The constituency system means that even if the vote in Scotland is suppressed compared to the English vote, because more Scots are away, it won't affect Scottish overall representation.
That's assuming that the folk who are holidaying represent the parties equally, or will apply for postal votes equally. It could be (for instance) that wealthier, probably Conservative or LibDem voters, are more likely to be away than poorer, possibly Labour ones. (Other scenarios are available).
I don't think a vast Labour majority is a given. A combination of George Galloway's WPB plus Richard Tice and his rag-bag of disaffected malcontents that constitute Reform could cause havoc in what might have been assumed to be Labour shoo-in seats.
I hope I'm wrong.
Reform Ltd are what give Labour an unassailable lead. The only havoc they could cause is by withdrawing and endorsing the tories. Galloway's party isn't going to have an impact - the number of socially conservative Muslims who like left wing economic policy and are willing to switch to him is not big enough. The Greens are a far bigger threat and they're nowhere close to being able to deprive Starmer of a majority.
All of these parties have power to affect the result by splitting the vote. The Tories may lose safe seats because some of their voters defect to Reform; the LibDems may lose seats because their people go to the Greens. People moving from SNP to Labour may let in the Tories or LibDems; people moving between SNP and Alba or between the various Welsh parties will also have their effect. To me the thing that will really determine the result is Labour's success, or otherwise, in Scotland - they'll struggle to get a majority without 20 or more seats north of the Border.
I think, if the margin of Labour votes over tory is anything like polling currently suggests, Scotland's seats will be as irrelevant as they were in 1997 or 2001.
Aye, Scotland will be running it's own little campaign on Scottish issues (independence, devolution and SNP finances) knowing that it will make no difference to who gets to form the UK government, and for many not caring who gets to form the UK government.
Nah, that would only encourage him. He needs to hemorrhage votes to his left in large enough numbers that it makes it worth his while to court those votes. It's the only thing that will help.
I think I'd argue that what was most necessary at this election was a catastrophic collapse of the Tory vote (because the country needs the Tory party to collapse so that either it recreates itself as a party that looks like it's making an effort to consider the best interests of the country, or just goes away completely and makes electoral room for a different major party in the UK). The UK needs to firmly reject Trump-style politics.
Of second-level importance (and particularly to those on the political left) is as you note a strong showing for the left - either to encourage Starmer to keep left, or to build up a new leftie coalition to become the opposition as Starmer's Labour finishes replacing the Conservative Party as the establishment centre-right.
I think the LD and Greens are going to do well, the SNP will not do as badly as some predict, Reform will lose everywhere despite saturation coverage on the BBC.
I think most likely is that Reform loses everywhere, but attracts sufficient votes from the unreconstructed bigot sector in a number of former Conservative safe seats to ensure a vert large Labour majority. Which means we're going to see a whole load of new Labour MPs who didn't really expect to win.
Nah, that would only encourage him. He needs to hemorrhage votes to his left in large enough numbers that it makes it worth his while to court those votes. It's the only thing that will help.
I think I'd argue that what was most necessary at this election was a catastrophic collapse of the Tory vote. The UK needs to firmly reject Trump-style politics.
I think this is fanciful frankly, anti-systemic politics is demand driven rather than supply led, and is the result of existing political parties/coalitions being unable to address the problems of the day.
The result of the Tory defeat is much more likely to lead to the triumph of the Natcon/Popcon tendency, along with a large scale media operation to naturalise that kind of politics (think of how much even something like Rwandan deportations have become normalised for a certain sector of politics).
The result of the Tory defeat is much more likely to lead to the triumph of the Natcon/Popcon tendency,
Ish - I suspect what's actually going to happen is a party membership of absolute headbangers (because they're the only ones left) with a Parliamentary party of mostly what's left of the Tory moderates/left*.
Which is a recipe for further chaos (albeit the sort of chaos that will be contained by opposition).
*I know, 2019 cleared out most of them, but I mean relative to the current parliamentary party and certainly relative to the activist base.
