Mailwatch(ed) Forum

I know the "Stats for Lefties" account is determinedly anti-Starmer, but for what its worth I still believe the Savanta poll they shared a couple of days ago (below) is ultimately where we will end up at the next GE i.e. a hung parliament with Labour as the biggest party.

Two points I would make, however - i) I think both Labour and the Lib Dems will do slightly better than these seat projections, simply because anti-Tory tactical voting will be off the scale once again. And b) I'm pretty relaxed about some form of LAB/LD coalition prevailing in the next parliament, especially if the Lib Dems push Labour into a slightly more enlightened mindset as regards to areas such as constitutional reforms, voting rights and especially Brexit.

Yeah, I agree models seem to underestimate tactical voting.

From that graphic it looks like Redwood survives, on the back of a pointless Labour surge.

Anyway, I recall Corbyn getting 262 and apparently nearly winning the election. So 307 isn't at all bad.

I think that map also shows Tim Farron losing his Westmorland & Lonsdale seat to the Tories? That's not going to happen, especially when he was somehow able to cling on when the Tories ended up on 44% in 2019.

No credible site anywhere is making the projections they are making based on 11 point leads.

By all means take Savanta credible, there is no reason why it would happen mind so I’m saying it’s an outlier till others follow.

But I believe Labour get a majority with a 9% lead.

They did one on Opinium a week back and that didn’t even take into account SF. That was off a 14 point lead.

Potentially it’s possible they may end up there or it may also be possible it gets worse.

However when you run it through electoral calculus at https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

You get a majority of 32, 16 on the new boundaries. Basically if you take into a higher LD vote you would assume Labour need to poll 40%

Literally haven’t a clue how they work there one out and they are anti Labour as judged by the fact they don’t bother with any 18-20pt poll lead.

I think we also have to take into account that this isn’t just going to be tactical voting to save a few seats, like 2017 or 2019. This is tactical voting as an offensive strategy. There are scalps to be had, and long overdue comeuppances to be delivered to now-vulnerable Tories. That’s going to be a powerful motivator.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:40 am I think we also have to take into account that this isn’t just going to be tactical voting to save a few seats, like 2017 or 2019. This is tactical voting as an offensive strategy. There are scalps to be had, and long overdue comeuppances to be delivered to now-vulnerable Tories. That’s going to be a powerful motivator.

On the flip side, I wonder whether the outside right UKIP successord (forgot what they're calling themselves this week) will perform another late fold and gift their "plucky rebel" voters back to the big blue.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:40 am I think we also have to take into account that this isn’t just going to be tactical voting to save a few seats, like 2017 or 2019. This is tactical voting as an offensive strategy. There are scalps to be had, and long overdue comeuppances to be delivered to now-vulnerable Tories. That’s going to be a powerful motivator.

A growing number of seats where its unclear who the main challenger to the Tories is due to Ed Davey’s moribund leadership. This may even save some Tories.

I assume they’ll get the bar charts round.

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:54 am On the flip side, I wonder whether the outside right UKIP successord (forgot what they're calling themselves this week) will perform another late fold and gift their "plucky rebel" voters back to the big blue.

Hardly a week seems to go by without Farage croaking on about how the Tories "need to be destroyed" or some such guff, so I think a rerun of 2019 seems unlikely next time, bar perhaps sparing a few favoured backbench loons who Farage & Tice consider the right sort of chaps (i.e. drinking buddies).

What Fargle says now and does in an actual election campaign are two very different things.

Arrowhead wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:33 pm

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:54 am On the flip side, I wonder whether the outside right UKIP successord (forgot what they're calling themselves this week) will perform another late fold and gift their "plucky rebel" voters back to the big blue.

Hardly a week seems to go by without Farage croaking on about how the Tories "need to be destroyed" or some such guff, so I think a rerun of 2019 seems unlikely next time, bar perhaps sparing a few favoured backbench loons who Farage & Tice consider the right sort of chaps (i.e. drinking buddies).

I wouldn't place too much trust in Farage's words.
By election week he will have their candidacy fees offshored, and won't give a shit.
His previous has proved that his gammon marks have the memories of a goldfish.

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:54 am On the flip side, I wonder whether the outside right UKIP successord (forgot what they're calling themselves this week) will perform another late fold and gift their "plucky rebel" voters back to the big blue.

I’m not sure that’ll work this time as the Tories have shifted so much into the UKIP/Reform zone, they either already have those votes or will never have them because all that’s left is the absolute fruitloops and/or the types who won’t vote for Sunak for some undisclosed reason that definitely isn’t anything to do with his complexion.

Sadly seems like Labour’s lead is now starting to fall considerably.

I guess we will be single figures soon enough.

Ah well nice while it lasted.

That MRP poll is a lot of fun to look at, but it is pure fantasy land stuff IMO. Sunak won’t be losing his seat in any circumstances, and if Labour somehow end up with nearly 500 MPs then we’d be looking at many more splashes of red on the Scottish part of that map.

It's fantasy, but it's perfectly possible for Labour to wipe out the Tories in England and Wales, but not dent the SNP at all. I'd guess from the seats that the SNP vote share is up near 50%, perfectly plausible at the moment. Labour win very few seats in that situation.

I keep hearing from various people that Labour is "out Torying the Tories" on immigration and asylum. I didn't hear the debate today, but it seems like the Labour policy is to do pretty much how asylum works everywhere. Take on staff, assess claims, and remove if the claim fails. No Rwanda, no trying to force boats back in the Channel. No banning appeals, as Sunak seemed to be suggesting.

I don't recall policy under Corbyn being all that different really. Corbyn for instance could have campaigned on repealing the Blair era bill which made it much harder to claim asylum. I don't recall this being much of priority. I do though recall lots about recruiting more cops (and quite rightly).

We get to keep Sir Bill Wiggin in North Herefordshire in that poll. I think we kept him when the Tories were down to 26 seats in one model. Maybe there's a model somewhere where we're last men standing, along with Essex and Lincolnshire.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 8:00 pm We get to keep Sir Bill Wiggin in North Herefordshire in that poll. I think we kept him when the Tories were down to 26 seats in one model. Maybe there's a model somewhere where we're last men standing, along with Essex and Lincolnshire.

You'll be stuck with Wiggin even after the meteor hits, I'm afraid

Do Labour and the Lib Dems even have branches in places like North Herefordshire? I've always thought that would make for quite an interesting fly-on-the-wall documentary - the grinding futility of being a Labour Party organiser in Windsor, or indeed their Tory equivalents in, say, Bootle.

I think the Labour organisation is based up the top of the county in Leominster, whereas we're based down the south (though still in the North Herefordshire constituency) near Ledbury. Obviously Wiggin has a very handy vote share (63%) but there's also the problem that LD, LAB and GN all get about the same (14, 13, 9). Who do you back of those tactically? LAB on polls generally? LD on ability to take Tory votes? Or GN as the wildcard?