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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Swinson’s successor may have only become an MP yesterday

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  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    ydoethur said:

    Any polls tonight? .

    No. Get help.
    It was not meant to be serious but nevertheless there is a serious point here. What would those who gave their vote to the Tories 24 hrs ago say now?
    Rather bizarrely, Survation did a poll on 8-9 May 2015.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    MaxPB said:

    Having a more detailed look at some seats. We should have taken all three Doncaster seats, didn't squeeze the BP vote hard enough. Would have got Red Ed out as well.

    Hah - Anyway Doncaster North is a marginal now (Though it probably sticks with Labour as I can't see the Tories going forward next election - who knows though)

    Interestingly... I've found a worthwhile Novara Media article that discusses some of the challenges facing Labour in the north.
    https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/10/in-the-norths-leave-voting-seats-disillusionment-is-labours-biggest-enemy/
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    edited December 2019

    ydoethur said:

    Any polls tonight? .

    No. Get help.
    It was not meant to be serious but nevertheless there is a serious point here. What would those who gave their vote to the Tories 24 hrs ago say now?
    ‘Thank god it wasn’t corbyn’I’m afraid, ask them what they want next they will say get brexit done, ask them what that means I’m afraid they will probably say get brexit done but it is what it is.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,399
    Cookie said:

    EPG said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It's been little remarked upon, but Labour ultimately fared rather better than the exit poll had predicted, in fact 12 seats better, compared with the Tories, who did 3 seats worse. I believe this resulted, whisper it quietly, from a handful of disappointing results in the West Midlands, which failed to deliver much for the Blue Team.
    In addition there was the odd isolated stonking good result for Labour, an example being Jon Cruddas' Dagenham & Rainham, he really must be an oustandingly good MP to emerge unscathed yet again.

    Labour just held onto two seats in Coventry with tiny majorities, and also unexpectedly held Warwick & Leamington.
    Student votes as in Canterbury.

    Other seats which were Conservative in 2015 and Labour in 2019:

    Battersea
    Croydon C
    Enfield Southgate
    Putney

    Bedford

    Cardiff C
    Gower

    Reading E
    Portsmouth S

    Plymouth Sutton

    Weaver Vale

    Posho Remainers, demographic change, students and Greater Scouseland.
    The next election is SO going to be out of term time.......
    Term time concentrates the students in a couple of safe seats that swing between Labour and LD / Greens. The same students are likely to register at home in normal swing seats. Outside term time is much better for Labour - the academics are voting Labour for their paycheques / useless ideology anyway!
    But the canvassing manpower is dispersed and less effective for Labour when they are all back home in leafy Surrey.....
    How many seats with student population of any sort voted Conservative? One of the Bournemouth seats must have students. After that...? Pretty much all the red dots in the south are student seats - Canterbury, Cambridge, Norwich South, Portsmouth South, Reading East, Bedford, Southampton Itchen... Bath voted LD I suppose.

    Ooh, Loughborough was Con too. And Derby North, possibly.
    Loughborough is full of engineering students. Tories.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    edited December 2019
    nichomar said:

    AnneJGP said:

    nichomar said:

    HaroldO said:

    nichomar said:

    I’m actually quite sad tonight, having accepted the result of the election and hoping that a new paradigm may be opening up in UK Government so sitting with people and trying to say , let’s give him six months then we can judge him the response is ‘at least he’s not corbyn’ so I respond and say ‘corbyn gone they can’t get near power until 2024, so let’s see what Johnson delivers... well at least it’s not corbyn is the response so I tried well maybe we can get the ex service men of the streets with the new Tory majority government... well at least it’s not corbyn ! Seriously is that all they voted Tory for? Johnson has a unique window to be a reforming pragmatic redistributer framed by controlled free market economic policy, will he take it? We can only give him time

    They want change, they don't want Labour change so they have voted Tory but made it clear that this vote depends on them delivering. Seems sensible to me, they want their votes to be bought.
    That was the point there is little evidence of what change they want where has it ever been articulated? They just didn’t want corbyn, fair play I didn’t but where next?
    Where next is in the lap of the gods. When the electorate doesn't want Corbynism because they don't like where that would take us, where the alternative takes us is a matter of 'suck it up' as the expression has it.
    It’s a shame it is a unique opportunity for a UK government to actually govern for everybody it has only happened once in my life and the eventually let it slip away but let’s see I’ve fought this war for to long and want an end to tribalism and triumphalism can they just get on with their jobs, keep off the Telly and earn their salary.
    It will be rather lovely to have a Labour Party led by someone who is prepared to engaged with the full range of its members/supporters. The Corbynites need to make peace, if not learn to love the Blairites again and vice verse. Both have failed In their own way.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,399
    Jonathan said:

    ydoethur said:

    Jonathan said:

    ydoethur said:

    Jonathan said:

    Love the way people are making bold statements on what is and isn’t possible, yet three days ago could predict this election despite clear polling evidence.

    We have no idea what is about to unfold, Tories celebrated like this in 92 and 15 and then entered hell. We just don’t know. Anything is possible.

    It is entirely possible Labour will do something sensible.

    It would however be a dramatic break with recent practice.
    Ultimately the unions are key, they will want a ROI. They spent millions on this.
    You wonder if McCluskey will face another challenge. He has screwed up massively.
    There are other unions. Keep an eye on the GMB and who they back.
    Piers and Suzanna joint ticket.
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 3,886

    RobD said:

    alex_ said:

    O/T but has there been much discussion yet of the demoralising impact for main opposition parties facing dominant Governments with very few seats. Technically it wasn't a landslide for the Conservatives, but it was certainly a landslide defeat for Labour.

    It's absolutely horrible, having to engage in the Commons scrutinising the Government, whilst throughout that the chances of actually winning any votes in Parliament are non-existent. You effectively have to run guerrilla campaigns, and keep spirits up by looking for small victories. It's probably a lot easier if you can have good relations with at least some MPs on the Government benches on a social level.

    But is the make-up of the 2019 Labour party going to be up to that? What difference might having more than 50% women make? How many are new MPs? etc etc

    After 1979-97, most said 'never again', hence the Jenkins report on PR. This was later shelved under pressure from the dinosaur wing of Labour.

