General Election Predictions 2017

[Ferdinand]

So ... what do we think?

 

Here is a spreadsheet with lots of previous data and majorities sorted in order of likely declaration time if anyone is *really* interested in watching comparisons as they announce tomorrow. It is from @AndyS over at politicalbetting.com.

http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2017/06/07/your-essential-thursday-evening-companion-andyjss-general-election-spreadsheet/

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OmJVW05bWEn2a9ak4BJGe_6Jm_u2qdN9DK0GqqeV8Gg/edit#gid=0

 

My prediction:

 

Votes

 

Tory: 46% - only one poll has had them below 40%, UKIP transfers

Lab: 34% - WWC Labs voting Tory due to Mr Corbyn keeping it down

Lib Dem: 9% - Tiny Tim's idiosyncratic campaign focus on declining remainers

UKIP 5% - job done

SNP: 4% - just under half the Scottish voters

Green: 1% - shifted to Corbyn

The rest: 2% - who?

 

Seats -(likely to be way off)

 

Tory: 388 (+61)

Lab: 191 (-44)

SNP: 45 (-11)

Lib Dem: 5 (-4)

Green: 1

Plaid: 2

NI: 18

 

Tory Majority: 126 (depending on how you count it)

Turnout: 65%

 

Possible minor civil unrest when the Corbynistas hear the result and declare that democracy must be corrupt because they lost. Expect petition demanding that MI5 rigged the result and must be abolished.

Theresa may somewhat diminished. 

 

Ferdinand

(sorry - possibly in wrong topic but it will be a polite thread)

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Guest Alphonsox]

Teresa gets a majority of 6 seats and a knife in the back. Boris is PM by the end of the month. Hell freezes over sometime in August (blamed on global warming and Trump quitting the Paris accords). In Northern Ireland the DUP and Sinn Fein both salute the improvement in the political situation.

[ProDave]

As long as the SNP send fewer MP's to Westminster I will be declaring it a success.

[Jeremy Harris]

It's been a very curious election process this time, and this has been reflected in the views of the (mainly Conservative supporting) locals in our village pub.  When the election was first announced, the view was pretty universal that Labour were doomed, and that Jeremy Corbyn was simply unelectable.

 

In the days after the Manchester bombing things radically changed.  The staunch Conservatives seems shaken and less sure of themselves, and there was much talk about the very real possibility of their being an extreme left wing government.

 

Last Sunday, things seemed to swing back again, and last night the atmosphere was almost back to that on the day that the election was called.

 

I don't think I've ever experienced such seemingly wild swings before, and have to say that I'm very surprised by those that have bought in to the "magic money tree" politics.  Sadly, I rather think that Diane Abbott has played a significant part in restricting  the left wing swing, and I say sadly as it's now being reported from within the Labour party itself that she has a long-term medical condition.  Given her bouts of short term memory loss and cognitive difficulties, I suspect those reports may be accurate.

 

I strongly suspect that the Conservative majority will be smaller than they hoped for, but that it will be enough to allow them the mandate to do the tough job that the new government has to do over the next few years.  I doubt they will be popular, and I suspect that the rise of the extreme left will continue, so I don't think things will be very rosy for the country after the next general election, in 2022.

[Stones]

23 minutes ago, ProDave said:

As long as the SNP send fewer MP's to Westminster I will be declaring it a success.

 

It'll certainly be interesting to see if Salmond and Robertson (Angus) get back in - I understand a lot of effort is going into overturning their majorities.

 

I don't think it's been a good campaign for May.  I can't say I'm especially impressed with her performance, and the U turn on social care funding worries me in terms of how she will negotiate.  I think Corbyn will do better than many think, he is a good campaigner.

 

It's a two horse race up here, Liberal vs SNP, and I can't bring myself to support either, because I detest key policies each of them has with equal measure. Just doesn't feel right spoiling a ballot paper...

 

 

[Declan52]

Only one party in NI worth voting for. At least they admit they are clowns.

