Conservative Party after the election

[Gloster]

Yes. But, of course, the ‘bar’ for winning in terms of number of MPs who need to vote for the lesder will be much, much lower than before. What I have no feel for is what the ‘make up’ of the Conservative MPs that will be elected is, ie are they more on the sensible side, or do they need special spectacles from Specsavers to correct the direction of their eyes…

I was reading a few months ago that a fair proportion of those selected in what were then seen as safe seats, although some may no longer be, were definitely on the right of the party. This presumably reflects the preference of the constituency selection committees. Whether this is still the case following the recent rush to fill the places of retiring MPs or whether the committees have had to accept candidates that they regard as wild-eyed lefties, I don’t know.

 

[Busaholic]

Some of us have met a lot of 90 year olds!

The idea that D Day veterans well enough to make a foreign trip, and Henry Kissinger, are the median nonagenarian is a bit strange.

The idea that any 90 year old both aware of the election and wishing to participate in it should not be allowed to is not only abhorrent but an example of gerontophobia, a far more pernicious ideology than so-called transphobia imo, and one that will only advance as the Right gains ground both at the ballot box and, in time, on the streeta as per the USA.

 

[AlterEgo]

The idea that any 90 year old both aware of the election and wishing to participate in it should not be allowed to is not only abhorrent but an example of gerontophobia, a far more pernicious ideology than so-called transphobia imo, and one that will only advance as the Right gains ground both at the ballot box and, in time, on the streeta as per the USA.

Sure, but I don’t actually think elderly people should be banned from voting at all. In any case it’s not a competition to see who is the most shat-on minority; classic British crab bucket syndrome there. All adults deserve equal rights and respect.

It’s just that the idea that older people possess some magic wisdom is quite odd. I’ve met people half my age who have taught me a thing or two. Adults don’t deserve to vote based on whether they are “wise”, everyone gets one vote whether they are a smart cookie or not, because we should treat each adult with the dignity of assuming they can make their own choices in life.

 

[JamesT]

I was reading a few months ago that a fair proportion of those selected in what were then seen as safe seats, although some may no longer be, were definitely on the right of the party. This presumably reflects the preference of the constituency selection committees. Whether this is still the case following the recent rush to fill the places of retiring MPs or whether the committees have had to accept candidates that they regard as wild-eyed lefties, I don’t know.

Obviously it depends on the size of the wipeout. The latest polling for the Telegraph is predicting potentially down to 53 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...o-lose-seat-tory-wipeout-major-poll-predicts/

Rishi Sunak is predicted to become the first sitting prime minister ever to lose their seat at a general election.

The Conservatives are also on track to slump to just 53 seats, with around three-quarters of the Cabinet voted out

In that case, the most senior (in terms of having held cabinet office) left would be Badenoch, who would likely be a shoe-in for leader.

 

[3141]

Not necessarily a desirable position in the circumstances. Whoever is leader after Rishi Sunak has to revitalise the party, which includes defining what Conservatism is about, and persuading members to accept that definition and work to attract support - meanwhile, fighting off the attentions of Reform and Farage. Probably the work of two Parliaments at least. While the new leader is doing all that, other ambitious MPs are thinking that they could do it better. You'd be very lucky still to be the leader by the time the Conservatives are in a position to win a majority of seats in the Commons. Perhaps the better line is to be the loyal and indispensable right-hand person to a a different leader, until a majority has been won and then you can take over.

 

[MotCO]

meanwhile, fighting off the attentions of Reform and Farage

Maybe it depends if Farage is returned as an MP. If he is an MP, he could try to take over the Conservatives or merge with them (Conservative and Reform Party?). If he isn't an MP, he may just snipe from the sidelines.

 

[BrianW]

Maybe it depends if Farage is returned as an MP. If he is an MP, he could try to take over the Conservatives or merge with them (Conservative and Reform Party?). If he isn't an MP, he may just snipe from the sidelines.

Loving it! Con And Repeat Party- CARP; best done- with nothing positive to con-tribute- from the sidelines

 

[GusB]

Whoever is leader after Rishi Sunak has to revitalise resuscitate the party

Luckily, defibrillator provision is better than it has ever been. I'm hoping there's a "DNR" in place, though

 

[nw1]

Obviously it depends on the size of the wipeout. The latest polling for the Telegraph is predicting potentially down to 53 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...o-lose-seat-tory-wipeout-major-poll-predicts/

In that case, the most senior (in terms of having held cabinet office) left would be Badenoch, who would likely be a shoe-in for leader.

I'd imagine the 53-seat scenario is in fantasy land. I've seen the seat map for that and it's just red everywhere, including rural seats which have voted Tory since around 1796.

