UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[JimJamUK]

Emily Maitlis interviewed a "polling expert" this week who announced that you can reverse-engineer election results from the past three local elections, and cited the 2021 local elections as a surefire sign that Labour can't expect to lead the vote share by more than a few percentage points. Because no realigning events have occured since May 2021...

Absolutely correct, that’s why our Aussie friends in NSW have just delivered a landslide victory to the Coalition after a terrible by-election result for Labor in Upper Hunter in 2020.

Have you got the name of this astute individual?

[JimJamUK]

Tbf we’ve still held Upper Hunter lmao. Shades of Ripon 2018, amidst an urban shellacking a rural seat on a wafer thin sun 1% majority just doesn’t budge. And indeed most of the rurals don’t budge either.

Fair comment, perhaps better examples would be Monaro and Strathfield which saw significant swings to Labor from the by-elections despite it being a ‘rule’ in politics that there are swings back to the government come a general election. The latter will often be the case, but there have to be reasons for it to happen rather than just automatically expecting people to become more inclined to vote for the government.

[JimJamUK]

A number of interesting things happening in Scottish politics this weekend:

• Forbes supporters threatening to organise into some sort of ERG-lite caucus with around 15 members, which would to publish policy papers supporting a more centre-right economic policy, and oppose Scottish Green policies adopted in the Bute House Agreement, such as the Deposit Return Scheme, expansion of the protected marine areas (which will lead to fishing bans in some politically sensitive coast seats) etc.
• Forbes has stated in an interview that she would have liked to stay on as Finance Secretary if possible. In the process, she's undermined Deputy FM Shona Robison, who made the claim Forbes "stepped back from cabinet because she wanted to spend more time with her family", and has sparked a briefing scuffle between the two former leadership candidates.
• The Scottish Conservatives have briefed that they plan to encourage unionist tactical voting to support Labour and remove SNP MPs at the next Westminster election. This has sparked a range of responses that range from "see Labour are Red Tories", to "lol, you just want an excuse for your vote totals collapsing in marginal seats".

1. Lol.
2. Yeah, cos Forbes has just spent the last month making clear she wants to spend more time away from frontline politics.
3. The Tories were never going to properly campaign in the likes of Glasgow North East. Running dead somewhere like East Lothian matters more, and depending on the polling also constituencies like East Renfrewshire (it’s hard to imagine the Tories winning these sorts of seats back under current polling, but Labour won’t win either if the unionist vote is fairly evenly split). I can’t imagine the latter happening, which is what they should be doing if they really prioritise “unionist tactical voting”.

[JimJamUK]

Aye. Seats like East Lothian will be very interesting (the presence of an Alba MP on the ballot could potentially siphon an important 500-1,000 votes, for example). Definitely think Labour have the chance to sweep their 2017 gains, and crack the SNP hold on Glasgow in general. The Central Belt will be full of interesting SNP-Labour matchups.

Personally, I'm perhaps most curious about a different class of seats though. There's a number of constituencies that were safe Labour or Lib Dem in 1997-2005/10, flipped SNP, and now have the Tories in a strong second place - constituencies like North Ayrshire and Arran, Lanark and Hamilton East, or Argyll and Bute for instance. What the heck happens there?

Do they end up as three-way marginals? Narrow SNP wins? Do the pleas for tactical voting, and changed national environment give Labour a shot of winning, or turn off too many SNP-Labour swing voters?

The Lib Dems look pretty out of contention in Argyll + Bute, so my assumption is that the SNP win on a heavily split field (God knows what order the other parties are in). Lanark + Hamilton East has enough residual Labour support that I would assume they will quite easily squeeze a lot of the Tory vote, whether it’s enough to win I’m not sure.

North Ayrshire and Arran is similar to East Renfrewshire, being seats where the Tories were clearly stronger in 2019 but which had Labour history and you’d expect on current polling couldn’t be won by the Tories but the SNP vote share will only be in the 30s. Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock is also in this bucket. In these seats how much campaigning the Tories and Labour do will matter a lot, as will any media narrative about Scotland being a Labour vs SNP battle.

Put it this way, whatever the past couple of elections say about a constituency, if in the 2024 general election the Tories are sub-20% and Labour are over 30%, then basically every urban/Central Belt constituency should see Labour outpolling the Tories, especially as the general election Labour vote has already been artificially squeezed by both the Tories and SNP in these places but remains stronger in local elections (with a lot of voters being willing to vote Labour in the right circumstances). 

