United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[beesley]

From an american or canadian standpoint, british elections are really short. As far as I know, a big push for the week prior is pretty standard for the uk, and things in general are much more casual over there.

You are completely correct but good grief this feels like it has gone on forever. Make it Thursday already

[RBH]

what British elections provide with a quick election cycle, they make up for with the places where they picked their candidates 2 years ago

to the point where Reform UK removed one candidate for inactivity, only to find out that he had died without them noticing

[IceAgeComing]

I wonder how much Labour and the Tories would each spend in an individual seat that is seriously contested? Are there local spending limits?

Its somewhat complicated; as you have separate spending limits both for the local candidates and the parties nationally plus in a 'normal' election you have short and long campaign limits - although the nature of this election being called slightly early means that there was no official 'long campaign' (and you can't retroactively create one if people didn't know there was one).

Constituency candidate limits are £11,390 plus 8p per elector in Burgh constituencies (usually urban seats) or 12p per elector in County Councstituencies (usually more rural - but obviously will include some urban elements). For example if you had a seat of 85,000 electors that would give you spending limits of £18,190 in a Burgh Constituency and £21,590 in a County Constituency. This difference is very historic (differentiating between the two types takes back to the old days of Parliamentary Boroughs) but broadly is intended to reflect that campaigning in a rural seat is likely to be more expensive, especially smaller rural seats. Parties also have a separate national limit of £54,010*the number of seats they are contesting; with base numbers in England, Scotland and Wales they will get in any case. While most of that will be used for things like PEBs, the national campaigns of the leaders etc you will see leaflets and the like sent with national campaign money but generally those will have to be generic 'vote Labour' with national commitments, as referencing the local candidate and any specific statements they've made would verge onto local spending. I suspect there is some creative accounting from some parties to move some local spending from one constituency into another but I obviously would not make any exact predictions.

Latest fundraising numbers also came in - from 13-19 June Labour raised £3.3m (plus the Cooperative Party raising £34k), the Conservatives £375k, Lib Dems £194k, Reform Party £99k, Greens £20k and Workers Party £12k (with no one else getting any reportable donations. Labour I suspect are the only party getting close to having the money to cover both the while national limit and the local limit in the expanded range of targets - worth noting that the limits were increased by the last government quite a bit to cover historic inflation. The Tories usually are the party with the most donations so getting not far off 10% of what Labour is raising is not great. The Lib Dems obviously run in much less seats (I suspect they are running a full local campaign in less than 100, and perhaps a lower scale build for the future one in a few more but they'll spend pennies in a majority of seats); but the Tories are out of money as can really be seen by things like their election broadcasts that are very cheap - to the point where their last broadcast in Wales was the one they'll show in England with continual references to cheering on England in the Euros.

Also in another baffling example of the Tories not being prepared for the election that they called: Labour saw the betting movements for a 4th July election and pre-emptively got the prime ad spots on both the Sun and Mail websites for the entire last week; as the Tories had not yet booked the slots. This is highly unusual as usually the governing party will get those main ad slots before going to the country if they have a date in mind while this time they simply did not.

[TheTide]

Went out to two drinking holes last night. In the first one most of the attention was on the Germany-Denmark match with various dodgy refereeing decisions. In the second one there was an extensive political discussion between two blokes sitting opposite, but as much of it was about Biden and Le Pen as it was about the general election over here. Again, there was more attention on the television, in this case on Glastonbury and Michael J. Fox's appearance at it.

Then again my dad tells me that he went out on the night of the 1992 general election and tried to whip up a discussion about it, to which there was little interest. That election had one of the highest turnouts under universal suffrage.

[Hnv1]

Went out to two drinking holes last night. In the first one most of the attention was on the Germany-Denmark match with various dodgy refereeing decisions. In the second one there was an extensive political discussion between two blokes sitting opposite, but as much of it was about Biden and Le Pen as it was about the general election over here. Again, there was more attention on the television, in this case on Glastonbury and Michael J. Fox's appearance at it.

