General Election 4 May 2017

[Deleted]

Suppose May had called the election for May 4th to coincide with the local elections.

Would the Conservatives have won a landslide?

[carlton43]

Yes.

[Deleted]

Sept 21, 2017 8:14:16 GMT carlton43 said:

Yes.

I'd have done that if I were her.

[carlton43]

The point of a snap election is that it be 'snap'.

If one smells an advantage, go for it straight, not weeks ahead; catch the others napping or knapping.

Never leave time for a new element to develop over time.

It was awful to watch.

[Deleted]

Sept 21, 2017 9:07:59 GMT carlton43 said:

The point of a snap election is that it be 'snap'.

If one smells an advantage, go for it straight, not weeks ahead; catch the others napping or knapping.

Never leave time for a new element to develop over time.

It was awful to watch.

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act means that snap elections simply can't be quite as "snappy" as they used to be.

Unfortunately, an elongated campaign PLUS Mrs May's poor political instincts AND utter incapacity as a campaigner equalled disaster.

Yes, it was awful to watch.

[The Bishop]

To have a May 4 election, it would of course have had to be called significantly earlier than it actually was. There is no reason why the same campaign dynamics couldn't have happened, even if it had been a bit shorter overall (and bear in mind Labour/Corbyn's momentum was disrupted by two terror attacks, which might not have happened in this scenario) A similar GE result to the "real" one would have meant the Tories doing less well in the local elections than they actually did, too.

[Deleted]

The campaign slogan could have been "May the fourth be with you" as opposed to "Strong and stable".

[carlton43]

Sept 21, 2017 10:39:47 GMT @conservativeestimate said:

The campaign slogan could have been "May the fourth be with you" as opposed to "Strong and stable".

Or      'Eric or Little by Little'?

[Jack]

They would certainly have done a lot better, as these statistics for 18-29 year-olds show:

[Deleted]

Its difficult to know. There were signs from the go that TM was struggling. Six weeks was enough tine for the election to get away from May and allow Corbyn to build momentum. Until May 18 though the Tories would have retained their majority it was the Dementia Tax that really did it for them. Even if the manifesto was released on a different date they would have lost their majority imo.

[jigger]

Sept 21, 2017 13:59:28 GMT @priceofdawn said:

Its difficult to know. There were signs from the go that TM was struggling. Six weeks was enough tine for the election to get away from May and allow Corbyn to build momentum. Until May 18 though the Tories would have retained their majority it was the Dementia Tax that really did it for them. Even if the manifesto was released on a different date they would have lost their majority imo.

How could the manifesto have been released on May 18 if the election was on May 4?

Personally I see no reason why the Tories wouldn't have released the same manifesto and run the same campaign as they did in reality so I don't think much would have changed. The only interesting thing would have been the fact that that would (presumably) have been no terror attacks - I think Labour were quite effective at turning the narrative on to austerity and cuts to policing which seemed more potent as a result of the terror attacks.

[markf]

If it had been a 4 week campaign not a 7week campaign , the Tories would won an overall majority

[jigger]

Sept 21, 2017 21:49:32 GMT markf said:

If it had been a 4 week campaign not a 7week campaign , the Tories would won an overall majority

A shorter campaign would certainly have helped the Tories. But I still see no reason why the Tories wouldn't have produced exactly the same manifesto as they did in reality. It was the publication of the Tory manifesto that really changed things. Before that, the Tories still had a landslide lead in the polls.

[swanarcadian]

In retrospect, surely it wouldn't have made much difference.  The campaign would have presumably still panned out the same way as it did in reality, just four weeks earlier.  The Conservatives were always going to get a very decent vote share, whatever the faults of their campaign.  But Corbyn's manifesto would presumably have been identical, galvanizing the young and non-political (and that's my polite description of those sections of the electorate) in exactly the same way.

[jigger]

Sept 22, 2017 20:28:39 GMT swanarcadian said:

In retrospect, surely it wouldn't have made much difference.  The campaign would have presumably still panned out the same way as it did in reality, just four weeks earlier.  The Conservatives were always going to get a very decent vote share, whatever the faults of their campaign.  But Corbyn's manifesto would presumably have been identical, galvanizing the young and non-political (and that's my polite description of those sections of the electorate) in exactly the same way.

What about the (presumable) absence of terror attacks during the campaign on this timetable? Do you think those attacks made any difference to the actual campaign/result - either by exposing potential effects of austerity (as Labour would have had it) or emphasising the need for an experienced leader (as the Conservatives claimed)?

[Deleted]

I do think the Conservatives would've won an overall majority.

Here's how close the Conservatives got to winning 10 more seats.

Kensington - Labour majority 20
Perth & North Perthshire - SNP majority 21
Dudley North - Labour majority 22
Newcastle-under-Lyme - Labour majority 30
Crewe & Nantwich - Labour majority 48
Canterbury - Labour majority 187
Barrow & Furness - Labour majority 209
Keighley - Labour majority 249
Lanark & Hamilton East - SNP majority 266
Ashfield - Labour majority 441

CON - 327 (-3)
LAB - 254 (+22) 
SNP - 33 (-23)

I think if the campaign had been much shorter Corbyn would've had less momentum (pun intended) and the Conservatives would've won these seats and garnered a fraction more of the SNP vote in the the SNP-CON fights above. This would've left May with 327 seats. 

Interesting to note that two of these ultra-marginals border each other.

[jigger]

Sept 23, 2017 16:17:22 GMT @trident said:

The reason why the Tories lost their majority was that May fought a rubbish campaign.

I'm not convinced that firing the starting gun a month earlier would have made the Conservatives campaign more competently.

Are you not giving any credit at all to Jeremy's well-run, competent and popular campaign?

[jamie]

If she announced the election at the same time as she did and then held it on the 4th May the Tories would have won, probably with a bigger majority (though obviously not 80+ as many hoped). However, if she had called it earlier and still had the same campaign time, then the result would have been the same. The problem for the Tories wasn't events and the timing, it was running an abysmal campaign.

[Foggy]

Sept 23, 2017 16:51:33 GMT jamie said:

If she announced the election at the same time as she did and then held it on the 4th May 

I believe this would not legally have been possible. 

[jigger]

Sept 23, 2017 22:26:59 GMT Foggy said:

Sept 23, 2017 16:51:33 GMT jamie said:

If she announced the election at the same time as she did and then held it on the 4th May 

I believe this would not legally have been possible. 

No, Section 3 of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (as amended by Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013) requires at least 25 working days (thus not including Saturdays and Sundays or the 1 May bank holiday) between dissolution of Parliament and polling day. I can't be bothered at this late hour to work out what the earliest date an election called on the 18th April could be held but certainly it couldn't have been held before 18 May.