United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

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I was suspecting the election won't happen until January 2025, so that the Tories drag it out as long as possible. It would be interesting if the election happened around the same time as the US presidential election.

Apparently Sunak may call an election in October in hopes that more people in the UK are paying attention to the US campaign than the UK one. Issue is that would just benefit whatever party is ahead in the polls, which currently is Labour.

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George Osborne claims he has inside info the election is being planned for November 14th.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/11/general-election-likely-to-take-place-on-14-november-says-george-osborne

Not sure why it's being so dragged out, if this is true. The result will essentially be a done deal at this point. Whatever keeps the Tories in power for whatever time they have left, I guess.

I think that someone wrote, I believe in the Internation discussion thread, that the "plan" is banking on a Trump's win in the US election and then the Tories would campaign on the "stability card" in face of unprecedented times to win the election. Of course, this has one major risk: Trump could lose and then what? What's your pitch, Tories?

Also the idea a Trump win would benefit them is lol worthy. The main reason Trump would win is due to bad fundamentals overall which are much much worse in the UK than the US so if Biden is losing so is Sunak

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I doubt Tory MPs are dumb enough to actually unseat Sunak without a replacement, but I could see enough panic that he ends up getting subjected to a confidence vote. That would be another setback going into an election campaign.

having a confidence election and perhaps a new leader is unlikely to reverse their brutal poll numbers.

No one really knows, except the certainty of a record defeat under the present course.

Take 1995 for example, everyone but a majority of Conservative MP's knew that they where going to be smashed, yet they voted to keep John Major and maintain their course to oblivion.

Heseltine and Portillo regretted that they lost their only chance to be PM even for a day, "What if" ect.

It isn't just that tbh, its that those in the Tories who want a "change" can't agree on what the change should be. Back in 1995 there was an obvious alternative (Hezza) if Major was indeed forced out.

Wasn’t Redwood the main alternative

Seems like Redwood was even being described as the candidate of the Tory Right

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https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1793286364856811831

Also the BBC News website is now leading with the speculation.

Seems like the Tories are gonna be kicked out on July 4th once again

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https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1793405555060457958

Only 4 times??

Yeah this is wrong

McDonald: 1924, 1929
Atlee: 1945
Wilson: 1964, 1974
Blair: 1997

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So apparently Sunak is taking a “day off” from the campaign trail tomorrow.

Seems like you are getting your wish:

The Tory GE campaign next year is gonna be some of the most desperate and embarrassing stuff of all time.

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The obsession with Brand Rishi and the excitement a lot of centre-right commentators have over him (he can do an excel sheet!) has really ignored the fact he is a lousy campaigner; he was pretty terrible in the 2022 Leadership race; forgotten now but he made a big pious point of saying 'we can't afford tax cuts' and then pivoted to tax cuts when he realised he was losing. He also kept doing a weird thing about 'protecting our women'... and well we all see how he was during the locals.

The thing that would worry me if I was a Tory MP is that this was planned; they have know for a month or so they were going for July and they decided one of there last big announcements as a Government would be around gender guidance to schools!

Is that so? It was widely reported the week after the local elections that Number 10 actually made a point of telling the party any summer election was OFF and they could make plans accordingly.

The 2 prevailing theories are:

A. Sunak did what Boris failed to do, call an election before Graham Brady called the Palace to inform them that Sunak was out.

B. Sunak wanted to return to his California Mansion in time for the 4th July celebrations.

I'm leaning on theory A. , because he literaly was running in the rain to announce it like a speed race.

Nope the Queen could have rejected Boris's attempts to call an election while the King could not do so for Sunak as I don't think the Lascelles Principles apply if there is a year left in parliament

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascelles_Principles

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https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1794842931406266625?t=8jj1w3w40pCZaaefroWm...

My goodness

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https://torymanifesto.org.uk/

This is brutal

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I'll say it again - what I find so interesting about the UK elections this year is that Conservatives are rightfully being punished for things. Like, this is how things are supposed to work in politics - conservatives keep messing up, and voters are reacting to that rationally.

It's such a complete difference from the U.S.

The Conservatives have been in power for 14 years though which is longer than any party has been in power here since 1952

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https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1799350801514528924

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Did the Tories hire the geniuses running the NRSC to run their campaign or somethin? Good Lord, what did I miss here

The UK Tories over the past 5 years have made the House GOP look competent . Thats how incompetent they have been.

They basically also made the UK's equivalent of Sarah Palin/Lauren Boebert PM who crashed their economy in just 45 days and since then they have basically been trying to come out of the wreckage but the party is to dysfunctional to do anything about it.

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18 days to go! Increasingly looking forward to election night, more so than in past elections I've watched (15', the Referendum, 17' and 19'). Feels like it's going to be one of those historic nights - for better or worse - one shouldn't miss.

Last time Labour came into power they had a highlight reel like this

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The GOP in the US probably needs a crushing defeat like this for it to finally renew as a serious major party. Trump’s loss in 2020 wasn’t decisive enough, so here we are. Death by a thousand paper cuts as Trump has been the face of the party among those that came of age and started voting in the past decade. Millennials and Gen Z are lost. The Xers and Boomers can only carry us for so long.

The Tories arent gonna renew themselves as a serious major party for at least a decade after this

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https://twitter.com/nowooski/status/1803709963564437804?s=46

To be fair, Labour isn't winning as much as the UK is just beyond sick of the incompetent party that was in charge for 14 years. Starmer isn't even well-liked, they just can't get worse.

Yeah. I’m sure they would be doing so much better with Corbyn, and that he had nothing at all to do with his party losing the last two times despite the Tories being unpopular even back then, the second time after blowing an initial poll lead so Boris Johnson of all people could win a landslide.

Yeah, I bet Labour would be winning at least 517 seats with Corbyn at the helm, not a measly 516. Indeed that’s not really even “winning” anyway. Obviously. Duh. Kinda pathetic to pretend that a 450+ seat majority, one of the greatest landslides in the history of the nation so massive that it might well drive your opposition into extinction, is somehow “winning.”

Also this poll was taken last year when Starmer was still leading in the polls by 20 points

https://twitter.com/LeftieStats/status/1692582192646434953

Corbyn was only leading the Tories by One point and that is despite being out of the spotlight since December 2019.

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https://twitter.com/MrKieranBradley/status/1806061065245003953

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This is amazing but Starmer had more positive things to say about RN than Farage did

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For people who discount how good Starmer has been , here’s a poll that really shows why he did a great job .

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219?t=wCjJ_dkl1hqerdb2lWb5jg...

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For people who discount how good Starmer has been , here’s a poll that really shows why he did a great job .

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1808124302874620219?t=wCjJ_dkl1hqerdb2lWb5jg...

His main success was just seeming more safe and electable, just a change in vibe.

Though I suppose action on antisemitism may have helped too.

After the past 5 years that vibe probably is very appealing too . Him being boring might be actually helping him