United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

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

They're trying to lose, aren't they?

Honestly seems that way, doesn't it? Calling the election on a lark when the party is unprepared in over 200 constituencies. Blair-ing "Things Can Only Get Better" over his election call while he was busy getting drenched head-to-toe by heavy rain because No. 10 apparently forgot the concept of an indoor speech after COVID. His Welsh football mistake. Docking the sinking ship at the Titanic Quarter in Belfast because the Tory just had to go on a 4-nation tour like Nixon went to Hawaii in 1960. Trusting Gove to not retire. One-up'ing a tepidly unpopular Starmer announcement by announcing certifiably insane policy. If he's a Labour mole playing the long game, I'm not sure what he should've done any differently to kick the campaign off. I'm just sayin', if we never actually ruled out Truss being a secret Lib Dem mole solely intent on taking the Tories down, maybe we can't rule out a guy who was 16 in 1997 being a secret Blair fanboy either

I think I've said on here before that Sunak has never really figured out whether he wants to be the adult in the room or a red meat-throwing populist.

It's this fundamental disconnect, combined with clearly crap political instincts as well as an ultra-rich person awkwardness that could well turn this into one of the worst campaigns that any of us have ever seen. If the Tories have any sense they should stop him from running this as a presidential campaign immediately.

He has obviously been in Parliament for 8 years & I don't always like the comparisons with the US, but he seems extremely similar to business people who enter politics in the states and waste millions on expensive advisers who tell him different things which leads to them having 4-5 different 'versions'

Was Mitt Romney this bad ? Now that I remember, yes he was that bad.

No, amazingly, he really wasn't. He was brought down by two or three specific, very bad gaffes in what was otherwise a competently-run, if implausibly right-wing, campaign. Sunak is having a "47%"/"corporations are people, my friend"/dog-on-a-hot-car-roof moment seemingly every day.

[JimJamUK]

The Conservatives are promising a ‘quadruple lock’ on pensions, whereby the tax free threshold will always be above the maximum state pension* for pensioners. Therefore, not only would working age people (especially middle income) continue to have to pay national insurance which pensioners don’t, they could be paying an increasing amount of income tax when pensioners with the same or possibly even lower income would not be paying any at all. Now, I don’t want people only on the state pension paying income tax, but the solution is that nobody with such a low income should be paying it assuming we have it in the budget. Certainly, someone on the minimum wage/Universal Credit doesn’t not strike me as less needing of a tax cut than a pensioner who probably has lower outgoings. 

*This presumably doesn’t cover the additional state pension some older pensioners receive and already pay some income tax on.

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Triple lock, quadruple lock, what next, is Ref-UK going to call a proposed 5G ban “quintuple lock”?

[KaiserDave]

Tory vs Labour frontbench in rugby, who wins?

[adma]

Was Mitt Romney this bad ? Now that I remember, yes he was that bad.

No, amazingly, he really wasn't. He was brought down by two or three specific, very bad gaffes in what was otherwise a competently-run, if implausibly right-wing, campaign. Sunak is having a "47%"/"corporations are people, my friend"/dog-on-a-hot-car-roof moment seemingly every day.

Romney was "that bad" only to people whose expectations were skewed by a single-loaded right-wing mediasphere--which is why there was such disbelief within the Fox-y realm at his loss (and that disbelief formed the foundation for all subsequent GOP election denialism).

[Torrain]

Tory vs Labour frontbench in rugby, who wins?

Private school advantage might come into play here:


Angela Rayner's definitely going to break some Etonian ribs before the end of the match though.

[adma]

Con to Lab switchers care about the economy and public services, while Con to Reform switchers are basically single issue anti-immigration voters.

Relatedly, Reform voters are once again shown to be very disproportionately politically engaged, which makes their underperformance in basically every election even odder (read likely big polling error).

