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Post by moby on Jan 15, 2024 6:45:50 GMT
I've read that there about 60 Tory rebels putting up amendments but because Labour of course doesn't support amendments to strengthen the legislation Sunak is still likely to win the vote for it to go to the Lord's?
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 6:49:22 GMT
I am afraid you have rather missed the point that the high vote shares given to Lab + Con combined throughout the 1950s - and to a lesser extent the 1960s - was due to the fact that in most seats voters were only presented with a choice of two candidates! Except that libs were not barred from standing candidates. Presumably they either didnt think they had any chance of winning so just did not bother trying, or they had so few local activist there wasnt really any local party organisation to do so. The lack of third party candidates can itself be taken as a measure of voter solidarity with the big two.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 15, 2024 6:49:29 GMT
I've read that there about 60 Tory rebels putting up amendments but because Labour of course doesn't support amendments to strengthen the legislation Sunak is still likely to win the vote for it to go to the Lord's? Depends on whether the rebels will vote against the Bill if their ammendments are not successful. Last time It was a bit of a damp squib, suggestions this time the zealots will vote against, really don't know which way it will go
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 15, 2024 6:49:47 GMT
2024!
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869bn (£681.5bn) since 2020, while the world’s poorest 60% – almost 5 billion people – have lost money.
The details come in a report by Oxfam as the world’s richest people gather from Monday in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of political leaders, corporate executives and the super-rich.
The yawning gap between rich and poor is likely to increase, the report says, and will lead to the world crowning its first trillionaire within a decade. At the same time, it warns, if current trends continue, world poverty will not be eradicated for another 229 years.
Highlighting a dramatic increase in inequality since the Covid pandemic, Oxfam said the world’s billionaires were $3.3tn (£2.6tn) richer than in 2020, and their wealth had grown three times faster than the rate of inflation.
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 15, 2024 6:51:19 GMT
Lee Anderson's loss would be tragic.
Said nobody ever.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 6:56:22 GMT
Which all leaves me in a bit of a quandary. Come the general election my vote will be for Labour, but it's certainly not going to be for Sadiq Khan at the Mayoral election. Arent you missing that ULEZ was a conservative plan, and also pushed upon Khan by the conservative central government? Theres not much point voting conservative to stop ULEZ. Ironically too, while con have ended subsidies for green improvements to homes, failed to invest in electric charging infrastructure and made it much harder for generators to switch to onshore wind power, one of the few things they have pushed is ULEZ. As you say, because they see it as a money raising exercise which will offset public transport subsidies in London.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 15, 2024 6:56:56 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/14/general-election-poll-tories-worst-defeat-1997-labour/The Conservatives are heading for an electoral wipeout on the scale of their 1997 defeat by Labour, the most authoritative opinion poll in five years has predicted.
The YouGov survey of 14,000 people forecasts that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will sweep to power with 385 – giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority.
Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, the poll indicates, and the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will be one of 11 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats.
The Tories will win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, more than the 178 Sir John Major lost in 1997.
The poll exposes the huge influence that Reform UK is set to have on the election result. The Right-wing party would not win any seats, but support for it would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses – the difference between a Labour majority and a hung Parliament.
There is also bad news for the Scottish National Party, which is predicted to lose almost half of its seats to Labour, retaining only 25. Yes saw that, but as bad as it is for the tories lots of criticism from other polling experts that it both under estimates the Labour vote compared to other polls and assumes all Reform votes would go tory if they weren't standing, which is clearly nonsense
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 7:07:10 GMT
Story this morning on R4 and it seems also the financial times, that back in 2010 government tried to bar fujitsu from future contracts on grounds of incompetence, but could not find a legally permitted way to do so.
Now that begs the question, what examples of this incompetence were they thinking of, and was it because they already knew of the failings of the Post office system?
2010 is of course the switchover point in government, so was this a labour attempt which con immediately abandoned?
