The 2024 UK General Election - news, speculation and updates

[MickiQ]

I stayed up all night to watch it back in 1997 and they broadcast Portillo's results live, the look on his face when he realised he had lost his seat was comedy gold. The look on the face of the Labour guy who won (Google tells me it was Stephen Twigg) was even better. He clearly was working on the basis that he was being trained by being given an unwinnable seat. The WTF? impression on his face was just as funny as Portillo's.

 

[skyscraper101]

Lee Anderson also projected to lose his seat

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Lee Anderson also projected to lose his seat

Anderson is 100% toast surely - Refuk won't be winning anything. Even someone as dense as him will be well aware of that.

 

[skyscraper101]

Anderson is 100% toast surely - Refuk won't be winning anything. Even someone as dense as him will be well aware of that.

Yep. Hoping for some good closeup shots of his stupid face when he finally loses it. In ultra high definition.

 

[Elpenor]

I’d still have a Tory MP

 

[brogdale]

I’d still have a Tory MP

But there'd be a better chance that they'd be the leader of HMLO, or at the very least a Shad-Cam member!

 

[Bingoman]

 

[lazythursday]

I stayed up all night to watch it back in 1997 and they broadcast Portillo's results live, the look on his face when he realised he had lost his seat was comedy gold. The look on the face of the Labour guy who won (Google tells me it was Stephen Twigg) was even better. He clearly was working on the basis that he was being trained by being given an unwinnable seat. The WTF? impression on his face was just as funny as Portillo's.

Everyone was so thrilled by this and I had entirely the opposite reaction as I had met Stephen Twigg many times at university and knew he was just as much of a wanker as Portillo. At least Portillo had the decency to reinvent himself as a nice but dim type who likes trains. Stephen is still on the Westminster gravy train, albeit not as an MP.

 

[kebabking]

I'd be interested in seeing an explanation as to why the Survation MRP poll says 99 Tory seats, and why the YouGov MRP poll says 150 - anyone got any views?

(I much prefer the 99 by the way....)

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Can someone with an insight into the local demographics explain the weird rump of tory cunts left guarding Hadrian's wall?

 

[Bingoman]

Can someone with an insight into the local demographics explain the weird rump of tory cunts left guarding Hadrian's wall?

It looks like Scotland which I thought they hated the tories

 

[kebabking]

It looks like Scotland which I thought they hated the tories

Yeah, one English (Berwick and north Northumberland), and the rest are Scotchists.

Scotland likes it's political folklore about how left it is, but the Tories were regularly winning half of the Scottish seats well into the 60's...

 

[Sue]

It looks like Scotland which I thought they hated the tories

Farmers.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yeah, one English (Berwick and north Northumberland), and the rest are Scotchists.

Scotland likes it's political folklore about how left it is, but the Tories were regularly winning half of the Scottish seats well into the 60's...

It’s the seats that were Tory until very recently: the Borders and the North East. If the SNP are going to lose 30 seats, those will go to the party second placed in those seats (another way of looking at it, is they’ll revert to previous holders), and in the Borders and the North East, that the Tories.

In the Central Belt and the Western Isles, that’s Labour.

 

[Sue]

It’s the seats that were Tory until very recently: the Borders and the North East. If the SNP are going to lose seats, those will go to the party second placed in those seats (another way of looking at it, is they’ll revert to previous holders), and in the Borders and the North East, that the Tories.

In the Central Belt and the Western Isles, that’s Labour.

Yep, some of those seats have historically been pretty much always Tory. Hector Munro, Ian Lang etc, beloved of farming types . And then there's the tactical unionist voting too. (There's been some guddling about with constituency boundaries too so not sure what impact that'll have.)

ETA Think the old Liberal bits in the Borders -- like David Steel's old constituency -- may have gone in recentish years with the changes in boundaries.

 

[danny la rouge]

It looks like Scotland which I thought they hated the tories

It’s first past the post. The last time the Tories won the popular vote in Scotland was 1959. But that doesn’t mean nobody is voting Tory. It means that since then, the Tories have not won the popular vote.

If Conservative voters were evenly spread across the whole of Scotland, then they wouldn’t win any seats. But they aren’t: they’re clumped in the farming areas of the Borders and the North East. Which means they can win seats if their opposition in those areas is split. Which is what voters leaving the SNP will look like. (Even if a lot of those stay at home and don’t transfer to another party).

 

[danny la rouge]

So it’s worth remembering that there are two stories here: the collapse of the Tory vote in England, and the collapse of SNP support in Scotland.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Everyone was so thrilled by this and I had entirely the opposite reaction as I had met Stephen Twigg many times at university and knew he was just as much of a wanker as Portillo. At least Portillo had the decency to reinvent himself as a nice but dim type who likes trains. Stephen is still on the Westminster gravy train, albeit not as an MP.

