4 July 2024 : General Election - The Results

[Danny]

Jul 5, 2024 6:49:04 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Jul 5, 2024 6:38:35 GMT Danny said:

create an elected lords

Or use sortition, more of a citizen’s assembly, with a representative sample

Turkeys, christmas. labour can already see the writing on the wall of a Farage victory in 5 years under FPP, but a system where there are no permanent career MPs?

[domjg]

One of the biggest stories from this has to be the LD wipeout of tory seats in the south. I need to double check but there doesn't appear to be a tory seat left in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Along with Banbury and Reading West going Lab this is existential for the tories. David Cameron's old seat of Witney, Johnson's (and Hesletine's for before him) old seat of Henley and May's ex Maidenhead seat all gone.. Remarkable.

[johntel]

I'm quite pleased that sensible Tories Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Mitchell have survived.

[domjg]

Jul 5, 2024 6:57:53 GMT johntel said:

I'm quite pleased that sensible Tories Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Mitchell have survived.

They will need people like him to pivot the party back to sanity if they are to have any hope of one day regaining their southern heartlands. 

[neilj]

Worth noting the tory and Reform vote combined was only 38%

[Deleted]

Obviously happy with the result - and the bonus is the Tories huge losses and Lib Dem’s huge gains. But I feel strangely apprehensive and somewhat bleak this morning, and just hope that things go well enough, quickly enough to nullify the serious corrosion of our lives from the odious influence of Farage.
He has already wreaked enough damage in taking us out of the EU with simple answers to complex problems.

Some really bold changes to the electoral system need to be developed as the old, two-party system is dead, kicking up daisies (etc etc) But also, of course, the world situation, and potential for the return of Trump in the USA, has created a very dark, rather than positive, mood in me. Hopefully it will lift.

Paul

[Danny]

Jul 5, 2024 6:03:52 GMT steve said:

A few final thoughts.

Firstly excellent news to have the adults back in the room, nearly 500 mps between Labour and the lib dems.

This was quite a bizarre election.
The Tories had their worst vote share ever, while the lib dems vote share was only up marginally on their 2019 performance and yet because uniquely their vote share is reflected more or less in seat count by far the best performance ever for a third party.

For the Tories a catastrophe.

For Labour a result very similar to the Blair led election in 1997 but with around five million less votes and 5% lower than achieved in their loss in 2017.

Back in 2010 one of the reasons why the libs decided to go into coalition with con was that if they did not, then its likely the con government would have been unstable, and a new election would have been called quickly. Libs had been losing ground in the last days before the election, and its predictable they would have done worse in that new election, possibly much worse. Could have been heading towards what happened in 2015, except 5 years early.

If this election was re-run in a months time, then I think tactical voting would be applied as it would in 2010 and the outcome would be different with more libs and more reform. Where in this iteration someone new moved to second place, they would stand a chance in a month to win.

I dont mean con, because the driver of this election was 'we hate con'. But it definitely wasn't 'we love labour'. I am not clear what would happen to the lab count in a rerun in a week, but it seems quite possible it would go down and we would have more libs, greens and reformers. Possibly even some extra independants. I doubt SNP would recover either, because they too are suffering the disenchantment which comes from messing up in office.

This all means Starmer has a far far more difficult task than Blair. Blair was popular when he took over. He blew that by engaging in foreign wars, and not to forget there are two wars important to the Uk already ongoing. Its clear labour already lost some support for supporting the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

The labour manifesto doesnt seem to contain anything controversial. I havnt read it, but there has been no media splash from anyone highlighting where it is controversial or innovative.  If lab just continue with austerity light, in 5 years voters will say, 'they accomplished nothing'.  There has to be a very different  general position in 5 years or they will be voted out of office. Their voter support trend, ie falling for 2 years steadily, will have been extended to 7 years steadily.   Just what con might do by then remains to be seen, but from what I heard last night they dont seem to want to move back to the consensus centre.  So who else is there to win next time? Farage?

Blair benefitted from an already improving economy. The biggest driver of what happens to the Uk economy is nothing the Uk government can do but rather what happens to the world economy. The US is growing a lot faster than the rest of the developed world, it may be the US buys the Uk growth.  However the US itself doesnt look stable and by 5 years time could be  very different, at least in terms of international outlook and engagement.  Whats going to happen about the Ukraine war? It seems very likely the long term outcome is going to be in the hands of europe not the US whatever happens in US elections. Are we planning to pay for Ukraine to win and sustain a victory? Just what is going to happen about all government services which are currently heading for collapse in the absence of more money?

