Ed Davey as Leader of the Opposition is SO CLOSE

[noblegiraffe]

The final MRP poll from Survation puts the Lib Dems and Tories within a gnat's whisker of each other.

Sam Freedman says:
'“If any doubt arises as to which is or was at any material time the party in opposition to Her Majesty’s Government having the greatest numerical strength in the House of Commons, or as to who is or was at any material time the leader in that House of such a party, the question shall be decided for the purposes of this Act by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and his decision, certified in writing under his hand, shall be final and conclusive.”

So if one party is clearly ahead then their leader is LOTO. But if it’s more complex - say, the Tories won 75 seats and the Lib Dems 73, and then two Alliance MPs from Northern Ireland said they’d sit with the Lib Dems - well the Speaker will have to get involved and make a call.'

The thought of the Tories losing so badly that they don't even get to be the official party of opposition is within our grasp.

I've heard that the Lib Dems now think they have a chance of winning places like Witney where they didn't think they had a hope at the start.

https://tactical.vote tells you who to vote for to get the Tories out and make them irrelevant.

Surely some mistake? I'm sure Nigel said Reform would be the party of opposition. He wouldn't get that wrong now, would be?

Nigel's candidates keep either being racist and having to be dropped, or saying they're switching to the Tories because the rest of Nigel's candidates are racist.

But aside from that, his vote share doesn't translate into seats and its seats that matter.

Last time the Lib Dems were close they got into bed with the Tories. The shit show that followed we all know about ...

But they're not going to be in government. Neither are the Tories. This is about who is Leader of the Opposition and does PMQs etc.

Would Ed Davy have to end his eternal PGL holiday if he was leader of the opposition?

At least he will be well-rested and relaxed when he gets back to work on Monday.

Unlike Rishi who is apparently trying to drum up votes by stacking shelves in Morrisons - the first time he has done some honest hard work in a long time.

No, he's never wrong about stuff like that. He was right about brexit, wasn't he?

I actually meant to respond to this rather excellent comment

The survation MRP surely can’t be right?

https://www.survation.com/survation-mrp-labour-99-certain-to-win-more-seats-than-in-1997/

All the MRPs that I have seen agree that Labour is going to win and have a majority, but this seat prediction is the highest estimate that I’ve seen for Labour seats. A 99% chance of a majority bigger than 1997 just feels too huge to me.

I’d love to think the tories will be knocked into third place but I think, in the end they’ll have a last minute rally and end up with at least 120 seats. My brain just can’t fathom a world in which Survation say there’s a 95% chance of the conservatives having less than 100 seats.

I know this election is going to be bad for the tories… but can it really be that bad? I dare not get my hopes up in case I jinx it.

Given that Reform's poll number is reducing, I'm now thinking the Tories will be in second place for number of seats.

Now just waiting for some of the nastier Tories to lose their seats.

It would be so good for the political discourse if the Lib Dem’s were the Opposition Party.

Oh please make it so voters of Mumsnet.

I know this election is going to be bad for the tories… but can it really be that bad? I dare not get my hopes up in case I jinx it.

I don't know. Everyone was expecting the polls to tighten as the campaign went on and yet here we are with the last survation poll showing the opposite.

It. Is. Possible.

Depends on turnout though doesn't it.
I hope people show up.

I wish I could vote Lib Dem because the idea of knocking the Tories to third place is so delicious, but it's got to be Labour where I am to GTTO.

Fucking typical.

The Lib Dems turn into complete nutbags and THEN they become relevant all of a sudden.

This one has the Lib Dems with more seats than the Tories too:

www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

I am slightly stunned! Thursday night/Friday will be interesting!

On a local level, my area has been strongly Conservative forever. I count the votes and it's normally unexciting as the Conservatives always win by miles. I am now building into my life schedule the possibility of it being close and having recounts...

I’d rather boil my own head than vote Lib Dem. They proved last time that they have zero scruples when they even had a sniff of power.

Well you can perhaps guess from my current username that I think Ed would make an excellent LOTO. Yeah they get a lot of shit wrong, but so does every party. And as they seem if anything left of Labour in many respects it would hopefully (well, Im hoping for it anyway) lead pusillanimous Keir to stand up for what he used to say he believed in a bit more. Especially green stuff.

And that was before they turned into raging TRAs.

That Survation poll predicts Labour winning my constituency by 0.1%. It has been Tory since it was created. They'll probably still hang in but I can't believe Labour could get so close. Reform isn't even fielding a candidate to take someone the Tory votes.

I agree that LDs are not the most trustworthy - but that would matter less in opposition, it would be more about grandstanding. Also - they got rid of awful little weasel Nick Clegg

Our Tory MP is almost certainly going to lose to Lib Dem.candidate, can't wait! Would love Ed Davey to be leader of the opposition. Would be amazing to see the Tories sitting there feeling irrelevant 😁

Labour are going to have a massive majority, the other parties are going to have very little power.

But we could have a situation where the Tories are NOT the opposition. Where they get the lack of airtime they deserve.

Ed Davey has had to spend this campaign bungee jumping and paddle boarding to get any press.

He really hasn’t had to do that.

They will probably win in my constituency. But not with my vote.

The FT - which uses an aggregation of all voting intention polls over the past 2 weeks - presently has Labour around 450, Conservatives around 100, and LibDem 62. And Labour maintaining a 20 point lead consistently over the last 6 weeks.

So a much smaller Conservative party, but not yet in 3rd place.