United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain ...

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1799350801514528924

We could make a nice list of songs from the end of political eras.
Here's Rory Bremner doing a good impersonation of Gordon Brown singing about his sorrows:

Sadly the classic Spitting Image bit with all of Thatcher's cabinet ministers, parliament, the queen and then the whole of Britain singing "Go Now" to her has heen copyrighted (would have probably seen use under BoJo and Truss).

I have most of it but nothing after the 1991 season.

But I have found a rare recording of the special episode for Thatcher's 10 years in power, The Sound Of Maggie :

https://odysee.com/@GaryPSmith:6/SImageSoundOfMaggie:c

That was a great watch, thank you.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/NewsWire_US/status/1799523497019875398

UK Conservatives halt social media campaigning; senior source cites financial constraints, saying "there is no money" - The Times

The problem with Conservative Party campaigns is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I wonder if there'll be a constituency visited by all three leaders?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I wonder if there'll be a constituency visited by all three leaders?

Maybe Wimbledon if Labour decides to target it. Easy for Starmer to visit and has the other two already

Sounds like a good guess. We'll see of course.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why was Sunak in Caithness?

trying to prevent Ed Davey from launching a land invasion of Scotland from Orkney

Still a better tactical choice than skipping out the full schedule at D-Day.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Highlights from the Lib Dem manifesto:

• 'Free personal care' and an increase in carers allowance.
• Many policies aimed at improving NHS healthcare, including: the 'right' to see a GP within seven days; an ending of 'dental deserts'; increased funding for cancer treatment with the 'guarantee' of a two month maximum waitlist to begin treatment.
• Similarly, efforts to improve mental healthcare, including a trained mental health professional in every school. Also on education, £5000 grants for all adults to spend on training, and aim to expand free school meals to all primary-age children when public finances allow.
• Avoid tax rises for individuals, but raise money through various specific corporation taxes: a windfall tax on oil and gas giants, raising the digital services tax, and reversing cuts to 'big banks' taxes'.
• An expansion of neighbourhood policing including a guarantee that all burglaries are attended by the police.
• Various policies aimed at achieving net-zero, including a ten-year programme to retrofit existing homes with free insulation, and restoring the 2030 zero-emission vehicles requirement. Also, a freeze in rail fares.
• Various policies to expand rights including reforming the gender recognition process, with the aim of making it easier.
• Support international institutions such as NATO and the UN, return international development spending to 0.7% of GDP, and advocate for an immediate bilateral ceasefire and two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. Eventually, seek to rejoin the European Single Market.
• Introduce a proportional electoral system for Westminster elections, reform the House of Lords to give it a democratic mandate, scrap the voter ID system and extend the franchise to 16 and 17 yos.

https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto for those interested - many other policies I've neglected to mention; no less ambitious but not 'headline'.

I'm stunned the Lib Dems are supporting some form of proportional representation.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Say what you will about whether or not this strategy will actually work, he definitely seems like he's actually enjoying the election more than anyone else. It feels like he took the calling of a general election as an excuse to hit every vacation destination in Great Britain and good for him.

Sunak: Plodding through just so that he can get to California
Starmer: Plodding through just so that he can get to Westminster
Swinney: Plodding through just so that he can see how much risk he's in in the next Holyrood election
Davey: conducting interviews with reporters while riding teacups rides

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/savanta_uk/status/1800426040558526595?s=46

So much for the hysterical memes about Muslims deserting Labourover Gaza

Starmer has been supporting a ceasefire for a long time now. Also, UK Muslims are hardly big fans of the Tories' record in office.
That being said, polling smaller groups could be quite difficult so I dunno how seriously I want to take this poll.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Personally, I would be fairly surprised if Labour's majority in Hartlepool over the Tories is only 3%.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Man, I thought self-sabotaging in NCT was unrealistic

If I had a million pounds for every bad decision Sunak made or will make in this campaign then I would have enough money to buy a California mansion for every Tory MP who likely lost because of him to join him there if they wanted to do so.

[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.

[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)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Labour manifesto launch today, I suppose the lack of comments on here tells its own story a bit

One thing I will say is that Starmer has his shortcomings and they have been well rehearsed, but one of his strengths is an apparent ability to learn from his mistakes - something even some quite skilled politicians have been known to struggle with. He took on board what went less well in the first debate and performed much more assuredly last night despite some tough questioning. And today, he again was well on top of his brief - notably Beth Rigby tried to floor him with the sort of "gotcha" she has maybe become a bit too fond of recently, but SKS's reply actually had her joining in the applause.

I read the entire Conservative manifesto and while it sounds nice, One Nation-like, etc, but it's the Tory manifesto and as such few are going to take it seriously. They're running away from their actual term in office and playing defense. A doomed task.
Labour's going to be winning the election and they're behaving like it. The manifesto is another step in that direction.
(I think I've been bitten by the 'read manifesto' bug)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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.

Wouldn't be surprised if this is their way of bidding for the "youth vote" (well, a certain young *male* vote, at least--not unlike Maxime Bernier's crowd in Canada)

I could see that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Seems like Reform's recent scandals have been the best news for the Tories the whole campaign?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

If the Tories are reduced to just one seat in London it would logically be Orpington.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Survation has the Tories on 0(!) seats in Wales. Is this a live possibility or another example of MRP oddities?

See: 1997

Re: 1997, the Tories only won twelve seats north of Lincolnshire and none outside England.
They still won probably more land area than Labour though, somehow.
This time around history might be made there, in that department...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[snip]

Yeah, I get it — this would make me consider it too if I was the PM.
[chart of plummetting Tory polls]
Quote
Guardian news
@guardiannews
·
1h
Rishi Sunak says he is not opposed to assisted dying http://dlvr.it/T8MRWv

Brutal.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Hilarious briefing in the Times that Sunak needs to go more negative and attack Keir over his support for Corbyn- ironic as the Tories have been flogging that horse for the last 3 years.

Those voters who care about this have already made up their mind and I suspect Labour have a good response- ‘Keir kicked him out- why didn’t Rishi do the same with Truss’?

They also wanted more attacks over Keirs record as a lawyer- we were promised for years that CCHQ had a big file on this but tbh they have already tried this attack before and Sunak even mentioned it in the TV debate.

We might still have time for this campaign's version of the Chretien face ad, lol.

Arguably, the D-Day debacle could already qualify as such insofar as to how it's impacted the Tories. But who knows? The Tories might not disappoint us!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/PhilRodgers/status/1803112675775504536?t=KieTodV5R6UUjGrGATl...
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.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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 she should be among the most interesting members among her intake.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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

He?

Sorry, I made a shorthand assumption that the Alex was, in absence of any information to the contrary, a he. Because most people who go by simply Alex are a he.
That was inaccurate in this case. I'll edit the post accordingly.
That doesn't actually negate anything I'm saying either way. Save your recreational outrage, if you have any, for other targets, please.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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

Also surprising that Stonehenge vandalism is low.

Perhaps the general election is sucking up the oxygen.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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

Also surprising that Stonehenge vandalism is low.

Perhaps the general election is sucking up the oxygen.

The European Soccer tournament is sucking oxygen.

England losing to Iceland for example, or the tie against Denmark.

I could also see that.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1805240223996993833

I've avoided sharing tweets just because I find their content to be interesting, but I'll allow myself this one.

"Sheep running away from Rishi Sunak in Devon"
That's the funniest one of them all. Probably.