United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[Torrain]

Signs of a successful launch:
https://twitter.com/journoontheedge/status/1793412708001603809
It was up to no.8 when I checked.

EDIT: it’s now up to no.2

[Torrain]

Where can I find the notional margins for this election's seats, and ideally demographic data by seat too?

Electoral Calculus has seat-by-seat projected margins, and some demographic data. They set a limit of about 20 seats you can click on at a time before you are prompted to buy a licence. Consider clearing your cookies/going incognito when prompted.  

Election Maps UK runs a 538-style Nowcast,with geographic and hex maps, and the option to shade seats by projected margin.

The New Statesman have Ben Walker’s Britain Elects model, which has nice seat by seat projections and maps, but does seem to end up behind their pay wall sometimes.

Other options will be available, most of the broadsheets will have some interactive tool eventually, but those are the ones I know are up and running.

And going off that, is there one for the previous elections/boundaries?

EC have results for the previous boundaries too.

[Logical]

Incredible decision to start your campaign looking like a rat that just crawled out of a sewer. Did no one really thought this through?

[Frodo]

The outcome is so inevitable that by this point I think Sunak's handlers simply don't care anymore -and neither does he. 

[Battista Minola 1616]

Things Can Only Get Wetter

Are you proud that this became an actual Telegraph headline?

[Logical]

Ol Nigey will not be standing.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1793554758923588029

[EastAnglianLefty]

And Corbyns former seat becomes even more of a stitch-up:

https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1793378252154913030?t=l8uSukHrwSpAga0xdI...

I don't think that is a stitch-up. Moema is the local London Assembly member, which isn't immensely high profile but does mean she'll be known amongst the CLP, whilst Nargund is a local councillor and is rumoured to have the most local support. Honestly, it's surprisingly fair by the standards of snap selections in seats with large Labour majorities.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Yvonne Fovargue (Lab, Makerfield) standing down. Reports that her neighbouring MP James Grundy (Con, Leigh) will also announce his retirement

[Pericles]

Ol Nigey will not be standing.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1793554758923588029

He bottled it.

[MillennialModerate]

Ol Nigey will not be standing.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1793554758923588029

He bottled it.

Big time. The US shouldn’t have been in that message - it makes it obvious where his allegiance is. I actually used to personally like him - despite the fact I disagreed with so much of what he said.

[MillennialModerate]

Well, time to get this thing going.




I'm starting my expectations at the benchmark of approximately (so number are neater): 420 Labour, 140 Conservative, 50 Lib-Dem, 16 SNP, 3 Plaid, 3 Others including the Speaker, and 18 obviously from Northern Ireland. I have a rough list, but I would prefer not to go into seat-by-seat detail at this moment.  

People are forgetting how high of a climb this would be for Labour.  In the famous Blair Landslide they gained 146 seats. This prediction would be around that much. Plus for whatever reason right wing parties tend to fall in line and come around more than left wing parties who are overly concerned with “purity” … I happen to like Kier Starmer a lot. But the British public don’t - Labour should win this by default and it’ll be a good showing but polls tighten during a campaign we all know that and the inflation numbers are just enough to put the “but maybe” in the mind of disenchanted Tory voters - so  for sure a likely good night for Labour but the 400’s is unlikely and the poll of polls showing greater than the first Blair Landslide is taking it a little too far IMO.

So a rough idea of where I think this is going…

Labour                     360  (+155)
Conservative           210   (-134)
Liberal Democrat      35   (+20)
SNP                           25   (-18)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Well, time to get this thing going.




I'm starting my expectations at the benchmark of approximately (so number are neater): 420 Labour, 140 Conservative, 50 Lib-Dem, 16 SNP, 3 Plaid, 3 Others including the Speaker, and 18 obviously from Northern Ireland. I have a rough list, but I would prefer not to go into seat-by-seat detail at this moment. 

People are forgetting how high of a climb this would be for Labour.  In the famous Blair Landslide they gained 146 seats. This prediction would be around that much. Plus for whatever reason right wing parties tend to fall in line and come around more than left wing parties who are overly concerned with “purity” … I happen to like Kier Starmer a lot. But the British public don’t - Labour should win this by default and it’ll be a good showing but polls tighten during a campaign we all know that and the inflation numbers are just enough to put the “but maybe” in the mind of disenchanted Tory voters - so  for sure a likely good night for Labour but the 400’s is unlikely and the poll of polls showing greater than the first Blair Landslide is taking it a little too far IMO.

