General Election 2019

[Brightonian]

Video in this tweet is a fun watch (Tory candidate incompetently sets up friend as random supporter): https://twitter.com/damocrat/status/119 ... 20035?s=19

[Vertigowooyay]

Video in this tweet is a fun watch (Tory candidate incompetently sets up friend as random supporter): https://twitter.com/damocrat/status/119 ... 20035?s=19

If you're going to do that, at least do it *well*.

https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1 ... 4964060160

[Woodchopper]

Big analysis by a company called Datapraxis of 250 000 YouGov polling responses. Their model predicts:

As things stand, the Tories look set to rise from the 317 seats they won in 2017 to 349. Labour, meanwhile, could crash from 262 to 213, perilously close to the 209 it won in the wipeout of 1983. After all the hype and their early hopes, the Lib Dems will add just two net seats to their 2017 base of 12. By contrast, the SNP could sweep Scotland, rising from 35 to 49 of the 59 seats.

They suggest that seven seats with current or former Tory ministers could be lost. Also that:

The second and more important fly in the ointment for the Tories is that similar dynamics are replicated in almost 100 other seats around the country. Two and a half weeks is a long time in an election campaign; and a rebel alliance may be forming from the bottom up.
[...]
All our data suggests that more people are considering voting tactically than in any previous election, and that “squeeze” dynamics in which anti-Conservative voters unite behind the strongest challenger could be very significant in the final two weeks. Large numbers of voters remain undecided.

The battlegrounds are clear. Conservatives are pressing Labour hard in many of its heartland seats where majorities voted Leave, in particular across the Midlands, the North, Wales and coastal towns. Many of these seats are not being sufficiently defended yet, although there are signs this may change. South of the Watford Gap, the Liberal Democrats have the best shot at beating the Tories in 30-40 more seats, but will need Labour voters to carry them over the line. Labour are also on the attack, particularly in the south; they are the main challengers in as many as 30 more metropolitan, diverse or struggling constituencies, including Chingford and Woodford Green, Chipping Barnet, Hendon and Hastings & Rye.
[...]
if the polls tighten or we see unprecedented tactical voting well beyond these seven seats, then we cannot rule out a hung parliament and—before long—a second Brexit referendum. May you live in interesting times.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/poli ... our-corbyn

[P.J. Denyer]

On election night I’m playing a Christmas concert for a Freemason Lodge. That could be interesting...

Well at least they can tell you the result before you start so it won't be a distraction.

[FlammableFlower]

Well it'll be Labour for me as the best chance to unseat the Tories where I am.

[GeenDienst]

In the context of today's rabbi-related shenanigans, I came across this here twitting thread thing on Labour's problem.

https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/ ... 9929774082

[jimbob]

Meanwhile Gove and Hannan are trying to convince us of the Tory's problem with casual racism - at least I can't think of anything else.

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/ ... 8803276802

[Grumble]

Meanwhile Gove and Hannan are trying to convince us of the Tory's problem with casual racism - at least I can't think of anything else.

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/ ... 8803276802

I’m going to have to get a new set of eyebrows. My current ones can’t go any higher.

[GeenDienst]

This is the UK equivalent of Trump boasting he could shoot somebody dead on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes. Gove knows that their supporters love this stuff.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Oooof, Labour have a great attack line with the NHS documents. This could run and run.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... faith-live

[tom p]

I don't think that tory voters do love Gove quoting Stormzy lyrics.
I don't think he's being intentionally offensive, I think that he thinks he's being funny, by quoting a line from Shut Up by Stormzy (which is an apt response to someone saying you're crap at your job), & burnishing his glowing reputation (within the predominantly octogenarian tory party) of being a hip young firebrand, even though to the rest of us he's a pob-faced caricature of a pompous oleaginous tory arse.
I also think that some of the outrage is a little manufactured. He just doesn't realise that everyone thinks he's a smug c.nt - and he's quoting lyrics, not doing a Jim Davidsonesque 'bud bud ding ding' type thing.

[El Pollo Diablo]

The latest ICM poll has Labour at 31 and the Tories at 38. That would result in a hung parliament or near enough, interestingly, according to Electoral Calculus (accounting for the likely bump in SNP seats in Scotland, the vote for which the poll doesn't split out).

Now, a single poll, etc, assumptions may be wrong. But, given the direction of travel, things might not be quite so bad as we thought. Possibly.