    The main official opposition from 1979-92, i.e. the parliaments with normal to large majorities, was the House of Lords. They'll now be very effective in delaying Tory bills due to the LD/Lab majority. Also ~80% of Lords are pro-EU. The LDs surely won't accept leaving the EU on the basis of 45% of the popular vote.

    I expect Johnson to threaten to abolish the HoL at least once before 2024.
    You might have missed the referendum on leaving the EU, where the leave side secure 52%.
    ... you may have missed an election 2 days ago with 55% of the vote for parties which would revoke or have a confirmatory referendum.

    But they only got only 42% of the seats. As most Tories except Hannan are even more dinosaur-like on the PR issue than Labour, we'll probably have FPTP for another 100 yrs. Do enjoy your unfair majorities (six since 1979 for Tories, only three for Lab).
    It's not the Conservatives fault that the British left prefer purity over power.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    One idea for the Conservatives might be to engage with the wealthiest in society to consider ways in which they might be prepared to direct some of their capital towards various schemes (on a charitable, non investment basis). Perhaps on some sort of pooled basis. But importantly not directed through the Government (many quite probably already do this to some extent, although i don't know that people generally know about it outside of direct recipients).

    There is obviously huge wealth sitting out in the country that just never gets used, but could be. And i'm sure there are many who would be happy to put some of their wealth towards good causes. But importantly, on a voluntary basis, towards things they want (ie. they have some control over it, and certainty that it won't be 'wasted'), and not to subsidise base Government spending.
  • So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    Scrabble score?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Cookie said:

    EPG said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It's been little remarked upon, but Labour ultimately fared rather better than the exit poll had predicted, in fact 12 seats better, compared with the Tories, who did 3 seats worse. I believe this resulted, whisper it quietly, from a handful of disappointing results in the West Midlands, which failed to deliver much for the Blue Team.
    In addition there was the odd isolated stonking good result for Labour, an example being Jon Cruddas' Dagenham & Rainham, he really must be an oustandingly good MP to emerge unscathed yet again.

    Labour just held onto two seats in Coventry with tiny majorities, and also unexpectedly held Warwick & Leamington.
    Student votes as in Canterbury.

    Other seats which were Conservative in 2015 and Labour in 2019:

    Battersea
    Croydon C
    Enfield Southgate
    Putney

    Bedford

    Cardiff C
    Gower

    Reading E
    Portsmouth S

    Plymouth Sutton

    Weaver Vale

    Posho Remainers, demographic change, students and Greater Scouseland.
    The next election is SO going to be out of term time.......
    Term time concentrates the students in a couple of safe seats that swing between Labour and LD / Greens. The same students are likely to register at home in normal swing seats. Outside term time is much better for Labour - the academics are voting Labour for their paycheques / useless ideology anyway!
    But the canvassing manpower is dispersed and less effective for Labour when they are all back home in leafy Surrey.....
    How many seats with student population of any sort voted Conservative? One of the Bournemouth seats must have students. After that...? Pretty much all the red dots in the south are student seats - Canterbury, Cambridge, Norwich South, Portsmouth South, Reading East, Bedford, Southampton Itchen... Bath voted LD I suppose.

    Ooh, Loughborough was Con too. And Derby North, possibly.
    Loughborough is full of engineering students. Tories.
    Is UEA in Norwich North or South? I would guess South.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    So ... who's for December becoming the new standard month for General Elections? :smile:
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    Lloyd Russell-Moyle, another one who will nominate any nutcase as long as it’s got a Socialist rosette.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    alex_ said:

    One idea for the Conservatives might be to engage with the wealthiest in society to consider ways in which they might be prepared to direct some of their capital towards various schemes (on a charitable, non investment basis). Perhaps on some sort of pooled basis. But importantly not directed through the Government (many quite probably already do this to some extent, although i don't know that people generally know about it outside of direct recipients).

    There is obviously huge wealth sitting out in the country that just never gets used, but could be. And i'm sure there are many who would be happy to put some of their wealth towards good causes. But importantly, on a voluntary basis, towards things they want (ie. they have some control over it, and certainty that it won't be 'wasted'), and not to subsidise base Government spending.

    They may even get a small financial return for doing so, it is how I will spend my lottery win when it happens!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    So ... who's for December becoming the new standard month for General Elections? :smile:

    If I say, ‘No. Get help,’ it might be misconstrued again.

    That being said...
  • Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?
  • ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    ydoethur said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    Lloyd Russell-Moyle, another one who will nominate any nutcase as long as it’s got a Socialist rosette.
    I saw his rant. A shit of the first order.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited December 2019

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Or History, or Languages.

    In answer to your second question I think of the list CHB put up earlier Yvette Cooper is the only Oxonian, but I could very easily be wrong.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    What do you mean, "again"?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    ydoethur said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    Lloyd Russell-Moyle, another one who will nominate any nutcase as long as it’s got a Socialist rosette.
    I saw his rant. A shit of the first order.
    If only he had come turd in his race.
  • ydoethur said:

    1) what happened to the youthquake then?
    2) where's @TheJezziah? Has he/she been banned? (I've not been monitoring this for a while). Seems odd that I haven't seen anything from him/her for a while.

    1. It happened, it's just that it was a youth minor tremor. People always overstate the potential effect of the youth vote: the 18-24 age group is a small slice of the electorate and only really crucial in seats that are both marginal and contain HE campuses. The youth vote has been credited with saving Canterbury and two seats in Coventry that were only just held for Labour, and I'm guessing that it may also have done for the Tory challenge in Bedford and in Warwick & Leamington, but I doubt if it made a decisive difference to Labour anywhere else.

    2. Probably still in mourning.
    Not been around since the password debacle.
    Really? How much trouble is it to change your password when you've got as many strong views as @TheJezziah?
    I've only recently returned to the site as for a long time I couldn't get the password reset to work - kept saying that the token had expired every time I requested a new reset link. I fear there are others who've had similar trouble. Scott maybe?
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    Of course, the problem recently has been that Lib Dem leaders have been too old and experienced. If only they could find a photogenic sixth-former their problems would be over.
  • Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Having a more detailed look at some seats. We should have taken all three Doncaster seats, didn't squeeze the BP vote hard enough. Would have got Red Ed out as well.

