Westminstenders: The Undecideds

[RedToothBrush]

Apparently the pollsters are nervous.

There are far more undecided than there have been at this stage in recent general election.

This makes it a hugely fine line between a hung parliament and a massive tory majority.

The weather on Thursday isn't expected to be nice and this could affect turnout. The blue corner are particularly nervous about this, but don't forget those postal votes.

Whatever happens on Thursday at least this election campaign is nearly over. And that can't be a bad thing.

And Christmas is in a fortnight so we can all drown our sorrows or celebrate in style.

You always have time to restock the drinks if you end up resort to them on Thursday

(New election special thread on Thursday rather than bunging up Westminstenders BTW)

How on earth is the shambolic pig in a thatched wig going to cope with being the PM, if he's taken by surprise at journalists talking to him in an election campaign?

He will cope by making unaccountability a watch word for being PM.

No10 will look at EVERY convention and see how they can avoid them. We will have the equivalent of Trump stood in front of a helicopter shouting stuff. No questions.

Peninsula I shall be drowning my sorrows with tea and thinking of you, if that helps. Stay strong!

Oh and my pmk

cat

Beautiful. Thank you.

TheCat Your morning prayer post was inspired 👏🏼

I'm very glad my "marbles" helped you illustrate the importance of keeping out the Tories

They will smash the marbles instead of handing them back at the following GE

Many thanks to you and other Westministenders, for your canvassing to avoid an authoritarian BJ regime 💐
Must be even tougher than usual with such an aggressive & lying Tory campaign

Whatever happens, you know have done your very best to inform people, to vote to pull back from the brink

"We just need to survive the next 5 years"

The Tories are too dangerous, to leave them to smash & burn with impunity

We must in particular fight any gerrymandering that attempts to keep the hard right in power in perpetuity,
including by proxy via punitive clauses in a US FTA

DS20 has been tirelessly campaigning to get students to vote in their home constituency. Their uni sits in a very safe remain area. He's done that despite having to sit exams this week. (Proud mum alert)

And @thecatfromjapan thanks for your words of encouragement and your poetry this morning.
Now's not the time to be thin-skinned

In the 1980s, the Tories / Thatcher were hated in the North, for their de-industialisation and laying waste to communities

Decades of rightwing lies since then and finally turning into the English Nationalist Party have enabled them to divert the blame for their actions in govt, including Cameron's austerity, onto "elites", the EU and immigrants

This whole Brexshit is just the Tory route to staying in power and keeping the rich ever richer

Months ago, John Crace summed up BJ:

"A man who would happily reduce the UK to 4 failed states just to stay in power for a week longer"

As for people voting to Get Things Done ...

Nick Cohen:

"The characters who have taken over the British right have not provided us with a ruling class but a ruling chaos "

Also the price to pay for the whole continent may be dire and may well come back to bite us in the bum:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-europe-general-election-war-germany-france-stability-a9233181.html

To quote an excellent book on geopolitics, we are prisoners of our geography and would do well to remember it. We can't benefit from an unstable continent.

how can I find latest forecast for my constituency?

Why on earth was Johnson lugging a crate of milk around? he was supposed to be delivering two bottles to a doorstep. ("You were only meant to blow the bloody door off!") No milkman I have ever seen carried the crates to the doors:they took the number of bottles needed, and didn't risk a back injury.

in any case, what I want in a prime minister is not actually the ability to deliver a pinta, nor yet to make a stick of rock or change a tyre: I want someone who is capable of running a country. Is it too much to ask?
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I don't take the polls as gospel this morning any more than I have on any other morning since 1990 or so. We have known for weeks what they were going to be saying; why should them actually saying it make any difference?

And by the way, there was a Labour a stand in the centre of town last week, and somebody dumped what was probably a human turd onto it in the middle of the leaflets. Such sweet people, the anti-Labour thugs.

m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/general-election-2019-boris-johnson_uk_5defb0d2e4b07f6835b9a59c?ncid=other_twitter_cooo9wqtham&utm_campaign=share
Voters Haven't Forgotten That Boris Johnson Has A Problem With Women
The Tory lead is three times bigger among men than among women, Edelman's public affairs MD James Morris writes.

