I built a simulation of the UK election.
The UK has AWESOME election statistics!! Far better than the US.
Here is the projection (I am still working out a bug on the Irish seats – in 2015 none of the major parties won a seat in Northern Ireland).
Projected UK Parliament: collapse of UK IP will hand the Tories a huge majority. Simulation here:https://t.co/efnquD1y4T pic.twitter.com/TQM1vIR04F
— dcg1114 (@dcg1114) May 13, 2017
The story here is the collapse of the UK Independence Party, and the boost it is giving the Tories.
The rise of the SNP essentially makes it impossible for Labour to win a majority on their own, and effectively splits the left (since the SNP is certainly a left of center party as well).
The lastest 3 polls show a marginal uptick for labor.
In the YouGov poll this morning May had a 53-36 Job approval rating.
Corbyn’s numbers are Bush Junior bad. Among LABOUR voters his approval rating is 38-50. In Scotland, once a Labour stronghold, his numbers are 15-75. In the whole of the country his numbers are 21-63, an improvement over two weeks ago when they were 15-67.
As of this morning it would take a 6 point swing from Conservative to Labour to deny the Conservatives a majority government.
My numbers may be underestimating Conservative improvement in Scotland.
Yougov has Scotland as follows: SNP 41, Conservatives 33, Labour 15. Essentially as Frank has suggested, the Conservatives have become the pro-UK party in Scotland.
Where did UKIP share of the vote come from before they became a political force? Were they taking Labour votes before, or did it always come from the Tories and now they can come home as UKIP has no reason to exist anymore?
Just curious if a significant number of Labour voters went UKIP over EU and immigration, and have now gone Tory over those same issues, when they’d never have gone from Labour–>Tory in one fell swoop.
A significant number of UKIP voters came from Labour. Not as many as from the Conservatives, but not small. I haven’t seen anything about some of them now going to the Tories, but I expect some have.
Since Labour has abandoned the Remain cause, I’m surprised the Liberal Democrats haven’t been able to gain more by running on a platform to halt Brexit.
Some evidence of what you are suggesting:
Brexit voters are voting:
54-15 for Conservatives
Remain Supporters are voting
24 Conservative, 36% Labour and 15% for the Lib Dems.
Tim Farron, the LD leader is not liked though. His favorable numbers are 20-42 negative.
So May went to the voters when both of her national opponents were wildly unpopular. She’s slithery, but you have to respect her political skill.
She probably needed to in order to negotiate Brexit since she was not elected PM.
Yes, she is popular and she finds a Labour Party divided and badly led.
The Lib Dems are a mess. The SNP has essentially chased Labour out of a former stronghold.
She should win going away.
Right now she is.
It is probably important to distinguish between UKIP support and Brexit support. There is no doubt that some Labour voters also voted for leave. I don’t think in elections for Parliament that they drained off much labour support.
The UK IP history was Trumpism before Trump. They attacked the social liberalism of the Tories in addition to their anti-immigrant message.
My understanding – and I am far from an expert – is the Libdem decision to entire into government with the Tories killed the Party. About an equal number left the LD and joined the Tories as left the Conservatives and joined UK IP. Simultaneously Labour lost a good deal of support to the SNP in Scotland.
Sweet Jeebus… And people like to bitch about Dem and Hillary approval numbers. Corbyn is about as left as it gets in the UK without the men in white coats coming for you and he’s managed to become that unpopular? WTF has Labour been doing?
>>WTF has Labour been doing?
refusing to pick a side over Brexit.
Actually they (or perhaps I should say Corbyn) chose to be for it by whipping their MPs to vote for Brexit when May brought it up. I’m assuming (hoping?) Corbyn was trying to win back the British equivalent to our WWC with that but it didn’t work.
Left me with the impression that Corbyn couldn’t lead his way outside a paper bag.
His performance during Brexit was viewed badly, and to your point he seemed not to be committed to stopping Brexit all that much.
By any objective measure he is a complete disaster.
>>By any objective measure he is a complete disaster.
it’s hard to disagree. I want to like Corbyn, but that’s less for anything about him than because I don’t like the Blair version of Labour.
Booman Tribune ~ UK Election Projection: Tories 381 (+50), Labour 186 (-46)
Despite Labour voters backing Remain to the same extent as SNP voters. It was the Conservative and UKIP voters who voted for Brexit.
But it was indeed viewed as a Corbyn failure, because the Blairites came out and claimed it was and they had the support in media to carry the message.
Its almost as if the Blairites want Labour to lose. All they care about is how Blair is viewed – is Blair the one who killed Labour or is he the saviour Labour should have listened to.
As it is, there is no conceivable path in the forseeable future for Labour. The working class left over Blair’s neo-liberalism and Europe, the middle class left over Blair’s Iraq adventure, and Scotland left to the SNP. Whats left of each of these don’t get you very far.
I do get a sense that Blairites are gloating.
Over time either Scotland gets out OR the SNP fades (my guess is the later).
If Brexit is a disaster the Labour recovery might be very swift.
Labour won three successive general elections with Blair as party leader, in 1997, 2001, and 2005. The 2010 election was won by no party; a government was formed by a coalition between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Please specify when in this chronology the working class left and the middle class left.
Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ UK Election Projection: Tories 381 (+50), Labour 186 (-46)
Short version: spending the time since Corbyn was elected with fighting amongst themselves including two attempts at unseating him. The Blairites still hold enough sway to torpedo Corbyn.
A longer discussion and answer to the differenece between Corbyn and Sanders here:
Links 5/12/17 | naked capitalism
Note that Labour – despite constant infighting – isn’t doing worse, it is Conservatives that are doing better because they have absorbed most of the UKIP vote.
FT – Theresa May hires Obama strategist Jim Messina for election
Messina’s former boss campaigned for Remain. Same position that Theresa May took before the Brexit vote. So how the hell did she become the winner in this mess?
Politics is about resolving controversial and difficult issues. Sometimes politicians need to change sides (also called flip-flopping) and sometime they have to say things to keep the losing side happy (also called lying). It’s a job requirement. May is very good at that. Corbyn is pretty bad.
She has institutional advantages as well from the support of the 1% – although a more skillful Labour leader could have cut into that since Brexit is a very serious threat to the City (perhaps even a lethal one). But Corbyn isn’t that leader, either temperamentally or in policy. I’m sure May realizes that, and I think part of the timing of this election is to maximize her advantage. If she had waiting, the likely messes of Brexit would have started to loom, and Labour might have picked a more skillful leader.
May is a skillful “leader?” Yes, she does have the 1% and that buys all the media. Let’s see how they do in the 5/31/17 TV debate.
Theresa May recites Labour’s lines, but doesn’t mean a word of them | David Graeber | Opinion | The Guardian
Not that she means a word of it.
Or that she means what she says when she hugs the Brexit-base.
Theresa May recites Labour’s lines, but doesn’t mean a word of them | David Graeber | Opinion | The Guardian
My take is that she is a leader in a crisis and has huge media support, which means a lot of people gives her the benefit of doubt, even when they shouldn’t. And Labours popular policies are ignored, shouted down or claimed as Conservative. Add the fighting within Labour, and why wouldn’t she be a success?