 

 

Edited June 7, 2017 by Declan52

[Jeremy Harris]

Believe it or not, our local Liberal Democrat candidate (who doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being elected, and may well lose his deposit) was campaigning by standing in the middle of some of the local roundabouts, dressed as a clown and waving like a lunatic at passing motorists............

[Temp]

I think it will be very interesting if no party has a majority. Which two parties are most likely to agree to work together? Conservatives and liberals again? Would the Liberals make a second vote a condition of working with the Conservatives?

 

 

[Barney12]

Just now, Temp said:

I think it will be very interesting if no party has a majority. Which two parties are most likely to agree to work together? Conservatives and liberals again? Would the Liberals make a second vote a condition of working with the Conservatives?

 

 

 

That rather assumes the Lib Dems have any seats! They only have 8 now.

[Declan52]

6 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Believe it or not, our local Liberal Democrat candidate (who doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being elected, and may well lose his deposit) was campaigning by standing in the middle of some of the local roundabouts, dressed as a clown and waving like a lunatic at passing motorists............

We have enough nut jobs standing on roads being lunatics without elective representatives doing it.

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

 

That rather assumes the Lib Dems have any seats! They only have 8 now.

 

I rather think that, by encouraging tactical voting, with the aim of unseating the Conservatives, the LibDems will find they have shot themselves in the foot.  If they retain 8 seats I think they will have had a significant achievement.  It's a pity, really, as I agree with every LibDem policy, except their stance on the EU, and they would get my vote if it wasn't for the one policy issue.  I don't like the idea of voting Conservative at all; I've only ever voted Conservative once before in my life, and that was in 1987, and I deeply regretted it within a couple of years.  This election will be only the second time in well over 40 years that I've voted Conservative.

[Guest Alphonsox]

6 minutes ago, Temp said:

I think it will be very interesting if no party has a majority. Which two parties are most likely to agree to work together? Conservatives and liberals again? Would the Liberals make a second vote a condition of working with the Conservatives?

 

 

 

It depends on the number required. There is an unpleasant president of the Conservatives calling on the NI Unionists to prop up a minority conservative government. It didn't work well.

 

 

[ProDave]

Gawd forbid if the SNP held the balance of power.....

[Barney12]

6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Gawd forbid if the SNP held the balance of power.....

 

Thats the point that I would genuinely consider emigrating.  

[jamiehamy]

2 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Possible minor civil unrest when the Corbynistas hear the result and declare that democracy must be corrupt because they lost. Expect petition demanding that MI5 rigged the result and must be abolished.

 

This is also my prediction... 

[jfb]

2 hours ago, JSHarris said:

I suspect that the rise of the extreme left will continue

 

Do you really think that Corbyn's labour is extreme left? It appears to me that the political paradigm has shifted so far to the right over the past few decades that I can see how it is represented or thought of as such but I am not sure it is extreme. When exactly was the last left wing government? 

Edited June 7, 2017 by jfb

[Jeremy Harris]

3 minutes ago, jfb said:

 

Do you really think that Corbyn's labour is extreme left? It appears to me that the political paradigm has shifted so far to the right over the past few decades that I can see how it is represented or thought of as such but I am not sure it is extreme. When exactly was the last left wing government? 

 

Given his background, and voting track record, many of his statements made over the decades that he's been a political activist, plus the fact that he's backed by what was, until they renamed themselves, Militant Tendency (now re-born as Momentum), then yes, he and his cohort are extreme left.  Some in his senior team openly admit to being Marxist, even now, and you don't really get further left than that.

 

By contrast, the traditional Labour movement was socialist, but not communist, in the main.  Traditionally, Labour support has come from the working heartlands of the UK, yet it seems that a fairly high proportion of Jeremy Corbyn's supporters aren't from this sector.  He seems to have a high level of support from young idealists, the section of the population that are traditionally often drawn towards far left views (as time spent in any Student Union will reveal).

[Guest Alphonsox]

 

18 minutes ago, jfb said:

When exactly was the last left wing government? 

