25 May 2024 : LAB: 44% / CON: 22% / REF 14% / LDM 9%

[jen]

Jun 13, 2024 23:19:11 GMT mercian said:

oldnat
She just knows her history. When I thought about it, I could see the similarities. Although the punishments are likely to be less harsh, the Witchfinder General was equivalent to the modern thought police, though of course they have flourished under the Tories too.

EDIT: jen see above

I am no fan of Labour, but "thought police"? Seriously?

Surely it's the right-wing parties that want to end the right to protest? Or the right to a fair trial?

[pjw1961]

A reminder of why Reform will not replace the Conservatives. The Westminster Tories might currently be in meltdown, but their local government base remains very strong (and doing better than the national party). Reform's is close to non-existent:

GREENWICH Mottingham, Coldharbour and New Eltham (Conservative hold)

TESTER, Roger (Conservative) 1,359 (47.1%) +3.6
THURLOW, Nikki (Labour) 1,101 (38.2%) -5.8
SIMPSON, Mark George (Reform UK) 232 (8.0%) +4.6
STRATFORD, Matt (Green) 101 (3.5%) New
ABBATE, Ulysse Lucien (Liberal Democrat) 90 (3.1%) -6.1

[pjw1961]

WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE UA; Clydebank Central is a Labour hold, and by the sound of such details as a yet available a comfortable one. However, full result is not yet out.

This means the SNP have still not won anything since May 2023. They are unlikely to win the Highland one that counts today.

[neilj]

Most remember the disastrous state of the tory party under Truss, including horrendous poll ratings, well it's worse under Sunak

Conservative vote intention in last poll under Truss vs most recent poll

YouGov 19 vs 18
Ipsos 26 vs 23
Redfield & Wilton 21 vs 18
Deltapoll 25 vs 21
Savanta 25 vs 25
WeThink 22 vs 20
Techne 22 vs 19
JL Partners 26 vs 24
Opinium 23 vs 24

Sunak tried to shore up his right flank with driving forward policies, such as Rwanda, in an effort to stop leakage of voters to Reform
But all he has done is alienate centrists and still not stopped the leakage to the right
The lesson is you can't out Reform Reform, elections are won from the centre

[steve]

I hope someone gave Daisy earplugs.

[Dave]

First off, I’m a huge fan of Angela Rayner. Secondly, she is doing Labour no favours in these debates.

I don’t think that’s her fault. I said much the same after last week’s one. Instead of being allowed to be her usual passionate, real self they’re sending her out there shackled.

Who honestly believes that she supports the two kiddie cap on child benefit? I don’t and whilst dutifully sticking to a script that I suspect would be quite different if she had her way, it’s at a big price imho One of the things that marks her out from the average politician - her authenticness, means that her face can’t come close to hiding that she’s not really into such Tory-esque bollocks. Starmer is accused of being robot like but to be honest the straight-jacketed Rayner looks worse.

Like I say, I don’t blame her for this. She’s doing a role for her party and fully understands the need to get the Tories out and Labour in. It’s to her credit that she’d agree to do another one of these after the last one.

After last week I have no idea why they put her forward again. Rachel Reeves is fully on board with the Starmer project. Put her up. Unlike Rayner, her words on these matters would have the ring of belief about them. So not again. Please.

[Dave]

Jun 14, 2024 6:00:37 GMT steve said:

I hope someone gave Daisy earplugs.
View Attachment

I’m biased I know but both parties weren’t equally to blame.

I thought Rayner showed commendable restraint with what she had to cope with. Mordaunt was an incredibly rude, one-message nightmare. Even worse than last week.

Rayner was talked over / shouted down constantly. I doubt it did Mordaunt any favours by the way. It certainly did the ineffective Etchingham none.

[steve]

oldnat

"Interesting responses to the question at the 7 party debate to "Would you ever re-join the EU and the Single Market?"

