United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[JimJamUK]

Has anyone picked up a strong Reform ground game anywhere?

Strong might be the wrong term, but off the top of my head Derby South, Amber Valley, Barnsley South and the Sunderland seats all have relatively well organised Reform parties who are capable of standing candidates and getting decent vote shares (for Reform, UKIP obviously did much better in most cases).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unusually, three phone polls came out this morning. They are: Survation Lab 41, Con 18, Ref 14, LDem 12, Green 5, SNP 2; Ipsos Lab 42, Con 19, Ref 15, LDem 11, Green 7, SNP/Plaid 5; Verian Lab 38, Con 21, Ref 16, LDem 12, Green 8, SNP 3

_{Some notes that may be useful: this Survation poll was UK-wide rather than GB-wide (which is also true of Savanta polling, incidentally), Ipsos used to be MORI and are the oldest players in the polling game, and Verian used to be Kantar, which always used to produce better Con results than average (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly).}

Other polls out today: More in Common Lab 40, Con 23, Ref 14, LDem 11, Green 5, SNP 3; Norstat Lab 39, Con 23, Ref 15, LDem 12, Green 6, SNP 4, BMG Lab 42, Con 20, Ref 16, LDem 3, Green 6, SNP ?

[Storr]

Why would someone who's been an MP since 2005 be dumb enough to do this?

"Tory candidate Philip Davies is latest politician to have bet against himself at election
@MrHarryCole
 reveals, placing an £8,000 bet on losing marginal seat of Shipley."

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1806037385215701162

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Current mood at CCHQ imo.

[Duke of York]

At this stage Oldtimer, it doesn't matter even if Sunak rescues puppies from a burning building, the writting is on the wall. His image is very tainted, regardless of strong showings or not.

after that debate its quite clear Sunak is the better choice for Prime Minister but sadly his party won't win.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

At this stage Oldtimer, it doesn't matter even if Sunak rescues puppies from a burning building, the writting is on the wall. His image is very tainted, regardless of strong showings or not.

after that debate its quite clear Sunak is the better choice for Prime Minister but sadly his party won't win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3a5jssLMu0

[xelas81]

Why would someone who's been an MP since 2005 be dumb enough to do this?

"Tory candidate Philip Davies is latest politician to have bet against himself at election
@MrHarryCole
 reveals, placing an £8,000 bet on losing marginal seat of Shipley."

All of MRPs had Shipley as Labour pickup so I guess he saw the writing on the wall.
https://inglesp.github.io/apogee/constituencies/E14001472/

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What would a libdem official opposition look like ? How would they staff the shadow cabinet?

[Badger]

What would a libdem official opposition look like ? How would they staff the shadow cabinet?

Same as any other opposition party I assume? What am I missing here?

[Badger]

Unusually, three phone polls came out this morning. They are: Survation Lab 41, Con 18, Ref 14, LDem 12, Green 5, SNP 2; Ipsos Lab 42, Con 19, Ref 15, LDem 11, Green 7, SNP/Plaid 5; Verian Lab 38, Con 21, Ref 16, LDem 12, Green 8, SNP 3

_{Some notes that may be useful: this Survation poll was UK-wide rather than GB-wide (which is also true of Savanta polling, incidentally), Ipsos used to be MORI and are the oldest players in the polling game, and Verian used to be Kantar, which always used to produce better Con results than average (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly).}

Other polls out today: More in Common Lab 40, Con 23, Ref 14, LDem 11, Green 5, SNP 3; Norstat Lab 39, Con 23, Ref 15, LDem 12, Green 6, SNP 4, BMG Lab 42, Con 20, Ref 16, LDem 3, Green 6, SNP ?

Tangibly large swing to the tories. Debate bounce combined with a dead cat bounce?

[morgieb]

Unusually, three phone polls came out this morning. They are: Survation Lab 41, Con 18, Ref 14, LDem 12, Green 5, SNP 2; Ipsos Lab 42, Con 19, Ref 15, LDem 11, Green 7, SNP/Plaid 5; Verian Lab 38, Con 21, Ref 16, LDem 12, Green 8, SNP 3

_{Some notes that may be useful: this Survation poll was UK-wide rather than GB-wide (which is also true of Savanta polling, incidentally), Ipsos used to be MORI and are the oldest players in the polling game, and Verian used to be Kantar, which always used to produce better Con results than average (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly).}

Other polls out today: More in Common Lab 40, Con 23, Ref 14, LDem 11, Green 5, SNP 3; Norstat Lab 39, Con 23, Ref 15, LDem 12, Green 6, SNP 4, BMG Lab 42, Con 20, Ref 16, LDem 3, Green 6, SNP ?

