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Dear Lord, are they going to lose this?

Sterling suffered its steepest fall since January on Friday after an opinion poll showed the governing Conservatives’ lead over the Labour opposition down to just 5 percentage points less than two weeks before a parliamentary election.

Against Corbyn?

66 thoughts on “Dear Lord, are they going to lose this?”

  1. I certainly can’t understand why an increase in tax and more deference to our Muslim friends could be unpopular.

  2. The increased nation-wide shared of the Labour vote is most likely going to be a result of Labour votes piling up in Labour seats. Increasing the Labour vote in a Labour seat from 60% to 80% still only results in 1.00000000 Labour MP. You could even get an increase in the vote share and a decrease in the number of seats won.

  3. The Inimitable Steve

    Nah. Can’t see it. There’s no enthusiasm for Corbyn or Labour.

    There’s none for May and the Tories either, but they’re at least doing a passable impression of a responsible governing party, and UKIP seems to have devolved into a sideshow.

    Tbf both May and Corbyn deserve to lose. After the latest slaughter in Manchester, their message is “let’s scrape our children off the pavement and carry on as before, lol!”

    I’m expecting a low turnout and comfortable Tory majority. Not based on cephalopodology or nothin, just my reckoning.

  4. If they win, will they invite Spud back into the tent? I imagine they have little appetite for dissent and long memories.

    There would be something delicious about his side of politics getting back in, fighting tax justice etc, with the Spud on the sidelines, with Lord Soapy Joe at the centre.

  5. To judge by my fb feed, any amount of Labour campaign material, some.from minor parties, zilch from the Tories.
    If that’s even vaguely representative it indicates a terrible Tory campaign.

  6. @pat
    Seems to be a feature of Tory election campaigning. Last UK GE I voted in, with a week to go I’d received election material from every candidate, up to & including some nutter who was standing as an independent on an issue that I couldn’t even remember when I was half way done reading her leaflet. Except from the Tories – zilch. Did them a favour, rang them up & reminded them we exist, but come the big day – still zilch.
    S’pose it’s a feature of a party gets a lot of votes & thus MPs. But nobody actually supports. Why would you? Unmitigated bunch of cunts who just happen to be slightly less horrific than the alternatives.

  7. Oh, incidentally. I personally knew the Tory candidate. Ex-minister in the Major days. When I say cunts I’m definitely not omitting him. Just adding fat & useless. And still owes me a ten bob note. Swindling tight-arse as well.

  8. It’s strange isn’t it? After Brexit the subsequent fall in the GBP was used to show what an awful idea Brexit is. Now Corbyn polling better causes the pound to drop there’s nothing to see here.

  9. The comments on facebook are definitely alarming. Social media may have helped Trump win but they were usually a good counter to the biased MSM. The pro Labour stuff on fb is batshit crazy but still there’s a lot of it and no rationality whatsoever. When did we all become Guardian readers?

  10. Harry Haddock's Ghost

    I’ve put some money on a no overall control; that is really just to hedge my bets. I’m still expecting a Tory win.

  11. @Mike – most of the FB stuff is indeed batshit crazy and utterly unconvincing. I’m fed up of comparative lists which, to anyone outside the cult, are just cynical representations of Tory things and credulous representations of Labour things.

    Who they expect to convince with this stuff, aside from the already-convinced, I have no idea. Utterly unpersuasive stuff.

  12. Its poll manipulation. Maybe even from the Tories as a scare tactic.

    ZaNu is unlikely to win.

    Corboyd –and Farron –are both bigger traitors and RoP-suckers/importers than even May.

    What is encouraging is that May’s bullshit is being seen thro’ by large numbers of people. I am voting for Brexit. The rest of her manifesto is garbage and she can absolutely stuff her planned attempt at a Chi-com style Internet takeover.

    If Corbyn were any sort of patriot even so far as was Wilson or Atlee–despite the rest of his Marxian twaddle–he might have had a chance. But to vote for him throws away both Brexit and is opening the gates even wider for RoP takeover.

  13. It would take an exceptional Tory leader to lose after being 20 PTS ahead, but I believe Mrs May has all the qualities needed to make it happen.