ETA: Hang on, that was an older poll. The latest latest poll shows Labour at 34 and the Tories on 41. The SNP vote in Scotland is very low, though (31% against other polls which show ~40%), so f.ck knows. Could be bollocks. Regardless, the point is, if Labour catch up a bit, the hoped-for hung parliament could be on. Again.

[cvb]

Oooof, Labour have a great attack line with the NHS documents. This could run and run.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... faith-live

Hopefully they can make the most of this. Lying about selling off the NHS is possibly the only thing that can get voters to see the tories as the scumbag liars they truly are.

[GeenDienst]

At the very least, it might make it harder for Johnson to give the NHS away once in power.

if Johnson does get his majority, it will because people dislike Corbyn, there's not much trust in him. His MPs will get this.

[tom p]

In the context of today's rabbi-related shenanigans, I came across this here twitting thread thing on Labour's problem.

https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/ ... 9929774082

He's right that strawmanning and whataboutery are no defence against serious accusations which, if true, should lead to a significant shake-up in the labour party's organisational structures and leadership; however I think there are 3 things with that that I would take issue with:

1. Point 16:

if one understands the nature& seriousness of the allegation, then one would never reply by saying, by way of example: “but what about Johnson and niqabi Muslim letterboxes?” Bad thing to say, but not evidence that the Tory party *machine* discriminates against Muslim members

He's right that whataboutery is not an acceptable response - 2 wrongs don't make a right. That said, his defence of the tories against this accusation is wrong because...
A. mocking women wearing the niqab is dog-whistle islamophobia, which is itself dog-whistle p.ki-bashing. It's not just mocking people for doing something stupid & claiming it is is either stupid or dishonest.
B. Johnson was elected leader of the tory party AFTER having written that article in his Daily Telegraph column, which will have been read by the vast majority of tory party members. If he said or wrote that after becoming leader, then fair enough, but it was before, they knew what he was saying & they voted for him in droves. That is evidence of the whole party at best not giving a f.ck about sneaky racism, or just condoning it or, at worst (and, let's face it, almost certainly what it is), actively supporting it.

2. Point 20:

no serious Jewish voice or organisation has ever said it’s racist to criticise Israel. None. I repeat, none. This is a complete Strawman.

b.llsh.t. I have heard many times claims of antisemitism being wheeled-out on Today on Radio 4 when Israel has been criticised for murdering yet more Palestinians. It's a tricky one though 'cos, if memory serves, it's often been people like the Israeli ambassador to the UK making such claims. Does he count as a serious jewish voice? He's a serious voice. He's Jewish and he represents Israel, which although it's not officially a Jewish state, it is keen to portray itself as such when it wants to claim moral high ground when it's committed yet another atrocity & many Jewish people worldwide regard it as their homeland solely by dint of them being Jewish, even though their ancestors may have left the area over 1,000 years ago.
Of course nobody would say, in principle, that it's racist to criticise Israel; but it just needs each criticism to be called antisemitic and for the intended section 28esque chilling effect of some of the IHRA examples to lead to that conclusion.

3. A couple of times he says that the allegations of institutional antisemitism are correct, entirely prejudging the EHRC investigation, which may very well find that labour is not institutionally antisemitic. After all, It has expelled members for making actual antisemitic remarks, and even just for saying stupidly offensive things which may be pedantically correct by one definition, but which by more common definitions definitely are not and should just never be uttered (e.g. Ken Livingstone claiming Hitler was a zionist). Margaret Hodge may have claimed to have seen the things people were investigated for saying, and that some of them who were not expelled should be in her view, but then she's not a neutral voice in this & one should take the claims of any politician with an axe to grind with a pinch of salt.

[Bird on a Fire]

At the very least, it might make it harder for Johnson to give the NHS away once in power.

if Johnson does get his majority, it will because people dislike Corbyn, there's not much trust in him. His MPs will get this.

Hopefully all the old-age Tory supporters who are only alive because of the NHS will be paying attention to this. If it's a choice between "don't like Corbyn" and "don't like selling the NHS" one would hope that the life-saving world-class institution would be deemed more valuable than worrying about some scruffy old scrote wanting to take the country's public spending up to normal developed-world levels.

Then again, most Tory voters must be either incredibly selfish or impressively brainwashed so who the f.ck knows what they'll end up doing.

Anyone know how this story's been reported in the right-wing press?

[Little waster]

Anyone know how this story's been reported in the right-wing press?

Something along the lines of:-

“Baby-eating Marxist anti-Semite caught telling massive lies about NHS.

