[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[Seagull27]

Or maybe they think the Lib Dems will be better at fixing the potholes and gritting the roads etc?

Too much overthinking going on as a result of LE results as usual. There is a very good example right now re Ed Davey's speech banging on about the NHS and tax rates etc, not issues that were actually voted upon last night.

That's not really how local elections work in reality though, is it? Otherwise it would be a bit strange that people have suddenly decided en masse, across the country, that their Tory councillor is no longer up to it and would prefer the Lib Dem candidate.

You only need to read commentary from various party door knockers who are saying the key issues brought up were Boris, partygate and cost of living.

Whether it's right or wrong, national politics has a huge influence on the outcome of local elections, I'd say most people are more aware of what is going on in Westminster than they are their local council. I couldn't even tell you who my councillor is, or what party they represent.

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

The Conservative line of "Labour aren't winning as many seats as they should" is a bit problematic. The stock answer heard mamy a time today aims to point out how ineffective Labour have been (though the Tory party have been setting up a nonsense figure as to how many seats they may lose so the actual figure looks better). The question I'd like to hear asked is "ok, so Labour aren't hoovering up all those lost seats but other parties are. What this says is that voters will take anyone over a Tory".

It'll be interesting to see how the Tory media play this, I suspect fear mongering about Lib/Lab pact with the SNP as an influence as the drum beaten.

Wild card theory is that Boris goes for sn election. It'll mean he has no leadership challenges but more importantly avoiding how bad the economy could get in 15 months.

An early election is Johnson's best move.

It'll stop a leadership challenge and he can claim purdah to stop anymore partying fines being announced and maybe even suppress the Sue Gray report until after the election.

And the economy is only going to get worse and worse for a couple of years at least.

He needs to act fast though.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

He cant call an election until the war in Ukraine is over, the Tory party cant even entertain the thought of a leadership challenge at the moment, let alone a general election.

Why can’t he call an election? I don’t he will, and I don’t think he should, but why do you think he can’t?

 

[zefarelly]

Why can’t he call an election? I don’t he will, and I don’t think he should, but why do you think he can’t?

He's done exactly whatever he's wanted to do the last 40 odd years regardless so I'm sure he'll continue to do so.

 

[Bodian]

Why can’t he call an election? I don’t he will, and I don’t think he should, but why do you think he can’t?

Technically he can. I think what the poster meant was that as the Tory party have been saying that they can't have a leadership change during the Ukraine War, they also therefore would have to say that we 'can't' have a general election - which could bring about an even bigger change.

 

[WATFORD zero]

NSC is now a depressing place because of the politics. This thread should have been put in The Bear Pit months ago. I think it only remains here so people can be nasty.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Or maybe they think the Lib Dems will be better at fixing the potholes and gritting the roads etc?

Too much overthinking going on as a result of LE results as usual. There is a very good example right now re Ed Davey's speech banging on about the NHS and tax rates etc, not issues that were actually voted upon last night.

You really think the majority of the voters read their local councillor's manifesto, checked out their voting record and then voted for the best one at fixing potholes and gritting roads ?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I'm not sure that it's really that positive in "red wall" seats? Still plenty of people voting Tory in places like Hartlepool. Tories even gained a few seats in Barnsley and Bolton. Personally I'm waiting for Somerset...will be VERY interesting to see if Lib Dems and Greens make any headway here.

[tweet]1522532074422521856[/tweet]

 

[Machiavelli]

Guardian's current count is 73/200 declared: The Tories down 131 seats, Labour up 87, Lib Dems up 42 and Greens up 22.

Bear in mind that when these seats were last contested in 2018, there were 123 seats lost by UKIP to share out, but that the Tories were still down 35, Labour up 79, LD's up 75 and Greens up 8. The huge gains for Labour that were being spun by Conservative Central Office with talk of losses of 800-1000 seem obvious nonsense when you find that the Tories began with only thirteen hundred seats across the country.