  14. All expected wins have a wobble in them, even Mrs T did in 1987 and ended up with a bigger majority. I never thought the 150 majority stuff was realistic, I’d put it at 50-60.

    I also wouldn’t put these polls past being somehow manipulated to get the Tory vote out. Nothing will get the Tory vote out like a whiff of Corbyn being anywhere near power.

    OT I had my first ever poll phone call yesterday, from Survation.

  15. May has pulled some stupid antics esp the troops security theatre nonsense–and deploying them to guard the boss class first–but nothing in Camoron’s league, let alone Broon. Yet. But the mistakes will come thick and fast from now on . She is thick as well as CM BluLabour.

    The Tory’s will win –but not as handsomely as they might have. If its enough for Brexit it will do.

    Dress Up is already an arrogant authoritarian bitch. A reduced showing will take the wind out of her sails and motivate her shower not to put all their eggs in her basket so to speak.

    Being morons of course they will likely come up with someone worse.

  16. “But a poll by the YouGov organisation taken after Monday’s bombing in Manchester…”

    This is why. People are massively pissed off with this mowog shit, and are going to point some blame at the incumbents (rightly). When it comes to polling day, they aren’t going to punish May by putting an evil dipshit in charge who’ll give us more mowog and make us like it.

    She only has to come out and say something along the lines of the Muslim “community” baring some of the responsibility, and she’ll go back to a landslide victory. She won’t, of course, so will have to settle with a low-turnout, unspectacular win.

  17. I’d already postal voted before seeing the Conservative manifesto. Should have gone with my heart not head and voted UKIP. Embarrassed now that I have voted Tory. Where is the party that stands for smaller government and lower taxes and spending? I feel totally disenfranchised.

  18. Bloke in Wiltshire

    I know some people doing canvassing. Knocking on doors. They say there hasn’t been any noticeable change during the campaign. it’s a rogue poll.

    One thing that I predict is that Labour are going to disproportionately gain where it doesn’t matter. This is hardcore, social worker/student policies. The Guardian readers/public sector workers/students love this sort of stuff that Corbyn comes out with like wiping out student loans and nationalising railways. But they’re concentrated in places like Manchester, Liverpool and London, where they already win anyway.

    I reckon they’ll do far worse seat-wise than anyone is imagining at the moment.

  19. “Dress Up is already an arrogant authoritarian bitch.”

    That would be fine if it was aimed in the right direction……………………thats what the country is crying out for, some authoritarianism aimed at Muslims for once.

  20. I suscribe BiS’s comment with the c word.

    May is even worse then I thought, all show and no substance. An intellectual pygmy.

    Bring on Rees-Mogg

    I can talk as posh as him so he must be OK.

  21. PJF–Spot on. If May stood up and denounced the RoP and even just Mid-East migration she would have the biggest election victory ever probably.

    But she is BluLab and thick with it.

    She called the election in the hope of using Brexit to get a mandate for the rest of her manifesto. All patronising one nation CM bullshit.

    Which is why a win that preserves Brexit but leaves her unable to claim sweeping support for all the rest of her crap–esp the Inet takeover–will be a good thing.

  22. I postal voted already for the Tories, peg firmly wedged on my nose. As with Ecksy, this election is about making the hell sure that Brexit goes ahead, and the domestic policies can come later. May is certainly an authoritarian hag – I’m hoping that Hannan or Carswell will eventually run for leadership once Brexit is finalised.

  23. Very, very wary of explanations of market events that boil down to a single cause, particularly those occurring on a Friday, even more so given the long weekend, and those happening after period highs.

    That aside, what PJF said and AlexM said.

    Still, given the referendum result, I suspect that this election is going to be a bit odd, since the large majorities to leave were essentially in the Labour heartlands.

    So, at a wild guess;

    May will treble her majority; that means around 50-60 seats, probably no more than 80.

    The Conservatives will pick up seats in Scotland and up North, at the expense of Labour, who will probably pick up metropolitan seats in the south-east.

    The constituency majorities are going to be really quite thin, for both parties.

    Which is much worse news for May, who probably won’t be PM going into the next election.

