As has been my habit for the last few days, and as might well be the case for many days to come, I posted a poll on Twitter yesterday. This one was back on political territory, asking:
All the usual caveats on the statistical validity of Twitter polls apply here, especially as there is almost bound to be a bias towards Labour supporters amongst those who I reach on that platform.
That said, I was surprised by the level of delight at a possible Labour victory expressed by the 10,000 or more people voting in this poll. Seventy per cent of those voting seem to be more pleased than anything else at the prospect of an overwhelming Labour victory in the next general election.
As usual, I did not really try to hide my own concerns even while allowing differing views to be expressed. Nineteen per cent of those who voted share my concern about what Labour might do with the power that they win, and have my sympathy. There will be many who vote Labour at the next general election who will wonder about whether the party that now has that name really represents the opinions that they always associated with it.
The third and fourth options represented alternative ways of expressing concern about our electoral system. I was very surprised at how few people opted for the third option, but maybe the fourth was more obvious as an explanation of the sentiment that many will feel about an outcome that will very clearly not reflect the desires of the country as a whole.
Candidly, I found very little encouraging about the result of this poll. If the anticipation of a Labour win is as strong as it suggests, my sense that the scale of buyer's remorse that will follow the election might be sufficiently dramatic to give rise to a massive collapse in support for that party soon thereafter is very strong.
I am not convinced that we are facing any good electoral outcome this year.
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It is possible you were if not “trolled” certainly the poll was self selecting. However, LINO is bleeding support. 20-odd Labour councillors left the party (Pendleton). This is 20 people plus supporters that will, doubtless support an independent candidate. There are plenty more. On the other side, I note that LINO is attempting to humanise itself (Streeting on some kind of TV cooking programme – this will backfire – as Streeting will discover).
A LiB-Dem contact is pounding the streets in a Tory-held consitutency – the tory vote has collapsed & he thinks the Lib-Dems could do well. This depends on how hard the MSM swings behind LINO – there are indications that they might. Set against that are people such as Owen Jones who oppose LINO: “Owen Jones has launched a crowdfunder to support independent and green candidates supporting a more left wing agenda now that he’s finally had it with labour.”
I never thought the following were “left wing”……… “clean rivers and seas” , “good public transport”, “not having to wait on a hospital trolley for 5 hrs before being seen” “not having state run schools needing charity to fix roofs” This list is long. LINO has no policy response to any of this (apart from a stuid person saying: “grow the economy”) . Which leaves plenty of political territory to fight over. Those that fancy joing the fray – feel free to contact Richard for my details. LINO are going to have a fight on their hands.
Well said Mike, you may well be right about trolling, presumably by the ‘you gotta vote labour’ crowd.
I personally would have been in one of the last 2 categories given that FPTP has disenfranchised me my entire life and robbed the greens of the representation they need and deserve in our increasingly discredited Parliament.
What a grotesque system it is, acting not only against the left in England but exaggerating the support the SNP has in Scotland, and denying Scottish Tories their fair share of representation in the Scottish Parliament, as far as I can see.
Can’t see how you work out the Tories do not have their fair share in the Scottish Parliament. Thanks to the system of PR, they are the main opposition party with 31 MSPs. Labour has 22 and SNP has 63.
Sorry Jack Foley, I meant the Westminster Parliament of course, thanks for pointing my stupid mistake out. The more progressive system in the Scottish Parliament does give a more accurate picture of the Scottish electorate, as any decent voting system should.
I doubt you or I would agree with much or anything these voters believe, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get representation in Westminster. I’d like to have my vote represented there too, thanks very much!
It’s not the SNP who are denying Scottish Tories their rightful representation in Westminster, it’s FPTP which Scottish Tories and English Tories support, because it gives us “strong government”. The SNP are the only major party which supports PR and it’s the Tories and Labour hierarchy which are implacably opposed to PR.
I will be delighted to see the back of the Tories, but I am also extremely worried about how different Labour will be and increasingly angry about our woeful electoral system. I want to see a parliament that reflects all parts of society, that is composed of adults working together in the best interests of the country. What we have now appears to be a parliament of MPs who think they are there to represent their party and, too often, their own interests.
We have MPs who say that they are in politics to ask questions to hold the government to account. And then the next sentence they say they are their to serve the “will of the people”/”national interest”/”general will”. And then they conclude by saying what is the point of politics without being in power.
