UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[YL]

On Pericles’ point, it’s tempting to make comparisons to 1997, once again.

Just as the memory of Black Wednesday seems to have stuck with voters long after the economy got back on track, the spectre of Truss (and the ongoing mortgage situation) may well outweigh even fairly successful attempts to wrangle inflation and throw last-minute tax cuts at the electorate (all but confirmed to be Hunt’s plan for next year).

Certainly, it would explain the fairly stubborn Labour lead since the mini-budget.

Both the mini-budget and Black Wednesday are occasions on which they made a mess of their "reputation for economic competence" in ways which affected many people directly.

[YL]

Yes, but who cares about Northants in comparison?

(outside Northants, anyway)

Based on local election results since the fiasco, they don’t even care in it.

[YL]

It’s been confirmed that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats considered an electoral pact for the 2015 election. It didn’t come close to actually happening (to the Tories advantage it turned out), but that the 2 parties considered themselves close enough to not even stand against each other says something…

I'm not at all convinced that either party would have been able to bring their membership, let alone their voting base, along with such a scheme. A lot of Lib Dems accepted the Coalition as the least bad option in the circumstances; that doesn't mean that they'd have accepted Clegg and Alexander driving them into an electoral pact with the Tories.

[YL]

To follow up on that - there’s a number of pundits (from the Times lot, to Emily Maitlis) who have noticed that Labour need to reclaim more seats to win a majority of one, than the number Blair won from the Tories in 1997.

So that becomes the framing on a quiet news day, when they want a horse-race story - irrespective of polling, by-elections and local election results, etc. As Devout Centrist noted, it’s  an easy excuse for some hung Parliament chatter - and the go-to intro for a piece about the Lib Dems or SNP at Westminster (I think it’s now illegal to write an editorial about Ed Davey that doesn’t include the word *kingmaker*).

It’s either that, or “there’s no great enthusiasm for Keir Starmer, so Labour’s lead is soft”.

It would be interesting to know what the private views of those in the Tory hierarchy are regarding what the election result might be. Michael Heseltine, then Deputy PM, was said to have predicted a Tory majority of 40 just prior to the 1997 election.

I'm sure I remember Hezza sayng a bit later he privately knew it was baloney, and was perfectly aware that the Tories were headed for a big defeat.

But how else to motivate at least some of the troops? You have to suspend disbelief a bit in elections where it is pretty obvious that you are going to lose.

There were a few people - more in their media supporters than the party, admittedly - who really did think the Tories might pull it off again, however. They claimed stuff like Labour's poll lead being "soft" and Blair actually being widely disliked by the voters (sound familiar, any of this?)

The odd thing is that it continued to some extent after the exit poll results. Michael Portillo was unwilling to acknowledge Labour's victory at the start of the night when he was interviewed by Paxman. Contrast this with John McDonnell's interview with Andrew Neil on election night 2019. He pretty much verbally acknowledged that Labour had suffered a catastrophic defeat, and it was certainly evident in his body language.

That may have in significant part been Portillo in denial about his own seat, given what transpired.

It was Heseltine again, not long after the 1997 exit poll had come out, who referred to what the Tories now had to do "after a defeat", before hastily adding "if that is what this is". But, of course, he knew.

Portillo says (quoted on his Wikipedia page) that he thought he’d lost his seat based on the exit poll and was waiting for Paxman to ask him about it.

[YL]

It's a YouGov subsample and so comes with lots of health warnings, but still LOL:

https://twitter.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1707375642856010080

Full Tory shares from the poll by age subsample:
65+ 46%
50-64 27%
25-49 12%
18-24 1%

[YL]

In other news, my local council might go bust.

Not just yours.  There are also reports today about Hampshire County Council, and I think the feeling is that while the ones who got into trouble first made some definite mistakes, the current situation with council funding and their responsibilities is unsustainable almost everywhere.

[YL]

"Mhairi Black threatened to quit SNP on eve of by-election in 'ultimatum' over staffer"

or so says holyrood.com

[YL]

I imagine many people in the SNP will think that it shows they were right to try to deselect her.

Is she now a Unionist?

BTW she is the first MP to join the Tories from another party since Reg Prentice in 1977.

[YL]

Honestly, I have no idea how this is going to work - it probably won’t. There’ll be 9 years of comms from her decrying Conservative cuts and policy, using some pretty hyperbolic language at times. There’s Brexit to get over, before you even consider Scottish independence.

I have to imagine this is going to be an 12 month career now, because the local Tory association is going to be very leery of her, and she would face an incredibly hostile electorate.

Worth considering though - this is the fourth defection away from the SNP in this parliament, following Angus MacNeil leaving the party, and the two who joined Alba.

If it’s an attempt to save her career, you’d have to imagine she’ll be looking for a new seat, though are there any plausible Tory prospects in Scotland which don’t have candidates in place?

[YL]

So then. 'Useless fuckpigs'. Discuss.

Seems fair.

Not that I can take Cummings that seriously either.  And of course he bears a considerable amount of blame for the state of UK politics circa 2019/20 himself.

[YL]

What a dysfunctional mess.

