UK General Election, June 8th 2017

[Blair]

I'm sure UKIP's financial woes are the main reason for their failure to run a full slate.

They've also got a chronic lack of members, and candidates. Out of their 'big hitters' (I use that phrase lightly) from 2015 only one- Nutall is standing. Dianne James, Steven Woolfe, Farage, Patrick O'Flynn etc are all not standing, and a lot of their elected officals have defected to the tories

[Blair]

BBC1 John Piennar: "Lab MPs with majorities up to 5,000 have told me they have abandoned hope of retaining their seats"

Who would that be? Let's find out:

Jack Dromey, Bimingham Erdington, +5,129
Jo Stevens, Cardiff Central, +4,981
Jon Cruddas, Dagenham and Rainham, +4,980
Ivan Lewis, Bury South, +4,922
Ruth Smeeth, Stoke-on-Trent North, +4,836
Jessica Modern, Newport East, +4,705
Sue Hayman, Wokington, +4,686
Melanie Onn, Great Grimsby, +4,540
Lindsay Hoyle, Chorley, +4,530
Geoffrey Robinson, Coventry North West, +4,509
Neil Coyle, Bermondsey and Old Southwark, +4,489
Graham Jones, Hyndburn, +4,400
David Crausby, Bolton North East, +4,377
Ian Austin, Dudley North, +4,181
Kerry McCarthy, Bristol East, +3,980
Alan Whitehead, Southampton Test, +3,810
Paul Flynn, Newport West, +3,510
Helen Goodman, Bishop Auckland, +3,508
Mark Tami, Alyn and Deeside, +3,343
Julie Cooper, Burnley, +3,244
Jim Cunningham, Coventry South, +3,188
Jenny Chapman, Darlington, +3,158
Nic Dakin, Sc**nthorpe, +3,134
Iain Wright, Hartlepool, +3,084
Jess Phillips, Birmingham Yardley, +3,002
Vernon Coaker, Gedling, +2,986
David Hanson, Delyn, +2,930
Gisela Stuart, Birmingham Edgbaston, +2,706
Clive Efford, Eltham, +2,693
Ian Murray, Edinburgh South, +2,637
Mary Creagh, Wakefield, +2,613
Gordon Marsden, Blackpool South, +2,585
Rob Flello, Stoke-on-Trent South, +2,539
Richard Burden, Birmingham Northfield, +2,509
Susan Elan Jones, Clwyd South, +2,402
Tom Blenkinsop, Middlesbrough South and Cleveland East, +2,268
Gareth Thomas, Harrow West, +2,208
Karen Buck, Westminster North, +1,977
David Winnick, Walsall North, +1,937
Madeleine Moon, Bridgend, +1,927
Natascha Engel, Derbyshire North East, +1,883
Ian Lucas, Wrexham, +1,831
Paula Sheriff, Dewsbury, +1,451
Catherine Smith, Lancaster and Fleetwood, +1,65
Peter Kyle, Hove, +1,236
Tulip Siddiq, Hampstead and Kilburn, +1,138
Joan Ryan, Enfield North, +1,086
Rob Marris, Wolverhampton South West, +801
John Woodcock, Barrow and Furness, +795
Paul Farrelly, Newcastle-under-Lyme, +650
Daniel Zeichner, Cambridge, +599
Wes Streeting, Ilford North, +589
Ruth Cadbury, Brentford and Isleworth, +465
Holly Lynch, Halifax, +428
Margaret Greenwood, Wirral West, +417
Rupa Huq, Ealing Central and Acton, +274
Albert Owen, Ynys Môn, +229
Chris Matheson, City of Chester, +93

These are the people who've already given up hope of returning to parliament.

As I've said I think that leave voting seats in the North with up to 8-10k majorities could actually fall before certain marginal seats on the list above.

I reckon that Neil Coyle+Jess Phillips+Ian Murray will be safe as they're defending against the Liberals and SNP

[Blair]

Again based on the locals I can't see labour getting more than 28% at a complete push

[Blair]

Lol Corbyn's team has banned Buzzfeed from having access to events

[Blair]

This Labour manifesto seems like it could run Labour into the ground.

