Run the country? They can't even run a campaign.

[noblegiraffe]

I can't get my head around quite just how bad the Conservative campaign has been so far, and we're only a few days in. We had the optics of the drowned-rat announcement, the visit to the Titanic, the planting of Tory councillors in the crowd to ask friendly questions.

Then the disastrous tossing off of the random national service announcement without any sort of serious thought about it leading to cabinet ministers like Steve Baker publicly questioning the strategy.

And now I'm reading that they're trying to dub Starmer "Sleepy Keir" taking a line from Donald Trump about an octogenarian. No one thinks Starmer is old, especially not Tory voters.

How on earth can we have five and a half more weeks of this? I'm not sure I can cope with all the cringing.

I mean, we knew they were shit at running the country, but I dunno, I kind of expected more competence than this. My mistake, clearly.

I do however agree that Rishi made a mistake yesterday.

Would you be so kind as to share where I said your post is irrelevant?

Yes I was considering moving there (didn't cos we both commute and season tickets would be 10k per year combined plus the price of london flats dropped quite a bit so much so that we could afford zone 3 after taking transport costs into account).

We are members of the Green Party. We considered it cos it was ethnically diverse and affordable with a train to London. We wouldn't be the only ones, liberal FTB who are looking at affordability. If we chose to buy a 2 bed terraced over a flat, we would probably be in wycombe.

The weird thing is that Sunak's apology mostly sounded pretty bad tempered, and that he somehow thinks it's a mitigating factor that leaving early was pre-planned. Surely that actually makes it worse?

I agree.

His lack of respect for those who serve in the military or have served was demonstrated by replacing Ben Wallace when he in a way retired as Defence Secretary (Mr Wallace was the most respected cabinet minister probably of the last 14 years), by Grant Shapps, someone who has been alleged to have hidden income under a pseudonym and generally just been a nasty man.

Personally, enjoying every excruciating moment 😁

Yes, the 'itinerary was set weeks ago' just means that his people had weeks to spot the obvious error and correct it?

I heard ITV said that they were offered that slot for an interview by Sunak's team so it was clear that he wasn't dragged away to do the interview but would have been back home by then, interview or not.

I am too.

Labour, imo are having an absolutely cracking online campaign, with the memes and the TikToks. Their team are just way, way better at it than the Tories who keep gifting them things like Rishi stood in front of an empty flipchart. I'm not sure the Tory online campaign team have ever used the internet.

Labour general campaigning is dull and safe, but they obviously don't want to scare the horses. Right now to win all they have to do is not be the Tories. Keir Starmer talking to Zelensky while Rishi sodded off home was a great prime ministerial shot.

I'm not sure what the Lib Dem policies are, but Ed Davey is clearly having a whale of a time and is positioning himself as a normal person, which is a clear contrast with Rishi Sunak who looks uncomfortable any time he is placed with the public. Davey's video about caring for his son was excellent. The stunt with the Lib Dem boat sailing in the background of Rishi's video was brilliant (that was Daisy Cooper). Highlights that Tories are just a joke and not to be taken seriously.

Reform - renaming themselves from The Brexit Party was a successful idea because so clearly associating themselves with something that has revealed itself to be a pile of dogshit would not be a vote winner. They have a heavy grassroots online presence (as can be seen on MN) and their general policies are lying heavily on appealing to 'common sense' and 'nostalgia' rather than 'coherence', 'facts' or 'fiscal responsibility', basically like the Brexit campaign. They have fielded a lot of candidates at short notice and are running the risk of these candidates accidentally being racist in public - which I think has already happened. Farage is a good campaigner, so him taking over will boost their chances of really screwing the Tory vote.

Greens - no idea. Absent from this campaign as far as I have seen.

I'm now reading about how the Tories are expecting Reform to overtake them in the polls.

Which is mad when you think that the Tories are the current government.

They are running their campaign as well as they have run the country.

It seems strange that no one noticed an appointment by that had been in the diary for 80 years. 🤣

I can only think they're really scared of winning and trying to make sure it doesn't happen.

Trouble is, they've (their supporters) have done such a good job on the boring Starmmer, does anyone know what Labour policies are, imagine how bad it would be if Labour were in, all nonsense of course, that I don't think it's a foregone conclusion. So they're having to try even harder to make sure they lose.

The DDay thing proved it for me. There's no way they can't have realised how that would go down.

I think that is their actual strategy

I know I said that Labour's team were really good with the TikToks and memes, but this TikTok from the Lib Dems is just brilliant. No politics, but politicians with dogs are more likely to be trusted.

https://x.com/pushthesutton/status/1799840786785415547?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

1994 the Conservative Party in Canada was in power with a sizeable majority. They called an election, after which they had just two seats. That's what I want. I know it's unlikely but it would be the best thing ever.

@KetchupOnColeslaw

"The problems is, labour will get in and people won't realize that it takes years to turn things around so within 6 months people will be claiming labour is no better and will want the tories back!"

Just like in 2010 when after 6 months people were claiming that the Conservatives were no better and wanted the Labour Government under Brown back.

From where we are sat now, wanting Labour back in 6 months after the 2010 election looks quite astute.
Think of all the problems that would have been avoided and how much better public services would be if that had happened.

No it wouldn't, as it would be likely that a sizeable number of their voters would have defected to Reform and Nigel Farage could end up as Leader of the Opposition.

Much as I hate the Tories and want them out of power, I prefer them to Reform and would rather they formed the Opposition. Then there’s a chance that the one nation Tories could make a comeback, though I do worry Suella Braverman and JRM (and others) could take them in the opposite direction.

@LizzieW1969 that would be true if we had Proportional Representation but under first past the post electoral calculus predict 1 seat to reform and a best case of 6 seats.

Reform are splitting the right wing vote with 18% of past Tory voters saying they're going for reform this time. Only 2-3% of 2019 labour and Lib Dem voters are planning to switch to reform.

We are safe to keep wishing for Tory annihilation!

No it wouldn't, as it would be likely that a sizeable number of their voters would have defected to Reform and Nigel Farage could end up as Leader of the Opposition.

It is more likely to be Ed Davey than Nigel Farage because although Reform are polling with a higher % of votes than the Lib Dems, the Lib Dem vote is more efficient and they are predicted to win way more seats for their vote share than Reform are.

Here are some seat predictions from 3rd June (which is an eon ago in political terms I know), but you can see how much ground Reform have to make up on the Lib Dems. They have broad support but what they need is targeted support.

Will the right suddenly find a love of PR?

@Thingscanonlygetsunk I think the minor parties have probably always been relatively keen on PR.

There is an irony to the way it's helping the LD this time though!

I dread the idea of PR and how much power it could give parties like Reform.

Even if Reform end up overtaking them as the second biggest party and forming the opposition? That would just create even more divisiveness and polarisation, which is not what we need right now.

It probably is a very unlikely scenario, but it’s a possibility if they take the Tories’ place in the polls. The extreme right-wing element in our country, as there is all through Europe right now, we’ve seen it in the Euro elections. Those right-wing voters have mostly voted Tory in general elections, but who knows what will happen if they switch to Reform. They won’t swing to the Lib Dems.

It’s very unlikely, as has been said, but we’re talking about a very unlikely situation anyway, the Tories only winning 2 seats like in Canada.