Three entirely different statements which contradict each other. It is common phenomena in both major parties. Both with Brexit and Iraq.
And if I had to provide a prediction about what to expect from a labour government with a majority of 200 seats then there is only 1 real answer, “something like the past”.
MPs have for the most part forgotten what they are there for: we elect people we trust, to do a job. That job is to take time to look at the facts and make the right decisions for us, so that we can get on doing other things with our lives. Instead, mostly MPs seem obsessed only with furthering their own advancement. It’s depressing!
One partial solution would be to pay any MPs who lose their seats their full pay (reduced pound for pound against any other income they earn). That would have two effects: it would fund any ex-MPs who wished subsequently to do voluntary work, and it would reduce the tendency to ‘go along with the party’ for fear of losing their seat.
With you on that last paragraph Richard. Having said, however so awful Labour are, they really cannot be worse than the current venal crew.
Having studied the Warring States period of Chinese history, I’m afraid that the number of dictatorships that were initially popular because they “cannot be worse” than what came before is quite staggering.
I’d like to see a polls along the lines of…
Are you more likely to vote for Labour
☑️(a) With Keir Starmer as leader
☑️(b) With Jeremy Corbyn as leader
☑️(c) Someone else as leader
If you knew your vote was not wasted, would you vote for
☑️(a) The Greens
☑️(b) An independent
☑️(c) Someone else
Let me think about that …. Twitter is not designed to make that easy
So would I, if I could stand Twitter.
Good question. Corbyn for me, no question. I despise how LINO has blamed Corbyn for the last election, even though he was incredibly popular with swathes of Labour supporters and had a manifesto the public loved. They conveniently forget the previous election under him when Labour outperformed expectations. IMO he was done for my the media (obviously), but also his prevarication over Brexit. Readets of this blog might find it uncomfortable, but had he stood by his principled opposition to the EU and been vocal about it, the red wall would not have fallen so dramatically. Hate to say it, but better media handling would also have helped (and I REALLY hate to admit that).
I sense that after 14 years of incompetent and corrupt Tory Government there is a huge focus on the “move away” and not so much on the “move to” and the hope that Labour will be more progressive in Government?
Fortunately I am in a constituency where the Green Party have a strong chance of winning so I can vote for the party I want. Sadly I also know all I can achieve is one less Tory MP and a nominal reduction in Labour’s majority. I too worry about what Labour do in office. The signs are not encouraging.
One aspect of the self-selection on Twitter you may not have considered is that the green/left has pretty much deserted it en masse. It has lost about a quarter of its active users since Musk’s takeover, and my guess is that most of these are (like me) people on the left that have moved to Mastodon or other platforms (I observe the change even on Linked-In to left political microblogs). My guess is that the same poll on mastodon would produce far more ‘worried’ responses – but worried perhaps not about what Labour will do, but that they won’t do anything much at all.
I do not know how to do polls on Mastodon. Is it possible?
And I do think 11,000 votes is quite a lot….
Yes, it’s possible. I use the Tusky android client and there’s an option to add a poll on the menu where you add media.
It seems it is not that hard…
FYI
How to do a poll on Mastodon:
https://fedi.tips/how-to-post-a-poll-on-mastodon/
Thank you
A directly comparable experiment would be interesting
I am perfectly happy to argue that irrespective of your political preferences that the near clean sweep the SNP made of Scottish Westminster MP’s wasn’t good for democracy.
I suspect that it isnt going to end well
If you look back Labour had a disproportionate share of Scottish seats over many decades while the SNP were under-represented. And earlier the Tories had most seats. I don’t recall a lot of Labour or Tory commentators complaining about unfairness when they benefitted. Seems only when the SNP gain from an undemocratic voting system that it’s unfair.
I will be voting Labour as (according to many of the electoral seat projections) my constituency – Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket – has it being a Labour gain. The Greens are strong in the seat (and the Lib Dems stood down for the Greens in the last two elections here in Bury St Edmunds), but the chance to change a seat that has been Tory since the 1880s is too good to miss.
As many are indicating – Phil Burton-Cartledge here: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2630-falling-down Labour can win handsomely (and helped along the way tactically), but then when disappointment creeps in fairly early on, progressive votes will go increasingly to the Greens and Lib Dems.
