United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[CumbrianLefty]

As already mentioned Ipsos has consistently been the SNP's strongest pollster in recent years, and in addition Opinium probably their second best (though they don't poll Scotland that often) so we very much need some contributions from those who have shown Labour clearly ahead recently (not a poll as such, but in R&W's recent megapoll a big Scottish sample had a 10 point lead for Labour)

[Torrain]

I think the moderation was stellar. I think the drifting into non-reserved matters was unfortunate but also moderated well. I think some of those who fielded the questions enjoyed the sound of their own voice (Limmy's 'Yes or No' sketch once again)

The audience were relatively non responsive and engaging. Some very heavy clappers but it was obvious it wasn't in response to the response but to the speaker. My own take is that Douglas Ross was relatively ignored rather than actively engaged with.

Sarwar's performance to me, with all my biases was very much 'press play', 'next track' which going into 2026 gives me some hope he will easily become unstuck. I think Swinney is naturally monotone in response when attacked which makes some of the shouting fall flat; you could see that shift in the latter half of the debate as things got much calmer.

Agree on the moderator being pretty solid - the drive-by on Ross was justified, definitely wasn't attacking that. Drifting into devolved areas was kinda inevitable, and handled fairly well (some protest voting over Holyrood's performance is inevitable, and both opposition attacks/Swinney's defence were given space without it dominating the evening). Audience members definitely liked the sound of their own voices.

I thought Sarwar came across far smoother, but my own biases may be kicking in. Not sure Swinney's monotone is an advantage - reverting to tetchiness when interrupting/heckling Sarwar disrupted any sense of him as the bigger man.

Feel like I still owe you a response on the Scottish Tories from the other day. Suffice to say, I'm not optimistic about their 2026 chances, and it looks like the leadership is going to end up being a scuffle between Finlay Carson, Meghan Gallacher and Neil Findlay - which doesn't fill my heart with joy.

If we get more than two candidates, I expect one will become the "disaffilate now" candidate - but that it won't happen unless Braverman is LOTO, or Farage gets the Tory whip and a frontbench position, at which point the Scottish Tories will be forced to cut and run in order to survive. Interesting discussion to be had on that front at a later date - maybe one for the Wretched Hive, rather than here.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Any sense on what is the bare minimum of total national vote support that would likely yield a Labour majority? With the emergence of Reform adding a bunch of wasted votes, perhaps the low 30s?

Without the collapse of one of the two governing parties, recent history suggests 36 to 37%. In both cases the opposition was between 3 and 7 points behind.

If the Tories, Lib Dems and Reform got 20% each, that would put Labour on about 30-32% and they would still get a majority.

If Labour get a big majority from such a low percentage, it would only highlight the absurdity of FPTP

If, but it seems very unlikely to me that they will given that even relatively weak polling has them around 40%.

The recent record for a Labour GE total is, of course, 43.2% in 1997, before which you have to go back to 1966, when Wilson got 48.0% in the era of two-party politics in Britain (this was the first election in twenty-one years where the Liberals had a double-digit seat count).

Labour has never hit 50%+1 in any general election, although in 1945 they did in Great Britain since they were at 49.7% and about 3% of the total vote was in Northern Ireland.

[Torrain]

Starmer & Sunak townhall-style debate starting at 19.30:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As this has somehow happened again, polling firms should not be 'changing methodologies' during the middle of election campaigns! It makes comparisons across the sweep of the campaign for the firm in question impossible and also leads to confusion and (from some people) dishonesty. There's a pretty compelling argument that it amounts to flat-out bad practice.

[Torrain]

Rigby right in there with the Corbyn, flip-flopping question.

Edit: We've spent almost all of Starmer's 20 minute interview on his support for the last leader, and his 2020 pledges. Starmer floundering a bit as Rigby digs in.

[icc]

As already mentioned Ipsos has consistently been the SNP's strongest pollster in recent years, and in addition Opinium probably their second best (though they don't poll Scotland that often) so we very much need some contributions from those who have shown Labour clearly ahead recently (not a poll as such, but in R&W's recent megapoll a big Scottish sample had a 10 point lead for Labour)

The R&W 'weighted subsamples' are as trashy as their usual subsamples. Best ignored.

[afleitch]

As this has somehow happened again, polling firms should not be 'changing methodologies' during the middle of election campaigns! It makes comparisons across the sweep of the campaign for the firm in question impossible and also leads to confusion and (from some people) dishonesty. There's a pretty compelling argument that it amounts to flat-out bad practice.

In the last few days of the campaign they are going to herd so hard.

[oldtimer]

It was just endless waffle.

Rigby went hard on Starmer and soft on Sunak, but the most memorable moment of each :

Starmer segment.
Rigby:" Has he answered the question?"
Audience member: "No"

Sunak segment.
Rigby:"What can you say to make us like you again?"
Sunak: "I eat sugar"

Voters would probably leave to get a Twix.

[Yelnoc]

It was just endless waffle.

Rigby went hard on Starmer and soft on Sunak, but the most memorable moment of each :

Starmer segment.
Rigby:" Has he answered the question?"
Audience member: "No"

Sunak segment.
Rigby:"What can you say to make us like you again?"
Sunak: "I eat sugar"

Voters would probably leave to get a Twix.

