This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[Oryxslayer]

^ It's increasingly really hard to see Boris not getting to boot after the locals, if what we now expect to happen comes to pass...

[Oryxslayer]

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In the event it becomes relevant, his seat of Solihull has a monumental 21,000 vote majority, but was a Tory-Lib Dem ultra-marginal between 2005-15.

One of the few areas where it's the Greens who are actually growing at the expense the Tories, and is a target for gains locally. Lots of debate in that regard whether the amorphous Green local brand can transfer over to national which has a left-of-labour identity presently.

[Oryxslayer]

FWIW Payne is probably unlikely to run this time, but mostly because the seats he'd have a decent shot at winning are likely to either go Labour or be uncomfortably marginal this time. Expect to see him on a ballot paper in 2029 instead.

I mean there are still a little over 100 seats that should be safe for the Conservatives.  If the party wants anyone in particular to survive what is coming, they'll move said person to one of these seats where the incumbent is old and has announced retirement  - or a new seat created through redistribution in the same geographic regions. 

Which means the question we should br asking is: does the party care that much about this guy?

[Oryxslayer]

Eddie Hughes, incumbent MP for Walsall North, has been selected for Tamworth at the next election (he's one of those who's been searching for a safer seat).

Which begs the question - if the incumbent member for Tamworth, currently under investigation by the Standards Committee, where to be suspended and a by-election triggered, would the local association pick a new candidate?

And if the new Tory candidate won the by-election, would they then face-off against Hughes in a *third* selection process for 2024?

And is Tamworth really so safe after the locals?

[Oryxslayer]

God-tier chicken-run attempt reported: Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) has apparently been shortlisted for Windsor.

I have a sneaking suspicion it will only ever be an attempt.

These are the type of situations that occasionally produce a surprisingly ginormous swings to the Lib-Dems.

[Oryxslayer]

Sir Alok Sharma has annoucned he's stepping down at the next election.

No great surprise, given he was reported as on Johnson's peerage list for months, and seemed content to step back from government when his COP chaimanship ended (not that Sunak gave him much choice).

Reading West in its current form is a classic bellwether - Tory until Labour took it in 1997, then flipping blue again in 2010. Sharma won slim 2.8k and 4.1k majorities in 2017 and 2019, so it's right on the line. It's being redrawn as Reading West and Mid Berkshire for the next election - which I believe make it rather more Conservative? Still getting to grips with the prediction tools.

Definitely. It loses 4/7 of its Reading council wards while gaining a large chunk of rural mid Berkshire. If an election was held today I’d imagine it would still be Tory held.

The new Earley and Woodley inherits the previous marginality of course, though under the current situation I wouldn't expect it to be marginal. Similarly, some of the models suggest the new Reading West still would go marginally Labour under current polling, but this close to the point where the numbers start getting more hypothetical with MOEs rather than good estimates.

[Oryxslayer]

The THIGMOO reaction to someone like Truss and what they did to the Governments brand would be to suspend them, appoint some sort of board of inquiry and then spend 100 years refusing to utter their name like their Voldemort.

We still ignore Ramsay Macdonald! Did the party even celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Labour Government- of course not

It would seem that this is the foul harvest reaped by constant denial that Labour are leading by 20 points and that the country at present hates the Conservatives as a whole, but also secretly knowing things are bleak. If Labour really only has a tiny lead and the polls are all wrong, then Truss, Johnson, and the rest did nothing wrong. But because the collapse is real some percentage of Tories are seeking ways to radically change direction, and make Hail Marys  in the hopes that one changes the situation. The other percentage though have just given up, accepted the loss, and therefore see it as the time for the unpopular dogma that wouldn't go anywhere when you actually care about reelection.

[Oryxslayer]

Very tetchy Sunak interview for Sky News. Lots of talking over the interviewer.

He suggested Nigel Farage could be readmitted to the Conservatives - he’s attending his first Conservative conference this year, since he left the party, in 1993. Which is perhaps the most “abandon swing voters, throw red meat to an imagined base” move possible.

