2024 United Kingdom General Election

[George C.]

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/l...r-this-easter/

[Duncan Gardner]

Heh, all these parties with money to burn...

The Electoral Commission must be rubbing their hands...

No Labour candidate yet. They may take your advice and not bothering

[George C.]

Apparently the case in a lot of seats.

But according to Electoral Calculus, it's more an issue for other parties, given, currently, they're more likely to not win.

[Guy Profumo]

Whereas in Sheffield Central of course, we don't have a Green candidate

Because it seems anything that petulant arseholes can do in the mainstream parties the Greens are more than happy to step up to the plate…


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffi...t_constituency)

[George C.]

Sheffield Central (UK Parliament constituency) - Wikipedia

[Guy Profumo]

Aye

That's the chap

Thanks!

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Opinion polls a bit less cheery than usual in the last few days. As I mentioned before, I always compare any given poll with the previous poll by the same organisation (in order to eliminate the biases of that organisation's methods from my perception of polling trends). The most recent 4 polls listed on the Wiki page below all show significant drops in Labour's lead over the Tories over the last week or so. Specifically:

YouGov - lead down 6 points from 25 to 19 points
More in Common - lead down 3 points from 18 to 15 points
Deltapoll - lead down 5 points from 23 to 18 points
R&W - lead down 6 points from 26 to 20 points

The YouGov poll (an outlier in this regard) also has Reform on 16, which is a new high and pretty scary. There are a lot of cruel-hearted people out there.

Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election - Wikipedia

[Sporting]

Opinion polls a bit less cheery than usual in the last few days

Would you like an historically huge Labour win or simply a significant one? I would even go for "not as horribly cheery as before", such is the direction Starmer is taking his party.

[Patrick Thistle]

It's a tricky one. It would be excellent to see the Tories destroyed. But Labour are a cause for despair at the moment. The polling for Reform is also horrible.

(Edit - although I think the BNP got a 16% vote share once and has since faded into obscurity so this just might be a peak for Reform.)

[Discordant Resonance]

That's the thing - if you play around with Electoral Calculus, Reform's numbers don't win them any seats until they exceed PT's 16%, but utterly shred the Tories' MP total - ideally, the Lib Dems would climb into the 12-14% bracket, which could push them into second due to the weirdness of FPTP, but hard to see what would keep the Labour majority in "manageable" proportions.

[Discordant Resonance]

In one example I fed in:

Lab 42%
Con 18%
Ref 16%
Lib Dem 14%
Green 7%

and ended up with:

Lab 496
Lib Dem 69
Con 42
Plaid 4
Green 2
Reform 1
NI 18

[ursus arctos]

PT, this indicates that the high water mark of the BNP's performance in parliamentary elections was 1.9%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...gdom_elections

[George C.]

In one example I fed in:

Lab 42%
Con 18%
Ref 16%
Lib Dem 14%
Green 7%

and ended up with:

Lab 496
Lib Dem 69
Con 42
Plaid 4
Green 2
Reform 1
NI 18

SNP?

I could live with that result, at least for a while...

[Patrick Thistle]

PT, this indicates that the high water mark of the BNP's performance in parliamentary elections was 1.9%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party_election_results#United_Kin gdom_elections

Overall, but in individual seats it was as high as 16%.
Reform aren't going to get 16% in every seat. (Polling isn't the same as performance)

BNP vote shares
2001 - the BNP secured their best ever general election result (to that point) in Oldham WestandRoyton where party leader Nick Griffin secured 16.4% of the vote.

2005 - share of votes ranged from 0.8% to 17.0%. In total 34 BNP candidates polled 5% or more and saved their deposit.

2010 - 73 BNP candidates polled 5% or more and saved their deposit.

[Nocturnal Submission]

PT, this indicates that the high water mark of the BNP's performance in parliamentary elections was 1.9%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...gdom_elections

The BNP got 16.9% in Barking in the 2005 GE and was just 28 votes shy of 2nd place, but their vote was always very localised and never significant in terms of the national picture. I'm not sure what its high water mark in opinion polls was but very low single digits would be my guess.

The party's performance in the 2009 EU election was probably when it peaked.

[George C.]

Except they would project themselves as closer to 'Ukrap' than the Nazis wannabes...

Yeap, I know etc.

[ursus arctos]

It makes no sense to me to compare nationalolling to votes in individual constituencies, but maybe that's just me.

Indeed, one issue I have with the likes of Electoral Calculus is that it doesn't account for tactical voting, which would seem to be on the increase.

[Patrick Thistle]

It's more.important to look at individual constituencies imo, because you get nowt for your national vote share in a FPTP system.

We don't know the Reform vote share yet. Just the polling which puts them at 16%, which coincidentally is about the high water mark any BNP candidate actually got in an individual constituency. (There's no way the BNP ever polled that high on a national poll.)

If Reform got 16% in every seat it wouldn't be enough to win any. It might be enough to torpedo the Tories in every constituency though. (If we assume all their voters are disaffected Tories along with the tiny number of knobs who always vote for the furthest right option.)

Its unlikely to be a uniform 16% if they actually get 16%. We don't know what the range of voting will be but let's say there's a 50% deviance off their 16% average. That's a vote share of between 8% and 24% in individual constituencies. That puts them into potentially seat-winning territory.

[Patrick Thistle]

And I'd add that the BNP was capable of getting 16% vote share in some constituencies not that long ago. And has since disappeared in all but name. Reform are doing better than expected now but might be an irrelevance by 2029/30.

[ursus arctos]

Thank you. I find all that quite well argued.

I still remain to be convinced that Reform will field candidates in every constituency.

[George C.]

They claim to already have the numbers.

[San Bernardhinault]

I don't know which is better: complete destruction of the Tories but zero checks on Starmer's worst tendencies; or a hung parliament which would require a large Tory presence.

Both have their upsides, but also very obvious downsides.

I, of course, expect the worst possible outcome, which is a 100 seat Labour majority with no checks on Starmer but still enough of a Tory party that it could recover, and a large vote for Reform.

That said, I don't view Reform's possible 10% vote as particularly different to UKIPs in 2015. Britain's always had a group of people willing to vote for nationalist far right parties. The media has worked hard to give them a platform and make them seem respectable over the last 20 years so now people don't feel so embarrassed voting for them in the way that they may have done for the BNP or NF. Which is why it's nationally 10% rather than 3%. That said, I'm not actually convinced the voters won't "come home" when push comes to shove, as tends also to happen in US elections where lots of people say they'll vote for third party candidates a year or two out from a general but as it gets closer that number begins to shrink dramatically.

[Guy Profumo]

In one example I fed in:

Lab 42%
Con 18%
Ref 16%
Lib Dem 14%
Green 7%

and ended up with:

Lab 496
Lib Dem 69
Con 42
Plaid 4
Green 2
Reform 1
NI 18

Fed into what?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I'm gently encouraging mad racist old GB News lovers of Farage to vote Reform, go ahead, it's only taking votes away from the Tories. Unless it means they actually look like they're going to actually start taking seats in their own right, which is possible in Blackburn, Burnley or Surrey.

[Duncan Gardner]

In one example I fed in:

Lab 42%
Con 18%
Ref 16%
Lib Dem 14%
Green 7%

and ended up with:

Lab 496
Lib Dem 69
Con 42
Plaid 4
Green 2
Reform 1
NI 18

And 18 SNP?