Westministenders: The Only Election That Matters - The Tory One

[RedToothBrush]

Fallout from the Euro Elections makes for interesting reading for the leadership hopefuls.

Its not a clear cut as some make out. There is still a case for a deal. The trouble is passing it through parliament. And there is no time to do that. Nor no will.

Any new leader's priority isn't going to be a deal. Its going to be avoiding a General Election. And thats going to be hard.

We are also realistically facing the prospect of another extension which France is likely to block leading to no deal or no deal.

Or a 2nd Referendum.

A 2nd Referendum might be the only way to avoid a General Election. And that will still have no deal on the ballot. Of that you can be sure.

Peter Foster of the Telegraph remarked this morning that in fact the only way to a deal now, might well be via no deal, because of all the routes we have exhausted through incompetence. And that will come at a very high price.

Dexeu 25k on consultants in April would only have bought them one consultant - most likely a pm or equivalent 'placeholding' so arguably virtually nothing is being done?

oakenbeach A vote of NC does not mean an immediate GE:

Corbyn would have 14 days to form a govt, before one is called.
Hence the Tory moderate C&S

atm, a GE would produce a hung Parliament - not necessarily a majority for LDs & Lab & SNP

FPTP means Faragist seat numbers especially are very sensitive to small swings among the other parties
I posted on the other thread how he could be PM with a 56 seat overall majority with just 24% of the vote, depending on how the votes split among other parties

Are the Brexit MEPs the first people in their position, that are representatives of a private company, rather than a political party?

FPTP is very unkind to the LDs, ever since LAB replaced them as the major party alternative to CON

When I put that poll, with them leading on 24 %, into the seat predictor, remember it was LAB, on only 19%, who had 80 more seats

The first in the Uk
Maybe in Latin America somewhere ?

That has traditionally been the case, but actually we don't know the impact of current shifts in party support in a FPTP election.

Once you get three or four parties with similar levels of support I suspect that the outcome of an election becomes exponentially harder to predict, as small local variations in support could easily be what gets a particular candidate over the line.

Corbyn would have 14 days to form a govt, before one is called. Hence the Tory moderate C&S

The Tory moderates would never support a Corbyn led Government... even if they did, Corbyn would need 60+ MPs from other parties to support him... that would require the SNP. That would never happen...

atm, a GE would produce a hung Parliament - not necessarily a majority for LDs & Lab & SNP

ATM, maybe... but things are far too volatile and fast moving. It’s conceivable that Labour will get back in the game... but if they continue to try to be all things to all people come a GE, I predict they’ll be slaughtered in an orgy of tactical voting focussing Remainer votes. It’s wrong to assume that the old “truths” that the LDs doing badly in FPTP. We’re in uncharted territory.

It seems that the Tory Party membership are now so right-wing and ultra-brexity that most say they want a "no-deal brexit". I'm sure that many do not have the first clue what the actual consequenses of that might be but just expect "good old Boris" or some other similar chap to sort it out.

You’ve met my DM then.

Having listened to her channelling Boris and having had several glasses of wine one evening last December I explained to her exactly what No Deal would mean to her grandchildren’s lives, and she got a bit contrite and said she’d write to her MP about it (quite possibly pointless as he is now under a recall petition ).

Yesterday she told me she had voted Brexit Party “as a protest”.

I’m disgusted and disappointed and not at all surprised in equal measures.

Seat predictors give quite a good prediction if seats for a given %

The LDs are still far below what they need to form a govt

• and that poll may just have captured a temporary boost after the EP elections

A GE would be a leap into the dark, even more so than a PV

A GE would be a leap into the dark, even more so than a PV

True, but I don’t see the alternative if we are to avoid a hard Brexit. There’s every sign that there are enough Tory MPs to vote down the Government if they try and deliver a no-deal... I can’t see how any way that Labour coils realistically be able to form a Government with current mix of MPs.... so a General Election inevitably follows.

Could not coils

Seat predictors give quite a good prediction if seats for a given %

Only if the assumptions on which the model was based hold!

Personally (as someone who builds computer models for a living) I would be very wary about seat forecasts right now.

A GE would be a leap into the dark, even more so than a PV
That's such a polite way of putting it, BCF
We are in a truly dangerous place. Ah well.........

It's the poll values I would have more doubts about

• btw, has anyone analysed all the various poll predictions and checked who was most accurate for say the top 4 uk-wide parties ?

I agree if the old tribal loyalties are torn apart, then the seat model may become less useful.

• it has validations from previous post-WW2 GEs, when we had a 2-party system

(I also work with huge mathematical models, btw)

Big problem with seat predictors is that they normally work on uniform swings across the country
The errors can even out though

The latest predictor even allows setting a % of tactical voting for each party
Still doesn't / can't tackle local / regional swings

Seat predictors worked in the past because the number of marginal seats was actually quite small, and most marginal seats are two-way marginals.

A situation in which many seats are marginals, and a significant number are three or four way marginals, is inherently much harder to model - especially when you don't have any real life elections held under similar circumstances to "train" your model on.

GEs - up to now - have been decided by about 150 seats
Future GEs may be decided by more

From a maths point of view, we need a GE, preferably 2 or 3, to test how well the existing seat models work
As a country ...... NO !

Which is why I was wondering if the large group of MPs opposed to No Deal, or to any but the softest Brexit,
would decide a GE is too risky,
hence bury the ideologies, get together and have an NC to form a new govt without a GE

Oh gawd, there is no limit to this fighting over the wheel of the Torytanic, as it crashes repeatedly into the Brexit iceberg

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/31/stop-dominic-raab-tory-moderates-seek-to-block-path-to-pm

Several other candidates could still enter the race, which now has more participants than a football team.

The defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt; the former international development secretary Priti Patel, and the hardline Brexiter Steve Baker are all still mulling over a run. 🤮

ContinuityError I feel your pain

DGR is correct - paradigm shift. In the spirit of LeClerc here is some music
m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ

The majority of polling didn't predict the SNP landslide in Scotland obviously in 2015 - with swings that almost literally effectively "broke" the BBC's swingometer. The imminent landslide was only predicted as the Exit Polls came in.

The YouGov specialised polling in 2017 (by constituency?) did predict the hung parliament - although iirc, their "ordinary" polling did not.

Just illustrates that the specific modelling is key.

frumpety Apparently there is nothing wrong with forging false invoices and it’s all a Labour conspiracy - despite similar instances of creative accountancy generally resulting in Sharon in accounts being instantly dismissed and subject to
a custodial sentence.

Well, this couldn't be clearer, could it?
We're meant to become the US's poodle on steroids

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48481309

I would invite all less well off leavers to experience life in poverty in the US. Then vote again.

Imagine the row if Obama had tried to install a Remain PM