If Labour loses the next UK election,

[CumbrianLefty]

The media landscape is still pro-Tory and a leadership change could make the Tories seem fresher than they are. In fact, I predict a massive campaign from the broadsheet and tabloids alike about some sort of comeback being beneficial and how labour will lead the UK to a major capital flight scenario, with trans women eating newborn babies.

Starmer is also very dull.

People have much shorter memories than before.

Disagree on most of that tbh. It comes across as both a very "online" perspective (however much the bubble fulminates, bashing trans people is *not* going to influence most voters) and one made from outside the UK - which means you almost certainly underestimate the current extent of sheer fatigue and irritation with the Tory party both amongst the electorate and even the same elite that ensured their electoral triumph so unscrupulously, and on occasion dementedly, last time around.

I do think we can forget about a ferocious, united media campaign to re-elect the Tories next time - it won't be 1992 or 2015, never mind 2019. Quite a few feel residual guilt about being so mendacious then and thus enabling both Johnson and Truss to wreck the country, and on a more intellectual level they recognise the Tories are totally out of ideas and *need* a spell in opposition.

(and that's even before considering the factionalism that now pervades the party, and does so much to impede Sunak's attempts in presenting his regime as a fresh start)

And in some ways Starmer's undoubted dullness is an asset, not least in blunting scare campaigns.

Lastly, do people *really* have shorter memories than before? Would appreciate some evidence there - in particular I think the Fifty Days Of Misrule will haunt the Tories for some time to come.

[CumbrianLefty]

'Better the Tory you know that the Tory you don't.'

In the real world, the number of people who ever vote Tory "because Labour isn't left wing enough" is tiny - though always disproportionately vocal

[CumbrianLefty]

Well 95% odds of a Labour win is pretty good actually

My own view is that won't now be overturned by "normal" means - we are going to need some sort of at present unforeseen "deux et machina" in the Tories favour.

And btw a lot of Tories are also worried about how Sunak might stand up in an actual GE campaign.

[CumbrianLefty]

Realistically to win the Tories need to turn out 85% of the people who voted for them last time. Seeing as these people actually voted for the Tories last time, there's a good chance they do so again.

Leaving aside the plausibility of this for now, does it take into account demographic changes since the last GE - in particular "natural wastage" amongst the Tories mainly more elderly supporters?

[CumbrianLefty]

The vast, overwhelming majority of the 2019 Tory vote is still alive and leans to the right. Doesn't mean the Tories will them all of course, but it does mean that it's Labour that has to climb the hill, while the Tories need to turn out their 2019 vote.

Sadly this is true. Apathetic voters are still apathetic after years of hearing Labour are Holocaust-lovers, and old voters will still vote their wallet rather than their morals.

Labour has a steep slope ahead of it to win back any of the '17-'19 Con voters, and right now past polling errors point to a hung parliament in 2024.

Meanwhile in the real world, surveys regularly show a higher number of Con-Lab switchers than was the case pre-1997. As for the ridiculously lazy hand-wavy bit about "past polling errors"; there hasn't been an election decided by largely mythical "shy Tories" since 1992. Labour support was not majorly overestimated by polling in 2019, 2017, 2010 or even 2005. The one exception to that in recent years was due to one-off factors that are unlikely to occur in that way again.

Anything is possible, but ignorance such as that expressed in your post gets my goat.

[CumbrianLefty]

Realistically to win the Tories need to turn out 85% of the people who voted for them last time. Seeing as these people actually voted for the Tories last time, there's a good chance they do so again.

Leaving aside the plausibility of this for now, does it take into account demographic changes since the last GE - in particular "natural wastage" amongst the Tories mainly more elderly supporters?

There's not enough of it to make a meaningful difference over one cycle.

The vast, overwhelming majority of the 2019 Tory vote is still alive and leans to the right. Doesn't mean the Tories will them all of course, but it does mean that it's Labour that has to climb the hill, while the Tories need to turn out their 2019 vote.

Depends what you define as "meaningful". What is undoubtedly true is that since the 2019 GE there has been a significant number of mostly older voters passing on, combined with an influx of mostly younger voters entering the electoral rolls. Of course this happens between all elections, and only has possible significance now because of the extreme age polarisation we have seen in recent years.

Even if it makes only 1-2% difference overall, that might still be enough to swing a close contest.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think Wilson was quite popular in 1964 tbf, its one reason why the result being so close was a bit of a shock. Blair's appeal pre 1997, whilst very real, has definitely been exaggerated a bit in retrospect though - a *lot* of people then were still mainly anti-Tory rather than enthusiastic about New Labour.

[CumbrianLefty]

There is, at the moment, little evidence that is the case.

This isn't just "people getting more Tory as they age" - some sort of natural inevitable process.

Its something else.

[CumbrianLefty]

No, if anything its the opposite. Some people *will* inherit stuff from their boomer parents, but this won't make them more likely to vote Tory as that party have made very clear they despise the young.