General Election '24

[headshot]

This could perhaps be explained by Labour voters assuming it was in the bag in safe seats so didn’t bother.

That’s why the vote share discussion is so dumb in a constituency system with FPTP.

[TimW]

Once the Speaker had been re-elected, Farage had his first chance to gob off in the commons today:

Mr Speaker-Elect, thank you very much. We are the new kids on the block. We have no experience in this Parliament whatsoever, even though some of us have tried many times over the years to get here, so we cannot judge you from working in this place, but we can judge you from how the outside world sees you. I mean not just the United Kingdom but the world, because Prime Minister’s question time is global, box office politics. It is pretty clear to everyone that you act with great neutrality and that you have brought tremendous dignity to the role as Speaker, so we absolutely endorse you entirely for this job. That is, I must say, in marked contrast to the little man who was there before you, who besmirched the office so dreadfully in doing his best to overturn the biggest democratic result in the history of the country. We support you fully, Sir.

[TopBadger]

I suspect the speaker will be calling on Farage to speak as little as possible...

[Stranger Mouse]

Rishi Sunak warned by senior civil servants a week before he called election that he was at risk of breaching legal responsibilities if he failed to take action over prison overcrowding crisis, leaked document reveals.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/art ... apers-show

[jimbob]

Rishi Sunak warned by senior civil servants a week before he called election that he was at risk of breaching legal responsibilities if he failed to take action over prison overcrowding crisis, leaked document reveals.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/art ... apers-show

Also

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... s-of-waste

Reeves to appoint Covid corruption tsar to claw back billions of waste
Chancellor understood to believe £2.6bn of public money lost to fraudsters during pandemic could be recouped

Might cause a bit of unease for several senior Tories

[IvanV]

Interesting to belatedly read a post mortem of poll predictions that came out in the Economist (July 13). The average of several polls (median prediction) had a Labour lead over the Conservatives of 18%, just before the election, but the election came out at 10%. This is the largest error since 1992. It is well known that polls underpredict the Tories and overpredict Labour, but usually there is some adjustment for this. A large factor is likely to be the poor turnout, at 60% the lowest since 2001, probably with Labour voters not turning out to a greater extent than others.

MRPs did worse than plain voting intention polls at predicting the Labour lead. Though apparently they were quite good at tactical voting, if only they had got the lead right, they would have been better.

The Economist's own model, predicting a majority of 427 vs 411 actual, was one of the best predictions. Though it turns out it had a couple of self-cancelling errors. I recall early on being surprised that The Economist's model was much out of line with most other predictions. But those were mostly MRPs, which did badly.

[dyqik]

Interesting to belatedly read a post mortem of poll predictions that came out in the Economist (July 13). The average of several polls (median prediction) had a Labour lead over the Conservatives of 18%, just before the election, but the election came out at 10%. This is the largest error since 1992. It is well known that polls underpredict the Tories and overpredict Labour, but usually there is some adjustment for this. A large factor is likely to be the poor turnout, at 60% the lowest since 2001, probably with Labour voters not turning out to a greater extent than others.

MRPs did worse than plain voting intention polls at predicting the Labour lead. Though apparently they were quite good at tactical voting, if only they had got the lead right, they would have been better.

The Economist's own model, predicting a majority of 427 vs 411 actual, was one of the best predictions. Though it turns out it had a couple of self-cancelling errors. I recall early on being surprised that The Economist's model was much out of line with most other predictions. But those were mostly MRPs, which did badly.

How much of that error was overpredicting Reform, vs underpredicting Tories?

[IvanV]

Interesting to belatedly read a post mortem of poll predictions that came out in the Economist (July 13). The average of several polls (median prediction) had a Labour lead over the Conservatives of 18%, just before the election, but the election came out at 10%. This is the largest error since 1992. It is well known that polls underpredict the Tories and overpredict Labour, but usually there is some adjustment for this. A large factor is likely to be the poor turnout, at 60% the lowest since 2001, probably with Labour voters not turning out to a greater extent than others.

MRPs did worse than plain voting intention polls at predicting the Labour lead. Though apparently they were quite good at tactical voting, if only they had got the lead right, they would have been better.

The Economist's own model, predicting a majority of 427 vs 411 actual, was one of the best predictions. Though it turns out it had a couple of self-cancelling errors. I recall early on being surprised that The Economist's model was much out of line with most other predictions. But those were mostly MRPs, which did badly.

How much of that error was overpredicting Reform, vs underpredicting Tories?

Unfortunately they just have a rather small printed chart, not a data table. By eye it looks like the under-prediction of the Tories was about 3-4 times the over-prediction of Reform.