If you assume the red wallers are out the door (mostly), then you might retain the odd Braverman or fellow traveller, but really you'll be left with the dull managerialists and knights of the shire.
Massive, massive loss. I think it's unlikely (although possible) that the number of Tory seats will be reduced to less than 100. My guess is that they'll land somewhere in the 120-130 region. Rishi Sunak will fall on his sword, and the Tory leadership contest will be a three-horse race between Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, and Tom Tugendhat.
Badenoch is the standard-bearer for the social conservative nasty party, Cleverly is I think a bit more of a traditional right-winger, and Tugendhat is something a little more like what the Tories used to be.
I suspect that the election will come down to Badenoch vs Tugendhat, and will signal the direction that the Tories want to move in.
It's also possible that Tugendhat, who I think has real ambitions to be PM, will decide that it's better for him if someone else is the caretaker to start rebuilding the Conservative party, and that he will be better placed to wait until after Labour wins the next election to become leader. In which case, I think we might see Michael Gove being put forward as a caretaker leader in the Michael Howard model.
I notice that Sunak used the phrase 'environmental dogma' in his speech, presumably signalling the Tory direction away from green issues, and contrasting with Labour, well, maybe. It will be interesting to see how far this goes, the motorists' friend, pesticides ahoy, fuck butterflies and bees, eh? Maybe not a contrast with Labour.
It may be too late for any UK government - Labour, tory, or whatever - to do anything worthwhile to save us from the coming climate apocalypse. Time is running out...
What about Penny Mordaunt as caretaker leader of the remains of the tories?
(Assuming she retains her seat - apparently it's possible she may lose it.)
I think she's losing her seat, which is why I didn't consider her.
One challenge for a Tory reformer will be that a substantial number of the remaining Tory voters are voting Tory because they'll be "tough on immigrants, and tough on the causes of immigrants". Placating those people without performatively nasty policies (cf. Rwanda) will be a challenge.
It may be too late for any UK government - Labour, tory, or whatever - to do anything worthwhile to save us from the coming climate apocalypse. Time is running out...
Maybe, but the Tories have licensed pesticides that are bad for bees, particularly thiamethoxam. Good for farmers, though.
If you assume the red wallers are out the door (mostly), then you might retain the odd Braverman or fellow traveller, but really you'll be left with the dull managerialists and knights of the shire.
You may want to look again at who stands where, and who is standing down. The 'Tory left' that remain are hardly the "Wets", and the "dull managerialists" those that were quite happy to go along with a policy to deliberately shrink the state while shifting the dial on repression, 2019 was merely the last hurrah of those who would look agonised while doing so. The 'knights of the shire' are largely non-existent, the Shires are the heartland of the headbanging membership, and they are as likely these days to pick candidates like Braverman (Fareham) or Badenhoch (Saffron Walden).
The most obnoxious members of the "Red Wall" (Gullis and co) will probably disappear, I expect Cates etc. will do a term or so in the think tank scene. Gove may survive, though he's several points more right wing that most people reckon with, and his ego is unlikely see him agree to be a caretaker leader.
Gove may survive, though he's several points more right wing that most people reckon with, and his ego is unlikely see him agree to be a caretaker leader.
It is unlikely that Gove has a realistic chance at serving as PM. Being the man to turn the Tory party around and restore it to a sound footing before taking up a seat in the Lords as a respected Tory grandee might appeal to him as the best that he can get.
If you assume the red wallers are out the door (mostly), then you might retain the odd Braverman or fellow traveller, but really you'll be left with the dull managerialists and knights of the shire.
You may want to look again at who stands where, and who is standing down. The 'Tory left' that remain are hardly the "Wets", and the "dull managerialists" those that were quite happy to go along with a policy to deliberately shrink the state while shifting the dial on repression, 2019 was merely the last hurrah of those who would look agonised while doing so. The 'knights of the shire' are largely non-existent, the Shires are the heartland of the headbanging membership, and they are as likely these days to pick candidates like Braverman (Fareham) or Badenhoch (Saffron Walden).
