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Post by birdseye on Jul 5, 2024 10:59:20 GMT
Over 400 seats on 34% of the vote. Them's the rules. LAB didn't make 'em. No but it does illustrate the nature of the vote which is very much "lets get the |Tories out" rather than "lets get Labour in". More tactical voting than I have ever seen before in 60 years of voting at elections. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 11:01:11 GMT
So I think Labour can enjoy the moment but should be very concerned about the underlying voter volatility when they start from such a low base of voter numbers at 9.6 million. They need to deliver over the next 5 years and not with a spreadsheet that says hospital waiting times have gone down by 5% but with something that the political disengaged voter will notice. I'd always thought they would get two terms but if the Tories or Reform sort themselves out then all bets are off. I think today is the apex of the Reform story. The Party has grown (as did the Brexit referendum) as a result of austerity, of the failure over 14 years to tackle fundamental issues of migration, housing, good jobs, health, care etc etc. The hatred of the Tories gave Farage his successes last night. If Labour govern, as they've promised, for all the people and everywhere in the country, if they deliver levelling up and improve the public services that people rely on and the reducton of the dog whistle of the culture wars then the attraction of Reform will wane and people will no longer feel the need to look to extremes. It's a tall order but I think Starmer absolutely understands this. In 5 years time Farage will be yesterday's man. I'm also certain that when exposed to the light, especially in parliament, they will be found wanting in a big way. Nonetheless we should be careful, Labour, working with the LDs and others need to convince quickly, need to give some real hope. Otherwise something will eventually rise from the swamp, funded by US money that could engulf us all. |
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Nered
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Post by Nered on Jul 5, 2024 11:02:11 GMT
Yes, I thought Sunak's speech was very honourable (quite a contrast to Trump as has been said) and quite emotional at times. It begs the question that if he really believes what he said about the country being one where his family can, in 2 generations, achieve PMship, and his children celebrate Diwali on the steps of Downing Street. Then why did he allow his party to use tactics that fed fear, hatred and racism - and resulted in a huge boost for Refuk.
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Post by birdseye on Jul 5, 2024 11:03:16 GMT
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. So you flood the market causing prices to fall and that encourages builders to build? I guess you arent in business. Nor in politics because Joe Public would not be happy if the value of his house fell. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 11:11:21 GMT
Yes, I thought Sunak's speech was very honourable (quite a contrast to Trump as has been said) and quite emotional at times. It begs the question that if he really believes what he said about the country being one where his family can, in 2 generations, achieve PMship, and his children celebrate Diwali on the steps of Downing Street. Then why did he allow his party to use tactics that fed fear, hatred and racism - and resulted in a huge boost for Refuk. I guess because he was told to and he didn't have the wherewithal or sufficient principle, or alternative ideas to stand up to it. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 5, 2024 11:19:55 GMT
Starmer now prime minister.
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Post by roznewgirl on Jul 5, 2024 11:24:07 GMT
Starmer now prime minister. Thank the lord. It's relief |
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Post by davem on Jul 5, 2024 11:30:43 GMT
The truth is Labour got fewer votes than they did in their “worst election in a century “ That is a sobering thought and reflects the problems Labour has for the next election, unless they find a way to reconnect with the working class Reform voters. Their lives must improve to hold off the hard right.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 11:33:45 GMT
The truth is Labour got fewer votes than they did in their “worst election in a century “ That is a sobering thought and reflects the problems Labour has for the next election, unless they find a way to reconnect with the working class Reform voters. Their lives must improve to hold off the hard right. There was a lot of passive acquiescence to as well as active choosing of this government. It doesn't take from the mandate but yes, I must admit I do have a worrying sense in my mind that many are thinking they are giving a 'last chance' to mainstream politics that it had better not fail at for all our sakes. The breezy optimism of 1997 this is not at all. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 11:41:19 GMT
So I think Labour can enjoy the moment but should be very concerned about the underlying voter volatility when they start from such a low base of voter numbers at 9.6 million. They need to deliver over the next 5 years and not with a spreadsheet that says hospital waiting times have gone down by 5% but with something that the political disengaged voter will notice. I'd always thought they would get two terms but if the Tories or Reform sort themselves out then all bets are off. I think today is the apex of the Reform story. The Party has grown (as did the Brexit referendum) as a result of austerity, of the failure over 14 years to tackle fundamental issues of migration, housing, good jobs, health, care etc etc. The hatred of the Tories gave Farage his successes last night. If Labour govern, as they've promised, for all the people and everywhere in the country, if they deliver levelling up and improve the public services that people rely on and the reducton of the dog whistle of the culture wars then the attraction of Reform will wane and people will no longer feel the need to look to extremes. It's a tall order but I think Starmer absolutely understands this. In 5 years time Farage will be yesterday's man. Farage has made the same -accurate- claim for the last 20 years, of rising immigration to the UK. He used this as a backbone of his brexit campaign. Both con and lab at this election claimed that immigration must continue in order to create growth. Provide workers to man the NHS, keep the restaurants open, work in finance, make money and pay taxes to fund home helps for grannies, whatever.
