Wow, wasn’t expecting that. That’d be a huge result for the Tories. Seems like Sunak is slowly turning the tanker (if the results match the forecast).
I wonder how much is Sunak doing a good job, and how much is Starmer repeatedly digging holes and diving into them? Either way, I expect a full morning of commentary from reddit as to why this is incorrect.
Voter suppression is working then.
Although I do wonder how much of this is expectation management from Labour.
A lot of what you hear in the run up to an election is expectation management. If you think your party is going to do very well you may be less inclined to get to the polling station, but if you think they’ll do badly you’ll make more effort to get there.
Well considering the Tories are getting a multimillion pound campaign boost in the form of a royal ceremony at a very convenient time.
There is no hope. People will get what they deserve.
It doesn’t matter. This is just spin.
It’s not going to affect a thing going into the next election no matter who truly comes out on top. Starmer will be leading labour and Sunak the Tories.
As usual it will be a mixed bag of results and both parties will choose a stat to show it was better or worse than it truly is. It’s the way it’s been played since the beginning.
Truth is local elections bare very little insight into what will happen at the general election next year. Tories could be hammered in the locals but go on to do a John Major at the general in 1992. Likewise , they may do ok due to people voting for their preferred local councillor who helped them with local issues but the tories could be totally wiped out in the general election due to macro issues like the economy.
Another example is Theresa May loosing over 1000 seats in the locals however the Tories went on to win the next general election. Ok they got a new leader in but still goes to show it can be turned around. Very little can be correlated between local and general elections.
Again Starmer is right when he says it’s not the number of seats but the targeted areas he will be studying. That would probably be more useful (even though it’s still limited) to see if certain trends are swinging in your favour.
I guess the overwhelming question I have is, what the fuck is wrong with the british public?
‘Oh yeah actually 2023 has been ok really.’
This is vs 2019, a year the conservatives (to put it mildly) did not do well.
They lost 1300 seats (25%). Dropping further than that is surprising in more normal times.
I will be pleasantly surprised if the tories lose 250 seats given the seats up for grabs and the poor results tories had last time they were up.
Tories are now forecast not to do utterly terribly, just terribly.
As others have said, this is probably down to two things.
1. Voters yet again being taken in by a smiling face and forgetting the track record of this party.
2. Kier Starmer just… trying to chase as many Tory votes as possible, by unfortunately appearing to abandon most of the principles both he and the Labour Party are supposed to stand for.
To be clear, I wasn’t anti-Starmer, when he was giving interviews he comes across as intelligent and reasoned, which I find much more appealing in a leader than the BoJo style charisma with nothing backing it up. But the last few weeks and months have been… disappointing…
Starmer starting to grasp defeat from the Jaws of victory.
He could have coasted and won by a landslide but decided to shit talk the left, go against returning to the EU, went against nationalising energy companies, couldn’t be found on the picket line, dropped all of his pledges, made new ones and is starting to roll back on those too.
And some think he’s playing 4D chess, nah he’s just a liar who says both sides of every argument for votes.
Sure I’ll never vote Tory but Starmer and Reeves are off to a bad start already.
Woohoo they’ll freeze council tax… Such optimism.
Well, electoral calculus don’t offer a local election predictor as a public tool, so we have no way to examine what assumptions they made to model this.
National polling for local voting intention gives Labour about a 10% lead, which has historically been a “magic number” correlated with big wins for opposition’s who go on to form majority government.
It’s all a bit reading tea leaves, we’ll see by the weekend. Personally I’d see anything less than national vote-share equivalent of +10% for Labour, and a seat gain of at least 500, as disappointing given the national picture.
That IS a wipeout. They do this every local election, the usual Tory press predict 1000 seat losses, then claim it’s a win when he loses 250.
I’m so fucking done with this country. The British public are painfully stupid.
Yesterday 800.
At least the data is reliable. /s
I wonder though. At locals tactical voting is less of a thing. People are more inclined to take a punt on greens et al.
How. HOW. How can they succeed with the country in this state. They should be getting taken to the cleaners!
That said, what are Labour doing? My local councillor is completely invisible on Google searches. The local branch of the Labour party’s website is completely dead and seemingly has been for years, and their last posts on their Twitter feed are over a year old. Are they just making no fucking effort to engage at all?!
My biggest fear is the British public are absolutely stupid enough to vote this joke of a party in again next GE. I can very much see it happening.
They’ll win the GE. I have no doubt about it at all with the public’s working memory being as it is.
As ever a flood of comments from people calling the voters stupid. Have any of you ever considered you are part of the problem? Instead of taking their oppinions on board and trying to work with them you just call them stupid… They won’t ever want to come over to your side lol.
I live in a safe labour seat so it doesn’t really matter I guess.