Then again my dad tells me that he went out on the night of the 1992 general election and tried to whip up a discussion about it, to which there was little interest. That election had one of the highest turnouts under universal suffrage.

I think it's just British norms of etiquette. In Israel, it's acceptable for people to ask you who you vote for, I always got the feeling from British friends that it's not a legitimate question unless the individuals have the sort of relationship that allows it.

[Blair]

From an american or canadian standpoint, british elections are really short. As far as I know, a big push for the week prior is pretty standard for the uk, and things in general are much more casual over there.

You are completely correct but good grief this feels like it has gone on forever. Make it Thursday already

Engines on all sides have basically ran out of petrol- especially as everyone focuses on getting their own vote out and working out where to target

[Hnv1]

The Sunday Times endorses Labour. I don't know how much weight newspaper endorsements have in 2024, but it definitely shows the attitude in the political class/

[TheTide]

Went out to two drinking holes last night. In the first one most of the attention was on the Germany-Denmark match with various dodgy refereeing decisions. In the second one there was an extensive political discussion between two blokes sitting opposite, but as much of it was about Biden and Le Pen as it was about the general election over here. Again, there was more attention on the television, in this case on Glastonbury and Michael J. Fox's appearance at it.

Then again my dad tells me that he went out on the night of the 1992 general election and tried to whip up a discussion about it, to which there was little interest. That election had one of the highest turnouts under universal suffrage.

I think it's just British norms of etiquette. In Israel, it's acceptable for people to ask you who you vote for, I always got the feeling from British friends that it's not a legitimate question unless the individuals have the sort of relationship that allows it.

That is still there to an extent, but there was a lot of discussion (both immediately prior to and immediately after the referendum) about Brexit in such settings. On one occasion someone (obviously a Leaver) held a newspaper up in the air which had a headline about a poll showing Leave ahead.

The Sunday Times endorses Labour. I don't know how much weight newspaper endorsements have in 2024, but it definitely shows the attitude in the political class/

The Sun, meanwhile, has yet to endorse. Been rumoured for quite a while now that it will back Labour, probably on little more than a desire to be on the winning side.

Talking of endorsements, the individual endorsements section on Wikipedia makes for an amusing read. The Tories have a grand total of four and Labour have many. Some ex-politicians, quite a few soap stars and one or two genuine A-listers (i.e. Elton John and Ed Sheeran).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Endorsements_from_individuals

[Cassius]

As an aside, it looks fairly certain that the Tories will finally lose their hold on the Cities of London and Westminster constituency (where, for those who don’t know, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Downing Street, the Bank of England and much of the traditional finance district of the City are located). It was fairly marginal in 2017 and Labour might’ve fancied their chances in 2019 had that been a more normal election (as it was, the Liberal Democrats ended up taking second place with Chuka Umunna as their candidate). The seat itself has been Tory since 1950 and its predecessors have been held by the Conservatives since 1874, although the old City of London component, which was a four seater, elected one Liberal up until 1885 when it was reduced to a two seater.

[Alcibiades]

As an aside, it looks fairly certain that the Tories will finally lose their hold on the Cities of London and Westminster constituency (where, for those who don’t know, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Downing Street, the Bank of England and much of the traditional finance district of the City are located). It was fairly marginal in 2017 and Labour might’ve fancied their chances in 2019 had that been a more normal election (as it was, the Liberal Democrats ended up taking second place with Chuka Umunna as their candidate). The seat itself has been Tory since 1950 and its predecessors have been held by the Conservatives since 1874, although the old City of London component, which was a four seater, elected one Liberal up until 1885 when it was reduced to a two seater.

The second most recent non-Conservative to represent the Westminster component of the seat is … John Stuart Mill.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

One of the MPs for the old Westminster constituency was George Reid, the former Prime Minister of Australia. How many former leaders have ended up in the legislature of another country?