Cant help thinking about keynes: if a government spends money much of it returns to them in the form of increased tax revenue pretty quickly. The whole world has been indulging in austerity, therefore tax revenues have fallen because of the multiplier effect acting in reverse on those cuts in expenditure and so world growth has shrunk.  Whether its long term sustainable or not, theres a decent link between the world moving to austerity following 2008,  and a new normal growth rate much lower than before this happened.

We need a plan for a sustainable world economy with  balanced government budgets everywhere and we do not have one.

[domjg]

Jul 5, 2024 7:05:40 GMT neilj said:

Worth noting the tory and Reform vote combined was only 38%

Also worth noting that a significant part of that reform vote are not disaffected tories but would never have voted tory in a million years being either previous abstainers or ex Lab voters. 

The tories have a real problem now. They cannot simultaneously win back both the educated moderates of their old heartlands who have abandoned them en-masse for the LDs (and Lab) and those on the right who went off to reform. 

[Danny]

Jul 5, 2024 7:08:21 GMT @fecklessmiser said:

Obviously happy with the result - and the bonus is the Tories huge losses and Lib Dem’s huge gains. But I feel strangely apprehensive and somewhat bleak this morning, and just hope that things go well enough, quickly enough to nullify the serious corrosion of our lives from the odious influence of Farage.
He has already wreaked enough damage in taking us out of the EU with simple answers to complex problems.

Some really bold changes to the electoral system need to be developed as the old, two-party system is dead, kicking up daisies (etc etc) But also, of course, the world situation, and potential for the return of Trump in the USA, has created a very dark, rather than positive, mood in me. Hopefully it will lift.

Paul

labour has won the right to drink from the poisoned chalice.

[Deleted]

For the last couple of years, I've looked at EC projections showing LAB winning Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset and North East Somerset and Hanham and thought "Yeah, right".

And now it's only gone and happened...

"John Penrose, Liam Fox, Jacob Rees-Mogg, you boys took a helluva beating".

[johntel]

@crofty We can hope that in the same way the Brexit result foresaw Trump winning in 2017 that this election result may herald a return to sanity in the US too.

Keeping the National Front out of power in France on Sunday would be a great next step.

[domjg]

Looking forward to watching reform in parliament start the inevitable infighting, saying of stupid things and general incompetence. That's all before Nige gets bored and swans off again. They will discredit themselves very quickly, of that I'm sure.

[domjg]

barbara Get some sleep! Thanks for your early hours updates. 

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

Jul 5, 2024 6:52:40 GMT Danny said:

Jul 5, 2024 6:49:04 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Or use sortition, more of a citizen’s assembly, with a representative sample

Turkeys, christmas. labour can already see the writing on the wall of a Farage victory in 5 years under FPP, but a system where there are no permanent career MPs?

No, you have parliament elected as usual, but just sortition for the second or revising chamber 👍

[EmCat]

Jul 5, 2024 6:52:34 GMT @isa said:

Jul 5, 2024 6:07:51 GMT hireton said:

Over 400 seats on 34% of the vote.

Them's the rules. LAB didn't make 'em.

But they can break them.

The rump of the Conservatives Party might even be onside for PR for the next General Election. Though I suspect they will remain to wedded to anti-democratic methods such as FPTP.

Backed up by a fawning media who are so hard of thinking that they can only think simple, rather than nuance.
(At one point Sky brought out the swingometer, pointing out that it was utterly useless as the uniform swing would have meant a hung parliament. Even when Labour had, at that time, over 100 MPs from the 150 or so declared.)

[pete]

Wow! Laurence Robertson loses Tewkesbury. It's been Tory all my 60 years and pretty sure since the constituency was formed.

[barbara]

I see on the TV it's raining in London.  Up here in the North East (of England oldnat) it's a gloriously sunny day as befits our mood following a Tory wipeout up here.

[neilj]

Another result I enjoyed hearing was Rochdale, where the odious Galloway was beaten by Labour

[barbara]

Jul 5, 2024 7:21:32 GMT domjg said:

barbara Get some sleep! Thanks for your early hours updates. 