  24. @PeteC
    Carswell will need to both rejoin the party and get a seat.
    Hannan will need to get a seat.
    Both are unlikely, the more so since HQ blocked Hannan’s selection for Aldershot.
    Seems to me HQ don’t like classical liberals.

  25. Anyone see the football pledges from corbyn?

    He is going for broke and promising any old nonsense. Makes sense as he has nothing to lose.

    Please can someone humorously Fisk it?

    It’s batshit and is not remotely the business of govt to encourage even more people to go to away games

  26. @Pat
    Interesting – I didn’t know they’d blocked Hannan, probably because of his ‘NHS interview’ on Fox a few years back. Carwell is all but back in the party from what I understand…

  27. The Tories have had a terrible campaign; I simply can not believe that they made it all about Theresa May – a horrible authoritarian who would feel more at home on the benches across the aisle.

    After the manifesto launch, I have decided not to vote. I still think that the Tories will win – but hopefully they will get a signal by lots of people staying at home that we want a liberal Conservative party; not an authoritarian blu-labour one.

  28. This is why i was saying all along that the Conservatives shouldn’t call an early election, they should just get on with as much of Brexit asd they can while they’re in power, and use the early election as a last resort. Don’t give the enemy a shot at power at this crucial time.

    At least they’ve already invoked Article 50, though.

  29. I agree, Cal. They didn’t even wait for the boundary review. I suspect an underlying resentment at being taken for granted. It didn’t work for Ted Heath, did it. Still surely people can’t be that deranged.

  30. Bloke in North Dorset

    jgh,

    “The increased nation-wide shared of the Labour vote is most likely going to be a result of Labour votes piling up in Labour seats. Increasing the Labour vote in a Labour seat from 60% to 80% still only results in 1.00000000 Labour MP. You could even get an increase in the vote share and a decrease in the number of seats won.”

    I think there’s something in that’s it seems that a lot of the switch is from LibDems who have haemorrhaged the student vote.

    It would be great if the stories could get something like a 50 seat majority but lose the popular vote. The exploding heads would shame Hong Kong’s New Year fireworks display.

    Anyway, given past performance of polls I want to see a trend not individual polls. We never seem to get the dunnos either.

  31. I don’t think the Tories will lose, but I have to say that there’s quite a few people here living in their own bubble. But I get exposed to other bubbles, and in those there is near universal hatred for the Tories, and religious-like belief in Labour.

    For example, the academic, arts, writing and music communities, and the upper-middle class chattering circles, are all like 95% Corbyn, or at least anti-Tory. As has been said these are mostly concentrated in urban areas and safe Labour seats, so hopefully the damage will be contained.

    But the really worrying one is young people. Young people just do not connect with Theresa May at all, and many of them are being exposed to very heavy peer pressure to be left-wing, or be cast out of their society. Again, I don’t think this is going to get Labour over the line, but it’s very worrying sign for the future.

    Universities are behind a lot of this. Not necessarily anything explicit that the lecturers say, it’s more the prevailing culture there which the students pick up, and the aggressive tactics of students with prestige who are perceived to have influence, and the student newspapers.

    This all mattered less in the old days when less students went to Uni. Well, it mattered in terms of turning many students leftwards who went on to have positions of power. But it didn’t matter so much in terms of directly influencing election results. But with so many young students now being directed into going to Uni it does have more of an effect on election results, especially if those young people get motivated to turn out on the day.

    And it makes you worry about the future — some of these students will eventually come to their senses, but a lot will stay Labour voters forever. (This is, of course, exactly why Labour was so keen to have so many young people go to Uni — it’s like a Labour training camp.)

  32. Theresa May is like Thatcher in one way — a lot of young people really dislike her, and they will turn out to vote Labour because of her.

    However, Thatcher also motivated many, many other people to enthusiastically turn out to vote for her. But May doesn’t have that effect. Well, she does in some retired vicar circles, but in general she doesn’t inspire most people, especially now that she’s squandering her Brexit honeymoon.

  33. The Inimitable Steve

    Cal –
    Universities are behind a lot of this.

    Yes. Academia needs a dose of the Ecks Express.

    it does have more of an effect on election results, especially if those young people get motivated to turn out on the day.

    Don’t worry, they won’t.