[GeorgiaModerate]

One of the MPs for the old Westminster constituency was George Reid, the former Prime Minister of Australia. How many former leaders have ended up in the legislature of another country?

It's kind of an edge case because the first country was incorporated into the second, but Sam Houston was President of the Republic of Texas, then served as Senator from Texas after it joined the U.S.  He also served as Governor of Texas -- and earlier in his career, he was both a Congressman from and Governor of Tennessee (he's the only person to be elected as governor of two different U.S. states).

[brucejoel99]

One of the MPs for the old Westminster constituency was George Reid, the former Prime Minister of Australia. How many former leaders have ended up in the legislature of another country?

If Boris had stayed on, there's a non-0 chance Tony Abbott stands right now

[Thomas D]

Better for Labour if England loses today?  /s

[Germany1994]

Is it just me or do the newspaper endorsements for the Conservatives not feel really enthusiastic this time??

[TheTide]

Better for Labour if England loses today?  /s

Southgate (to his credit) has ensured that England getting to the last eight of a major tournament isn't a shock or seen as a major achievement. Between about 2006 and when he took over that wasn't the case.       

[Logical]

Better for Labour if England loses today?  /s

Better for football certainly.

[RBH]

Is it just me or do the newspaper endorsements for the Conservatives not feel really enthusiastic this time??

Unless the Saddam-era Iraqi Information Minister is writing the column, I suspect that you can't really do an enthusiastic endorsement for a party that doesn't really merit enthusiasm

(unrelated, the British nickname "Comical Ali" blew the American nickname "Baghdad Bob" out of the water for derisive nicknames)

[JimJamUK]

Is it just me or do the newspaper endorsements for the Conservatives not feel really enthusiastic this time??

If you are a right winger then there’s just next to nothing positive to say about the Conservative government’s record, so any endorsement for them has to be entirely anti-Labour (and especially in the Telegraph’s case, utterly mental).

[RBH]

in the event of an England win today, I can see the half-hearted campaign argument from the Tories about making a late comeback to win just like England did vs Slovakia

in the spirit of Bob Dole trying to do a whistle stop ala Harry Truman in 1996

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anna Soubry has endorsed the Labour candidate in Broxtowe. That tells you almost all you need to know about the Tories losing support in this election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

From an american or canadian standpoint, british elections are really short. As far as I know, a big push for the week prior is pretty standard for the uk, and things in general are much more casual over there.

You are completely correct but good grief this feels like it has gone on forever. Make it Thursday already

Six weeks is long by normal standards - it's usually more like a month. Still, at least it's not the insufferably long campaign May stupidly decided on in 2017.

[Blair]

Endorsement wise it’s telling how strong the Arts are for labour considering everything; clearly a sign of how the sector has been treated!

[Estrella]

in the event of an England win today, I can see the half-hearted campaign argument from the Tories about making a late comeback to win just like England did vs Slovakia

in the spirit of Bob Dole trying to do a whistle stop ala Harry Truman in 1996

Imagine if they won with Germany though. By tomorrow you’d have Tory MPs tweeting themselves singing Two World Wars and One World Cup.

[CumbrianLefty]

A number of Labour officials in Islington North have resigned (or "expect to be expelled") in order to campaign for Corbyn.

Why would they do this less than a week before the election? Wouldn't it have more impact if they started participating in the campaign earlier?

I think it's a sign they expect the race to be close and that Corbyn needs all the help he can get. I've seen talk that many people didn't realize Corbyn was running as an independent so a lot of it will be helping spread the word so they aren't confused when they get a ballot.

Tbh what I don't understand about this excuse (and let's face it, that is what it is - the ground is being prepared for at least the possibility of him not winning) is why it shouldn't apply the other way round - ie people voting for Corbyn who still think he is the Labour candidate? I certainly don't see why "low information" voters should be found here in one direction only.