The 2024 UK General Election - news, speculation and updates

[chilango]

I wonder if the departures of Sturgeon and Lucas are going to end up having an impact? In different ways a clear indication of the limits of electoral politics.

I'd say the Greens will lose Brighton now so their narrative changes from adding to their MP to trying get one somewhere else. Bristol? But will be interesting to see how much momentum Lucas's withdrawal costs them.

I also wonder if the SNP have run out of steam? Scottish posters might well correct me but I can see Labour picking back up a few seats from them as the Parliamentary road to Independence has been exposed.

Both of these will aid Labour who are already positioned as the next winners. But I fear the "sensible pundits" will paint this as a vindication of Starmer's r/w sprint. In turn I also fear we'll see another useless "left of Labour" unity project that'll be founded on poor politics, dodgy figureheads and will pointlessly occupy a bunch of time and energy before everyone falls out and gives up.

The Tories will no doubt go full on NatCon and any of their remaining "moderates" who can't stomach it will fuck off and enjoy their ill gotten gains elsewhere.

Other than that the Lib Dems will probably gain some seats in random places and the media will lap it up.

It's gonna be grim.

 

[DotCommunist]

the coming starm

 

[marty21]

I think they'll retain Brighton - I'm sure the succession process is well advanced and they have a few people who have the potential , Sian Berry is a possible, has a profile, ran for London Mayor, member of the London Assembly, and a Camden Councillor, and used to be co-leader of the Greens. And I think the Greens could end up with 2-3 seats - Bristol, Norwich, Oxford could be good hunting grounds for them. I think the SNP will lose seats, but it won't be a wipe out, they'll still be the biggest Scottish Party. Labour will benefit in Scotland, Tories will be wiped out again there, Lib Dems will win some too.

South of the border - can't see anything other than a big Labour win - the Tories are at the end of the road, much like they were in 1964 and 1997, and Labour were in 2010. They are lurching from crisis to crisis.

 

[belboid]

SNP down to 30 seats according to the poll from a couple of days ago, barely hanging on to largest party up there. No advance predicted for PC either. The Greens will lose Brighton. The libscum will be given a fairly free ride by Labour in many seats to kill the tories, so they could double up.

Could Alba hold on to their seats? No. Could Reform hold on to theirs? No.

Labour majority of 30-70.

 

[mojo pixy]

Burn it down

/idle speculation

 

[kebabking]

Current Scottish posters will provide better information than me, but one of the 'pull factors' the SNP had was an air of moderate competence in the boring day-to-day stuff - you could be undecided/agnostic/indifferent to independence and vote for them simply because you wanted the hospitals to work or the roads to get gritted.

Labour in Hollywood and Labour in Glasgow city council in the 2000's were simply shit at the administration of government, and the SNP - for a good while at least- weren't .

That's changed to an extent - but it's not just about independence.

 

[MickiQ]

It's all at a bit a wet finger in the wind but generally I agree with all this.
Labour will win with a decent sized if not extragavant majority (Red Wall Tories are definitely an endangered breed)
LibDems will have a good election don't think they will get back to where they were before the Coalition but can see them with 20 to 30 seats easy.
SNP will still be the biggest party in Scotland owing to the complete lack of any real opposition but will lose some seats
Greens will lose Brighton I have a feeling that Lucas will go down in history as their only MP unless there is constitutional reform going forward.
Tories will get hammered losing votes even in seats they keep. Things don't look good for them at the moment but they are very good at winning elections, there is a year to go and they are the party in power so they are in a position to try and rig the game.

 

[platinumsage]

Surely the most predictable GE in terms of who will form the next government since 2005?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I think chilango has got it about right. Depressing as fuck. Anyway, back to the culture war...

 

[Sasaferrato]

I don't think that Labour will win an outright majority. Starmer is an empty suit with a bad haircut and zero policies.

I could see a Lab/Lib Dem coalition...

 

[marty21]

I don't think that Labour will win an outright majority. Starmer is an empty suit with a bad haircut and zero policies.

I could see a Lab/Lib Dem coalition...

Lib Dems are idiotic but surely not idiotic enough to make that mistake again - they won't do another formal coalition .

 

[MickiQ]

I can see a Lab/Lib coalition as a possibility (don't think it will be needed though) I think a lot of people who voted LibDem pre the coalition weren't really LibDem voters but anti-Tory voters who realised that Labour didn't have a Scoobies in their constituency. They wouldn't survive another Tory/Lib coalition, the last one nearly killed them. A Lab/Lib coalition may be a lot less controversial.