Whats clear is that in the last 12 years where we know for certain con knew about the false convictions of postmasters by the wholly owned government company the post office, they did nothing about it. And now while they are talking about quashing convictions, they are still doing nothing about providing proper and fast compensation, which could be done this year before an election.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 15, 2024 7:15:45 GMT
Starts to make sense, it appears the assumption that all Reform voters would go tory is the Telegraph spin on it rather than YouGov. Can only think the Telegraph have a political agenda to encourage tories to go further right towards Reform
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 7:15:51 GMT
Another story, that RN vessels are being mothballed or scrapped early because of a shortage of sailors. Presumably that means pay and working conditions are so unattractive that people are not volunteering to become sailors.
Just another government organisation where wages have been pushed down so low the service is no longer able to deliver effectively. Conservatives cripple armed forces, oh the irony!
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 7:19:58 GMT
Hmm. Economist just talking arguing 2024 will be a bad year but more hopeful signs thereafter.
Unfortunate timing for con.
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Post by moby on Jan 15, 2024 7:36:06 GMT
I think the favourite films thing is over, but I've just rewatched 'A Knight's Tale' starring Heath Ledger and it's quite funny and also brought tears to my eyes in a couple of scenes near the end. Yes I enjoyed that one. Another recommendation from me..... 'The Killer'. It's on Netflix, David Fincher of Se7en fame back at his best imo and two cracking actors Tilda Swinton & Michael Fassbinder.
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 15, 2024 7:48:00 GMT
Will it be May or will it be November. If Labour is still enjoying a 15%+ lead in May the Tories will lose not a chance of winning. However there's a non zero chance of winning in November because stuff might happen. Bizarrely the best way to get rid of the Tories sooner rather than later is If there's a vaguely positive response to the budget. Regarding the torygraph poll 48 seems a little low🤗 youtu.be/hjlumEbaDFk?si=ADe542Q26wBvsko_
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on Jan 15, 2024 8:16:57 GMT
The whole idea behind ULEZ has little to do with climate change, it's to try to lower the level of pollutants in the air of the city. That had merit initially, with the original zone in the centre of London, but it's far, far less of an issue in the outer suburbs. The benefit to air quality there is forecast to be minimal, and whilst you may say that "every little helps", the financial effects of ULEZ on predominantly those least able to afford it are disproportionate. And it's a problem that's withering on the vine anyway. The cars affected by it are a minority even now, and would be replaced relatively soon anyway as they come to end of life. As far as climate change goes, the imperative is to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible, and the ULEZ expansion is forecast to *raise* them overall. If that surprises you, the reasoning is that scrapping vehicles before their typical end of life is not a good thing for two reasons. Firstly that the carbon load for a car is down to CO2 emissions from the tailpipe during it's life - but also from emissions "baked in" at manufacture. For that reason it's better to make full use of any car - not scrap it prematurely. (Same for many other products as well!) Hi lens , I live in the outer suburbs, and air quality is far from ideal and anything that improves it gets my vote. The aim is to remove the most pollution damaging cars, which I support whole heartedly. Its been estimated that pollution cost 4,000 premature deaths a year in London, with some of the outer boroughs are the worst effected. So its far from clear that the benefits are 'minimal' or that its withering on the vine. Have you walked down Tooting High Street recently or gone shopping Colliers Wood?
Also its part of facilitating a change in culture and shift to hybrid/electric cars. The longer we delay this, the harder it gets to avoid ecological disaster. Research by Possible has identified a correlation between those London boroughs opposing the ULEZ expansion and those which have implemented fewer electric vehicle chargepoints, protected cycle lanes and bus priority lanes. I agree that more should have been done to financially to help those who are genuinely financially impacted negatively, which central gvt should have helped with.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 15, 2024 8:31:15 GMT
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Post by hireton on Jan 15, 2024 8:36:52 GMT
neilj"I've read that there about 60 Tory rebels putting up amendments but because Labour of course doesn't support amendments to strengthen the legislation Sunak is still likely to win the vote for it to go to the Lord's?" It will depend on whether there are enough rebels prepared to vote against the Bill at Third Reading after Committee stage if their amendments are not successful. If there were then the Bill would fall and not go to the HoL. Of course, if their amendments are successful that creates other problems for the Government.
