Snap General Election?

[ralphrj]

PM to make statement at 11:15

[ralphrj]

Looking at the predictions from Electoral Calculus - I don't think that there will be any change in Scotland.

Tories to gain 50 seats, 49 from Labour and 1 from UKIP (their last prediction predates Carswell's resignation)
Labour to lose 50 seats (49 to Tories, 1 to Plaid Cymru)


That's it. No change for Lib Dems or SNP.

[ralphrj]

andymadmak said:

will this be under the new boundaries? (i.e. smaller HoC)

No, boundary review won't take place until next year.

[ralphrj]

p1stonhead said:

End of the Labour Party is nigh surely?

Unlikely. I suspect that at least 1 in 4 people will still vote for them and they will end up with circa 180 seats.

[ralphrj]

It was interesting to see a couple of opinion polls from Scotland showing the size of the collapse in Labour support north of the border.

The poll in the Sunday Times had Labour down to just 13% support in Scotland - unbelievably they are now 20% behind the Tories! (SNP still out front, obviously).

Electoral Calculus have combined that poll with another from the Sunday Post and estimated what the outcome might be if the actual vote is the same:

SNP 46 seat (down 10)
Tories 11 seats (up 10)
LibDem 2 seats (up 1)
Labour 0 seats (down 1)

Labour are looking at complete wipe-out in Scotland. Less then 2 years ago they had 41 Scottish MPs.

[ralphrj]

ralphrj said:

It was interesting to see a couple of opinion polls from Scotland showing the size of the collapse in Labour support north of the border.

The poll in the Sunday Times had Labour down to just 13% support in Scotland - unbelievably they are now 20% behind the Tories! (SNP still out front, obviously).

Electoral Calculus have combined that poll with another from the Sunday Post and estimated what the outcome might be if the actual vote is the same:

SNP 46 seat (down 10)
Tories 11 seats (up 10)
LibDem 2 seats (up 1)
Labour 0 seats (down 1)

Labour are looking at complete wipe-out in Scotland. Less then 2 years ago they had 41 Scottish MPs.

To pile on the misery for any Labour supporters (just, Jawknee as far as I can tell), according to Yougov the Tories have a 10% lead over Labour in Wales.

[ralphrj]

Hayek said:

This seemed likely to me as other than on independence the SNP appeals to the same kind of voter as Labour (socialist/statist).

Sophy Ridge on Sky made an interesting point that historically Labour have enjoyed the backing of people who had only ever voted Labour, just like their parents and their grandparents before them. In recent years the youngest generation of those families have been tempted away to parties like the SNP or UKIP on other issues (namely Scottish independence or immigration). Now that those voters have broken the seemingly permanent tie to Labour they don't feel the need to go back. Switching from Labour to Tory was previously unthinkable but having turned their back on Labour once they don't feel that they couldn't do it again.

[ralphrj]

sidicks said:

MarshPhantom said:

Yes, Labour increased debt significantly (during a period of strong economic growth), hid further debt off balance sheet, and left a massive structural deficit when they left office meaning that even with what is laughably called 'austerity measures', the debt was inevitably going to increase further.

Is that really the point you were trying to make?

Those figures are very old and outdated. You can also see that most of those increases are estimates rather than actuals.

UK debt interest payments actually peaked in 2011/12 and have fallen since.

For example: Actual UK debt interest payments were £45.1bn in 2015/16 not the estimated £57bn shown on the chart.

[ralphrj]

A.J.M said:

I would say that map is also out a touch.

There is a lot of backlash starting against the SNP in Scotland.

Ruth's Scottish Conservatives are likely to take a few seats off them, some polls have that as high as 14.
So it could be very interesting as there is a large Tory push in some Scottish areas that is being welcomed by the locals who are fed up with the frankly useless and single agenda driven SNP people.

It is astonishing that the part of the country that has rejected Labour most emphatically is Scotland. I know that is not breaking news, the SNP have been in power at Holyrood for 10 years but it is incredible to think that, Labour now enjoy more "support" in South East England than in Scotland.

[ralphrj]

garyhun said:

vonuber said:

garyhun said:

And aside from all that, if we don't start changing from short term opportunism to long term vision then we'll just keep on bumbling along for ever.

That's a perennial problem though. Look at infrastructure spending, it's kicked down the road by every successive government.

It is and it's unacceptable. I have no idea how or who is capable of changing this, but for the prosperity of future generations I hope it's sooner rather than later.

Someone should create an independent body to oversee infrastructure projects.

Like this one