Absolutely nothing to gain by forming a minority government the tories have the worst PM of all time,the labour party ukip vote is coming back and will come back in even greater numbers as time goes on,they now have the youth vote and they have some reasonable policys the tories have nothing to offer at all.They are going to go for someone they perceive as with charisma they have no one bar the bumbling eaton boy twit,he will never appeal to younger voters just the loyal conservatives,on top of ths corbyn should be booting the horrible Diane abbot out and bringing in Chukka and Dan Jarvis.A simple thing that will make them look unbeatable, unless of course the left try to ruin everything,i still reckon it's 50/50 that they will shoot themselves in the foot even though there looks no way back for the torys..
Forgot to add the tories are still doing exceptionally well in the midlands the actually gained a seat yesterday while labour were on a negative,that could easily turn round that is still mainly due to brexiteers lots of votes wil eventually come back in those seats as well!!
Wouldn't disagree with much of that Gigilo, although I'd probably hold to the view that Cameron is the worst PM of the two, as he was much more the architect of his own stupidity. Some politicians inherit a horrible situation, others create them through misjudgement. Cameron will have Brexit and Libya on his charge sheet for years to come
I think there's a number of moving parts going forward, and all of them look bad for the Conservatives.
The first that would terrify me if I were one of the strategists is Farage promising to re-engage and revive the UKIP. I actually doubt whether he can reach his 2014/5 high water again, but they'd have to be stupid not be worried by this development. Tory support for UKIP is stronger than Labours. They were the first party to begin losing voters to UKIP. I always felt the Labour support that followed them was less convicted and more protesty in its nature, but it would be equally wrong to recognise that there isn't a right wing populist streak in working class communities for whom the UKIP messaging is attractive
Yesterdays UKIP share is actually 0.1% away from that which the BNP achieved in 2010. A bit of me is left wondering if Nuttall with his 'ban the burqa' etc isn't now appealing to the disengaged BNP demographic, which potentially means the more anti EU element have gone elsewhere, and are potentially therefore open to being attracted back to UKIP by the slicker Farage? I remember reading a fairly detail analysis of the swings in the 2015 election which suggested that rather than looking at the generic national picture, you got a better understanding of the dynamics if you examined regional swing instead. What they concluded is that two swings of note had occurred, and when these were rolled out they impacted a national picture that might not actually have happened.
The first swing in 2015 was Lib Dems to Labour, but this was wiped out by corresponding swing from Labour to UKIP
One of the things they told us in 2017 was that the swings back from UKIP didn't go to the conservatives to the extent that was anticipated, and that Labour picked up support from returning UKIPers. I'm not as totally convinced that this is what happened. The reason I say that is because of turnout. Indications seem to suggest that 2.3% more people voted this year, which equates to 1,077,409 actual voters (discounting Kensington's result). We know from the electoral registration commission that half of these were young people registering in the final week. I think Labours support was flushed by this demographic, which means that there were probably less UKIP returners than the bare figures suggest. Let me use a hypothetical constituency example to try and illustrate it
2015 = 6,000 UKIP voters
2017 = 2,000 UKIP voters
4,000 have gone elsewhere
Now if this was a 50/50 breakdown as we saw quite a few times last night, then it would equalise if UKIP were able to recover this support. What I think happened however is that something like a ratio of 66/33 probably operated in favour of the Tories, but Labour were able to make up the same figure gained by new voters
So on 4,000 in those ratios the Tories gained 2640, Labour gained 1320, but were able to achieve a similar figure net gain figure through new voters. If this has happened, than Labour's position looks stronger if UKIP re-emerge. We also know of course from the way that UKIP built their support in the noughties that conservative voters migrated first, with Labour following them in the local elections of 2012 and European elections of 2014.
I also agree with you that one of the biggest take outs from the Corbyn leadership is the way a traditional socialist platform seems to have been accepted. Indeed, I'd go further, and suggest its energised people, especially young people. A few of us have been chronicling some of these tensions that have been bubbling below the surface on this website for a decade now. Issues include things like Affordable housing, Energy companies price fixing, the Environment, a data led recovery characterised by low paid jobs, Student loans, and more recently of course, the dangers posed by Brexit. The Tories have injected a lot of pressure into this cooker and done very little to take it out. They've ignored it basically pursuing short term solutions instead. The problem they face now is they simply don't have a policy platform to engage this emerging voter bloc and have surrendered first mover advantage on it. Theresa May has compounded it with her draconian view of the internet as well as her complete inability to engage young people. Every year that passes sees more old people die, and a new layer of younger people coming through. If Labour can continue to get these people to register as voters and if they're emboldened by this qualified success, the Tories have a problem. They're going to have to rethink their platform or try and persuade this alienated generation that they (the Tories) know best. With Brexit hanging over them, I wish them good luck on this forlorn crusade. I suspect they're more likely to engage in voter suppression
There's the issue of personnel. Labour needs to re-engage some of the more credible politicians she has on her second tier. Corbyns supporting cast still leaves you very nervous. I certainly heard enough people mention Diane Abbott by name to be satisfied that she cost them votes. Now the likelihood is she'll be dropped now, but she's not the only one. They need to get some of the likes of Kier Stammer, Dan Jarvis, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall, Hilary Benn, Chuka Umuna, John Woodcock, Ed Miliband, Gloria del Piero, Lillian Greenwood etc into the supporting cast. For their part though, they need to accept that Corbyn is leader and that they're on a more socialist ticket and not a Blairist one. If they can't do the latter, then tell them to stay on the backbenches
Finally there's the issue of trying to find a plausible way of wriggling onto a pro remain ticket, or something that leaves the possibility of remaining in the EU open. It still seems unlikely that Labour can form a majority of government. To govern therefore they'll need thee SNP or perhaps the notoriously slippery Liberals. Brexit is a clear stumbling block there. Either party would bring a coalition government down, so Labour needs to navigate this. A majority of Labour supporters actually voted remain. They have a mandate to do this, and I'd be fairly confident that if the referendum were held again today, Remain would win, and if it were held in 2022, almost certainly win. Medium term my best guess is that you're better off rolling the dice on Europe and offering an alternative
It seems inconceivable to me that the conservatives will risk another Theresa May election campaign, so she'll be gone. Labour should therefore have a couple of years to put this together. If they do, then they're in a strong position right now, especially after spends the next 12 months with the Tories tearing themselves to bits over Europe