    Hah - Anyway Doncaster North is a marginal now (Though it probably sticks with Labour as I can't see the Tories going forward next election - who knows though)

    Interestingly... I've found a worthwhile Novara Media article that discusses some of the challenges facing Labour in the north.
    https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/10/in-the-norths-leave-voting-seats-disillusionment-is-labours-biggest-enemy/
    Its interesting how the Conservative mining belt is steadily moving north.

    Back in 1992 Cannock, Nuneaton, Sherwood and Warwicks N were all Labour with Amber Valley and Leicestershire NW Conservative by under a thousand.

    In twenty years time Don and Rother Valleys could be safe Conservative with Hemsworth and Wentworth being the battleground.
  • Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    Elevation above sea level?
  • Endillion said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    Scrabble score?
    Close. Bucks New University is one above Cambridge University on an alphabetical list, which is a very widely used measure. Anyone from Aberdeen would (I think) be able to claim to come from the top ranked U.K. university.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    It's been mentioned, and it will obviously happen.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    ydoethur said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Perhaps they could give Tim Farnon another go. At least people know his name.

    Is that the same Tim Farnon who's related to Siegfried and Tristan? :smile:
    Sorry, how embarrassing!

    I meant Tim Fallon of course.
    It ain’t getting better...
    Farrant.
  • ydoethur said:

    1) what happened to the youthquake then?
    2) where's @TheJezziah? Has he/she been banned? (I've not been monitoring this for a while). Seems odd that I haven't seen anything from him/her for a while.

    1. It happened, it's just that it was a youth minor tremor. People always overstate the potential effect of the youth vote: the 18-24 age group is a small slice of the electorate and only really crucial in seats that are both marginal and contain HE campuses. The youth vote has been credited with saving Canterbury and two seats in Coventry that were only just held for Labour, and I'm guessing that it may also have done for the Tory challenge in Bedford and in Warwick & Leamington, but I doubt if it made a decisive difference to Labour anywhere else.

    2. Probably still in mourning.
    Not been around since the password debacle.
    Really? How much trouble is it to change your password when you've got as many strong views as @TheJezziah?
    I've only recently returned to the site as for a long time I couldn't get the password reset to work - kept saying that the token had expired every time I requested a new reset link. I fear there are others who've had similar trouble. Scott maybe?
    I'm sure Scott is desperate to update us on all future HoC votes.

    He so enjoyed keeping track of Boris's win rate.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,087
    nichomar said:

    alex_ said:

    One idea for the Conservatives might be to engage with the wealthiest in society to consider ways in which they might be prepared to direct some of their capital towards various schemes (on a charitable, non investment basis). Perhaps on some sort of pooled basis. But importantly not directed through the Government (many quite probably already do this to some extent, although i don't know that people generally know about it outside of direct recipients).

    There is obviously huge wealth sitting out in the country that just never gets used, but could be. And i'm sure there are many who would be happy to put some of their wealth towards good causes. But importantly, on a voluntary basis, towards things they want (ie. they have some control over it, and certainty that it
    won't be 'wasted'), and not to subsidise base Government spending.

    They may even get a small financial return for doing so, it is how I will spend my lottery win when it happens!
    How is this wealth not used?
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,391
    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    Love the way people are making bold statements on what is and isn’t possible, yet three days ago could not predict this election despite clear polling evidence.

    We have no idea what is about to unfold, Tories celebrated like this in 92 and 15 and then entered hell. We just don’t know. Anything is possible.

    That's not true, quite a few of us have consistently been saying it would be a majority of between 60 and 80.
    Stopped clock. Even I said it was 1983 mkII and wasn’t far off.
    A lot of the same people also knew Theresa had fucked it the day she announced the dementia tax.
    The interesting thing will be how Johnson slices the smaller pie if Brexit shrinks the economy as predicted.
    There is no prediction that brexit will shrink the economy. Every forecast I've seen involves positive growth in all years.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Chris said:

    ydoethur said:

    Chris said:

    Chris said:

    Perhaps they could give Tim Farnon another go. At least people know his name.

    Is that the same Tim Farnon who's related to Siegfried and Tristan? :smile:
    Sorry, how embarrassing!

    I meant Tim Fallon of course.
    It ain’t getting better...
    Farrant.
    Your Tim has yet to come...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Having a more detailed look at some seats. We should have taken all three Doncaster seats, didn't squeeze the BP vote hard enough. Would have got Red Ed out as well.

    Hah - Anyway Doncaster North is a marginal now (Though it probably sticks with Labour as I can't see the Tories going forward next election - who knows though)

    Interestingly... I've found a worthwhile Novara Media article that discusses some of the challenges facing Labour in the north.
    https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/10/in-the-norths-leave-voting-seats-disillusionment-is-labours-biggest-enemy/
    Its interesting how the Conservative mining belt is steadily moving north.

    Back in 1992 Cannock, Nuneaton, Sherwood and Warwicks N were all Labour with Amber Valley and Leicestershire NW Conservative by under a thousand.

    In twenty years time Don and Rother Valleys could be safe Conservative with Hemsworth and Wentworth being the battleground.
    Hemsworth already is. Labour majority of 1280.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184

    Cookie said:

    EPG said:

    Andy_JS said:

    It's been little remarked upon, but Labour ultimately fared rather better than the exit poll had predicted, in fact 12 seats better, compared with the Tories, who did 3 seats worse. I believe this resulted, whisper it quietly, from a handful of disappointing results in the West Midlands, which failed to deliver much for the Blue Team.
    In addition there was the odd isolated stonking good result for Labour, an example being Jon Cruddas' Dagenham & Rainham, he really must be an oustandingly good MP to emerge unscathed yet again.

    Labour just held onto two seats in Coventry with tiny majorities, and also unexpectedly held Warwick & Leamington.
    Student votes as in Canterbury.

