Oh no Rosie

[InandOutlander]

I'm so sad to see her go, she was the shining light within the Labour camp.

Nothing like reality after pre GE lies

Trouble is we’re now stuck with them

There's been very little voting intention polling, because there's not much point this early in a parliament.

FWIW Electoral Calculus is estimating that Labour is about four points down on its GE share, Cons flatlining, Reform gaining. Because of how votes are distributed geographically they reckon that would be Lab down 46 seats, Con up 36 and Reform up 4: General Election Prediction (electoralcalculus.co.uk)

I would put a health warning on seat predictions because the last GE resulted in a LOT of Labour seats with slim majorities, and quite a few three way marginals.

Looking at approval ratings, Starmer has never been very popular but he didn't have to be as long as he was less unpopular than Johnson/Truss/Sunak. He had a brief spell in July of his ratings being in the green, they slipped into the red in August and now they're heading towards Prince Andrew territory: Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election - Wikipedia

There were quite a lot of seats where Labour won because the Tory vote split with Reform. I suspect that would remain an issue should there be another election now - Tories losing votes to Reform not Labour.

The thing about winning a huge majority on a 33% vote share is that, though the government will have no trouble getting its business through the House - and that might make it become lazy and out of touch - there are lots of narrow majorities and the next GE could see a big seat turnover on a relatively small anti-Labour swing.

It also means the government can become vulnerable to one or two unfortunate events. Remember Boris Johnson was utterly dominant in the polls for a long time after his GE win. Then Partygate knocked six points off the Conservative vote share, Boris was ditched as a loser, the party members were mad enough to elect Truss, her mini-budget knocked a further eleven points off their share, and they never recovered. All Sunak could do was stop them collapsing further, but by then they were obviously a knackered government.

There's an alternate history in which Covid lockdowns weren't as strict, Partygate never became a thing, and Boris is still PM. It doesn't take much to throw you off course.

A key mechanism for the government not getting out of touch is feedback from backbenchers. Johnson lost touch with his backbenchers because Parliament wasn't meeting during lockdown. Starmer simply doesn't talk to backbenchers.

I agree with this. Without everyone going mad for partygate it would have been different. I’d say it was the brainchild of a strategist, successfully so

It also has a feedback loop which makes it hard to recover. The media picks up on the polls and backs the demand for more, it may come up in PMQs although not much opposition atm

Kevin O'Sullivan has been in good form, and as he points out, HM Opposition isn't saying very much:

HM Opposition are still choosing a leader. It is suggested that the Tories are bickering amongst themselves. I think that is a good thing. They had been in power for a long time during which arguments are pushed aside in favour of governing. They now need to go through a period of discussion and renewal. Find a new purpose and new ideas. That won’t happen overnight, even after they have picked a new leader. That is part of what should have been giving Labour their honeymoon - a period without effective opposition.

Fully agree @LongtailedTitmouse

Apparently she's against rights, dignity, and humanity for trans people and will be joining Reform any minute now....

🙄

I think, based on the 2009 expenses scandal, the freebie issue will be cross-party. Cameron was quite canny in using the former scandal to get rid of some of the dead wood in the parliamentary party and bring in his own favoured candidates. Of course that was towards the end of a parliament and not at the start of one.

It damages Labour more because, in the era of Boris, lots of the public expect Tory MPs to be chancers on the make. Which is maybe unfair on the majority of them, but Labour do get held to a higher standard, particularly when they've been thundering away for years about Tory sleaze, and then their leader turns out to be the biggest scrounger of all.

I'd say it's an issue tailor made for the real leader of the opposition, which is Farage.

You don’t need to agree with Farage’s politics to see he is a skilled politician. His success also shows how far removed many in both politics and the media are from public opinion.

Because people dislike Farage's politics, they often assume he's stupid. He's very far from that. Same applies to his friend Trump, of course.

Even presentationally, look at a Trump speech in 2024 and compare it to 2016. It's quite different. He's lighter in tone, funnier, less angry. If you've been following Farage for a while you see the same evolution. He learns from experience, observes others and takes notes.

I think one of Starmer's big weaknesses as a politician is that he thinks he knows everything already. Compare with Wes Streeting, who makes a virtue out of pragmatism and has the rare talent of admitting when he's been wrong.

Just to add that no Rosie Duffield thread is complete without this:

of which I will never get tired.

I'd forgotten how good that one was

However, Starmer is still more popular than the alternatives:

https://x.com/jessicaelgot/status/1841096877418107172
New Ipsos poll finds two thirds of voters (64%) do not care who becomes Tory leader. It includes almost a third (32%) of those who voted Conservative in July. Starmer leads Badenoch by 25 points, Cleverly by 21 points, Jenrick by 22 points, and Tugendhat by 22 points.

Plus we have another 5 years to go so obsessing about polls is a pretty fruitless pasttime, apart from for personal amusement and schadenfreude I guess.

I think Trump, Farage and Johnson all share the same "talent", which is being able to lie with a completely straight face, in a way you are never quite sure if they are lying.

This means they can say whatever populist thing will gain them votes at any given time, without any inconvenient niggles from their conscience as to whether it's actually possible.

It's a skill of master manipulators everywhere and not one I admire.

This kind of shit is why I absolutely delight in reading Guardian links while simultaneously laughing at their begging for me to pay.

Dear Guardian, to use a MN favourite, FOTTFSOFATFOSM. Or ODFOD for brevity.

The poll of polls also always worth a look - Labour still have a very commanding lead.
I'm starting to appreciate how the Brexiteers felt now. All this negativity constantly is just depressing
www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/

Labour have been sowing their own negativity

Talk of 'pain' and 'difficult decisions'

Even the CBI and IoD have said it's damaging

The poll also found: Just 25% know a great deal or fair amount about James Cleverly, 21% Kemi Badenoch, 18% Robert Jenrick and 17% Tom Tugendhat.. The rest of the population know ‘not very much’ or less about them. And yet even against these unknowns only between 34% and 37% said that Kier would make a better PM.

Here is the IPSOs poll if you’d rather not take the Guardian’s political editors take on it.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/conservatives-face-uphill-battle-public-remains-indifferent-leadership-contest

Not really a poll of polls at the moment though. The current figure is based on a single poll as not much polling being done at the moment. Labour still only at 33% Reform has split the Tory vote - between them they have 39% of the vote. Though as mentioned before, it depends on the distribution of votes and by splitting the vote Tory/Reform gave Labour seats.

In a recently Tory seat, surely a realistic outcome of RD (independent) vs Son of Some Rich Chap Who Bought SKS Fancy Shoes (labour) would be a split "labourish" vote and a Tory MP.

How is that or would that be better for SKS or Labour. (apart from ridding us of this troublesome priest woman)

Labour have a huge majority so it makes no odds to them.
The people who are affected by RD resigning are her constituents. I don't think it even barely made a splash in the overall negative press because the ill feeling on both sides was apparent.

It might be different if others follow her but I'd have expected that to have happened already - if it was going to.

What difference has it made to her (majority not Labour-voting) constituents?