UK XI: Please Sir... May I Have Some More?

[Lebowski]

MartyG A lot of seats not all of them, take mine in Shipley it would have been close but reform and Tory together wouldn't of taken the seat as labour had a higher vote count than both parties put together, and that's not taking into account other left leaning parties like Libdem either.

if you go purely on what people voted for using the parties with the 4 highest vote shares, you get

Tory 6.8 million + Reform 4.0 million = 10.8 million votes
Labour 9.6 million + Libdem 3.4 million = 13 million votes

[MartyG]

Yes, if you add in LibDems with Labour as I listed above - however, if Reform can swing the remaining votes the Tories got in this GE though, under FPTP with their vote share they would now be forming a government. That is way more likely than LibDem votes swinging to Labour (LibDem in 2019 11.5%, 2024 12.2%).

That is where the danger is next GE.

[Golgo]

I'n hoping that with a few of the Reform clowns now exposed in the public eye in government their knockabout racist pub banter might come back and bite them in the arse. That or they'll get more sympathisers off the back of it. They're such a rabble, though, I can't see them properly organising. Wishful thinking, here. But seeing how much disproportionate coverage the media gave Farage when he was literally a political nobody, they're probably now going to need to syndicate a whole new Farage channel 24/7.

[Lebowski]

Yes, if you add in LibDems with Labour as I listed above - however, if Reform can swing the remaining votes the Tories got in this GE though, under FPTP with their vote share they would now be forming a government. That is way more likely than LibDem votes swinging to Labour (LibDem in 2019 11.5%, 2024 12.2%).

That is where the danger is next GE.

The hope is that what we are seeing with Reform is a split on the right that sticks, as while the right is divided it keeps itself out of power. The knuckle dragging racist Sun reader who voted Tory last time to "get brexit dun" have jumped to reform in massive numbers and hopefully this is the height of it. For reform, more MPs in power means more spotlight on how idiotic some of their MPs are.

[MartyG]

14 years of Tory rule doesn't fill me with confidence that people are that discerning tbh.

[Neon Ignition]

I'll fairly happily roll the dice and say that I don't believe that Reform are a threat at the next General Election at all. We've had months of spouting from the media and populace about how Labours votes are 'not Tories' votes rather than pro Labour and I don't see Reform's votes being all to different. They had the media lightning rod of Farage announcing his involvement but wouldn't have had the same traction, he'll be weathered news in 5 years time too and the party is inevitably going to be ravaged by scandal over those years. They're rise may be 'sudden' if you ignore that they're plainly just UKIP rebranded but they play to the extreme of the right, without the centre ground they will never get enough traction and they can't convincingly take that ground.

Reform are too unpalatable to far too many people. A resurgent Tory Party is by far and away the real threat in 5 years, that they held the number of seats they did shows how sticky they are at their core and without the immigrant whipping stick Farage has nothing. We're conditioned after the past 8 years to the idea that hard right wing politics has more sway than it does but the 52% that voted Brexit weren't all hard right wing zealots and it's the view that that was the core of that result that has led the Tories down the spiral of madness ever since.

Labour are going to face immense pressure to make more concessions down the line to the Left and as the centre ground frees up a bit that is where the Tories will rise back up. Until the Tories get their heads around that they're dead in the water and Reform are just white noise.

[wheelaa]

As always, my feelings on FPTP are mixed come results day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2x0g8nkzmzo

Reform vote share 14%, seats share 1%, FPTP is brilliant.

Green parties vote share 7%, seats share 1%, FPTP sucks.

Labour vote share 34%, seats share 64%, FPTP is problematic.

Meh. I'm one of the 40% that didn't bother. Wankbags, all of them.

[Brad]

If we had PR then people wouldn't need to vote tactically the way they do now so the results would be entirely different.

[MartyG]

I doubt it'd be more than a few percentage different - most people don't vote tactically - if anything it may well mean parties companies like Reform get more voters.

But it's academic, Starmer is not going to give us PR.

[Brad]

You need to delve into those stats to get the true picture though. There will be a load of people who don't have to vote tactically because their party of choice is already the tactical vote. 39% of lib Dem voters were voting tactically for example. I can't find a link to the full survey for this election so don't know how many people they surveyed either. I reckon it would be a sizeable difference.

[Neon Ignition]

‘Disproportionate’ UK election results boost calls to ditch first past the post | Electoral reform | The Guardian
<Insert Morgan Freeman Good Luck Gif>

Largest UK public sector trial of four-day week sees huge benefits, research finds | Four-day week | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jul/08/keir-starmer-labour-government-northern-ireland-wales-rachel-reeves-angela-rayner?page=with:block-668bb70a8f08c86032402f3a#block-668bb70a8f08c86032402f3a

Rachel Reeves says the first move will be to allow new developments without local communities having the final say

[Brad]

We already can't say no. We have loads going up round our way. 100% (justified )protest from all current inhabitants and local council says were under quota, we have to allow it.

[Lebowski]

Seems to be a bit of a storm brewing about whether certain Reform candidates were actually real people, or even alive, doesn't help when one candidate is generating Ai pictures of himself

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/reform-uk-candidate-admits-to-using-ai-generated-image-in-election-378490/

I wouldn't be surprised if the candidates they put forward were fictional as the snap election put reform into a mad scramble to get its party into a position to oppose the Tory vote. Reform cut corners elsewhere with its vetting process, so it's not a massive stretch to think they would have cut corners here too.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jul/09/keir-starmer-tony-blair-ai-labour-government-conservatives-uk-politics-latest-news?page=with:block-668cec708f08b807e79a6503#block-668cec708f08b807e79a6503

A regional council is to be created for Mayors

[QualityChimp]

Seems to be a bit of a storm brewing about whether certain Reform candidates were actually real people, or even alive, doesn't help when one candidate is generating Ai pictures of himself

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/reform-uk-candidate-admits-to-using-ai-generated-image-in-election-378490/

I wouldn't be surprised if the candidates they put forward were fictional as the snap election put reform into a mad scramble to get its party into a position to oppose the Tory vote. Reform cut corners elsewhere with its vetting process, so it's not a massive stretch to think they would have cut corners here too.

With this, one of the issues is that they get more funding with more candidates, but also they get a larger vote share making them look bigger than they are.

The person in this picture is Mark Matlock, who claimed he altered his picture with AI to give him a blue tie:


He went on GB News (obviously) to claim that him not being real was "fake news", but missed the irony that he made himself look totally different.
It should still be investigated if campaign spending was unchecked, candidates were real and if they really lived in their constituency.

Talking of GBeebies, have you seen that Labour haven't invited them to their news conferences.
Delicious because they've been claiming they're free from Ofcom scrutiny because they're not news (despite their name), they're an "entertainment" channel.
Why would an entertainment channel be invited to a news conference.
GB News complained that Labour only want to speak to channels that make them look good, not that they would ever do the same thing for their Tory presenters.