United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[CumbrianLefty]

The funny thing is that speculation about a May election is flaring up again. Apparently some Tories are privately saying that things can only get worse (that wouldn't be a popular campaign song) if they go beyond May. Of course it will soon be known for certain whether there will be a May election or not.

Seriously, CAN they get much worse?

However much they moan, why would Sunak give up six more guaranteed months as PM anyway.

(well, unless the Tories try to oust him - but that opens a whole can of worms of its own)

[Pericles]

This kind of terrible polling is terrible news for the government in a fifth year of its term. Did Major ever see such dire results in 1997, or had he already started to recover by this point?

This parliamentary term is an absolutely cursed time to be a government, and the Tories did not help themselves at all. It does actually feel plausible that this will be worse than 1997, though what limit there is to the wipeout won't be known until the result comes in. I also am inclined to believe it more after seeing the huge record-breaking swing in NZ last year against a much better government, though of course these are different countries.

[JimJamUK]

This kind of terrible polling is terrible news for the government in a fifth year of its term. Did Major ever see such dire results in 1997, or had he already started to recover by this point?

They bottomed out at 25% in early 1995, almost immediately surged a couple of points, and then had a glacial recovery to 30% over the rest of the Parliament. The decent swing at the end of the Parliament was from Labour to Lib Dem, and there may have been a significant swing (or systematic underestimating of the swing) from Labour to Lib Dem at the last minute.

[Wiswylfen]

Would love to meet some Labour 2019/Tory 2024 voters. Who even are they? Accelerationists? Mark Latham imitators? Idiots? Leicester East?

Someone who was an apolitical 22-year old student in 2019 (probably opposed to Brexit) and is now an apolitical 27-year old consultant making decent money (while Brexit is irrelevant). Many such cases.

It is fascinating how poorly you understand English politics. An apolitical 27-year-old consultant making decent money has literally no reason whatsoever to vote Conservative.

[Wiswylfen]

One big question mark - which I haven't seen much discussion about - is the extent to which unhappy 2019 Conservative voters who now claim to be voting for Reform will, in the end, 'come home' for the Tories when they start looking at their own constituency more than at the national picture.

Most '2019 Conservative voters who now claim to be voting for Reform' are a mirage caused by sampling issues related to the fact that overly online pensioners (and older people in general) tend to be absurdly right-wing. They barely saved their deposit in Rochdale: it's not happening. But I guess when the GE does happen we'll all get this narrative instead of the reality that they never existed to begin with so whatever.

In the past, this sort of thing has worked out rather well for the Conservatives. Perhaps this time it won't because the election doesn't seem particularly competitive at this point, and perhaps many of these Reform/Tory swing voters are concentrated in Northern seats that will go Labour anyway this time, but it's a matter to watch.

There is literally no sign of this whatsoever.

If I were a voter in the UK, I can imagine I'd currently be enraged with the Tories' record in government (particularly its most recent iterations) and if a pollster were to call me today I'd certainly not say I'd vote for them. But chances are that if my seat would be even semi-marginal, Reform wouldn't stand a chance there, and my Tory MP or candidate would be decent, I'd end up voting Conservative anyway, despite everything.

Yes actually you are correct you would. Of course until recently you thought it an excellent idea to align yourself with an utterly deranged conspiracy theorist, and are overall one of the least interesting right-wingers on the Atlas forum, which offers a better look at the Conservatives' existing young voters than your absurd fiction in which "an apolitical 27-year old consultant making decent money" has any reason to vote for the party at all.

[Continential]

What young people do vote Tory?

[TheTide]

What young people do vote Tory?

Quite a few who show up on the Grindr grid when one is nearby wherever the Tory conference is being held.

[afleitch]

Would love to meet some Labour 2019/Tory 2024 voters. Who even are they? Accelerationists? Mark Latham imitators? Idiots? Leicester East?

Someone who was an apolitical 22-year old student in 2019 (probably opposed to Brexit) and is now an apolitical 27-year old consultant making decent money (while Brexit is irrelevant). Many such cases.

It is fascinating how poorly you understand English politics. An apolitical 27-year-old consultant making decent money has literally no reason whatsoever to vote Conservative.

'Decent money' is in itself relative.

A difference of say 10 to 20k a year gets you disproportionately less when set against property and that has gotten far worse over five years with the cost of mortgages, energy and food bills soaking up any advantage.

If you're young and you vote Tory you do if for cultural reasons, or because you're insanely online.

[afleitch]

One big question mark - which I haven't seen much discussion about - is the extent to which unhappy 2019 Conservative voters who now claim to be voting for Reform will, in the end, 'come home' for the Tories when they start looking at their own constituency more than at the national picture.