I had 4 hours between 11.30 -3.30 so I'm not too bad. 

[Deleted]

I note that LAB have lost 6 or 7 seats, including a couple of high profile losses. I'm sure they'll want to look into what went wrong there, (they probably know already), and will wish to try to turn those seats around. 

BUT, their stance has seen them gain 209 seats.

So, go figure.

[mark61]

just woken after 4 hours sleep, so I missed Liz truss and Rees Mogg!  Plenty to ponder but Labour, Greens and Lib Dem supporters pretty much got what they wanted, Only Party feeling worse than the Tories will be the SNP.

I personally won't get to hung up on vote share, there has been some very efficient tactical voting which has left the RoC parties with the smallest number of seats ever, Labour will need to hit the ground running however if they are to put Farage back in his box.

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

The largest swing from Tories to Labour since the war

Attachments:

[johntel]

Worth noting that most economic indicators, the £ and all UK share indices have been very much on an upward trend for the last 6 months. So Labour enter power with a breeze behind them to get started with.

I think we can expect house prices to start shooting up again after the summer break too, which should encourage house builders to get building.

[jib]

Well done to all the progressive candidates and glad to wake up to a Tory free Wales!

Massive challenge for Labour now, a huge opportunity but the volatility of the UK electorate is sobering.

Glad Liz Truss, Rees Mogg and Mordaunt are gone - all of them inane individuals. Truss still blaming the ECHR for her failures FFS!

[steve]

Been off line for a little while has jib been on yet to explain how the lib dems will never be forgiven for the coalition.

[Deleted]

Jul 5, 2024 7:35:09 GMT barbara said:

Jul 5, 2024 7:21:32 GMT domjg said:

barbara Get some sleep! Thanks for your early hours updates. 

I had 4 hours between 11.30 -3.30 so I'm not too bad. 

I'm ready for a bit of kip myself, now. It was really weird to see that night only lasted between about 10.45 pm and 3.45am.

[Danny]

Jul 5, 2024 7:26:31 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Jul 5, 2024 6:52:40 GMT Danny said:

Turkeys, christmas. labour can already see the writing on the wall of a Farage victory in 5 years under FPP, but a system where there are no permanent career MPs?

No, you have parliament elected as usual, but just sortition for the second or revising chamber 👍

Sortition will not produce a representative second chamber unless its compulsory to serve. And thats juast impractical because people would deliberately obstruct proceedings. As soon as its no longer compulsory - like jury service is- then it ceases to be representative of the people. You would get disproportionately large numbers who want to boss others around, and disproportionately certain social groups.

Its the same problem that applies to random surveys, just as with cold call telephone surveys or indeed the polling which was done during covid to try to assess prevalence ets. A certain kind of person will be more inclined to refuse, and they never get represented.

Also, just what would you do about the millions of people not on the electoral register, who should however be entitled to take part in a lottery to become a legislator?

[Danny]

Jul 5, 2024 7:52:43 GMT johntel said:

I think we can expect house prices to start shooting up again after the summer break too, which should encourage house builders to get building.

Why? the more prices rise, the more will be made by sitting on that land for an extra year or ten before developing it.

if prices fall then developers might worry about the loan costs used to buy that land and whether they need to offload it.

For example, in Bexhill and battle con hung on, probably because they faced a split opposition much more this time. But a few years ago the local former rpsion was sold off for development, which had yet to happen. Faced with needing to house refugees the government bought back that property at 2-3x what they had sold it for. Theres no need to build if you can become an asset investment company.

To break this cycle you need to keep allocating more and more land for development, flood the market and force builders to get on with building.

[Deleted]

Jul 5, 2024 7:53:38 GMT steve said:

Been off line for a little while has jib been on yet to explain how the lib dems will never be forgiven for the coalition.

I remember he forecast them to have the same number of seat as the SNP - 33. Obviously he didn’t quite get that correct but he was a lot closer than his earlier, regularly repeated predictions of virtually no increase at all in the number of Lib Dem MPs.

So he was on the right track and well done to him for that.

[steve]

@isa

"Them's the rules. LAB didn't make 'em.



Well they kind of did, have always opposed a move away from fptp for Westminster elections.
Had a huge chance under Blair to change then decided they did better out of a system that can give them a majority from minority support.