8-Dec-2021 : LAB: 40 / CON: 34 / LDEM: 10 / GRN: 4

[Mark]

Westminster voting intention :

LAB: 40% (+1)
CON: 34% (-2)
LDEM: 10% (+1)
GRN: 4% (+1)
REFUK: 3% (-)

via @survation, 08 - 09 Dec Chgs. w/ 01 Dec

[Danny]

Which is an interesting opening gambit considering current guesstimates for a forthcoming by-election where lib might win. Given 74% are supposed not to support them, thats amazing.

What does that say about how VI expresses actual belief and support.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nice one Mark. Tories 6% behind, how much can/will the media help Boris?

[Deleted]

Appropriate timing for new thread. Thank you Mark

[jayblanc]

Next week will see the North Shropshire by-election. Aside for a two year fling with a Liberal in 1904, North Shropshire has returned a Conservative MP at every election since the formation of the Conservative Party in 1834.

The 1904 By-Election resulted in a Liberal win, after the Conservative nominated a candidate from London who was unfamiliar with the area and faced unexpected active opposition from a local.

By stark contrast, the current Conservative nominated candidate is from Birmingham.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/north-shropshire-by-election-neil-shastri-hurst-b1972982.html

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2021 20:44:15 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Nice one Mark. Tories 6% behind, how much can/will the media help Boris?

The media might help CON by pushing the knife deeper into Boris and ensuring he goes sooner rather than later before he does more 'brand' damage to CON. Even the Torygraph are sticking the knife in with their headline: 'Don't go to work, do go to parties' and 'Johnson must resign if he misled MPs over No10 party'

www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-59588483

The Sun have turned anti-Boris. Just the Express holding out. TV media don't seem to holding back IMO although I expect some types will claim BBC are still pro-Boris coz they don't constantly bang out anti-Boris stuff (a lot of folks are interested in other news)

[graham]

The loss of Scotland has effectively clipped circa 2% off Labour's GB vote share - so had that not happened wewould now be looking at a 8% Labour lead. I suspect, however, that were Labour to continue to enjoy the clear leads beginning to be seen in recent days that its fortunes in Scotland too will revive.

[t7g4]

We are now at the beginning of the end for Boris. There is no chance he will lead the party at the next UK general election. When the media turn on you like this you know you are on your way out. Knowing Boris he will want to leave on a high so I expect him to announce something dramatic before exiting. I think its safe to say he will see out the rest of 2021 but I'd expect to him leave before the local elections next year.

Local elections in London, Scotland and Wales could be a horror show for the Conservatives unless they act fast and bring some credibility back.

I've said it before, I don't see there to be a huge amount of enthusiasm towards Labour so the next election is not lost yet.

[jimjam]

James - from last thread ''Strange to think that only 2 days ago, we were reading the word 'polldrums' on UKPR.''

Mea Culpa

A good way to progress to Junior status :-)

[jayblanc]

Dec 9, 2021 20:52:18 GMT @tw said:

The media might help CON by pushing the knife deeper into Boris and ensuring he goes sooner rather than later before he does more 'brand' damage to CON.

I'm not sure that there's a John Major figure for the Conservatives this time. And as Major discovered, once the public opinion of Sleaze has set in, you actually have to clean house or be dragged down again.

[mercian]

Dec 9, 2021 20:45:30 GMT jayblanc said:

Next week will see the North Shropshire by-election. Aside for a two year fling with a Liberal in 1904, North Shropshire has returned a Conservative MP at every election since the formation of the Conservative Party in 1834.

The 1904 By-Election resulted in a Liberal win, after the Conservative nominated a candidate from London who was unfamiliar with the area and faced unexpected active opposition from a local.

By stark contrast, the current Conservative nominated candidate is from Birmingham.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/north-shropshire-by-election-neil-shastri-hurst-b1972982.html

Presumably the 'stark contrast' was tongue-in-cheek?  They should have selected a local farmer or something.  It gives the impression that if you donate to the party/grease the right palms you get a seat.  Both main parties (and probably all of them) do similar things, parachuting outsiders in because they suit the leadership rather than pick someone who can properly represent his constituents.  (By the way if anyone objects to my use of 'his' when a candidate might be female, I was taught at school that in respect to pronouns as well as other things the male embraces the female).  

Your link was interesting. People really cared about politics in those days!

[Deleted]

As we've switched threads, I'll say this here too. If you can't see the links, tweets and images posted try turning off any ad-blockers or VPNs you have running.

[oldnat]

Mercian

Even when you were a lad, "in respect to pronouns as well as other things the male embraces the female", if the embrace was not mutual but imposed, the male was quite likely to have his appendages struck with a well placed knee.

[mercian]

ON
The Scots always were a violent people. Anyway it's still true about pronouns as far as I'm concerned.