    Other seats which were Conservative in 2015 and Labour in 2019:

    Battersea
    Croydon C
    Enfield Southgate
    Putney

    Bedford

    Cardiff C
    Gower

    Reading E
    Portsmouth S

    Plymouth Sutton

    Weaver Vale

    Posho Remainers, demographic change, students and Greater Scouseland.
    The next election is SO going to be out of term time.......
    Term time concentrates the students in a couple of safe seats that swing between Labour and LD / Greens. The same students are likely to register at home in normal swing seats. Outside term time is much better for Labour - the academics are voting Labour for their paycheques / useless ideology anyway!
    But the canvassing manpower is dispersed and less effective for Labour when they are all back home in leafy Surrey.....
    How many seats with student population of any sort voted Conservative? One of the Bournemouth seats must have students. After that...? Pretty much all the red dots in the south are student seats - Canterbury, Cambridge, Norwich South, Portsmouth South, Reading East, Bedford, Southampton Itchen... Bath voted LD I suppose.

    Ooh, Loughborough was Con too. And Derby North, possibly.
    Loughborough is full of engineering students. Tories.
    Also, the town of Loughborough is a little less, er, fashionable than other student towns. Perfectly fine town of course. But not really a Lancaster or a Canterbury. Far fewer artsy Guadrianistas hanging around there.
  • Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
  • RobD said:

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    It's been mentioned, and it will obviously happen.
    The Conservative manifesto includes repeal of the FTPA.
  • My guesswork is that both main parties have got a large number of voters who could desert depending on circumstances at next election. A lot of commentators are concentrating on first time Tory switchers from Labour (plus Labour abstentions) outside London. However on the Labour side there are a large number of middle class voters who could be lost. Brexit will have happened so those motivated to get a hung parliament may not back Labour next time round. More critically, will the middle classes vote for a financial clobbering implied by even a moderated version of the last manifesto? I don't think so. In the next election economics will probably be central.

    I believe that the Labour vote in the last two elections would have reduced if there was a perception that they could win a majority. In other words, there is a form of negative feedback for a hard left LP governed by their standing in the opinion polls.
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Or History, or Languages.

    In answer to your second question I think of the list CHB put up earlier Yvette Cooper is the only Oxonian, but I could very easily be wrong.
    It's 82 years since the last Cambridge PM. Not long enough.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Not post brexit. There's no votes left in being a remain party.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Endillion said:

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    What do you mean, "again"?
    As opposed to every 2 years, presumably.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    edited December 2019

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    Possibly. Prime ministers would announce an election at the time they thought most advantageous. There is a scene in the play “The Absence of War” which is a fictionalised account of the 1992 election from the Labour leader’s point of view where the first indication he has that an election has been called is when armed bodyguards from the close protection squad turn up to guard him as a potential prime minister. I think there is a matching scene at the end when, after it has become clear that he has lost the election, the bodyguard leaves.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    Indeed. We know there are now no safe seats. If Labour could find the right leader, the right policies and with a bit of luck the blue blob may well fall like the red wall.
  • novanova Posts: 525
    Andy_JS said:

    algarkirk said:

    nichomar said:

    I’m actually quite sad tonight, having accepted the result of the election and hoping that a new paradigm may be opening up in UK Government so sitting with people and trying to say , let’s give him six months then we can judge him the response is ‘at least he’s not corbyn’ so I respond and say ‘corbyn gone they can’t get near power until 2024, so let’s see what Johnson delivers... well at least it’s not corbyn is the response so I tried well maybe we can get the ex service men of the streets with the new Tory majority government... well at least it’s not corbyn ! Seriously is that all they voted Tory for? Johnson has a unique window to be a reforming pragmatic redistributer framed by controlled free market economic policy, will he take it? We can only give him time

    https://twitter.com/tpgcolson/status/1205513403466502144

    I believe that Labour will elect Corbyn Mk 2 as the next leader. If Johnson can make a decent fist of governing then he may therefore be able to reduce Labour to a rump next time. We shall see.
    A question not sufficiently examined is: Why did so many people vote Labour? If what the moderate Labour candidates are saying is true about what they got on the doorstep, where on earth are all these millions of people coming from?

    On another topic, Boris has a lot of freedom because at the moment Tory voters have absolutely nowhere else to go. Brexit, Ukip, LDs and Labour between them offer nothing to any centre right voter. Nor is a centre right alternative going to appear.

    Until Labour have a leadership which can reach deep into the Tory vote they are stuck. Can they learn that 'Tory Scum' is not the best line to get Tories to vote for you?

    Out of habit. Half the people who voted Labour probably did so despite having reservations about Corbyn.
    That's more than a little patronising.

    Clearly only Labour or the Tories can win elections in the UK, and it's not difficult to separate those two parties on policy. Corbyn may be a disaster, but to millions a Labour party led by Corbyn would be clearly preferable to a Boris led Tory party.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50790445

    About halfway down there's an interview with Phil Wilson.

    I am absolutely convinced that if Keir Starmer had stood on the 2017 manifesto it would have been a minority Labour Government at the worst. But because so many of us were too stupid to see what was happening and too arrogant to listen, Labour is going to climb what should have been a few seats, now being 60+.

    We've really cocked this up, I think it's difficult to understate how badly.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    Lloyd Russell-Moyle, another one who will nominate any nutcase as long as it’s got a Socialist rosette.
    I saw his rant. A shit of the first order.
    If only he had come turd in his race.
    Is one of the consequences of our changing electoral geography that the PLP is increasingly typified by the likes of Lloyd Russell-Moyle and less by the likes of Caroline Flint - and that tbe party therefore disappears even further up its own fundament? What is the balance of the new PLP like?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited December 2019
    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we, er, they are naturally superior to everyone else.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    nova said:

    Andy_JS said:

    algarkirk said:

    nichomar said:

    I’m actually quite sad tonight, having accepted the result of the election and hoping that a new paradigm may be opening up in UK Government so sitting with people and trying to say , let’s give him six months then we can judge him the response is ‘at least he’s not corbyn’ so I respond and say ‘corbyn gone they can’t get near power until 2024, so let’s see what Johnson delivers... well at least it’s not corbyn is the response so I tried well maybe we can get the ex service men of the streets with the new Tory majority government... well at least it’s not corbyn ! Seriously is that all they voted Tory for? Johnson has a unique window to be a reforming pragmatic redistributer framed by controlled free market economic policy, will he take it? We can only give him time

    https://twitter.com/tpgcolson/status/1205513403466502144

    I believe that Labour will elect Corbyn Mk 2 as the next leader. If Johnson can make a decent fist of governing then he may therefore be able to reduce Labour to a rump next time. We shall see.
    A question not sufficiently examined is: Why did so many people vote Labour? If what the moderate Labour candidates are saying is true about what they got on the doorstep, where on earth are all these millions of people coming from?

