Narrowing the gap

[The Bishop]

Aug 15, 2023 8:16:33 GMT afleitch said:

In terms of narrowing, if the Tories go on the last possible date, we are currently in late November 1995 in terms of distance from the 1997 election. You forget how relatively few polls there were. Labour's lead was heftier (less 'others') but the Tories were in the mid to high 20's as they are now.

They were also starting to climb up.

While the electorate is more volatile, it would take a lot, historically, for the Tories to lessen the scale of their defeat.

The Tories hit rock bottom polling wise in mid-1995, Major getting re-elected as leader finally provided a floor to their vote.

The slight recovery in the second half of that year got quite a bit of optimistic media chatter that they could make the coming GE competitive at least.

Sound familiar?

[Toylyyev]

Aug 15, 2023 8:16:33 GMT afleitch said:

In terms of narrowing, if the Tories go on the last possible date, we are currently in late November 1995 in terms of distance from the 1997 election. You forget how relatively few polls there were. Labour's lead was heftier (less 'others') but the Tories were in the mid to high 20's as they are now.

They were also starting to climb up.

While the electorate is more volatile, it would take a lot, historically, for the Tories to lessen the scale of their defeat.

That'd be the wrong Jaguar apparently

www.thenational.scot/news/23688969.rishi-sunak-boasts-in-margaret-thatchers-old-rover/

gsg9polizei.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-cars-of-british-prime-ministers.html

Similar Labour leads would take you back to early 1981 though.

[No Offence Alan]

Presumably, if the Tories can "narrow the gap" in England , then the SNP could "widen the gap" in Scotland?
Or does political gravity flow the other way North of the border?

[stb12]

Aug 15, 2023 11:56:14 GMT No Offence Alan said:

Presumably, if the Tories can "narrow the gap" in England , then the SNP could "widen the gap" in Scotland?
Or does political gravity flow the other way North of the border?

Well it has done at times, look at 2017

[batman]

Indeed, Labour appears to be widening the gap UK-wide at the moment though some polls don't agree. I'm not saying this can happen indefinitely, of course, but it's not what the Conservative doctor ordered at this point

[stb12]

I don’t expect the UK gap will close that considerably in terms of the vote share but the electoral system will likely see the Tories hold more seats than the polls predict with universal swing etc

[batman]

Well, yes certainly in some cases. For example I don't see Labour gaining seats like Central Devon. But there are almost certainly other seats which will swing further to Labour than the polls suggest, as tends to be the case in landslide or near-landslide scenarios for Labour. I'd say Labour are much likelier to take Tamworth or Redditch than Central Devon, to give two examples, even if polls say the opposite on the basis of non-existent UNS. (Maybe one day UNS will make a comeback, who knows?)

[Toylyyev]

Aug 15, 2023 13:50:49 GMT batman said:

Indeed, Labour appears to be widening the gap UK-wide_(my underscore) at the moment though some polls don't agree. I'm not saying this can happen indefinitely, of course, but it's not what the Conservative doctor ordered at this point

Diffs between latest poll versus latest poll before 13 July for each of the pollsters listed in the wikipedia page that did publish after 13 July minus FON/Electoralcalculus because fieldwork for their peniultimate one was in early March, together with a friendly reminder as to the empirical nature of the data.

          | Con Lab LDs Grn RUK
-------------------------------
      R&W | +1   0  -1  +1   0 
  Omnisis | -1  -3  +2  +1  +1
Deltapoll | +1   0  +3  -2   0
  Opinium | -2  -3  +1  +1  +2
   YouGov |  0  +4  -1  -1  -2
   Techne |  0  -1   0   0  +1
      BMG | -2  +1  +3  -3  +1
  Savanta | -3  +4   0   0  -1
    Ipsos | +3  -2  -1  -2  +1
      MiC | +1  -3  +2   0  -1
-------------------------------
      Sum | -2  -3  +8  -5  +2

I did double check, but wouldn't rule out leftover mishaps.

[batman]

I'm referring to polls in the last fortnight.

[nodealbrexiteer]

i'd love someone like reuters to do what they did in 1997-doing a monthly 'poll' of pollsters, pundits and academics asking them for their current forecast of the result

[swanarcadian]

Aug 15, 2023 14:32:45 GMT stb12 said:

I don’t expect the UK gap will close that considerably in terms of the vote share but the electoral system will likely see the Tories hold more seats than the polls predict with universal swing etc

I'd agree with a lot of that; unlike 1997 - when virtually all Tory MPs vulnerable to a 10 percent swing were indiscriminately swept aside - local factors, incumbency and demographics are going to play a much stronger part in the results next year.   But for every Uxbridge, there's a Selby.   In that sense it's going to be much more difficult to predict individual results.

[nodealbrexiteer]

Aug 15, 2023 16:52:34 GMT swanarcadian said:

Aug 15, 2023 14:32:45 GMT stb12 said:

I don’t expect the UK gap will close that considerably in terms of the vote share but the electoral system will likely see the Tories hold more seats than the polls predict with universal swing etc

I'd agree with a lot of that; unlike 1997 - when virtually all Tory MPs vulnerable to a 10 percent swing were indiscriminately swept aside - local factors, incumbency and demographics are going to play a much stronger part in the results next year.   But for every Uxbridge, there's a Selby.   In that sense it's going to be much more difficult to predict individual results.

They'll likely have to top up the exit poll polling locations to 150+ to try to help with that problem

[casualobserver]

Aug 14, 2023 22:38:37 GMT uthacalthing said:

The critical issue is not how many Tories survive, it is which Tories survive. That will determine the direction of the subsequent pivot.