Lab - No. Never"

Labour activists , overwhelmingly pro rejoin, constantly try to square that circle, breaking it down to the basics their position is, the leadership is only saying it to win the election because they want to ensure the xenophobic "traditional Labour voters" , that once victory has been achieved then the leadership will revert to pragmatism, because it's obviously bat shit insane to expect that their economic growth plans , which fund the rest, can work while pursuing the load of old cobblers that is " making Brexit work" and maybe the European union will do us a solid by establishing an associate member outer ring , where we can sort of be in and out at the same time.

This isn't my take it you look at Labour activists online like Phil Moorhouse at a different bias or Robespierre it's what they are saying.

The problem for them is that even when given the chance to be nuanced or less dogmatic the leadership of the Labour party keeps repeating the same old shite.

Now either they are lying, which is entirely possible or they are backing themselves into a corner in which their other plans for recovery after the Tories are at the very best exceptionally difficult to achieve , while saying their happy to see British citizens rights stolen for ever.

Clearly restoration of our place at the centre of Europe isn't going to happen overnight but Ed Davey is right in that a far better deal can be achieved quickly , but spouting the same old red line cobblers that frankly Theresa May used to use isn't going to make even these first steps straightforward.

Remember it's Labour that wants to deny young people the partial restoration of their freedom of movement rights potentially on offer right now.It's Labour ruling out the single market and customs union.

While a Labour government will undoubtedly be better than the current clown Show those who are hoping that it will be a progressive internationalist party are engaging in weapons grade wishful thinking.

[pjw1961]

Jun 14, 2024 6:04:22 GMT Dave said:

First off, I’m a huge fan of Angela Rayner. Secondly, she is doing Labour no favours in these debates.

I don’t think that’s her fault. I said much the same after last week’s one. Instead of being allowed to be her usual passionate, real self they’re sending her out there shackled.

I largely agree, although the more combative Streeting might be a better choice than the very dull Reeves. 

I also think these debates have tested to destruction the idea that Penny Mordaunt is the solution to the Tories leadership problems. Ok, its a tough gig for any Conservative at present, but she has been poor by any standard. 

[steve]

I think I'm correct in believing that the election via postal voting is already underway.

[domjg]

Jun 13, 2024 21:17:49 GMT crossbat11 said:

Just a thought, and apologies to RobbieAlive for sharing it.

Which three Conservatives will BBC's Newsnight programme invite on to their three person panel to discuss the Labour Manifesto tonight?

I'd also remind Robbie that we're legally obliged to pay for the BBC and not any of the other outlets so it's justifiable to hold them to a higher standard as their remit is to represent us all.

[thylacine]

The consensus this morning was Rayner did ok and coped well with what was a hectoring Mordaunt and a pile on from the rest.
Mordaunt was judged the loser but only because she was given an impossible job defending the Tory legacy.
Flyn also did well and was also bold in tackling Farage.
Denyer definitely has sparkle and is obviously one to watch should she be elected.

[athena]

Jun 13, 2024 21:55:08 GMT Dave said:

I seem to remember that some time ago there was polling on people's likelihood to consider voting for each particular party...

You might be thinking of the way Ashcroft asks about VI (rate how likely you are to vote for each party on a 100-point scale). He doesn't always put a graphic in the write-up for his polls (which are monthly in normal times, I think), but it'll be there in the tables, if you can be bothered to download them.
You might be interested in his recent question about how committed each party's supporters are to their currently declared VI (graphic). The most recent LTVF graphic I could find quickly (probably from shortly after the election was called) is this.

The write-up for his most recent poll has lots of Reform-oriented questions (surprise, surprise - he polls to (try to) inform Tory strategy).

[athena]

Jun 13, 2024 21:32:10 GMT shevii said:

Jun 13, 2024 19:56:27 GMT pjw1961 said:

I'm not sure that is true. If the Labour vote continues to fall at the rate it has been in the last few days for another week or so, we are looking at a very messy hung parliament. 

Not sure you're being entirely serious on this :-)

If one accepts the premise that under Starmer Lab has been testing to destruction the hypothesis that the best/only way for Lab to win an overall majority is by shifting to the right (good riddance to lefties and greenies who're vastly outnumbered by persuadable ROC voters) then a hung parliament would be a damning verdict on that strategy.