The most obnoxious members of the "Red Wall" (Gullis and co) will probably disappear, I expect Cates etc. will do a term or so in the think tank scene. Gove may survive, though he's several points more right wing that most people reckon with, and his ego is unlikely see him agree to be a caretaker leader.
As I actually said - it's all relative. Unbelievably, though a few minutes in the Tory internet world might make you believe it, there's a significant segment of the membership who think that the current parliamentary Tory party are a bunch of wets.
They're not the 1980s wets, but this is what I mean when I say they're going to end up with a membership significantly to the right of their (remaining) elected representatives on the whole.
That doesn't mean that the elected representatives aren't on the right of course, but it does perhaps represent the final decoupling between the membership and the elected.
It may be too late for any UK government - Labour, tory, or whatever - to do anything worthwhile to save us from the coming climate apocalypse. Time is running out...
Yes, but I suppose I should think about what government, if any, is best able to help us to try to survive the inevitable catastrophe. Will that be the same as one, if any, making futile attempts to delay it?
It may be too late for any UK government - Labour, tory, or whatever - to do anything worthwhile to save us from the coming climate apocalypse. Time is running out...
Yes, but I suppose I should think about what government, if any, is best able to help us to try to survive the inevitable catastrophe. Will that be the same as one, if any, making futile attempts to delay it?
Good question, and I don't have an answer. We'll have to deal with what we get, and hope that they will at least listen and even act in order to mitigate the effects of the cataclysm - if any mitigation is possible...
Surely what happens with respect to climate change will be decided on a global scale, with what happens in individual countries of only marginal importance. Policy in China, India and the US will have much more impact than any change of government in the UK.
My prediction is that the Conservatives will lose, but not by as much as currently predicted, because I suspect that Starmer is not a great election campaigner. This shouldn't matter but it does. Labour will finish with a large majority - perhaps 100 seats or so - but not a 1997-style landslide.
Unbelievably, though a few minutes in the Tory internet world might make you believe it, there's a significant segment of the membership who think that the current parliamentary Tory party are a bunch of wets.
Yes, and it is observing this very tendency that is led me to the conclusions in the previous posts.
That doesn't mean that the elected representatives aren't on the right of course, but it does perhaps represent the final decoupling between the membership and the elected.
One side effect of multiple changes of leadership is that a fair number of Conservative MPs, often from safer seats, have been given a taste of ministerial life. On the other side of a major loss they will face the reality of five (or more) years out of power. As it was, and had an election not been called, one would have expected quite a few to stand down over the summer. Even if you look at the those who have already announced their exit, there are a fair amount in safe seats:
Actually I think Angela Rayner is probably Labour's most charismatic front-bencher. She should be well to the fore in the campaign. Unlikely to win over wavering voters but might well energise supporters considerably.
Actually I think Angela Rayner is probably Labour's most charismatic front-bencher. She should be well to the fore in the campaign. Unlikely to win over wavering voters but might well energise supporters considerably.
One of the by-products of the sudden jump to a GE is that the Police investigation into Rayner's "wrongdoing" will have to be paused. This means that the Tories can continue to smear her with impunity all through the campaign. And they will.
Channel4 reporting via twitter that Conservatives have requested applications for candidates in over a hundred seats, not all of which are no hopers (64% of the vote in Daventry the last time):
Channel4 reporting via twitter that Conservatives have requested applications for candidates in over a hundred seats, not all of which are no hopers (64% of the vote in Daventry the last time):
personally, as a constituent, I think Daventry will go red. Which will be fun for all concerned if only because outside Daventry itself it's a ludicrously rural seat and I can't imagine Labour have selected someone who knows the first thing about isolated rural settlements. Just because they never do select such people. Not that the incumbent really does either I suppose.