[JimJamUK]

The Lib Dems look pretty out of contention in Argyll + Bute, so my assumption is that the SNP win on a heavily split field (God knows what order the other parties are in). Lanark + Hamilton East has enough residual Labour support that I would assume they will quite easily squeeze a lot of the Tory vote, whether it’s enough to win I’m not sure.

North Ayrshire and Arran is similar to East Renfrewshire, being seats where the Tories were clearly stronger in 2019 but which had Labour history and you’d expect on current polling couldn’t be won by the Tories but the SNP vote share will only be in the 30s. Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock is also in this bucket. In these seats how much campaigning the Tories and Labour do will matter a lot, as will any media narrative about Scotland being a Labour vs SNP battle.

Put it this way, whatever the past couple of elections say about a constituency, if in the 2024 general election the Tories are sub-20% and Labour are over 30%, then basically every urban/Central Belt constituency should see Labour outpolling the Tories, especially as the general election Labour vote has already been artificially squeezed by both the Tories and SNP in these places but remains stronger in local elections (with a lot of voters being willing to vote Labour in the right circumstances). 

Aye, that pretty much tracks. The Lib Dem coalition that used to deliver them rural Highland seats seems to have just dissolved, with the singular exception of Jamie Stone, who seems to cling on by the skin of his teeth each cycle. And aye - Labour should outpoll the Tories across the Central Belt if current polling holds, and they're leading the Tories by 10-15%.

Partially just curious about whether seats like Argyll and Bute are potential "reach seats" for the Conservatives in the following few cycles (under a Tory leader palatable to Scots, like 2017 Theresa May) - or whether they've missed their chance, and Labour become the defacto "not-SNP" party again after a recovery (even a modest one) next year. Lots of these places were quite comfortable for the Tories pre-1997, and as we've seen in 2017, those ancestral voting patterns seem to still hold some sway - particularly in the rural, farming parts of Scotland.

Tbh - most of this is feels uber-hypothetical right now. It feels like the rules of political gravity change with every election up here, so until we have some consistent polling, I'm just enjoying the chance to speculate about what's next.

Completely agree, it’s not like there’s much doubt about which party would win Argyll and Bute (or pretty much all of the Tory held/realistic target seats) if it were in England or even Wales, and the Tories would have won it in 2017 without the Lib Dems residual vote (there aren’t many Scottish seats where the Tory vote went UP in 2019). The difficulty for the Conservatives is that 2017 looks like it might be their high point, and as we saw in 2019 there’s no guarantee that a squeeze on the Labour vote will necessarily go to them rather than the SNP.

The Scottish Labour Party is a shadow of its former self, but their vote distribution is good enough that they could win a dozen or more seats on current polling (they would very likely win more than the SNP if they drew level), and once they reestablish themselves as Scotlands 2nd party they will win back a bit more of the soft unionist/anti-SNP vote, particularly in specific constituencies (an overlooked factor of the past few election is soft Labour voters viewing Labour as now irrelevant in their constituency and switching their vote accordingly).

And yeah, this is all speculation by us, there’s a not-insignificant chance the SNP vote crashes enough and the Tory vote modestly recovers to the point that the latter make some freak gains on mid 30s vote shares (it’s not like the rural SNP vote is all a bunch of closet Labour supporters, and Yousaf is an awful match for these sorts of voters).

[JimJamUK]

And it’s important to note that the Lib Dems polling was already collapsing by the time the tuition fees hike was announced, with not much more happening in the months after. The ‘I won’t vote Lib Dem anymore because of tuition fees” includes many people who had already abandoned them based on everything else (at best it solidified their views).

[JimJamUK]

Can’t help but feel there’s a slightly less crass way of putting that information across. Still, perhaps Labour have judged that the trade off (getting lots of attention vs charges of gutter politics and hypocrisy) is worth it.

[JimJamUK]

I think the bottom line is that left-wingers think "law and order" is a dogwhistle for punitive punishment against non-white people while leaving rich white people alone.

Which I get, even if the poster suggests that isn't the case.

Also worth remembering even Jeremy Corbyn ran on a law-and-order kind of message in 2017.