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Post by shevii on Jan 15, 2024 8:45:35 GMT
shevii "PR gives a small party the chance to get a few seats where it doesn't with AV and we now have at least 30% plus of voters who already are saying they aren't voting for one of the two main parties however much they get squeezed at election time. It's the proportion of people saying they will be voting for one of the two main parties who are actually holding their noses in doing so that would be the key." Apart from the last two GEs, which were heavily influenced by Brexit, the total votes for Lab+Con as a percentage of votes cast has been in decline since at least WWII. Until 1980 it was always in the high 80s or even 90% (high of 97% in 1951). Than until 2001 it was in the 70s. The next 3 up until 2015 were in the 60s. Even though the most recent two were exceptions to this trend, only just over 50% of the electorate voted for either Con or Lab in 2019. There is obviously widespread disillusion with the duopoly. This is also shown by the occasional big vote when a new party comes along - e.g. SDP, SNP and UKIP. I think some form of PR where there was a realistic chance of smaller parties being represented would be the antidote to this apathy. It would also restore the LibDems to the role they occasionally achieve, of holding the balance of power at least at first. I'm not saying whether this is good or bad, just what I think would be most likely to happen. I am afraid you have rather missed the point that the high vote shares given to Lab + Con combined throughout the 1950s - and to a lesser extent the 1960s - was due to the fact that in most seats voters were only presented with a choice of two candidates! In 1951 the Liberals only contested 109 out of 625 constituencies - circa 500 seats only had Labour and Tory candidates. That was repeated in 1955 when the Liberals fought 110 of 630 seats. In 1959 the Liberals did put up over 200 candidates - a figure which increased to 365 in 1964 before falling back to circa 330 in both 1966 and 1970. By the 1960s the SNP and Plaid Cymru were also contesting most seats in their regions. Only from 1974 - particularly the October election - have the Liberals/LDs presented a pretty full list of candidates. Prior to that both major parties benefitted significantly from receiving the second preference votes of Liberal and other voters. Should be noted that both RefUK and Greens are claiming they will be aiming for a full set of candidates at the next election so minimum choice of 5 parties.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 8:59:53 GMT
Also its part of facilitating a change in culture and shift to hybrid/electric cars. The longer we delay this, the harder it gets to avoid ecological disaster. Thats not exactly right. I just looked for some numbers, and found the CO2 cost of manufacturing a fossil powered vehicle as about 5 tonnes of CO2, compared to an electric vehicle at 9 tonnes of CO2. The crossover point at which the electric vehicle uses the same lifetime quantity is about 20,000 miles. So any petrol car which never managed more than 20,000 miles in its lifetime, was no worse than an electric vehicle. While a hybrid vehicle only saves about 5% CO2 emissions over its lifetime, didnt show figures for the breakeven mileage. Then there is a problem about how the electricity is produced, and at the moment most in the Uk is likely from buring fossil fuel enyway, so there are arguably NO real savings in CO2! So first off, while using electric vehicles within a city might be improving air quality in that city, its likely doing very little as a planetary average. And hybrid vehicles as distinct from fully electric vehicles are not making any useful difference. But next, I do a very low mileage in my petrol car. If it was scrapped and replaced by an electric vehicle now, then I am confident the net result would be more not less CO2 emissions compared to my continuing to use the vehicle until it is commercially unrepairable. And that will apply to very many low use vehicles. Changing over fast makes total pollution worse in these cases. There is a decent case to argue what we should have been doing is concentrating on changing our electricty and home heating all over to renewables and forget about vehicles until we had strong non fossil generation in place first. Having constructed a fleet of electric vehicles which just get powered by fossil electricity is quite insane and to date must have made Co2 emissions worse not better.
