International elections

[Pies4shaw]

Final results are declared in all but 8 seats and, for reference, I've put the declared numbers in bold against the exit poll estimates:

The joint BBC/ITV/Sky News IPSOS exit poll predicts (326 is a majority):

Labour: 410 410

Conservative: 131 119

Liberal Democrats: 61 71

Reform UK: 13 4

Scottish National Party: 10 8

Plaid Cymru: 4 4

Green: 2 4

Others: 19 25

[stui magpie]

So the Tories basically got an enema from a sandblaster.

[pietillidie]

The Tories were the most appalling government I've witnessed in my lifetime bar none. The embody everything I harp on about in terms of craven, self-serving recklessness. Very literally, just their removal lifts a dead weight off the UK. A bit like the ALP, all Labour has to do is be modest and moderate and the country will be better off.

The damage done runs deep, though, so it was important the Tories were wiped out so that they can re-form and reform, separating themselves from the ERG/Grease Mogg/Farage extremists. You know things are bad when I bother sparing a thought for the Tories as an organisation.

To my mind, one electoral cycle is needed now to steady the ship, which itself is a gain given every minute of Tory rule damaged the UK. Many ministries have had a dozen ring-ins in as many years, so the policy and delivery well is completely dry. Then, should a more moderate Tory-Labour cycle arise deeper structural shifts in the right direction will be more likely.

The test of Labour will include (a) reining in the shockingly corrupt contracts handed out to the private sector and restoring standards and expectations, (b) rebuilding some modicum of administrative competence, continuity and reliability across the country, (c) setting a clearer national advantage and industrial policy direction, (d) giving hope and opportunity to dire, dead areas and regions (the midlands has the most coherent, sensible policy, so something along those lines but nationally), and of course reintegrating productively and cost-effectively with the EU.

A 10% improvement across those areas will start steadying the ship, while a 30% improvement will start to see noticeable gains and recovery. That's a huge task already, and a lot will depend on how sensibly the Tories reform on the back of the slime bags and grifters who have been removed. If they remain extremist spoilers, the decline will only continue. Once stability has taken root, deeper shifts can then be looked at, but the basics have to be brought back on track first.

[pietillidie]

People forever seem to underrate stability, policy coherence, small gains and the compounding of small gains. Perhaps much like Albanese, Starmer certainly won't get the heart racing, but simply stopping hitting oneself in the hammer is still a real gain, shortcomings notwithstanding.

It's the quality of what follows, including the sanity of the Tory party, that will matter most. Unfortunately, fantastical visions of wondrous reforms and new heavens and earths are just that. But you can still build on small, real steps. Just appointing ministers to porfolios for longer than five minutes will be a gain.

It might be a very low bar, but people always underestimate just how bad 'bad' can get and did get under the Tories.

The article title is stronger than the content of the article, which is sensible enough to get the gist of how even modest hope is better than no hope:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/05/opin ... tives.html

[Jezza]

Final results.

SEATS WON:
[*] Labour = 411 (+209)
[*] Conservative = 121 (-244)
[*] Liberal Democrats = 72 (+61)
[*] Scottish National = 9 (-39)
[*] Sinn Fein = 7 (0)
[*] Reform = 5 (+5)
[*] Green = 4 (+3)
[*] Plaid Cymru = 4 (0)
[*] Other = 17 (+5)

Labour have formed majority government.

PRIMARY VOTE:
[*] Labour = 33.7% (+1.6)
[*] Conservative = 23.7% (-20.0)
[*] Reform = 14.3% (+12.3)
[*] Lib Dems = 12.2% (+0.7)
[*] Green = 6.1% (+3.5)
[*] Scottish National = 2.5% (-1.3)
[*] Sinn Fein = 0.7% (+0.1)
[*] Plaid Cymru = 0.7% (+0.2)
[*] Other = 6.1%

Turnout was 59.9%, which was down 7.4% from the last election in 2019 and the lowest since 2001.

[stui magpie]

^

Those are extraordinary numbers. Labour only got a swing of 1.6%, but scooped the pool of seats on what I assume were preferences.


So people didn't vote Labour, they voted ABC, Anyone But Conservatives.

[Pies4shaw]

^ No - first past the post in the UK, so "Reform" took the conservative "protest" vote and handed the reins to Labour.

That's an interesting phenomenon, of course - it shows that - as of last Thursday, anyway - about 14% of voters preferred the neo-fascists to a very unradical Labour platform. You would think that a barely competent government that did a bit towards fixing some of the most broken things in the UK (the NHS, the lack of reasonably-paid work for ordinary people, the general extent of poverty, the embarrassingly third-world infrastructure etc) could probably attract a fair bit of that vote over a couple of years.

[stui magpie]

^

Wow, so Labour wins a massive majority with only 33% of the vote.

That trend of going to the extreme right when things have been shit seems to be a trend over Europe.

[Magpietothemax]

^

Wow, so Labour wins a massive majority with only 33% of the vote.

.

Similar to what happened here in Australia at the last Federal election. Labor won with a similar percentage of the vote.

[Magpietothemax]

All eyes on France right now.

[stui magpie]

^

Wow, so Labour wins a massive majority with only 33% of the vote.

.

Similar to what happened here in Australia at the last Federal election. Labor won with a similar percentage of the vote.

Yes, but under our preferential voting system, Labor got the preferences from the Greens and Teals. Under the UK system we'd have a Lib/Nat government

[nomadjack]

^

Wow, so Labour wins a massive majority with only 33% of the vote.

.

Similar to what happened here in Australia at the last Federal election. Labor won with a similar percentage of the vote.

Yup...winners bonus is a lot larger in fpp systems though. In UK Labour won 63 per cent of seats with 33per cent of the vote. Here it was 51per cent for similar primary vote.

[Magpietothemax]

^Just shows that both systems (UK and Australia) don't reflect the reality.The reality is that both the main parties (Libs/Tories and ALP/Labor) are both reviled by the majority of the population in both countries.

[nomadjack]

Reviled is probably a little strong even these days. In Australia they're still pulling between 75-80 per cent of the vote between them at every contest. And outside a handful of seats they each pull 3-4 times the vote of the Greens and ONP.

[Pies4shaw]

The French neo-fascists appear to have been on the receiving end of a right-proper kicking and will finish in third place. Seems like the left alliance (Greens, Communists, Socialists and France Unbowed) will have the most seats but it doesn’t look like there will be a clear majority.