[thexterminatingdalek]

I was musing to a largely uninterested Mrs D earlier about the improbability of the joyful news that Mr and Mrs PM have had their baby relegated to at best mid ranking on the headlines today.

The Tories will be relieved, I imagine, that wallpapergate is making a comeback. It failed to cut through last time and is likely to prove a welcome distraction from parties.

Presumably Johnson will now hide until the new year at the earliest, pretending to be a father, hoping the heat dies down in the meantime.

I saw that Raab is isolating after the Australian deputy PM visited last week and caught covid, so presumably he won't be standing in this time. It'll be interesting to see who they can find prepared to handle the chalice this time around. Nadine Dorries, perhaps?

My guess is that things will go off the boil during the next week, that the Tories will retain Patterson's seat with a hugely reduced majority, with the libdems and Labour splitting the anti Tory vote, and then everyone will go home for Christmas. I hope I'm wrong.

[chrisaberavon]

Good evening to you OLD Nat, do you think, following the comment of Graham from Norfolk, that UKLab's apparent up turn will need to SLAB going up also?

Lib Dem poll rsults tend to be high it seems as well

[oldnat]

chrisabaravon

I'm always "impressed" by those whose faith requires them to have hopes which lack any supporting evidence.

[mercian]

chrisaberavon
Hi Chris, I don't recognise your name from the old site, so in case you're a newcomer don't take much notice of Oldnat when he gets like that. He gets quite waspish for no apparent reason sometimes. A shame really.

[oldnat]

Mercian

He's chrislane1946 I presume.

Nothing "waspish" about suggesting that true believers always have hopes that they will win through. Every cult needs such people.

[mercian]

He didn't express any hope. he just asked you a question. Even if it is chrislane1946, who should be used to you by now, I thought it was unnecessarily rude.

[oldnat]

Mercian

Ah! You thought I was referring to chris. No. I was answering his question as to what I thought about Graham's comment.

[mercian]

ok. Stand down. (That's an instruction to myself). 🙂 Apologies.  I just didn't want a possible newcomer to be driven away.

[alec]

Still thinking that if Johnson goes, there is going to be a significant factional battle within Conservatism.

Once you let the ultras take control, they won't want to be squeezed back into the small box marked 'extremists'. There are too many diehard nutters on the Conservative backbenches now, with the ex-ERG bunch now being courted by Sunak's daft ideas for a 2p income tax cut. That, and Frost's extreme version of Brexit, just means less and less cash to spend on the promises made to the red wall voters, and a counter crop of northern MPs are left wondering what planet the ERG lot are living on.

Brexit is now done, so the one thing that held Conservatives together is no more. The lights have been turned back on, and they can now see who they are sitting next to, and I think they're going to struggle.

[peterbell]

Dec 9, 2021 21:59:29 GMT James E said:

@ Graham

A quick check on Survation's tables shows a Labour lead of 43.8%/ 36.6% in England.

So that's a swing of just over 10% compared to GE2019 which the Tories won taking 47.2% to 34% for Labour.

If you look at the English sub-samples (each of only around 200ish), the swings are about 6% in the South, 8% in London,  12% in the Midlands, and 14-15% in the North.

(The Scotland cross-break suggests little progress for Labour there, as does other recent Scottish polling)

Graham,  those sub samples would certainly suggest that the red wall will be reconstructed, particularly  in the North.  Out of interest, have you calculated Tory - LD swing in the south.

[peterbell]

Previous post should have been addressed to James E

[mercian]

Alec,
One chap they should listen to is Lee Anderson. He's very straight-talking. I've got no idea which wing he's on, but the few times I've seen him he seems very down to earth and in touch with his constituents. Ex-Labour I believe.

[Deleted]

Dec 9, 2021 21:26:25 GMT jayblanc said:

I'm not sure that there's a John Major figure for the Conservatives this time. And as Major discovered, once the public opinion of Sleaze has set in, you actually have to clean house or be dragged down again.

I hope not!

Perhaps I've misunderstood you but Major was a disaster[1], so last thing CON need is someone like that to replace Boris. Similar to Maybot he only got in by 'luck' (IMO, others might disagree). Big difference being CON removed the Maybot before her 2nd GE where as they left Major in place to be crushed in GE'97 (although Bliar was Tory Plan B and by 1997, CON certainly needed a period in the wilderness to sort out their internal issues so few tears were shed)

As per turk comments on previous thread then Boris has made this CON HMG a 'cult' (or 'court') around his own persona so a new leader might well be able to ditch all (or at least enough of) the baggage on Boris (which was why I'd have preferred the timing to be late into 2022 once some of the 'base effects' on inflation, etc have passed but still enough time before GE'24). However, like Dom before him, then Boris is now more of a problem than 'help' to CON 'brand' so has to go sooner than preferred (IMO Dom had a bit more 'business' to do in removing dead wood in civil service but he was doing net 'harm' so had to go). Unclear to me that Boris actually has any agenda at all other than wanting be PM. He's done f-all for me/CON/country lately and shows very little sign of having any policies or ability to deliver them (and no, I'm not surprised by that - Boris had one job to do and has done it, hence time for someone who does detail, 'joined up policies' and can deliver)

