General Election '24

[El Pollo Diablo]

With things as they stand, making those adjustments to the current polling averages points us squarely to almost a repeat of 1997:

1997, in terms of seat numbers, was:
LAB 418
CON 165
LD 46
SNP 6
PC 4

This time, one point added to the Tories and four off Labour from the average gives us:
LAB 413
CON 128
LD 59
SNP 20
PC 4
Green 2
Reform 3

So some differences, but broadly the same. If that's the floor for what lies ahead, I'll be well chuffed with that.

[Stranger Mouse]

Holly Valance donated money to Reform using her Dad’s name. Is that legal?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... l-33082096

Jeremy Hunt and the Tories have accepted some dubious donations

https://x.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/18 ... 84409?s=61

Johnny Mercer appears to have slandered his political opponent

https://x.com/sturdyalex/status/1804172 ... 60035?s=61

[Stranger Mouse]

Some fabulously entertaining coverage from The News Agents here. Worth watching the full 9 minutes.

https://x.com/lewis_goodall/status/1804 ... 01158?s=61

[jimbob]

https://goodlawproject.org/revealed-ris ... fund-role/

The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, sought to “evade” US securities law, a document seen by Good Law Project reveals. The document, filed in litigation in 2008, relates to Mr Sunak’s time working at the Children’s Investment Fund (TCI) hedge fund. You can read it here.

[Lew Dolby]

Holly Valance donated money to Reform using her Dad’s name. Is that legal?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... l-33082096

The questions is "Is Holly Valance or her father on the UK electoral register ??". If not, the donations are illegal or, at least, against Electoral Commission rules.

[monkey]

Holly Valance donated money to Reform using her Dad’s name. Is that legal?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... l-33082096

The questions is "Is Holly Valance or her father on the UK electoral register ??". If not, the donations are illegal or, at least, against Electoral Commission rules.

It's not that she pretended to donate as her father, it's that she used his surname - so Vukadinović, rather than Vallance. I assume this is because it's her government name and the one that would be on the electoral register. She's Australian living in the UK, so I'm pretty sure she'd be eligible to vote (even if she hasn't got UK citizenship), so also allowed to donate. I also don't see why she would try to hide the donation, given how open she is about her support and friendship of Farage (she claims it was her that persuaded him to stand in Clacton).

She's just a very rich person giving the far right money, one of far too many.

[Fishnut]

Not an MP but still a c.nt:

A Conservative councillor in Scotland has destroyed his neighbour's hedge.

"The lady next door was upset to say the least, but the hedge is certified as council property officially and I’ve been snipping away.

"She had the police here yesterday but the sergeant said it's 'case closed'.

“Above all I am allowed to do everything.

“If you want to know any more about me you can Google me.”

So I did.

I came across this from 2017 when he was standing as an independent,

I think most people who have dealt with me, think I’m a straight sort of guy and I am, believing in co-operation and not confrontation, being a doer and not a critic,ever careful not to get my ambitions mixed up with my capabilities, being very approachable and having a strong work ethic, encouraging honesty and transparency at all times, with an assertive voice.

Really living his values here.

BTW, he's been charged with vandalism.

[Stranger Mouse]

Holly Valance donated money to Reform using her Dad’s name. Is that legal?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... l-33082096

The questions is "Is Holly Valance or her father on the UK electoral register ??". If not, the donations are illegal or, at least, against Electoral Commission rules.

It's not that she pretended to donate as her father, it's that she used his surname - so Vukadinović, rather than Vallance. I assume this is because it's her government name and the one that would be on the electoral register. She's Australian living in the UK, so I'm pretty sure she'd be eligible to vote (even if she hasn't got UK citizenship), so also allowed to donate. I also don't see why she would try to hide the donation, given how open she is about her support and friendship of Farage (she claims it was her that persuaded him to stand in Clacton).

She's just a very rich person giving the far right money, one of far too many.

bl..dy Hell I missed that. The article is quite misleading unless you ensure you read right down.

[Stranger Mouse]

f.cking Hell. Conservative chief data officer investigated after allegedly placing dozens of election bets.

IMG_0753.jpeg (262.99 KiB) Viewed 2012 times

[bob sterman]

f.cking Hell. Conservative chief data officer investigated after allegedly placing dozens of election bets.IMG_0753.jpeg

This is going to be more widespread. I think the date and when Sunak would announce it was quite widely known.