I don't think a hung parliament is likely, but I wish it were. Starmer would have to choose where to get the votes to pass his legislation, which could potentially be revealing although in practice the numbers would probably dictate an appeal to LD MPs, and it might shove Lab towards voting reform.

[Danny]

Jun 14, 2024 5:27:00 GMT neilj said:

Sunak tried to shore up his right flank with driving forward policies, such as Rwanda, in an effort to stop leakage of voters to Reform
But all he has done is alienate centrists and still not stopped the leakage to the right
The lesson is you can't out Reform Reform, elections are won from the centre

Lets not forget Brexit of course which i think overall won con 14 years in power, moved into reverse now as con vote winner. And a significant part of that was really stopping immigration. But Rwanda has been a complete farce: I know we follow these things closer than most people but really, how many goes at legislating for that did he have? His own home secretary resigned because he wasnt committed to it properly! Might voters suspect his heart isnt into it? That scheduling the first flight for just after the election was no coincidence whatsoever?

[EmCat]

Jun 14, 2024 6:40:01 GMT steve said:

I think I'm correct in believing that the election via postal voting is already underway.

How do opinion pollsters treat those who have already voted by post when asking who they'd vote for?

Are they ignored, or are they added to the relevant tally?

Equally, for those who have already voted by post, when asked, do they then decide "Well, I voted for {that lot} but only as least worst. Now that it doesn't matter for me, I might just say {party I really wanted to vote for}"?

Not sure if there has been any polling on attitudes of those postal voting between their vote and the general election.

[steve]

After the general election will question time audiences only have 18% tories,nope?

[crossbat11]

Jun 14, 2024 6:56:02 GMT thylacine said:

The consensus this morning was Rayner did ok and coped well with what was a hectoring Mordaunt and a pile on from the rest.
Mordaunt was judged the loser but only because she was given an impossible job defending the Tory legacy.
Flyn also did well and was also bold in tackling Farage.
Denyer definitely has sparkle and is obviously one to watch should she be elected.

In so much as I paid real attention to the whole thing, this is more or less how I saw it too. As some may have noticed, I spent a good part of the occasionally tedious and dispiriting ninety minutes sharing my banal thoughts about it all on this forum. Occasionally it got interesting, usually when Flynn and Denyer cut through the formulaic soundbites being recited parrot fashion by most of the others. I may excuse the Plaid Cymru man and Farage from that charge too. It's just that I agreed more with Flynn and Denyer's contributions!

I agree with Dave about Rayner's clearly shackled and inhibited performance but she made no gaffes and by stoically and politely weathering Mordaunt's ludicrous and endless haranguing again, may well have chalked up a sympathy vote from the neutral observers. Mordaunt;oh dear. Where were your other gears?

But my "winner" was Farage again. Never lost his temper, even under fire, rode the audience ridicule at times, and hammered his merry way at the people he was really talking to. Right wing former Tory voters. I thought he got the night's zingers in too. On the basis of the latest poll putting Reform second to Labour and ahead of the Tories, his "Vote Tory get Labour" comment in retort to Mordaunt's attempt to say the opposite, was the soundbite of the evening. Nonsense, of course, like nearly everything he says, but effective codswallop in terms of bolstering his fan club.

Join the Revolt too. It really is no good throwing milk shakes at him, nor calling him silly names, he's a very very effective politician. Nobody is really taking him on either and he's enjoying the free ride.

Mainstream conservatism appears to be saying; "I agree with Nigel."

Dear oh dear.

[leftieliberal]

Jun 14, 2024 7:32:28 GMT steve said:

After the general election will question time audiences only have 18% tories,nope?

Pretty difficult to get to 18% on a five-person panel, unless you cut the Tory's head off. Come to think of it, that's quite a good description of how they've been behaving.