My hope is that the Tories – through tactical voting – get ground down to under 100 seats – the ideal scenario would be (however very highly unlikely – but one lots of us would enjoy) that the Tories beaten into fourth place and the Lib Dems or the SNP being the official opposition. That would be a game changer in progressive politics, as a decimated Tory party would have far less cultural influence on society through having less people in parliament to advocate right wing culture war and free market nonsense. (But they will all be in the media still and most likely on the streets – think the Countryside Alliance during the Blair years.)
Thank you, Richard.
Last week, civil servant mum said, “Vote Labour, get Farage.” She thinks buyer’s remorse will soon materialise after a Labour victory and the beneficiary of that will be the right. There’s some feeling in Whitehall that Labour won’t last a full term.
A year or so after the coalition took charge, the City began wooing UKIP. I think the City will begin courting Reform soon after head winds appear for the Starmer regime.
My number one aspiration for the election is to see the back of the Tories, but I’m hoping for a hung parliament or a slim majority for Labour that will make them consider PR and not just be like in 1997 when the size of the win made them think they were guaranteed government for decades.
A bit like the Bayern Munich fans leaving the stadium early with their team 1-0 up against Man Utd at the champions league final in 1999 to avoid the queues, turning on their radios and hearing they’re lost 2-1 in extra time.
And in politics, there’s always extra time. And Labour probably won’t learn.
If Trump wins, all predictions will be off.
I live in a constituency that is always Tory / Lib Dem.
Does anyone know how many seats are in effect Tory / Labour?
Not many
But I know websites are being built that show this – give it a search
Try Electoral Calculus – some interesting analyses there.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
As ever, all polling comes with health warnings
The ERS have an interesting analysis of Lessons Learned from the past few elections. No 8 is Safe Seats
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/publications/lessons-not-learnt-the-2015-2017-2019-general-elections/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ers-email&utm_campaign=null&utm_content=8+-+Safe+Seats
Yes, I agree.
What I fear is that Labour with such a large majority will conveniently forget that the wider party is in favour of PR. That Starmer’s Lab will become complacent, think they are set for at least a couple of wins, and fundamentally the neoliberal approach will just carry on until the Tories return.
The truth is, I don’t think anyone knows for sure where the Tories will go after a big defeat, which is now suggested could happen. It is clear that the electorate have rejected their further move to the right. For voters, the Tories are now fighting on two fronts. 1) To try to keep the more traditional middle England FPTP, Tory vote happy, those perhaps more inclined to go Lib/Green or Lab at a push, but are not interested in Reform UK. Then there is, 2) The hard Right Tory vote, who are shifting to Reform. They are losing votes in both camps.
Who will be the next Tory leader? Current candidates, Braverman, Badenock, Truss and Thatcher wannabee, Mordaunt, are all basically closer to 2 than 1. There is no unifying candidate. The latest being talked of is Priti Patel, who likes to dance with Nigel Farage. None of these are guaranteed to win their seats, and tactical voting could mean they lose them. The party is clearly split, with the extreme right seeing this as their chance to take over.
Now, I am happy with the idea of a Tory wipe out. It would be nice to see FPTP working against them, the Tories finally getting what they deserve, but let’s not forget, that a Tory wipe out in Parliament does not end their power. There is the sympathetic Tory media and press. I can imagine the Tory press will see themselves as the “official” opposition, if the Tories ended up with 30 or so seats and the third or fourth party in Parliament. I mean, how will the BBC, and other broadcast media treat them? Right now they largely ignore the smaller parties, other than whatever the grifter Farage is doing. If the Tories are wiped out, why should they get any air time? We know, the Tory press will continue to do their dirty work, but this represents an interesting democratic challenge, if the Tories are totally rejected, especially as much of our media is foreign, right wing, owned.
One final point. I also find it uncomfortable that Reform might get 15% (ish) of the vote and no seats. They will not win any under FPTP. The Greens could get 10% or so and perhaps win 2 maybe three seats. The Lib Dems, might get 10-15%, but because of tactical voting and the fact they will concentrate their resources in key middle England areas, they might win 40–50 seats. So, around 25% of the vote might get 2–3 seats. That’s not right. As is, Labour winning 450+ seats with 45% of the vote. Let’s also not forget the 30-40% that will not vote for a variety of reasons, including those that Tory rule changes will stop. I mean, I have no time for Reform UK, but as a democrat I do believe that if they get 15% of the vote they should roughly get that many seats. The same with the Greens. In fact, if we had PR I would vote Green, but in my area, the tactical vote to beat the Tory is Labour. I don’t like any of this. I want to vote for what I believe in, not to just to get rid of something that I dislike.