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Post by John Chanin on Jan 15, 2024 9:02:27 GMT
I am afraid you have rather missed the point that the high vote shares given to Lab + Con combined throughout the 1950s - and to a lesser extent the 1960s - was due to the fact that in most seats voters were only presented with a choice of two candidates! In 1951 the Liberals only contested 109 out of 625 constituencies - circa 500 seats only had Labour and Tory candidates. That was repeated in 1955 when the Liberals fought 110 of 630 seats. In 1959 the Liberals did put up over 200 candidates - a figure which increased to 365 in 1964 before falling back to circa 330 in both 1966 and 1970. By the 1960s the SNP and Plaid Cymru were also contesting most seats in their regions. Only from 1974 - particularly the October election - have the Liberals/LDs presented a pretty full list of candidates. Prior to that both major parties benefitted significantly from receiving the second preference votes of Liberal and other voters. Should be noted that both RefUK and Greens are claiming they will be aiming for a full set of candidates at the next election so minimum choice of 5 parties. Most of these candidates will be paper candidates, who do no campaigning and won't even produce a leaflet. These allow the committed supporter of the national party to show their support, but have no real influence on the ordinary voter, who will have heard nothing from or about the local "candidate". It only costs £500 to put up a paper candidate, and much more importantly it affects the right to make party political broadcasts (though I guess these are much less important than they used to be).
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 15, 2024 9:06:50 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/14/general-election-poll-tories-worst-defeat-1997-labour/The Conservatives are heading for an electoral wipeout on the scale of their 1997 defeat by Labour, the most authoritative opinion poll in five years has predicted.
The YouGov survey of 14,000 people forecasts that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will sweep to power with 385 – giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority.
Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, the poll indicates, and the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will be one of 11 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats.
The Tories will win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, more than the 178 Sir John Major lost in 1997.
The poll exposes the huge influence that Reform UK is set to have on the election result. The Right-wing party would not win any seats, but support for it would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses – the difference between a Labour majority and a hung Parliament.
There is also bad news for the Scottish National Party, which is predicted to lose almost half of its seats to Labour, retaining only 25. There really ought to be a site rule that prevents this sort of hardcore political pornography being brought here so early in the morning. Not even the late great David Butler could devise descriptions to do this poll justice in terms of carnal metaphor. 😛😁🥰
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 15, 2024 9:36:41 GMT
My readers will know that I rarely stray from commenting, in a strictly non-partisan way, on political opinion polls and normally resist the temptation to mine my vast hinterland to talk about extracurricular subjects. However the recent discussion about the cinema, and the listing of people's all time favourite films, has brought out my inner Barry Norman. Hence my little list below, with a modicum of explanation as to why I chose what I did. I should say, in defence of the likely shallowness of my choices in the eyes of serious cinema critics,, that I'm not a film buff at all and no great film watcher. You will note too from my list that it's more favourite actor/actress/legend driven than film driven:-
Cool Hand Luke ( and most other films featuring Paul Newman that I've watched)
In the Heat of the Night ( and most other films featuring Rod Steiger that I've watched)
The Cincinnati Kid (and most other films featuring Steve McQueen that I've watched)
Bullet (Steve McQueen, see above)
Midnight Cowboy ( Hoffman and Voight superb together as is the cinematography and musical score. Harry Nilsson singing would enhance any film.)
Most John Ford Westerns
Most Ealing Comedies if Will Hay features.
Any film with Katherine Ross, Julie Christie, Bridget Bardot and Britt Ekland in them. For reasons that stem from unrequited teenage yearnings and a general weakness for beautiful women that persists to this day. I rather wish this would release its grip now I'm nearly 70. It's getting embarrassing, really.
Every film ever made, however bad, that features the great Charles Bronson. Even if Michael Winner has directed it.
Greatest film ever made? Escape to Victory. Bobby Moore was brilliant in it. He was pretty good in the 1966 classic "World Cup Final" too.
You will see from this that I stopped going to the cinema circa 1972!!!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2024 9:59:35 GMT
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 15, 2024 10:13:06 GMT
On a slightly different note, I was driving my youngest son to a football match yesterday, and to get there I was skirting in and out of the Ulez zone. There were protestors where the cameras are. I'm taking this as a further sign that the Tories will have this as the basis of the London Mayoral election and GE campaign. Personally, I think they are being incredibly irresponsible and short sighted. I also doubt it will prove to be a successful electoral strategy. It may help to shore up elements of Tory VI, but for most voters other factors will drive VI.