 

[kebabking]

Lib Dems are idiotic but surely not idiotic enough to make that mistake again - they won't do another formal coalition .

I think they'll be wary, reluctant in fact, to go into another coalition, but I think it should be remembered that it wasn't going into a coalition that killed them, it was going into a coalition with that particular ilk of Tory and enabling the worst of austerity.

If they are faced with either a coalition with Labour, or them and labour watching from the opposition benches as a tory-loon-oddball-DUP coalition just squeaks across the line, they'll jump in with Labour.

 

[marty21]

I think they'll be wary, reluctant in fact, to go into another coalition, but I think it should be remembered that it wasn't going into a coalition that killed them, it was going into a coalition with that particular ilk of Tory and enabling the worst of austerity.

If they are faced with either a coalition with Labour, or them and labour watching from the opposition benches as a tory-loon-oddball-DUP coalition just squeaks across the line, they'll jump in with Labour.

I can't see the Tories winning enough seats to have a sordid coalition deal with the DUP

 

[kebabking]

I can't see the Tories winning enough seats to have a sordid coalition deal with the DUP

At present, no - but there's potentially 18 months between now and counting day. I don't see an avenue for a Tory return to fortune because the hostility to them is visceral and personal - but if a week is a long time in politics, then 18 months is an age.

If it was next week , I'd see the Tories down to 150 seats top end, greens half a dozen, LD's with 30+ and Lab scooping the rest and the SNP halving their seats in Scotland.

But it's not next week.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Much as I think that the current government is well past its 'sell by' date, nothing that Starmer has uttered would make me be inclined to vote Labour.

It is a policy vacuum.

About the only concrete proposal they have made, today they backtracked from.

Labour postpones £28bn green plan as it seeks to be trusted on public finances

Rachel Reeves says fiscal rule is priority as she delays start of promised investment in eco-friendly industry

www.theguardian.com

Starmer doesn't seem to realise that he needs to do more than being 'not a Conservative'.

 

[mojo pixy]

But literally, who else is anyone with leftish leanings going to vote for under FPTP? Starmer's made the calculation and he knows the answer: nobody else. It's labour or more tories. We all know this.

 

[kebabking]

Much as I think that the current government is well past its 'sell by' date, nothing that Starmer has uttered would make me be inclined to vote Labour.

It is a policy vacuum.

About the only concrete proposal they have made, today they backtracked from.

Labour postpones £28bn green plan as it seeks to be trusted on public finances

Rachel Reeves says fiscal rule is priority as she delays start of promised investment in eco-friendly industry

www.theguardian.com

Starmer doesn't seem to realise that he needs to do more than being 'not a Conservative'.

I don't think this is true - simply not being the party of Johnson, Truss, the Mewing Pencil et al is a big draw - the idea that simply by putting your X in a box you can cast this freak show out into the ether, never to kill your granny or hike your mortgage payments again is a strong message.

You seem to think the electorate need something to vote for, I would argue that at 45% or whatever Labour are on, the idea of something to vote against is at least as strong a motivator.

 

[The39thStep]

But literally, who else is anyone with leftish leanings going to vote for under FPTP? Starmer's made the calculation and he knows the answer: nobody else. It's labour or more tories. We all know this.

"Peter Mandelson said to me 'your preoccupation with the working class is wrong. They've got nowhere else to go'."
Peter Hain

 

[chilango]

But literally, who else is anyone with leftish leanings going to vote for under FPTP? Starmer's made the calculation and he knows the answer: nobody else. It's labour or more tories. We all know this.

The Greens? SNP? Plaid Cymru? The Lib Dems? Random Indies?

All will attract votes that could go to a different Labour offer.

The gamble Starmer is taking - and probably correctly - is that it won't be enough people, in enough places to harm him.

 

[chilango]

"Peter Mandelson said to me 'your preoccupation with the working class is wrong. They've got nowhere else to go'."
Peter Hain

I think we need to be careful not to ellide mojo pixy 's "people with leftish leanings" with "the working class".

 

[bluescreen]

But literally, who else is anyone with leftish leanings going to vote for under FPTP? Starmer's made the calculation and he knows the answer: nobody else. It's labour or more tories. We all know this.

This is one of the variables though - low turnout. Voter apathy and even antipathy could skew results in a surprising way.