This was confirmed today when famously honest, anti-elitist man of the people and noted non-racist Boris Johnson said “I definitely don’t intend to do that thing that I’ve spent most my adult life campaigning to do and have repeatedly said that I want to do” thus 100% disproving the claims of Brit-hating Remainiac Corbyn and his 451-page leaked official document.

The marvellous Mr Johnson then went on to tell an adoring crowd of salt’of’the’Earth northern flatcap wearing types a hilarious anecdote about that time at university when he, the 3rd Viscount of Mowbray and close personal friend Prince Andrew once smashed up an Indian restaurant whilst screaming “Ghandi smells of curry” in the faces of the charmed and impressed waiters they were attempting to kick to death. Sadly his reminiscences were interrupted when his underpants began to smoulder spontaneously for some reason and a freak gust of wind caused his haircut to rise up and briefly resemble the coiled wires of an old fashioned telephonic device.”

[GeenDienst]

New YouGov constituency level MRP poll just out in the Guardian is predicting a 68 seat majority for the Cons and a 1983 stylee 211 seats for Labour.

Just over 100,000 responses in this poll. If this NHS thing is going to work for Magic Grandpa, it had better work f.cking well.

[tom p]

New YouGov constituency level MRP poll just out in the Guardian is predicting a 68 seat majority for the Cons and a 1983 stylee 211 seats for Labour.

Just over 100,000 responses in this poll. If this NHS thing is going to work for Magic Grandpa, it had better work f.cking well.

The only thing to say is that responses were collected over a week, before the manifestos and the NHS doc. Still doesn't look good, but it's more influenced by the Tories' brexit party squeeze than anything else.
Let's hope labour now start to hammer johnson on being a [redacted] lying sack of sh.t.

[Dermot O'Logical]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50580699

It's okay. Labour is going to turn its fortunes around with a switch to a new campaign message: "Some of us supported Leave".

[Vertigowooyay]

So Swinson, Sturgeon and Corbyn get the Andrew Neil roasting treatment (and much as I dislike Neil, he is a very good political interviewer, and politicians *should* have to be interviewed in that way) but Boris looks like he’ll decline that interview and instead we get to see how that prick eats a f.cking scone.

[Ben B]

How the UK are predicted to vote is the image of Homer in his muumuu and I can’t unsee it

[GeenDienst]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50580699

It's okay. Labour is going to turn its fortunes around with a switch to a new campaign message: "Some of us supported Leave".

Corbyn's Labour was always a Leave party, whatever its members wanted, all the way from Corbyn's pretend remain "campaigning" in 2016. I've always believed that the leadership would find some way out of enacting a second referendum, if elected. McCluskey would never allow anything that could lead to retention of free movement, and we see elsewhere again today that their energy nationalisation plans probably fall foul of EU law.

Corbyn has indicated very clearly where he stands, by disciplining only those shadow cabinet members who defied the whip to vote for remain supporting amendments, and looking the other way when others supported leave supporting amendments. I would expect that enough Labour "rebels" would be generated to vote down a referendum bill leaving Corbyn free to shrug and say "weren't me, guv".

Not that it matters, probably, the way things are looking. Sadly, unless there's a very unexpected seriously hung parliament, I think the remain struggle is now pretty much over, with the collapse of the LDs.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Obviously, YouGov have very carefully interviewed 100,000 people and done a big multifactorial regression analysis prediction and spend loads of money and decided that the Tories will win a majority of 68.

I, however, have looked at the Guardian poll tracker and have done a comparison of the difference between poll results two weeks ago for Labour and the Tories, compared it to today, and projected it two weeks into the future. And then had a stab at the other parties as well.

Based on that, I reckon there'll be a hung parliament. Again.

We'll see which of the two of us is correct - the proper polling company with massive resources and proper methods, or an idiot with some fingers.

[dyqik]

Obviously, YouGov have very carefully interviewed 100,000 people and done a big multifactorial regression analysis prediction and spend loads of money and decided that the Tories will win a majority of 68.

I, however, have looked at the Guardian poll tracker and have done a comparison of the difference between poll results two weeks ago for Labour and the Tories, compared it to today, and projected it two weeks into the future. And then had a stab at the other parties as well.

Based on that, I reckon there'll be a hung parliament. Again.

We'll see which of the two of us is correct - the proper polling company with massive resources and proper methods, or an idiot with some fingers.

Yougov make it very clear that their results are a prediction of what would happen if the election was today (actually more like a week ago, because of the sampling period), not what will happen in two weeks time.