Longer term, it looks like another area in which the Tories are adopting a position to appeal to certain element of their base, but risk alienating themselves from the broader electorate. Given the clear signs of manmade Global Warming occurring, and the likely increased salience this will have on politics in the future, if they do lurch even further right after the GE, electorally they may find themselves in real dire straights. Did you have to pay £12.50 each time you went into the zone? I'm not sure you're right about electoral support for a green agenda. Certainly most thoughtful people will say that it's a concern, but not if it affects their lives too much. Just look at the reaction to the Just Stop Oil protestors. How many people will stop flying abroad for holidays? I'm sure some will, but not many. It is £12.50 per day, not each time you enter the zone.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 10:16:57 GMT
R4 latest Horizon documentary got some fascinating updates on the system origins.
When it had been under development for 2 years, internal Fujitsu investigations found they could not get it to work, and indepenedant advisors brought in said it was some of the worst coding they had ever seen. The post office themselves tried to assess the functionality of the software, but had no access to how it worked internally on which to base a credible assessment. Diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on the government from Japan, saying that if the project was terminated it would lead to fujitsu withdrawing from the Uk. While the department of social security had originally been pushing the scheme to cut fraud, they changed policy to getting claimants paid directly into their own bank accounts, cutting out the post office entirely. They were no longer interested in funding its costs from their own budget. Gordon Brown recommended to cabinet as chancellor the scheme should be scrapped before being implemented.
Although there were implications from a system which simply might not work once implemented, no one considered (or admitted to considering) what the consequences of this might be for postmasters, who under the longstanding terms of their contracts were personally liable for any losses. So we had the immoveable object of unlimited liability for discrepancies placed upon postmaster, meeting the irrestible force of a system creating accounting errors.
The serialisation will presumably continue to what happened after implenmentation as the discrepancies inevitably began. But they did say that while only about 700 have been prosecuted, thousands more were forced to repay money they never owed.
It seems likely the cost of this sytem could never have been justified by financial benefits to the post office from using it. Rather, it was foist upon them by government primarily to solve benefit fraud, and they then had to make the best of it. billions of pounds were spent on this when there was a perfectly functional manual system in place. And then it became a political decision to continue with it despite its original motivationn having disappeared. All rather analogous with the conservative decision on entering government to continue with the Uk white elephant carrier fleet, which similarly was no longer justifiable in the face of straightened financial situation of the UK post the 2008 world bank securities fraud. As witness stories today we cannot even pay sailors enough to man those ships. We ordered new destroyers to guard those ships because you need them to defend such big, vulnerable ships. Now we are scrapping such small ships early because we cannot hire enough sailors. Shame we cannot employ immigrant mercenaries, like the russians do.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 15, 2024 10:28:12 GMT
Hello - I'm not opposed to it, its just not for me. Like same sex marriage. Each to their own. On modern trends, voting for your preferred party alone might more likely be compared to opposite sex marriage, increasingly unusual. The entire system of marriage/voting is in disrepute.
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 15, 2024 10:29:42 GMT
lululemonmustdobetter - In previous posts I've said a lot in support of electric vehicles, and consider myself very pro environment and especially concerned about climate change, so I broadly support your stance. But I was and am strongly against the ULEZ expansion. And if that therefore surprises anyone, then a few reasons why. The whole idea behind ULEZ has little to do with climate change, it's to try to lower the level of pollutants in the air of the city. That had merit initially, with the original zone in the centre of London, but it's far, far less of an issue in the outer suburbs. The benefit to air quality there is forecast to be minimal, and whilst you may say that "every little helps", the financial effects of ULEZ on predominantly those least able to afford it are disproportionate. And it's a problem that's withering on the vine anyway. The cars affected by it are a minority even now, and would be replaced relatively soon anyway as they come to end of life. As far as climate change goes, the imperative is to reduce carbon emissions as much as possible, and