UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[afleitch]

Warning: this post contains analysis of subsamples of polls.

According to "Beyond Topline" on Twitter averaging the 25-49 subsamples in the last four YouGov polls shows Labour 42% ahead among that age group.  This is not so much less than the Labour lead among 18-24s, and if it's remotely accurate it really ought to be worrying the Tories.

(I won't embed the tweet because of Twitter's current problems.)

That's been picked up on before. As is the fact that in some polls the Tories still eke out a lead on 65+ voters (who are effectively client voters at this point). While it would be very strange not to, as the Tories just won that group even in 1997 it does highlight the huge age cleavage in British politics over the past decade.

[afleitch]

Some people are going to be in very big trouble.

Oh a certain British institution has sealed it's fate. And it's not the Beeb.

[afleitch]

It isn't 1983, 'high profile public figure is bisexual' is not in the public interest as generally defined (and it wasn't great that it was seen to be so back then). They don't have any excuses about the supposed criminal elements (which they're pretending they never stressed now: nice try, won't work) as they will already have been informed there was no case to answer and there's no way they didn't check.

It's also part of a wider narrative, particularly around LGBT people, to bring back a moral panic; the rather loose usage of the term 'youth' to apply to twenty somethings which also serves as part of the 'young people can't make decisions' narrative that ticks the TERF/boomer grievance box. And it's good old 'don't trust the establishment media' playbook.

None of this is new of course, but there's an inflated belief that there are more people on the side of this conspiratorial culture war than there actually are.

Huw Edwards isn't sometime people have an opinion about.

Forcing people to have one, particularly a misinformed one, is a huge misstep.

[afleitch]

Yeah the average length of party control, post war is just under a decade averaging out 'one' term governments with long stretches in power.

And of course we've had recent spells of 18 years of government, then 13 and now a likely 14 years.

[afleitch]

I’m very boring and always just liked AV where you got a 1st and 2nd.

Haven’t a fair few people said the best test would be PR or AV at council level? That’s imho where the soviet style majorities end up leading to problems

Problem with AV is that when modelled, it sometimes led to less proportionality and over rewarded electoral landslides. Or in the case of 1997, the Lib Dems leapfrogging the Tories.

There's a great paper on every election under STV and Droop LR  from 1945 by Dylan Difford worth a look.

[afleitch]

Updated for the new boundaries. If there are any errors you can see, let me know

Old parliamentary county, preserved county (Wales) and defunct region (Scotland) boundaries, where a seat crosses them are shown in '......'

I did this for as a good visual tool to familiarise yourself with geography in an otherwise cluttered map.

Opening the image in a new tab should give you a 'Paint' editable image.



EDIT: Amended.

[afleitch]

Thank you for this

On 'the other place' they thankfully noted a few errors I need to correct. So I'll revise

[afleitch]

The Welsh constituencies are positive proof of the need to Bring Back the Welsh Sunday, even if only for people serving on boundary commissions.

They should be forced to live in Llangollen with no access to the outside world for a year.

Portmeirion.

Living in Wales is punishment enough surely?

😶

[afleitch]

The Welsh constituencies are positive proof of the need to Bring Back the Welsh Sunday, even if only for people serving on boundary commissions.

The weird 'muh quota' compromise, given the failure of two abandoned reviews, had a net effect of thankfully, reducing cross county seats but still needlessly required it. When you could just change the national quota to reduce seats and allow for variation within 'counties' or groupings as per and have more frequent reviews. Or even part reviews (which hasn't happened since the Milton Keynes split)

Scotland's 2005 seats were visually jarring after decades of 71/72 but quite logical. Wales' reduction (which was overdue) would have been similar under older rules. You could have kept the preserved counties with only a minor Powys 'jump'.

---

FWIW, the current boundaries have served four elections (five in Scotland). More than any other since the First Review (five).

Scotland's seats are currently based on enumeration data from June 2001, making them 22 years 'old'. And they still have time to run before abolition.

The First Review had a March 1954 enumeration date, making them just shy of 20 years old before abolition.

So they are post war record breakers.

[afleitch]

Yes, the rules plus the reduction in seats was always going to result in a messy and unhappy map, but there are some details that really do go beyond that and speak of a sort of romantic ignorance. The cross-Berwyns constituency is genuinely mad and easily avoidable.

Wales is unique in that it's effectively a 'massif' with lots population hugging the coast and the Valleys only being populated because of what was beneath the feet.

The watersheds in Powys effectively flow into England as as you can't cross that border you're trying to find ways to bleed out of there.

There's a strong case to make it protected area at Review (and the Highlands for a similar reason) as it's effectively an 'island.'

I agree that north east Wales is an unnecessary mess even outside of this.

[afleitch]

It was perceived as vulnerable to Labour because of MacNeil. Labour don't have the best candidate so it really is up to who the SNP nominate to see if there's much to separate the potential candidates.

[afleitch]

FWIW, I decided to look at the 2019 and wonder what would happen if everything was the same, except reducing the votes to take into account who died and adding those who are now of an age to vote.

Age as an indicator of voting is very strong. And is most pronounced among the very young and very old.

I did a quick calculation based on mortality rates, including increased mortality rates due to COVID. I used the YouGov 'How Britain Voted ' data as it gave weighting as well as voting intention.

With new voters who reached majority, I have gave the same voting intention as their peers in 2019.

I then forecast it to December 2024.

The Tory GB share drops 2.8, Labour's share rises by 2.6 and the Lib Dems drops 0.1. The SNP GB share is up 0.3.

This is a significant 'swing' with all else being equal.

On a uniform national swing the Tory majority wrote significantly.

Hopefully someone actually does some proper analysis to confirm this.