[shevii]

Jun 13, 2024 21:54:56 GMT ping said:

Jun 13, 2024 21:39:41 GMT shevii said:

Yougov tables up already:

ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/TheTimes_VI_AdHoc_240613_w.pdf

Raw figures- Lab to Ref is 4% of their 2019 vote, Con to Reform is 25%. Con now at 18% undecided which is an increase on the previous polls.

Thanks shevii . Do you think a lot of Con 2019 switchers could be Labour brexiteers who leant the Tories their vote in 2019? If so, Reform's resurgence could mean that disenchanted Con 2019 voters who would otherwise have switched back to Labour are instead going to vote Reform. I'm not saying this puts Labour's majority at risk but I still don't like the direction of travel.

That's a good point that I hadn't considered.  It's a bit early in the morning to be thorough but I looked at last yougov tables before the Reform surge and that had headline Con 2019 to Lab at 18% and the one yesterday was 12%, although 12% still seems high compared to what was being quoted on here earlier in the parliament.  I think jimjam pays more attention to those figures than I do and James E either knows or can find out!

There's definitely volatility in the electorate which comes from traditional party loyalties breaking down and I think brexit voters are particularly volatile as they are less fixed to the status quo and want change and will vote for any party that offers change.

We used to have someone on here who did the churn for the 2015 election and she had that kind of stuff at the tip of her fingers- unfortunately the polls turned out to not be very accurate so that made any other analysis based on the polls a bit suspect.

[leftieliberal]

Jun 14, 2024 7:35:04 GMT crossbat11 said:

Jun 14, 2024 6:56:02 GMT thylacine said:

But my "winner" was Farage again. 

Join the Revolt too. It really is no good throwing milk shakes at him, nor calling him silly names, he's a very very effective population (I assume you mean populist and autocorrect changed it). Nobody is really taking him on either and he's enjoying the free ride.

Mainstream conservatism appears to be saying; "I agree with Nigel."

Dear oh dear.

Thanks to those who reported on last night's debate for having the stomach to sit through it. So far I've not watched a minute of any of the debates and it's good to know I haven't missed anything important. Having seen all the people before, with the exception of the Plaid Cymru man, I think I could have predicted pretty well what they were going to say.

[crossbat11]

Jun 14, 2024 3:09:41 GMT pjw1961 said:

A reminder of why Reform will not replace the Conservatives. The Westminster Tories might currently be in meltdown, but their local government base remains very strong (and doing better than the national party). Reform's is close to non-existent:

GREENWICH Mottingham, Coldharbour and New Eltham (Conservative hold)

TESTER, Roger (Conservative) 1,359 (47.1%) +3.6
THURLOW, Nikki (Labour) 1,101 (38.2%) -5.8
SIMPSON, Mark George (Reform UK) 232 (8.0%) +4.6
STRATFORD, Matt (Green) 101 (3.5%) New
ABBATE, Ulysse Lucien (Liberal Democrat) 90 (3.1%) -6.1

But what you're missing here, as Norbold has cannily observed in Clacton already, is that Farage's likely voters won't be remotely interested in local council by elections. Most voters aren't anyway but Reform's particularly so. They probably swerve most elections, of any sort, but might well get out of bed for the big one on July 4th

Now Nigel's back and leading the Revolt.

[steve]

Just another day at the office.

[Danny]

Jun 14, 2024 7:04:10 GMT athena said:

The write-up for his most recent poll has lots of Reform-oriented questions (surprise, surprise - he polls to (try to) inform Tory strategy).

Woah! He says more than half of voters have yet to finally make up their minds!

3/4 of ex con voters say the top reason why they are ex that con have failed to deliver on promises. Thats a lot more than are saying they are too right or too centre, simply they havnt delivered. Big numbers on incompetent and cannot be trusted. And thats the people who voted con last time who presumably were keenest on con at the outset.

Lab came top in 'will do what they say they will'....at  12%. So thats x4 the score con got.  like...dissillusioned voters? The highest score from a list of positive things about parties was labour on 24% for "on the side of people like me". Con got 5%!  So 95% did not think con  are on their side, and 75% think lab arent on their side?