  34. “Universities are behind a lot of this. Not necessarily anything explicit that the lecturers say, it’s more the prevailing culture there which the students pick up, and the aggressive tactics of students with prestige who are perceived to have influence, and the student newspapers.”

    Hence the need for the Purge Cal.

    Firstly the Marxian scum “professors” who have laboured–no pun intended–to set all this shite up among the young and dumb. Too dumb to see socialism for what it is.

    Also all the young leftist snot must get the same treatment. Expelled without remitamce of student debt. Indeed the debt should be surcharged to increase it 20 fold and aggressively collected for the rest of their lives. Which means–unless they win the fucking lottery–the young bastards will never get a penny ahead. Also they must be blackballed-ie prevented by legal statute–from ever entering politics, law, publishing , media (~of any kind) either in person or as the power behind some stooge frontman.On pain of lots of jail time. That will ensure the next generation of far worse Marxian pukes will be stillborn before they get going.

    I am aware how illiberal these measures are and I realise that they violate my own principles.

    But because of the weakness and moral cowardice of the so called authorities (or perhaps their active connivance) we are now in a war situation and or looking at our own 1940.

    As Christopher Lee put it in the Devil Rides Out (I paraphrase) “If they once comprehensively break the circle of freedom then it is the end for us all”. If this generation of Marxist scum gain the power they seek the horrors of socialism will return to be acted out here as they have been in Russia and China and Cuba and as they are being acted out now in Venezuela.

    To destroy the lives and freedom of a group of young snot middle-class cultural Marxists in order to preserve the lives and freedom of the rest of us is something that now–to me at least–seems unavoidable.

  35. “However, Thatcher also motivated many, many other people to enthusiastically turn out to vote for her. But May doesn’t have that effect.”

    No Cal May doesn’t.

    But Brexit does.

    And don’t underestimate Corby’s negative drawing power either. Not just amongst anti-labour . A lot of old Labour won’t vote for him. One I know says he is going on holiday that week so he won’t be able to vote on the 8th. Totally unprecedented for the man.

  36. Perhaps, even probably(?), it’s a rogue poll; but there’s no way it was rigged to strengthen the Tory vote – YouGov have too much to lose.

    I have never liked May: she’s authoritarian, inflexible, stubborn, prone to dither and relies on the wrong people. My heart sank when I heard that her aides, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, had been placed in joint control – ‘joint control’ means no overallcontrol – of the GE campaign. Neither is qualified for the task: Timothy is a ‘red Tory’ Home Office policy wonk, Hill is an emotionally incontinent PR girly with an attitude problem. Timothy is wholly responsible for the care floor of £100k fiasco: apparently, he bumped May into inserting this policy into the manifesto at the last minute.

    The Tory campaign should have been wholly in the control of Lynton Crosby. Cameron and Osborne ran their own campaign in 2010, and they threw away a majority. Learning the lesson, Cameron gave LC complete control in 2015. May, however, clearly didn’t learn the lesson – which is that winning a GE requires a completely different set of skills to winning a ward or constituency or running a PR/policy unit.

    All that said: IF YOU WANT BREXIT, VOTE TORY! A Tory majority of under 75 will only weaken the UK’s bargaining position. Rogue poll or not, please persuade everyone you know to vote Tory – for BREXIT!

    And May’s stubbornness and inflexibility could well be a huge asset in the Brexit negotiations. She has many weaknesses, but negotiating is not one of them.

  37. ” some of these students will eventually come to their senses, but a lot will stay Labour voters forever. ”

    If you are voting Labour past the age of 35 you probably haven’t got anywhere in life and deserve it. I have a bit more sympathy for what X calls “old Labour” but not much.

  38. The Inimitable Steve

    As Christopher Lee put it in the Devil Rides Out

    Blimey, Ecks. That’s a slice of retronostalgia.

    Hammer films used to scare the shite out of me.

  39. Cal

    You can overdo the university lefties stuff. Most students have nothing to do with politics full stop. It’s the 10% who do who are swayed and they were probably going to be lefties already.

  40. How can anyone in the UK vote for a man who says?

    The bombing campaign was completely wrong because it was taking civilian lives

    Or for a fat, ugly cow who said?

    Every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us.”

