General Election 2024

[UndercoverElephant]

Murdoch grudgingly backs Labour:

https://archive.is/5OLmN

The Sunday Times: The Tories have forfeited the right to govern. Over to Labour

Britain now needs a radical reset. If the Tories are due a period in opposition, that can only mean a Labour government. Starmer should be praised for hauling his party back into the mainstream. He purged it of antisemitism, expelled Corbyn and installed the serious figure of Rachel Reeves as shadow chancellor. Some see the way Starmer won the Labour leadership on a Corbyn-lite ticket and then proceeded to ditch early promises as cynical. Perhaps so. But others would counter that Starmer’s apparent colonisation of the centre ground means Labour is now ready to step into the void vacated by the Tories. Unlike Corbyn, he is no risk to national security and, so far, has chosen the right path on Israel and Ukraine. However, both the party’s manifesto and its subsequent public pronouncements still leave many questions unanswered, and Labour arguably needs to do better in office than it has in opposition.

These sizeable caveats notwithstanding, we cannot go on as we are, and we believe it is now the right time for Labour to be entrusted with restoring competence to government. Britain needs to do better — as a place to live, work and do business. In 2019 Johnson knew many of those who backed him had “lent” him their vote — uncertain about the outcome. We suspect that the same may be true for Starmer but judge that, on balance, he has earned his chance. The scale of the challenge is immense. The exhausted Conservatives are neither up to it nor up for it. There comes a time when change is the only option.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... e0b2e0337a

Nearly half of undecided voters do not believe a Labour majority is the most likely election result, a new poll has revealed.

Possibly the strangest poll of the whole campaign.

“Clearly there is a sense that Labour are in a strong position. But with one in four voters thinking Labour are most likely to be the next official opposition, there is little evidence to suggest that the ‘super-majority’ messaging is cutting through where it needs to, and may allay fears in Labour of potential apathy among their supporters.”

[UndercoverElephant]

New Statesman short story: How Rishi Sunak accidentally won the 2024 General Election. Rather good.

https://archive.is/cwIB7#selection-51721.0-51825.218

[Potemkin Villager]

I have promised my wife I will never go into politics, so no. I am also too radical for them - Reform do not accept the limits to growth, so it would be impossible for me to be a candidate for them.

Yes if any political cult want candidates to get elected it is not possible for them to accept limits to growth
when it is their primary, holy grail, get out of jail free card. It might be an interesting exercise to produce a manifesto,
for, let's call it "The Reality Party", that accepts overshoot and that growth is not desirable etc, just to see folks reaction.
I imagine it would not be very positive even amongst those claiming that politicians are liars!

Exactly. Which is why the defence of realism must come at a higher structural level than either policy or political ideology. It must be a purely philosophical meta-ideology, which begins from first principles, and is understood by all participants to come (epistemologically) before religion, politics and ethics. We must be able to agree what we know is real, what might be real and might not, and what definitely isn't real, before we even attempt to reach agreement about anything as specific as policy. "Real" here is interchangeable with both "true" and "possible" (ie real possibilities and not fantasies).

For me the frustrating thing is that I am convinced that just such a meta-ideology is available, but I have had almost no success at explaining to people why it is necessary, let alone how it could work.

I suggest we revisit this in a separate thread when the dust settles after Thursday.

[Potemkin Villager]

New Statesman short story: How Rishi Sunak accidentally won the 2024 General Election. Rather good.

https://archive.is/cwIB7#selection-51721.0-51825.218

Nobody's commented on the weird Richy and Starmy sculpted hairstyles which
seem to have been perma-gelled to within an inch if looking like glass fibre insulation.

Starmy in particular and appropriately is increasingly looking the spitting image of Max Headroom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom

For those too young to remember "According to his creators, Max's personality was meant to be a satirical exaggeration of the worst tendencies of television hosts in the 1980s who wanted to appeal to youth culture."

[clv101]

New Statesman short story: How Rishi Sunak accidentally won the 2024 General Election. Rather good.

https://archive.is/cwIB7#selection-51721.0-51825.218

Ha, that's great.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 70841.html

The Conservatives’ “project fear” tactic deployed to scare voters with the threat of a Labour “supermajority” has spectacularly backfired, new polling has revealed.

According to findings from Techne UK for The Independent, twice as many people are “more likely” to vote Labour (26 per cent) than more likely to vote Conservative (13 per cent) as a result of the warning used by Rishi Sunak and senior Conservatives about handing Sir Keir Starmer too much power.

The tactic was also used to try to prevent Tory voters defecting to Reform, but almost one in 10 (9 per cent) said the warning had in fact made them “more likely” to vote for Nigel Farage’s party.

[Ralphw2]

Reform dropped by Reform candidate for being racist. When asked by the BBC for comment Farage says ". ".

[Mark]

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... e0b2e0337a

Nearly half of undecided voters do not believe a Labour majority is the most likely election result, a new poll has revealed.

Possibly the strangest poll of the whole campaign.

“Clearly there is a sense that Labour are in a strong position. But with one in four voters thinking Labour are most likely to be the next official opposition, there is little evidence to suggest that the ‘super-majority’ messaging is cutting through where it needs to, and may allay fears in Labour of potential apathy among their supporters.”

This election isn't settled by a long way.

Got chatting to a random couple (2 blokes) in a bar last night....
One of them was very right wing - #1 issue immigration - very keen on Reform...
HOWEVER, he'd already voted by post - Tory - as he was more worried what would happen to immigration under Labour...
His take was the the Tories are favourites to win, despite what all the polls might say !!!