I know of some Tory MPs - that in the days right before Sunak's announcement - very conveniently (for the first time anyone remembers) sent letters to constituents on House of Commons stationary telling them about something they had supposedly recently achieved for their constituents.

Something they could not have done days later once the election had been announced. Wouldn't be surprised if some of these had a punt at the same time.

[jimbob]

f.cking Hell. Conservative chief data officer investigated after allegedly placing dozens of election bets.IMG_0753.jpeg

This is going to be more widespread. I think the date and when Sunak would announce it was quite widely known.

I know of some Tory MPs - that in the days right before Sunak's announcement - very conveniently (for the first time anyone remembers) sent letters to constituents on House of Commons stationary telling them about something they had supposedly recently achieved for their constituents.

Something they could not have done days later once the election had been announced. Wouldn't be surprised if some of these had a punt at the same time.

This would be so on-brand for the tail end of this government if the thing that sinks them and gets out of the political bubble is a story of minor venality worth several thousand pounds not hundreds of millions.

[Stranger Mouse]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... -designers

Tory MPs paid £100,000 of public funds to party’s in-house web designers
Exclusive: Conservatives including Hunt and Truss used Bluetree for websites and claimed costs as expenses

[Tristan]

Who had Bob Geldof supporting a Tory MP on their General Election bingo card? https://x.com/andrewmitchmp/status/1804194167511232691?

[bob sterman]

Who had Bob Geldof supporting a Tory MP on their General Election bingo card? https://x.com/andrewmitchmp/status/1804194167511232691?

So that Bob (not this one) says he votes based on what he thinks is right "first for his family".

Not so interested in the "world outside your window" after all are you Bob?

I thought "tonight thank god it's them instead of you" was meant to be paradoy/sarcasm/irony. It's clearly become part of Bob's actual manifesto.

[headshot]

That’s my dad’s MP. He’ll probably retain his seat.

This is also the MP that had a run-in with police at the gates of Downing St. “Gategate”

[El Pollo Diablo]

Interesting little snippet of analysis I've just spotted.

The Tory vote between different pollsters is quite volatile - in the last week, the lowest is 18% support (Redfield & Wilton, Lord Ashcroft) and the highest is 28% (More in Common MRP implied voting intention). Similarly, the range for Reform UK is wide - the lowest is 8% support (More in Common MRP) and the highest is 20% (Whitestone Insight). For Labour the range is 36% to 44% in the last week.

If you add together the progressive vote for nationwide parties (Lab + LD + Green) and the regressive vote (Con + Reform), the numbers are much more stable. In the last week, the progressive vote adds up to an average of 58% support, with a range of just six points - 55% to 61%. The evil vote adds up to an average of 36.7% support, with a range of just 34% to 40%.

So where we seem to be landing is that on election day itself, the proportion of people who want to vote for parties which have a positive vision for the UK is fairly stable at about three-fifths, whilst the proportion of people who want to vote for c.nts is just under two-fifths. The question is how the split goes. I'd not be surprised if Labour lose a bit to the Literal Democrabs and Greens, but the Reform/Tory decision will be the key one.

[IvanV]

That’s my dad’s MP. He’ll probably retain his seat.

This is also the MP that had a run-in with police at the gates of Downing St. “Gategate”

And eventually paid out £80k in libel damages in the endgame of that.

While having a few other blemishes on his career, Andrew Mitchell is at least one of the relatively few moderate conservatives still surviving. A mostly liberal voting record, and voted against Brexit.

Much as in general I don't wish the Conservative party well, if the moderates are ever get the party back, which I think is probably a good for us, it will need people such as him still to be in parliament. The One Nation conservatives claim to be a third of the current parliamentary party, but don't publish a list. Many notable ones, like David Gauke, Dominic Grieve, did not survive the post-Brexit purge of moderates. Then there's the chance of re-election. Jesse Norman (Hereford), Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) and Damian Green (Ashford) come to mind. Those four all seem to have a 30%+ chance of re-election on Electoral Calculus, which has 76 Tory seats as its central case, and so they might well survive if the Tories are getting maybe 120+ seats. But in general moderates have had to keep heads below the parapet of late, so aren't very prominent. I think it has been said that the places with higher chance of re-election are less likely to be the moderates.