  41. The Inimitable Steve

    Recusant – this is true.

    I reckon the more insidious influence of university is in how it infantilises young adults. A couple of generations ago you could reasonably expect a 21 year old British man to have a job, a trade, and probably be married with a baby or two as well.

    Nowadays they’re more likely to be playing X-Box, still living with Mum and Dad, and pursuing a degree in Masturbation Studies from Scumbag University (formerly Shithole Polytechnic)

    Millennial adolescence lasts into their 30’s. Which would be fine if we were Hobbits, but we ain’t.

    Universities aren’t entirety to blame, but they’re part of the problem.

  42. Bloke in Wiltshire

    Recusant,

    “You can overdo the university lefties stuff. Most students have nothing to do with politics full stop.”

    They’re generally more left leaning. They aren’t paying the bills yet 😉

    But student politics nonsense like the NUS is mostly an irrelevance. I was an NUS member, just for the cheap coach travel and cheap booze.

  43. If the students going to university make a difference now because there are so many of them then that explains the last 5 general elections.
    You see the difference the increase in student numbers made to the election results?
    I can’t.
    At university when I went there were some Labour supporters, some Lib Dem supporters, some Conservative supporters – but the group with the biggest student impact were probably the Greens. At multiple universities.

  44. Don’t panic Theo.

    Most people can see Corbyn for the shite he is and Farron likewise. And while some will abstain that is also true on the ZaNu side.

    Most people know Brexit is only coming along with the Tories. If a treasonous turd like Camoron got thro in 2015 I can’t see even Dress Up dropping the ball at such an early stage. She hasn’t quite worn out her undeserved welcome yet.

    That is no reason to be complacent however.

    A less than 75 seat majority might fool the Eurotrash into thinking they can try it on but only because they are such cucks that the anti-RoP anger that might motivate such a result is invisible to them. They would be wrong and will come even more unstuck.

    But if you have any influence with your Party do you best to persuade them that May will be a liability and a cock-up merchant once the honeymoon is over.

    And tell them she isn’t getting the police state she wants or taking over the Internet so fuck her stubbornness. She better save it for the Eurotrash.

  45. The big problem with handing the Tories a thumping majority, Theo, is then the country’s stuck with the Tories with a thumping majority for the next 5 years.
    A government of slimy cunts who just happen to be slightly less horrifying than any of the other slimy cunts is not an optimum solution. Especially one given a mandate to be slimy cunts.

  46. Ecksy

    I am concerned. Even the idea of a hung parliament fills me with horror. I hope you — and many others here whose opinions I respect — are right.

    May = Brexit

  47. @Mr Ecks, May 27, 2017 at 11:58 am

    Dress Up is already an arrogant authoritarian bitch. A reduced showing will take the wind out of her sails and motivate her shower not to put all their eggs in her basket so to speak.

    +1
    .

    @Daedalus, May 27, 2017 at 12:07 pm

    Where is the party that stands for smaller government and lower taxes and spending? I feel totally disenfranchised.

    Spot on.

  48. @James in NZ, May 27, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    After the manifesto launch, I have decided not to vote.

    Vote for UKIP, we need them as an insurance policy against May backsliding on Brexit

    Anyone in a safe Labour/Lib/Green/SNP ward should also vote UKIP. They need a large % of votes

  49. >No Cal May doesn’t.
    >But Brexit does.

    Yes, that should get May over the line.

    >You can overdo the university lefties stuff. Most students have nothing to do with politics full stop. It’s the 10% who do who are swayed and they were probably going to be lefties already.

    That used to be true. But the last 3-4 years have seen big changes on campus, which you may not appreciate if you’re a graduate from an earlier era. There is so much more pressure put on students who don’t toe the left-wing line, especially via social media.

    >You see the difference the increase in student numbers made to the election results?
    >I can’t.

    But how do you know? How did the Conservatives manage to not defeat such an awful candidate as Gordon Brown outright in 2010? How does what is now basically a Communist party still manage to get a third of the country voting for them, rather than less than 10%? How does London elect a Muslim and useless mayor? It is true that many of the graduate class’s votes get absorbed by so many of them living in safe Labour seats, but don’t get complacent now that things are being ramped up.

