General Election '24

[Brightonian]

There's a lot of traffic on SM speculating that she is the girlfriend of a Farage aide.

There was a suggestion that it was someone called Hewertson, who does work for Reform, she's denied it and was seen elsewhere (campaigning for another candidate) at the time when the young woman was supposed to be in custody.

Doesn't rule it out - but not the one that was first suggested.

The Mirror are saying it's not Hewertson but someone named Victoria Thomas-Bowen who has supported Corbyn in the past and has been arrested: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... w-32960862

[tenchboy]

BBC Vid of the event
on which you can freeze/frame by frame
1. Its all over in less than a second
2. Grinning man was grinning before but not after
3. Chappie in blue with back to camera and lanyard was filming her before she threw.

[monkey]

I dunno, getting a record because of Nifel Garage seems like a silly thing to do

True, it's not the democratic way, but...

1. I'm not sure it gave him extra publicity - he couldn't have had much more publicity today, what with being on the front pages, being interviewed on the radio, and seemingly every journalist there could taking a day trip to Clacton. Maybe the Greens could organise a cream pieing to get Carla Denyer
or Adrian Ramsay on the front pages for a bit?

2. No one was ever inspired to stab or shoot a politician because someone threw a milkshake/egg/flour/cream pie at one, as has been implied by several politicians and pundits. People like Melanie Phillips do that.

[TopBadger]

Phrasing?

[lpm]

So nobody watched the pointless debate then?

[nekomatic]

So nobody watched the pointless debate then?

Watching on catch-up now, but unlikely to make it through the full 70 mins.

[Grumble]

I wanted to do something useful so I went for a run and listened to Skeptics With a K.

[insignificant]

I watched Sewing Bee

[El Pollo Diablo]

So nobody watched the pointless debate then?

I had a rare evening off so I went to the cinema and watched Furiosa. I'm a little conflicted about the film - I like mindless action films and this felt particularly mindless, if I'm honest, and it had some very enjoyable set pieces. That said, it didn't really feel like it moved the story on, and I found myself a little bit irritated this morning really. But Anya Taylor Joy and Thor were excellent.

TBH, even if I'd seen Cats, I still reckon it would have been more enjoyable than watching the pointless debate.

[TopBadger]

I didn't see it... I saw the news on it after it finished and seems it was declared a tie. The clips I saw didn't look great for either.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Tie clips are a difficult thing to get right, it's true

[El Pollo Diablo]

Almost two weeks into the campaign, I thought I'd do an update prior to both the post-debate impact and the post-Farage impact coming through in the polls.

The election was announced on 23rd May. My 14-day average currently spans back to a single poll from Savanta on the 22nd which had the Tories on 27%. Ignore that poll and the 13-day weighted average is 24.1%. On the 23rd, the 14-day weighted average was 23.4%, so the Tories have come up by just under a point in that time. Labour have moved a mighty distance from 44.5% to 44.6%.

However, a few points to note about this. On 9th May, the Tories' average was 23.7%, so they've somewhat reversed a small decline since that point, and then moved a modicum beyond it. They had a slew of bad polls in that mid-May period, and so it's not clear what is a genuine change in voter preference and what is reversion to the mean as they drop out of the moving average. Note also that Labour's average on 9th May was 43.5%, so they've improved by more than the Tories since then.

Another point to note is that a lot of the pollsters who ask "squeeze" questions have increased their polling frequency, so they're showing through more. There have also been a lot of MRPs this week, which I've weighted higher too. The last seven polls I've got in my tracker all show the Tories on more than 24%, but this is largely as a result of assumptions around what Don't Knows will do come election day.

TL;DR - very little change. I'm interested to see whether things move in the next week. Labour's lead was 19.8 points two weeks before the election was announced, 21.2 points on the day of announcement, and it's now 20.4 points.

[discovolante]

I was in the supermarket with Señor von Laté's mum, who has alzheimers and who the entire family could do with a bit of support with. But that isn't going to happen is it Rishi. I don't need to watch no stupid debate!