    On another topic, Boris has a lot of freedom because at the moment Tory voters have absolutely nowhere else to go. Brexit, Ukip, LDs and Labour between them offer nothing to any centre right voter. Nor is a centre right alternative going to appear.

    Until Labour have a leadership which can reach deep into the Tory vote they are stuck. Can they learn that 'Tory Scum' is not the best line to get Tories to vote for you?

    Out of habit. Half the people who voted Labour probably did so despite having reservations about Corbyn.
    That's more than a little patronising.

    Clearly only Labour or the Tories can win elections in the UK, and it's not difficult to separate those two parties on policy. Corbyn may be a disaster, but to millions a Labour party led by Corbyn would be clearly preferable to a Boris led Tory party.
    But it’s not a binary choice there are other options change the voting system and you can vote how youwant
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Not post brexit. There's no votes left in being a remain party.
    We’ll see what happens.
  • Endillion said:

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    What do you mean, "again"?
    1979-1983, 1983-1987, 1997-2001, 2001-2005. Elections had to be held within five years but PMs would normally try to go after four unless they thought they would lose.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited December 2019
    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
    Well,, one does not like to blow one’s own trumpet (apart from anything else, the contortions are quite tough) but obviously, if one is asked to serve one’s country as PM...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
    Well,, one does not like to blow one’s own trumpet (apart from anything else, the contortions are quite tough) but obviously, if one is asked to serve one’s country as PM...
    But you have an eight foot horn and it’s a long time since I wore a ruff!
  • novanova Posts: 525
    nichomar said:

    nova said:

    Andy_JS said:

    algarkirk said:

    nichomar said:

    I’m actually quite sad tonight, having accepted the result of the election and hoping that a new paradigm may be opening up in UK Government so sitting with people and trying to say , let’s give him six months then we can judge him the response is ‘at least he’s not corbyn’ so I respond and say ‘corbyn gone they can’t get near power until 2024, so let’s see what Johnson delivers... well at least it’s not corbyn is the response so I tried well maybe we can get the ex service men of the streets with the new Tory majority government... well at least it’s not corbyn ! Seriously is that all they voted Tory for? Johnson has a unique window to be a reforming pragmatic redistributer framed by controlled free market economic policy, will he take it? We can only give him time

    https://twitter.com/tpgcolson/status/1205513403466502144

    I believe that Labour will elect Corbyn Mk 2 as the next leader. If Johnson can make a decent fist of governing then he may therefore be able to reduce Labour to a rump next time. We shall see.
    A question not sufficiently examined is: Why did so many people vote Labour? If what the moderate Labour candidates are saying is true about what they got on the doorstep, where on earth are all these millions of people coming from?

    On another topic, Boris has a lot of freedom because at the moment Tory voters have absolutely nowhere else to go. Brexit, Ukip, LDs and Labour between them offer nothing to any centre right voter. Nor is a centre right alternative going to appear.

    Until Labour have a leadership which can reach deep into the Tory vote they are stuck. Can they learn that 'Tory Scum' is not the best line to get Tories to vote for you?

    Out of habit. Half the people who voted Labour probably did so despite having reservations about Corbyn.
    That's more than a little patronising.

    Clearly only Labour or the Tories can win elections in the UK, and it's not difficult to separate those two parties on policy. Corbyn may be a disaster, but to millions a Labour party led by Corbyn would be clearly preferable to a Boris led Tory party.
    But it’s not a binary choice there are other options change the voting system and you can vote how youwant
    Was there a "change the voting system" option on your ballot?

    In my constituency there were a list of names, and two of them got 87% of the vote. It looks pretty binary to me.
  • MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    I think a much more radical housing policy is going to be needed than that.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    What we need is aggressive granting of planning permission to build.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Jonathan said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Not post brexit. There's no votes left in being a remain party.
    We’ll see what happens.

    Close relationship and see how it develops
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
    Well,, one does not like to blow one’s own trumpet (apart from anything else, the contortions are quite tough) but obviously, if one is asked to serve one’s country as PM...
    But you have an eight foot horn and it’s a long time since I wore a ruff!
    It being eight foot long only makes the contortions harder.
  • MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    What we need is aggressive granting of planning permission to build.
    Perhaps we also need to stop allowing foreign entities to buy up housing before it is built, like say the Russians
  • MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    If they're going to get building to prove they mean it, they need to crack on with it. From planning to completion, major infrastructure projects are realistically going to be ready only for the election-after-next, I'd have thought.


    If I were to enter the mind of BoJo, I think I'd be tempted to go for a really big symbolic show-project - given the NI tensions and Union wobbles more generally, a Massive Great Bridge between GB and Ulster might be in order. Hopefully more successful than the Garden Bridge...

    Still think there might be something in this. He likes a bit of symbolism. And to be fair A Big Boris Bridge would be marginally less barmy than Boris Island.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    I think it has a 2020 sunset clause, so there's no need to repeal it.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    nova said:

    nichomar said:

    nova said:

    Andy_JS said:

    algarkirk said:

    nichomar said:

    I’m actually quite sad tonight, having accepted the result of the election and hoping that a new paradigm may be opening up in UK Government so sitting with people and trying to say , let’s give him six months then we can judge him the response is ‘at least he’s not corbyn’ so I respond and say ‘corbyn gone they can’t get near power until 2024, so let’s see what Johnson delivers... well at least it’s not corbyn is the response so I tried well maybe we can get the ex service men of the streets with the new Tory majority government... well at least it’s not corbyn ! Seriously is that all they voted Tory for? Johnson has a unique window to be a reforming pragmatic redistributer framed by controlled free market economic policy, will he take it? We can only give him time

    https://twitter.com/tpgcolson/status/1205513403466502144

    I believe that Labour will elect Corbyn Mk 2 as the next leader. If Johnson can make a decent fist of governing then he may therefore be able to reduce Labour to a rump next time. We shall see.
    A question not sufficiently examined is: Why did so many people vote Labour? If what the moderate Labour candidates are saying is true about what they got on the doorstep, where on earth are all these millions of people coming from?