In what sense then is this the apex of the Reform story? IF labour ends immigration then they can bounce it back at him. But if they do not, and no government has really wanted to end immigration since maybe Major, then how can they rebut his claim? Rather, they will have given him more ammunition -5 years of labour and they havent cut immigration any more than con. Lab as as bad as Con, siamese twins, vote them all out!
Labour also have the choice to either get closer to the EU or suffer 5 years of diminished trade because of brexit. If they do nothing, Farage will claim they had no better idea than con how to do brexit properly. If they get closer, he will say the same plus that they are reversing it. If thats actually working and they can point to economic recovery sufficient to solve all the budget shortfall, well great and they can see off Farage and whatever has become of the tories. But if not?
IFfffffff Lab have a secret plan all well and good. But if their secret plan is to follow their own manifesto and promises, then its just austerity lite, slow decay of the state. This is the big problem I have with labour, they have not announced any kind of plan.
This last campaign by labour has been the antithesis of an inspirational election campaign. They have done everything possible to avoid promising anything, do nothing that might not work out, scare the horses, scare centre right voters back to con. Nothing to generate hope, make voters want the dream. Whereas Farage has. What labour has bet is that doing nothing is better than inspiring voters. Farage has always sought to inspire voters, con did the same using Brexit as the cause and it won them 14 years in power. Farage doesnt need to prove anything by implementing his policies until after he has gained power. The step in the chain upon which the lib dems foundered. Farage isnt the only one, Corbyn too in his own one man party got himself elected to parliament. Someone who has always attracted stonking policies for his (perhaps utopian) dream of a left wing state. It works for him too, and seems to have worked in his national eloection campaigns too as well as has Starmers. Had Con been disgraced as now and labour been led by corbyn immediately after becoming leader...then Corbyn too would have won. I tmight be the labour right believes Corbyn;s policies are unachievable in the long run and hence impractical, but from the persepctive of achieving power it works.
At this point Blair had a national frenzy of rejoicing at his victory. A belief in him to lead the nation. Its just not there for Starmer. A good beaurocrat someone said this morning. And I fear the reason Starmer promised nothing is because he knew there was nothing he could promise.
But hey, fingers crossed. We dont have an alternative unless the libs can next time translate 70 seats into 350.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jul 5, 2024 11:47:23 GMT
My view of the future for the tory party.
Badenoch will be elected leader and she will take the party even further to the right
In the following months/years a deal will be done with Farage, he and his MPs will become tory MPs. As a condition Farage will be Deputy leader and Tice Shadow Home Secretary
Some one nation tories will defect to Labour or Libdems
A few months later there will be a vote of no confidence in Badenoch and Farage will be elected leader
He'll continue to move the tories to the right
Come the 2029 election...
The above is a little tongue in cheek, but not totally outlandish
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 11:54:27 GMT
Yes, I thought Sunak's speech was very honourable (quite a contrast to Trump as has been said) and quite emotional at times. It begs the question that if he really believes what he said about the country being one where his family can, in 2 generations, achieve PMship, and his children celebrate Diwali on the steps of Downing Street. Then why did he allow his party to use tactics that fed fear, hatred and racism - and resulted in a huge boost for Refuk. Con achieved 14 years in power by lying and using the EU as a scapegoat for everything wrong with the UK. It worked, it won them power for all that time. Until they were finally forced to implement it and the nation saw the lack of results. Become a member of a modern UK political party and you are bound by collective responsibility. The party chooses a plan, then everyone swears blind in public its the best plan ever, even if they think it doomed. Plenty of conservatives have now come out and said they knew they were doomed, knew their record just didnt deserve another term, but thats not what they said during the campaign. At least the Sun is out for Starmer on the steps of No 10. His speech is talking about change.... I was about to write, we have heard similar speeches many times, from the last 5 PMs. Nice words, no substance. But Starmer beat me to it saying so himself. He just said he didnt believe if they had pomised change they would have been elected...implication being we are going to get change unasked, and then we get to judge on the outcome. (incidentally, that very likely means the lords reform is a priority. Do not want to waste time there.) |
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Post by mark61 on Jul 5, 2024 11:57:56 GMT
Good start from Sir Keir!
