Who Will Lose their Seat? The Mumsnet General Election Prediction Game!!

[TheCatRenamed]

Who would like to liven up the General Election by having a competition to see who makes the best predictions? 😀 The object: to win by making the best Portillo Moment prediction.

Here are the rules. The winner gets bragging rights only. There there will be no betting.

Rule 1. Each player must nominate 6 candidates standing in the General Election who they believe will lose their seat. Accordingly, each candidate must have been elected in the 2019 General Election. By-elections don't count.

Rule 2. A player scores points when a candidate they've nominated doesn't win. Points will be equal to the defeated nominated candidate's 2019 majority (as recorded on Wikipedia.) Their majority is their number of votes more than the second-placed candidate. It doesn't matter whether they lose by 5 votes or 5,000.

Rule 3. Nominations may be made by posting on this thread, and must be received before polls close.

Rule 4. The winning contestant is the one with the highest aggregate number of points when all results are in.

Examples of how the rules work:

Example of rule 1: Theresa May can't be nominated as she isn't standing this time. Lee Anderson and Jeremy Corbyn can be nominated as they are standing, even though they're not standing for the same party as in 2019.

Example of rule 2:

• Belfast North (2019 result): John Finucane (SF) 23,078; Nigel Dodds (DUP) 21,135; Nuala McAllister (All) 4,824. John Finucane's majority is 1,943. A player nominating him gets 1,943 points if he loses or 0 points if he holds his seat.

• Islington North (2019 result): Jeremy Corbyn (Lab) 34,603; Nick Wakeling (LD) 8,415; James Clark (Con) 5,843; Caroline Russsel (G) 4,326; Yosef David (Brexit) 742; Nick the Incredible Flying Brick (Monster) 236. Jeremy Corbyn's majority is 26,188. A player nominating him gets 26,188 points if he loses or 0 points if he holds his seat. The fact Corbyn is standing as an independent this time doesn't matter.

Anyone else want to play?

Good riddance to Truss

That was unbelievable. Truss kept everyone waiting, got slow-handclapped during the wait, didn't wear a rosette and didn't make a speech.

Steve Baker is out

Truss's conduct is disgraceful. I wish there were a way to deprive her of that prime minister's pension she now gets.

Fabricant out!

Absolutely. I did wonder if she’s ill, she looked shocking when she eventually appeared.

Bottomley lost. Corbyn now Father of the House

5/6 I make it 74628 (although I don't think that's the notional figures, so I'm bit sure if that's right)!
I feel pretty happy with that!

I have you as follows:

Crabb 5,062
Debbonaire 28,219
Fox 17,536
DTC Davies 9,982
Sunak 0
Rees-Mogg 14,729

Total: 75,528. Slightly more - I have DCT Davies' 2019 majority as 900 more than you, going on Wikipedia.

I have calculated the final results. But first, some more stats from my spreadsheet.

• 26 nominees held their seats. These included Jeremy Corbyn who romped home in Islington North.
• 46 nominees lost their seats. Other than Thangam Debbonaire these were all Tories.
• The biggest majority to be lost was Thangam Debbonaire, with 28,219, which is an absolutely astonishing result. The thorough among you will know that this was her 2019 majority for Bristol West, which was abolished this time. Other notably large majorities lost were Liz Truss (26,195) Matt Warman (25,621) and Giles Watling (24,702). The last two of these lost to Reform candidates.
• The smallest majority that was retained was Richard Holden with 1,144 though that was for a different constituency last time. Surprisingly Iain Duncan Smith hung on to Chingford, successfully defending his majority of 1,262 from that constituency in 2019.
• An honourable mention goes to grannycakes who successfully predicted all 6 nominations (Rees-Mogg, Shapps, Mordaunt, DTC Davies, Mercer and Gullis.) No other contestant managed this, in part due to the large number of predictions for Jeremy Hunt, who just hung on in Godalming and Ash.

And now on to the scores...

I'm a little shy to say I won. But in the spirit of electoral law, recounts are welcome. Here are the totals according to my spreadsheet.

Thank you all for playing and I hope you enjoyed it!

1 TheCatRenamed 104,906
2 TakeonFlea 100,194
3 TessoftheDobermans 95,434
4 Buddywoo 80,640
5 herebehippos 75,528
6 Sewfrickinamazeballs 73,411
7 grannycakes 70,638
8 mrsogrady 67,668
9 Daisychain01 66,179
10 PetronellaOsgood 65,769
11 SiobhanSharpe 63,361
12 tartlets 63,044
13 CassieMaddox 60,852
14 user8800 58,981
15 RishisLeavingDo 58,640
16 Alicelisle 57,924
17 ilovesooty 55,153
18 NoDishiforRishi 54,370
19 SaltBlossom 53,091
20 Turkeyhen 52,939
21 TheCountessofLocksley 52,906
22 Noseybear38 52,136
23 Googlewhacking 52,008
24 TheInvisibleMann 48,664
25 TheWoollyBacksWife 47,566
26 Zonder 47,174
27 McSteamyOrMcDreamy 41,473
28 Notonthestairs 41,088
29 EineReiseDurchDieZeit 40,924
30 Laigarh 40,643
31 vivideye 40,624
32 OutdamnHunt 36,219
33 Spandauer 35,262
34 dontcallmehelen 33,912
35 mynamechangemyrules 32,579 (3 from 3 guessed correctly)
36 verdantverdure 28,441
37 RafaistheKingofClay 27,723
38 Blossomtoes 26,195
39 CurlewKate 25,684
40 KenAdams 10,955

I did. Badenoch was my star player and she fucked it for me though 😞

Chuffed with 6th. Thank you @TheCatRenamed this was brilliant!

That was an error on my part too. Thought she was going to be a genuine Portillo moment.

@TheCatRenamed thank you for all your hard work pulling this all together, it was a lot of fun. I was chuffed to come 9th, but the main thing for me was that I felt justice has been done in this election. Anyone who has held their seat will be someone who has contributed to their local constituency and/or had to work hard to gain credibility - let's face it there was nowhere to hide this time round, so they deserved to keep their seat. It has certainly removed a lot of dross.

@TheCatRenamed , you won your own competition

I demand a recount!

It wasn't me who won it; it was the Tories who lost it,! 😀

Thank you for this & my honourable mention. I'm hoping this morning that I can not have to give quite so much headspace to how much my government is embarrassing us on a daily basis.

I want country before party and competence. Charisma can do one!

FIX!!!!

Well done everyone and thank you so much for running this @TheCatRenamed and congratulations!

Yes thank you @TheCatRenamed

Wow, was stunned to come third @TheCatRenamed - but now I don’t actually think I am!
I think there’s a mistake with Mims Davies. She was parachuted into a new constituency next door to Mid Sussex, and she won it. Mid Sussex went to Lib Dems, the cons candidate there was Kristy Atkins.
(and yes, I confess that when I nominated MD I still thought she was in Mid Sussex 🫢)
So my total is 77,237. I surrender the bronze to @Buddywoo and back away from the podium in disgrace 🤣
Thanks for organising this op, it was great fun.

And congratulations @TheCatRenamed , @TakeOnFlea and@Buddywoo

@TheCatRenamed
Thank you for organising this and Congratulations!

I did abysmally - but I decided to go rogue and nominate JC so that didn't help! 😆

Great thread - thanks for organising it @TheCatRenamed