[YL]

"People Polling" has a very strong anti-Tory (and pro-Reform UK) house effect, and there are certain other reasons to be a bit suspicious of them.  More generally, I'll continue to be sceptical that Reform UK are really on more than abour 4% until I start seeing evidence from real elections consistent with a higher figure.

As to speculation about yet another Tory leadership contest, there's clearly some dissatisfaction out there but based on the numbers going public I doubt that it is enough to get the numbers needed to trigger a confidence vote yet alone to actually vote Sunak out.  With one illiterate exception, even those who have gone public haven't actually called for Sunak to go yet.

[YL]

Yes, there is now fairly clear polling evidence for a Tory dip since the reshuffle. I remain a bit sceptical about the higher Reform figures, though.

[YL]

On the other housing issue being discussed, this is an interesting matter. I'm not opposed to there being a transfer of houses from the privately rented sector to the socially rented sector, but unless you stipulated security of tenancy for existing tenants then you would be asking for trouble. I would further add that if a significant expansion of the socially rented sector via housebuilding were to occur, then it would be essential to build and rent some of those houses for general needs and to not apply the usual points system in allocating them. That would cause annoyance in some left-wing (left-liberal? They all are) activist circles, but anything else would be highly risky both socially and politically. If you want a higher proportion of housing to be in the socially rented sector, then the 'residualization' of the sector since the 1980s would have to be at least partially reversed.

Isn’t starting to reverse that residualisation part of the aim here?

[YL]

Something interesting I've noticed was after an announcement by the Deputy Mayor for Housing Tom Copley about buying up existing private rent housing to become council housing was the scale of the backlash from the Y***BY crowd who seem to be organising more in politics; it really surprised me both in terms of the hostility and the tone of it.

It did make me realise I am actually a socialist (I think council housing is a good thing & authorities should use the means they have to get it) but showed something interesting about the YIMBY trend- I wondered how much of them are people who basically want to a party that is the UK version of the FDP.

Have you got any prominent examples of this hostility? On the face of it, the policy shouldn’t offend YIMBY (it’s not like it’s actually taking these houses out of the market).

Look at Tom Copley’s tweet over the weekend!

But who was objecting?  Random people on Twitter, or people I have actually heard of/should care about?

[YL]

I thought the rumor was Halloween?

A rumour is Halloween, which is not quite the same thing.

[YL]

Two years ago today fieldwork was completed for a Redfield & Wilton poll with figures Con 38 Lab 36 Lib Dem 9 Green 6.  It remains the most recent Westminster poll showing a Conservative lead.

[YL]

Hiding in the corner - A Network North Project!

I feel that that image could be used unaltered in a Labour leaflet in Northern marginals.

[YL]

In very minor defection news, Andrew Bridgen has left Reclaim and is an independent MP again.  Reading his statement does not exactly make it clear why.

[YL]

Not quite, Goodman called for him to say the next GE *will* be in November - no ifs, no buts.

This still gives the Tories some wriggle room - having said that some are warming to the idea of a GE at the end of November in the hope that a Trump win in the US (and the likely resulting chaos) might cause some risk-averse voters to stick with the incumbent, plus maybe cause problems for Starmer.

I'd say there's still quite a lot of wriggle room.  Sunak's comments yesterday didn't rule anything out and were probably mostly aimed at Labour's line that they expect it to be in May and that if he doesn't go then he's bottling it.

If forced to bet on a month, I'd still go for October.

[YL]

Chris Skidmore MP (Kingswood) has announced that he is resigning the Conservative whip and will be standing down as an MP "as soon as possible".

He was already standing down at the next election, and the constituency is being abolished.

https://twitter.com/CSkidmoreUK/status/1743324376479486007

[YL]

Another Tory MP (Scott Benton's neighbour in Blackpool North, no less) has been up to no good.

Not just an MP, but a minister.

[YL]

What is the deal with John Bercow? He's on the American Traitors reality show lol

A Commons report published in early 2022 found that he had bullied staff while Speaker. It went so far as to say that if he had still been an MP they would have recommended expulsion. No-one has actually been outright expelled since the 1950s, so they really wanted to throw the book at him. He had joined Labour after his retirement, but they swiftly distanced themselves from him.

So now he goes on the reality TV circuit like Neil Hamilton and Matt Hancock, I suppose.

[YL]

I get why the SNP are cross - 'they shot our fox!' and so on - but there is genuinely no coherent case for Conservative fury, or, rather, there is none that is actually coherently defensible. There is a case for annoyance of a sort: Hoyle ran for Speaker on a 'no innovations' ticket, just made one and it happens to be one that his pre-Speakership party wished for. But that's not grounds for fury, just a little grousing.

There's a reasonably plausible theory that the Conservatives thought they were in danger of losing the vote on the Labour amendment and that by boycotting it and kicking up a fuss about the Speaker they overshadowed that.

[YL]

Theresa May has announced that she will not stand for Parliament at the next election.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-mp-constituency-election-2024-b2509217.html

Some Lib Dems may be interested in this news.

(Though in fact Electoral Calculus and the Election Maps UK nowcast show Labour in second in Maidenhead; indeed the former actually shows Labour pretty close to taking it.)