Btw, how is SNP's "air of moderate competence" looking these days?

 

[kebabking]

This is one of the variables though - low turnout. Voter apathy and even antipathy could skew results in a surprising way.

Btw, how is SNP's "air of moderate competence" looking these days?

That's it, it's not....

 

[existentialist]

I don't think this is true - simply not being the party of Johnson, Truss, the Mewing Pencil et al is a big draw - the idea that simply by putting your X in a box you can cast this freak show out into the ether, never to kill your granny or hike your mortgage payments again is a strong message.

You seem to think the electorate need something to vote for, I would argue that at 45% or whatever Labour are on, the idea of something to vote against is at least as strong a motivator.

That's exactly where I find myself. Round here the only way to get rid of the piece of shit currently, er, "representing" us (Simon Hart MP) is to vote Labour - nothing else would achieve it. I don't much care for the national Labour Party, its leader, or a lot of its policies, but it's not really about what I care or, but about doing what I can to make sure the fucking Tories are kicked to the kerb. Which boils down to "vote Labour"

 

[danny la rouge]

That's it, it's not....

Indeed. And that’s the point. What will happen? Well, their seat tally will go down. How much by? I don’t know, but I think rather than go to Labour (though some will) people are likely to not turn out. So, as bluescreen says, the effect of that is not easy to predict.

I’m unlikely to vote.

 

[skyscraper101]

I don't think this is true - simply not being the party of Johnson, Truss, the Mewing Pencil et al is a big draw - the idea that simply by putting your X in a box you can cast this freak show out into the ether, never to kill your granny or hike your mortgage payments again is a strong message.

You seem to think the electorate need something to vote for, I would argue that at 45% or whatever Labour are on, the idea of something to vote against is at least as strong a motivator.

Yep. I think in virtually every election I've ever voted in I've more been voting against someone getting in than for the person I voted for.

 

[chilango]

Barring extraordinary events I won't be voting Labour.

...but that's * always * been the case for me.

I may vote Green or for a random Indies (were they to stand) depending on the candidate.

...but I'll most likely spoil, as so often the case, depending upon whether I can arsed coming up with a creative slogan/doodle.

Tempted to draw a small spunking cock in one of the boxes just for pathetic lolz of imaging a candidate arguing it should count. I doubt I care enough to do that though.

 

[MickiQ]

Barring extraordinary events I won't be voting Labour.

...but that's * always * been the case for me.

I may vote Green or for a random Indies (were they to stand) depending on the candidate.

...but I'll most likely spoil, as so often the case, depending upon whether I can arsed coming up with a creative slogan/doodle.

Tempted to draw a small spunking cock in one of the boxes just for pathetic lolz of imaging a candidate arguing it should count. I doubt I care enough to do that though.

Wasn't there some case where the guy wrote "Cunt" against all of them except the one he wanted where he wrote "Not Cunt" and his vote was counted towards that person? If you don't actually want one, you'd have to be careful to make sure you drew it against your least disliked option.

 

[kebabking]

Indeed. And that’s the point. What will happen? Well, their seat tally will go down. How much by? I don’t know, but I think rather than go to Labour (though some will) people are likely to not turn out. So, as bluescreen says, the effect of that is not easy to predict.

I’m unlikely to vote.

I think that will depend on the constituency - you have (if you don't mind me saying so) the luxury of getting either an SNP or Labour MP. I know you don't like either, but I think you'd like either a great deal more than you'd like a Tory - but you know that whatever else you'll get, you're not going to get a Tory, and I imagine a LibDem is almost as equally implausible.

I don't have that choice, I either vote labour, or I'll get a Tory (mine is a no mark who was sacked by Theresa May for pesting, and who has been earning £100k on the side every year) I can well see apathy being a thing in places where they simply weigh the not-a-tory vote, but in places where if you don't vote Labour or LibDem, you'll let the Tory back in, i doubt that so many will choose (quite legitimately...) to watch Netflix instead.

 

[belboid]

Wasn't there some case where the guy wrote "Cunt" against all of them except the one he wanted where he wrote "Not Cunt" and his vote was counted towards that person? If you don't actually want one, you'd have to be careful to make sure you drew it against your least disliked option.

That’s a very clear preference though. Now if said voter had written ‘slightly less of a cunt’ in there, or had simply written something slightly less insulting - I’m considering ‘useless pile of piss’ against my Labour candidate - that’s when then the fun starts, as it could be taken either way.