General Election 2024

[clv101]

That's a bit better on the detail, Plaid are 10 points clear in Carmarthen and the Tories keep Louth & Horncastle with 32% compared to Labour on 25%.

[Mark]

Another one....

Reform UK candidate resigns over 'unacceptable' blog posts:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw880334dgyo

[UndercoverElephant]

Another one....

Reform UK candidate resigns over 'unacceptable' blog posts:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw880334dgyo

Nobody seriously considering voting for Reform is going to not do so because of this, regardless how much fuss people on the left try to generate out of it. We know Reform UK has struggled to find candidates at an election deliberately called at an unusual time to wrongfoot them, so it is not remotely surprising that nobody has trawled through their online histories to find out whether they've made offensive posts about "female hormones" or made unwise comments about politicians they don't like. The candidate himself says he wouldn't have chosen to stand down -- the party forced him too. This is just noise. In a normal election campaign it wouldn't even be very noticeable noise, but this election is not normal. We are two and half weeks from polling day and the media is struggling to find interesting stories about the election because neither of the largest parties has got anything left say this side of the election.

[UndercoverElephant]

https://archive.is/KNQLk

The Times:

Rishi Sunak is being urged by cabinet ministers and senior Tories to “go for the jugular” and launch more direct personal attacks against Sir Keir Starmer. With two and a half weeks before polling day ministers are increasingly concerned that the present approach is too “generalised” and failing to shift Labour’s lead in the polls. Ministers believe that Sunak cannot win the election and say that the priority now should be one of “damage limitation”. One said that a “good result” would be retaining between 140 and 180 seats, which still hands Labour a significant majority.

They want Sunak to target Starmer over his support for Jeremy Corbyn, his decision to campaign for a second referendum on Brexit and his work as a human rights lawyer. The campaign has so far focused predominantly on claims that Labour will raise taxes if it wins the general election.
One cabinet minister said: “Rishi is a really nice and deeply honourable guy. I’m not sure whether he’s uncomfortable instinctively with the personalised attacks but it has been more generalised so far.”

This is absolute desperation. It's not just that clamouring for more personal attacks is lacking in morality in principle, but that all three of the specific things they want to attack him for are really strange reasons to attack somebody. He worked as a human rights lawyer, and supported his party's leader and manifesto at the last election....what an immoral bastard he is! I wouldn't be surprised if this tactic actually loses the tories even more votes.

[clv101]

Voting starts *now*. Postal votes start arriving this week. Around 1 in 5 votes are postal, biased to older voters and therefore traditionally biased Tory. For some, the campaign is over.

[Potemkin Villager]

Being a glutton for punishment I had a quick scan through the Labour manifesto. (I know should really get out more).

Economic growth seems to be the main ingredient in the magic pixie dust of finance to underpin all sorts of ambitious and laudable political deliverables .

According to the manifesto, "Financial services are one of Britain’s greatest success stories. Labour will create the conditions to support innovation and growth in the sector, through supporting new technology, including Open Banking and Open Finance and ensuring a pro-innovation regulatory framework."

So what's to go wrong with a "pro-innovation regulatory framework"?

[UndercoverElephant]

So what's to go wrong with a "pro-innovation regulatory framework"?

Impossible to say without seeing the details.

[Potemkin Villager]

According to the FT, "shadow city minister", Tulip Siddiq FRSA, promised a new Regulatory Innovation Office
and would "tear down the barriers to competitiveness and growth"!

Private Eye appositely quote JK Galbraith as saying " For practical purposes the financial memory should be assumed to last
no longer than 20 years. This is normally the time it takes for recollection of one disaster to be erased and and for some
variant on previous dementia to come forward to capture the financial mind."

Sterling is very strong at the moment, as I discover very time I visit my children in the UK, and the trajectory of FTSE ever upward from what seems like an already improbably high level.

So I guess politicos are desperately hoping things can only get even better and the Newer Labour government will not end off facing another RBS, 2008 etc or similar shit storm not too long after they have settled their bums on the seats of power and torn down those pesky regulatory barriers.

[clv101]

Latest three polls are slightly interesting, Tories a back up to 23, 23 and 25% with Labour's lead down to 17, 17 and 16%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_p ... prov=sfla1

[UndercoverElephant]

Latest three polls are slightly interesting, Tories a back up to 23, 23 and 25% with Labour's lead down to 17, 17 and 16%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_p ... prov=sfla1

I'll need more than three before I believe it is a real trend. I am very suspicious about the accuracy of the polls at the moment, including the MRP polls.

[clv101]

I agree. Generally I think the polls and the models they drive aren't doing well. There are far too many. It's become a huge business. A couple decades ago polling was a much smaller industry.

I also think there might be a case for regulation or some form of limitation on polling. Too often the poll is the story and could be highly influential in the campaign. Too many interviews are carried out against the backdrop of a great (or awful) poll.

[clv101]

Ha! Since my post a couple of hours ago there have been two more polls added. Tories back down to 18 & 19% with Labour's lead at 25 & 26%!

[UndercoverElephant]

Ha! Since my post a couple of hours ago there have been two more polls added. Tories back down to 18 & 19% with Labour's lead at 25 & 26%!

Including one showing Tories and Reform tied on 18%. I am not going to get too excited until I see the exit poll, but the way things are going I wonder if you offered the tories 100 seats now whether they'd take that. Much worse is possible. They are desperately trying to scare people about a Labour "supermajority" but I just don't think very many people are actually scared.

[clv101]

Something for the geeks to watch is the percentage and total number of votes Starmer's Labour gets. It's possible that he could achieve a whopping great big majority (100-150) on a lower vote than Corbyn's Labour lost to May in 2017 with!

[UndercoverElephant]

Something for the geeks to watch is the percentage and total number of votes Starmer's Labour gets. It's possible that he could achieve a whopping great big majority (100-150) on a lower vote than Corbyn's Labour lost to May in 2017 with!

That that is even possible just demonstrates why Labour can't win from the left. It is no use piling up millions of votes in your safest seats.