Most '2019 Conservative voters who now claim to be voting for Reform' are a mirage caused by sampling issues related to the fact that overly online pensioners (and older people in general) tend to be absurdly right-wing. They barely saved their deposit in Rochdale: it's not happening. But I guess when the GE does happen we'll all get this narrative instead of the reality that they never existed to begin with so whatever.

Very important and salient point. It's also why voluntary/commercial panel polling companies, which have a slightly older and engaged (enraged?) pool, tend to have Reform higher.

Long standing flow of the vote analysis suggests that Reform voters, like Brexit and UKIP before it, are 'anti-system' voters. Some of whom also voted Lib Dems in elections past. Crucially, a sizeable bloc voted Labour in 2017 too.

I expect some flow back to the Tories but there are also a number who aren't going to vote Tory.  They might not vote. They might vote whatever party they think will take them out.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Polling of Reform supporters has found that fewer than 4 in 10 would even consider voting Tory. Usual caveats apply, only more so, but it's not a group that looks like it's that susceptible to tactical squeeze.

[CumbrianLefty]

Whilst the statement that Reform underperform their poll ratings in actual elections is totally correct and has been for as long as they have been around, the poor showing in Rochdale was surely in some measure due to their "inspired" choice of candidate. The idea was that picking a "big name" locally would work for them, not realising that he was both well known *and* widely disliked.

[Wiswylfen]

What young people do vote Tory?

Young 'political hobbyists' who didn't fully understand that their vehicle of choice was going to break down within twenty years. That's about it, really; also people trying desperately to Be Normal (you'll find them in a few places on Reddit) failing to understand that voting Conservative is the direct opposite of that. The actual 'upper class', too.

If you're young and you vote Tory you do if for cultural reasons, or because you're insanely online.

'Cultural reasons' in the class sense yes, otherwise (and the 'insanely online') no. Young, ideological right-wingers in England have as little love for the Conservative Party as anyone else, if not less. Just pure hatred.

[DL]

Polling of Reform supporters has found that fewer than 4 in 10 would even consider voting Tory. Usual caveats apply, only more so, but it's not a group that looks like it's that susceptible to tactical squeeze.

Surely there is a core Reform UK vote that is totally racist and would never vote Tory as long as the party is led by a South Asian man...

[EastAnglianLefty]

If you're young and you vote Tory you do if for cultural reasons, or because you're insanely online.

'Cultural reasons' in the class sense yes, otherwise (and the 'insanely online') no. Young, ideological right-wingers in England have as little love for the Conservative Party as anyone else, if not less. Just pure hatred.

There are a decent number of young Tories who hate the current incarnation of the Tory party, they just vote that way because they can't contemplate doing otherwise.

[Wiswylfen]

If you're young and you vote Tory you do if for cultural reasons, or because you're insanely online.

'Cultural reasons' in the class sense yes, otherwise (and the 'insanely online') no. Young, ideological right-wingers in England have as little love for the Conservative Party as anyone else, if not less. Just pure hatred.

There are a decent number of young Tories who hate the current incarnation of the Tory party, they just vote that way because they can't contemplate doing otherwise.

Is there really? A few years ago there might have been a few of them but it seems like all of them have now left.

[DL]

So who do Gen Zers in the UK who are from extremely wealthy aristocratic families who went to places like Eton and hang out in Sloan Square all vote for these days?

[YL]

So who do Gen Zers in the UK who are from extremely wealthy aristocratic families who went to places like Eton and hang out in Sloan Square all vote for these days?

People like that will be fairly Tory regardless of their age group, but outside of certain parts of central London there really aren't very many of them.

I would imagine that your typical young Tory voter is someone from a Tory family who follows the family voting habit and doesn't see enough of a reason to change. There are surely also a few libertarian ideologues out there, or are they Reform or trying to infiltrate the Lib Dems again?

[TheTide]

Just seen a May election referred to as an 'early election' (it's f****cking well not, it's four and a half years into the Parliament). But it gets worse. It also referred to the idea that a May election could "catch Labour out". You know, the May election that Labour have been loudly calling for for months.

[Wiswylfen]

So who do Gen Zers in the UK who are from extremely wealthy aristocratic families who went to places like Eton and hang out in Sloan Square all vote for these days?

People like that will be fairly Tory regardless of their age group, but outside of certain parts of central London there really aren't very many of them.