 

Considering the top rate of tax on earned income (Income tax +NI), the labour manifesto proposes pushing this up to just below 70%. The last time tax rates were this high was under the Wilson Government in the late 1970's. If a left wing government can be characterized as one that will "tax the rich until the pips squeak" (Denis Healey, Labour Chancellor in that era) then the last left wing government was 1974-1979. No government has proposed raising taxes so high since that point.

 

[SteamyTea]

I think everyone in Maidenhead needs to vote for Lord Buckethead!

 

I still wonder how much anger there is against Cameron from traditional Tory voters for getting us into the terrible mess.  Will it be enough to seriously damage May and her girlfriend Rudd.  I hope so.

 

I need to text my Irish mate who lives in Scotland and ask him to vote Tory.  Whoever he votes for fails to get in.

And email my local Green candidate to ask for his solution to air pollution down here (We have one road that has a serious problem).  If he gives the answer I don't want to hear, he does not get my vote.

 

I am well and truly a disenfranchised voter now.

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

Given that 'none of the above - please find someone with both a brain and charisma' is not on our ballot paper, standing back and looking at this I believe that the choice tomorrow is more hobson-esk than ever and John Yossarian would have recognised the challenge we face. That's some catch that catch 22. 

 

May will not do a good job of brexit or UKPLC because she is weak and works in continual appeasement mode just going into reverse when faced by any resistance.  A bigger majority will result in larger factions who know that the lady can be turned over. Corbyn won't do a good job of brexit or UKPLC because he has no leadership bone in his body and his party is so factionalised that making headway in any direction will be as difficult as it will be for May. Any of them will blame the Europeans for a poor brexit while in fact we probably deserve a poor brexit because leaving the EU was the ill thought through result of tory infighting rather than a thoughtful, planned, structured and mutual parting of the ways which had we any real leadership it could have been and too everybodies benifit into the bargain.

 

Que sera sera. 

 

[Tennentslager]

England will vote one way...Scotland will vote the other but hey ho we'll have to endure what the neighbour says.

Independent in 5 years guaranteed.

[Alexphd1]

I hope your wrong about independent in 5 years. 

[AliG]

I disagree with the whole England imposes its will on Scotland thing. I could say Glasgow will vote one way and Edinburgh another or Newcastle and Surrey, or indeed just me and someone else. That's how democracy works.

[SteamyTea]

30 minutes ago, AliG said:

That's how democracy works.

Or does not work

[Jeremy Harris]

Without wishing to turn this into yet another Scottish independence debate, I get the strong feeling that there is a gradual shift here in England about the SNP and their constant push for independence. 

 

Everyone in the UK (yes, even the relatively well-off) has had to endure years of penny-pinching and public services cuts, whilst we try to recover from the long-lasting effects of the crash, the bailing out of the banks, the massive increase in public borrowing and that infamous note left by the departing Liam Byrne, saying "I'm afraid there is no money".

 

A couple of years ago, the general view seemed to be that the Union was a precious thing, and that we should try and hold it together.  Now that we've had a couple of years to assimilate just how much Scotland costs everyone in the rest of the UK, that mood is changing.  With the collapse of the Scottish Labour party, a lot of Conservative supporters, notwithstanding their full party name, seem to be coming around to the view that we should just cut Scotland free, if that's what they want.  The financial impact isn't really enough to make any difference to the rest of the UKs position, but the frequently heard view locally is that every little helps, and the extra revenue the rest of the UK will hold on to will help to drag us out of austerity.

 

As to how democracy works, then I'm with ST on this.  Our form of democracy isn't very representative, and has grown from an even worse representative model, one where parliamentary representatives were a mix of those who were there by an hereditary privilege, those that were there from an, often inherited, financial privilege and a few that were genuinely representative of the people.  Changes that we have made to the system have really been fiddling around in the margins, I think the last major change of any note was when we removed the ability to buy a seat in the House of Commons, with the Reform Act of 1832.  We've pretty much kept the system whereby people can effectively "buy" seats in the House of Lords, though, a body that is a total anachronism in my personal view (more so as I have a relation who has a hereditary seat).

Edited June 8, 2017 by JSHarris