Ian Warren @election_data
I want to comment a little on this work. It's very rare to have an eye-witness account of the moment a campaign changes, but I think these focus groups 'perhaps' give us this opportunity. But there's even more happening here....1/?

You may know I've done focus groups with @JamesDMorris before and having a women's focus group and then separately a men's focus group, as James often does, reveals something else. I want you to watch how women discuss politics because it's truly an education. These strangers

have been thrown together and within a matter of minutes they are speaking and listening to each other. Respecting each other's space, using a lot of humour, making some fantastic points and I know I certainly found women's focus groups just bloody unbelievable. Contrast with

the men's groups which tend to be much less enjoyable. Not all of them, but many of them. They're much more about individuals in the room making their own point, often in quite harsh terms, with much less interaction between them and less warmth or humour. I think this is

important for campaigners too, because often an interaction on a doorstep with a man is very different to that with a woman. Not always, and there are of course men who conduct themselves brilliantly. But I think we could have all benefitted a lot if women played a much more

prominent role in this campaign. As @annaturley said last night, this campaign has felt like a very 'macho' campaign. Just picture Boris Johnson riding a tractor through a polystyrene wall. Could we have a MORE graphic depiction of a campaign conducted by men for men?

Labour leaflet through the door today. It reads

"The Lib Dem candidate has already conceded he cannot win and has advised his supporters to 'do what you need to do' to stop the Tories here"

In bold.

Incidentally we have had a rash of Labour leaflets in the last week or so. Now up to double figures. They are fighting hard here.

Could we have a MORE graphic depiction of a campaign conducted by men for men?

I feel this is more of a risk to my DDs long term prospects than the self ID issue (which IS an issue). Let's not forget the alt right / populist project is very much fueled by a desire to return to a patriarchal society.

Anthony B Masters @anthonybmasters
I have combined the YouGov MRP estimates for GB constituencies with the PA estimated declaration times.

#GeneralElection2019 #GE2019 #GE2019data

Spreadsheet

Handy for anyone wanting to know what time their constituency is likely to declare.

If things are close it could be a very long night.

The exit poll will be first clue then a think around 2.30am we will start to see if the exit poll is close or not.

Think I might try to get some sleep after the exit poll (possibly alcohol assisted) then get up about 2.30 to see things unfold.

One other thing. There is a conversation on twitter between @p_surridge and Jon Mellon about projecting tactical voting.

High attention voters are much more likely to vote tactical in marginal seats than anyone else.

Which isn't a surprise.

But this proves a problem for pollsters because tactical voting isn't consistent throughout the country.

Let me explain; the MRP will identify a certain demographic as likely to vote a certain way. But that demographic will behave differently in more marginal seats according to data.

So MRP has to both identify the demographic and THEN adjust this for marginality on a seat by seat basis.

This means that marginal seats are even more difficult to predict behavior in because you have two factors in play - marginality and demographic - which haven't necessarily been as pronounced and as important as in previous elections.

Also if women are more undecided than men if they do, at the last minute, decide to lean against Johnson in greater numbers than anticipated, this might also be a factor the pollsters are not yet picking up.

These are interesting points - @p_surridge has made a couple in the last couple of days. Worth a follow if you don't already.

Also if women are more undecided than men if they do, at the last minute, decide to lean against Johnson in greater numbers than anticipated, this might also be a factor the pollsters are not yet picking up. Or suddenly decide to vote for Johnson

I should be able to answer this after all this time in here but I can't. An American friend asked me just now, if the Tories have 43% in the polls and they are the only pro-Brexit party (forget the Brexit party as they are too few to make a difference) then how does that translate to a majority in Parliament for Brexit?

While undecided voters could jump either way, can't see anything specific that would push anyone towards Johnson in this last day or two! Quite the reverse. I guess countering that is the idea that undecided voters often stick with the status quo.

Have the tories lost their minds completely? Ruth Davidson has vowed to go skinny dipping in Loch Ness if the SNP get 50 seats tomorrow. Add Boris Johnson in a fridge... I just can't help but think that this is not the direction Winston Churchill saw his party going in.