The whole thing builds to this fairly unconvincing pronouncement:
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1709182436465062380

An underdiscussed point. Farage is just really unpopular, and polls have found him net negative even among Leave voters. The fact he got 1/3 of the vote on a very low turnout should not have been taken as a personal endorsement of him by the British people. Some of his ideas and focus could be a lot more electorally potent should they be framed correctly and delivered on by the government (so not what they’re currently doing).

In this moment everyone should remember that Nigel failed to win a seat in parliament when he ran in 2015. This is despite the Thanet council simultaneously electing a UKIP majority and the voters there going on to support Leave in 2016 by a large margin.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/AlexofBrown/status/1709223672521597303?t=uAEAXkBuvohH1dIj9Pl...

Please Lib Dems, launch a "kick the bum out" campaign against her

[Oryxslayer]

Her Chatham and Aylesford seat was Labour held 1997-2010, but has been won by increasingly comfortable margins by Crouch since her 2010 victory, culminating in an 18k win in 2019. Under the Thrasher seat projections, it’s the 76th safest Tory seat. Certain electoral prediction outlets have it as a Labour pickup, based on national swing and the new boundaries - but idk, would be curious what someone with a better (read: any) understanding of Kent politics thinks.

It’s the sort of place where the swing to Labour will be bigger than most, and the council elections were very good for Labour there last year. Still, a 23% Tory majority in 2017 is rather unlikely to be overturned at the next election even in a landslide scenario.

I think even under the good council elections this still is Tory, or very close. hard to calculate in MMD wards with multiple electors across council lines. While I have no doubt that Labour will try to campaign for it if the polls remain as they are, the seat under the new lines is kinda squeezed both geographically and politically. Too the north are the Medway coastal seats that Labour are no matter what going to make a play for, and probably win a few. to the south is the 'new' Maidstone and Malling which the Lib-Dems should be trying for. More then previously it is filling the gap between the two.

[Oryxslayer]

If Labour end up winning the 400+ seat landslide everyone expects right now then they are winning Great Grimsby. The margin there also probably isn't that close if seats like Tamworth are the marginal ones.

However, this is now a place that you would expect the Tories to win before they win a majority. The council results here are particularly relevant I think, especially since now we supposedly will have the local elections independent of the GE. In 2023, Labour won the summed vote in the wards within the constituency by a expected and respectable margin. But in 2022 when Labour still was ahead, but not by as much, the Tories won the combined vote - even while not contesting one ward. the wards also started flipping Blue here before Johnson (unlike other 'leave' areas) and the Tories are still holding their vote share even in 2023 defeats. Like this year 11 of the 12 councilors up for the overall council are Tories from the 2021 wave, but unlike many similar places Labour and the other parties would have to outperform 2023 to actually break the majority - which will be something to watch in May.

The saving grace for Labour is that what's locking up the council for the Tories are wards mostly outside the Great Grimsby constituency. So while the electoral patterns of Lincolnshire are creeping in, the city is still trying to do it's own thing electorally.

Apply Face to hand

[Oryxslayer]

If Labour end up winning the 400+ seat landslide everyone expects right now then they are winning Great Grimsby. The margin there also probably isn't that close if seats like Tamworth are the marginal ones.

However, this is now a place that you would expect the Tories to win before they win a majority. The council results here are particularly relevant I think, especially since now we supposedly will have the local elections independent of the GE. In 2023, Labour won the summed vote in the wards within the constituency by a expected and respectable margin. But in 2022 when Labour still was ahead, but not by as much, the Tories won the combined vote - even while not contesting one ward. the wards also started flipping Blue here before Johnson (unlike other 'leave' areas) and the Tories are still holding their vote share even in 2023 defeats. Like this year 11 of the 12 councilors up for the overall council are Tories from the 2021 wave, but unlike many similar places Labour and the other parties would have to outperform 2023 to actually break the majority - which will be something to watch in May.

The saving grace for Labour is that what's locking up the council for the Tories are wards mostly outside the Great Grimsby constituency. So while the electoral patterns of Lincolnshire are creeping in, the city is still trying to do it's own thing electorally.

We're talking about Great YARMOUTH, not Great Grimsby.

I am an idiot. I'll hold that L.


Either way, still a likely Labour gain from my perspective.