[afleitch]

Voting allegiance has always bee n age related *to a degree*, but since the 2010 GE its salience has increased massively, to hitherto unheard of levels.

Quite possibly, this has bought the Tories short tern riches at the cost of genuine long term grief.

Yeah. Age and education are now better predictors than objective or subjective class or income.

FWIW, a repeat of the 2017 election would see a 4 or 5 pt Labour lead.

'Over 65' is also such a huge demographic that it contains diverging voting patterns within it. But they have became hyper Conservative to the point that they still lead in most polls.

Younger voters have shifted the other way. The 'left' (or rather non Conservative) trend of millennial voters over nearly twenty years now is contrary to what historically, they should be doing. That's absolutely disastrous.

[afleitch]

The Telegraph which is essentially now the country gent equivalent of "Radio Milles Collines" is calling for open vandalism over ULEZ.

ULEZ is the trans panic in a microcosm. An issue that riles up a certain, usually old and predominantly white demographic who have both free time and a penchant for being online which overlaps with most British establishment journalists, elevated into an issue of concern with column inches in every paper every day, but in reality isn't an issue of concern and doesn't poll in line with it's inflated importance.

And like the trans panic is given a veneer of respectability as it's not really red top fodder either.

That eventually becomes a monomania that collapses into adjacent conspiratorial thinking.

[afleitch]

Peak messaging from the government today:


Which, almost immediately, was followed by this from Labour:

If you ask the Tories what to do about the big shark, they'll investigate whether the lifeguards are too 'woke.'

If you ask Labour what they plan to do about the big shark they'll say they can't make fiscally irresponsible commitments to remove it. Despite Starmer giving a speech last year on shark removal.

If you ask the Lib Dems what to do about the big shark, they tell you as long as it represents a rural constituency, then job done.

[afleitch]

If you asked the SNP what to do about the shark, they'll tell you how seriously they take shark attacks, point to their 2017 Shark Attack Vow, but point out that *really*, the fact that people are still dying via shark attack is the fault of a heartless Westminster government who won't allocate more money for harpoons.

I assume Plaid Cyrmu would just convene a working group to discuss the Welsh etymology for shark, and then bully a staffer.

Presumably, the Greens are still pro-shark.

Now now. We all know the SNP would claim they didn't have the powers to remove the shark only if it's on the Scottish continental shelf.

[afleitch]

The news really is a parody of the 1990s lately. Surprised Sunak hasn’t done a back me or sack yet.

The press have stopped defending them. Which is what you do when you want access to the next government. Not a healthy parasitic relationship for the press to have, but a long standing one.

[afleitch]

Blair's reputation is on the same distinctive upwards curve as Wilson's was thirty years ago. The past couple of years, in particular, have had an understandable impact there, by way of contrast.

Blair's reputation is being bouyed in part by the comparison to Starmer. In the sense it was clear, several years before the 1997 GE what Labour's programme was. Which was pretty successfully delivered and both constitutionally and socially, is very much still with us.

[afleitch]

Interesting constitutional quirk in Scotland thanks to the separation of legal systems. Campaigners and Scot Gov want to pilot safe drug consumption rooms. Currently illegal and UK Gov won't devolve the law.

Lord Advocate issues statement stating such a room would not be prosecuted.

https://twitter.com/ProfChalmers/status/1701171236724699177

Effectively

https://twitter.com/ProfChalmers/status/1701172671063490810

[afleitch]

The experiment in breeding and reintroducing a natural predator, but this time into people's homes and streets is thankfully at an end.

Absolutely shameful that lives have been lost and ruined to get to this decision.

[afleitch]

The HS2 thing feels like a real mess.  Frustrating as a frequent passenger. And from Sunak's perspective, it's odd to go "after all these years of Tory government, things have become so bad that we've got to cancel all our own flagship policies, from transport to the environment. That's why you should support us next year."

As a bit of nerd on this matter, HS2 was never viable the moment they axed the Golborne link to allow trains to connect to the West Coast Mainline. Practically speaking, journey times north of Manchester end up effectively the same, particularly factoring in potential additional connections.

So they are faced with building the bit through the shires that has the most baked in opposition after years of axing northern branches that would have proven relatively popular.

[afleitch]

What kind of 18-24 person would vote Conservative, anyway? As things currently stand?

I knew quite a few at uni. Most were motivated opposition to either Corbyn or the SNP and independence. But there were a few true believers too. I know there are some on this board with some pretty skeptical views of her - but Ruth Davidson was a genuine draw at the time.

Most have left to become disillusioned independents. A couple are Lib Dem councillors. Only around three are still in the tent. They each have either banking careers, or jobs at Conservative-affiliated think tanks.

Most Tories I knew during my membership days now...aren't.

Which is pretty much in line with the now well established pattern of younger voters becoming less Tory as they age and pass key life stages.

[afleitch]

It was the most nakedly fascist speech I've heard given at a party conference in my lifetime. Deeply sinister. Sickening.

[afleitch]

She or her people are clearly America brained as she also mentioned about ‘the elite wanting immigrants to mow their lawns’…. in my experience most gardeners are English or employ young people to do these tasks, and people don’t really have lawns that are that big.

To be honest, a core block of voters, and perpetually online Tory hangers on are America brained. It's the source of every 'look at what's actually happening!!!' anti woke, anti trans, anti youth trope that seems to now make it to the Tory conference hall.

The metastasis had been very rapid. (remember the NatC reactions just a few short months ago)

[afleitch]

Britain today is what happens when one section of society, fêted and coddled in retirement, doomscrolling through each day and central to election success for over a decade and is still, relatively loyal to the government is it's sole focus.

Manufactured panics and concerns take months to go from
fringe to mainstream amongst people who have time to endlessly consume them.