorious leader when she bore much of the responsibility for it in the first place). Labour, and Foot, against nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War

1987: Economy is on the right track, Labour still in disarray

1992: It's The Sun wot won it. And it really was. Labour still painted as a shambles. Bad recession but emerging. Folk didn't trust them. They liked Major. That Sheffield moment.

1997: Economy beginning to Boom, but Tories now hated. Sleaze and corruption. Folk want gone. Murdoch press jump ship.

2001: Tories still hated. Labour haven't done much wrong

2005: Iraq War still an issue. Oddly, Howard is seen as a plausible prime minister. Labour hold on.

2010: Folk like Brown, but the Great Crash has taken it's toll. Cameron not really liked, but neither disliked.

2015: Liberal implosion. Blamed for the ills by Liberal supporters despite curbing the excesses (this election is the oddest ever). Referendum promise. Labour loses Scotland although their overall vote increases a little. The wrong Milliband was chosen.

2017: May calls an election she said wasn't needed on multiple occasions. Then avoids the press. Folk decide that Corbyn is a good chap and vote for him without realising how close the result would be. Remainers go Labour despite Corbyn being a secret 'leaver'. Nowt as queer as folk.

2019: Single issue election. Utterly bewildering.

2024: Folk now hate the Tories rather than love Labour. Media desperately trying to pin stuff on Labour but it's all about the Tories. Folk just want them out.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Shy tories has been a phenomenon since 1992 (there were examples in 83 and 87 but tories were on course to win anyway).

But 1992 and to a degree 2015 saw late switchers from labour to tory (and in 2015, lib dem and green to tory) between opinion poll and exit poll/reality. As the blog above shows there was also an incorrect level of weighting in the 2015 poll and overallocated labour voters. In 2010 there was an over allocation of lib dems based on perceived cleggmania)

There is a similar possibility this time but they need to be at less than a 12 point gap (which is where a labour majority becomes possible due to historic spread of votes) for it to have an effect on the 'winner' as it were

Its interesting - my initial assumption was that in 1992 and 2015, the government wasn't popular but the country wasn't quite ready to kick them out, hence the late-switchers. This election is more like 1997 than the others of course. But then I checked the Nate Silver site linked to in the original post, and this trend of Labour underperforming its poll lead was also true in 1997, 2001 and 2005. So there is something going on. And not only GE's but also the Brexit referendum. It could simply be that the Tories are better at campaigning than Labour, they are good at scaremongering about the other side whereas Labour generally try to run positive campaigns about how things will get better. People tend to be more susceptible to fear than to positive messages.

However I wonder if it is the pollsters not being good at distinguishing Likely Voters from All voters. It seems to be a truism that Tory voters are more likely to turn out and vote than Labour voters, owing to their demographics, and pollsters need to account for this in their models. Polling is such a huge industry in the States, and elections so much more abundant and frequent, that these Likely Voter / Registered Voter differentials are better understood although it is still the biggest source of error because the matter of WHO will vote isn't just demographics but also enthusiasm, so it changes from election to election.

 

[Machiavelli]

Its interesting - my initial assumption was that in 1992 and 2015, the government wasn't popular but the country wasn't quite ready to kick them out, hence the late-switchers. This election is more like 1997 than the others of course. But then I checked the Nate Silver site linked to in the original post, and this trend of Labour underperforming its poll lead was also true in 1997, 2001 and 2005. So there is something going on. And not only GE's but also the Brexit referendum. It could simply be that the Tories are better at campaigning than Labour, they are good at scaremongering about the other side whereas Labour generally try to run positive campaigns about how things will get better. People tend to be more susceptible to fear than to positive messages.

However I wonder if it is the pollsters not being good at distinguishing Likely Voters from All voters. It seems to be a truism that Tory voters are more likely to turn out and vote than Labour voters, owing to their demographics, and pollsters need to account for this in their models. Polling is such a huge industry in the States, and elections so much more abundant and frequent, that these Likely Voter / Registered Voter differentials are better understood although it is still the biggest source of error because the matter of WHO will vote isn't just demographics but also enthusiasm, so it changes from election to election.

