A small point about how long this Parliament will run. I think a plausible (though not likely) scenario is an unpopular PM exits and his successor calls an early election?
That did cross my mind but I still don't know exactly what the benefit would be unless they thought the early election might go better for them than the one in 2029 (as some think would have been the case for Gordon Brown)
I have thought, given the results in Canada and Australia, there would be some advantage to Labour in going in 2028 while Trump was still President. Though he does not seem to have had the impact on our polling as he has on theirs, that could change in an election campaign.
Great piece! I agree with much of it, including the overall probabibility (4 years is indeed a long time!). I'm not so sure about Boris returning, or that it would go as well as you suggest if he did.
On tactical voting, though you discuss it, I do think you (and quite a few others I see on the centre left) are underestimating the incumbency penalty, and quite how much Labour may be disliked in four years - particularly if we have repeated tax rises, borrowing increases and public spending cuts. Having seen this from the inside on the right last year - where so many lifelong Tory voters simply would not turn out for them - I wouldn't underestimate the chance of a similar thing happening the other way round.
Thanks Iain. You are right that tactical voting is going to be most effective where people dislike the incumbent, which they definitely do right now! What might make it harder is uncertainty about who to vote for in each constituency, although a pact would of course resolve that.
We have a voting system that was designed to give a relatively small electorate of property-owning males a single vote to chose between Whigs and Tories in an essentially 2-party system - the First Past the Post system. (It works well with horses too!)
But now we have a 4- or even 5-party system with a hugely expanded electorate, each voter still with one single vote.
Under these circumstances the system will break down. It will fail to deliver any form of representative result and instead will deliver unpredictable random landslides unrelated to the real feelings of real people.
I think Reform’s biggest problem is that they don't anyone else charismatic or competent below Farage. I expect that half of their candidates will quietly drop out because of something rude that they once said about Somalis or because of some budget discrepancies that come to light from when they were a councillor.
Can you imagine Richard Tice or Lee Anderson as their spokesman?
I love the graphs. As a Canadian, I would simply note that a Parliament with a strong minority government is almost as good as a Parliament with a majority government, for about 2 years. Right now, Prime Minister Carney is about 2-3 seats short. But nobody wants to take the Government down, because campaigns are costly, and the Parties need to rebuild their war chests. And the erstwhile Leader of the Opposition lost his seat and will only rejoin Parliament later this year after running in a byelection in a "safe seat". Passing bills without a majority means co-operation with the opposition, which will not be too difficult, since the Liberal Party took the best parts of the Conservative Party platform and ran on them.
I'm curious as to how much of this analysis would be appropriate for the UK Parliament, should it end in a minority government after the next election.
There's no real incentive for libdem or green voters to tactically vote labour. Labour is closer to reform and conservatives now than the progressive parties. So, if any tactical voting is to happen I wager it will be on the right (unless Keir Starmer is fired and replaced with Angela Rayner).
"Labour is closer to Reform and Conservatives now than the progressive parties" is certainly not how things look like here in the EU. (And if the response to this is that such things somehow do not matter - well, the view that they do not matter is of course itself one of the very hallmarks of Reform and the Conservatives.)
A small point about how long this Parliament will run. I think a plausible (though not likely) scenario is an unpopular PM exits and his successor calls an early election?
That did cross my mind but I still don't know exactly what the benefit would be unless they thought the early election might go better for them than the one in 2029 (as some think would have been the case for Gordon Brown)
I have thought, given the results in Canada and Australia, there would be some advantage to Labour in going in 2028 while Trump was still President. Though he does not seem to have had the impact on our polling as he has on theirs, that could change in an election campaign.
Yes, it would in part be about whether the folk wisdom is 'don't be like Gordon Brown' rather than 'don't be like Theresa May'.
Great piece! I agree with much of it, including the overall probabibility (4 years is indeed a long time!). I'm not so sure about Boris returning, or that it would go as well as you suggest if he did.
On tactical voting, though you discuss it, I do think you (and quite a few others I see on the centre left) are underestimating the incumbency penalty, and quite how much Labour may be disliked in four years - particularly if we have repeated tax rises, borrowing increases and public spending cuts. Having seen this from the inside on the right last year - where so many lifelong Tory voters simply would not turn out for them - I wouldn't underestimate the chance of a similar thing happening the other way round.
Thanks Iain. You are right that tactical voting is going to be most effective where people dislike the incumbent, which they definitely do right now! What might make it harder is uncertainty about who to vote for in each constituency, although a pact would of course resolve that.
The thing is...
We have a voting system that was designed to give a relatively small electorate of property-owning males a single vote to chose between Whigs and Tories in an essentially 2-party system - the First Past the Post system. (It works well with horses too!)
But now we have a 4- or even 5-party system with a hugely expanded electorate, each voter still with one single vote.
Under these circumstances the system will break down. It will fail to deliver any form of representative result and instead will deliver unpredictable random landslides unrelated to the real feelings of real people.
We need Voting Reform.
Resulting in the politicians choosing a government that suits them.
I think Reform’s biggest problem is that they don't anyone else charismatic or competent below Farage. I expect that half of their candidates will quietly drop out because of something rude that they once said about Somalis or because of some budget discrepancies that come to light from when they were a councillor.
Can you imagine Richard Tice or Lee Anderson as their spokesman?
https://youtu.be/1HkLW7ZK4p0?si=YtGwtKrxTH1wqQRZ
What if the Tories and Reform UK do a last-minute stand-aside pact?
We need to consider the worst case scenario, and I suspect if they do that then progressives are f***ed.
I love the graphs. As a Canadian, I would simply note that a Parliament with a strong minority government is almost as good as a Parliament with a majority government, for about 2 years. Right now, Prime Minister Carney is about 2-3 seats short. But nobody wants to take the Government down, because campaigns are costly, and the Parties need to rebuild their war chests. And the erstwhile Leader of the Opposition lost his seat and will only rejoin Parliament later this year after running in a byelection in a "safe seat". Passing bills without a majority means co-operation with the opposition, which will not be too difficult, since the Liberal Party took the best parts of the Conservative Party platform and ran on them.
I'm curious as to how much of this analysis would be appropriate for the UK Parliament, should it end in a minority government after the next election.
There's no real incentive for libdem or green voters to tactically vote labour. Labour is closer to reform and conservatives now than the progressive parties. So, if any tactical voting is to happen I wager it will be on the right (unless Keir Starmer is fired and replaced with Angela Rayner).
"Labour is closer to Reform and Conservatives now than the progressive parties" is certainly not how things look like here in the EU. (And if the response to this is that such things somehow do not matter - well, the view that they do not matter is of course itself one of the very hallmarks of Reform and the Conservatives.)