United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I see that Johnny Mercer is dealing with coming under severe electoral pressure with all the dignity and decorum that we have come to expect from the man.

[Compuzled_One]

Reform and the LibDems will get 77 seats each, it came to me in a dream. /s

[Duke of York]

Indeed the true Blairites will probably oust starmer quickly if he becomes unpopular (lets hope the insane idea they're mooting to inadvertently make Australian style spills via parliamentary action does not come to pass).

i never liked Starmer and think its rather sad he was the best they come up with for a leader.

[DL]

I've heard people say that Starmer is actually to the left of Blair and even Brown - in what way? What would be an example of a policy stance that Starmer takes that is significantly more leftwing than anything Blair would have stood for?

[Wiswylfen]

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.”

I would call you a crow for how much you appear to be engaging with straw men, but that would be an insult to one of my favourite animals. Anyway, Starmer's leadership working doesn't change that Labour would be comfortably ahead almost whatever else they had done, just like Blair having very effective political instincts doesn't change that Labour would have won in 1997 with any other leader.

I think the most important point that needs to be made is that Starmer isn't Blair 2.0. He's clearly to Blair's left, and probably to Brown's left. This is an uncomfortable fact for many Corbynites (who think Starmer is a red Tory) and Blairites (who think that Labour can only win elections with an ultra-centrist neoliberal leader).

Starmer is part of the party's cowardly soft left, and has followed the same path as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Mike Gapes, Neil Kinnock, and many others besides. Him endorsing war crimes in a pathetic attempt to look tough was the purest expression of this tendency. However, trying to distinguish who's to whose left is a pointless endeavour.

'Blairites' should love him but 'Blairites' are literally LARPers (hence the name) who don't understand anything about Toe Knee (see: the anti-Lib Dem LARP they do) and think that Peter Mandelson being friends with Jeffrey Epstein was some epic based 'prince of darkness' move.

[DL]

I see a pair of constituency polls have the Greens winning the supersafe Tory seats of Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire. I know that constituency polls do not have a good record in the UK but if the Greens do win those it would create an interesting dynamic for them since their national leadership is trying to be a sort of Jeremy Corbyn-style far left new Labour party - but they could have all their MPs from very conservative rural seats.

How many people in Waveney Valley and North herefordshire actually want a 100% open door policy on asylum seekers and a massive increase in carbon pricing and a pro-Hamas foreign policy?

[Torrain]

While we’re talking slightly questionable polling - YouGov seem to be selecting for a rather politically engaged audience:
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1804199833890087171

[South Dakota Democrat]

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.”

Why are you so unpleasant lately?  Why is it necessary to be so sarcastic in every single post?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I see a pair of constituency polls have the Greens winning the supersafe Tory seats of Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire. I know that constituency polls do not have a good record in the UK but if the Greens do win those it would create an interesting dynamic for them since their national leadership is trying to be a sort of Jeremy Corbyn-style far left new Labour party - but they could have all their MPs from very conservative rural seats.

How many people in Waveney Valley and North herefordshire actually want a 100% open door policy on asylum seekers and a massive increase in carbon pricing and a pro-Hamas foreign policy?

Phenomena of rural/bourgeois areas electing somebody radical but not officially from the big Socialist Party is not that unusual. Australia has had quite a few over the years (including several Greens themselves), although the only one we've had recently off the top of my head is Wyre Forest's Richard Taylor.

Often the constituencies where Greens get a base is where they have smaller regional towns with hippies, artisans and other alternative sorts - Leominster is one such location in Herefordshire; I assume Bury St Edmunds occupies a same niche for Waveney.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I make no predictions on impact, but a BBC headline that reads 'West provoked Ukraine war, Nigel Farage says' does not qualify as great publicity.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Indeed the true Blairites will probably oust starmer quickly if he becomes unpopular (lets hope the insane idea they're mooting to inadvertently make Australian style spills via parliamentary action does not come to pass).

Will they be a sufficient large portion of the PLP to seriously threaten that? I thought unreconstructed Blairites were a small minority at this point.

Probably not, but they love talking to media so are unusually powerful.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two polls out today thus far: We Think Lab 43, Con 22, Ref 13, LDem 8, Green 7, SNP 3; Whitestone Insight Lab 39, Ref 20, Con 19, LDem 12, Green 6, SNP 3.

The difference between the Reform scores there are... erm... stark.

Anyway, I'm doing periodic background checking on some of the newer names in the polling game, and 'We Think' is the name given to the polling division of Omnisis (a long-established market research firm), while 'Whitestone Insight' is run by the people who ran ComRes before they sold it to Savanta.

[JimJamUK]

Often the constituencies where Greens get a base is where they have smaller regional towns with hippies, artisans and other alternative sorts - Leominster is one such location in Herefordshire; I assume Bury St Edmunds occupies a same niche for Waveney.

Not actually in the constituency anymore. It’s basically a leftover constituency covering the most rural areas of Mid Suffolk along with a bit of rural South Norfolk and East Suffolk. Im half surprised they didn’t call it ‘Mid East Anglia’ or something.

[DL]

I see a pair of constituency polls have the Greens winning the supersafe Tory seats of Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire. I know that constituency polls do not have a good record in the UK but if the Greens do win those it would create an interesting dynamic for them since their national leadership is trying to be a sort of Jeremy Corbyn-style far left new Labour party - but they could have all their MPs from very conservative rural seats.

How many people in Waveney Valley and North herefordshire actually want a 100% open door policy on asylum seekers and a massive increase in carbon pricing and a pro-Hamas foreign policy?

Phenomena of rural/bourgeois areas electing somebody radical but not officially from the big Socialist Party is not that unusual. Australia has had quite a few over the years (including several Greens themselves), although the only one we've had recently off the top of my head is Wyre Forest's Richard Taylor.

