The Davey-Starmer “pact” is bad news for the Tories
In my view today’s news about an informal LAB/LD non-aggression pact has always been on the cards given the personalities of the two leaders. Davey wants a clearer run for his party in perhaps 30 CON held seats which mostly voted Remain and Starmer has his eyes on Number 10.
My understanding is that both parties will still be fielding candidates in all the GB seats but will just run token campaigns in seats where the other party is the obvious contender.
Assuming that Sinn Fein continues the practice of not taking up the seats at Westminster that they are likely to win again then the Tories have to confine their losses to less than about 47 in order to remain in government. With a likely struggle for CON in Scotland to hold onto their six seats north of the border and the LDs winning two-thirds of the CON held seats that appear to be part of the “pact” then LAB perhaps needs to make just 20 gains for the Tories to lose their effective majority.
If you put it like this then it looks a lot less daunting for the opposition parties. It is still hard to see how LAB can win a majority. The dramatic loss of 40 LAB Scottish MPs to the SNP at GE2015 makes that very difficult indeed.
This is how the FT is reporting the “pact”
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, has told colleagues that his party must “ruthlessly focus” resources on its target seats in the vote — which must be held by 2024 — leaving the Lib Dems as the main challengers in some seats. Starmer’s allies say that none of Labour’s top target seats features on the Lib Dems’ list of top 30 target seats. “If both parties put resources into where they are most likely to win, you end up with more Labour seats and more Lib Dem seats,” said one…The informal Lib-Lab non-aggression pact taking shape would leave the Lib Dems to lead the anti-Tory fight in many southern seats, while Labour would focus on winning back “red wall” seats in the north and midlands.
On the next general election betting markets another CON majority is rated by punters as a 28% chance. I think that is too high and there is a good case for “laying” the Tories on this market.