Tangibly large swing to the tories. Debate bounce combined with a dead cat bounce?

Also different pollsters, the ones which had the Tories and Reform tied haven’t made a statement yet.

The other factor could be Farage overreaching on Ukraine.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Why would someone who's been an MP since 2005 be dumb enough to do this?

"Tory candidate Philip Davies is latest politician to have bet against himself at election
@MrHarryCole
 reveals, placing an £8,000 bet on losing marginal seat of Shipley."

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1806037385215701162

LOL!

[TheTide]

Unusually, three phone polls came out this morning. They are: Survation Lab 41, Con 18, Ref 14, LDem 12, Green 5, SNP 2; Ipsos Lab 42, Con 19, Ref 15, LDem 11, Green 7, SNP/Plaid 5; Verian Lab 38, Con 21, Ref 16, LDem 12, Green 8, SNP 3

_{Some notes that may be useful: this Survation poll was UK-wide rather than GB-wide (which is also true of Savanta polling, incidentally), Ipsos used to be MORI and are the oldest players in the polling game, and Verian used to be Kantar, which always used to produce better Con results than average (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly).}

Other polls out today: More in Common Lab 40, Con 23, Ref 14, LDem 11, Green 5, SNP 3; Norstat Lab 39, Con 23, Ref 15, LDem 12, Green 6, SNP 4, BMG Lab 42, Con 20, Ref 16, LDem 3, Green 6, SNP ?

Tangibly large swing to the tories. Debate bounce combined with a dead cat bounce?

The changes are -2, +3 and +1 and the fieldwork on all would have almost certainly all been done pre-debate.

The other factor could be Farage overreaching on Ukraine.

He wasn't doing any kind of 'reaching'. He just gave a rather stupid response in a setpiece interview. Stupid because, regardless of one's views on the matter, it would have been obvious to a more shrewd person that the response would make headlines.

[YL]

I think there are enough polls showing it now to think that there is reason to think that Reform UK have peaked and that a little of their vote is drifting back to the Tories. Ukraine may be the explanation although this was quite likely to happen anyway. This isn't enough to change the picture very much, except that the more extreme wipeout scenarios, especially those which involve a substantial Reform UK parliamentary party, have become a little less likely.

[OSR stands with Israel]

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

[IceAgeComing]

What would a libdem official opposition look like ? How would they staff the shadow cabinet?

Same as any other opposition party I assume? What am I missing here?

So this is actually a genuine concern in some of the extreme wipeout scenarios. The Ministerial and Other Salaries Act states that there's a limit of 109 paid ministerial positions, including a maximum of 95 in the Commons (the current government has more Ministers than that out of the need to have at least one Lords minister from each department, so some that have the means to do so work for free). Labour will use that full quota to fill out their Cabinet (capped to 21 Cabinet members entitled to a salary plus the Lord Chancellor who gets paid separately; although some Junior Ministers will 'attend Cabinet' without the extra pay and I suspect that 22 will all be from the Commons) and the 70-ish Junior Ministerial positions. If you assume the Conservatives get 100 seats (I personally think they'll get more than that and that Reform always underperform polling; but I'm slightly pessimistic) they'll find it incredibly difficult to have a Shadow to every Labour Minister, while also having people on Parliamentary Committees and having backbenchers. When you look at the people in the safest Tory seats a lot of them would also either refuse to serve in a shadow junior minister job, or wouldn't be appointed to one. Factor in that the only people that get extra pay in this scenario are the Leader of the Opposition and the Conservative Chief Whip; that they'll not have much short money to work with and that they'll have gotten very used to having access to the Civil Service (who naturally only advise the government of the day; not the opposition) then there's a risk that they will struggle to hold the government to account on anything other than ideology which would not be a good thing I would say. In the scenarios where the Lib Dems get 60 seats and the Tories get 50 that gets much deeper because Short Money is decided on national vote share; and so the Official Opposition would be a party that has very little money available from that as they finished fourth with like 10% of the vote.

