Most of the things that make voters happy or sad, richer or poorer… well… governments have very little power over them. Be in power in a period of peace and prosperity, and the voters thank you and think you a genius (or at least mildly competent). Be there when the Global Financial Crisis comes around, or when Covid hits, or when commodity prices go spiraling up thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… well, they blame you. Arnie said it best:…
If the Tories want to look like a party ready to win a general election. they really need to ditch this melodrama and choose serious people for the leadership and senior roles. Neither Braverman or Badenoch meet the above criteria. To quote Logan Roy you’re not serious people. TSE
Tonight’s result is going to dominate everything in England for the next few days (and potentially longer if England win). Just imagine how stupid the critics of Gareth Southgate must be feeling right now. TSE
A quick update on the 2024 PB Predictions Competition. We now have the result for the UK General Election question which you may remember asked entrants to predict the election outcome: winning party + majority (±10%). Answer: Labour 172 seat majority (±10% range = 155 to 189). Four people guessed the Labour majority to within 10%: @Cyclefree @NickPalmer @TheWhiteRabbit and closest of all @GF2, whose guess was a Labour majority of 180. Under the scoring rules they each get 20…
As the title says, and many here will have gathered from my posts, I am left wing and not in the Labour Party. So you may expect me to be annoyed that Labour have got a massive majority to do with what they wish. And, to some extent, I am. But, when it comes to the actual results of the election and staying up on election night, I was and still am pretty happy – and so were a lot…
This intervention from Suella Braverman makes me think she knows she’s doomed in the Tory leadership contest and is look for a ‘Hail Mary’ moment like this or is looking for an excuse to be kicked out of the Tory party so she can look like a martyr and defect to Reform. Imagine getting triggered by a flag. Some Tories are already asking Sunak to expel Braverman for these comments. One of the reasons why I don’t think being antiwoke…
I wonder if the future of polling in Britan will not be MRPs or the usual national VI polls but sticking to geographical polling. In Scotland the standard voting intention polls largely spotted the repudiation of the SNP at the ballot, and losing a third of your voters counts as a repudiation. I am starting to think the MRPs led to poor resource targeting by some parties which does have an impact. As expected Alba didn’t have any real impact….
I try not to be smug but being a member of the Tories for electoral reform was a lonely business like but seeing more and more Tories embrace electoral reform is encouraging but I wish they had done something about it when the Tories were in power. Much like how the a Tory PM introduced Section 28 to a Tory PM introducing same-sex marriage I suspect a Tory leader will go from defending first past the post to putting in…