As per shevii comments on previous thread then perhaps some of cabinet will be tarred with the same brush as Boris so the new broom might have to sweep more of the current (cabinet) room clean. As per some others then I expect Boris limps on through Xmas by which time we'll probably know how many other 'big names' have been tarred (ie all the skeletons in the closet should be out and the witches can be burned at the stake to satisfy the blood lust and we move on - Boris becoming a 'Corbyn-esque' figure for 'New Model Tories v2.0' in the way Corbyn is for 'New LAB v2.0'). If it needs to be someone outside of current cabinet then a lot of the RoC/CON types on UKPR2 would be very happy to see Hunt take over (the PM we deserved in GE'19 perhaps but not the PM we needed to 'Get Brexit Done'). 

[1] OK he got a lot of votes in 1992 but no thanks and I'm pretty sure CON have learned the lesson of keeping a baggage laden *&@r (IMO, you may disagree) in place into a future GE. Into GE'24 then Boris would be a John Major into GE'97 figure (although not as dull of course).

[Danny]

Jack Doyle, PMs dirctor of communications, has been confirmed by ITV to have attended the christmas party on 18 December 2020 which never was.

Newsnight says the PM was told by Jack Doyle that there was no party, which he didnt therefore attend. Which clears the PM of lying over whether there was one.

Meanwhile the report into flatgate says the PM specifically asked Lord Brownlow to please provide funding for flat upgrade. Brownlowe duly did. The question of the PMs honesty now turns on whether Brownlow had told the PM that the money he duly provided was his personally rather than obtained otherwise.


Conservative MP on newsnnight says he will oppose new resrictions including vaccine passports ad mandatory vaccines. This is clearly shaping up as a trap for labour if they support new restrictions and they go through on labour votes. On the balance of probblity, omicron coming to the Uk is going to save lives not cost them and labour will have tried to stop this happening. While increasing numbers of con undertsanding what is happening will oppose new restrictions. It will be labour who cancelled christamsn and con who tried to stop it happening.

and on the next problem, newsnight suggest China has chosen to do the same as the US with leeman brothers by refusing to bail out the failing property company evergrand. Which in the US nearly caused a cascade of all banks in the world going bust. Dont know how evergrand is linked to anyone else. At present thought seems to be its a chinese problem.

[daibach]

YouGov poll out:

Con:33 (-3 since 1-2 Dec)
Lab 37 (+4)
LD 9 (=)
Gr 7 (-2)
RefUK 6 (=)
SNP 5 (=)

[Danny]

Dec 9, 2021 22:57:25 GMT @tw said:

Perhaps I've misunderstood you but Major was a disaster[1],

He was generally credited with winning a previously unwinnable election. If thats bad, fair enough.

Similar to Maybot he only got in by 'luck'

May got in by being seen as the neutral compromise between leave and remain factions. Major was the groomed natural successor to Thatcher. Not at all the same.

Big difference being CON removed the Maybot before her 2nd GE where as they left Major in place to be crushed in GE'97

May was losing leaver support hand over fist, and it was only this which got con elected in 2010,2015 2017 and ultimately 2019. When it was plain a compromiser could not keep them on board, the party moved to someone who could. In contrast Major was PM as head of an increasingly riven conservative party acused of sleaze left, right and centre. He was the one holding it together, not the one acused of the sleaze as now Johnson is. The situation under Johnson is much more comparable to that under major, but now sleaze centres around the PM rather than the ordinary MPs. In both Major and johnson's cases though, con were seen to have over done austerity, which caused voters to move against them under Major. Its difficult to see how removing either PM would have solved that problem of con core policy fundamentally disfavoured by the voters. It is considered Johnson's failure to 'level up' is causing problems in the red wall seats.

a new leader might well be able to ditch all (or at least enough of) the baggage on Boris

I imagine that was the plan. But Johnson has said he always opposed lockdown so he will be on the winning side there. He has said he favours levelling up. He of course favours leave. Which of these bits of baggage do con want to ditch just now? The obvious reason for choosing him was once brexit turned sour he could be ditched as its leader, but it hasnt yet turned sour. The timing is not right to replace him, but it could be moving that way. Do you think the nation is about to turn decisively against brexit?

As per shevii comments on previous thread then perhaps some of cabinet will be tarred with the same brush as Boris so the new broom might have to sweep more of the current (cabinet) room clean.

Thereby causing a rift in the party and bringing us back to why the May governnment failed and there was an early election. So do you think we are facing up for an election next spring?