That Sunak quote is brutal. Does he think he's running against Desantis?

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

My favorite question from Rigby was for Sunak, "How do we know that if you win the election, you'd still be Prime Minister in one year?"

[Torrain]

The Sunak sugar moment is a bit of a microcosm. Starmer was told to talk personally, and gave a fairly rote line about how he’s all about public service.

Sunak, watching from the greenroom, appears to have decided he needed a more human anecdote for the last question. And all he could come up with is “I may be a Pelaton guy, but I like Haribo too.”

This is why we need Cleverly as LOTO. If we’re doing human interest questions, I need Big Jim explaining Warhammer 40k lore to a baffled audience in Bassetlaw, circa 2028:
https://twitter.com/JamesCleverly/status/163753939676839937

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

It was just endless waffle.

Rigby went hard on Starmer and soft on Sunak, but the most memorable moment of each :

Starmer segment.
Rigby:" Has he answered the question?"
Audience member: "No"

Sunak segment.
Rigby:"What can you say to make us like you again?"
Sunak: "I eat sugar"

Voters would probably leave to get a Twix.

That Sunak quote is brutal. Does he think he's running against Desantis?

Nah, Michael Bloomberg maybe

[afleitch]

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1800979626199486637

The polling we need.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sunak was extremely, abyssally, bad. A dire and at points genuinely pathetic performance.

[Joe Republic]

Sunak was extremely, abyssally, bad. A dire and at points genuinely pathetic performance.

But enough about his tenure as PM.  How did he do during this town hall?

[brucejoel99]

Any sense on what is the bare minimum of total national vote support that would likely yield a Labour majority? With the emergence of Reform adding a bunch of wasted votes, perhaps the low 30s?

Without the collapse of one of the two governing parties, recent history suggests 36 to 37%. In both cases the opposition was between 3 and 7 points behind.

If the Tories, Lib Dems and Reform got 20% each, that would put Labour on about 30-32% and they would still get a majority.

If Labour get a big majority from such a low percentage, it would only highlight the absurdity of FPTP

If, but it seems very unlikely to me that they will given that even relatively weak polling has them around 40%.

Still hilariously notable that Labour could & very well still may win less votes than they did under Corbyn in 2017 yet still win the largest parliamentary majority this side of the equal franchise.

[Mike88]

It was just endless waffle.

Rigby went hard on Starmer and soft on Sunak, but the most memorable moment of each :

Starmer segment.
Rigby:" Has he answered the question?"
Audience member: "No"

Sunak segment.
Rigby:"What can you say to make us like you again?"
Sunak: "I eat sugar"

Voters would probably leave to get a Twix.

At what minutes of the debate were these moments? Need to watch them.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Here's a link if anyone wants to read the 80 page "The Conservative and Unionist Party
Manifesto 2024"

In sum: we'll lower your taxes

We will put our guidance on banning mobile
phones in the school day on a statutory
footing which will require all schools to operate
a ban, as the best schools already do. We will
provide funding for schools to help them ban
mobile phones where they need it. 

Page 19
Tories are really chasing the youth vote.

[Duke of York]

Here's a link if anyone wants to read the 80 page "The Conservative and Unionist Party
Manifesto 2024"

In sum: we'll lower your taxes

We will put our guidance on banning mobile
phones in the school day on a statutory
footing which will require all schools to operate
a ban, as the best schools already do. We will
provide funding for schools to help them ban
mobile phones where they need it. 

Page 19
Tories are really chasing the youth vote.

wouldn't be a bad thing for Labour to endorse.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Economy and security get the most attention in the Tory manifesto. Cue surprise.
They forgot to include a "Our plan that you wouldn't trust even if God endorsed it..." section though.
EDIT: shrunk the image by half (I think)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Here's a link if anyone wants to read the 80 page "The Conservative and Unionist Party
Manifesto 2024"

In sum: we'll lower your taxes

We will put our guidance on banning mobile
phones in the school day on a statutory
footing which will require all schools to operate
a ban, as the best schools already do. We will
provide funding for schools to help them ban
mobile phones where they need it. 

Page 19
Tories are really chasing the youth vote.

wouldn't be a bad thing for Labour to endorse.

This is the sort of thing that is pretty straightforwardly sound policy (have you ever tried to get teenagers to concentrate on a lesson? I have) but that starts to be thermonuclear with ordinary voters fast once you get into young enough age ranges.

[Blair]

I can't find them but there have been a few good threads on twitter about how the Reform vote is actually different to the Brexit Party (BXP) vote in 2019; those voting Reform now tend to be older, more conservative and I assume more similar to the people who flirted with UKIP in 2012-2015, where as BXP voters had a bit more variation in 2019- with the huge caveat that in Conservative held seats they (BXP) didn't run.

Basically means Reform are a more dangerous vehicle for taking votes away from the Conservatives compared to BXP

[afleitch]

This is the sort of thing that is pretty straightforwardly sound policy (have you ever tried to get teenagers to concentrate on a lesson? I have) but that starts to be thermonuclear with ordinary voters fast once you get into young enough age ranges.

Especially given the body of parent-voters who, for their own benign or otherwise reasons, want to know where their child is and be able to contact at any given time. Even in school.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Has anyone got a list of former MPs who are trying for a comebaxk this election?