United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Reform are heavily gaming TikTok for what it's worth, although that will almost certainly lead to classic internet vapour politics.

[Angel of Death]

At this rate, it looks like the share of "wasted votes" (votes not going to the top two candidates in a constituency) might reach a high not seen since 2010.

This is not a proper definition of "wasted votes". Wasted votes are all votes for losing candidates and the difference in votes between the top two minus one (if they didn't tie).

[Blair]

On afleitch's very good point about the media having short memories it's worth noting with some hilarity that the media were reporting with relish Sunak's claims after the local elections that the results suggested a hung parliament.

They are now of course reporting the same claims by the Tories that Starmer could get a 'super-majority' a term that has no purpose or use in British Politics. Of course everyone will say how smart the Conservatives are for this new message.

We are basically going to have to wait until the 4th July for these claims to stop.

[Blair]

Absolute car crash from Penny Mordaunt.

Farage asked her something to the effect of "immigration has risen by millions over the past few years, why should anyone trust you?".

Mordaunt - "Because of the record of this Prime Minister..."

Cue laughter.

It's so over. This debate was the last chance to save the Conservatives from being Canada '93'd or 2011'd, and THIS sounds like the worst case scenario, especially with this poll.

And It's too late to ditch Sunak, postal voting begins this Wednesday.

It began a couple of days ago, or at least they started being sent out.

Any evidence of this?

The deadline to apply for, or amend, a postal vote is Wednesday 19th. They obviously can't be sent out before people have had a chance to amend their details...

They are sent out in waves- when you receive your postal polling card it tells you when to roughly expect it and in the past I have received it before the deadline to register.

If you are a historic postal voter you tend to get yours before people who apply at the start of the campaign.

[afleitch]

A small reminder that the average polling error in May for Reform was overstating them by 2 points.

More in Common overstated them by as much as 3.5 points. YouGov by 3 points. Savanta understated them by 0.5 points. Other polling firms either didn't poll or didn't poll multiple races.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Canvassing has not been great for the past couple of days. The Tories are losing massive amounts of ground overall, but Sunak has access to voters who BoJo lost. He is less offensive (to some?) and doesn’t talk so much about Brexit.

Starmer will still get his landslide, but I would still expect triple figures for the Conservatives as of now. I’ll have a better picture by the end of next week.

[TheTide]

Canvassing has not been great for the past couple of days. The Tories are losing massive amounts of ground overall, but Sunak has access to voters who BoJo lost. He is less offensive (to some?) and doesn’t talk so much about Brexit.

Starmer will still get his landslide, but I would still expect triple figures for the Conservatives as of now. I’ll have a better picture by the end of next week.

Where have you been canvassing? I would think that it's balanced out to some extent by Sunak not appealing to a lot of voters who liked Johnson.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Canvassing has not been great for the past couple of days. The Tories are losing massive amounts of ground overall, but Sunak has access to voters who BoJo lost. He is less offensive (to some?) and doesn’t talk so much about Brexit.

Starmer will still get his landslide, but I would still expect triple figures for the Conservatives as of now. I’ll have a better picture by the end of next week.

Where have you been canvassing? I would think that it's balanced out to some extent by Sunak not appealing to a lot of voters who liked Johnson.

More than balanced out at the national level, no doubt, but not in Cambridgeshire. It could be a serious dampener in most LD targets, or even Labour targets where there was a heavily pro-Remain vote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah, but I understand that things are... er... well... different in much of the West Midlands, for instance.

[Flyersfan232]

y are ukip/ reform big in essex?

[oldtimer]

y are ukip/ reform big in essex?

It's the Joey Essex Man.

Basically ex-industrial area filled with low paying service jobs plus coastal retirement homes, a poorer version of New Jersey's coast.

Jersey Shore = The Only Way Is Essex.

[beesley]

My gut also doesn't feel convinced the Conservatives drop below 100 yet. To me the predictions that suggest they will have two things which I'm not sure about.

-Allocation of most credible Lib Dem targets to their column in a way that requires an optimistic level of tactical voting and voter efficiency. Are they really likely to win most of your Harpendens and Henleys AND most of your Thornburys and Yeovils? I hope so but my head and my mutuals say it's unlikely to be so uniform. Let's wait to see how that small poll rise goes first.

-A uniformly bad collapse in some regions that results in predictions of e.g. Tories only holding onto three Leicestershire-based (whether wholly or in part) seats. In my part of the country I suspect the line will be between the seats where it's already clear that Labour have concrete and longer-standing reason to feel optimistic (Bracknell and Aldershot) and the next level of which a few might fall but the case for each individually is not so clear (Spelthorne). And let's not take away from the fact that gains in the former category would be very good for Labour, or a total around or above the 380-400 mark just because we might already predict it.