So a rough idea of where I think this is going…

Labour                     360  (+155)
Conservative           210   (-134)
Liberal Democrat      35   (+20)
SNP                           25   (-18)

I do expect much of the Reform vote to get behind the Conservatives.

[Torrain]

Richard Tice is, as of this morning, now standing in Boston and Skegness, rather than Hartlepool, as he's been saying for years. Since 2021, I believe.

Makes sense to run in the most pro-Brexit seat in the country, rather than a seat that's going to hurtle away from the Right. But the last minute change, presumably undermining years of local leafletting/canvassing, is hardly the signal you want to send.

[Torrain]

Deputy Speaker standing down:
https://twitter.com/eleanor4epping/status/1793614540686737869

[Oryxslayer]

Deputy Speaker standing down.

You just know someone is going to chicken run to that safe seat... Same in Churchills seat, though if Suffolk votet behavior from the local partially carries over things may get interesting:

https://twitter.com/Jochurchill_MP/status/1793576859407729050?t=xzjfFmXgB5pUu44v...

Also:

https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1793570031399309382?t=O92HbZ51F7uB3vK...

This means de facto the seat is going to be close to a straight fight between this independent unionist and the Alliance incumbent.



Fovargue is standing down for Labour in Makerfield.


Corbyn reportedly to stand again as an independent

[Torrain]

I would expect Fermanagh and South Tyrone to end up as a straight SF-UUP fight again. Parties were prepping for a by-election there (SF incumbent is running for EU Parliament in Republic of Ireland, and isn’t running now), so preliminary discussions will have already been underway.

Lagan Valley’s going to be interesting - Alliance came close last time, so expect non-DUP unionists will stand aside there too, unless they really want to give them a kicking.

Will try and gather some anecdotal evidence from North Down, when I’m next in touch with the family. My sample group is about 90% UUP -> Herman -> Alliance voters, so it might not be of much use!

[Lief 🗽]

Sunak timing this so he can lose and move his family back to California before the school year starts is very funny.

[Sir Mohamed]

Is it correct that there's pretty much no "lame duck" in the UK, ergo Starmer could be PM by the noon of July 5?

[Joe Republic]

Given that everyone knew the election was coming in the next few months no matter what, how come there is still a mad scramble among the major parties to find candidates for numerous seats?  Was five years not enough notice?

[Joe Republic]

Is it correct that there's pretty much no "lame duck" in the UK, ergo Starmer could be PM by the noon of July 5?

Correct.  Unless there are hung parliament negotiations (lol), Sunak will visit the King the day after the election, and then Starmer will be summoned shortly afterward.

[EastAnglianLefty]

The PM is whoever the monarch appoints, until such time as the House of Commons votes that it has no confidence in them. The monarch doesn't need to wait for anything to happen in Parliament before appointing somebody who obviously can win a confidence vote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is it correct that there's pretty much no "lame duck" in the UK, ergo Starmer could be PM by the noon of July 5?

There is no lame duck period at all. If an election has resulted in a majority for the main opposition party, then the defeated PM goes to the Palace and resigns, the monarch calls the leader of the victorious party to invite them to form a government and they then visit the Palace to 'kiss hands',* at which point said party leader becomes PM. If there are negotiations after a hung parliament then it all takes a little longer, but the same process occurs and there is still no lame duck period.

_{*It's just the term used. No actual hands are kissed.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Given that everyone knew the election was coming in the next few months no matter what, how come there is still a mad scramble among the major parties to find candidates for numerous seats?  Was five years not enough notice?

Depends on the party. For Labour the only seats left to select are a certain number deemed unwinnable, a smaller number where it was decided to delay selections for reasons, and those where an incumbent has announced their retirement after the election was called. Everything else is all sorted and candidates in what were designated as key target seats have usually been in place for a couple of years now. For the LibDems, well, they're only competitive in a relatively small number of constituencies, so it's usually a matter of sorting out the former as early as possible and then just putting up paper candidates elsewhere: their members are generally very game for this. For the Conservative Party... yes, I'm afraid they have managed to catch themselves out somewhat, and I can offer no reasonable explanation for this.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1793628105250402676?ref_src=twsrc%5Et...

This is Sunak heritage.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We need an encounter like this every day. We need to have him trying to interact with the public as often as possible. It will add to the gaiety of the nation.