  50. TiS: Agreed. I left university in 1990 aged 21, after a crappy-go-nowhere job that lasted two months I working in Hong Kong for three years, put down a deposit on a house and will have paid off my mortgage in a couple of years, even with an average of 60% paid employment of 30 years. I know people only slightly younger than me who spent their 20s pissing any money they had up the wall, and then spent their 30s and 40s complaining they couldn’t afford to buy a house/go on holiday/eat avocado on toast whatever that is.

    Yes, I’m incredibly angry that I’ve spent 30 years not actually being paid to do the work that I am skilled at and enjoy, with 2000 job applications in seven years only resulting in 20 months’ paid employment, but I never put what *I* want to do above being able to afford to stay alive, and at my age I’m close to being able to afford to say FUCK OFF to the employment market anyway.

  51. Martin: You had LibDems at your university? God I feel old. We had Liberals at my university, thought the SDP were some weird personality cult, had ‘O’ levels at school, and pre-decimal shillings (=5p) and florins (=10p) were still in circulation.

  52. The big problem with handing the Tories a thumping majority, Theo, is then the country’s stuck with the Tories with a thumping majority for the next 5 years.

    As opposed to all those governments with a slim majority who collapsed in the five year term?

    Governments last five years regardless of the size of their majority — they generally even last five years if they don’t have a majority.

    If you want a swing to conservative (small c) politics, then you cannot get that with a small Conservative majority, because she will have to pander to the leftmost in her party.

  53. jgh – I graduated 5 years ago.

    Bloke in Spain – luckily for us the voters will decide and they appear at the moment to be deciding different than you want. Which Is how it should be.

  54. Assuming for a moment May isn’t an idiot, that she knows what she’s doing.

    Is it possible she looked at the healthy majority that Brexit-Corbyn-plus-nothing-else would likely get her, and decided to spend much of that majority putting in the statist crap she really wants to do?

    E.g. MOAR TAX, there goes 8 seats; war on motorists, that’s another 3; do nothing much on immigration, that’s 5. Right, what other leftist shit can I afford to throw in and still win?

    (illustrative examples for sake of argument)

    ‘Cos once you’ve won with that leftist shit, I guess that becomes the new baseline of normal. Next time round people vote to shift the goalposts a bit from there.

  55. Cynic: That is certainly plausible tho’ I suspect she might 2calculate” such on a visceral level rather than with grey matter.

    Of which she is lacking.

  56. Pcar

    [quote] Vote for UKIP, we need them as an insurance policy against May backsliding on Brexit[/quote]

    I would be happy to vote for the liberal UKIP that Carswell embodied; but UKIP appear to have turned into authoritarians too and so can’t get my vote.

  57. That lack of smarts might be why she seems to be overplaying it, again assuming her campaign is based on my hypothetical plan of spending seats.

    What a choice.

    I just checked Paddy Power and it shows my area’s odds as safe Tory. I really don’t like the way UKIP’s gone since Nigel left, but I think I’ll cast my vote their way to help show the local MP there’s still some folks that are happy with Brexit but not the policy package of shite the Tories attached to it.

  58. “If you are voting Labour past the age of 35 you probably haven’t got anywhere in life and deserve it.”

    Or you really have made it, made lots, and are safe to display your virtue knowing your wealth is safely tied up and even Corbyn couldn’t touch it.

  59. One definite error May made was stretching it out to six weeks or more. It’s hers to lose, why allow more time for fuck ups to happen? It also gave time for the loons to organise this “Progressive Alliance” balls. A snap election should be exactly that. Rout them, game over.

  60. I just hope the polls get this wrong but I did say when everyone was joining Labour to vote for Corbyn that there was a risk Cameron would cock it up and then Corbyn is elected. Then May came along and made it more likely.

    I still think the conservatives will win but May still has time.

  61. Had an atrocity occured during a Thatcher election, she would have delivered a stirring speach, won by a landslide, and the pundits would have said how lucky she was.

    An atrocity occurs during a May election, she delivers a mealy mouthed speach, loses supporters in droves, and the pundits say how unlucky she was.

    During Cameron’s election I thought he would rather gnaw his own leg off than win on a right wing platform. May is clearly of the same view.

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