Other than to ”its not labour’, why on earth would anyone of sense vote for these cretins, they’ve had 3 terms to create their conservative nirvana and other than lining some pockets they’ve failed spectacularly even at that.
I’m actually at the point where I believe that all politics is just a pantomime. There is no conservative vs labour. All we have is a ruling class putting on a show for us plebs
I will be voting for Labour tomorrow, as will my husband. Our local representative just finished leafleting our street. I really hope he wins.
I occasionally click on reddit politics threads, read extremely misinformed and outright incorrect analysis from 17 year old redditors and then leave again in solace knowing nobody on this site really knows what they’re talking about
A few things here:
1. The Tories are already starting from a historically low base in this election.
2. This is the Mirror doing expectation management for their side, so when the Tories lose more than 250 seats it can be called extra embarrassing
3. Where those seats are really matters thanks to our shitty system, losing two seats in every council is less disastrous to them than losing every seat in several key constituencies.
4. Polling always struggles to capture how good the British public are at tactical voting. While Labour may poll high, they’ll lose votes to other opposition parties in some places where they’re not likely to ever win.
5. The Lib Dems and Greens always do far better at local elections than national ones
Lib Dems should run on the single issue of electoral reform to force this back on the agenda. The choice of two flavours of right wing daily mail appeasing shit isn’t good enough
Yeah predictions from the mirror. Probably complete bollocks
As an outsider quick question. The Tories have been in power now for 13 years consecutively. No interruption. They’ve been running your government for the last 13 years. Today. You are where you are after 13 years of them leading you. Why are you voting for them?
That says more about the incompetence of other parties than the tories. If they can’t win with a virtual open goal, they are even more useless, and this country is doomed if that is the case
ok holy shit the british electorate need some fucking help
how tf do u look at what the tories have done for 10 years and be like ‘yea thats ok cOUlD bE WoRsE’
Like tf? We’re screwed
Take MPs expenses accounts away, no wage increases, and that will make them do their jobs properly .
When barely avoiding a local elections wipeout is a good news story for you…. things are dire
Same shit every time with this shithole of a country. Conservatives are shitty as ever and fucked the country near to death, but labour is realistic about having to adjust something it pledged and they lose support. We really do deserve this shithole we have.
IS anyone even excited? All were going to get is red tories with Starmer. UK is so fucked
Finally my wee town Dover is doing the right thing.
97 of 230 councils declared and they’ve lost 324.
What was that about just 250?
Another triumph of accurate forecasting and journalism.
40 comments
Wow, wasn’t expecting that. That’d be a huge result for the Tories. Seems like Sunak is slowly turning the tanker (if the results match the forecast).
I wonder how much is Sunak doing a good job, and how much is Starmer repeatedly digging holes and diving into them? Either way, I expect a full morning of commentary from reddit as to why this is incorrect.
Voter suppression is working then.
Although I do wonder how much of this is expectation management from Labour.
A lot of what you hear in the run up to an election is expectation management. If you think your party is going to do very well you may be less inclined to get to the polling station, but if you think they’ll do badly you’ll make more effort to get there.
Well considering the Tories are getting a multimillion pound campaign boost in the form of a royal ceremony at a very convenient time.
There is no hope. People will get what they deserve.
It doesn’t matter. This is just spin.
It’s not going to affect a thing going into the next election no matter who truly comes out on top. Starmer will be leading labour and Sunak the Tories.
As usual it will be a mixed bag of results and both parties will choose a stat to show it was better or worse than it truly is. It’s the way it’s been played since the beginning.
Truth is local elections bare very little insight into what will happen at the general election next year. Tories could be hammered in the locals but go on to do a John Major at the general in 1992. Likewise , they may do ok due to people voting for their preferred local councillor who helped them with local issues but the tories could be totally wiped out in the general election due to macro issues like the economy.
Another example is Theresa May loosing over 1000 seats in the locals however the Tories went on to win the next general election. Ok they got a new leader in but still goes to show it can be turned around. Very little can be correlated between local and general elections.
Again Starmer is right when he says it’s not the number of seats but the targeted areas he will be studying. That would probably be more useful (even though it’s still limited) to see if certain trends are swinging in your favour.
I guess the overwhelming question I have is, what the fuck is wrong with the british public?
‘Oh yeah actually 2023 has been ok really.’
This is vs 2019, a year the conservatives (to put it mildly) did not do well.
They lost 1300 seats (25%). Dropping further than that is surprising in more normal times.
I will be pleasantly surprised if the tories lose 250 seats given the seats up for grabs and the poor results tories had last time they were up.
Tories are now forecast not to do utterly terribly, just terribly.
As others have said, this is probably down to two things.
1. Voters yet again being taken in by a smiling face and forgetting the track record of this party.
2. Kier Starmer just… trying to chase as many Tory votes as possible, by unfortunately appearing to abandon most of the principles both he and the Labour Party are supposed to stand for.