the ULEZ expansion is forecast to *raise* them overall. If that surprises you, the reasoning is that scrapping vehicles before their typical end of life is not a good thing for two reasons. Firstly that the carbon load for a car is down to CO2 emissions from the tailpipe during it's life - but also from emissions "baked in" at manufacture. For that reason it's better to make full use of any car - not scrap it prematurely. (Same for many other products as well!) Secondly, the ULEZ expansion is tending to largely make owners replace diesel cars with petrol. The latter may be better than diesel from the point of view of NOx and particulate emissions - but tend to be **worse** as far as CO2 emissions go. (Which is why the government of the day encouraged the sale of diesel 15-20 years ago!) I've made my (positive) views on battery EVs very clear on this site before now, and was intending to keep my current (and old) car for another year or two before going electric. Unfortunately, ULEZ may force me to change much earlier and if I have to do such in the next 6 months, it will probably have to be to a petrol car. And politically the effect has been hugely negative. It almost certainly lost Labour the Uxbridge by-election, and emboldened one wing of the Conservative party to successfully promote a "green is a vote losing strategy" - with results such as the pushback of the BEV only mandate from 2030 to 2035. The negative effect of that alone should be seen as far more significant than any positive environmental benefit to come out of ULEZ expansion. (And ignoring the real financial hardship it's caused to some!) If Sadiq Khan really had been serious about a pro-environment move, then upping the spend on charging points would have been far more positive, or other measures such as making the central zone ZEV only. Drive anything but a zero emission car into the centre of London and you get charged. That would arguably have had more influence on air quality where it matters, without stirring up the anti-green backlash that the expansion has caused - but oh!, it wouldn't have raised as much income as the expansion has....... Which all leaves me in a bit of a quandary. Come the general election my vote will be for Labour, but it's certainly not going to be for Sadiq Khan at the Mayoral election. Having canvassed in Uxbridge (for Labour) I didn't hear a single voter mentioning ULEZ, so I thought the spineless Lab candidate coming out against ULEZ expansion being responsible for his own failure (also by spineless Lab senior people saying the same). The biggest grumble on the doorstep was too much canvassing. I was around for the original expansion of ULEZ to the N/S Circular when the story was that shopping areas within the ULEZ zone being destroyed and the communities outside also being destroyed - one because nobody would come and the other because tradesmen living outside would not go in and become redundant. These arguments survived until about a day after the expansion was implemented and have never been heard of since. Of course, the expansion is significant for some people but actually for a small minority and one which is decaying very rapidly www.london.gov.uk/new-report-shows-ulez-expansion-working-95-cent-vehicles-across-inner-and-outer-london-now-compliant#:~:text=96.4%20per%20cent%20of%20cars,44%20per%20cent%20in%202017. As someone who is in the extended zone and has a non-compliant car (bought when the Blair Government was encouraging people to buy diesels), the 95 percent figure is a bit meaningless as anyone who drives in London knows that the cameras are on major roads and there is even a web site that shows you where they are: ulez.co.uk/ulez-camera-locations/ . Saving £12.50 per day, rat-running becomes financially attractive. The real disaster of ULEZ has been the scrappage scheme, because Mayor Khan brought the extension in with only 9 months' notice instead of the two-and-a-half years for Inner London and the scrappage scheme was inadequate in capacity to deal with the demand. It is quite plain that it is no more than a money-raising scheme for this spendthrift mayor.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2024 10:32:58 GMT
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/14/general-election-poll-tories-worst-defeat-1997-labour/The Conservatives are heading for an electoral wipeout on the scale of their 1997 defeat by Labour, the most authoritative opinion poll in five years has predicted.
The YouGov survey of 14,000 people forecasts that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will sweep to power with 385 – giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority.
Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, the poll indicates, and the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will be one of 11 Cabinet ministers to lose their seats.
The Tories will win 196 fewer seats than in 2019, more than the 178 Sir John Major lost in 1997.
The poll exposes the huge influence that Reform UK is set to have on the election result. The Right-wing party would not win any seats, but support for it would be the decisive factor in 96 Tory losses – the difference between a Labour majority and a hung Parliament.