Often the constituencies where Greens get a base is where they have smaller regional towns with hippies, artisans and other alternative sorts - Leominster is one such location in Herefordshire; I assume Bury St Edmunds occupies a same niche for Waveney.

I have to say I find it amusing to imagine some blue rinsed old ladies in Herefordshire eating cucumber sandwiches after their bridge game and talking about voting for the Greens - who support dropping all restrictions on immigration of any kind, massively increasing taxes, and various other Corbyn-era Labour party policies - but if you asked them about voting Labour under Keir Starmer, they would clutch their pearls and say "Oh heavens no, never! what do you take me for, a socialist?"

[Storr]

I make no predictions on impact, but a BBC headline that reads 'West provoked Ukraine war, Nigel Farage says' does not qualify as great publicity.

"I admire Putin because he's ruthless and authoritarian, but dislike him as a person" isn't the genius response Nigel thought it was:

"In an interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson, Mr Farage was challenged over his judgement and past statements, including when he named Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world leader he most admired in 2014.

"I said I disliked him as a person, but admired him as a political operator because he's managed to take control of running Russia," Mr Farage said."

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Herefordshire is not exactly cucumber sandwiches territory. Ham or egg sandwiches would be more like it.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

Starmer's ratings are now better than Johnson's were during the last GE campaign. His "unpopularity" is much exaggerated by his critics on both wings of the political spectrum.

[TheTide]

I make no predictions on impact, but a BBC headline that reads 'West provoked Ukraine war, Nigel Farage says' does not qualify as great publicity.

He hasn't been shy about stating elements of his views which aren't overly popular. The NHS criticisms are another example.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

He hasn't been shy about stating elements of his views which aren't overly popular. The NHS criticisms are another example.

He hasn't, but they've generally not had much attention as there have been other things to run as headlines. May be a case of being accidentally lulled into a false sense of security.

[DL]

Herefordshire is not exactly cucumber sandwiches territory. Ham or egg sandwiches would be more like it.

Fair enough but you know what I mean...I presume that the kinds of people who get elected as Greens in rural England are more the NIMBY types (aka "I love wind energy but if you build a windmill anywhere near my field of vision from my my front porch I will rip your lungs out") as opposed to Greens in inner cities who are basically reincarnated Corbynistas

[YL]

JLP constituency poll of Clacton: Reform 48%, Con 21%, Lab 17%, Lib Dem 6%, Green 6%

Fieldwork 10-19 June, sample size 502

[beesley]

It’s basically a leftover constituency covering the most rural areas of Mid Suffolk along with a bit of rural South Norfolk and East Suffolk. Im half surprised they didn’t call it ‘Mid East Anglia’ or something.

Yes Diss is the most populous settlement in the Waveney Valley constituency.

Funnily enough I was wondering which seats had the 'least populous' largest settlement. For the UK as a whole it should be Na h-Eileanan an Iar, with Stornoway's sub-5k figure. For England, Thirsk and Malton's largest settlement is Norton-on-Derwent with just under 8k. But should you consider Malton and Norton functionally one built up area, then the next smallest I found is Tenterden in the new very rural Weald of Kent seat, just over 8k. In Wales and Northern Ireland, the seats appear to be Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (Ystradgynlais) and South Down (Downpatrick) respectively.

Open to corrections of all kinds!

[Wiswylfen]

JLP constituency poll of Clacton: Reform 48%, Con 21%, Lab 17%, Lib Dem 6%, Green 6%

Fieldwork 10-19 June, sample size 502

25% Labour in 2017. The 2015 UKIP-2017 Labour-2024 Reform voter.

[Almost Anyone But Biden Or Trump (ABBoT but not Greg Abbott)]

Rory Stewart has made this point elsewhere. His fear is that if a Labour government fails to deliver meaningful change, then that will only end up empowering Reform. We are seeing a similar phenomenon play out in France right now, and to a lesser extent, here in Australia.

Starmer will end up with a decent mandate to say the least, and I hope does more than small-target stuff because otherwise, we could end up with PM Farage.

The elephant in the room is obviously Brexit.

The reason why the British economy has been doing worse than the rest of Europe is Brexit, which is the underlying reason for general voter discontent, and the obvious way to improve it is to reverse (at the least cautiously and gradually) Brexit.

However, moving towards this would cut against earlier statements Starmer had to make against rejoining the EU or single market which he pretty much had to make for obvious political reasons.

But they have started making noises:

Labour signals closer UK-EU trade ties as Sunak returns to campaign trail

Moving in this direction will obviously pour kerosene on the Farage fire.

But not doing this means the economy is probably not going to get better quickly, in which case it probably won't take long for Starmer's approval ratings to drop into Sunak territory.

[YL]

It’s basically a leftover constituency covering the most rural areas of Mid Suffolk along with a bit of rural South Norfolk and East Suffolk. Im half surprised they didn’t call it ‘Mid East Anglia’ or something.

Yes Diss is the most populous settlement in the Waveney Valley constituency.

Funnily enough I was wondering which seats had the 'least populous' largest settlement. For the UK as a whole it should be Na h-Eileanan an Iar, with Stornoway's sub-5k figure. For England, Thirsk and Malton's largest settlement is Norton-on-Derwent with just under 8k. But should you consider Malton and Norton functionally one built up area, then the next smallest I found is Tenterden in the new very rural Weald of Kent seat, just over 8k. In Wales and Northern Ireland, the seats appear to be Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (Ystradgynlais) and South Down (Downpatrick) respectively.

Open to corrections of all kinds!

Central Devon (Crediton I think) and Mid Bucks (Princes Risborough) are close rivals to Weald of Kent here. The question of where the Labour vote in the former comes from arises again.