The share of the population that think this is grossly overestimated by many people on both sides of the argument. The vast majority of voters in the UK not only support ‘law and order’, they think that neither major party is anywhere close to properly implementing it. Theres a reason, as you alluded to, that Jeremy Corbyn of all people was naturally supportive of hiring 10000s more police officers after Conservative cuts.

[JimJamUK]

I don't typically believe in the concept of "dog whistles" and I don't think this is one.

Rather, it's just really silly:

• Rishi Sunak has only been an MP (let alone PM) for half of the period that was cited to back up that poster.
• Sentences are issued by judges, not Sunak.
• Just a year ago, Starmer was getting very upset about being accused of failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile. This seems hypocritical.
• If the Tories had done the same thing with a minority MP it would definitely be seen as racist.

But honestly, who cares.

Tbf, he could change the law so more/all people convicted of child sex abuse go the prison, and he hasn’t. But otherwise agree.

[JimJamUK]

Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, appears to have called on people to vote Labour in Labour-SNP marginals. He has since backtracked and unbacktracked on these comments several times.

[JimJamUK]

Let's talk about the Libdems a bit.

What exactly are their key policy points these days? Do they still want to be the Remainer party?

Is Davey a popular figure within his party?

The public’s view of the Lib Dems atm can basically be summed up as ‘meh’. They don’t really notice them, they don’t know what most of their main policies are, and they certainly don’t know what an ‘Ed Davey’ is. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The party is not about to surge in support, but it is bland and inoffensive enough that it can focus on rebuilding its council base and at both council and general elections can easily position itself as the NOTA option. Again, that isn’t going to result in massive gains at the general election and their vote share is pretty anaemic nationally, but it’s not a party that is about to disappear.

[JimJamUK]

However, there are rumblings that tactical voting may be rising presently because voters specifically disapprove of the Tory party (not Sunak right now) and a solid chunk of the voters Labour has gained in polls come from politically engaged demographics. This isn't something that would be caught by national trackers, nor is it that controllable by the Lib-Dem apparatus. But we will know if it exists in two weeks - there are plenty of councils where Labour have nothing and its the Lib-Dems (or in one case the Greens) who are threatening the Tories for control.

Partly agree. The tactical voting situation should happen nationally to some degree, but local elections can be a bad guide to it. There are plenty of areas where Labour have little organisation and the Lib Dems are the main non-Tory party for council elections, but nonetheless Labour are challenging if not clearly 2nd place at the general election. Some of this is because the Lib Dems are good at local elections, but it’s also down to the ‘national tactical vote’ where a lot of voters don’t really know much about their local situation and just default to the ‘obvious’ non-Conservative option nationally, the Labour Party. There’s also a lot of semi-detached voters who only show up at general elections, and these people are very much not Lib Dem inclined. So there will be places where the Lib Dem local strength is a precursor to them gaining the constituency next election, and others where it is yet another false dawn.

[JimJamUK]

Cameron/Osborne were the ones who implemented a much more consistently 'Thatcherite' economic agenda and they were the 'moderates', yes.

A fact that virtually no one in politics seems willing to engage with these days, with the prevalent narrative being that they were a moderate party that has suddenly veered hard right post the EU referendum.

[JimJamUK]

What’s equally interesting is how many terminally online people don’t seem to understand how much people want to own their own home- especially because our rental market is awful. Even as someone who supports a vast program of social housing building (and longer fixed tenancies etc) it’s a very strange tendency of parts of the left- maybe it’s just my latent Blairism.

Presumably the same group of people who are horrified at the prospect of any rental evictions?

[JimJamUK]

Bit of Holyrood drama about the Green/SNP introduction of HPMA (Highly-Protected Marine Areas) - which would banning fishing, windfarms, as well as most water sports, and even undersea infrastructure cables from 10% of Scottish waters.

Minister - “However, it is also true that, as we tackle the climate emergency, we must do so via a fair and just transition, which empowers communities and shares in the benefits of a green economy“

What does that even mean in this context?

[JimJamUK]

Aye - some of the environmental policies laid out in the SNP-Green Bute House Agreement are decent in principle, but the messaging and rollout, not to mention the actual written policy have been severely lacking.

I remain a fan of some sort of deposit scheme and broadening marine-protection areas in principle. But the current policies both now look pretty unworkable, either politically or implementation-wise. Not sure how Yousaf will balance the demands of the Greens and the moderate-conservative coastal MPs, who Forbes seems more than happy to act as ringleader for.

