United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[MaxQue]

On a practical note if let say the Conservatives are missing 200 candidates, that would impact their popular vote share as they would be leaving 1/3rd of the seats uncontested.

Also the few conservatives might vote LD or Reform in the abscence of a Conservative candidate.

That is very much not going to happen.

Like what happens always, there will be local councilors willing to improve their internal standing by running doomed campaigns for safe Labour seats. The no-hope's are a majority of what's outstanding for all 3 major players.

The bigger issue for the Tories are late retirements opening safe seats that other incumbent MPs may want to run to. And even if they are forbidden from jumping seats, the party still needs to actually do some vetting for a candidate that will be joining the benches. Doing that in a week without letting in the chaff will be the difficult part.

Actually, Labour claims they found all no-hopers, the 13 ones are all open Labour seats or targets that have no candidate yet for a reason or another (and so, doing through a more thorough process).

[MillennialModerate]

Can someone explain to me how 2 polls have both shown movement toward the Conservatives with such a horrendous start to the campaign? I mean that one poll with a 14 point margin - it’s a clear Labour win but it’s not wipeout territory everyone has been talking about

[oldtimer]

On a practical note if let say the Conservatives are missing 200 candidates, that would impact their popular vote share as they would be leaving 1/3rd of the seats uncontested.

Also the few conservatives might vote LD or Reform in the abscence of a Conservative candidate.

That is very much not going to happen.

Like what happens always, there will be local councilors willing to improve their internal standing by running doomed campaigns for safe Labour seats. The no-hope's are a majority of what's outstanding for all 3 major players.

The bigger issue for the Tories are late retirements opening safe seats that other incumbent MPs may want to run to. And even if they are forbidden from jumping seats, the party still needs to actually do some vetting for a candidate that will be joining the benches. Doing that in a week without letting in the chaff will be the difficult part.

I don't think they want to be associated with a crashing campaign like this one, which explains why they are missing 190 and growing:

https://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/1794467142966161772

https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1794473522602897716?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoo...

"Reinstate the military draft" is "Dementia Tax" levels.

[Torrain]

National Service is now officially Tory policy. Either 1 year of military service, or one weekend of volunteering per month in the NHS or emergency services.

The volunteering thing is clearly meant to soften it, but that's not how it'll be received/read by the under 30s. Really feels like an attempt to win back that one guy in the pub complaining about the youth - while losing a lot more votes from said youth.

Anyway, here's a summary of the next month of debate on this topic:

[GeorgiaModerate]

Can someone explain to me how 2 polls have both shown movement toward the Conservatives with such a horrendous start to the campaign? I mean that one poll with a 14 point margin - it’s a clear Labour win but it’s not wipeout territory everyone has been talking about

The Tories gained 1% and 2%, which is at the statistical noise level.  Wait and see if there's a consistent movement with more polls (significantly more than two, anyway).

[oldtimer]

Can someone explain to me how 2 polls have both shown movement toward the Conservatives with such a horrendous start to the campaign? I mean that one poll with a 14 point margin - it’s a clear Labour win but it’s not wipeout territory everyone has been talking about

Opinium uses a novel theory that D/K will vote for the party that they voted for last time.

They found Lab 45 Con 23, unchanged from last time, and turned it into Lab 41 Con 27.

[TheTide]

Professor Sir John Curtice, the most well-regarded contemporary psephologist in the UK (by some distance), repeats the nonsense about Labour needing a 13-14% lead (or around a 13% swing) to win an overall majority at around 8 minutes into this video.

[kyc0705]

It seems to me they'll need national service just to fill their candidate lists.

[WD]

lol

[bore]

Burst out laughing after hearing this - the tory equivalent of nationalising pizza express.

Worth noting that National Service was abolished in 1960, so even the very youngest people to have been called up are about to turn 85.

[brucejoel99]

Rishi watched Keir kick his Saturday morning off by promising to lower the voting age to 16, saw that most recently polled 13 points underwater (May 2023: 37% yes / 50% no / 13% don't know), & decided to respond by challenging Keir to hold Rishi's non-alcoholic beer as he introduces a policy (arbitrarily bringing mandatory national service back) that, when most recently polled, recorded voters over 65 as no better than evenly split (September 2023: 46% support / 46% opposed / 8% don't know). What a hilarious split-screen contrast of life & death in politics.

[Torrain]

I hope he's aware of the history of conscription, and the carve-outs for Northern Ireland that have always existed for REASONS.

Please tell me he has an answer for that. I can't watch him get caught out by that one, the second hand embarasment/panic as he realises the context in real time would just be too visceral.

[oldtimer]

Burst out laughing after hearing this - the tory equivalent of nationalising pizza express.

Worth noting that National Service was abolished in 1960, so even the very youngest people to have been called up are about to turn 85.

The Iraq War is still fresh in people's memories, so the ads against might be:

" Do Moms want their kids to die in a middle east war for the vanity of an American President ? "

Given the number of conflicts that America is currently involved, conscription would turn a lot of parents into pacifists.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It seems to me they'll need national service just to fill their candidate lists.

lol

[TheTide]

Was the cabinet consulted on this (you know, unlike on the calling of the election itself)? Because I can think of several prominent members to whom this might be a bit too much, including the man who holds the portfolio relevant to matters armed forces.

[OSR stands with Israel]

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

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1794488768277123563
So presumably Onward's Director, Sebastian Early Anthony Payne, holds some credit/blame for this latest masterstroke.

[oldtimer]

Was the cabinet consulted on this (you know, unlike on the calling of the election itself)? Because I can think of several prominent members to whom this might be a bit too much, including the man who holds the portfolio relevant to matters armed forces.

Sunak's main pitch when he became PM was the Unicorn Kingdom, so I guess not.

[afleitch]

National Service in Northern Ireland will be a literal riot.

[Cassius]

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1794488768277123563
So presumably Onward's Director, Sebastian Early Anthony Payne, holds some credit/blame for this latest masterstroke.

The use of ‘Great British’ as a proper noun needs to be made a capital offence.

[oldtimer]

National Service in Northern Ireland will be a literal riot.

Irish Catholics being forced to join the "english protestant" military against their will ?

Sinn Fein will be having a party like it's 1969.

However Parents in general would be an even bigger headache.

[Torrain]

Even if the Tories were re-elected, there would never be conscription in Northern Ireland. It's just not happening.

There wasn't in either World War for all the reasons that come to mind (as much about increasing the risk of Loyalist militias as enraging nationalists forced to swear allegiance to the King). An attempt to impose it in 1918 was never implemented after the uproar.

The relevance of NI is whether Sunak has a one sentence answer that justifies it not applying there, while being a requirement everywhere else.

[brucejoel99]

Anyway, here's a summary of the next month of debate on this topic:

https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1794485050907447599

[MABA 2020]

National Service? It's like parody of a terrible Tory campaign

[brucejoel99]

Tania Mathias, who won Twickenham off of Vince Cable in the Lib Dem apocalypse of 2015 only to lose it back to him in the snap 2017 general election, now T-May's favored Maidenhead successor:

https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1794502132470870075