Channel4 reporting via twitter that Conservatives have requested applications for candidates in over a hundred seats, not all of which are no hopers (64% of the vote in Daventry the last time):
personally, as a constituent, I think Daventry will go red. Which will be fun for all concerned if only because outside Daventry itself it's a ludicrously rural seat and I can't imagine Labour have selected someone who knows the first thing about isolated rural settlements. Just because they never do select such people. Not that the incumbent really does either I suppose.
I can't imagine Labour have selected someone who knows the first thing about isolated rural settlements. Just because they never do select such people.
Looks like the Labour candidate is female, black and has worked in health care - mainly in Northampton.
I can't imagine Labour have selected someone who knows the first thing about isolated rural settlements. Just because they never do select such people.
Looks like the Labour candidate is female, black and has worked in health care - mainly in Northampton.
It’s an interesting one now Chris Heaton Harris has stood down. Really the Liberals ought to be the main challengers, but it’s exactly the sort of place in these circumstances that might elect a bewildered Labour paper candidate who didn’t actually expect to give up their day job.
Daventry itself as a town will absolutely swing to Labour. It’s what the villages do - historically bluer then a blue thing in a particularly blue sky, that will tip it one colour or another
I can't imagine Labour have selected someone who knows the first thing about isolated rural settlements. Just because they never do select such people.
Looks like the Labour candidate is female, black and has worked in health care - mainly in Northampton.
It’s an interesting one now Chris Heaton Harris has stood down. Really the Liberals ought to be the main challengers, but it’s exactly the sort of place in these circumstances that might elect a bewildered Labour paper candidate who didn’t actually expect to give up their day job.
Daventry itself as a town will absolutely swing to Labour. It’s what the villages do - historically bluer then a blue thing in a particularly blue sky, that will tip it one colour or another
Looking at her posts she's been constituency shopping for a while, so I think she's at least got it in mind that she wants to be an MP, even if winning this particular seat might be a surprise. It's not like here where it's simply a local CLP member willing to go through the motions. A Labour win is not totally out of the question but an SNP hold is far more likely.
Michael Crick (on his Tomorrow's MPs account), announcing that Labour still have 81 candidates to find, 4 for seats that they have to target for a majority:
The SNP are unhappy with 5th July. Don't understand why!
I think because Scottish schools and universities have their summer breaks earlier than in England and so fewer students and academics will vote, which might disproportionately affect SNP support. Small effect though I expect.
The schools in Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire break for summer on 5 July. I suspect that schools which are used for polling and are shut on 4 July will not see any pupils turning up for a final day on 5 July. There are parts of Scotland breaking for the summer on 28 June.
Holiday prices rise during school holidays, but the main rise is during the English school holidays. Scottish families with school age children tend to try to get away during the first week or two of the summer holidays, ahead of the price rises. So the main holiday exodus will start on 28 June in those areas which break for summer then. There will be quite a few families here taking their kids out of school for the last couple of days in order to beat the price hike.
I don't know if it will make a big difference - anyone who cares can get a postal vote. The NE Man will be at a conference on 4 July so he applied for his postal vote yesterday; it will be interesting to see how long it takes.
I hope candidates will get their bums in gear early. The place I live in has loads of elderly people, many of whom have a postal vote. The day before the last election, someone came knocking on my door asking if I was planning to vote for them. I pointed out they were leaving things a bit late as pretty much everyone in the surrounding 3 roads would have already posted their ballot paper.
No leaflets arrived until a day or two before the election, either (not that I’m bothered about that but I know many elderly people who have a tendency to vote for someone whose name they recognise!)
Anyone have a feel for how the elections will go in Northern Ireland? I am expecting the DUP to poll badly with the current cloud over Jeffrey Donaldson. I'm not sure it will translate into any big change in seats though - any votes they lose certainly won't be going to Sinn Fein. Maybe chances for Alliance and UUP in places like Antrim and East Belfast.
