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)

I've just read my local newspaper.

My local Lib Dem candidate is now openly advocating tactical voting as legitimate (I feel sorry for the LD candidate for High Peak who did exactly the same and was removed as candidate hours before the candidate dead line).

The article talks about a number of LD councillors locally saying they intend to vote Labour. Which is what I'd heard privately for a couple of weeks now.

MRP projections are suggesting its going to be extremely close here again. Last time it flipped Labour by a couple of thousand. The suggestion is it will flip Conservative by less than a thousand.

Last time it was predicted to be con by every pollster bar the last YouGov MRP one. And this time around I'm somewhat skeptical of the suggestion it'll go blue again. I think it's more remain than it was in 2016 and I think the projections of how remain it was were off to begin with. I'm curious about the next round of MRP data tomorrow to say the least...

The LDs got 5.4% of the vote last time and are projected 8% this time (around 3000 votes). But I've got to be honest in saying I think 8% sounds optimistic to me, when the local candidate and local councillors are saying that.

The nuts thing is the LDs initially thought they had a genuine shot at the seat and it was a target for them for a while.

I don't know but my guts last time at the very end were that the seat would go red. And my gut tonight is it will stay red from what I'm hearing. Maybe that's my echo chamber talking but there's a LOT more tactical voting going on than in 2017 from what I can tell.

We were sent tactical vote leaflets over the weekend too (seems to be all my neighbours too not just one getting LD spam).

We are a bell weather seat. Have been for a long time. It'll be very interesting to see which way it drops. It's tight.

I'm getting more and more anxious the closer we get.

^this.. because I agree it feels momentous. Teetering on the edge of irreparable harm to the UK, economically and culturally. And that Friday we'll be in freefall in the abyss.

And on Saturday I'm having Christmas dinner with my lovely but card carrying Tory family.

To be clear, the story was initially carried in a local newspaper, an apology has been given by the hospital, ...

This is unbelievably horrible.

Quite exciting to do my first PMK after being a long time lurker! Also wanted to say thanks to Red & all the regular posters for these threads, they have been a voice of sanity in very worrying times.

Well, I think your candidate is brave, Red.

I'm guessing they'll be disciplined for that.

Welcome Copperas

Hand hold on the vote and well done your children.

So Allison Pearson is a lying cunt ?
Denying the truth about a very ill 4-year-old is particularly despicable

The kind of Tory lies this GE are far more than just normal politics
I've never seen anything like it .... in the UK

BJ really is the British Trump, with his circle of acolytes lying for him, like Trump & his acolytes

You did better than me, Mother.

You managed to cut and paste in a way I find almost impossible. ☹️

How do you do it?

Seems so, BigChoc.

And, rather grimly, if you look under Pearson's tweets, there are loads of bots and dodgy accounts amplifying what she's tweeting.

This is just unbelievably grim.

☹️

Well done to your LDem candidate, red

Sounds like he knows he has no hope of getting elected himself
He may be risking not just the wrath of his party, but also losing his deposit

CCHQ Sock puppets.

Lots of sock puppets repeating the same line: twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1204175955314577410

Ha, cross post!

They'll be saying the poor little boy himself is a Labour activist next. I can't believe this utter shit.

Alison Pearson?

Her Wikipedia page is interesting.

Pearson was criticised for a tweet sent less than an hour after the first of the 22 March 2016 Belgian bombings in which she linked them with the case for leaving the European Union, a position she had supported in a column.

Following the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing at the end of a concert, Pearson called for the introduction of internment.

In September 2019, Pearson falsely accused a man with a seriously ill child of wearing a microphone when confronting Boris Johnson, due to the man's allegiance for the Labour Party. Despite being presented with evidence that this was in fact, not the case, Pearson did not issue an apology and in fact doubled down.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Pearson

Electoral law /really/ needs to catch up with social media.

I'd like to see them try Cat! He's been in the party since he was 16.

He's always been model Lib Dem. Done the rounds. Met all the big wigs. Waited his turn patiently to become the local candidate. He's well regarded locally.

If they ditch him as candidate there isn't anyone else locally who wants stand. I know a number of LD councillors are now saying on FB they are voting tactically.

They could parachute someone in, but that'd piss off the locals. And seeing as most of the active members are above retirement age, giving them an excuse to jack it in wouldn't be a smart move. And if what I hear is true, the LDs aren't exactly being bombarded with applications to be candidates. (They are desperate).

So yeah, it'd be interesting to watch the local party gently implode. It would be quite funny to witness how wide of the mark HQ were judging things if they decided to go down that root. But I wouldn't put it past them. They don't understand the difference between membership numbers and active members.

Jeremy Corbyn
@jeremycorbyn
· 1h
This never happened.

Invented by the Tories to divert your attention from a child having to lie on a hospital floor; reported by media that didn’t bother to check if it was true.

This is what media bias looks like.

pbs.twimg.com/media/ELYQnrMX0AEJ4-i?format=jpg&name=small

Laura Kuenssberg
@bbclaurak
·
5h
Happy to apologiSe for earlier confusion about the punch that wasn’t a punch outside Leeds General - 2 sources suggested it had happened but clear from video that was wrong

Robert Peston
@Peston
·
5h
It is completely clear from video footage that
@MattHancock
's adviser was not whacked by a protestor, as I was told by senior Tories, but that he inadvertently walked into a protestor's hand. I apologise for getting this wrong.

Gosh I really have never known anything like this election for lies and disinformation. That twitter thread is horrible. Actually, I don’t think the story of Jack is in any way unusual, stuff like that is going on right across England.
They just don’t care at all.
Still hoping against hope. RTBs story of tactical voting helps. Anyone else have any encouraging local news, or anecdotes? True blue here, but a very exciting labour candidate, full of energy and drive, I hope she at least dents his majority. And my friend, a lifelong Tory and 82 is voting libdem, and joins me in dissenting comments on the Tory chaps FB page. Tiny victories.

It'll be a tactical vote from me though I don't admire any of the Parties or Leaders. 'Luckily' the individual candidate I'm voting for is a decent person.

Abi Wilkinson
@AbiWilks
·
14m
It really does feel like we’re fighting an election directly against the state broadcaster, which is yet another one of the “can’t happen in the UK” things that is, indeed, happening

A cheering tactical voting story, as requested.

(Seriously, at this stage, when individual people are getting this desperate, the Parties themselves need to step the fuck up.)