As an aside, Portillo recently did a thing on Andalucía, his family are from there, his dad fled Franco's Spain and came to the UK as a refugee having fought against a fascist regime. Now look at the state of the Conservative party and the way they regard refugees, they've come a long way in the past 1/4 century...

 

[Sue]

So it’s worth remembering that there are two stories here: the collapse of the Tory vote in England, and the collapse of SNP support in Scotland.

'Collapse' seems more appropriate than 'increase' in Labour support. (The latter being a result of the former rather than the other way round.)

 

[MickiQ]

Electoral Calculus is predicting an even bigger Labour vote of 459 seats, I don't think they will get that many but I can't imagine that they are not going to come out of this with at least the same sort of majority that BoZo the Clown got in 2019.
It's also interesting to see that a) the LibDems are predicted to do well, I wonder whether this is because voters have forgiven them for the coalition or just that their hatred for the Tories has become so palpable. It looks like the SNP are heading for a massive kicking as well by the looks of it.

 

[danny la rouge]

It looks like the SNP are heading for a massive kicking as well by the looks of it.

Yes, it’s long been forecast they’ll lose 30 seats. You need to remember the SNP has been the ruling party in Scotland since 2007. And my god have they fallen from Grace.

 

[bluescreen]

Electoral Calculus is predicting an even bigger Labour vote of 459 seats, I don't think they will get that many but I can't imagine that they are not going to come out of this with at least the same sort of majority that BoZo the Clown got in 2019.
It's also interesting to see that a) the LibDems are predicted to do well, I wonder whether this is because voters have forgiven them for the coalition or just that their hatred for the Tories has become so palpable. It looks like the SNP are heading for a massive kicking as well by the looks of it.

I reckon the Lib Dems will do well from tactical voting in hitherto safe Tory seats where they've traditionally come second and people want anyone but Tory.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I reckon the Lib Dems will do well from tactical voting in hitherto safe Tory seats where they've traditionally come second and people want anyone but Tory.

Yeah, mine is Hunt's seat, although Labour came 2nd last time there they won't win, so if folk have had enough of the Tories they'll go yellow vermin instead. Brand new seat, so hard to call it.

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

I reckon the Lib Dems will do well from tactical voting in hitherto safe Tory seats where they've traditionally come second and people want anyone but Tory.

More accurately, the places which have always been anyone except Labour (but now not Tory too because they've had 14 years and fucked everything up).

 

[Sue]

Yes, it’s long been forecast they’ll lose 30 seats. You need to remember the SNP has been the ruling party in Scotland since 2007. And my god have they fallen from Grace.

Was talking to my sister and she feels she's nowhere to go, except maybe Green. Imagine a lot of people'll be feeling like that.

 

[skyscraper101]

Yeah, mine is Hunt's seat, although Labour came 2nd last time there they won't win, so if folk have had enough of the Tories they'll go yellow vermin instead. Brand new seat, so hard to call it.

TBH if it were on a knife edge between Hunt and some lib dem, I'd likely vote lib dem just to be sure. That was my rationale when voting against Zac Goldsmith in Richmond. I'd never otherwise endorse the liberal democrats, but Labour didn't stand a chance anyway and there was no other choice.

 

[BusLanes]

There ate a lot of people this time who feel like they fall into either None Of These Bastards (prob lean Reform, or maybe some Lib Dem), as well as Politically Homeless So Why Not Go Green

 

[cupid_stunt]

There ate a lot of people this time who feel like they fall into either None Of These Bastards (prob lean Reform, or maybe some Lib Dem), as well as Politically Homeless So Why Not Go Green

Because, in all bar 4 seats at most, they haven't got a hope in hell of winning, so if people want to unseat their local Tory, they need to vote for who was in second place last time, be that Labour or the LibDems.

 

[danny la rouge]

Was talking to my sister and she feels she's nowhere to go, except maybe Green. Imagine a lot of people'll be feeling like that.

Yes. Funnily enough someone I know recently won a council by-election in Glasgow for the Greens. (In what will be the Glasgow North constituency at the GE). It was caused by the death of a Labour Cllr and everyone, including her, expected Labour to hold it. It was a “don’t worry, you’re just a paper candidate” moment. If it’s the SNP vote collapsing, then it isn’t going back to Labour in that ward at least: remember, it was a Labour Cllr that died not an SNP one. It’ll be interesting to see if the Labour vote recovers in Scotland as the modelling expects, or if some anomalies are thrown up.

 

[BusLanes]

Because, in all bar 4 seats at most, they haven't got a hope in hell of winning, so if people want to unseat their local Tory, they need to vote for who was in second place last time, be that Labour or the LibDems.

Sure, to be clear this isn't how I see myself.

More of an assessment that there is a cohort of people out there who will vote and they'll vote Green because they see themselves as centrist, have voted for all of the other three parties (or more if you live in Wales or Scotland)and now see the Greens as the only remaining option.