So, Labour, do you believe in democracy or not? You should not think that the tactical vote for you next time is solid Labour, because it is not. The ball will be in your court.
I agree wit you.
I have just looked at the Lib Dem list of target seats.Three were in Scotland, SNP and the fifth Labour one on the list at number 62 , City of Durham is the first one in the north. A ten percent swing to them would deliver about 30 seats. But it depends how the other parties do, of course. I am uneasy about support being concentrated in the South East and South West.
They still have Frome on the list and that went to them in the recent by-election.
A ten percent swing in Labour targets would , they reckon, deliver 122 seats. That would, with 200 seats today, just about see them in power with a majority of one as Sinn Fein don’t attend. They will probably get more than ten percent.
It seems in the blog here, that hope springs eternal for Labour to have a road to Damascus conversion and adopt PR (sigh). In my view this is Disneyland dreaming and the Moon is definitely not made of cheese.
Both Labour and Conservative are deeply wedded to FPTP, understandably so as it guarantees that only one of these two party’s can ever get into power in the UK. Your turn next Tweedledee!
As Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael closed Neoliberal ranks to keep out Sinn Fein at the last Irish general election, so too would Labour and Conservative parties close ranks and for form a coalition should PR ever become a possibility. The continuity of FPTP is paramount to them; power corrupts absolutely.
It pains me to say but George Galloway was absolutely right to call Kier Sunak and Rishi Starmer ARE cheeks of the same ar*e.
Great blog as ever.
Regards Paul
I agree with you Paul
Ireland’s Tories will pay a big price for this, I think
They will only get behind PR if they get a narrow victory. Any kinds of decent majority will nip that idea in the bud
There seems no obvious action to take. Those of us who haven’t done an Owen Jones and left Labour can only gear up for the struggle ahead, once corrupt Labour is in power.
Labour Party’s own corruption – selling itself to monied interests, happy to lose members, factions capturing the commanding heights of the party structure – weaponising islamophobia, anti semitism etc – only mirrors the corruption of the whole constitution – FPT.P, cash for honours, insider contracts, pawning public assets , revolving door etc
I’m not an active member – I did send in motions for discussion at local party but didnt get anywhere so gave up.
Until we get PR – its not clear what to do – Im just expecting the real struggle to start once Labour is elected. They may be even worse than Tories resisting proper pay for doctros and nurses – so as to ‘prove’ themselves.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/02/twenty-labour-councillors-resign-protest-leadership
Interesting………
I think the local elections will provide a weather vane for us to see where political loyalties really lie. A large number of Councilors across the UK have deserted Labour, but Starmer is still actively trying to ‘shake off the Leftist flees’. Sitting as an independent some, but not all, of those who have left Labour will get reelected. No Political Party is perfect on all issues; I know we are currently working on changes to the monetary policy, a concern of Richard. Instead of floundering in the wilderness, disillusioned Socialist, as well as several of the well-respected sitting Labour MPs who have been maliciously ousted by Starmer, could defect to the Green Party. This move would immediately strengthen the Socialist block standing in Parliament right now and give Starmer cause for concern.
This would force the media to start acknowledging the ‘Invisible Party’, (Greens), as more than just ‘other’ and expose the fact that the Green Party are not just a single issue party. In reality, the Green Party have spent years formulating a very full political agenda, all democratically voted for at Party conferences. There is no danger of an abrupt redirection by a tyrannical, dictatorial leader, as with the Labour Party. A new start-up political party has the daunting task of creating a workable agenda from scratch, with the strong potential for serious errors of judgement. However, the politically homeless Socialists, and the recently evicted left, can run as ‘Independent and Green’ to benefit from well thought through policies that have been democratically decided upon already.
This shift to another well established Political Party will increase the likelihood of reelection for those who deserve to continue in office. The Greens will not accept an affiliation with any MPs who do not share Green Party Socialist and Environmental values. However, by banding together with the Greens their disgust with Keir Starmer, and the damage he has wrought on Labour, will become very obvious. This will hopefully force Starmer to rethink the more toxic aspects of his policy agenda to avoid the threat of seriously losing ground to the Greens. Individual independent former Labour MPs cannot hope to have that great of an impact without banding together in some way. Starmer might then start worrying about shaking off those flees!
I agree with much of what you say, but.