Still think around 100-150, most likely 125-150, is the most likely.

Bizarrely, though, even in the 53-seat scenario, one of the remaining Tory seats is Eastleigh. That is truly remarkable given it was Lib Dem from the 1994 byelection to 2015, and even Braverman's seat goes Labour on that poll (won't happen, though).

 

[Gloster]

I'd imagine the 53-seat scenario is in fantasy land. I've seen the seat map for that and it's just red everywhere, including rural seats which have voted Tory since around 1796.

Still think around 100-150, most likely 125-150, is the most likely.

Bizarrely, though, even in the 53-seat scenario, one of the remaining Tory seats is Eastleigh. That is truly remarkable given it was Lib Dem from the 1994 byelection to 2015, and even Braverman's seat goes Labour on that poll (won't happen, though).

It is in the Telegraph (I think) so it is intended to frighten wavering Conservative into voting instead of not bothering. It goes along with the manufactured fear that Labour will abuse a large majority, currently being talked up by the papers.

 

[dosxuk]

It goes along with the manufactured fear that Labour will abuse a large majority

While I doubt they will abuse it any more than the Tories would, I also don't believe it's particularly healthy for us to have such a large majority party.

However, the only party who would realistically be able to be a sensible sized opposition is the Conservatives, and they deserve to lose every single seat. The problem isn't so much that people want Labour to win, as they want the Tories to lose, and lose hard.

 

[Busaholic]

It is in the Telegraph (I think) so it is intended to frighten wavering Conservative into voting instead of not bothering. It goes along with the manufactured fear that Labour will abuse a large majority, currently being talked up by the papers.

Rather cynically (moi? ) it will also help get the Telegraph attention in the next few days when a certain B Johnson scribbles a few hundred words for them for many more thousands of pounds to the effect that the upcoming Tory debacle is all Sunak's fault and if only they'd stuck with him it would be Nirvana....

 

[Gloster]

Rather cynically (moi? ) it will also help get the Telegraph attention in the next few days when a certain B Johnson scribbles a few hundred words for them for many more thousands of pounds to the effect that the upcoming Tory debacle is all Sunak's fault and if only they'd stuck with him it would be Nirvana....

I thought that Johnson had gone off on holiday, probably to the relief of some sections of the Conservatives who don’t want the ghost of lockdown parties past reminding everyone what they were up to. However, I suppose he would be willing to telephone in some rubbish from the beach or put his name to a load of whiffle knocked up by a sub: that £1,000,000 won’t earn itself!

 

[MotCO]

While I doubt they will abuse it any more than the Tories would, I also don't believe it's particularly healthy for us to have such a large majority party.

Having a large majority also causes its own problems. All MPs in the government would like a position in that government as ministers, junior ministers, PPSs etc. If there are say 100 such positions, there will be say 300 other MPs disappointed at losing out, and therefore likely to cause mischief from the back benches. How Starmer (or anyone) can keep them all in line could be difficult.

 

[telstarbox]

Rather cynically (moi? ) it will also help get the Telegraph attention in the next few days when a certain B Johnson scribbles a few hundred words for them for many more thousands of pounds to the effect that the upcoming Tory debacle is all Sunak's fault and if only they'd stuck with him it would be Nirvana....

Is he wrong though?

 

[SteveM70]

Rather cynically (moi? ) it will also help get the Telegraph attention in the next few days when a certain B Johnson scribbles a few hundred words for them for many more thousands of pounds to the effect that the upcoming Tory debacle is all Sunak's fault and if only they'd stuck with him it would be Nirvana....

Sunlit uplands, surely?

 

[The Ham]

I'd imagine the 53-seat scenario is in fantasy land. I've seen the seat map for that and it's just red everywhere, including rural seats which have voted Tory since around 1796.

Still think around 100-150, most likely 125-150, is the most likely.

Bizarrely, though, even in the 53-seat scenario, one of the remaining Tory seats is Eastleigh. That is truly remarkable given it was Lib Dem from the 1994 byelection to 2015, and even Braverman's seat goes Labour on that poll (won't happen, though).

I live in a "true blue" seat, where is often been suggested that if you pinned a blue rosette to a pig it'll win, whilst I'll still be surprised if another party would win there's a lot of chatter which implies it's not going to be as clear cut as it was before.

For example, there's about equal numbers of Tory/Lib Dems signs, previously it was only every Tory signs, the 2 people canvasing who I walked passed were both told not positive answers when asked if the householders were going to vote Tory (one was an outright no, the other was a pause and then I'm undecided) now whilst a small sample size these are in fairly large houses and from people who were at home in the middle of the day! Likewise in a local Facebook group (remembering that Facebook isn't the hinge of the young really) a Tory party was made and everyone other than one person had made negative comments or has redacted with eye rolling or laughing emojis.