Anyone have a feel for how the elections will go in Northern Ireland? I am expecting the DUP to poll badly with the current cloud over Jeffrey Donaldson. I'm not sure it will translate into any big change in seats though - any votes they lose certainly won't be going to Sinn Fein. Maybe chances for Alliance and UUP in places like Antrim and East Belfast.
Splits in the unionist vote may well lead to more Sinn Fein MPs. I see Reform Ltd have shacked up with TUV, as part of their continued commitment to bone-headed stupidity.
Sinn Fein are playing an interesting game, although I'm not really understanding what it is.
I saw an image I think of a SF poster, which I now can't find, which suggested that they're campaigning for the Westminster seats on the basis of kicking out the Tories, despite not actually standing directly against any Tories. And despite wins for SF being negated by absentianism. More seats for SF in a hung parliament situation might mean another Tory coalition.
Kicking out the DUP is the same as kicking out the tories, to all practical intents and purposes.
It isn't though is it. It reduces the number of MPs needed to get a majority.
If it was otherwise a DUP-Tory coalition, ok. But that's an unlikely calculation. More likely is that the DUP would be a small opposition party, removing the NI seats altogether is more likely to help the Tories win power.
Kicking out the DUP is the same as kicking out the tories, to all practical intents and purposes.
It isn't though is it. It reduces the number of MPs needed to get a majority.
If it was otherwise a DUP-Tory coalition, ok. But that's an unlikely calculation. More likely is that the DUP would be a small opposition party, removing the NI seats altogether is more likely to help the Tories win power.
As we have seen more than once (1997 and 2017) it takes very little for the tories to get unionists on side.
I cannot understand and have no sympathy with anyone in Northern Ireland who votes for Sinn Fein which makes it clear that for dogmatic and ideological reasons, none of its members if elected will take their seats.
The SDLP doesn't take that line and nor did John Redmond.
It's not hard to understand, is it? Republican parties reject the British presence in Ireland, and abstentionism symbolises that. Whether I would sympathize, if I lived there, dunno
Comments
I think, if the margin of Labour votes over tory is anything like polling currently suggests, Scotland's seats will be as irrelevant as they were in 1997 or 2001.
I think I'd argue that what was most necessary at this election was a catastrophic collapse of the Tory vote (because the country needs the Tory party to collapse so that either it recreates itself as a party that looks like it's making an effort to consider the best interests of the country, or just goes away completely and makes electoral room for a different major party in the UK). The UK needs to firmly reject Trump-style politics.
Of second-level importance (and particularly to those on the political left) is as you note a strong showing for the left - either to encourage Starmer to keep left, or to build up a new leftie coalition to become the opposition as Starmer's Labour finishes replacing the Conservative Party as the establishment centre-right.
I think most likely is that Reform loses everywhere, but attracts sufficient votes from the unreconstructed bigot sector in a number of former Conservative safe seats to ensure a vert large Labour majority. Which means we're going to see a whole load of new Labour MPs who didn't really expect to win.
I wonder how many current MPs actually expect to retain their seats.
I think this is fanciful frankly, anti-systemic politics is demand driven rather than supply led, and is the result of existing political parties/coalitions being unable to address the problems of the day.
The result of the Tory defeat is much more likely to lead to the triumph of the Natcon/Popcon tendency, along with a large scale media operation to naturalise that kind of politics (think of how much even something like Rwandan deportations have become normalised for a certain sector of politics).
Ish - I suspect what's actually going to happen is a party membership of absolute headbangers (because they're the only ones left) with a Parliamentary party of mostly what's left of the Tory moderates/left*.
Which is a recipe for further chaos (albeit the sort of chaos that will be contained by opposition).
*I know, 2019 cleared out most of them, but I mean relative to the current parliamentary party and certainly relative to the activist base.
If you assume the red wallers are out the door (mostly), then you might retain the odd Braverman or fellow traveller, but really you'll be left with the dull managerialists and knights of the shire.