Maybe it's more a matter of the *quality* of said disproportionate political engagement, i.e. a higher share of social-media-monopolizing shut-ins--that is, they're the reason the "do not read the comment threads" news-link rule of thumb exists...

But surely such people should be an outsized share of the minority of people who vote in low turnout elections, given they would be so happy to push their opinions. On that note, I see very little pro-Reform comments on social media, but a much larger number of ideologically Reform comments. If even the politically engaged don’t seem to have fully taken notice of Reform, I’m sceptical that more ordinary members of the public with Reform adjacent views are actually intending to vote for them. I mean, Reform are apparently as popular as UKIP were in 2015 according to the polls, but there’s next to no evidence of this in the real world whether data or anecdotes.

I think a lot of them are more like political LARPers than concrete political supporters--like, they see social media as their own Speaker's Corner.  And it's that "have your say" individualistic-wannabe element that's led to so many dissident-right no-hopers running in various recent byelections...

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The Conservatives are promising a ‘quadruple lock’ on pensions, whereby the tax free threshold will always be above the maximum state pension* for pensioners.

I was only going to vote, but will now be canvassing against the government thanks to this.

No humiliation could be harsh enough for this gang of thieves.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tory vs Labour frontbench in rugby, who wins?

Private school advantage might come into play here:


Angela Rayner's definitely going to break some Etonian ribs before the end of the match though.

As the frontbench gives a broader pool to choose from than merely the Cabinet/Shadow Cabinet, Labour do have Toby Perkins, which negates a lot of the deficit alone...

[Joe Republic]

In terms of desperate, poorly thought out policy proposals, this fake ad from a few years ago is starting to look closer to reality:

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Tory vs Labour frontbench in rugby, who wins?

Private school advantage might come into play here:


Angela Rayner's definitely going to break some Etonian ribs before the end of the match though.

Lindsay Hoyle's the current president of the Rugby Football League so he could always stand in as an extremely unhelpful ref.

[kwabbit]

Is Sunak himself in a safe seat? Any takes on his future? I'm not sure he goes back to become a backbencher. He more seems like someone who would go into the private sector and make a fortune.

Bro has already made his fortune. He and his wife are worth 650 million pounds.

[Steve from Lambeth]

I had a dream in which the Conservatives finished with 226 seats and 22.2% of the vote; Labour with 386 seats and 40.1% of the vote; Reform won one seat and 4.1%; the Lib Dems had 30 seats, the SNP massively underwhelmed, and people were congratulating someone else on almost successfully predicting that Labour would get less than 40%. Make of this what you will.

[Conservatopia]

I had a dream in which the Conservatives finished with 226 seats and 22.2% of the vote; Labour with 386 seats and 40.1% of the vote; Reform won one seat and 4.1%; the Lib Dems had 30 seats, the SNP massively underwhelmed, and people were congratulating someone else on almost successfully predicting that Labour would get less than 40%. Make of this what you will.

That would suggest a lot of Tories got lucky and clung on with majorities under 1000.

[YL]

I had a dream in which the Conservatives finished with 226 seats and 22.2% of the vote; Labour with 386 seats and 40.1% of the vote; Reform won one seat and 4.1%; the Lib Dems had 30 seats, the SNP massively underwhelmed, and people were congratulating someone else on almost successfully predicting that Labour would get less than 40%. Make of this what you will.

Those numbers for Lab, Con, LD and Reform come to 643. So it looks like the SNP as well as Plaid have been virtually wiped out, and that there has been a stunning breakthrough by the Northern Ireland Conservatives.

[Zinneke]

I had a dream in which the Conservatives finished with 226 seats and 22.2% of the vote; Labour with 386 seats and 40.1% of the vote; Reform won one seat and 4.1%; the Lib Dems had 30 seats, the SNP massively underwhelmed, and people were congratulating someone else on almost successfully predicting that Labour would get less than 40%. Make of this what you will.