As you will see from the post at the top (mine) clean rivers, pleasant environment, functioning health service – are not left or right, socilaist or tory. How one delivers them could be characterised as such – but events 1980 to now suggest that “markets” and “capitalism” are not very good at delivering societal goods. How to get to, e.g. clean rivers and seas is open for debate (but not markets & not capitalism). I’m organising a bunch of indy candidates – that would be happy to collaborate with greens. However, the candidates will be steering clear of words such as “socialism” and quite possibly “green” because this gives levers for LINO and what is left of the Tories & in any case, much of the UK is still conservative, with a small c. If you are involved in the election I’m happy to talk.
I am not in a position to influence the Green Party to any greater degree than any other Green party member. All of our decisions are made collectively, via democratic debate and voting at conferences. However, the Green Party is aggressively marginalized as just an irrelevant group of tree-huggers with no other policy agenda to speak off, so not a major target for the big guys. In reality our broadly Socialist policy, although not specifically named as such, runs in tandem to our environmental agenda. I do not see this as a barrier to collaboration or teaming-up. Appeal to the policies people really want and incorporate funding from Richard’s Taxing Wealth Report to torpedo the ‘No Money Left’ lies.
I think the real trick is to highlight policies that are uniformly popular like renationalization of rail, mail, all our failing utilities and a pledge to reverse the privatisation of our NHS. Socialist policies that have strong public support like this require no headline banner that might ingender negative press or opposition attack. The so-called ‘Fiscal Rules’ straightjacket, as Richard has elaborated, is not based on any coherent logic. Getting past this bogus road-block requires coming up with an alternative set of rules that could be promoted as a component of establishing a fairer taxation system. These tax adjustments, while eliminating the gross inequality in the UK, will in turn justify desperately needed investment in the NHS, Schools and our crumbling infrastructure.
It must be a totally logical set of ‘rules’ that will expose the illiterate garbage spouted by the main political parties. Formulated to cope with the real challenges that we face with the climate crisis, homelessness and growing inequality, it must reverse all the asset stripping destruction caused during the unnecessary austerity years of Tory greed. An all encompassing name with a memorable acronym: Financial Investment in Infrastructure for Carbon-Neutral Equality and Wellbeing – the ‘FIICNEW Rules’. We might have people confuse FIICNEW with ‘Think New’, unintentionally of course… Not perfect, but if not this, something similar that provides a bold redirection, that is comprehensively thought through, so that in comparison to the current ‘Fiscal Rules’ the new ones would actually make sense.
Look how the Tories used blatant lies about so-called ‘Leveling Up’ to do the exact opposite with their defunding of councils, the NHS, Schools and their cruel public policies. We need to smarten up and use catchy punchlines to win the fight-back to a society centered on people not profits. Understand the media, they are always looking for a ‘Hook’. This requires a punchline so irresistible that they cannot help themselves but print it. An attention grabbing picture or gimmick works on the exact same principle; Ed Davey has really caught on to this trick. Bait the Hook and the media will bite… Independants take heed, The Tories ‘Divide and Rule’; fragmentation and FPTP does not work in our favour. Richard, you have my permission to put Mike Parr in touch with me.
The poll result isn’t surprising most voters appear to want others to do their economic thinking, to plonk it on their plates so to speak. Consequently they fail to notice the mainstream media and amateurish politicians have been heaping shallow Thatcherite nostrums on them!
In the light of the latest massacre in Gaza, the thought of voting for a party that is actively supporting genocide right now makes me want to vomit. I cannot be delighted at the prospect of a Labour win. There will be great satisfaction at seeing the demise of the Tory Party, but I would have to be worried at what Labour will do (or not do).
I am fortunate in that the candidates most likely to win in NE Fife, Lib Dem and SNP, have both called for an immediate ceasefire and for the immediate cessation of arms supply to Israel, with my MP one of the (less than 10% of) parliamentarians to sign Zara Sultana’s letter to the Foreign Secretary calling for the upholding of UK and International Law.
Of course, voting for a candidate who actually supports my wishes is not much cause for hope, since neither party will have any say in policy. There seems now to be an almost complete disconnection between the electorate, who overwhelmingly oppose Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians, and all those with any power in this, or the next, government, who are determined that it shall continue. Democracy has failed in the UK.
In the unlikely event of the supposed ideal scenario of a hung parliament occurring I would only foresee a Labour/Conservative coalition. Its the most miserable set of prospects I’ve ever known.
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