The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[Chindie]

Good luck voting in the next election. Do you want to vote for a bunch of bastards who have spent a decade stamping on the country's face, or a bunch of bastards who stabbed their party in the heart because they didn't like it's leadership and have absolute disdain for anyone that was supportive of it, using the grimmest and grimiest allegations to salt the earth beneath them.

In the blue corner, a cavalcade of words removed. In the red corner, a cavalcade of words removed. Separated by a fag paper.

Spoilt ballot it is.

[ml1dch]

20 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Corbyn not standing as a Labour party candidate at the next election.

 

 

That's not really "news" is it (with any snark directed towards the BBC, rather than you)?

He doesn't have the Labour whip, there's been no sign that was going to get it back and the selection process for parliamentary candidates in all seats is happening at the moment.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

Separated by a fag paper.

The Guardian 

[Wainy316]

He'll still be winning the seat.  Probably with an increased majority.

[The Fun Factory]

22 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

He'll still be winning the seat.  Probably with an increased majority.

Running as an independent rarely works even if you are a long-established MP. Frank Field tried to do that but lost his seat of over 40 years, even though he was a brexiter in a vote leave area. Previously he had a 25,000 odd majority.

Edited February 15, 2023 by The Fun Factory

[ml1dch]

19 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

He'll still be winning the seat.  Probably with an increased majority.

He'll do much better than most people would in his situation. Still won't win it though I reckon. 

[pas5898]

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

Good luck voting in the next election. Do you want to vote for a bunch of bastards who have spent a decade stamping on the country's face, or a bunch of bastards who stabbed their party in the heart because they didn't like it's leadership and have absolute disdain for anyone that was supportive of it, using the grimmest and grimiest allegations to salt the earth beneath them.

In the blue corner, a cavalcade of words removed. In the red corner, a cavalcade of words removed. Separated by a fag paper.

Spoilt ballot it is.

Next election will be a hung parliament regardless. The winner will depend on who wants to deal with their devil.

Farage will almost certainly appear with a party who will promise to "stop the boats", wave British flags, stop grooming gangs etc, taking many of the disillusioned harder right Tories and some of the swing voters (particularly the working lower class).

Labour need to be centrist to win the next election with a majority, which means those more left leaning will move over to the Greens or even the dems.

[ml1dch]

3 minutes ago, pas5898 said:

Next election will be a hung parliament regardless. The winner will depend on who wants to deal with their devil.

What do you think is going to change to turn the current 20 point Labour poll leads into the sort of territory which would result in a hung parliament (5-7 point Labour leads)?

Edited February 15, 2023 by ml1dch

[Jareth]

With the SNP looking weak with Sturgeon's departure it could just be that Starmer's a very lucky man - if Labour were headed to a big win it could just be that some of those Scottish seats are now back in play, and the win could be even bigger.

[The Fun Factory]

19 minutes ago, pas5898 said:

Next election will be a hung parliament regardless. The winner will depend on who wants to deal with their devil.

Farage will almost certainly appear with a party who will promise to "stop the boats", wave British flags, stop grooming gangs etc, taking many of the disillusioned harder right Tories and some of the swing voters (particularly the working lower class).

Labour need to be centrist to win the next election with a majority, which means those more left leaning will move over to the Greens or even the dems.

Farage is finished as a political act. He has never got close to winning a parliament seat anyway.  Labour need to form an informal pact with the libdems to focus on taking the tory seats in the south and in the north.

[pas5898]

3 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

What do you think is going to change to turn the current 20 point Labour poll leads into the sort of territory which would result in a hung parliament (5-7 point Labour leads)?

It's a poll. IIRC the majority thought the Corbyn election was going to be closer than it was which turned out to be a disaster for Labour.

Secondly, Farage hasn't appeared yet who will take a portion of the disillusioned Tories + quite a bit of the lower working class.

 

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Labour need to form an informal pact with the libdems to focus on taking the tory seats in the south and in the north.

Current polling says they don't need to do this at all (by a big margin)

Also, it is constitutionally impossible for Labour to have a formal electoral pact in a UK General Election, their constitution states that they must contest every mainland UK seat

[bickster]

16 minutes ago, pas5898 said:

It's a poll. IIRC the majority thought the Corbyn election was going to be closer than it was which turned out to be a disaster for Labour.

Secondly, Farage hasn't appeared yet who will take a portion of the disillusioned Tories + quite a bit of the lower working class.

 

It's literally hundreds of polls over months and months, they all pretty much give the same picture within a margin of error. There isn't a single poll published in the last 6 to 12 months that indicates a hung parliament

And the Labour lead in those polls is unprecedented

[ml1dch]

32 minutes ago, pas5898 said:

It's a poll. IIRC the majority thought the Corbyn election was going to be closer than it was which turned out to be a disaster for Labour.