Anyway, we ended up with more multipacks of crisps than she's ever likely to get through because the supermarket strategically places crisps at multiple points throughout the shop, definitely deliberately in order to catch people with poor memories unawares so they end up buying more. Sneaky.

[monkey]

Ed Davey's taken the "do anything to get a photo" thing too far.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has been fined for speeding after being caught doing 73mph in a 60mph zone on the M1 motorway.

Sir Ed was caught by a speed camera near Caddington, in Bedfordshire.

clicky

[Tristan]

Faiza Shaheen increasingly showing us Labour were right to give her the boot.

Screenshot 2024-06-05 165051.png (418.95 KiB) Viewed 26892 times

[lpm]

Whatever happened to the Popular Front of Judea?

She's over there.

Splitter!

[jimbob]

The Spectator

There are serious issues at stake in this general election and the Tories have just released nonsense figures with fake attribution then given them to newspapers, who took it on trust. I’m not sure that this will help their chances.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/on- ... household/

[shpalman]

Ed Davey's taken the "do anything to get a photo" thing too far.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has been fined for speeding after being caught doing 73mph in a 60mph zone on the M1 motorway.

Sir Ed was caught by a speed camera near Caddington, in Bedfordshire.

clicky

I'm surprised the camera even registered that someone was there.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Poll lol - YouGov have just released the first partly-post-Farage poll. Shows Reform on 17%, Tories on 19%.

Thing is, this is with a change in approach to the figures, which is mostly at the expense of the Labour lead (the new methodology shows Labour on 40%): they're running their results from polling 2,000 people through their MRP model. If they'd stuck to the old methodology, it'd show Reform and the Tories both on 18% (and Labour on 45%).

Now, obviously, the rise of the far right is only temporarily and modestly amusing, but for now I'll let people dream a little dream of the future...

[lpm]

Now, obviously, the rise of the far right is only temporarily and modestly amusing, but for now I'll let people dream a little dream of the future...

It's almost impossible to get Reform to be >4 seats, well behind Conservatives, no matter how much of a lead you give Reform in voting %. Well, until you give Reform crazy high numbers.

[Woodchopper]

Now, obviously, the rise of the far right is only temporarily and modestly amusing, but for now I'll let people dream a little dream of the future...

It's almost impossible to get Reform to be >4 seats, well behind Conservatives, no matter how much of a lead you give Reform in voting %. Well, until you give Reform crazy high numbers.

At least using that model the tipping point appears to be at about 24-25% for reform. At that point the Tories are down to 4th and Reform and the Liberals are vying to be the opposition.

But as far as models go we’re sailing into uncharted waters. So perhaps the actual tipping point could be a bit different.

[lpm]

I wonder what percentage of voters have never heard of Reform.

Plenty of people will vote Conservative because they've always voted Conservative.

UKIP got 13% in the 2015 General Election and were a lot more established than Reform. I suspect 13% is the upper limit in 2024. Money and leaflets and ground game matter. Inexperienced amateurs with little local constituency knowledge are up against the Tory Party machine with a big (albeit elderly) membership.

Sunak & Co should stick with the basics - keep on whipping up fear of Labour, lie about taxes, enlist the tabloids to run scare stories. Ignoring Reform is the way to go.

[jimbob]

https://stopthetories.vote/

Now has recommendations for many seats

[Grumble]

For the first time for a very long time I have received a Labour pamphlet. Also seen some Labour activity on local Facebook page - led to someone complaining that Facebook was not a political platform!

[Sciolus]

I wonder what percentage of voters have never heard of Reform.

Plenty of people will vote Conservative because they've always voted Conservative.

UKIP got 13% in the 2015 General Election and were a lot more established than Reform. I suspect 13% is the upper limit in 2024. Money and leaflets and ground game matter. Inexperienced amateurs with little local constituency knowledge are up against the Tory Party machine with a big (albeit elderly) membership.

Sunak & Co should stick with the basics - keep on whipping up fear of Labour, lie about taxes, enlist the tabloids to run scare stories. Ignoring Reform is the way to go.

UKIP didn't have their own TV propaganda channel.