Those numbers for Lab, Con, LD and Reform come to 643. So it looks like the SNP as well as Plaid have been virtually wiped out, and that there has been a stunning breakthrough by the Northern Ireland Conservatives.

Do the NI Conservatives still exist?

[brucejoel99]

🦀

https://twitter.com/MarwanData/status/1795186272954196368

[Oryxslayer]

Julie Elliot of Sunderland Central is retiring.  Notable in that one of or the first victory speech of the night could be from a new person.



Also, we have had so much fun from the Tory campaign, let's have some from the Lib Dem’s.

https://twitter.com/ProfChalmers/status/1795407485010125127?t=eUWUwYpSrJcijdafhJ...

[TheTide]

Julie Elliot of Sunderland Central is retiring.  Notable in that one of or the first victory speech of the night could be from a new person.



Also, we have had so much fun from the Tory campaign, let's have some from the Lib Dem’s.

https://twitter.com/ProfChalmers/status/1795407485010125127?t=eUWUwYpSrJcijdafhJ...

Attention-seeking gimmick, but at least it's not an actual policy.

[Logical]

Kuenssberg eughh. First time I won't be watching BBC. I will tune in to see the exit poll (because it's tradition) and then I shall switch to Sky.
https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1795422741513855395

[Blair]

Highlight of the day was a BBC vox pop in Richmond (The Yorkshire one) asking pensioners what they thought about the new quadruple lock- all said they liked it, although with the addition that they wouldn't have been supporting Labour anyway.

[Cassius]

Highlight of the day was a BBC vox pop in Richmond (The Yorkshire one) asking pensioners what they thought about the new quadruple lock- all said they liked it, although with the addition that they wouldn't have been supporting Labour anyway.

I rather think this is the point - the Conservative campaign strategy seems to be shaping up to be:

A) Hold the right flank against Reform.
B) Make sure that unenthusiastic Tory voters who are tempted to abstain show up to vote.

The policies that they’ve released very much seem to be geared towards these two things. I think they’ve pretty much conceded that they’re not going to win back the ‘swing voters’ who voted Conservative in 2019 and 2017, therefore the campaign will have to be about maxing out their share of the 30-odd percent of the electorate who won’t vote Labour under any circumstances (which now seems to skew older than it did historically). Not an election winning strategy (but I think a ‘wet’ campaign that would be applauded by the likes of Andy Street would be far worse), but one that maximises the chances of the Tories ‘only’ losing by a 1997-style margin.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

...and Sunak has just delivered a speech in which his back was facing the camera throughout. I don't understand. I... does anyone understand?

[xelas81]

Highlight of the day was a BBC vox pop in Richmond (The Yorkshire one) asking pensioners what they thought about the new quadruple lock- all said they liked it, although with the addition that they wouldn't have been supporting Labour anyway.

I rather think this is the point - the Conservative campaign strategy seems to be shaping up to be:

A) Hold the right flank against Reform.
B) Make sure that unenthusiastic Tory voters who are tempted to abstain show up to vote.

The policies that they’ve released very much seem to be geared towards these two things. I think they’ve pretty much conceded that they’re not going to win back the ‘swing voters’ who voted Conservative in 2019 and 2017, therefore the campaign will have to be about maxing out their share of the 30-odd percent of the electorate who won’t vote Labour under any circumstances (which now seems to skew older than it did historically). Not an election winning strategy (but I think a ‘wet’ campaign that would be applauded by the likes of Andy Street would be far worse), but one that maximises the chances of the Tories ‘only’ losing by a 1997-style margin.

Agreed that Tory goal is not get 1993 PCed.
But their campaign resembles 1993 PC.

[Mike88]

Kuenssberg eughh. First time I won't be watching BBC. I will tune in to see the exit poll (because it's tradition) and then I shall switch to Sky.

I believe the exit poll will be, as it has been for some years now, a joint BBC/ITV/Sky thing. So, the exit poll will be same in BBC, ITV and Sky news.