Even more strangely, his partner is a Chinese national !!!
He studied here - IT Masters of some sort - some firm has now sponsored a working visa for him...
This was his first take on a free, democratic election, so quite intrigued by it all...
Said he supports the Tories, but think he might be influenced by his partner...?

Appreciate that a semi-racist mixed race homosexual couple is an extremely small demographic, but there are plenty getting their votes in for the Tories... Labour still need to get crosses on the ballot paper and enthusiasm for them isn't very strong...

[UndercoverElephant]

Reform dropped by Reform candidate for being racist. When asked by the BBC for comment Farage says ". ".

It should come as news to nobody that there are racists in the tory party, and that those racists are disproportionately likely to be attracted to Reform, because of its anti-immigration agenda.

It should also be made clear that although racists inevitably oppose immigration (at least of people they consider racially undesirable), it does not follow that people who oppose immigration are motivated by racism.

When I was growing up I lived next door to my in-laws. My uncle was chairman of the local tory party, and he was the most racist and homophobic person I have ever met. He believed blacks and gays should be "thrown in a pit and burned". My best mate through my teens, who committed suicide aged 20, was gay.

Yes, there are racists and homophobes in Reform UK. I am going to vote for them anyway, because I consider stopping immigration to be the number one problem facing the UK, and no other party takes it seriously enough.

[clv101]

...but there are plenty getting their votes in for the Tories... Labour still need to get crosses on the ballot paper and enthusiasm for them isn't very strong...

Indeed, I'm expecting the Tories to do significantly better than most polls suggest. You don't kill the 'natural party of government' so easily. They will lose badly, I'm they'll not end up with fewer than 100 seats like most polls are suggesting!

[UndercoverElephant]

...but there are plenty getting their votes in for the Tories... Labour still need to get crosses on the ballot paper and enthusiasm for them isn't very strong...

Indeed, I'm expecting the Tories to do significantly better than most polls suggest. You don't kill the 'natural party of government' so easily. They will lose badly, I'm they'll not end up with fewer than 100 seats like most polls are suggesting!

The fascinating thing is that absolutely nobody actually knows what is going to happen. Even educated guesses aren't all that much use in the current situation. My personal expectations have more to do with personal psychological management than anything happening out there in the real world. If I "expect" the tories to win 150 seats then I won't be disappointed if that is what happens. Still worse than 1997. But there remains a real possibility that it could be a lot worse than that.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... rump-biden

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he wants to “build a wall in the English Channel” in a leaked recording, in which he heaped praise on Donald Trump and the hardline Republican response to immigration.

Speaking to young Conservative activists, Rees-Mogg doubled down on his backing for the former US president, saying he took the right approach by building a border wall.

“If I were American I’d want the border closed, I’d be all in favour of building a wall. I’d want to build a wall in the middle of the English Channel,” the former cabinet minister said.

Rees-Mogg is fighting a strong Labour challenge in his North East Somerset and Hanham constituency against Dan Norris, the mayor of the West of England, who was previously MP in the seat until he was defeated by Rees-Mogg in 2010.

Rees-Mogg, a popular figure among Tory party members, is likely to be influential in the Conservative leadership race if he retains his seat.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... tion-grows

Recriminations have begun to fly around the Conservatives as a senior figure called the last few weeks the “worst campaign in my lifetime” and criticised the party for failing to tackle the threat from Reform.

Rishi Sunak started the week with warnings against handing Labour a “supermajority” and a “blank cheque” and claimed a vote for Reform would hand more power to Keir Starmer.

However, a number of Tory candidates, advisers and officials are deeply frustrated with how he has run the campaign after calling a July election against the advice of his key strategist Isaac Levido.

One senior Tory party figure said on Monday it had been the “worst campaign in my lifetime”, saying that while Sunak was wholly to blame for the early election, there was a feeling that Levido could have pushed back more against the July date and that Conservative HQ should have “taken the fight to Reform” earlier.

They said Levido had made it clear from the start that 2019 Tory switchers from Labour were “gone and never coming back”, telling candidates that all their efforts should be made to target potential Reform voters instead.

However, the source said some people around the cabinet table had argued that the Tories should just ignore Nigel Farage’s party, and the campaign had been too frightened to tackle Reform’s arguments head-on for fear of offending voters who sympathised with them.

The senior figure said the mood among many Tory candidates was that it was “tough out there”, while those whose seats were less difficult were “focusing on what’s left and what’s next” – a new Conservative leadership battle.

They also said candidates in tight marginal seats were getting zero financial or practical support, even on social media, and there was frustration that Conservative HQ had either overspent in the run-up to the election or wrongly thought it would get a last-minute deluge of funding.

There is also suspicion among some Tory candidates that CCHQ could be holding back some funding to rebuild the party after an election defeat rather than going all-out on defending candidates.

continues...but this quote stands out:

Asked what he would say to those who thought he should have confronted Farage’s arguments head-on, he said: “I think it’s not right [to say that] because in the first week I said a vote for anyone else including Reform is a vote to put Keir Starmer in power.

A truly terrible answer. That is the exact opposite of confronting Farage's arguments head on.

Sunak hinted he might stay on as Conservative leader for a few months after the election if there was demand for him to do so while the party elects a new one, saying: “I love this party dearly and of course I’ll always put myself at the service of it, and the service of my country.”

That would be something special. There is talk that he stays in place long enough to change the system of electing the next leader, to remove the membership from the process. Should be a good way to lose half their members who are still left.

It would also give Labour a very easy initial period, since nobody is going to be interested in anything Sunak has to say.

[clv101]

It's obvious (to me) that the large number of undecided voters will fall predominantly to Tories, not Labour or Reform. This will contribute to Tories beating polls.