Eh, it's not all that different from the 2015 manifesto.

Yes it is. Is going to create a state run energy firm, is going to nationalize the railways, re-introduce collective bargaining, scrap the 1% pay cap for the public sector and scrap Tuition fees. Besides scrapping Trident (something the Unions wouldn't let) this is basically what the left have been wanting for the last 15 years

[Blair]

I can't see Labour getting either Battersea or Finchley purely because all the resources in London are going to the marginals that we only just won last time.

A very good Labour leader, running on an explicitly pro- single market ticket may be able to win in Battersea but I can't see how Labour can take the seats when you factor in the Liberals

[Blair]

Well there hasn't been a single piece of military action (including Falklands/Kosovo) since 1945 that Jeremy has actually supported...

[Blair]

There are only about 35 Blairites inside the Parliamentary Labour Party, so the idea of the Blairites leading the purge is well incorrect. If anyone is going to do it will be the Old Right under Tom Watson, and  most of the Unions. I mean at best the Purge will be bringing back the electoral college- so its not as if anyone will get expelled.

[Blair]

He also has Tom Watson (West Bromwhich East) losing his seat, and I've heard some people in the party are sh**tting themselves over Tom losing

[Blair]

I think the Blairites would use it as an opportunity to take back control of Labour and most Labour members would probably fall for it to be entirely honest. However, going centrist is just as disastrous.

What is holding back Labour is not their left-wing policies, the polls are very clear that the British people support most of them. The problem is messaging. Corbyn especially and the Labour party as a whole is bad at messaging and Corbyn as an individual is holding Labour quite far back.

What Labour needs is not to become the Red Tory, but to have fresh leadership with better messaging that is straight to the point. They should probably move to the right on issues like immigration to appeal to English voters as well as coming out in favour of English devolved parliament. An important factor that will cost Labour this election is the fact that they have failed to pick up much of the collapsing UKIP vote.

If Blairites get back control of Labour, any chance of a far left split, leading to a small party to the left of Labour? (like say, Linke in Germany). I guess they could get an amount of votes similar to the Greens, and maybe be slightly more competitive than them (I guess they could get 1 or 2 seats with the adecuate candidates and enough effort)

Please can people stop using the term "Blairites". They are a complete non-factor these days, not everyone who isn't a Corbynista is a Blairite.

Yeah the blarites were always more of a "court" faction of the party that have no real support amongst the grassroots and thanks to recent rule changes in the Labour Party means that they are completely powerless.

David Miliband won the majority of members votes in 2010... so yes they did have a large amount of grassroots support in the party

[Blair]

The only reason David miliband came close in 2010 was the rules that gave a ridiculous amount of power to the moderate PLP, which has been scraped in favour of one member one vote. So yes the blairties are irrelevant and lack grassroots support. I mean ok he did win Labour Party members but he lost affiliated members which make up a much larger number than Labour Party members and im pretty sure they count as the grassroot.

It didn't give a ridiculous amount- it gave it equal weighting, which considering that MPs in both parties have [almost always picked the right leader, (with the exception of Hague in 1997) is actually a rather modest proposal.

The left fixed in the leadership election in 2010 and succeeded, whilst the moderates tried it in 2016 and failed.

As someone who has worked for leadership campaigns I can assure you that affiliated members are absolutely worthless now, but have just been cancelled out by the 'new' members. Of course I'd argue the true grassroots of the party e.g those who actually doorknock, run for councils, etc are actually relatively in the centre of the party (hence why Sadiq and Tom won in 2015)

[Blair]

Having labour MPs vote be worth 600 times more than a party member is not partcularly fair, and if the justification is "labour MPs know best" is not a healthy way to run a political party and really isn't true (unless you believe that David miliband is as wonderful as the press thinks).