Of course, I don't discount the doom scenario for the Tories as a *possibility*.

[JimJamUK]

I’m slowly doing some personal constituency predictions, and I’m really having a hard time getting the Tories under 100. There are just too many seats where no one really seems to be challenging them. There are a number where Labour are too weak to win (I think) while the Lib Dem’s might do ok in local elections but not at the level they can withstand their usual drop-off in general elections. Quite a few of these would go Lib Dem in a by-election, but they don’t seem to be targeting them enough given more currently marginal seats nearby (part of the problem of having such a geographically concentrated group of target seats). Maybe the Tory drop-off really will be such that someone else has to win them, but even the past couple of local elections suggest dozens of safe Tory seats that remain, well, safe.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Basically ex-industrial area filled with low paying service jobs plus coastal retirement homes, a poorer version of New Jersey's coast.

That is not correct. If we divide the post-1974 Essex into northern and southern sections, then the southern section can be roughly categorized as a patchwork of extremely affluent London commuter territory not really any different from that which is usually associated with Surrey, prosperous but rather more lower middle class commuter territory (Billericay can be seen as emblematic there), New Towns and smaller 'overspill' estates, and three large but less typical areas: the old resort town (now officially a city) of Southend-on-Sea, the stretch of rather more working class suburbs and industrial areas known as Thurrock, and the extreme oddity that is Canvey Island. The northern section of Essex is very much part of East Anglia and follows patterns more typical of those counties: several large market towns, the garrison and university city of Colchester, the decaying seaside resort of Clacton-on-Sea, the small port at Harwich, and lots and lots of countryside of a sort that is now significantly more prosperous than it was in the middle of the twentieth century.

[JimJamUK]

On a related note, Reform were polling 10-15% in early May yet couldn’t reach 20% in any of the PCC council areas in Derbyshire or Lincolnshire. The former is a place that the Brexit Party did well in in 2019, while the latter had UKIP in the 20s and in one constituency above 30% on a similar national vote share. Reform should if anything have done better than the latter as both parties appealed to politically engaged voters and therefore Reform should be doing better in lower turnout elections than general elections. Now either their vote is very spread out in which case they need to outpoll the Tories to win many seats, or they really aren’t doing as well as the polls suggest and therefore won’t be getting the vote share needed even in their strong areas to win much.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I’m slowly doing some personal constituency predictions, and I’m really having a hard time getting the Tories under 100.

The interesting thing is that it's something worth considering for a moment at all, when ordinarily it would be a fever dream of a suggestion.

[Compuzled_One]

I’m slowly doing some personal constituency predictions, and I’m really having a hard time getting the Tories under 100. There are just too many seats where no one really seems to be challenging them. There are a number where Labour are too weak to win (I think) while the Lib Dem’s might do ok in local elections but not at the level they can withstand their usual drop-off in general elections. Quite a few of these would go Lib Dem in a by-election, but they don’t seem to be targeting them enough given more currently marginal seats nearby (part of the problem of having such a geographically concentrated group of target seats). Maybe the Tory drop-off really will be such that someone else has to win them, but even the past couple of local elections suggest dozens of safe Tory seats that remain, well, safe.

Based on the polls, there's about a 32.5% anti-Tory swing. I've had trouble finding any seat they can hold.

[oldtimer]

Basically ex-industrial area filled with low paying service jobs plus coastal retirement homes, a poorer version of New Jersey's coast.

That is not correct. If we divide the post-1974 Essex into northern and southern sections, then the southern section can be roughly categorized as a patchwork of extremely affluent London commuter territory not really any different from that which is usually associated with Surrey, prosperous but rather more lower middle class commuter territory (Billericay can be seen as emblematic there), New Towns and smaller 'overspill' estates, and three large but less typical areas: the old resort town (now officially a city) of Southend-on-Sea, the stretch of rather more working class suburbs and industrial areas known as Thurrock, and the extreme oddity that is Canvey Island. The northern section of Essex is very much part of East Anglia and follows patterns more typical of those counties: several large market towns, the garrison and university city of Colchester, the decaying seaside resort of Clacton-on-Sea, the small port at Harwich, and lots and lots of countryside of a sort that is now significantly more prosperous than it was in the middle of the twentieth century.

So a description of New Jersey, just with a twisted geography.

[Blair]

Basically ex-industrial area filled with low paying service jobs plus coastal retirement homes, a poorer version of New Jersey's coast.

