Monash expert: UK election results
By Monash University PhD Candidate Tom Howe
“While not as big as the most outlandish polls, Labour nevertheless looks set for a sizable majority of around 170. Presuming the exit poll holds – and there are a lot of three-way marginals that may undermine it – then this would be a slightly smaller majority than the one secured by Tony Blair in 1997. Considering the size of the 2019 majority that Sir Keir Starmer had to overturn, the victory is still one of historic proportions.
“It will go under-reported, but one significant feature of the last week of the campaign was a significant drop off in support for Labour. In fact, Labour look set to romp home with a landslide majority on a vote share lower than that which was achieved by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. This, along with Jeremy Corbyn’s increasingly likely re-election, will give sucker to the left, which is nonetheless set to enter parliament in an historically weak position. The voters who seem to have deserted Labour in the final days of the campaign look like they went for Reform, who have been returned as the second party in several of the early declaring northern seats. Labour may have won back the red wall, but its foundations are shallow.
“The other big winners of the night look like the Liberal Democrats and the Reform – the parties responsible for splitting the Tory vote across the country. The Lib Dems look to have finally recovered from their time in coalition, and are hoping to just about equal their previous 2005 high. If the Lib Dems have pushed the Tories in the blue wall, then Reform have contributed to their collapse in the red wall. How the Tory Party responds to these dual pressures will be one of the defining issues of the new parliament.
“Provided the exit poll holds, the Tories look to have avoided the worst case scenario. There is, however, no escaping the fact that the 2024 election looks set to be their worst performance ever. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming leadership contest plays out; the Tories will almost certainly shift right, but how closely they associate themselves with Reform will depend on the leader.
“The SNP looked to have performed terribly. The nationalist party – which has been the dominant Scottish force in Westminster for nearly a decade – faced similar challenges to the Tories, with leadership that failed to deliver and which was mired in allegations of corruption. Whether the SNP are a spent electoral force will, in part, depend on the new Prime Minister’s ability to rebuild the country. If he fails to deliver, then the SNP will have a case to claim that both of the main Westminster parties do not work in Scotland’s interests.”
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16 comments
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Harry Lime -
Canguro -
Canguro -
GL -
Wam -
paul walter -
paul walter -
Michael Taylor -
Canguro -
corvusboreus -
Michael Taylor -
corvusboreus -
GL -
Terry Mills -
Douglas Pritchard -
corvusboreus
Return to home pageNever give a ‘succour’ an even break.
‘[giving] sucker to the left’… well-spotted, Harry Lime! Seem the Tories aren’t the only ones with egg on their face.
My engagement with The AIMN is via a browser (Mozilla Firefox) with an extension called LanguageTool, a very useful piece of smart software which tends to pick up on any spelling, punctuation or syntactical snafus.
The problem with being an expert is, understandably, that it’s all very well to correctly predict or assess, but when things go awry that hard-earned sobriquet begins to look a bit suspect.
As at 2.30pm AEST Labour stands at 363 seats, Conservatives at 85, with 528 of 650 seats declared.
Hard to comprehend how this person was once the British PM, given the impression that this image projects; seemingly barely a handful of functioning neurons at work.
And now an ex-politician, and deservedly so. Ah, schadenfreude… such a beautiful word!
Get your crying onions out: That nasty little Victorian era man Jacob Rees-Mogg has been “Mogg-xited” by Dan Norris.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz47eze3lydo
Glasgow went Labour and Edinburgh as well gave the SNP the flick.
Someone was just celebrating Sunak may be going, but for the warm rosy glow for me comes from the defenestrating of The Cardigan, also Corbyn and friends elected to call out future bullshit.
Mind you Sturmer was lucky he didn’t have sttlletos buried in his back like Corbyn a while back.
Wam, I’ve always said that Scotland is a land of lefties, lochs, kilts and coos.
Rishi Sunak’s final speech as prime minister … hardly a surprise, but the man has zero insight into why the Conservatives were so soundly thrashed; no contrition, no depth of sobriety, no acknowledgement of how deeply damaging the 11 years of Tory rule was to the British people at large except for the clique of Tory mates, sycophants, carpetbaggers and others who found a way to get a snout into the trough. He seems like some preppy kid on work experience who’s just glad it’s all over so he can go back to living his rarified 850 million USD lifestyle. Good riddance!
MT,
Tae a Cearban
(Ode to a Basking Shark)
Now you’re talking my language, cb. 🏴
Migs,
Ma haf-daft corbie senses tell me ye mae also enjoy this’n;
Gawsp! A woman…a woman as Chancellor of the Exchequer…gawsp. It’s only taken, roughly speaking, 800 years. Another male dominated parliamentary job gone…oohh, that makes me angry…it’s the end of civilisation. Come back Jacob, we need you.
@6 hours ago
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jul/04/general-election-2024-uk-live-labour-tories-starmer-sunak-results-exit-poll
The image of Sunak standing in the rain with nobody coming to his aid with an umbrella is enduring and set the stage for his lacklustre campaign. GL I too noticed the media focus on a female as Chancellor – shock, horror – I wonder was she also a mother (yes) or perhaps a grandmother (no)
No mention of her significant qualifications and suitability for the role, A-Levels in politics, economics, mathematics and further mathematics, she read philosophy, politics and economics at New College, Oxford (Bachelor of Arts), achieving a 2:1. She then obtained an MSc in economics from the London School of Economics.
Eminently qualified for the job having also worked at the Bank of England.
Starmer kicks off with the full knowledge that he only scored the top job because the voters( with a very low turn out )had decided that conservatives were rubbish.
A whole lot of folk had decided that neither of the 2 main parties was worth making a trip to the ballot box, and those that did will be expecting BIG changes.
When that does not happen Keir is going to be about as unpopular as Richi was.
So the stakes are high, and UK is not looking to be that brilliant really.
The big worry may be that when this happens in USA then they start a war somewhere, and Keirs first meeting of significance is a NATO one in Washington on Tuesday.
An interesting Reuters article from the leadup to the UK election.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/support-farages-reform-uk-party-drops-after-ukraine-comments-2024-06-27/
Based on the lead in polling cited, it doesn’t look like much of the primary bleed against Labour went to Reform, who were showing better in the pre-polls than they performed on the day.