Massive, massive loss. I think it's unlikely (although possible) that the number of Tory seats will be reduced to less than 100. My guess is that they'll land somewhere in the 120-130 region. Rishi Sunak will fall on his sword, and the Tory leadership contest will be a three-horse race between Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, and Tom Tugendhat.
Badenoch is the standard-bearer for the social conservative nasty party, Cleverly is I think a bit more of a traditional right-winger, and Tugendhat is something a little more like what the Tories used to be.
I suspect that the election will come down to Badenoch vs Tugendhat, and will signal the direction that the Tories want to move in.
It's also possible that Tugendhat, who I think has real ambitions to be PM, will decide that it's better for him if someone else is the caretaker to start rebuilding the Conservative party, and that he will be better placed to wait until after Labour wins the next election to become leader. In which case, I think we might see Michael Gove being put forward as a caretaker leader in the Michael Howard model.
(Assuming she retains her seat - apparently it's possible she may lose it.)
I think she's losing her seat, which is why I didn't consider her.
One challenge for a Tory reformer will be that a substantial number of the remaining Tory voters are voting Tory because they'll be "tough on immigrants, and tough on the causes of immigrants". Placating those people without performatively nasty policies (cf. Rwanda) will be a challenge.
Maybe, but the Tories have licensed pesticides that are bad for bees, particularly thiamethoxam. Good for farmers, though.
You may want to look again at who stands where, and who is standing down. The 'Tory left' that remain are hardly the "Wets", and the "dull managerialists" those that were quite happy to go along with a policy to deliberately shrink the state while shifting the dial on repression, 2019 was merely the last hurrah of those who would look agonised while doing so. The 'knights of the shire' are largely non-existent, the Shires are the heartland of the headbanging membership, and they are as likely these days to pick candidates like Braverman (Fareham) or Badenhoch (Saffron Walden).
The most obnoxious members of the "Red Wall" (Gullis and co) will probably disappear, I expect Cates etc. will do a term or so in the think tank scene. Gove may survive, though he's several points more right wing that most people reckon with, and his ego is unlikely see him agree to be a caretaker leader.
It is unlikely that Gove has a realistic chance at serving as PM. Being the man to turn the Tory party around and restore it to a sound footing before taking up a seat in the Lords as a respected Tory grandee might appeal to him as the best that he can get.
As I actually said - it's all relative. Unbelievably, though a few minutes in the Tory internet world might make you believe it, there's a significant segment of the membership who think that the current parliamentary Tory party are a bunch of wets.
They're not the 1980s wets, but this is what I mean when I say they're going to end up with a membership significantly to the right of their (remaining) elected representatives on the whole.
That doesn't mean that the elected representatives aren't on the right of course, but it does perhaps represent the final decoupling between the membership and the elected.
Yes, but I suppose I should think about what government, if any, is best able to help us to try to survive the inevitable catastrophe. Will that be the same as one, if any, making futile attempts to delay it?
Good question, and I don't have an answer. We'll have to deal with what we get, and hope that they will at least listen and even act in order to mitigate the effects of the cataclysm - if any mitigation is possible...
My prediction is that the Conservatives will lose, but not by as much as currently predicted, because I suspect that Starmer is not a great election campaigner. This shouldn't matter but it does. Labour will finish with a large majority - perhaps 100 seats or so - but not a 1997-style landslide.
No, certainly not, but I don't think that Starmer will outshine him in the way that Tony Blair did John Major.
Yes, and it is observing this very tendency that is led me to the conclusions in the previous posts.
One side effect of multiple changes of leadership is that a fair number of Conservative MPs, often from safer seats, have been given a taste of ministerial life. On the other side of a major loss they will face the reality of five (or more) years out of power. As it was, and had an election not been called, one would have expected quite a few to stand down over the summer. Even if you look at the those who have already announced their exit, there are a fair amount in safe seats:
https://conservativehome.com/2024/05/23/our-list-of-conservative-mps-standing-down-at-the-next-election-timpson-the-latest-to-announce/
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html
And as been proved you really only need a few head bangers to lead the rest, especially if a decent chunk of the ERG/NZSG etc survive.