[IvanV]

It seems that one of Reform's MPs is one of those "paper" candidates. So let's say hello to James McMurdock, who is now a bit more than a cardboard cutout, he's the MP for Basildon South and East Thurrock, by 98 votes. The story as it is told, is that after joining the party he received an email asking if anyone wanted to stand, as they were short of candidates.

He wasn't as invisible as some paper candidates. He did actually campaign to some extent. He spent £400 on 20,000 leaflets, which he then had to spend many hours overstamping as it omitted some legally required information. He did actually grow up in Basildon. That adds up to enough to become the Reform MP for Basildon South and East Thurrock.

[Grumble]

Getting the most votes adds up to enough to be the MP

[El Pollo Diablo]

A small mention to the fact that the Tories in 2024 got fewer votes (6,827,311) than the Lib Dems in 2010 (6,836,248). Comfortably the lowest Tory vote total since 1923. In 1924 they managed 7,424,922 votes despite the electorate being only 21.6m people.

Also a mention to the Labour vote total (9,704,655) - lower than 2017 and 2019 but higher than 1983, 2005, 2010 and 2015. Labour's highest vote total remains the 1951 General Election (which they lost).

[dyqik]

Getting the most votes adds up to enough to be the MP

Although not getting most of the votes.

[Grumble]

Getting the most votes adds up to enough to be the MP

Although not getting most of the votes.

That’s never been necessary, and indeed is exceptionally rare.

[dyqik]

Getting the most votes adds up to enough to be the MP

Although not getting most of the votes.

That’s never been necessary, and indeed is exceptionally rare.

Obviously, but three and four way splits letting the far-right in are particularly vexing.

[Martin_B]

Although not getting most of the votes.

That’s never been necessary, and indeed is exceptionally rare.

Obviously, but three and four way splits letting the far-right in are particularly vexing.

The landslide nature of this election seemed to be due to a significant split of the right to the far-right, though. If Farage does end up trying to take over the Tories, I would hope that someone reminds him that Reform is responsible for quite a few of the losses (and Farage's views and dragging the Tories to the right responsible for even more!).

[Beaker]

Clacton Reform candidate shocked to discover lying fascist is fascist and lies.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... acton-seat

[Sciolus]

Hopefully they also remind them what 14 years of Tory government has achieved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKAeO-5saqQ

At least Sunak gave us the progressive smoking ban to be his legacy. Oh, wait...

I mean, Cameron did a few creditable things to slightly offset his trashing the economy and everything else. I think we had a thread for it, but there's same-sex marriage, killing Blair's crazy ID card plan, stopping Heathrow expansion, increase overseas aid, probably a couple more things I've forgotten. But I really can't think of a single thing that May, Johnson, Sunak or the other one did that is to their credit. Nothing at all.

Ooh, ooh, thought of one: the £2 bus fare cap. I hope Labour will keep it on past the end of the year.

[jimbob]

Finding Labour a bit dull? Fear not, the Tory fun factory is gearing up again
John Crace

The good news, though, is that the Conservative fun factory is back up and running. As in, fully dysfunctional. The even better news is that this time the fun comes with no personal jeopardy to the country. Because whatever the outcome, none of it really matters. The Tories are no longer – for the next few years at least – a danger to anyone. Except themselves. They are an irrelevance. They now exist purely as entertainment for entertainment’s sake. An amusing diversion for lovers of political theatre

[IvanV]

At least Sunak gave us the progressive smoking ban to be his legacy. Oh, wait...

I mean, Cameron did a few creditable things to slightly offset his trashing the economy and everything else. I think we had a thread for it, but there's same-sex marriage, killing Blair's crazy ID card plan, stopping Heathrow expansion, increase overseas aid, probably a couple more things I've forgotten. But I really can't think of a single thing that May, Johnson, Sunak or the other one did that is to their credit. Nothing at all.

Ooh, ooh, thought of one: the £2 bus fare cap. I hope Labour will keep it on past the end of the year.

It's a rather crude instrument. Doesn't matter whether the fare would have been £2.10 or £7.40, that's now £2.

Oh yes, and what a surprise given what we know about the last government, the arrangements for paying for it are rather murky. It's what you'd expect in some tinpot corrupt country, not Britain. There's no standard scheme. The government doshed out some money to local authorities for buses, and told them to spend it on a package of measures including the fare cap. I think that some bus companies have remained outside the cap, if they didn't like what they were being offered. So we can't even say what the fare cap is costing us, as it is bundled in with some other stuff. Not even clear how the allocations to local authorities were calculated.

The bus companies rather suspect that the money that the government has been spending could be used rather effectively, for promoting bus usage and maintaining the range of services. I know that because they put out a research contract on it. It is kind of obvious it has to be true, as it is such a crude and chaotic measure.

So I would rather the present government has a quick look at what might be a more effective way of promoting the use of buses, rather than having a policy that is a good soundbite and then rather murkily arranged.