Add to that the fact that Sunak has been canvassing in seats which had a majority of 25,000 at the last election, so even they are worried that the flock will abandon them (confirmed by the sheep who so turned their back on then at the photo opp the other day!).

Sunak and Cameron try to feed sheep then it all backfires spectacularly

The Prime Minister found himself in a rather unfortunate moment during a faming visit in North Devon today, as the flock of sheep failed to warm to him

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[Magdalia]

I'd imagine the 53-seat scenario is in fantasy land. I've seen the seat map for that and it's just red everywhere, including rural seats which have voted Tory since around 1796.

Still think around 100-150, most likely 125-150, is the most likely.

I have spent most of the campaign thinking about the polling results in this way, but recently I listened to a very informative radio discussion, and I'm now looking at things rather differently.

We are used to elections where "swings" between the parties are single digit percentages. If the polls suggest a 5% swing then we think of that as knocking the party going down by 5 percentage points in each constituency, and increasing the party going up by 5 percentage points in each constituency. We then look at the marginal seats to predict what might change.

Apply that thinking to a situation were the Tories vote falls by 20 percentage points, and it gives the impression that a constituency where they previously polled 60% will likely be held because they will still get 40%. But now apply that to a constituency where the Tories did badly last time, and only polled 20%: that isn't going to go down to zero.

It is better to to think of the Tory vote falling by roughly half, over the country as a whole a drop from 40% to 20%. Now apply that to each constituency, and a seat where they previously polled 60% might go down to 30%. In that situation the other 70% of votes are going to need to be very fragmented for the Tories to still win with 30% of the vote.

 

[The Ham]

I have spent most of the campaign thinking about the polling results in this way, but recently I listened to a very informative radio discussion, and I'm now looking at things rather differently.

We are used to elections where "swings" between the parties are single digit percentages. If the polls suggest a 5% swing then we think of that as knocking the party going down by 5 percentage points in each constituency, and increasing the party going up by 5 percentage points in each constituency. We then look at the marginal seats to predict what might change.

Apply that thinking to a situation were the Tories vote falls by 20 percentage points, and it gives the impression that a constituency where they previously polled 60% will likely be held because they will still get 40%. But now apply that to a constituency where the Tories did badly last time, and only polled 20%: that isn't going to go down to zero.

It is better to to think of the Tory vote falling by roughly half, over the country as a whole a drop from 40% to 20%. Now apply that to each constituency, and a seat where they previously polled 60% might go down to 30%. In that situation the other 70% of votes are going to need to be very fragmented for the Tories to still win with 30% of the vote.

Indeed, if you look at the recent YouGov poll (108 seats for the Tories) on the link below it gives a level of likelihood for their prediction:

Check which party could win in your constituency under YouGov projection

Labour are predicted to secure 425 seats, the Tories 108 and the Liberal Democrats 67, in what would be a huge shakeup of the political landscape if correct.

news.sky.com

That quite a few of those 108 seats which are a toss up as a Tory Hold, now whilst that's also true of several Labour seats, there's still quite a few solid gains by Labour.

As such whilst it could be that Labour don't do quite a well it's also true that the Tories could do worse so they end up with below 100 seats. It's mostly down to how many of their voters turn out.

 

[edwin_m]

The “swing” projection just assumes votes will move by the same proportion in all seats. MRP polls try to take account of the demographics of each individual seat, which helps compensate for the vagaries of FPTP.

 

[nw1]

The “swing” projection just assumes votes will move by the same proportion in all seats. MRP polls try to take account of the demographics of each individual seat, which helps compensate for the vagaries of FPTP.

Which ones are MRP and which ones are uniform swing?

I've noticed some differences between Electoral Calculus and YouGov, for example.

Of note, regarding Jeremy Hunt, is how in general Farnham and Bordon is seen as safer for the Tories than Godalming and Ash (these being the two halves of the newly-divided SW Surrey constituency).

If that's the case, I wonder why Hunt has gone for the apparently less-safe one?

 

[jfollows]

Which ones are MRP and which ones are uniform swing?

I think the MRP polls are run occasionally by some pollsters such as YouGov but are generally identified as such, and the same pollsters also run non-MRP polls because they’re simpler and cheaper. My interpretation is that if they don’t say explicitly, it isn’t MRP.

 

[Magdalia]

The “swing” projection just assumes votes will move by the same proportion in all seats. MRP polls try to take account of the demographics of each individual seat, which helps compensate for the vagaries of FPTP.

