United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[patzer]

If I run* should I do it as an independent or for Reform? I think independents have more chance of a victory than attaching a minor party label to your ballot line. Plus if you run for a party they might tell you that you have to run in some absolute hole in Sunderland or Southampton rather than in your local seat. However, Reform did ask me to apply for the local elections (I didn't). They're not a serious outfit though. The other issue is that I know my local MPs and don't really want to stand against them. Plus my local Labour candidate is kinda fit.

*Quite unlikely I actually go through with it but I've always wanted to do it.

In my opinion your best shot would be going for Reform and hoping that Farage returning/Sunak's unpopularity causes Reform to overtake the Tories in the polls like they did in 2019.

[patzer]

Well, Wales has the popular backlash to 20mph, and Scotland has tactical unionist voting for the Tories in parts of the country where Labour is very weak.

[patzer]

Convergence gets closer-
https://twitter.com/lara_spirit/status/1785894700496388140

Would any aspiring leadership candidate be shameless enough to 'arrange' a poll to be released in the next two or three days showing Reform ahead of the Tories? I seem to recall similar tactics being used in the past.

I've rarely seen Electoral Calculus get so broken by a poll.

Put this in and:

Lab 519
LD(!) 57 (calling BS on this)
Con 32
SNP 19
PC 3
Green 2
Northern Ireland 18
Reform 0

Electoral Calculus just isn't designed for results this wild.

Sounds about right to me. If the Tories are on 18%, that implies losing very safe seats where the Lib Dems are by far the nearest opposition. If the Tories are losing seats like Torbay, North Devon, and the Cotswolds seats, then yes the Lib Dems would be getting up to around 40 gains on top of their existing 15 seats.