Pollsters have algorithms to account for the difference between those they survey which provides the raw data and turnout likelihood which results in the poll itself

To return to my previous post this explains why Opinium consistently has a lower lead for Labour and why exit polls are so accurate because they are just using raw data

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Pollsters have algorithms to account for the difference between those they survey which provides the raw data and turnout likelihood which results in the poll itself

To return to my previous post this explains why Opinium consistently has a lower lead for Labour and why exit polls are so accurate because they are just using raw data

Yep, exactly, so each pollster will have a different methodology for determining (a) if the person they interview is likely to vote and (b) how many voters there are like this person. Opiniums model is different to others but whether it's more accurate we will only know post election. We have so few elections in the UK compared to the states though that not only is it hard for the pollsters to refine and perfect their models, but it is hard for us to definitively compare each pollsters results for future reference.

Exit polls are of course measuring what actually happened, rather than forecasting what might happen, so should certainly be more accurate. You might be able to predict who will go to the polls in advance, but afterwards you can actually measure it.

 

[beorhthelm]

Yep, exactly, so each pollster will have a different methodology for determining (a) if the person they interview is likely to vote and (b) how many voters there are like this person. Opiniums model is different to others but whether it's more accurate we will only know post election. We have so few elections in the UK compared to the states though that not only is it hard for the pollsters to refine and perfect their models, but it is hard for us to definitively compare each pollsters results for future reference.

Exit polls are of course measuring what actually happened, rather than forecasting what might happen, so should certainly be more accurate. You might be able to predict who will go to the polls in advance, but afterwards you can actually measure it.

exit polls also dont have "don't know" and "wont vote" (can have "wont say"). account for significant % of polling, which get removed for the headline numbers.

 

[amexer]

Read today once election he will get rid of all the lefties. Maybe we will end up with best conservitive government since Blair

 

[Bob!]

Read today once election he will get rid of all the lefties. Maybe we will end up with best conservitive government since Blair

Well, it wouldn't be in the bottom 5 since Blair anyway!

 

[BrickTamland]

Right wing and centre right loonies and scumbags have had control of this country for most of my adult life.

Finally as a country we are seeing common sense prevail and Labour back in power.

 

[pasty]

Farage takes over as leader of Reform UK and stands for election in Clacton

 

[Eeyore]

Farage takes over as leader of Reform UK and stands for election in Clacton

Safe Tory seat. His thinking is clear. Labour cannot win in Clacton even with a split Tory vote. Thus he tries to get the Tories on board (and probably some Labour voters too). Also it's Essex where his party have huge followings.

Very clever. He may just succeed.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Safe Tory seat. His thinking is clear. Labour cannot win in Clacton even with a split Tory vote. Thus he tries to get the Tories on board. Also it's Essex where his party have huge followings.

Very clever. He may just succeed.

I think Labour can win in Clacton now. I think they could attract up to a third of voters from the Tories, if Reform do the same, Labour win.

 

[WATFORD zero]

New super poll shows Tories heading for election wipeout - with Lib Dems becoming second biggest party​

A new poll has indicated that the Tories are on the cusp of suffering the biggest general election disaster in their history. Redfield and Wilton’s survey of 10,000 voters published today (3 June) has the Conservatives at just 20 per cent, 26 points behind Labour. In a crushing blow for the Tories, Electoral Calculus predicts they would win a mere 24 seats if the poll was replicated in an election. The Lib Dems would be the second party on 51 seats and Labour would have a majority of 426 with more than 500 seats.

This follows the MRP poll over the weekend suggesting the Tories will win only 66 seats.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...4-poll-projection-seats-wipeout-b2555671.html

 

[pb21]

I think Labour can win in Clacton now. I think they could attract up to a third of voters from the Tories, if Reform do the same, Labour win.

Depends if Binface or the dolphin decide to stand.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

I think Labour can win in Clacton now. I think they could attract up to a third of voters from the Tories, if Reform do the same, Labour win.

Eh? Labour have no electoral presence in Clacton and with Farage standing, their vote will be squeezed further. This is the seat that UKIP actually had an MP elected. After Carswell stood down it reverted to Tory. I think Farage might actually win here. All depends on where the Tory vote goes. Labour have too much ground to make up. But if you truly think Labour can win, I’d pile your cash on them at the bookies. You’ll get 8/1 at the moment with Farage at 8/11.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I think Labour can win in Clacton now. I think they could attract up to a third of voters from the Tories, if Reform do the same, Labour win.

No chance. It's a Brexity shithole.