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The 2024 UK General Election - news, speculation and updates

Horrible thought - but what if significant numbers of Reform supporters actually end up voting Tory? Is that beyond the realms of possibility? It would seriously fuck Labour up.
 
Horrible thought - but what if significant numbers of Reform supporters actually end up voting Tory? Is that beyond the realms of possibility? It would seriously fuck Labour up.
going by the polls - even if every REfuker went tory (which wont happen) - labour would probably still win a majority. The resurfacing of the Farge turd in the electoral toilet bowl will likely see the Refuk vote hold up - i still doubt they will get more than 10% though.
 
Meanwhile, Higher Education is in dire straits. The Tories clearly won't do anything and as for Starmer's Labour, I've not heard a peep from them. To date, one institution, Heythrop College, University of London, closed its doors in 2019 after 'strategic partnership' negotiations with St Mary's University in Twickenham collapsed. Many more universities are facing financial ruin and possible closure.
The Conservatives underlined their indifference to universities’ financial plight by announcing last week that, if re-elected, they would pass a law permitting the Office for Students to close “rip-off” courses with high dropout rates, low job progression and low earnings potential. The party estimated that it could save nearly £900 million this way, which it would use to create 100,000 new apprenticeships. The Conservative-supporting Daily Mail said this could amount to one in eight courses being closed, currently taken by 130,000 students.

The Labour Party described the plan as “laughable”, but the party has made no announcements on university funding and, on the ground in the sector, and especially in England, there is a growing fear that Braverman and her ilk could get their wish regardless of the election result. The sense of crisis around university finances is growing as the impact of the long-running freeze in the fee cap is exacerbated by high inflation and signs of falling international recruitment amid tightened visa policy.

If you don't have a THES login, you can read the article here.
 
It might possibly reduce their majority to merely being in (high) double figures.
It seems - thinking back to the GE's that I can remember - polls tend to over-estimate the Labour vote. So I always knock a bit off - and then when you consider that much of the Reform support now probably won't translate into actual votes on the day - or into votes for the Tories - I think it might end up being quite close. Which is ridiculous when you consider how absolutely shit the Tories have been.
 
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I imagine the better polling companies factor in the different turnouts by age, party preference and a few other dimensions. However, the one thing they will really be guesstimating will be voter suppression, even though we've had a couple of local elections since the ID rules came in.
 
The government, whoever they are, usually receive a 'bounce' the closer the election gets because we are a truly conservative country that hates change.

This may be the first GE in my memory where that doesn't happen. It still might. But they are so shit it's hard to see where any bounce will come from.
 
The government, whoever they are, usually receive a 'bounce' the closer the election gets because we are a truly conservative country that hates change.

This may be the first GE in my memory where that doesn't happen. It still might. But they are so shit it's hard to see where any bounce will come from.
Dead Cat Bounce save this particular deceased feline is weighted down with concrete blocks.
 
I've already gone into at least 2 elections with plans to celebrate a Tory defeat - and its turned into a misery fest instead. So I'm extremely cautious about polls. Yes you would think the better ones would be more accurate by now but i just think that polling is little better than educated guess work - even these days.
 
I've already gone into at least 2 elections with plans to celebrate a Tory defeat - and its turned into a misery fest instead. So I'm extremely cautious about polls. Yes you would think the better ones would be more accurate by now but i just think that polling is little better than educated guess work - even these days.

It was pretty accurate re the locals.
 
I've already gone into at least 2 elections with plans to celebrate a Tory defeat - and its turned into a misery fest instead. So I'm extremely cautious about polls. Yes you would think the better ones would be more accurate by now but i just think that polling is little better than educated guess work - even these days.
As a matter of interest, which ones? The last election I can remember where the polls got it badly wrong was 1992, where a Labour win was widely expected.

1997, 2001 and 2005 were all predicted to be Labour wins and so it proved.

Nobody was expecting a Labour win in 2010 or 2015.

2017 and 2019 were both predicted to be Tory wins (although 2017 in my view was showing a clear trend towards a hung Parliament).
 
The government, whoever they are, usually receive a 'bounce' the closer the election gets because we are a truly conservative country that hates change.

This may be the first GE in my memory where that doesn't happen. It still might. But they are so shit it's hard to see where any bounce will come from.
That didn't happen in 2017. Even a week before, May was predicted a majority by most polls iirc. Things got better for Labour by the day.

One of the biggest problems is that the most conservative people (the old) are also the most likely to vote. The apathetic match the numbers of the conservative.
 
As a matter of interest, which ones? The last election I can remember where the polls got it badly wrong was 1992, where a Labour win was widely expected.

1997, 2001 and 2005 were all predicted to be Labour wins and so it proved.

Nobody was expecting a Labour win in 2010 or 2015.

2017 and 2019 were both predicted to be Tory wins (although 2017 in my view was showing a clear trend towards a hung Parliament).
Probably wishful thinking then as I was a Labour Party member for the ones i can remember, where i thought Labour would win. I remember the candidate had bought champagne for us to celebrate with in 1987 and we ended up drinking it just so we could get through all the bad news that was coming in.
 
I've already gone into at least 2 elections with plans to celebrate a Tory defeat - and its turned into a misery fest instead. So I'm extremely cautious about polls. Yes you would think the better ones would be more accurate by now but i just think that polling is little better than educated guess work - even these days.

Which 2 elections were those?

Certainly the polls heading up to the last election had it basically bang on, i.e. within the margin of error, my one to watch is Survation, they did well in the last three elections, although they didn't publish their last poll for the 2015 one, because they thought they had cocked-up! :facepalm: :D

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