Sky Prediction Of General Election

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Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

This is just confirmation bias. Taking local election results and projecting them nationally is about as flawed as you can get, you want to trust it because it validates what you have been saying.

I think the true picture will be somewhere in the middle

From a personal perspective I want the Tories given a complete hammering

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Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

What evidence do you see of enthusiasm for Starmer? I can understand his caution in a way, but he needs to increasingly get on the front foot in the coming months.

The Tories have got little left to campaign effectively with and targeting Starmer seems a sensible way for them to go to me because I dont' see the same attitude towards him that there was towards Blair leading up to 1997. I did warm to Starmer somewhat when I heard he'd been self deprecating about his speeches a while ago, I think that a bit more of that would go down well with voters (think a lot of Johnson's appeal came from that).

My friends are labour or liberal voters

I don't know any from our conversations that think he's got any sort of mmmmphh about him

I think if labour had elected a housewives choice like Blair......but without his paper smiles and lies ......they would be romping home

I think middle ground liberalism is the way to go but the liberals are shocking so I am holding my nose as always and voting Labour......but not for starmef

[Eric Cartman]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

For me, a couple of things are clear;

Firstly, Labour are nailed on to win the next General Election. No Tory politician would bet their kids inheritance on them winning.

Secondly, local elections are a really really bad way to assess how a general election would go. Turnout is paltry, there's different issues at play, there is perhaps six months to go, different candidates, lots of places didnt vote, it's being compared to the 2021 results which were a Tory high water mark etc etc etc.

That said, a few things could get change things. I don't think they can change the result, but they can change the scoreline.

Has the local elections been enough of a kicking? People often like to punish govts and local elections are a way to do with less riding on it.

Will the economy improve further?
Possibly. I think the reality is the era of high inflation and energy prices are in the past. Fingers crossed. That will only help the govt even if the reality isnt anything spectacular.

Will the legal and illegal immigration issues come under control?
Big issue. Will be a bounce if they can. If they can't it leaves the door open for Reform or for Labour but Labour will then have to deal with the problem with limited likelihood of success.

What happens with Reform and the Workers Party of Britain?
No explanation needed really. Both could take big chunks from the main parties in various different location

Will any game changing shock occur?
No one was Covid, Ukraine etc. Surprises can change things.

Can't disagree with any of that really. I am not sure we are in that place where an event can fix it for the Tories though. Under Corbyn, any big event would yield the 'holy shit, what mess would Corbyn have made of this', on almost every metric Starmer/Labour are seen as my more competent and the general attitude seems to be 'this would have been handled better by anybody but the Tories'. That is just the way things go, it was possibly unfair on Corbyn and it's possibly unfair on sunak but they have fully earned the distrust of the public many times over.

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Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Can't disagree with any of that really. I am not sure we are in that place where an event can fix it for the Tories though. Under Corbyn, any big event would yield the 'holy shit, what mess would Corbyn have made of this', on almost every metric Starmer/Labour are seen as my more competent and the general attitude seems to be 'this would have been handled better by anybody but the Tories'. That is just the way things go, it was possibly unfair on Corbyn and it's possibly unfair on sunak but they have fully earned the distrust of the public many times over.

Whilst labour are the party that I have generally voted for ......I have never voted Tory.....for all my voting lifetime they have been hopeless , apart from the early Blair years

I thought Ed milliband was shocking but corbyn was a disaster

Starmer is thankfully better but it's not a high bar

People go on about Andy Burnham but the world will stop turning before he's in the running I think

I would prefer a lab , liberal , independent , green modern all together party but they are all so pathetic

Yesterday a labour mp was in the BBC studio saying that the green party were irrelevant , a minor party and couldn't even run Brighton Council properly

Ff sake .....the common enemy is the Tories

I vote Labour because I can't stand the tories not because the Labour party are demi gods

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

I don't really know what you are expecting, people dancing in the streets chanting his name? Centre ground policies aren't going to excite people, economically left policies are political suicide because the UK is run by those with vested interests. Starmer has consistently gone for the 'im more ethical and efficient than the Tories' and it has worked if the polls are to be believed.

The country is ****ed to almost incredible levels (via Tory lack of vision and incompetence in combination with 'acts of god'). If labour make grand promises they can't achieve, they will be judged accordingly. What are labour meant to actually do with a country with broken underfunded public services, near record tax burden, low wages, enormous debt and consistently flat lining growth? A slow grind is the only way, maybe they won't be given multiple terms to try and fix things, maybe they aren't capable of fixing things, which knows.

I would prefer them to have more vision/ambition but we are where we are.