[lpm]

So where we seem to be landing is that on election day itself, the proportion of people who want to vote for parties which have a positive vision for the UK is fairly stable at about three-fifths, whilst the proportion of people who want to vote for c.nts is just under two-fifths. The question is how the split goes. I'd not be surprised if Labour lose a bit to the Literal Democrabs and Greens, but the Reform/Tory decision will be the key one.

The Evils compete against each other.

Labour, LibDem and Green are doing an OK job of organising themselves. Round my way at least. Zero from Labour and Green. The Labour guy put out a little statement of Facebook but doesn't communicate. The Green candidate's twitter account is dormant.

[Woodchopper]

Labour is directing its activists away from Conservative-held seats targeted by the Liberal Democrats into constituencies far from their homes, a strategy that is likely to maximise Tory losses in the south of England.

Volunteers in Somerset have been told to travel more than 80 miles to Plymouth, while London activists have been advised to ignore Lib Dem targets in the capital’s south-west, data from the Labour campaign website shows.

The data suggests Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has diverted his party’s army of door knockers away from roughly 80 Tory-held seats that the Lib Dems have focused on trying to take at the July 4 general election.

The effect is that the two opposition parties have minimised the resources they spend fighting each other and focused their energies on inflicting losses on UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives.

[...]

Labour and the Lib Dems have long denied that they are engaged in any kind of electoral pact as they battle to unseat the Tories after 14 years in government, with Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey explicitly ruling out any such deal in September last year.

But their focus on different Tory-held seats may mean that Labour and Lib Dem votes are extremely efficiently distributed this year — meaning they need fewer voters to prevail in their target seats in the UK’s winner-takes-all electoral system.

David Cutts, a professor of political science at the University of Birmingham, said he did not believe there was any kind of formal agreement between the two parties, but there did appear to be a “nod and a wink in terms of working together” to achieve their ambition of “killing the Tories off”.

https://www.ft.com/content/f60a0cfb-d2e ... 7839056c95

[Fishnut]

I can definitely say that here there's no coordination between Labour and LibDems, and there's been no discussion of one.

[Woodchopper]

So where we seem to be landing is that on election day itself, the proportion of people who want to vote for parties which have a positive vision for the UK is fairly stable at about three-fifths, whilst the proportion of people who want to vote for c.nts is just under two-fifths. The question is how the split goes. I'd not be surprised if Labour lose a bit to the Literal Democrabs and Greens, but the Reform/Tory decision will be the key one.

The Evils compete against each other.

Labour, LibDem and Green are doing an OK job of organising themselves. Round my way at least. Zero from Labour and Green. The Labour guy put out a little statement of Facebook but doesn't communicate. The Green candidate's twitter account is dormant.

A realignment might mean that the UK has a much more European style political landscape which doesn't need the broad church Conservative party of old. If so the different parties would look like:

- Radical right - Faragists, either Reform or what's left of the Conservatives

- Pro-business, fiscal centrist and individual liberty - Lib Dems as they were under the coalition government.

- Social democrats - Starmer or Blairist Labour

- Greens

- Nationalists

- Radical left - Corbynists and marxists

Obviously the FTPT electoral system has encouraged broad church parties. But it wouldn't have to so long as the different parties hate each other, and at least some could get enough regional concentration to win seats (eg the remaining Tory shires). In the long run such a realignment would probably need electoral reform to make it permanent.

[lpm]

Doing the maths, even if 50/50 evil/good then a distribution of 80-15-5 gets a majority vs 60-40

[Woodchopper]

I can definitely say that here there's no coordination between Labour and LibDems, and there's been no discussion of one.

Certainly, and that's emphasized in the article. Looks more like interests which align than a coordinated policy by the two.

[dyqik]

https://x.com/jpxan71/status/1805339301 ... DbLUQ&s=19

[lpm]

I can definitely say that here there's no coordination between Labour and LibDems, and there's been no discussion of one.

Certainly, and that's emphasized in the article. Looks more like interests which align than a coordinated policy by the two.

Self organisation can emerge even without coordination.

In nature it is due to the flow of resources. The same applies here. When there are resource constraints, e.g. Greens starved of money, then self organisation begins to occur.