The results from the most recent Scottish Local Council Elections in 2017 saw the Tories rise from 112 to 276 seats. These results come later and some Scots Tories are predicting further bad news.

And note how the leading figures within the Scottish Tories have completely disowned themselves from their cabinet in Westminster that shares their name.

 

[KZNSeagull]

That's not really how local elections work in reality though, is it? Otherwise it would be a bit strange that people have suddenly decided en masse, across the country, that their Tory councillor is no longer up to it and would prefer the Lib Dem candidate.

You only need to read commentary from various party door knockers who are saying the key issues brought up were Boris, partygate and cost of living.

Whether it's right or wrong, national politics has a huge influence on the outcome of local elections, I'd say most people are more aware of what is going on in Westminster than they are their local council. I couldn't even tell you who my councillor is, or what party they represent.

That's as maybe but both Thatcher and Blair took massive poundings at LE's losing over 1000 seats each in between landslide wins in GE's. Ed Miliband won the LE's as did William Hague and Jeremy Corbyn. Trying to extrapolate LE results into GE results is usually a waste of time and can put parties into a false sense of achievement. Low turnouts don't help either.

 

[Machiavelli]

Meanwhile pig farmers in this country are going out of business as there's nobody to work in the abattoirs.

And all the UK asparagus sits in the field and is still -- well into May -- yet to find its way onto supermarket shelves. Asparagus is particularly back-breaking to pick, but that role was performed by Europeans that we've been informed only came here to claim benefits. I wonder whether those newspaper proprietors and editors, the current Cabinet and all those old voters that thought it was such a good idea might want to head to the fields so I can enjoy one of the greatest of British delicacies in its brief season?

 

[A1X]

Or maybe they think the Lib Dems will be better at fixing the potholes and gritting the roads etc?

Too much overthinking going on as a result of LE results as usual. There is a very good example right now re Ed Davey's speech banging on about the NHS and tax rates etc, not issues that were actually voted upon last night.

Perhaps, but I struggle to believe in 2016-19 Hull would have voted en masse for the (then) pro-Remain Lib Dems. In any context.

And if national politics doesn't matter, what is the value of voting for UKIP / Brexit Party (the ultimate single-issue parties) at a local level, as many did in 2018 and 2019? Unless they expected to see their local council area removed from the EU unilaterally.

 

[Peteinblack]

Meanwhile pig farmers in this country are going out of business as there's nobody to work in the abattoirs.

I don't understand this; the Brexitters told us ad nauseum that EU migrants were taking British workers' jobs, so now we've left the EU and the migrants have been 'sent home', why aren't British workers now queuing up to do these jobs?

If you say it's because the wages are too low, we were also told that the same EU migrants were driving down wages, so surely wages should also have risen by now?

Abattoir or not, I smell Brexit BS

 

[KZNSeagull]

You really think the majority of the voters read their local councillor's manifesto, checked out their voting record and then voted for the best one at fixing potholes and gritting roads ?

No they don't. The majority of voters in LEs don't bother to vote at all. I don't find that funny at all

 

[Giraffe]

Overall not a great election for Labour yet. Thought they would gain a lot more. Still think there is a Brexit hangover here with a lot of traditional labour voters still not trusting Labour as they felt let down by them on this issue.

Equally in London, labour is now seen as the anti Brexit/anti Tory party and are clearly making headway as a result.

Interesting split between London and the rest of the country as there was on Brexit.

 

[Audax]

An early election is Johnson's best move.

It'll stop a leadership challenge and he can claim purdah to stop anymore partying fines being announced and maybe even suppress the Sue Gray report until after the election.

And the economy is only going to get worse and worse for a couple of years at least.

He needs to act fast though.

Agree. I'd be surprised if the polling experts within the Tory party aren't telling a very different story privately to the one that Dowden has been spinning in public. Labour had a strong set of results in 2018. It wasn't until late 2018 and into 2019 that the Labour vote collapsed. For Labour to be pulling results this week that are more-or-less in-line with 2018 (old red wall areas), or better than 2018 (London, Scotland so far) should be sending the Tories a very strong warning, especially with the Lib Dems also surging (building from what was already a much stronger result in 2018) - historically, a strong Lib Dem vote (in the right areas) helps Labour.

