United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[MaxQue]

Technically it can be done, because Parliament hasn't dissolved yet.

Not yet, but it has been prorogued for a dissolution, the date of which has been set. This is where the political nature of the British Constitution makes theoretical questions very tricky: if something is arguably theoretically possible but is certainly not politically possible, is it actually theoretically possible at all?

Lets look at this excersice:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/24/andrea-leadsom-asked-no-confidence-letter-pm/

"It came amid rumours that Tory rebels are preparing to launch one final bid to oust Mr Sunak and stop the snap election."

Say they succeed by Thursday, and they get a temporary PM to ask the King to postpone it so that the Conservatives can have a proper leadership election during the Summer.

"We need some extra time to elect a new leader" sounds a reasonable argument.

The most likely result would be that the King is unwell and can't receive them.

[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).

[MaxQue]

'Bring Back National Service' is essentially the Conservative equivalent of 'we could... er... nationalize... *rolls dice*... the [insert here] industry'. It is an indicator that they are panicking and have irrationally decided that half-baked ideas that the stupidest members of their local associations and backbench like to trot out as solutions to every problem will strike a chord with the electorate.

And on that one, Labour doesn't look desperate with their rail proposals, because the average person sees the problems in the rail industry.

[MaxQue]

Wee bit of candidate news:

LBC’s Iain Dale has quit radio to run for the Tories in Tunbridge Wells. 15k majority in 2019, and held by the party since its 1974 creation.

And in Birmingham Northfield (one of Labour’s easiest target seats), the Labour candidate Alex Aiken is standing down over “personal challenges which have arisen recently”.

Dale is fascinating; was chief do staff to David Davis, and a firm Brexiteer but over the recent years has been more of a Tory Wet- for those who listen to his podcast it’s quite funny as he has been a strong critic of the government over immigration (he’s very pro) and various other issues.

The nature of his radio show means he can claim to have a relatively wide ranging interest in policy that isn’t exactly typical for a Tory; he did a lot on British airways poor treatment of staff during covid.

He would be an interesting MP; but I am surprised as it’s signing up for 5 years in opposition.

Didn't he also said that losing in 2005 (in N Norfolk) was the best thing that happened to him?

[MaxQue]

Starmer is going to have one of the most loyal PLPs ever, isn’t he?

He won't, as he apparently didn't realize the right of the party is going to get rid of him very quickly if he becomes a liability.

[MaxQue]

https://twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1795862063480234472

They beat me to posting it on VoteUK but not here

Yet another proof of the incompetence of the left of the party. They should have had their bogus complain against Reeves ready in case it happened.

[MaxQue]

The Telegraph… less so.

...what in God's name is that even supposed to mean

That USA is using UK as a dump for their worst specimens.

[MaxQue]

Some journalists here started talking about Canada 1993. And how Nigel Farages goal is basically to make the Tories lose so that they have to merge with Reform and make the Conservative Party more right wing / conservative and have people like Farage have more influence.

Ultimately, some of the journalists are fags like Andrew Pierce, which is unfortunate, because the non-bender population of the UK is larger than the outside observer might observe due to the assumption that the UK is populated by roaring poofters (not unreasonable given our governing class). It is actually populated by good old boys, nonetheless, the poofters do predominate. Press F.

Ignore the unusual name homosexual c*** factor.

What is this trash?

A closet case.

[MaxQue]

Stewart is a hypocrite because he is the kind of lover of multinational pro-globalization forums that encourage this kind of thing, but how the  hell did the Tories screw immigration up so badly when it's a pretty clear concern for their core electorate?

What they've done (and they were convinced that this was very clever) has been to combine the strongest anti-immigration rhetoric of any government for a rather long time with a deliberate policy of recruiting huge numbers of guest workers to be employed in public services as that is seen as cheaper than training people here.

I get that they wanted to bolster public services such as social care. Apparently (I read this on r/ukpol as a disclaimer) the visas afforded to social care  and NHS workers is something like 200.000 in the last few years, yet the backlog is only reduced by 30.000. that means 170.000 people arrived to bolster the NHS and social care but ended up where exactly? Working in the black? Surely there are pretty simple measures in place to ensure they only keep their visa if they're fulfilling the conditions. It is mana from heaven for the Farages of this world.

[/quote]

They are trying to replace retiring boomers, mostly. It's like trying to fill a leaking tank.

[MaxQue]

An update at the halfway mark

Sunak adds Crawley, Horsham, Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes. (His manifesto launch was in South Northants but I won't add that)

Starmer adds Hendon, Nuneaton, Redcar, Crewe and Nantwich, his manifesto launch was in Manchester. Part of me thinks I could've included Rayner's battle bus visits since she's doing more of the seat work, but it only reaches the same conclusion and the seats are in the same range.