It’s as I said a while back, I see no evidence of any enthusiasm for Starmer,whereas there was enthusiasm about Blair around pre 1997. Blair’s Government remained pretty popular until the Iraq war and still won an election after that, but I can see the polls turning against Labour pretty quickly if they win in a few months time, partly because Starmer will be proving that he’s as uninspiring as a Prime Minister as he is as a leader of the opposition.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Whilst labour are the party that I have generally voted for ......I have never voted Tory.....for all my voting lifetime they have been hopeless , apart from the early Blair years

I thought Ed milliband was shocking but corbyn was a disaster

Starmer is thankfully better but it's not a high bar

People go on about Andy Burnham but the world will stop turning before he's in the running I think

I would prefer a lab , liberal , independent , green modern all together party but they are all so pathetic

Yesterday a labour mp was in the BBC studio saying that the green party were irrelevant , a minor party and couldn't even run Brighton Council properly

Ff sake .....the common enemy is the Tories

I vote Labour because I can't stand the tories not because the Labour party are demi gods

Lots of talk about how Labour are losing votes in certain cities because the younger electorate, who were behind Labour under Corbyn, are switching to the Greens - they think they’ve got a good chance of beating what’s her name Debonair, who I think is still in the shadow cabinet, in her seat in Bristol.

[Keyser Soze]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Greens are like UKIP - a pressure group with claimed domain knowledge of a specific areas. But even if you agree with the Greens policies, they lack funding, are full of hippies (who don’t make good leaders) and lack any strategy. In that sense they suffer the same faultlines as Plaid Cymru.

UKIP and now Reform at least have one or two leaders who are powerful, have worked in high politics and are savvy with social media, PR and can draw on wealthy finance.

The Parliamentary system also prevents Reform or Greens making headway due to inability to win seats, despite being able to get votes. Labour have a chance to change that, but they have the odd strategic conundrum in that changing the voting system would allow Lib Dems, Greens and Reform to become more highly represented and votable. Turkeys and Christmas? I think Labour will talk reform but they won’t do it. It isn’t in their interest as a top two party to concede Parliamentary seats to minor parties who would then present new threats. Strategically it is best to have one enemy in the Conservatives, be able to be the leading opponents or winners.

Plaid? Plaid in my opinion have had 10-15 years of opportunity to get it right. I find Plaid interesting because if they were backed and advised by a professional team they should be able to be at least competitive with Labour and mimick SNP success. But they are like the Greens and Lib Dems in that they are full of teachers, intelligent academics, nice people with a vision that is like the SNP. But they are so weak as a political machine it is incredible. They have weak finances, a lack of data analysis, poor strategy, awful leadership, weak tactics, a lack of street fight, good campaign management, limp PR: all the stuff required to be professional winners. They have no sense of realpolitik either. They work with the SNP closely allegedly, but don’t appear to replicate any of their methods.

The SNP were no different to Plaid in that far from being Lefties they are hotpotch of centrists, Tartan Tories, Social Democrats and Socialists - who coalesce around Nationalism. Plaid has plenty of people who are moderate, centrists and fair but not woke. If Plaid positioned themselves in the moderate centre as Salmond and Sturgeon initially did (until she moves Left and woke), then sorted out the professional stuff I mentioned, then Plaid should be winning more often in Wales. But their soft idealism just doesn’t land with most Welsh people who want a combination of pragmatic solutions to every day problems, but with a Welsh flavour.Like the Greens and Lib Dems, they can’t seem to mature as a party beyond “enthusiastic students and sixth formers”.

[PontBlue]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Politicians shouldn't need stardust. That's how shallow our Country and the World has become.

I want my Politicians to be competent, honest, decent people who have the best interests of the Country at heart.

[pipster]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Locals don’t mean much, turnout is too low to forecast a GE.

spot on, there was a debate on radio4 where the 'pollsters' all said pretty much the same thing. Locals turnout too low to predict, people vote for different reasons, and that you really need to look at the differential ie if Party A have not increased their previous vote but Party B have decreased their vote - it just means the other hasnt turned up - which is different when it comes to a GE.

If Starma gets in - it'll be like going back to the 1970's - for all the wrong reasons. Good for me though - as that usually means stupid public sector projects - massively inflated rates, project over runs etc

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Lots of talk about how Labour are losing votes in certain cities because the younger electorate, who were behind Labour under Corbyn, are switching to the Greens - they think they’ve got a good chance of beating what’s her name Debonair, who I think is still in the shadow cabinet, in her seat in Bristol.

