Tony Otim
Green
Suffering from Brexistential Despair
Posts: 11,931
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Post by Tony Otim on Aug 20, 2024 16:21:08 GMT
One thing that might play in Labour's favour is low expectations. In contrast to 1997 when there really did seem to be a sense of real hope and change (which contributed to disappointment further down the line), the sense this year seems to be a resigned anything must be better than the other lot. Starmer's already got a lot of the disappointments in before he was elected, which perhaps leaves more room for some to be pleasantly surprised.
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Post by swanarcadian on Aug 20, 2024 16:49:20 GMT
The fact is that Labour doesn't necessarily need to be particularly loved to remain capable of retaining power at the next election and quite possibly beyond. The increase in support for smaller parties will not necessarily lead to a major increase in their number of parliamentary seats. There remains a possibility that Labour won't actually get all that unpopular this parliament which some contributors have rather lazily assumed they will. The Tories' priority from their point of view needs to be winning seats & eventually power, not comforting themselves about how loved or unloved the Labour Government is. There are reasons for their lousy general election performance & they need to acquaint themselves with these reasons if they are to fight back effectively. There's not much the Tories can do other than wait for time to heal and for Labour to do something unpopular. Absolutely nobody is listening or interested in what the Tories have to say including me. I don't see Labour losing the next one without a significant misstep. I think the parliamentary party knows we’re going to have a hard time fighting back which is why the current leadership election has been more protracted than usual. The party website is just a leadership timetable at the moment. This is in contrast to 1997 when William Hague was elected just six or seven weeks after polling day. They might as well take their time with it. I notice Sunak has taken a far less combative, less adversarial approach in his Commons speeches since becoming LOTO. |
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nyx
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,065
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Post by nyx on Aug 20, 2024 16:54:47 GMT
The fact is that Labour doesn't necessarily need to be particularly loved to remain capable of retaining power at the next election and quite possibly beyond. The increase in support for smaller parties will not necessarily lead to a major increase in their number of parliamentary seats. There remains a possibility that Labour won't actually get all that unpopular this parliament which some contributors have rather lazily assumed they will. The Tories' priority from their point of view needs to be winning seats & eventually power, not comforting themselves about how loved or unloved the Labour Government is. There are reasons for their lousy general election performance & they need to acquaint themselves with these reasons if they are to fight back effectively. There's not much the Tories can do other than wait for time to heal and for Labour to do something unpopular. Absolutely nobody is listening or interested in what the Tories have to say including me. I don't see Labour losing the next one without a significant misstep. Early to say, but in the next election I think it's more likely that the Tories lose seats than gain them. A lot of their seats are very marginal and vulnerable, whilst the seats they'd want to regain will very much be seeing Labour/Lib Dem efforts to consolidate support for their new MPs and the Tories have lost their incumbency bonus in those places. Feels quite plausible that the next general election ends up settling as a Labour vs Reform race (with Labour clearly ahead). |
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Post by swanarcadian on Aug 20, 2024 17:21:25 GMT
There's not much the Tories can do other than wait for time to heal and for Labour to do something unpopular. Absolutely nobody is listening or interested in what the Tories have to say including me. I don't see Labour losing the next one without a significant misstep. Early to say, but in the next election I think it's more likely that the Tories lose seats than gain them. A lot of their seats are very marginal and vulnerable, whilst the seats they'd want to regain will very much be seeing Labour/Lib Dem efforts to consolidate support for their new MPs and the Tories have lost their incumbency bonus in those places. Feels quite plausible that the next general election ends up settling as a Labour vs Reform race (with Labour clearly ahead). Yes, it is early to say that. Didn’t you predict we’d win 30 odd seats last month? A lot of doom mongering going on with this thread at the moment. We’re one month into a 4 or 5 year parliament. Let’s wait a bit. |
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Post by batman on Aug 20, 2024 17:23:03 GMT
I'd agree with that. It's one thing to say that Labour are strong favourites to win the next general election, it's quite another to make informed predictions of who wins which seat nationwide. It is too early.
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nyx
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,065
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Post by nyx on Aug 20, 2024 17:25:38 GMT
Early to say, but in the next election I think it's more likely that the Tories lose seats than gain them. A lot of their seats are very marginal and vulnerable, whilst the seats they'd want to regain will very much be seeing Labour/Lib Dem efforts to consolidate support for their new MPs and the Tories have lost their incumbency bonus in those places. Feels quite plausible that the next general election ends up settling as a Labour vs Reform race (with Labour clearly ahead). Yes, it is early to say that. Didn’t you predict we’d win 30 odd seats last month? A lot of doom mongering going on with this thread at the moment. We’re one month into a 4 or 5 year parliament. Let’s wait a bit. Probably the only reason the Conservatives managed to cling onto the Official Opposition spot is that the Labour campaign (and to a lesser extent Lib Dem campaign) was very cautious and actively redirected resources away from winnable seats to shoring up safe seats- that plus a bit of incumbency benefit. They do have a route to bouncing back over the course of the coming years but it's probably reliant on Farage messing up (which, to be fair, is quite possible). That or Corbyn making his own party and splitting the Labour vote. We'll see |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
Posts: 16,057
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Post by Sibboleth on Aug 20, 2024 17:38:22 GMT
It is worth pointing out that on those occasions when we have had General Elections in close proximity to each other, the second has tended to resemble very strongly the first. The only real exceptions have been those of 1922-4, but they were held during the Great Liberal Party Civil War which suffices as ample explanation for their instability. In other words, unless something very major happens then opinion polling will tell us very little until at least the New Year and possibly longer - and that if they appear to tell us anything substantial, then it probably isn't real anyway. Not much point in projecting the future yet; better to try to understand what has just happened, especially, given that it has only just happened, it will not be all that well understood yet.