To be clear, I wasn’t anti-Starmer, when he was giving interviews he comes across as intelligent and reasoned, which I find much more appealing in a leader than the BoJo style charisma with nothing backing it up. But the last few weeks and months have been… disappointing…
Starmer starting to grasp defeat from the Jaws of victory.
He could have coasted and won by a landslide but decided to shit talk the left, go against returning to the EU, went against nationalising energy companies, couldn’t be found on the picket line, dropped all of his pledges, made new ones and is starting to roll back on those too.
And some think he’s playing 4D chess, nah he’s just a liar who says both sides of every argument for votes.
Sure I’ll never vote Tory but Starmer and Reeves are off to a bad start already.
Woohoo they’ll freeze council tax… Such optimism.
Well, electoral calculus don’t offer a local election predictor as a public tool, so we have no way to examine what assumptions they made to model this.
National polling for local voting intention gives Labour about a 10% lead, which has historically been a “magic number” correlated with big wins for opposition’s who go on to form majority government.
It’s all a bit reading tea leaves, we’ll see by the weekend. Personally I’d see anything less than national vote-share equivalent of +10% for Labour, and a seat gain of at least 500, as disappointing given the national picture.
That IS a wipeout. They do this every local election, the usual Tory press predict 1000 seat losses, then claim it’s a win when he loses 250.
I’m so fucking done with this country. The British public are painfully stupid.
Yesterday 800.
At least the data is reliable. /s
I wonder though. At locals tactical voting is less of a thing. People are more inclined to take a punt on greens et al.
How. HOW. How can they succeed with the country in this state. They should be getting taken to the cleaners!
That said, what are Labour doing? My local councillor is completely invisible on Google searches. The local branch of the Labour party’s website is completely dead and seemingly has been for years, and their last posts on their Twitter feed are over a year old. Are they just making no fucking effort to engage at all?!
My biggest fear is the British public are absolutely stupid enough to vote this joke of a party in again next GE. I can very much see it happening.
They’ll win the GE. I have no doubt about it at all with the public’s working memory being as it is.
As ever a flood of comments from people calling the voters stupid. Have any of you ever considered you are part of the problem? Instead of taking their oppinions on board and trying to work with them you just call them stupid… They won’t ever want to come over to your side lol.
I live in a safe labour seat so it doesn’t really matter I guess.
Other than to ”its not labour’, why on earth would anyone of sense vote for these cretins, they’ve had 3 terms to create their conservative nirvana and other than lining some pockets they’ve failed spectacularly even at that.
I’m actually at the point where I believe that all politics is just a pantomime. There is no conservative vs labour. All we have is a ruling class putting on a show for us plebs
I will be voting for Labour tomorrow, as will my husband. Our local representative just finished leafleting our street. I really hope he wins.
I occasionally click on reddit politics threads, read extremely misinformed and outright incorrect analysis from 17 year old redditors and then leave again in solace knowing nobody on this site really knows what they’re talking about
A few things here:
1. The Tories are already starting from a historically low base in this election.
2. This is the Mirror doing expectation management for their side, so when the Tories lose more than 250 seats it can be called extra embarrassing
3. Where those seats are really matters thanks to our shitty system, losing two seats in every council is less disastrous to them than losing every seat in several key constituencies.
4. Polling always struggles to capture how good the British public are at tactical voting. While Labour may poll high, they’ll lose votes to other opposition parties in some places where they’re not likely to ever win.
5. The Lib Dems and Greens always do far better at local elections than national ones
Lib Dems should run on the single issue of electoral reform to force this back on the agenda. The choice of two flavours of right wing daily mail appeasing shit isn’t good enough
Yeah predictions from the mirror. Probably complete bollocks
As an outsider quick question. The Tories have been in power now for 13 years consecutively. No interruption. They’ve been running your government for the last 13 years. Today. You are where you are after 13 years of them leading you. Why are you voting for them?
That says more about the incompetence of other parties than the tories. If they can’t win with a virtual open goal, they are even more useless, and this country is doomed if that is the case
ok holy shit the british electorate need some fucking help
how tf do u look at what the tories have done for 10 years and be like ‘yea thats ok cOUlD bE WoRsE’
Like tf? We’re screwed
Take MPs expenses accounts away, no wage increases, and that will make them do their jobs properly .
When barely avoiding a local elections wipeout is a good news story for you…. things are dire
Same shit every time with this shithole of a country. Conservatives are shitty as ever and fucked the country near to death, but labour is realistic about having to adjust something it pledged and they lose support. We really do deserve this shithole we have.
IS anyone even excited? All were going to get is red tories with Starmer. UK is so fucked
Finally my wee town Dover is doing the right thing.
97 of 230 councils declared and they’ve lost 324.
What was that about just 250?
Another triumph of accurate forecasting and journalism.