UK Snap Election: 8 June 2017

[Quartz]

@Steophan

The sad thing his fans don’t care.

The conflict in Northern Ireland is beyond the memory of many of the younger these days.

[up_the_junction]

So two new polls also have the gap closing though not to the same extent:

Opinium has the gap at 10, down from 13%, seven days earlier
ComRes has the gap at 12, down from 18%, twelve days earlier

UK PM May's lead narrows after Manchester attack - new polls show

[up_the_junction]

But then … comes the Telegraph:

Labour is now just 6 points behind the Tories with less than a fortnight to go – the smallest gap recorded by pollsters ORB International since the vote was called.

The Tories are on 44 per cent of the vote with Labour on 38. The Liberal Democrats are on 7 while Ukip has collapsed to just 4.

It marks a dramatic tightening of the election race, with the Tories enjoying a 15-point lead over Labour at the beginning of the month.

Driving Labour’s comeback appears to be women voters, who have grown increasingly positive about Mr Corbyn’s party in recent weeks.

Just 31 per cent of women planned to vote Labour in mid-May but that figure has jumped to 40 per cent this week – just a single point behind the Tories.

As much as 40 per cent of the female population now intend to vote for Labour while 41 per cent say they will vote Conservative. It means that Theresa May’s lead among women has dropped by 15 points from a fortnight ago.

Exclusive Telegraph ORB poll: Labour narrows gap to six points as women...

[Quartz]

I doubt it’s anything to do with the sex of either. May’s demonstrated she’s a prat with those stupid policies.

[up_the_junction]

Clarification:

ICM and ComRes tend to show the largest Tory leads because of their demographic based turnout model.

Also, is this completely mad or is it me:

TV Debate: Amber Rudd to represent Tories in BBC general election debate

Home secretary to take part in programme with party leaders after Theresa May refuses to face cameras

Surely Corbyn has to go on. Could this be the moment …
Finally, the poll tracker - yikes!! Poll tracker: How the parties compare - BBC News

[Malden_Capell]

Seems we’re heading back to two-party politics, or at least one-and-a-half.

[PatrickLondon]

Not impossible that Labour is strengthening in their already relatively safe seats and there may not be that many changing hands, albeit with a few surprises.

[up_the_junction]

Except they’re considerably beyond last time.

It’s trite to say but, for example, 40%/40% favours the Tories because there are far more Labour seats where the voter majority is extreme - their 40% would be more concentrated.

Having said that, at 40%/40% the SNP rides over the hill and they’re close enough to socialist to make the difference. Throw in all the bits and pieces - Lib Dem, etc - and BOOM! Maybe that Parliament would not be sustainable …

[Fuzzy_wuzzy]

@up_the_junction

Except they’re considerably beyond last time.

It’s trite to say but, for example, 40%/40% favours the Tories because there are far more Labour seats where the voter majority is extreme - their 40% would be more concentrated.

Having said that, at 40%/40% the SNP rides over the hill and they’re close enough to socialist to make the difference. Throw in all the bits and pieces - Lib Dem, etc - and BOOM! Maybe that Parliament would not be sustainable …

Isn’t this offset by the 20 or so seat advantage Labour has on current boundaries?

[phaemon]

@Baron_Greenback

Quartz, it’s a civic and joyous nationalism. Not like those other nationalisms with their dark undercurrents, oh no.

SNP Policy: Want to encourage further immigration to get more people coming to live in Scotland from all over the world

Labour & Tory Policy: Keep those nasty foreigners out.

You can try all you like to pretend that you don’t know who the bigots are, but it’s clear to see that when the talked about who the UKIP vote would revert to, it was a clear fight between Labour and Tory.

(I notice you find this worthy of comment, where you let a Conservative MP telling a Scottish schoolgirl to “fuck off back to Scotland” pass without comment)

https://randompublicjournal.com/2017/05/16/why-dont-you-fuck-off-back-to-scotland/

[Ludovic]

Coming from America I can’t speak to the patriotism/xenophobia of the relative nationalist parties, but it is plausible that the SNP is less xenophobic than other nationalist parties since they want to remain in the cosmopolitan EU.

[up_the_junction]

@Fuzzy_wuzzy

Isn’t this offset by the 20 or so seat advantage Labour has on current boundaries?