I would imagine that your typical young Tory voter is someone from a Tory family who follows the family voting habit and doesn't see enough of a reason to change. There are surely also a few libertarian ideologues out there, or are they Reform or trying to infiltrate the Lib Dems again?

Yes, and in much of London they've been replaced by foreign millionaires (and their families) with ill-gotten gains. Hence why Labour was able to win Kensington in 2017, rather than some sort of mass defection among the people formerly known as the Sloanes.

I don't think people really get the young right. The young, ideological, *actual* right has no interest in the Conservative Party: even the idea of hijacking it to serve as a vehicle for their own ends is a fringe one. They also have very little time for Reform: they like Farage, but not Tice and his circus, and even have a cautious willingness to support George Galloway. The only young people 'on the right' who feel attached to the Conservative Party are media personalities and careerists who want to be politicians. This is the depth of the hole they've dug.

[adma]

So who do Gen Zers in the UK who are from extremely wealthy aristocratic families who went to places like Eton and hang out in Sloan Square all vote for these days?

People like that will be fairly Tory regardless of their age group, but outside of certain parts of central London there really aren't very many of them.

I would imagine that your typical young Tory voter is someone from a Tory family who follows the family voting habit and doesn't see enough of a reason to change. There are surely also a few libertarian ideologues out there, or are they Reform or trying to infiltrate the Lib Dems again?

Yes, and in much of London they've been replaced by foreign millionaires (and their families) with ill-gotten gains. Hence why Labour was able to win Kensington in 2017, rather than some sort of mass defection among the people formerly known as the Sloanes.

I don't think people really get the young right. The young, ideological, *actual* right has no interest in the Conservative Party: even the idea of hijacking it to serve as a vehicle for their own ends is a fringe one. They also have very little time for Reform: they like Farage, but not Tice and his circus, and even have a cautious willingness to support George Galloway. The only young people 'on the right' who feel attached to the Conservative Party are media personalities and careerists who want to be politicians. This is the depth of the hole they've dug.

These days, I wonder if what remains of the Sloanes is just "too posh for politics"--they'd rather not dirty their noses with those silly squabbles.  They picture themselves as too cosmopolitan for the bickering and parochial world of electoral politics.

And as for the "young right", they're likewise more "internationalist" in outlook, i.e. if they had a viable domestic Le Pen or Meloni vehicle (which Reform isn't), they'd be all in...

[CumbrianLefty]

Just seen a May election referred to as an 'early election' (it's f****cking well not, it's four and a half years into the Parliament). But it gets worse. It also referred to the idea that a May election could "catch Labour out". You know, the May election that Labour have been loudly calling for for months.

Jonathan Ashworth actually DEMANDED a May election yesterday morning

Go on, name and shame who came out with this epochal drivel - you know you want to.

[TheTide]

Just seen a May election referred to as an 'early election' (it's f****cking well not, it's four and a half years into the Parliament). But it gets worse. It also referred to the idea that a May election could "catch Labour out". You know, the May election that Labour have been loudly calling for for months.

Jonathan Ashworth actually DEMANDED a May election yesterday morning

Go on, name and shame who came out with this epochal drivel - you know you want to.

It was none other than His Lordship Mandelson. Helpfully the comment is right at the start of the video as the teaser (as well as the basis for the title). Tbf he says that that's what the Tories themselves are thinking, but he really ought to know better. In fact he probably does, and it's another example of Machiavellianism on his part. Maybe.

[Dan the Roman]

So who do Gen Zers in the UK who are from extremely wealthy aristocratic families who went to places like Eton and hang out in Sloan Square all vote for these days?

Literally? A bunch were in Mar-a-Lago last night.

Even many of the 2017-2019 Liberal Dem boys have become Trump folks post DeSantis dropout.

In the UK a few are in Labour out of spite over the Liz Truss thing so you have the bizarre spectacle of paid Labour members/donors also at Republican events.

[CumbrianLefty]

It was none other than His Lordship Mandelson. Helpfully the comment is right at the start of the video as the teaser (as well as the basis for the title). Tbf he says that that's what the Tories themselves are thinking, but he really ought to know better. In fact he probably does, and it's another example of Machiavellianism on his part. Maybe.

I've never really rated him as a political analyst/commentator, and that merely confirms it

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My observations would be that a) the genuinely posh make up a very small minority of the population in all age groups and that young ones will still be predominantly Conservative-voting even now, though losses to the LibDems will be significant as well, and that b) so few people will have switched from Labour to the Conservatives since 2019 that by definition they are going to be highly abnormal and unrepresentative in some way or another. I suspect that the bulk would be people who cast an angry protest vote over Brexit and have probably already forgotten that they did.