    On another topic, Boris has a lot of freedom because at the moment Tory voters have absolutely nowhere else to go. Brexit, Ukip, LDs and Labour between them offer nothing to any centre right voter. Nor is a centre right alternative going to appear.

    Until Labour have a leadership which can reach deep into the Tory vote they are stuck. Can they learn that 'Tory Scum' is not the best line to get Tories to vote for you?

    Out of habit. Half the people who voted Labour probably did so despite having reservations about Corbyn.
    That's more than a little patronising.

    Clearly only Labour or the Tories can win elections in the UK, and it's not difficult to separate those two parties on policy. Corbyn may be a disaster, but to millions a Labour party led by Corbyn would be clearly preferable to a Boris led Tory party.
    But it’s not a binary choice there are other options change the voting system and you can vote how youwant
    Was there a "change the voting system" option on your ballot?

    In my constituency there were a list of names, and two of them got 87% of the vote. It looks pretty binary to me.
    If you keep voting for the binary choice nothing will ever change.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
  • MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    If they're going to get building to prove they mean it, they need to crack on with it. From planning to completion, major infrastructure projects are realistically going to be ready only for the election-after-next, I'd have thought.


    If I were to enter the mind of BoJo, I think I'd be tempted to go for a really big symbolic show-project - given the NI tensions and Union wobbles more generally, a Massive Great Bridge between GB and Ulster might be in order. Hopefully more successful than the Garden Bridge...

    Still think there might be something in this. He likes a bit of symbolism. And to be fair A Big Boris Bridge would be marginally less barmy than Boris Island.
    Not the bridge again. It's been discounted as possible due to the amount of unexploded WW2 bombs in the Irish Sea
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Okay sure - but my point is that the Tory Party is going to shred its "economic credibility" credentials for short term success.

    If there is another recession - as I expect there will be - they're going to surely make massive cuts.
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited December 2019
    viewcode said:

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    I think it has a 2020 sunset clause, so there's no need to repeal it.
    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/parliament-and-elections/parliament/prerogative-powers-and-the-fixed-term-parliaments-act/

    No, in the end the compromise was this:

    When the Bill was considered in Parliament, the House of Lords proposed a “sunset clause”. This would have required both the Houses to renew the legislation after each general election. The Commons objected. The deadlock between the two Houses was resolved through the insertion of a statutory requirement on the Prime Minister to establish a committee “to carry out a review of the operation of [the] Act” and “if appropriate in consequence of its findings, to make recommendations for the repeal or amendment of [the] Act.” The committee is required to report at some point between 1 June 2020 and 30 November 2020.

    Wonder if they'll wait for the review or scrap it before, though.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
    Well,, one does not like to blow one’s own trumpet (apart from anything else, the contortions are quite tough) but obviously, if one is asked to serve one’s country as PM...
    But you have an eight foot horn and it’s a long time since I wore a ruff!
    It being eight foot long only makes the contortions harder.
    How much do you pay the person that pumps the bellows?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    I think a much more radical housing policy is going to be needed than that.
    It actually isn't. A million landlords own four million homes. That has destroyed the available housing stock for FTBs.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    edited December 2019

    MaxPB said:



    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".

    What we need is aggressive granting of planning permission to build.
    The latter, if we value detached housing more than green space - but the alternative is denser housing, like most countries. We certainly don't need anti-landlord policies (as opposed to policies to encourage good landlords) in the south - for huge numbers of people in the Home Counties, renting is a crucial part of life and we need a decnt supply.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited December 2019

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    Er, Labour were offering closer to £800bn in infrastructure spending!

    Presumably the Conservatives could just find it from the reserve... They're not spending £52bn on WASPI after all ;)

    But more seriously, all infrastructure spending can be justified - if it is well spent and targeted (an obvious issue). And can be borrowed. Because it is supposed to pay for itself. There was this thing they tried in the US in the 30s...

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
    Well,, one does not like to blow one’s own trumpet (apart from anything else, the contortions are quite tough) but obviously, if one is asked to serve one’s country as PM...
    But you have an eight foot horn and it’s a long time since I wore a ruff!
    It being eight foot long only makes the contortions harder.
    How much do you pay the person that pumps the bellows?
    Depends on prior arrangements.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    What we need is aggressive granting of planning permission to build.
    Nope, there is enough housing in the UK, it just isn't allocated efficiently because owner occupation is effectively discouraged compared to being a landlord.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Lots of interesting articles about the election on here:

    https://unherd.com
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Cancel HS2 and simultaneously announce £100bn infrastructure investment in the Midlands, North and Wales.
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    I think a much more radical housing policy is going to be needed than that.
    It actually isn't. A million landlords own four million homes. That has destroyed the available housing stock for FTBs.
    I can't see the Tories doing much to change that, if it's anything like the last nine years it will be very small, basically meaningless changes that don't do very much.

    The people that vote Tory in large numbers outside of the new voters they've borrowed/taken, like their house prices to continue to go up in value, the Tories will not do anything to potentially undermine that, that is the reality.
  • MyBurningEarsMyBurningEars Posts: 3,651
    edited December 2019

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Okay sure - but my point is that the Tory Party is going to shred its "economic credibility" credentials for short term success.

    If there is another recession - as I expect there will be - they're going to surely make massive cuts.
    Cash on infrastructure is going to come under "investment/capital" spending rather than "resource spending" (current expenditure), expect the two to be treated differently under Austerity Round 2.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,232

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50790445

    About halfway down there's an interview with Phil Wilson.

    I am absolutely convinced that if Keir Starmer had stood on the 2017 manifesto it would have been a minority Labour Government at the worst. But because so many of us were too stupid to see what was happening and too arrogant to listen, Labour is going to climb what should have been a few seats, now being 60+.

    We've really cocked this up, I think it's difficult to understate how badly.