That is not correct. If we divide the post-1974 Essex into northern and southern sections, then the southern section can be roughly categorized as a patchwork of extremely affluent London commuter territory not really any different from that which is usually associated with Surrey, prosperous but rather more lower middle class commuter territory (Billericay can be seen as emblematic there), New Towns and smaller 'overspill' estates, and three large but less typical areas: the old resort town (now officially a city) of Southend-on-Sea, the stretch of rather more working class suburbs and industrial areas known as Thurrock, and the extreme oddity that is Canvey Island. The northern section of Essex is very much part of East Anglia and follows patterns more typical of those counties: several large market towns, the garrison and university city of Colchester, the decaying seaside resort of Clacton-on-Sea, the small port at Harwich, and lots and lots of countryside of a sort that is now significantly more prosperous than it was in the middle of the twentieth century.

So a description of New Jersey, just with a twisted geography.

No. New Jersey has been a democratic bastion at Federal level since the 1990s. Please leave Amerikabrain to another thread.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So a description of New Jersey, just with a twisted geography.

No. New Jersey has been a democratic bastion at Federal level since the 1990s. Please leave Amerikabrain to another thread.

It might work as an approximate and very rough translation if you also included the bits of Essex that were incorporated into the GLC (now GLA) area in the 1960s, up to and including West Ham.

[beesley]

I’m slowly doing some personal constituency predictions, and I’m really having a hard time getting the Tories under 100. There are just too many seats where no one really seems to be challenging them.

This is how I came to my earlier thought which I know you saw. If you do this from my patch with my extra tidbits of knowledge you start with about ten in Hampshire, then four in Dorset... It adds up. And well done for raising the point that there is no challenge being put on in many parts beyond a spirited local campaign. Whereas in the Canada '93 scenario that has been cited, there was someone to mount a credible campaign in every seat due to the regionalism at stake.

[JimJamUK]

Based on the polls, there's about a 32.5% anti-Tory swing. I've had trouble finding any seat they can hold.

They got 45% at the last election and are currently on about 20% (I’m sceptical they’ll do this poorly, ready to be proven wrong). That’s about a 60% fall in their vote. There looks to be a good number of constituencies where this will still leave them on about 30% and where none of Labour, the Lib Dems, Reform, Greens or the SNP will get above that as most of them will probably be getting a decent vote share below that.

[oldtimer]

I’m slowly doing some personal constituency predictions, and I’m really having a hard time getting the Tories under 100. There are just too many seats where no one really seems to be challenging them. There are a number where Labour are too weak to win (I think) while the Lib Dem’s might do ok in local elections but not at the level they can withstand their usual drop-off in general elections. Quite a few of these would go Lib Dem in a by-election, but they don’t seem to be targeting them enough given more currently marginal seats nearby (part of the problem of having such a geographically concentrated group of target seats). Maybe the Tory drop-off really will be such that someone else has to win them, but even the past couple of local elections suggest dozens of safe Tory seats that remain, well, safe.

Based on the polls, there's about a 32.5% anti-Tory swing. I've had trouble finding any seat they can hold.

Me too.

I think some Tories are using Uniform National Swing, which gives them seats even if they get 0% of the vote.

Similar trap for the LD in 2015 which gave then around 25 on just 8%, some LD though they could hold up to 40.

Similar fantasies when this campaign started, some Tories thought Hung Parliament, 200+seats ect.

All the pieces of the puzzle for a Tory wipeout are currently there (split right, Lab-Lib tactical voting, Labour 20% ahead), we just refrain from believing our eyes to the impossible until it happens.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I think some Tories are using Uniform National Swing, which gives them seats even if they get 0% of the vote.

Similar trap for the LD in 2015 which gave then around 25 on just 8%, some LD though they could hold up to 40.

Similar fantasies when this campaign started, some Tories thought Hung Parliament, 200+seats ect.

All the pieces of the puzzle for a Tory wipeout are currently there (split right, Lab-Lib tactical voting, Labour 20% ahead), we just refrain from believing our eyes to the impossible until it happens.

The LDs in 2015 suffered from, among a host of other factors, the loss of tactical voters. They had previously benefited massively from them due to (a)a long absence from government and (b)having a smaller core vote than Labour/the Tories.

The Conservatives today have proportionally fewer tactical voters to begin with, and the infrastructure to build anti-Conservative tactical voting coalitions is somewhat lacking in many of the places where a squeeze would be needed to push them below 100 seats. They will lose a lot of the tactical voters they once had (particularly to Reform), but not on the same scale.

[TheTide]

Based on the polls, there's about a 32.5% anti-Tory swing. I've had trouble finding any seat they can hold.

They got 45% at the last election and are currently on about 20% (I’m sceptical they’ll do this poorly, ready to be proven wrong). That’s about a 60% fall in their vote. There looks to be a good number of constituencies where this will still leave them on about 30% and where none of Labour, the Lib Dems, Reform,
Greens or the SNP will get above that as most of them will probably be getting a decent vote share below that.

There will of course be quite a few seats where they 'hold up', or rather that their decline in the overall percentage of the vote will be under 10%, because they didn't poll particularly well in those seats in 2019.