How do you see the next British General Election going? Who wins?

[cp]

Yes, yes, it's all still too early to say and there's everything from a Lab majority to a Tory majority to play for.

That said, I'm highly pessimistic about Labour's chances the next time out. They are still structurally disadvantaged by the electoral system, particularly with most of Scotland likely out of reach. The party is still quite divided about what direction it wants to go in, even if those cleavages are muted at the moment due to the pandemic, and Starmer's not really developed much of a leadership profile besides being an unthreatening man in a suit.

Also, I'm baffled at the apparently conventional wisdom that Johnson will step down or is somehow an electoral liability. Despite our fervent wishes, his shtick shows no sign of getting old; by some measures he's actually *more* approved of now than he was on the eve of the 2019 election. He's clearly got political capital and goodwill to spend with the EU transition period over and the COVID vaccine underway. Unless his party sees a staggering blow to its standing (remember, Theresa May wasn't given the boot until the devastating 2019 EU election results) I don't see him going anywhere.

Bluntly, if the Tories weren't turfed out of office in 2017 for austerity and Brexit with a weak leader facing an unexpectedly popular insurgent opposition leader, they're pretty likely to survive with a stronger leader facing a dud with those two acrimonious policies put behind them.

[cp]

Also, I'm baffled at the apparently conventional wisdom that Johnson will step down or is somehow an electoral liability. Despite our fervent wishes, his shtick shows no sign of getting old; by some measures he's actually *more* approved of now than he was on the eve of the 2019 election. He's clearly got political capital and goodwill to spend with the EU transition period over and the COVID vaccine underway. Unless his party sees a staggering blow to its standing (remember, Theresa May wasn't given the boot until the devastating 2019 EU election results) I don't see him going anywhere.

Bluntly, if the Tories weren't turfed out of office in 2017 for austerity and Brexit with a weak leader facing an unexpectedly popular insurgent opposition leader, they're pretty likely to survive with a stronger leader facing a dud with those two acrimonious policies put behind them.

The part being missed out here is that Starmer is ahead on the preferred PM question with most of the pollsters, which is often more predictive than the headline polling figures. That didn't happen regularly with any previous leader going back to about 2007. Undoubtedly his image isn't much more developed than 'unthreatening man in a suit', but if it holds - and that's a big if - then that might be enough.

So, that isn't really true at all. Starmer's been ahead in a handful of preferred PM polls in the past few months and behind in others. He's got about the same ratio of leads as Corbyn had in mid-2017, much of which is a function of Starmer garnering much larger 'don't know' responses than Johnson does. Like I said: he's a cypher.

More relevantly, the Tories will have the benefit of a nearly completely compliant mainstream press. Novara and DoubleDown aside, the Tories will face no meaningfully critical press except the Guardian, the readership of which is little more than London-centric LD/Lab-right 'swing' voters these days.

General direction of travel and various other indicators are pretty dire for the government, but not only is it too early to be sure, it's even too early to think about the question.

I'm curious what indicators you mean.

[cp]

Yes, yes, it's all still too early to say and there's everything from a Lab majority to a Tory majority to play for.

That said, I'm highly pessimistic about Labour's chances the next time out. They are still structurally disadvantaged by the electoral system, particularly with most of Scotland likely out of reach. The party is still quite divided about what direction it wants to go in, even if those cleavages are muted at the moment due to the pandemic, and Starmer's not really developed much of a leadership profile besides being an unthreatening man in a suit.

Also, I'm baffled at the apparently conventional wisdom that Johnson will step down or is somehow an electoral liability. Despite our fervent wishes, his shtick shows no sign of getting old; by some measures he's actually *more* approved of now than he was on the eve of the 2019 election. He's clearly got political capital and goodwill to spend with the EU transition period over and the COVID vaccine underway. Unless his party sees a staggering blow to its standing (remember, Theresa May wasn't given the boot until the devastating 2019 EU election results) I don't see him going anywhere.

Bluntly, if the Tories weren't turfed out of office in 2017 for austerity and Brexit with a weak leader facing an unexpectedly popular insurgent opposition leader, they're pretty likely to survive with a stronger leader facing a dud with those two acrimonious policies put behind them.

See, I think Labour would have won that election if they had had a leader like Starmer, because the Tory campaign was so awful. Corbyn’s performance was only perceived as strong because he outperformed expectations so much; in absolute terms, it wasn’t that impressive.

I doubt it. Corbyn's overperformance of expectations was directly tied to how unlike every other Labour leader before him. Particularly when you consider who ran against Corbyn in the 2015 race and the 2016 coup attempt, it's pretty difficult to avoid the conclusion that Corbyn was one of a kind and, improbably, people really responded to him once they got an unmediated look. He also managed to get more votes and a greater percentage of the vote than anyone since Blair in 2001. Weirdly, it was the fact that the admittedly abysmal Tory campaign that year *over*performed that saved them.

Keir Starmer so far seems to be doing a good job, coming across as credible and has more of a relentless focus on winning than Miliband or Corbyn. The Tories have never been super popular, and people might well be tired of them after 14 years as their baggage continues to accumulate. Labour seems to be in a similar situation to the Tories after 2005, so they might be able to achieve a similar result to Cameron in 2010 and win without an overall majority. It is too early to tell though, especially since the British electorate has been pretty volatile.

Starmer's certainly being portrayed that way in the non-hack press. I don't really see how he's more relentless in his focus on winning, though (has *any* leader of an opposition party *not* been focused on winning the next election?). If anything, there's an argument to be made that, unlike his recent predecessors, his main focus has been party management. He's avoided releasing any policies or engaging with any voter outreach (as in, setting up working groups in Labour to organize it for later; obviously there's no point in door knocking right now) and his only major eye-catching moves not driven by outside events have been his handling of the EHRC fallout.

I really want the Tories to lose (actually I want them obliterated forever, but that's my damage), but them being not super popular and in power for over a decade didn't stop them from winning a majority before. When you've got a compliant press, a fractured opposition, and the in-built supplication to small-c conservative appeals to authority that British political culture does, it makes it hard to lose.

[cp]

And the UK press was arguably the most insanely biased it has *ever* been in 2019 (which for those of us who recall what they were like in the Thatcher years, speaks for itself)

The idea they will be no different at all confronted by a Starmer-led Labour doesn't overly convince.

Good point. They'll probably be even worse.