I would love a strong rainbow alliance of Labour, Liberal, greens , independents

Bristol is a very left of centre city

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Greens are like UKIP - a pressure group with claimed domain knowledge of a specific areas. But even if you agree with the Greens policies, they lack funding, are full of hippies (who don’t make good leaders) and lack any strategy. In that sense they suffer the same faultlines as Plaid Cymru.

UKIP and now Reform at least have one or two leaders who are powerful, have worked in high politics and are savvy with social media, PR and can draw on wealthy finance.

The Parliamentary system also prevents Reform or Greens making headway due to inability to win seats, despite being able to get votes. Labour have a chance to change that, but they have the odd strategic conundrum in that changing the voting system would allow Lib Dems, Greens and Reform to become more highly represented and votable. Turkeys and Christmas? I think Labour will talk reform but they won’t do it. It isn’t in their interest as a top two party to concede Parliamentary seats to minor parties who would then present new threats. Strategically it is best to have one enemy in the Conservatives, be able to be the leading opponents or winners.

Plaid? Plaid in my opinion have had 10-15 years of opportunity to get it right. I find Plaid interesting because if they were backed and advised by a professional team they should be able to be at least competitive with Labour and mimick SNP success. But they are like the Greens and Lib Dems in that they are full of teachers, intelligent academics, nice people with a vision that is like the SNP. But they are so weak as a political machine it is incredible. They have weak finances, a lack of data analysis, poor strategy, awful leadership, weak tactics, a lack of street fight, good campaign management, limp PR: all the stuff required to be professional winners. They have no sense of realpolitik either. They work with the SNP closely allegedly, but don’t appear to replicate any of their methods.

The SNP were no different to Plaid in that far from being Lefties they are hotpotch of centrists, Tartan Tories, Social Democrats and Socialists - who coalesce around Nationalism. Plaid has plenty of people who are moderate, centrists and fair but not woke. If Plaid positioned themselves in the moderate centre as Salmond and Sturgeon initially did (until she moves Left and woke), then sorted out the professional stuff I mentioned, then Plaid should be winning more often in Wales. But their soft idealism just doesn’t land with most Welsh people who want a combination of pragmatic solutions to every day problems, but with a Welsh flavour.Like the Greens and Lib Dems, they can’t seem to mature as a party beyond “enthusiastic students and sixth formers”.

Plaid are insane

Nationalism will never work

I would only vote for them if the only other option was the Tories

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Politicians shouldn't need stardust. That's how shallow our Country and the World has become.

I want my Politicians to be competent, honest, decent people who have the best interests of the Country at heart.

Then we need to get rid of political parties for a start

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

spot on, there was a debate on radio4 where the 'pollsters' all said pretty much the same thing. Locals turnout too low to predict, people vote for different reasons, and that you really need to look at the differential ie if Party A have not increased their previous vote but Party B have decreased their vote - it just means the other hasnt turned up - which is different when it comes to a GE.

If Starma gets in - it'll be like going back to the 1970's - for all the wrong reasons. Good for me though - as that usually means stupid public sector projects - massively inflated rates, project over runs etc

Apart from sky yesterday all the leading pollsters and analysts are predicting at least a 50 seat majority for Labour

As long as they are the biggest party that will do for me and we can go from there

[pipster]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Apart from sky yesterday all the leading pollsters and analysts are predicting at least a 50 seat majority for Labour

As long as they are the biggest party that will do for me and we can go from there

Me to - lot's of Labour spending recklessly it'll be just like the good ol days of Blair / Brown throwing money at large public sector projects which are just a financial black hole. Should be even easier with Rayner and Starma at the wheel :)

[Keyser Soze]

Re: Sky Prediction Of General Election

Plaid are insane

Nationalism will never work

I would only vote for them if the only other option was the Tories

I think “Nationalism” is too simplistic. It really depends what Nationalism flavour. If you mean Plaid’s current view of Nationalism=Independence I would agree at the moment. Demographics and lack of track record means they won’t get it.

But the SNP’s Nationalism does work in the sense they provided a non-independence platform for a Scottish party to run Scotland in the Scottish interests, and Scottish priorities. Sure they want independence but that was rejected. Scots of all hues: Socialists, centrists and Tartan Tories have backed the SNP to sort Scottish problems. So that formof Nationalism works for sure.

To me, that form of Nationalism could work for Wales, and to a degree Welsh Labour provide that. But in Wales there are not alternatives. Plaid’s critical error is asking for the keys to the Ferrari (independence) when they haven’t even established themselves as a credible party of Welsh government. So if they barked less about independence, and instead focused on effective local government, they could compete. Once they compete and establish themselves, only then can they ask for the keys - when a more indy-supportive youngsters become mainstream and cynical-elders pass away.