There is also bad news for the Scottish National Party, which is predicted to lose almost half of its seats to Labour, retaining only 25. Ah-I see that the Telegraph is an acceptable source on occasions I have had a feeling for some time that this was on its way. I suppose under a PR system those Reform votes would produce some Parliamentary representation ? Under FPTP a Conservative Party which cannot reconcile its strands of opinion into a cohesive One Nation offering will be forced to think about its purpose in opposition-probably for ten years at least. I doubt I will see another Tory Government.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2024 10:41:29 GMT
colin“ Under FPTP a Conservative Party which cannot reconcile its strands of opinion into a cohesive One Nation offering will be forced to think about its purpose in opposition-probably for ten years at least. I doubt I will see another Tory Government.” The predicted General Election is one week after a significant birthday for me. Not seeing another Tory government for the remainder of my birthdays would be a wonderful, perpetual present. FPTP being ended would be the cherry 🍒 on the birthday cake.
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Post by James E on Jan 15, 2024 10:57:09 GMT
That Telegraph/YouGov seat prediction - Some relevant details from their article:
It's an MRP of 14,000 voters, done 'over the new year'. That's a relatively low sample for an MRP - YG take about 50,000 responses for their General Election MRPs. Such a small sample means that it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt in Scotland in particuar, where they are likely to have had fewer than 1,000 positive responses.
They state that: 'It also factors in the large numbers of undecided voters and which way they are most likely to vote, known as electoral tightening'. This is really important to bear in mind. Opinium's adjustment typically has the effect of a 6-7% reduction to Labour's lead. It is not stated how YouGov are treating undecided voters, but if they are following Opinium's methodology, the adjustment with YouGov is likely to be even larger. When I did a detailed comparison of Opinium and YouGov last May/June, the average figures for Don't Know and WNV were 26% with Opinium and 31% with YouGov.
This may explain why their headline figures are so different to the normal YouGov polls, the last 4 of which average as Con 22.5%, Lab 44.5%. It looks like the VI figures here, after the adjustments, are roughly Con 27%, Lab 38%. They state that the overall Con to Lab swing is 11.5%, and that in England and Wales Con are down 18 points and Lab up by 4. I am inferring that Labour are up by a lot more than 4 points in Scotland due to their seat gains, so as to be up by 5% across GB. So an 11 point lead after adjustments compared with an average 22% lead in the most recent normal YouGovs. I can just about see how the 38/27 figures acould be within range of the closest recent YouGov of 43/24, with the re-weighting adjustment making a hefty 8 point difference, but it would be good to see the tables.
There are some interesting details in the seat results. LibDems appear to do well, the best result being winning Horsham. Labour win Mordaunt's seat of Portsmouth North, plus Banbury, the Isle of Wight seats and Welwyn. Labour just misses Mogg's seat, where their figures are Con 33%, Lab 32%, LD 17%. The weak Labour performance in safe seats is consistent with other recent detailed polling, and Local Election results. The Telegraph seems alarmed that 80% of those voters deserting the Tories were Leave voters in 2016 but this should come as no great surprise to anyone, given that that 80% of the 2019 Tory vote was made up of Leave voters.
The result conforms closely to the '15 seats for 1% swing' pattern of other MRPs. Here Labour are gaining 183 seats from the 202 they held in 2019 on an 11.5% swing, which is 15.9 seats per 1%.
[EDIT - 24 hours on, I have found that several of the figures which I took from the Telegraph article were incorrect. See the statement from YouGov themselves to this effect. The swing is in fact 12.6%, and Labour are up by more than 4 points. The actual figures were Lab 39.5%, Con 26%. With the correct swing, the 'seats per 1% swing' is in fact 14.5 per this MRP]
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Post by Deleted on Jan 15, 2024 11:03:09 GMT
colin “ Under FPTP a Conservative Party which cannot reconcile its strands of opinion into a cohesive One Nation offering will be forced to think about its purpose in opposition-probably for ten years at least. I doubt I will see another Tory Government.” The predicted General Election is one week after a significant birthday for me. Not seeing another Tory government for the remainder of my birthdays would be a wonderful, perpetual present. FPTP being ended would be the cherry 🍒 on the birthday cake. Excellent ! I get a bit confused about opinions on PR. They tend to produce coalitions -right ?. Thats the purpose-representation of all strands of opinion ? But when the LDs went into coalition with Con & got their voters represented in government , the self same Labour supporters who yearn for PR now , called that a "sell out" . LD's were "traitors" to the LOC for doing that. And they still think badly of LD for it to this day. As I say-I find it confusing.
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