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 11:58:35 GMT
Good speech
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 12:02:56 GMT
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. So you flood the market causing prices to fall and that encourages builders to build? I guess you arent in business. Nor in politics because Joe Public would not be happy if the value of his house fell. If building is profitable then people will build. Government can hire builders otherwise doing nothing and build itself. The post war council housing was a self funding profitable business ultimately funded by the cheap rents charged to tenants. A policy which didnt cost anything!!! As to Joe public, this is one of the bitter truths he must accept or reject. Ever rising house prices makes pensioners rich and their grand children poor and living in the spare room. We need house prices to fall. We need housing to cease to be an investment opportunity. House prices are utterly insane compared to historic levels, such as when I was young. In general everyone is living in worse housing because of this deliberate policy of pushing up house prices through deliberately engineered shortage. Its not a benfit if you have to die before you can realise it. The reason we had labour the party of the poor and conservative the party of the rich was because these two groups have different interests. Lab never dared counter Thatchers giveaway of council houses and then deliberate engineering of house price inflation. The UK future economic growth demands that this be tackled and prices stabilised and then allowed to fall gently. That should have happened immediately post the 2008 crash, but prices soared again on the conservative agenda. |
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Post by jayblanc on Jul 5, 2024 12:04:53 GMT
Looking at the results, it does look a lot like the Labour landslide would have been magnified to wiping out the Conservative party if the vote had been conducted under an instant run-off ranked choice, while still giving Labour a vast majority of seats. So while they might be cool on real proportional representation, who know about the mildest possible electoral reform...
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 12:05:28 GMT
Incidenatlly, anyone notice the slow but steady growth of Sinn Fein as the dominant party of Ireland? The fruits of Brexit for the unionists.
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Post by hireton on Jul 5, 2024 12:05:47 GMT
Over 400 seats on 34% of the vote. Them's the rules. LAB didn't make 'em. @isa Well, they do as part of the Westminster system They didn't change the rules when they had the chance under Blair. When Starmer campaigned for the Labour leadershp he said: "On electoral reform, we’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their voice doesn’t count. That’s got to be addressed. We will never get full participation in our electoral system until we do that at every level.” During the General Election campaign Starmer said FPTP was "the right system" and "It has given a strong government in this country and we are not making any changes to it,” Turnout in the 2024 General Election was 60%, the second lowest since 1945. |
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johntel
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Post by johntel on Jul 5, 2024 12:06:14 GMT
Before you can start building brick by brick you need Planning Permission. There's a huge battle ahead in all those rural and green-belt neighbouring areas - I can see Angela Rayner being the next bogey-person of the right wing press.
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graham
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Post by graham on Jul 5, 2024 12:14:23 GMT
I am sorry i was unable to join you last night. I became quite unwell having suffered a serious panic attack - though am now a fair bit better.
Most of you will have enjoyed the evening and congratulations to those of you whose forecasts largely came true. Perhaps I may single out Steve who will be a happy man today and whose forecasts of LD success were far closer than my own - though I never really doubted that the Tories would remain the largest Opposition party. MRP still has much to answer and is probably still a Work in Progress.My initial sense is that overall the polls have not really had a good election - but because they easily called the result right the failure will not be that widely recognised.
I was happy that my Scotland forecasts were largely vindicated - indeed I proved to be a bit pessimistic! Although not a Corbynite I was pleased to see him returned again for Islington North - and am not too unhappy that party HQ ended up with egg on its face re- Chingford & Woodford Green.