If it pivots to what will be clumsily described as the left then a new party to the supposed right emerges with the purpose of making the Wet Tory party unelectable in a FPTP landscape by skimming off 20% of their vote.

If it pivots to the right, the clumsily described hard-right Thatcherite party is unelectable until the nation is in total despair and willing to consider the possibility that they, the electorate, have been fucking idiots all along, fully deserve what has happened to them, and need to take their medicine

The Conservative Party is the least fixed ideological party in the UK. It pivots and sometimes changes 180 degrees to survive reflect public opinion. It would astonish Conservatives of 50 years ago to see what the party stands for today. It's just as easy (and in fact more likely in an increasingly rapidly changing world) for that propensity to change to apply in the future. It's worth noting that there really is no ideological bedrock (unlike the LibDems and Labour) underpinning the Conservative Party. In terms of policy, what's unthinkable now for the party may well be uncontroversial in ten years time.

[uthacalthing]

That is assuredly true. From a basepoint of three years ago, looking forward ten years, there was more chance of the Tory party accepting that a man can become a woman by force of will than the Labour Party accepting it.

Tories are not unprincipled. They actually have no principles.

[The Bishop]

Hmmmm, historically that may have been quite true. But isn't one lasting legacy of Thatcher making the party significantly more ideological?

[afleitch]

Aug 15, 2023 17:04:54 GMT nodealbrexiteer said:

Aug 15, 2023 16:52:34 GMT swanarcadian said:

I'd agree with a lot of that; unlike 1997 - when virtually all Tory MPs vulnerable to a 10 percent swing were indiscriminately swept aside - local factors, incumbency and demographics are going to play a much stronger part in the results next year.   But for every Uxbridge, there's a Selby.   In that sense it's going to be much more difficult to predict individual results.

They'll likely have to top up the exit poll polling locations to 150+ to try to help with that problem

I think the exit poll has already worked well to account for 'unusual' election swings which has been the case for the last three.

[nodealbrexiteer]

Aug 16, 2023 10:25:57 GMT afleitch said:

Aug 15, 2023 17:04:54 GMT nodealbrexiteer said:

They'll likely have to top up the exit poll polling locations to 150+ to try to help with that problem

I think the exit poll has already worked well to account for 'unusual' election swings which has been the case for the last three.

Indeed, might just need a few tweaks ie a few polling stations to take into account perceived new battlegrounds. For example 2010 they added a number of seats from both main parties that might go Lib Dem,2015 more polling stations in Scotland and others added to reflect larger UKIP vote,more recently the so called red wall

[J.G.Harston]

Aug 15, 2023 21:25:52 GMT casualobserver said:

Aug 14, 2023 22:38:37 GMT uthacalthing said:

The critical issue is not how many Tories survive, it is which Tories survive. That will determine the direction of the subsequent pivot.

If it pivots to what will be clumsily described as the left then a new party to the supposed right emerges with the purpose of making the Wet Tory party unelectable in a FPTP landscape by skimming off 20% of their vote.

If it pivots to the right, the clumsily described hard-right Thatcherite party is unelectable until the nation is in total despair and willing to consider the possibility that they, the electorate, have been fucking idiots all along, fully deserve what has happened to them, and need to take their medicine

The Conservative Party is the least fixed ideological party in the UK. It pivots and sometimes changes 180 degrees to survive reflect public opinion. It would astonish Conservatives of 50 years ago to see what the party stands for today. It's just as easy (and in fact more likely in an increasingly rapidly changing world) for that propensity to change to apply in the future. It's worth noting that there really is no ideological bedrock (unlike the LibDems and Labour) underpinning the Conservative Party. In terms of policy, what's unthinkable now for the party may well be uncontroversial in ten years time.

Dammit, I was imagining Churchill and Eden, but you mean the 1970s! How dare that be 50 years ago!

[uthacalthing]

Aug 16, 2023 10:24:17 GMT The Bishop said:

Hmmmm, historically that may have been quite true. But isn't one lasting legacy of Thatcher making the party significantly more ideological?

A portion of it.  But only one portion from a family sized party. 

[aargauer]

Aug 15, 2023 7:59:01 GMT afleitch said:

Aug 14, 2023 22:38:37 GMT uthacalthing said:

The critical issue is not how many Tories survive, it is which Tories survive. That will determine the direction of the subsequent pivot.

If it pivots to what will be clumsily described as the left then a new party to the supposed right emerges with the purpose of making the Wet Tory party unelectable in a FPTP landscape by skimming off 20% of their vote.

If it pivots to the right, the clumsily described hard-right Thatcherite party is unelectable until the nation is in total despair and willing to consider the possibility that they, the electorate, have been fucking idiots all along, fully deserve what has happened to them, and need to take their medicine

I mean, it did the reverse after 1997 and only won from the centre in 2010. Post 2019 it's shifted right, doing 'populism while unpopular' while also forcing said 'medicine' down people's throats at great expense to everyone.

Labour are banking on the Tories to be out of office for at least ten years, by which point the oldest millennials, who have been trending away from the Tories each election since they could vote, will be over 50. The Tories will be a decaying pensioners interest group and Labour's challenges, particularly from younger voters, will come from the left.

The alternative for the Tories is to admit the day after the moving van leaves Downing Street is that they were, in fact, absolutely blind drunk since Brexit and work to fix that on day one.

That's not the way politics works. Ultimately when it's the millennials who are asset rich and funding others they (we) aren't going to vote to shaft themselves.

The reason they have stayed quite left leaning is most of us are not there yet. Most of my generations parents are in their 70s and asset rich.