If you look at what happened with the 2019 GE: both Labour and the Tories were massively down in the polls in mid 2019 with the EU elections. The Tory vote share went to Reform, Labour deserters went to LD. Thing is, once the EU elections were done the Reform vote immediately started to slide back down again, and the Tory share rising. The LD share took a lot longer to fall back, and the Labour share a correspondingly longer time to recover. Boris timed that 2019 GE perfectly: it slotted into a window where Labour was (unusually, compared to historic) hurt by a stronger LD vote share splitting the "more left" vote, while on the right the vote split had vanished. Couple that with Labour being at its weakest in Scotland, and you get the Boris landslide.

That picture is completely erased now. Labour are back to their 2018 strong point, appearing to have more-or-less erased the 2019 losses. The Lib Dems are strong, but they're strong in Tory areas instead of Labour areas (with a couple of notable exceptions). Labour predicted to be improving in Scotland. And if NI results go the way they are expected to, that also hurts the Tories.

Not suggesting Labour are in a position to win a majority (they aren't because SNP), but equally I do think if a GE had been held yesterday Boris would be losing to what would most likely be a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.

And, IMO, it's only going to get worse (unless Labour really blows it) as we move deeper into the current GE election cycle. Boris' only hope of clinging on, IMO, is to call a GE at the earliest opportunity. Use it as an excuse to not release Sue Gray report, get it done before the Covid handling inquiry even gets a chance to start.

 

[WATFORD zero]

An early election is Johnson's best move.

It'll stop a leadership challenge and he can claim purdah to stop anymore partying fines being announced and maybe even suppress the Sue Gray report until after the election.

And the economy is only going to get worse and worse for a couple of years at least.

He needs to act fast though.

I think your couple of years is incredibly optimistic. The Ukraine war shows no signs of finishing imminently, the 6% increase in food costs from leaving the EU is only going to increase, Electricity and Gas will rocket again when the cap is reviewed in October, if JRM doesn't implement his 'act of self harm' Import rules the WTO will want unbridled access for the whole world, Inflation is only going one way, I'll be stunned if it turns out that we aren't already in recession, huge increases in Government debt.

I really can't see the results of Johnson's 2 and a bit years in power being turned around in under a decade, let alone a couple of years

 

[Barnet Seagull]

You really think the majority of the voters read their local councillor's manifesto, checked out their voting record and then voted for the best one at fixing potholes and gritting roads ?

I think where it's overtly obvious, this is the case. Visibility is important. If nothing is visible, results will go along national party lines.
It's always surprised me that a party supposedly focused on decentralisation such as the Conservatives, do so little locally wherever I've lived. Libdem presence and visibility in Herts is huge and Greens also show up well. The Conservatives and Labour by comparison seem lazy and complacent

 

[Giraffe]

Interesting. London aside, disappointing for Labour?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61347764

However, the loss of support for the Conservatives did not simply translate into Labour advance. A one-point advance in Labour's vote share in London was accompanied by a three-point fall in the north of England. Indeed, across England as a whole, Labour failed to advance in wards where it faced competition from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Although Labour have recorded a four-point improvement on what was a poor performance in last year's local elections, the party has not recorded the kind of consistent advance that demonstrates that it has now reached new levels of popularity.

The 33 net gains of seats it has registered so far (all of them in London) is a consequence of the decline in Conservative support rather than any electoral advance by Labour themselves since the seats were last fought in 2018, when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

In fact, the Conservative decline has thus far helped the Liberal Democrats more than Labour. Coupled with the modest two point increase in Lib Dem support since 2018, the party has so far enjoyed a net gain of 58 seats and gained control of Kingston-upon-Hull from Labour.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Poor showing from Keith Starmer, he needs to go.