There are various polling companies doing MRP polls, which require much bigger samples.

They give quite different seat projections, mainly because they have different assumptions about whether "don't knows" will vote, and, if so, how.

 

[317 forever]

Loving it! Con And Repeat Party- CARP; best done- with nothing positive to con-tribute- from the sidelines

If they do merge, they could call themselves the Conservative Reform Amalgamated Party

If Suella Braverman loses out on the leadership, I think she would join Reform.

After the Labour or Tory loss of office in 1979, 1997 & 2010, it took the parties to elect new leaders from the start of the 2nd terms of opposition to lead them back to government (Tony Blair from 1983, David Cameron from 2001 and - assuming he gets in - Keir Starmer from 2015). So, if the trend continues, the next Tory Prime Minister will not become an MP until the 2028-29 General Election.

Talking of which, could the next General Election be on May 3rd 2029?

 

[Gloster]

Talking of which, could the next General Election be on May 3rd 2029?

But who would gain most or lose most by reminding people that it was fifty years since Thatcher was elected? It would get me out of my coffin to vote against the Conservatives.

 

[edwin_m]

After the Labour or Tory loss of office in 1979, 1997 & 2010, it took the parties to elect new leaders from the start of the 2nd terms of opposition to lead them back to government (Tony Blair from 1983, David Cameron from 2001 and - assuming he gets in - Keir Starmer from 2015). So, if the trend continues, the next Tory Prime Minister will not become an MP until the 2028-29 General Election.

Your figures appear to refer to the date the future leader became an MP, not when they became leader. I suggest it's more relevant to think about how long a defeated party takes to realise it needs a leader who will take it back to the centre.

Blair didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, so fifth term of opposition. He became leader 14 years after they lost power.
Cameron didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005, so third term of opposition. He became leader 8 years after they had lost power.
Starmer didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019, so fourth term of opposition (though some of these terms were shorter than usual). He became leader 10 years after they had lost power.

Precedent suggests a minimum of about eight years from losing power to appointing a leader who makes them electable again.

Above figures are obtained just by subtracting the years, so some may be one year out depending on dates of events within the year.

 

[takno]

Your figures appear to refer to the date the future leader became an MP, not when they became leader. I suggest it's more relevant to think about how long a defeated party takes to realise it needs a leader who will take it back to the centre.

Blair didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, so fifth term of opposition. He became leader 14 years after they lost power.
Cameron didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005, so third term of opposition. He became leader 8 years after they had lost power.
Starmer didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019, so fourth term of opposition (though some of these terms were shorter than usual). He became leader 10 years after they had lost power.

Precedent suggests a minimum of about eight years from losing power to appointing a leader who makes them electable again.

Above figures are obtained just by subtracting the years, so some may be one year out depending on dates of events within the year.

I think the point was really more that it doesn't really matter who the next leader is, because the next leader that's likely to be the PM isn't an MP now, and probably isn't even a candidate in this election.

Whether this pattern from recent elections actually is a new normal which still holds is a different question. It wasn't how things worked before the 1980s for a long time.

It might be that people since the 1980s have more visibility into politics day-to-day now and therefore don't swing around based on events during election years and campaigns like they used to. This could be driven by increased confidence in economic modelling and TV providing greater access to politicians and quicker feedback.

It migh equally just be coincidence. There haven't really been enough elections to prove anything, and humans are quite driven to see patterns in chaos even when they aren't there.

Furthermore, even if there was a sea change in the 1980s, there could be another sea change now driven by the internet. We now have wider access to a range of different candidates, and ever faster access to information and disinformation about what the government are doing. Our political beliefs also sit in much more individualized bubbles, leading people to regard at least one thing that any government does as an unforgivable betrayal. Maybe this pushes back towards one-term governments, or maybe the recent conservative pattern of changing leader every few years within government is itself the new normal.

A more radical view is that it doesn't matter who the next Conservative leader is at all, because they are about to lose their role as the second major party in the same way that the Liberals did in the 1930s

 

[gg1]

Blair didn't become leader until they had lost the elections in 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992, so fifth term of opposition. He became leader 14 years after they lost power.

15 years for Blair, though worth mentioning that Labour's realisation that a centrist leader was required occurred two years prior to that. If John Smith hadn't passed away in 1994 he would undoubtedly have won the 1997 GE.

 

[birchesgreen]

I think the point was really more that it doesn't really matter who the next leader is, because the next leader that's likely to be the PM isn't an MP now, and probably isn't even a candidate in this election.

Hopefully someone who hasn't been born yet...

 

[Whistler40145]

Neither Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak are on the same level as the general public, both in their own worlds