The problem is that the Greens want these policies to be implemented without dilution, and the people at the top of the SNP are used to getting their own way (they’ve had a de facto majority since 2011 and little internal never mind public debate). It’s just not conductive to forming good and widely supported policies. If anything, it’s surprising it took this long for cracks to properly emerge (the Bute House Agreement looks to be the cause, though things like gender recognition would presumably have happened anyways). Will be very interesting to see the vote on HPMA and the government response.

[JimJamUK]

The problem with NEV and PNS is that 40% of the vote is being estimated to go to parties other than Labour or the Conservatives. It was 20% at the last general election, and on current polling you’d expect about 25-30%. So that’s 10-15% of voters who would be switching back to the major 2 parties and they do not look particularly Conservative inclined to say the least (there’s also the fact the general election electorate will look different to the one last week, in a way that’s probably more favourable to Labour and most definitely less favourable to the Lib Dems).

[JimJamUK]

Andrew Bridgen has joined the Reclaim Party.

Have to imagine that press-conference Reclaim have scheduled for tomorrow morning is going to be… awkward. Between Fox and Bridgen, I imagine it’ll be a string of vaccine conspiracies that would make even Andrew Wakefield blush.

2017 Labour voter of course, and from what I can tell a thoroughly unpleasant person years before that.

[JimJamUK]

It is an area that has changed a lot in recent decades (it is now a comfortable semi-rural constituency with a few working class bits poking through as odd memorials to a different time), but if recent electoral movement holds up and if the insane potato man does run for his new crank party, then it would certainly be worth keeping an eye on.

A description that could apply to quite a few constituencies these days.

[JimJamUK]

Aye - definitely one to watch, even with a majority as large as the Tories got in 2019.

Labour overtook the Tories on the North West Leicestershire District Council last week, and denied the Conservatives overall control for the first time since 2007, so there’s definitely a shift of sorts going on.

Although they still came 2nd in vote share (it’s one of a number of places where Labour can have a more efficient vote distribution these days, owing to post-industrial small towns being able to vote modestly Labour (but usually not overwhelmingly) while the wealthy small villages are still Tory bankers). Regardless, it’s definitely the sort of place that had an outsized number of voters who are willing to switch to Labour if the Tories are really pissing them off.

[JimJamUK]

What constituencies have gone in the other direction (more working-class with areas of comfort)? I'm thinking quite a few in the Merseyside area.

That’s quite a difficult question to answer tbh. It’s easier to notice places that were traditionally industrial but now are objectively quite affluent, especially where there’s been a bit of housebuilding. I’d suggest Blackpool which is a lot more deprived than it was long ago (as already alluded to, a lot of seaside towns have gone downhill in recent decades while sporting a few nice retirement areas). Quite a lot of the remaining social housing dominated communities have developed significant social problems as social housing moved from being a working class thing to being something increasingly only accessible to the most desperate (but given the diversity of UK constituencies, they are often paired with some traditionally affluent suburbs or the gentrifying inner city).

[JimJamUK]

I knew this "National Conservative" conference would produce a news-making soundbite or two, but I assumed it would be Miriam Cates doing her Gilead routine, rather than Rees-Mogg announcing "we did gerrymandering, and I was in cabinet to see it happen".

Credibly rumoured on another forum to have tried to join the Lib Dems but ultimately joined the Tories when the former wouldn’t give her a safe council seat. Quite the journey since I assume.

[JimJamUK]

The Tees Valley mayor was just on Newsnight. Not an entirely convincing performance, and not helped by Victoria Derbyshire being the interviewer.

[JimJamUK]

Suella Braverman is facing fresh allegations of ministerial code breaches over her failure to formally disclose years of previous work with the Rwandan government.

The home secretary co-founded a charity called the Africa Justice Foundation with Cherie Blair, which trained Rwandan government lawyers between 2010 and 2015.

Several people the charity worked with are now key members of President Paul Kagame’s government and are involved in the UK’s £140m deal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

How random.

Not dissimilarly:
https://twitter.com/alexandrakuri/status/1660967887669010435?s=61&t=I1DE8_cg...

[JimJamUK]

It is becoming increasingly clear that former Liberal Democrats should not be appointed to important public posts in this country.

Who are you referring to in this case (apart from Truss, obvs)?