Also the idea that the left cheated in 2010 is only true in the extent that the moderates were about win after losing the membership vote by almost 30,000. The only argument of course is that affiliated members somehow don't count, but then as someone said the labour membership is not particularly stable anyway and changes quite frequently. (And it's silly to think they shouldn't have a say anyway)

edit: I don't even know what I'm arguing about anymore. All the factions in the party use dirty tricks+David Miliband was more popular in 2010, and we'd be less likely to be in this mess if he had become leader

[Blair]

Miliband was not a strong progressive, supported intervention in Libya, turned against Corbyn, sure he wasn't Blair but he wasn't Corbyn either & he led Labour to a disastrous result

How did he turn against Corbyn?

[Blair]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2017/05/believe-it-or-not-tories-are-running-energetic-election-campaign-you-just

Slightly old piece (5 days) but shows how different GE campaigns are now, due to the rise of online advertising.

In regards to Labour being at 31/32% in the polls the problem is that the locals/Copeland by-election/the low ratings of Corbyn/lack of trust over the economy basically means that it's such a hurdle to climb to just get to those number of votes

[Blair]

One thing I'd like some insight on - when people vote tactically to back someone else than their first choice, what are the typical flows like?

I'd be interesting to hear about Scotland and about Lib Dems in various regions.

This is a complete guess, but there was between 1992-2005 a fair amount of centre left voters who would vote Liberal Democrat in the South east and South West (in seats like Bath) to keep the tories out- and I know 1997 was said to see a surge in this. However after the coalition you saw a lot of these types of voters voting for Labour (I haven't got the numbers but there was a really big amount of Lib Dems 2010-Labour 2015 voters) which swung  about 10 seats.

[Blair]

Someone best described her as a Christian Democrat to me; she's certainly got a streak for breaking out of the tory mainstream as home secretary- reformed stop and search, told the police federation to change etc. Of course some of this is her way of inflating herself (the Nasty Party speech). Every successful PM has had to to go for the Sister Soujah moment- Blair with Clause IV, Cameron with gay rights, and May with the Economy.

If she moves Hammond to FCO, and puts Rudd or Damian Green as Chancellor, then expect a lot of this stuff to actually happen.

[Blair]

FWIW the big worry at the moment is that if Labour get 33-34% we'll still lose up to 70+ seats, but we're be saddled with Corbyn for another year or two; as he'll proclaim he's managed to expand the vote

[Blair]

FWIW the big worry at the moment is that if Labour get 33-34% we'll still lose up to 70+ seats, but we're be saddled with Corbyn for another year or two; as he'll proclaim he's managed to expand the vote

Given that we might well be enjoying a 20-point plus lead in the polls in two years' time regardless of who is leader, he could be around for longer than that.

Unless we get someone who can beat May on leadership, and economic competence we're not going to translate the 20 point (See Miliband 2012) However there's very few people in the PLP who could do that

[Blair]

It's a stupid thing when you have parties running for Westminster elections, then talking about devolved issues- Sturgeon did it in the TV debate last night, and in 2015- half the issues she complains about can be fixed at the Scottish level

[Blair]

Mail didn't back Labour in 1997; although Gordon Brown became very close to Paul Dacre (their editor) and there were mutterings that they would have backed him over Cameron in '07.

The Mirror is the unofficial propaganda, whilst the New Statesmen is the in house press, and is by far the best paper for Labour politics.

Out of the papers on that list the Financial Times, the Independent and the Guardian are the only papers who have an endorsement that isn't baked. (Along with the Sunday Times)

[Blair]

