United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

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One thing that is virtually certain is that, whether it is incredibly important or incredibly benign, there will be a lectern out later.

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https://twitter.com/Stefan_Boscia/status/1793279293327339828

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If this is true then it would indicate the cabinet meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 4:15, won't be particularly long. Probably more like half an hour given that Sunak wouldn't instantly appear outside once it is over.

https://twitter.com/petercardwell/status/1793277864478904400

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https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1793286364856811831

Also the BBC News website is now leading with the speculation.

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https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1793293948410007731

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https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1793298649385943412

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The thread title can be edited now I suppose.

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More speculation about an imminent election call in view of tomorrow's inflation figures. It almost certainly won't happen, but Sunak really ought to name a date in order to stop this constant cycle of speculation (which obviously isn't helpful to him or to his party), even if that date is circa six months away. This kind of thing has happened in other Parliamentary democracies and of course many countries have fixed election dates. In the case of 2015 it was known to a 99% certainty that the election would be on the 7th of May that year for years beforehand.

Perhaps they listened to me.

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Obviously, with the announcement taking most by surprise, there are a lot of things that haven't really been thought much about as yet. One thing is that there will likely be a flurry of retirement announcements over the coming days. The number of announced Tory retirements, for example, is somewhere in the 60s but an eventual number of 100 or more has been widely quoted.

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First (I think?) retirement announcement since the announcement is actually from a Labour MP. She has been the MP for Halifax since 2015.

https://twitter.com/HollyLynch5/status/1793352853538369564

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Reform holding an event tomorrow in which Nigel Farage's role in the campaign will be announced.

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At least one major howler from him on each day of the campaign so far. Granted it's only the second day.

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Worth keeping an eye, perhaps, on the constituencies being visited by the leaders.

So far today, I make it that Sunak has visited the Vale of Glamorgan (2.7% swing needed for Labour) and somewhere in Derbyshire (didn't catch where, if it was only a single constituency). Starmer has been to Gillingham and Rainham (16.5% swing needed for Labour).

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Huw Merriman (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle) and Kevan Jones (Labour, North Durham) have announced their retirements. Has Jo Churchill (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) been mentioned yet? Getting a wee bit hard to keep up with as I suspected it would when the election call was made.

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Worth keeping an eye, perhaps, on the constituencies being visited by the leaders.

So far today, I make it that Sunak has visited the Vale of Glamorgan (2.7% swing needed for Labour) and somewhere in Derbyshire (didn't catch where, if it was only a single constituency). Starmer has been to Gillingham and Rainham (16.5% swing needed for Labour).

Seems Sunak is weirdly confident.

He has to visit Wales at some point and very few of the current Tory seats have huge majorities.

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Talking of cringeworthy moments (from Sunak and whoever else), what's it going to be like once the Euros actually get going? There isn't much precedent for this. The 1970 World Cup was of course before the 24/7 news cycle, let alone social media. There's already been plenty of stupid photos and posts on Twitter etc from politicians during Euros and World Cups but they weren't during general election campaigns.

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(In what remains, interestingly, the only time one majority has been replaced by another majority at an election. Attlee, Douglas-Home, Callaghan and Major all left in the minority; Wilson was re-elected with a minority then re-re-elected with a majority; Cameron had his coalition.)

...no? Attlee was elected in 1950 with a majority of 5 that shifted to 3 after a by-election (they went thinking that they might get a more workable majority in 1951; Labour set an all-time record for number of votes cast for a party that stood until 1992 but the Tories got a small majority); in 1959 the Tories were elected with a majority of 100 that fell to about 90 due to by-election losses and a defection but which was still very much there; Wilson won a majority of 4 seats (falling to 2) in 1964 and then went again in 1966 because they were well ahead in the polls (using a defeat on steel nationalisation as the trigger); and then as you said in 1970 where Labour's much-diminished majority was lost straight to the Tories.

What is different with the others is that one side involves a very small majority - although the experience of the 2010s probably makes majorities of around 4 or 5 seem normal considering we had similar levels or hung parliaments the entire decade.

Also, post-WWII wasn't specified. It of course happened various times prior to then.

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And John Redwood (the Tory equivalent to Corbyn in some ways) has announced he's standing down in his Wokingham seat. There won't be many MPs who were first elected before the 1990s left in the next Parliament.

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Just came across this on YouTube.
Evidently Labour does seem to know very well what it's doing.

I've seen about three different Labour ads on YouTube videos that aren't related to politics (the videos that is, not the ads). Don't recall any party going this hard on YouTube in 2019. Obviously YouTube has become more MSM since then.

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Craig Mackinlay (Conservative, Thanet South, about to become Thanet East) won't be seeking re-election. Went out on a high note, of course.

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Clark is pretty much the wettest of the wets and Redwood the driest of the dries so it's pretty funny that they announce their retirements within a few hours of each other

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Beware of this atrocious account (which mischievously uses the name of a fairly well-regarded but now-defunct polling website) that might pop up on your Twitter feeds. This post in particular is a good example of its atrociousness.

https://twitter.com/PollingReportUK/status/1793907158284652565

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Another long-serving MP. Evennett has served over two separate spells - 1983-1997 and 2005-present.

https://twitter.com/DavidEvennettMP/status/1794009570672533645

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A genuine 'oh christ'; he is the type of person they really need in opposition, especially if they are on 150 seats. He is, for his many faults, an experienced and skilled operator and one of the few people who has stayed in the arena throughout the years; the tories have him to thank for the fact that the building safety crisis is less of an electoral issue than it could have been!

He of course would have known his seat was a top Lib Dem Target; like with Raaaaab I wonder if him not running actually helps as there can sometimes be a negative incumbency bonus when the figure is a high profile & well known figure; it's easy to get even Labour members to vote Liberal if they know they are getting rid of Gove, or Raaaaaab

A number that's put around a lot as a 'worst case scenario' based on the 1997 experience. Not impossible it could be considerably lower than that.

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Three of the Tory contingent in Northamptonshire (Heaton-Harris, Leadsom and Ellis) have all announced their retirements in pretty quick succession. The Truss government had a lot of East Anglia MPs in it. It's kind of nice to see such county and regional solidarity.