Davey adds Runnymede and Weybridge, Torbay, Glastonbury and Somerton, Stratford on Avon, Tunbridge Wells.

Don't read too much into this as always, as the two seats were always targets, but both Starmer and Davey extended their ranges - Nuneaton and Stratford on Avon respectively are the seats furthest down the target list out of those they have visited.

should include reform

Farage seems to be campaigning full-time in Clacton.

[MaxQue]

After Reform defended their candidate who urged peace with Hitler, there’s been some digging. The Times revealed that 41 Reform candidate are Facebook friends and followers of Gary Raikes, the fascist leader of the “New British Union” on social media. Which Farage has defended this afternoon:

On Thursday Farage claimed it was “utter cobblers” to say they had Nazi sympathies because “on Facebook mates send each other things” without “having any idea where it comes from”. During a phone-in segment on an LBC radio show, he said: “I can only apologise that not all of our candidates have been to Eton, to Oxford, not all of our candidates are part of the London set.”

Which feels less defendable when you learn that Raikes is this guy:


Reform have also defended the candidate who referred to black people as “baboons” and the one who said Ghislaine Maxwell did Jeffrey Epstein’s victims a “favour”, saying vetting was “truncated”. Absolute bin-fire of a party.

I feel this sort of stuff isn't getting enough coverage. According to some polls nearly 20% of the electorate are planning to vote for this shower, and I wonder how many of them know what they're voting for.

It didn't help that some attention grabbing idiot decided to throw paper cups at him, but when Farage was in Barnsley the other day he really should have been asked about the disgusting reported views of their candidate in Barnsley North. (Which, according to naïve calculations based on the Brexit Party's performances in 2019, is one of their top targets, and, while that's a daft way to think about their chances of winning seats and I don't think many people think it's actually in danger, it's still of enough interest to them for Farage to visit.)

Complicit media. It's why Starmer will be a failure, his refusal to do the hard things. UK needs a Leveson II, in the same way Australia needs to break the media and grocery trusts.

[MaxQue]

On the subject of Great Grimsby & vote share it's worth remembering Labour actually won a fair few council seats in the area (I'm 99% sure- it's part of North East Lincolnshire council but my map reading suggests grimsby had gains)

I can't see them doing worse than 2019 on vote share- we had a BXP candidate in 2019 and they got 7% of the vote.

Wards in Great Grimsby and Cleesthorpe, 2021 locals: 8 Con, 1 LD
Wards in Great Grimsby and Cleesthorpe, 2024 locals: 5 Lab, 2 Ind, 1 LD, 1 Con

[MaxQue]

This is absolutely disgraceful. It is also obviously rather stupid for other reasons and, I suppose, interesting for the level of panic implied.

Shockingly, this is not even the most disgraceful thing Longhi did since he got elected as an MP.

[MaxQue]

https://x.com/PhilRodgers/status/1803112675775504536?t=KieTodV5R6UUjGrGATlsZA&s=19

This guy has helpfully charted all the figures in Cambs in the Ipsos, if people want to quickly see what kind of data is being spat out.

Two interesting three way ties there in the Isle of Ely and St Neots, and there does seem to be a handful of seats with no clear choice for the tactical voter.

Large Reform vote in NE Cambs (i notice it also shows reform second in Truss's seat nearby

I think the Labour vote in cambridge itself may be relatively depressed to Greens

It would be quite symbolically powerful if Labour won Huntingdon.

https://twitter.com/ACarpenDigital/status/1801507234758770761

Alex Bulat – Huntingdon

The idea of Labour winning Huntingdon, where John Major racked up a 36,000 majority in 1992 – and where the Tories hold a near-20,000 advantage – might seem absurd. But boundary changes, a new out-of-town Tory candidate and two prominent local Conservatives standing for Reform and as an independent mean Labour's Alex Bulat – a Romanian-born social scientist with degrees from UCL and the universities of Cambridge and Sussex – could pull off an unlikely victory.

The Tories really aren't in 1997 anymore now, what with a Labour Mayor & an abundance of Lib Dem & Labour borough & county councillors, one of whom is the Labour PPC herself.

If Alex Bulat becomes MP he should be among the most interesting members among his intake.

He?

[MaxQue]

It's a 2015 SLab redux. Labour had never effectively canvassed swathes of Lanarkshire and had no idea it had completely gone. Canvas returns looked better where they weren't as dominant and had data (middle class, new builds, wards that were competitive in the old District Council days etc) but comparative data was non existent in core areas where they collapsed.

Which leaves you just not knowing exactly where you should be doing the work on polling day or who you should be encouraging to use their postal vote and so on. This also applies to places where there used to be activity and data, but not for a while: a lot of Labour's problems in parts of London in the 1980s were linked to this, for instance.

In Canada 2011, the BQ machine was carrying by car NDP voters to the voting stations, thinking they were BQ voters.