    Really? Worst post-war performance? Worst than Michael Foot? You've lost Scotland. You've lost the Northern Mining towns. Your only redoubt is the South Wales Valleys and the University towns. How bad did it have to get before you realised this? And what, if anything, can you do that will realistically stop it happening the next time?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    What we need is aggressive granting of planning permission to build.
    Nope, there is enough housing in the UK, it just isn't allocated efficiently because owner occupation is effectively discouraged compared to being a landlord.
    It is slightly bizarre that I am a landlord, yet have a mortgage on the house I live in.

    It becomes less bizarre when you realise I inherited a house with a sitting tenant.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,399

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    What we need is aggressive granting of planning permission to build.
    No we bloody well don't. Hands off the countryside. Say No to urban sprawl.
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    No, we should have only Welsh History teachers. This is because we are naturally superior to everyone else.
    Only if they are good at puns and know what the ruff end of a pineapple is!
    Well,, one does not like to blow one’s own trumpet (apart from anything else, the contortions are quite tough) but obviously, if one is asked to serve one’s country as PM...
    But you have an eight foot horn and it’s a long time since I wore a ruff!
    It being eight foot long only makes the contortions harder.
    How much do you pay the person that pumps the bellows?
    Depends on prior arrangements.
    Well I hope you have your entance and processionals sorted out, any hints on tomorrow’s choices?
  • alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    Er, Labour were offering closer to £800bn in infrastructure spending!

    I think most of Labour's manifesto this time around was pretty silly - but they've lost the election. My point is that the Tories are promising money seemingly out of thin air.

    I'm not saying they shouldn't invest in things - they should - but my point is that they're proposing to increase the deficit as a result, which if they're following their own previous economic "competence" measure, they would never plan to do.

    If their is another recession as I say, it seems like an open goal for a credible opposition to attack.
  • novanova Posts: 525
    nichomar said:

    nova said:

    nichomar said:

    nova said:

    Andy_JS said:

    algarkirk said:



    https://twitter.com/tpgcolson/status/1205513403466502144

    I believe that Labour will elect Corbyn Mk 2 as the next leader. If Johnson can make a decent fist of governing then he may therefore be able to reduce Labour to a rump next time. We shall see.

    A question not sufficiently examined is: Why did so many people vote Labour? If what the moderate Labour candidates are saying is true about what they got on the doorstep, where on earth are all these millions of people coming from?

    On another topic, Boris has a lot of freedom because at the moment Tory voters have absolutely nowhere else to go. Brexit, Ukip, LDs and Labour between them offer nothing to any centre right voter. Nor is a centre right alternative going to appear.

    Until Labour have a leadership which can reach deep into the Tory vote they are stuck. Can they learn that 'Tory Scum' is not the best line to get Tories to vote for you?

    Out of habit. Half the people who voted Labour probably did so despite having reservations about Corbyn.
    That's more than a little patronising.

    Clearly only Labour or the Tories can win elections in the UK, and it's not difficult to separate those two parties on policy. Corbyn may be a disaster, but to millions a Labour party led by Corbyn would be clearly preferable to a Boris led Tory party.
    But it’s not a binary choice there are other options change the voting system and you can vote how youwant
    Was there a "change the voting system" option on your ballot?

    In my constituency there were a list of names, and two of them got 87% of the vote. It looks pretty binary to me.
    If you keep voting for the binary choice nothing will ever change.
    Between 4 and 8 million voters have voted for the Liberals/SDP/Lib Dems in the dozen general elections since I was born. Things haven't changed.

  • MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    If they're going to get building to prove they mean it, they need to crack on with it. From planning to completion, major infrastructure projects are realistically going to be ready only for the election-after-next, I'd have thought.

    There might be much more value in doing a huge number of minor infrastructure projects.

    They can also be completed a lot quicker as well.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Cancel HS2 and simultaneously announce £100bn infrastructure investment in the Midlands, North and Wales.
    HS2 IS infrastructure investment for the North, Midlands and to a lesser extent North Wales.

    https://paulbigland.blog/2019/12/14/election-result-what-does-it-mean-for-hs2/
  • nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    Like Thatcher you mean? I don’t think any other PM studied a STEM subject.
  • viewcode said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50790445

    About halfway down there's an interview with Phil Wilson.

    I am absolutely convinced that if Keir Starmer had stood on the 2017 manifesto it would have been a minority Labour Government at the worst. But because so many of us were too stupid to see what was happening and too arrogant to listen, Labour is going to climb what should have been a few seats, now being 60+.

    We've really cocked this up, I think it's difficult to understate how badly.

    Really? Worst post-war performance? Worst than Michael Foot? You've lost Scotland. You've lost the Northern Mining towns. Your only redoubt is the South Wales Valleys and the University towns. How bad did it have to get before you realised this? And what, if anything, can you do that will realistically stop it happening the next time?
    I meant post 2017, when Labour actually gained seats. We cocked up keeping Corbyn and I didn't realise until this election how badly we'd cocked it up.

    There are narrow avenues for Labour to come back - but they need the right leader and a new approach.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited December 2019
    viewcode said:

    Not sure this has been mentioned yet but one of the first things I expect the Tories to do is to repeal the FTPA. Could we return to four year elections again?

    I think it has a 2020 sunset clause, so there's no need to repeal it.
    No it doesn't. It has a 'review date'.

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    If they're going to get building to prove they mean it, they need to crack on with it. From planning to completion, major infrastructure projects are realistically going to be ready only for the election-after-next, I'd have thought.


    If I were to enter the mind of BoJo, I think I'd be tempted to go for a really big symbolic show-project - given the NI tensions and Union wobbles more generally, a Massive Great Bridge between GB and Ulster might be in order. Hopefully more successful than the Garden Bridge...

    Still think there might be something in this. He likes a bit of symbolism. And to be fair A Big Boris Bridge would be marginally less barmy than Boris Island.
    I've already heard rumbles of opposition to streamlined planning - apparently Cummings is quoting the example of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_3 and the civil service is not happy.