All the stuff that @bickstersaid, plus every by-election result over the last year or so has matched the polling pretty much perfectly (actually - I think the earlier ones like the Lib Dems taking Paterson's seat the polls over-estimated the Tory support). So while you can't use a by-election result to predict the result of a General Election, you can use it to see if the polling methodology is accurate. 

And the polling for the 2019 election was pretty accurate as well. Most said low-mid 40s for the Tories and low-mid 30s for Labour pretty much from the moment Johnson took over from May. And the result matched that polling, again pretty much perfectly.

Edit - as for Farage, if that happens it doesn't make a hung parliament more likely it makes complete Tory annihilation more likely. The last time a Farage-led party seriously took on the Tories in a national election, the Tories ended up with 9% of the total vote. Reform peeling off another 2-3% of the Tories' right flank doesn't mean Labour are missing out of 2-3% of voters, it means that a Tory who would otherwise get a narrow win is denied it because that 2-3% isn't voting for them.

Edited February 15, 2023 by ml1dch

[The Fun Factory]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

Current polling says they don't need to do this at all (by a big margin)

Also, it is constitutionally impossible for Labour to have a formal electoral pact in a UK General Election, their constitution states that they must contest every mainland UK seat

I said informal. In the past few years, polling has consistently overestimated the polling for progressive parties. They require a massive swing just to get a small majority due to the damage that Corbyn inflicted.  There are some remain leaning seats in the south that with a bit of a nudge the libdems could get back if Labour does not campaign hard- places like Cheltenham for example. Labour needs to focus on gaining the old red wall seats back and some of the floating marginals they have lost down the years. Simliar thing happened in 97.

[blandy]

The polls pretty much ask “if there was a general election today, which party would you vote for”. The general election won’t be for another, what 8 or 9 months minimum, probably longer away than that. Just a point of pedantry really. I’m not sure they are evidence of how anything will turn out in 12 months time, or whenever, more an indication of the current state of everything.

[ml1dch]

35 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Farage is finished as a political act. He has never got close to winning a parliament seat anyway.  

He doesn't need to. He just needs to take the Reform polling from a steady 4% to a steady 8%.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

The polls pretty much ask “if there was a general election today, which party would you vote for”. The general election won’t be for another, what 8 or 9 months minimum, probably longer away than that. Just a point of pedantry really. I’m not sure they are evidence of how anything will turn out in 12 months time, or whenever, more an indication of the current state of everything.

8 or 9 months puts it winter / Christmas this year when it doesn’t legally need to be until January 2025.

My guess is more like 15 months time. More time gives the tories more chance to ‘normalise’ themselves and put more clear blue water between their current leader and the shower of shits that have gone before.

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

I said informal. In the past few years, polling has consistently overestimated the polling for progressive parties. They require a massive swing just to get a small majority due to the damage that Corbyn inflicted.  There are some remain leaning seats in the south that with a bit of a nudge the libdems could get back if Labour does not campaign hard- places like Cheltenham for example. Labour needs to focus on gaining the old red wall seats back and some of the floating marginals they have lost down the years. Simliar thing happened in 97.

It is suspected that there is already an informal agreement if you look at the Labour / LibDem actions in the by-elections so far this parliament. Labour hardly made an effort in North Shropshire, which was hugely significant because they were the traditional second place party, the same was also true in Tiverton and Honiton

Also as @ml1dchcorrectly pointed out the other day, given the current state of the polling, Labour will find it increasingly hard to find seats they shouldn't be targeting that allow the LibDems to beat the Tories in a particular seat. There will be some but not many. Dominic Raab's Esher seat is one of them iirc but on the other hand, Jacob Rhys-Mogg's seat isn't

[ml1dch]

19 minutes ago, blandy said:

The polls pretty much ask “if there was a general election today, which party would you vote for”. The general election won’t be for another, what 8 or 9 months minimum, probably longer away than that. Just a point of pedantry really. I’m not sure they are evidence of how anything will turn out in 12 months time, or whenever, more an indication of the current state of everything.

Summer 2024 is what Greg Hands has hinted to Tory members apparently. And while what you say is true, the "current state of everything" I think is quite useful to predict what might happen. As that state has to improve (I'd say dramatically) to improve the Tory electoral prospects. 

Is enough going to improve (inflation / cost of living / NHS waiting lists / public sector dissatisfaction / a million other things) by a great enough amount, and quickly enough that moves the prevailing mood which just appears to be "time for a change".

That's before you consider that things could get worse for them, not better. Two months of partygate relevations across March and April at the Privileges Committee to remind people how much they didn't like Johnson, only to see him come back as leader after the disastrous May local elections? 

Lots of stuff could happen, but short of Russia declaring war on the UK or Labour having the biggest implosion of their lives I'm not sure I'd be betting on those changes being favourable for Sunak et al. 

Edited February 15, 2023 by ml1dch