United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019

[Silent Hunter]

Finchley & Golders Green isn't West London, it's North. It's noteworthy as it's a Tory marginal that was Labour from 1997 until 2010. Secondly, the previous seat used to have Margaret Thatcher sit for it.

Thirdly and most importantly here, that general area has the highest Jewish population in the UK; on the times I've been through the south of it on London Overground, there's been at least one Haredi Jew on the train.

[Silent Hunter]

YouGov asks for your postcode when you register for their online panel. They need it for the cheques for one thing.

[Silent Hunter]

So, Jon Ashworth...

[Silent Hunter]

The key in all of this is going to be Labour marginals in the North. If Johnson can pick up 20 or more, he will almost certainly have an overall majority.

[Silent Hunter]

How come most seats in the UK are projected in the early morning?

They're not projected. They're actually counted on the night, by volunteers who often work as cashiers in banks.

[Silent Hunter]

That's just the midpoint of the projection too... Tories could be between 311 and 367.

See Dagenham and Rainham is a toss-up there.

[Silent Hunter]

Sedgefield was of course Tony Blair's seat.

[Silent Hunter]

Seeing Skinner go down would be a Portillo moment though.

[Silent Hunter]

Can someone explain why Johnson is specifically avoiding interviews with high profile journos like Neil and Piers Morgan and why exactly its so important for him not to be "exposed"? Is he that much of a ticking time bomb or is there some sort of grudge between him and the fourth estate (that he's a part of himself)?

I'm trying to understand why it generates so much media attention in itself.

Because when he does do interviews, he tends to make gaffes or repeat himself a lot.

[Silent Hunter]

I'm going to try and keep away from anything election related apart from actually voting tomorrow until the exit poll; I'll see you then.

It's certainly going to be an interesting night.

[Silent Hunter]

SDLP and Sinn Fein both stood down, leaving only the Alliance for non-unionists and Remainers to vote for.

[Silent Hunter]

Corbyn was the most mentioned issue on the doorstep and polling evidence back that up.

An election without Corbyn will just allow the economic agenda to be analysed more - and it won't wash with many middle class voters. A happy medium needs to be found.

[Silent Hunter]

The antisemitism stuff got considerably worse for Labour in the last couple of years. There was also the Salisbury attack.

[Silent Hunter]

Backing neither Leave nor Remain didn't exactly help Labour either. It allowed it to be seen as the hated enemy by all sides.

[Silent Hunter]

A lot them didn't switch to the Tories with Johnson - the Tory vote went up less than 400,000. Many of them just stayed at home.

[Silent Hunter]

Ipsos-MORI's breakdowns have arrived. They are far from perfect, but they are generally considered to be more reliable than those produced by other polling firms.

Anyway, here's the link.

The renter vs. homeowner breakdown is notable; I suspect many homeowners weren't keen on Labour tax proposals as they often want to pass the house down - or in any rate sell the house and pass the proceeds down.

[Silent Hunter]

How come Staffordshire has seen a much harder swing to right.  It seems Tory vote there has soared and in Stoke on Trent almost tripled in last decade.  During Blair era, Tories languished in teens there, now they are getting over 50% there.  While you've seen other shifts, I don't believe any quite as dramatic.  Only other I can think of is Durham County but being quite rural and white, Tory share of the vote seemed unusually low for its demographics.

This, perhaps?