[Oryxslayer]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

One of the first signs of the political changes in Worthing was when the constituency, where Labour had never really looked in contention before, swung 10% to them in 2017.

It does include the whole of Adur district (Shoreham as well as other places between Worthing and Hove) as well as the east side of Worthing.

I mean it's not like those other places are Conservative anchors pulling in the other direction.  Quite the opposite,  Worthing is just most prominently displays Labour's gains. Adur for example has been on the same trajectory and timeline as Worthing, it just has only two classes of councilors not three. So there was less ability to slowly chip.away at the seat count, as since no councilor was up last year,  the Tories still have control.  But that will likely end in May.

IMO Worthing is the type of place that's eventually going to end up in the Safe Labour column. Like how Brighton saw a just as spectacular innitial Tory collapse, to be followed by Labour kicking out the 2010 Conservatives even while losing overall elsewhere in the country. Maybe not this election but give it a few years and a similar situation.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/FinnBaker3/status/1779914781584921086?t=GAjZcPwvugZG-8Fyuljq...

Here's something that I missed yesterday: he was retirement number 100 overall for this parliament.

[Oryxslayer]

The Coalition of Chaos line is now being peddled, and it appears to be on the back of the laughable Sky News projection and such like.

"History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, then as a farce"
Like, do they think the SNP is as scary as it was a decade ago?

The SNP boogyman has only faded cause independence has been forgotten with time, it arguably works better in Scotland today than in 2014 - where the SNP never stopped being relevant.

No, the hilarity of a coalition of chaos message is that it only works when you are ahead, which the Conservatives are not even in the hilariously awful 'estimate.' If not, then it benefits your opponent. Cause it is a message of consolidating around a perceived leader, not one for a comeback.

[Oryxslayer]

Lot of chatter that Andy Street might be offered the selection in Solihull West.

Sitting MP for West Bromwich East, Nicola Richards, has been eying the seat for a while, but the sitting Solihull MP, Julian Knight, has reportedly threatened to resign and trigger a by-election (which the Lib Dem’s would stand a good chance in) if she’s selected.

This is largely via Michael Crick, so take with several grains of salt.

This speculation started the moment it looked like Street could lose on Saturday.  It honestly makes a good deal of sense,  if you go in with the idea that Street wants to continue his political career. However,  there's a good chance he just wants to walk away. Or want a seat in the lords. Mayoral experience also makes him not like other new recruits, he'd probably need the promise of some shadow role to justify it to himself.

[Oryxslayer]

Nadhim Zahawi’s standing down. Very… Zahawi retirement statement, lots of awkwardly inserted Shakespeare references, and some odd head-shaving anecdotes to pivot to his childhood in Baghdad.

Wonder whether the open seat is more favourable to the local Lib Dems, or if they’d have rather run against Zahawi, post tax-scandal. They’ve got a hefty majority on the local council, but have had to tussle with Labour (who don’t hold a single council seat) for second place at the constituency level.

IIRC last year the Lib-Dems gave Zahawi partial credit for their council majority.  I think they would have wanted him to stand initially,  but since they have been targeting the constituency for a while,  it may no longer matter.

[Oryxslayer]

I... I... I...

Did the head of the Lancashire conservative party offend a genie or something?

The geographical issue is just extraordinary by this point.

This geographic concentration again somehow a thing.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1796611564700659826
Parachuting a former SNP politician from Greater Glasgow into the middle of Berkshire, in a seat vulnerable to the Lib Dems would be *wild*.

That's just a concession of defeat with additional steps.

[Oryxslayer]

Payne's selection efforts are one of the best electoral subplots anywhere right now. Just perfect background comedy.

I've seen it editorialized as "How awful of a person do you have to be for the Tories to reject you, given their current predicament...multiple times..."

[Oryxslayer]

Yeah - surprised he didn’t get something at the very last minute. Maybe he’s waiting for the December 2024 Richmond and Northallerton by-election?

He seemingly has enough of an ego to not want to stand in some place like East London or Liverpool where a big loss is guaranteed.

Which makes him even worse of a candidate. Historically the Tories like people who have proven their party loyalty by standing to lose first, giving them time to work for incumbents and the local parties, before giving them the safe seat.