Are there any 'Portillo moments' to look forward to?

[missmousemouth]

Listening to 'The Rest is Politics', they predicted that Jacob Rees-Mogg was a possible Portillo moment in July. God I'd love that. Those of you who crunch numbers, are there any others?

Sabrina

Much the same happened in the successor seat to Henley - now called Henley and Thame and until 2005 Boris Johnson's old seat. A 14,000 majority turned into a 6000 majority for the LibDems with more votes than the Tories and Reform put together. The Henley seat last had a non Tory in 1906.

I’m not blaming people for voting for their preferred candidate. I’m blaming the central party for not bothering to communicate with the local party, who had already decided not to field a candidate.

Rachelsthorns - yes especially when it apparently wasn't one of their target seats. in 2019 my own seat decided to work with the Greens and they stood their candidate down - and it made a difference. This time they put up a Green plus a half dozen others also stood, but the MP was already established, which I am sure helped her.

A big difference between 1997 and now is that there's much more data modelling online and reporting on who is in with the best chance. Back then, all voters had to go on was who had finished first or second last time, and even then it didn't work - many Tories hung on because Labour and LD advanced equally. Portillo lost because lots of LDs tactically voted Labour to get rid of him. That was unusual, even in that election, but there's been lots lots lots of that this time.

This time round, there are various websites that suggest who the winner might be. That was very helpful to Labour, LD and the Greens who appear to have had a quiet truce, but unhelpful to the Tories and Reform who had no truce..