"More than three quarters (77%) of 2019 Tories who currently say they don’t know how they will vote or will stay at home said they would rather have this Conservative government than a Labour one, as did 88% of 2019 Tories currently leaning towards Reform UK."

I think that finding is deeply dangerous for con. Con has already said they believe lab will win, so its no longer a choice for these voters whether they are deciding whether to risk letting in lab by voting for a party they prefer to con, and lots of them like reform.

Response to Farage very polarised. Its interesting, I personally rather like that he makes an input, its rather the same as when he was talking about the EU attacking aspects of it, where he made perfect sense. Only his conclusion was wrong that because of this we had to leave. Rather, despite this, we needed to stay in. And here he is absolutely right to say immigration is causing enormous problems in the UK. For a start it caused brexit. But neither main party has any plans to solve the problem of high immigration. Either you halt the immigration, or your massively invest in new infrastructure to make room for the immigrants. Government do neither and it has caused all sorts of social problems. Its short term attractive to plan to increase the population but not spend on infrastructure, but long term its utterly destroying the cohesion of society. And if Farage calls this out so that action is forced on government, thats a good thing for the future of the UK.

[Dave]

Batty said “Nobody is really taking him on either and he's enjoying the free ride.

Mainstream conservatism appears to be saying; "I agree with Nigel”.

I agree with much of your post, but let’s not leave it to “mainstream conservatism” - our lot need to do this too. Yes, Reform are hurting the Tories more during this election but it shouldn’t just be about short-term electoral advantage surely that means Labour are frightened of upsetting say, red wall voters.

There’s a political imperative here too for Labour. A couple of initially sticky years for a Labour government and some of its voters will peel off to Reform and others. This going the traitor’s way, may do so at least partly in the belief that Reform can’t be all bad as Rayner and Mordaunt got a tougher, more challenging time than he did. It must mean he’s right.

In any case even if the need for Tories to challenge Farage is greater right now, Labour should always challenge right-wing, dog whistling, peddlers of simplistic solutions and lies. It’s a moral duty as well as a political imperative - this guy isn’t getting any weaker. And he won’t if politicians of most parties soft-peddle on him. Hats off to Flynn - but Labour should be following suit.

PJW - yes - I was going to mention Streeting. Tough, sense of humour and a knack for a cut-their-legs-off sound bite. He’d do. .

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

Jun 14, 2024 7:45:51 GMT shevii said:

Jun 13, 2024 21:54:56 GMT ping said:

Thanks shevii . Do you think a lot of Con 2019 switchers could be Labour brexiteers who leant the Tories their vote in 2019? If so, Reform's resurgence could mean that disenchanted Con 2019 voters who would otherwise have switched back to Labour are instead going to vote Reform. I'm not saying this puts Labour's majority at risk but I still don't like the direction of travel.

we used to have someone on here who did the churn for the 2015 election and she had that kind of stuff at the tip of her fingers

Spearmint?!!

[Dave]

Double post - apologies.

[steve]

Does anyone else remember the dark times of December 1989?

[alec]

Reports here (from NATO sources) that they believe Russia suffered 'astronomical' losses in the recent failed Kharkiv assault, with the loss ratio 8:1 in Ukraine's favour.

kyivindependent.com/media-russia-suffered-astronomical-losses-on-kharkiv-front/

[jimjam]

Shevii,

Typically in recent months direct Tory 2019 - Lab switchers has been 15% ish.

The odd 18/19 % and of course some 11/12s.

I posted a couple of weeks ago that I expected this to reduce as some people in the end wouldn't switch despite sincerely saying they would.

There is churn of course and it may be some Lab-Con (from Con 2019) then Con-Ref as much as Lab-Ref but the surprise is that Ref are the beneficiaries (at least in this poll).

NB)I thought this would occur once PVs land so this movement is a little earlier which suggests there may be a bit more to come.

Same with Lab - LDs as this was always likely due to exposure and targeting; in fact I expect the LDs to achieve at least 13%, focused around their targets, but would be surprised if they managed 15%.