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Post by pete on Jul 5, 2024 12:22:41 GMT
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Post by shevii on Jul 5, 2024 12:24:18 GMT
So do we have any consensus on who won the prediction thread? I'd probably go for robas who had: Lab 423 Con 106 LDM 64 SNP 24 PC 4 GRN 4 REF 5 IND 1 NI 18 SPK 1 I'd like an honorouble mention for very early on predicting 4 indies and 3 Greens. neilj very accurate on Lab-Con but missed Greens and Indies and Reform ditto James E. ptarmigan also good effort. Have I missed any other claims to the title? |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 12:28:43 GMT
News coverage noted that contrary to the choreographed departure from downing street speech outside No 10, and then getting into the car, once the car passed the gates and faced a genuine public crowd, he was booed.
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 5, 2024 12:29:09 GMT
A Labour landslide with 10% less than Theresa May achieved when losing the majority in 2017.
FPTP, political lottery.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jul 5, 2024 12:31:07 GMT
I am sorry i was unable to join you last night. I became quite unwell having suffered a serious panic attack - though am now a fair bit better. Most of you will have enjoyed the evening and congratulations to those of you whose forecasts largely came true. Perhaps I may single out Steve who will be a happy man today and whose forecasts of LD success were far closer than my own - though I never really doubted that the Tories would remain the largest Opposition party. MRP still has much to answer and is probably still a Work in Progress.My initial sense is that overall the polls have not really had a good election - but because they easily called the result right the failure will not be that widely recognised. I was happy that my Scotland forecasts were largely vindicated - indeed I proved to be a bit pessimistic! Although not a Corbynite I was pleased to see him returned again for Islington North - and am not too unhappy that party HQ ended up with egg on its face re- Chingford & Woodford Green. I hope you're feeling much better now Graham. I've had some experience of such issues myself in the past and know how draining that can be. |
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Post by robbiealive on Jul 5, 2024 12:34:37 GMT
So Lib-Dems get 12% of vote and 11% of seats. Will they now swing their mighty hordes behind FPTP. Cheer up boys. Some of you lot couldn't raise a smile if you won a million on the lottery. 99% of predictions about future politics made on here are wrong. Who knows where we'll be at the next election. But have a day of celebration. The Tories and SNP were in somd ways similar: tired regimes: parties in a mess, smell of corruption, constant change of leaders, got hammered! Lost a million seats. Salmond danced on the latter's Grave on the telly, but one could see he remains shrewd about everything save Alba! The danger as pointed out eloquently by markw the other day is that we go in a French Direction re extremist right-winning party. But we all know that |
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Post by mercian on Jul 5, 2024 12:36:27 GMT
Goodnight all. I will wake up tomorrow to a grey Stalinist dictatorship. A shame I'm too old to emigrate. You can't go yet- apparently it's close for your man in Birmingham Ladywood! I missed it, but apparently there was some pretty unpleasant campaigning in Birmingham. www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ng3j1pnpqo |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 5, 2024 12:36:33 GMT
Before you can start building brick by brick you need Planning Permission. There's a huge battle ahead in all those rural and green-belt neighbouring areas - I can see Angela Rayner being the next bogey-person of the right wing press. Not clear whether this requires primary legislation or can be accomplished using statutory instruments? Given the civil service negotiates with the opposition every election to prepare should they become government, it might be the legislation is already being drafted. If I was labour and knew I had a bare 5 years to make fundamental changes and then see the results, I would already have a black book plan of everything which needs to be done in the first day, week, month, year of government. Plans how to work round the Lords opposition. Maybe resume the traditional approach of flooding the lords with new peers to enable reform, after testing them with legislation they refuse so as to justify the action. It would explain why when in opposition labour always drew back from blocking bills in the lords which it could have stopped. So as to seem the good guys when con do so now. |
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Post by mercian on Jul 5, 2024 12:40:47 GMT
I see at Birmingham Yardley Jess Phillips has been subjected to abuse throughout the campaign by men of the so called 'workers party'. Clearly we have people here who don't believe in democracy and seem to be targeting women. That's a problem that's only going to get worse. Jess Philips resigned from the shadow cabinet over Gaza and they still went after her. Nothing will be done about it though. |
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Post by mandolinist on Jul 5, 2024 12:43:43 GMT
The truth is Labour got fewer votes than they did in their “worst election in a century “ That is a sobering thought and reflects the problems Labour has for the next election, unless they find a way to reconnect with the working class Reform voters. Their lives must improve to hold off the hard right. They also have to reconnect with voters like me. A big thing they could and should do is get rid of the 2 child benefit cap, lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. |
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