One of the by-products of the sudden jump to a GE is that the Police investigation into Rayner's "wrongdoing" will have to be paused. This means that the Tories can continue to smear her with impunity all through the campaign. And they will.
https://x.com/PGMcNamara/status/1793702331961450798
personally, as a constituent, I think Daventry will go red. Which will be fun for all concerned if only because outside Daventry itself it's a ludicrously rural seat and I can't imagine Labour have selected someone who knows the first thing about isolated rural settlements. Just because they never do select such people. Not that the incumbent really does either I suppose.
Apparently this is your Labour candidate:
https://x.com/marianne_kimani
Looks like the Labour candidate is female, black and has worked in health care - mainly in Northampton.
https://x.com/marianne_kimani/status/1772693924638843270
With the Lib Dems picking an existing councillor:
https://x.com/NNjournalism/status/1793389482860794246
It’s an interesting one now Chris Heaton Harris has stood down. Really the Liberals ought to be the main challengers, but it’s exactly the sort of place in these circumstances that might elect a bewildered Labour paper candidate who didn’t actually expect to give up their day job.
Daventry itself as a town will absolutely swing to Labour. It’s what the villages do - historically bluer then a blue thing in a particularly blue sky, that will tip it one colour or another
The same data has been tracked for a long time by wikipedia, which has more detailed tables (and I presume is the BBC source).
The BBC, however, does add current trend values (Telford’s figures upthread) and a graphical representation of the confidence intervals.
Looking at her posts she's been constituency shopping for a while, so I think she's at least got it in mind that she wants to be an MP, even if winning this particular seat might be a surprise. It's not like here where it's simply a local CLP member willing to go through the motions. A Labour win is not totally out of the question but an SNP hold is far more likely.
https://x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1793912230377038193
So would I. I was comparing the situation of the Labour candidate there with the one here (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber).
The schools in Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire break for summer on 5 July. I suspect that schools which are used for polling and are shut on 4 July will not see any pupils turning up for a final day on 5 July. There are parts of Scotland breaking for the summer on 28 June.
Holiday prices rise during school holidays, but the main rise is during the English school holidays. Scottish families with school age children tend to try to get away during the first week or two of the summer holidays, ahead of the price rises. So the main holiday exodus will start on 28 June in those areas which break for summer then. There will be quite a few families here taking their kids out of school for the last couple of days in order to beat the price hike.
I don't know if it will make a big difference - anyone who cares can get a postal vote. The NE Man will be at a conference on 4 July so he applied for his postal vote yesterday; it will be interesting to see how long it takes.
No leaflets arrived until a day or two before the election, either (not that I’m bothered about that but I know many elderly people who have a tendency to vote for someone whose name they recognise!)
Splits in the unionist vote may well lead to more Sinn Fein MPs. I see Reform Ltd have shacked up with TUV, as part of their continued commitment to bone-headed stupidity.
I saw an image I think of a SF poster, which I now can't find, which suggested that they're campaigning for the Westminster seats on the basis of kicking out the Tories, despite not actually standing directly against any Tories. And despite wins for SF being negated by absentianism. More seats for SF in a hung parliament situation might mean another Tory coalition.
It isn't though is it. It reduces the number of MPs needed to get a majority.
If it was otherwise a DUP-Tory coalition, ok. But that's an unlikely calculation. More likely is that the DUP would be a small opposition party, removing the NI seats altogether is more likely to help the Tories win power.
As we have seen more than once (1997 and 2017) it takes very little for the tories to get unionists on side.
I cannot understand and have no sympathy with anyone in Northern Ireland who votes for Sinn Fein which makes it clear that for dogmatic and ideological reasons, none of its members if elected will take their seats.
The SDLP doesn't take that line and nor did John Redmond.
Yes. It's the oath of allegiance to the crown that is the sticking point.