    Boris Island made plenty of sense - strangely no-one opposed to it thought of the value of the Heathrow real estate... Hong Kong airport was more than paid for by the re-use of the old airport land.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Jonathan said:

    So by my reckoning these are the seats won by the Conservatives in 2010 but not in 2019:

    Battersea
    Brentford
    Croydon C
    Ealing C
    Enfield N
    Enfield Southgate
    Ilford N
    Putney
    Richmond Park

    Bedford
    St Albans

    Brighton Kemptown
    Canterbury
    Hove
    Reading E
    Oxford W

    Bristol NW
    Plymouth Sutton

    Warwick

    Chester
    Lancaster
    Weaver Vale
    Wirral W

    Cardiff N

    Bristol NW, Brighton Kemptown and Hove now added.
    The Tory’s southern underbelly is soft with the right leader.
    Housing affordability is the big threat to the Conservatives in the South.
    I think this has been noted by the leadership already. I think more anti-landlord policies are going to come, hopefully it will tip the balance further towards home ownership and away from existing property "investment".
    I think a much more radical housing policy is going to be needed than that.
    It actually isn't. A million landlords own four million homes. That has destroyed the available housing stock for FTBs.
    I can't see the Tories doing much to change that, if it's anything like the last nine years it will be very small, basically meaningless changes that don't do very much.

    The people that vote Tory in large numbers outside of the new voters they've borrowed/taken, like their house prices to continue to go up in value, the Tories will not do anything to potentially undermine that, that is the reality.
    It's already started, I expect the Boris government to accelerate the pace of pissing off the landlords.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Cancel HS2 and simultaneously announce £100bn infrastructure investment in the Midlands, North and Wales.
    The midlands and the north are big supporters of HS2. They wouldn't be very happy if it was cancelled.

  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    Like Thatcher you mean? I don’t think any other PM studied a STEM subject.
    I know but she then went and did a law degree
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    ydoethur said:

    1) what happened to the youthquake then?
    2) where's @TheJezziah? Has he/she been banned? (I've not been monitoring this for a while). Seems odd that I haven't seen anything from him/her for a while.

    1. It happened, it's just that it was a youth minor tremor. People always overstate the potential effect of the youth vote: the 18-24 age group is a small slice of the electorate and only really crucial in seats that are both marginal and contain HE campuses. The youth vote has been credited with saving Canterbury and two seats in Coventry that were only just held for Labour, and I'm guessing that it may also have done for the Tory challenge in Bedford and in Warwick & Leamington, but I doubt if it made a decisive difference to Labour anywhere else.

    2. Probably still in mourning.
    Not been around since the password debacle.
    Really? How much trouble is it to change your password when you've got as many strong views as @TheJezziah?
    I've only recently returned to the site as for a long time I couldn't get the password reset to work - kept saying that the token had expired every time I requested a new reset link. I fear there are others who've had similar trouble. Scott maybe?
    I'm sure Scott is desperate to update us on all future HoC votes.

    He so enjoyed keeping track of Boris's win rate.
    Twitter's going to be a joy for a while, isn't it?

    "Today, Boris Johnson proposed a Bill to nationalise Novara Media and fold it into the BBC. Editorial control will be exercised by Laura Kuenssberg. Passed with a majority of 87."
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Cancel HS2 and simultaneously announce £100bn infrastructure investment in the Midlands, North and Wales.
    I wonder what mileage there is (hah) in HS3: Liverpool to Hull. There's folk in Hull arguing it should be prioritised to happen before HS2 but I can't see that happening.

    Perhaps one of the rail-engineering types on here can explain more but I imagine there are limits on our rail-building capacity (besides which it would presumably be silly to build up such capacity to embark on a huge simultaneous expansion of lines, then have to largely run that capacity down once they've all been built). There's also people in The North who want HS2 to be constructed "north to south" either first or in parallel to the "south to north" bit - isn't that also considered impractical/uneconomic?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    nichomar said:

    nichomar said:

    ydoethur said:

    Wycombe has a university that is ranked just above Cambridge on one very widely used measure.

    So does Oxford, of course.

    Oxford also has a second university called, imaginatively, the University of Oxford, which is infamously not nearly as good...
    Not for architecture, no.

    Speaking of Oxford, the last three Labour leaders to win general elections were all there. Who on the list of possible new leaders was?
    Let’s hope we have the last ever old Etonian Oxbridge none STEM graduate ever. Let’s have scientists, entrepreneurs and good business managers who have actually done more than been spads, journalists or lawyers
    Like Thatcher you mean? I don’t think any other PM studied a STEM subject.
    I know but she then went and did a law degree
    Polymath :smile:
  • ydoethur said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    The problem for Labour is that it very much looks like Boris is going to play to the centre. The guardian reporting on NHS funding guarantee laws and £80bn on infrastructure in the ex-Labour heartlands. That looks like a party that wants to prove they aren't just in favour of the rich shires. It's literally from the Maggie playbook, we're going to turn them into Tories as much as they are going to make us less libertarian.

    Where is this money going to come from? If Labour was offering £80Bn in infrastructure spending they'd be utterly taken apart.

    I've said this before, if there is another recession the UK has to be one of the absolute worst prepared economies in Europe. Consumer debt levels now at the same as they were in 2006/2007 before the last crash, worrying high levels of rough sleeping and homelessness, very poor growth (or none) and debt to GDP at something like 85%.

    I can't see the Tories spending their way out of the next recession, can you?

    Has anyone worked out the average age you started voting Conservative yet, has it gone up or down? Because I must tell you, if the Tories continue to fail to tackle the housing issue in the next five or ten years, that is another ticking time bomb.

    They have a lot of power now to tackle these problems, I really hope they do - but I fear they won't.
    The £80bn is within the current spending envelope if we decide to stop cutting the deficit now that it is below 2%. It's not what I would do, but tbh, I've already lost that argument within the party.
    Cancel HS2 and simultaneously announce £100bn infrastructure investment in the Midlands, North and Wales.
    HS2 IS infrastructure investment for the North, Midlands and to a lesser extent North Wales.

    https://paulbigland.blog/2019/12/14/election-result-what-does-it-mean-for-hs2/
    To whose benefit ?

    The metropolitan affluent of the 2040s.

    Not what I'd call a key electoral demographic.
This discussion has been closed.