Incidentally, the Labour Uncut piece is really very, very bad; dubious 'data' (that is not shown to the reader - so we have no idea what it actually is or looks like or, bluntly, even if it actually exists - from sources that are not enumerated) that is then adulterated with various assumptions (exactly what these are or how they affect the 'data' is again not entirely clear) and turned into an extremely rigid predictive 'model' (one so crude that using the word 'model' seems inappropriate) that is then presented as absolute cast-iron Truth. A Truth that happens to fit in exactly with what Labour Uncut would like to see happen (these people having deluded themselves that they can return to relevance - they were never relevant but like to think that they were - only if Labour suffers an absolutely catastrophic defeat, after which they will be hailed as oracles or something). It is grotesque in its intellectual dishonesty and is the sort of thing that gives electoral analysis a bad name. It is disappointing to see it so eagerly linked to and re-tweeted across the wide political internet, though it isn't hard to see why. What amuses me slightly is that some of the people doing the sharing have had so much fun over the past year mocking the insistence of the more deluded Corbynites that (e.g.) LABOUR WERE AHEAD UNTIL CHICKEN COUP. Evidentially voodoo is voodoo and Polling is a Science you know and Rationality Matters until I Want To Believe...

...ah, you say, but what if it somehow turns out to be broadly accurate? Well, last year I made up up some fake polling figures from an entirely fictional firm for the state of Pennsylvania and posted them on this very forum as a joke. These fake figures turned out to be more accurate than those of the published polls. Does this mean that if I make up any more American polling stats for a joke that they should be treated as Serious and Reliable? No.

Isn't Labour uncut on the very right of the party (e.g the Ultras)? I had a quick skim through the model and it seemed based on taking the entire UKIP vote and handing it to the tories

[Blair]

Worth noting that there was always going to be a weekend (or week) like this; I should have written it down, but any campaign where one side is so far ahead at the start is bound to have a 'wobble' where the media gets excited, and the negative briefing begins. Labour was picking up before the manifesto, and did a very good job of spending the last 3 weeks having an item leading the news every day (free school meals, no tuition fees, no tax rises for the 95%, etc etc) Labour have ran a very good campaign.

Also Theresa May has never ran a national campaign- at all. She didn't have a single hustings for the leadership in 2016, she didn't do any big media roles in the referendum, was never one of the constant media stars.  Combined with the lack of cabinet talent- compare Cameron's team of Hague, Osborne, Johnson with May's Rudd, Hammond and Bojo post brexit then she doesn't have anyone to send on the airwaves.

The social care policy was put in right at the end by Nick Timothy, and was made worse because the manifesto didn't have one big giveaway they could talk about. Some people are saying it's some master plan by Lynton Crosby to get people panicking and going to the polls but tbh it just looks like a cock up by the tories

[Blair]

Worth noting that there was always going to be a weekend (or week) like this; I should have written it down, but any campaign where one side is so far ahead at the start is bound to have a 'wobble' where the media gets excited, and the negative briefing begins. Labour was picking up before the manifesto, and did a very good job of spending the last 3 weeks having an item leading the news every day (free school meals, no tuition fees, no tax rises for the 95%, etc etc) Labour have ran a very good campaign.

Also Theresa May has never ran a national campaign- at all. She didn't have a single hustings for the leadership in 2016, she didn't do any big media roles in the referendum, was never one of the constant media stars.  Combined with the lack of cabinet talent- compare Cameron's team of Hague, Osborne, Johnson with May's Rudd, Hammond and Bojo post brexit then she doesn't have anyone to send on the airwaves.

The social care policy was put in right at the end by Nick Timothy, and was made worse because the manifesto didn't have one big giveaway they could talk about. Some people are saying it's some master plan by Lynton Crosby to get people panicking and going to the polls but tbh it just looks like a cock up by the tories

Is this a common thing? I remember in the Canada 2015 campaign there were people who thought every word Harper said was some sort of Lynton Crosby tactic.

Well since 2015 when he got his mark for the 'dead cat' story where Michael Fallon accused Miliband of 'stabbing britain in the back' the day after we announced a massive crackdown on tax avoidance. Also the whole Labour+SNP coalition fear was discovered and played by his pollster.

But yeah there's certainly an irrational tendency to think every fart from any politician has his fingerprints on it. (in the same way tories+far left use to think Alastair Campbell controlled the Labour party)

[Blair]

The struggle now for May/tories is stopping the story completely over-spilling; as can happen when you botch the u-turn, it doesn't appear that she's actually changed her position

[Blair]

The SNP are awful, and I can't wait until one party rule in Scotland ends