I can’t comment with any insight and probably shouldn’t have opened that can or worms!

I guess if the polls are close on 6th June - taken as a general indicator rather than a firm prediction - pretty much anything can happen, not only because of the particular anomalies mentioned but because of old chestnuts like local and regional variations, plus a bunch of unusual and new factors.

It’s the churniest churn ever

[Quartz]

Abbott has put her foot in her mouth again.

Diane Abbott, who hopes to be in charge of anti-terror operations after next month’s UK general election, has compared her previous support for the defeat of the British army in Northern Ireland to a haircut that is no longer in fashion.

:smack: :smack:

The rest of the article is pretty damning.

[Baron_Greenback]

@phaemon

(I notice you find this worthy of comment, where you let a Conservative MP telling a Scottish schoolgirl to “fuck off back to Scotland” pass without comment)

https://randompublicjournal.com/2017/05/16/why-dont-you-fuck-off-back-to-scotland/

This is bad too. See how that works?

Oh, and that article starts of with:

What do we learn about Tory England and its Englishness when Conservative MPs are roaring at little girls to get back to their own country? Not much. We just get to see the whole thing for what it really is: Pathetic aggressive thuggery.

Equating Englishness with “Pathetic aggressive thuggery”?

[Quartz]

@asterion

Just be glad you only have to deal with two months of fuckwittery and not two years.

Amen.

I find it hilarious that May wanted to go to the same broken system for things like end-of-life care in the US (Medicaid pays for nursing home care, for example, but the state can then take the entire estate to pay it back) and then immediately had to walk it back.

This goes back to what I was saying about the importance we put on a politician being in command of their brief. She didn’t understand the ramifications - both political and financial - of the policy she was proposing.

[up_the_junction]

Fwiw, Matt Singh, the FT’s poll analyst, seems to agree we’re into the unknown:

Polls, including YouGov, that show narrower Conservative leads are those that assign probabilities of voting based wholly or primarily on a respondent’s self-reported likelihood of casting a ballot, meaning that young people make up a far bigger proportion of the likely vote than they have historically.

Those showing wider Conservative leads, such as ComRes and ICM, model turnout based on historical figures for demographic groups. This would have improved accuracy in most previous elections, but risks coming unstuck if behaviour changes markedly.

Accordingly, which of the two approaches provides the more accurate picture depends on whether historical patterns hold, or whether Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has succeeded in persuading younger voters and previous non-voters to participate.

Some have pointed to the surge in applications to register to vote among young people as evidence of increased enthusiasm. This is possible, but the data have only been available for one previous general election, so it is difficult to draw solid conclusions.

As things stand, pollsters are as nervous as politicians

[Quartz]

@Baron_Greenback

Oh, and that article starts of with:

From the ‘About’ page:

I am passionate about social and environmental justice, human rights, liberation theology, and Scottish independence.

(Bolding mine.)

[Quartz]

Apparently Sophie Ridge introduced Kezia Dugdale as the “leader of Scottish Labia” live on Sky. She corrected herself and went very red…

[Quartz]

The (Aberdeen) Press and Journal are saying that there’s a real chance Corbyn could become Prime Minister. They’re also saying that it’s squeaky bum time for Salmond: while he’s still favourite, odds on the Tories winning his seat have shortened to 7/2.

[golffan1963]

@Quartz

The (Aberdeen) Press and Journal are saying that there’s a real chance Corbyn could become Prime Minister. They’re also saying that it’s squeaky bum time for Salmond: while he’s still favourite, odds on the Tories winning his seat have shortened to 7/2.

Again, observing from the states…just getting around to reading the latest info as we are in a holiday weekend here.

From the quote above, it’s amazing to even think that Corbyn could win given the state of things 30 days ago…which brings to mind two questions:

1. Was it a bad idea for May to call this election in the first place? My personal view would be that it was at least understandable given the situation at the time…

2. How bad a campaign are the Tories running? Their manifesto seems to have been a flop, May has gone from “strong and stable” to “weak and wobbly”, and now I see she had to walk back something about senior citizen health care?? (don’t know the details)…

Again, from a far off view, it looks like May is just a terrible campaigner!