Labour have a similar problem as well - even if they win a modest landslide. Firstly their Shadow Ministerial team is currently slightly too large to get them all on the payroll so they'll need to trim some jobs; secondly they'll have gone from the rump elected in 2019 to a huge majority in 2024 and there are some people that you'd think would ordinarily be in line for some ministeral position - Douglas Alexander served in the Cabinet under Blair and Brown and the Shadow Cabinet under Miliband, I assume Torsten Bell didn't leave the Resolution Foundation where they had influence in terms of government policy to be a Labour backbencher; etc etc etc. One of the first things that Starmer will have to do is make some tough choices on who from the Shadow ministerial lineup that led Labour to that majority would need to stand down to make room for any new people; and while some might do so voluntarily or if he held on for a few months a reshuffle might allow some stops to be opened up, there's a risk that he pisses off some people who did the hard work during opposition (where they don't get paid extra money, and don't have a lot of resource to pull from) if he denies them the spot in government.

[Punxsutawney Phil]

I completely missed the debate. How did it go?

[Torrain]

What would a libdem official opposition look like ? How would they staff the shadow cabinet?

If the Lib Dems are the official opposition, you’d expect them to have north of 60 MPs, and that’s enough to staff a skeleton opposition frontbench. Both the Lib Dems and SNP already have a fully organised front bench, so they can put members up for Commons debates in each ministerial department.

Sarah Olney would upgrade from “treasury spokeswoman” to Shadow Chancellor, and so on. Farron stays at DEFRA, Cooper at Health, etc. At the moment, some Lib Dems are pulling double or triple shifts (Alistair Carmichael has Home Affairs, Justice *and* Northern Ireland), which would end. They’d struggle to find time to call as many Urgent Questions as a normal-sized opposition, but would have the Short Money to hire enough staff to help them function, even if MPs are worked off their feet for 5 years.
 
Not having enough MPs to shadow each junior ministerial role (probably only 1-2 per department) will be a real problem though, cuts down your chance for policy development, media appearances, rapid-response etc.

[afleitch]

Farage is far more disliked than liked and as a political figure, has been introduced and reintroduced at various points over the last two decades, then goes into America hiding. If you're more of a passive observer, you can easily forget what he's like until he's given a platform. The Ukraine comments were an example of that. He's also been given less exposure, other than for those comments over the last week or so.

[Punxsutawney Phil]

What would a libdem official opposition look like ? How would they staff the shadow cabinet?

If the Lib Dems are the official opposition, you’d expect them to have north of 60 MPs, and that’s enough to staff a skeleton opposition frontbench. Both the Lib Dems and SNP already have a fully organised front bench, so they can put members up for Commons debates in each ministerial department.

Sarah Olney would upgrade from “treasury spokeswoman” to Shadow Chancellor, and so on. Farron stays at DEFRA, Cooper at Health, etc. At the moment, some Lib Dems are pulling double or triple shifts (Alistair Carmichael has Home Affairs, Justice *and* Northern Ireland), which would end. They’d struggle to find time to call as many Urgent Questions as a normal-sized opposition, but would have the Short Money to hire enough staff to help them function, even if MPs are worked off their feet for 5 years.
 
Not having enough MPs to shadow each junior ministerial role (probably only 1-2 per department) will be a real problem though, cuts down your chance for policy development, media appearances, rapid-response etc.

How did they (they being the Official Opposition) manage during, say, 1931-1935?

[beesley]

On the note about 'what the media finds interesting'

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1806221418964684997?t=FqA8EzL3d8tcf1ty7qW6wg...

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/26/labour-not-putting-up-a-fight-against-farage-in-clacton?CMP=share_btn_url

The good Tsar Starmer needs to check on his wicked officials etc

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

On the note about 'what the media finds interesting'

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1806221418964684997?t=FqA8EzL3d8tcf1ty7qW6wg...

I like how the replies are full of people still not understanding and being like "well you should have polled 'the craven destruction of women's sports by the bullying trans lobby'"

[beesley]

https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1806291306064339155?t=n44kzySwfgDBNPxf_...

Sounds pretty lit icl

[Battista Minola 1616]

"Angela Rayner is bad because she is like the French" do the Conservatives think it's 1824?