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Post by No Offence Alan on Aug 20, 2024 17:39:44 GMT
Yes, it is early to say that. Didn’t you predict we’d win 30 odd seats last month? A lot of doom mongering going on with this thread at the moment. We’re one month into a 4 or 5 year parliament. Let’s wait a bit. Probably the only reason the Conservatives managed to cling onto the Official Opposition spot is that the Labour campaign (and to a lesser extent Lib Dem campaign) was very cautious and actively redirected resources away from winnable seats to shoring up safe seats- that plus a bit of incumbency benefit. They do have a route to bouncing back over the course of the coming years but it's probably reliant on Farage messing up (which, to be fair, is quite possible). That or Corbyn making his own party and splitting the Labour vote. We'll see I don't see it that way at all. Labour's vote declined in most of their safest seats, there was no "shoring up". The Lib Dems only had 8 seats notionally to start with - they didn't know that previous marginals were going to be won by such margins. And with extensive boundary changes, the Tories lost the "incumbency" factor. |
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pl
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,685 
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Post by pl on Aug 20, 2024 18:01:32 GMT
Probably the only reason the Conservatives managed to cling onto the Official Opposition spot is that the Labour campaign (and to a lesser extent Lib Dem campaign) was very cautious and actively redirected resources away from winnable seats to shoring up safe seats- that plus a bit of incumbency benefit. They do have a route to bouncing back over the course of the coming years but it's probably reliant on Farage messing up (which, to be fair, is quite possible). That or Corbyn making his own party and splitting the Labour vote. We'll see I don't see it that way at all. Labour's vote declined in most of their safest seats, there was no "shoring up". The Lib Dems only had 8 seats notionally to start with - they didn't know that previous marginals were going to be won by such margins. And with extensive boundary changes, the Tories lost the "incumbency" factor. Anyone done GE24 notionals on the old boundaries yet? There must be a few where well dug in and locally fairly popular MPs on the old boundaries did VERY badly in areas moving to their seats. |
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nyx
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,065
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Post by nyx on Aug 20, 2024 19:14:27 GMT
Probably the only reason the Conservatives managed to cling onto the Official Opposition spot is that the Labour campaign (and to a lesser extent Lib Dem campaign) was very cautious and actively redirected resources away from winnable seats to shoring up safe seats- that plus a bit of incumbency benefit. They do have a route to bouncing back over the course of the coming years but it's probably reliant on Farage messing up (which, to be fair, is quite possible). That or Corbyn making his own party and splitting the Labour vote. We'll see I don't see it that way at all. Labour's vote declined in most of their safest seats, there was no "shoring up". The Lib Dems only had 8 seats notionally to start with - they didn't know that previous marginals were going to be won by such margins. And with extensive boundary changes, the Tories lost the "incumbency" factor. What I mean is things like Labour activists being redirected away from Central Devon to Plymouth, Lib Dem activists being redirected away from Romsey to Winchester, etc. Labour went to the extreme by denying access to resources to activists who didn't follow this advice. From a perspective of safety it was a sensible strategy as nobody could know for sure if there was a "shy Tory" vote that would falter/go home at the last minute, but with the benefit of hindsight I don't think it's unreasonable to say that in hindsight that level of deprioritization of distant targets was a factor in helping the Conservatives get the Official Opposition spot. |
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nodealbrexiteer
Forum Regular
non aligned favour no deal brexit!
Posts: 4,463
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Post by nodealbrexiteer on Aug 20, 2024 19:26:13 GMT
Early to say, but in the next election I think it's more likely that the Tories lose seats than gain them. A lot of their seats are very marginal and vulnerable, whilst the seats they'd want to regain will very much be seeing Labour/Lib Dem efforts to consolidate support for their new MPs and the Tories have lost their incumbency bonus in those places. Feels quite plausible that the next general election ends up settling as a Labour vs Reform race (with Labour clearly ahead). Yes, it is early to say that. Didn’t you predict we’d win 30 odd seats last month? A lot of doom mongering going on with this thread at the moment. We’re one month into a 4 or 5 year parliament. Let’s wait a bit. this depends on partisan colours! |
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Aug 20, 2024 20:29:13 GMT
I don't see it that way at all. Labour's vote declined in most of their safest seats, there was no "shoring up". The Lib Dems only had 8 seats notionally to start with - they didn't know that previous marginals were going to be won by such margins. And with extensive boundary changes, the Tories lost the "incumbency" factor. Anyone done GE24 notionals on the old boundaries yet? There must be a few where well dug in and locally fairly popular MPs on the old boundaries did VERY badly in areas moving to their seats. Its possible for me to construct notional results on the old boundaries in those areas where I've done ward notionals, but that isn't likely to be much fo a factor in that or in other models. It might a bit in some seats, because I put the 2019 ward notionals into the mix.. |
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