2y ago

Tories facing general election wipeout with just 130 seats, says polling guru

www.independent.co.uk

Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are facing their worst ever result at the general election and could be left with just 130 seats, according to Professor Sir John Curtice.
The country’s top polling guru warned of the bleak situation faced by the Tories as they head into winter with the news dominated by infighting over the prime minister’s Rwanda deportation plan.

43 comments

130 is more than they deserve.
Hopefully they decide to support PR voting off the back of this, I'm not 'too' hopeful though, would be quite unlike them to do something that actually benefits the electorate.
honestly disappointed they'll get double digits, never mind into triple.
The "shy Tories" may yet hold the balance of power. Most of those "don't knows and even a few professed Labour voters may well stow their votes with the Conservatives when it's only them and God in the voting booth. They just don't want to admit it to a human poll taker.
- My fear. Polls are kinda meaningless nowadays.
  I just fail to understand what sort of person views the last 14 years as anything but a series of disasters?!
  
  We've gotten very bad at voting. It's not just the British, if that's any comfort. It isn't any comfort.
  
  Well, the tories were voted in before, during and after Brexit, so.. yeah..
- The shy Tory phenomenon was always overstated and hasn't showed up in the polling in decades. A lot of current "Don't Knows" did vote Tory in 2019 but, if you look at the polling and focus groups of the DKs, they are furious with this government, can't name anything good they've done, and can't name anything that would win them back. Some of those DKs will split Tory anyway, but some will split to other parties or stay at home.
  But we can't be complacent. The trouble is that none of the other parties is popular or trusted (not even the SNP anymore). It's just that the Tories are even less trusted. It's not DKs switching to Tories that should worry us; it's that people who really want the Tories out don't vote at all because the alternatives aren't sufficiently appealling.
Couldn't happen to a nicer party......
Like all conservative societies in history, this one will fall in on itself as it desperately looks for the source of the problem in every niche people can create - except it won't see that the problem is conservative thinking.
When authoritarians take control, they will nosedive the country or business until only they remain. Everyone is disposable.
However anyone feels about their performance they can’t simply do a better job between now and the election. The signs are there for everyone to see that it’s simply time to let someone else have a go.
- They probably feel that, at a minimum they could spend the time ripping off as much as they can and laying traps for Labour to stumble into to give them a better chance of getting back in at the following election.
  
  Yep. The GOP did the same thing & it seems to be working for them because people have the political attention spans of fruit flies.
  
  That's giving labour too much credit: To stumble into a trap, you have to actually come off the fence some time.
- Of course, but there's a whole lot of destruction they wish to wreak before relinquishing power to make it all the harder for Labour to reverse the damage. They definitely don't want Labour to be able to get beyond reversing damage & onto instituting good things!
  Meantime, they retain opportunities to carry on grifting until the next election.
  Incompetence & bad ideas are one thing (governance is genuinely hard & complex after all), but they're not even operating in semi-reasonable faith.
Wow, that's great, the election is soon , right?
...right?
- It's interesting. It has to be on or before 28th January 2025. Common thinking is that the Tories will wait as long as possible to grab what they can for themselves and their mates, while spoiling things for Labour but the polls keep getting worse and I do wonder if Sunak might threaten to call one early if there's a whiff of him being replaced - the Tory headbangers might just call his bluff.
So I’m a yank and might need help understanding this. Through Thatcher all the way through Brexit, this Rwanda deportation deal is the driving nail that makes everyone understand that the Tories are a bunch of cunts?
I’m trying to figure out how to get my country to understand that our conservatives are a bunch of nation wrecking cunts as well, so any guidance would be appreciated.
- No that deal is helping them. It was having parties while no one was allowed to meet in COVID. Giving away money to mates for PPE that didn't work. Truss having 30 days in power and making the economy even worse. Massive inflation.
  
  I think of it like trying to squash a mattress with lots of small objects. The more objects that you put on, the more areas that are squashed, but there are still parts that haven't been compressed yet.
  Similar thing with the politics, people don't change allegiances until it's a bombshell they care about.
🤞
the election isn't going to be like the polling suggests; it'll be a lot closer.
and regardless, it's just going to be the red tories replacing the blue tories so will anything really change? and i say this as a trans person.
- and i say this as a trans person.
  I'm not sure what this adds to your comment.
  I completely disagree that it'll be "red Tories", his voting record is nothing like the "softer Tories". It just won't be as left as some people want.
  All this doom and gloom about Starmer also plays right into the Tory smear playbook. If they can get everyone to talk about it then it doesn't matter how true or false it is. People who would have voted are now feeling "what's the point" and the Tories can win through disaffection.
  Yeah it could be better with a different Labour leader, but fucking hell, it'll be a hell of a lot better than the past decade of rotating Tory failures we've had as PM.
  Don't use headlines as basis for your opinion, use his voting record to show what he really believes.
  https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25353/keir_starmer/holborn_and_st_pancras/votes
  He has voted against restricting legal aid
  He has voted against tuition fees.
  He has voted against reducing welfare benefits
  He has voted for increasing disability payments
  That's not Tory.
  
  That's right. I was someone who fell into the "they're red tories" trap during the Blair years. We were spoilt and didn't know how good we had it.
  
  Don't use headlines as basis for your opinion, use his voting record to show what he really believes.
  It's always a bad idea to let one party form your opinion of the opposing party.
It's so easy to be a political pundit right now, anyone can do it.
The Tories are going to lose the next election says top political commentator, a.k.a. bloke from down the pub.
The key thing to realise is this doesnt count the hundreds of seats the Tories will get for simply donning a red tie while keeping the same exact policies and mindset we've had for the last decade.
- You mean switching sides? I don't think anyone will trust them enough to vote them in if they do that
  
  No I mean that the current labour party shares the vast majority of their policies with the Tories, so are effectively the same party.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The country’s top polling guru warned of the bleak situation faced by the Tories as they head into winter with the news dominated by infighting over the prime minister’s Rwanda deportation plan.
With Labour enjoying a consistent polling lead of close to 20 points, Prof Curtice said voters appear to have “stopped listening” to the Tories on the big issues.
On the major split currently looming in response to Mr Sunak’s plans, Prof Curtice wrote: “Divided parties rarely prosper at the polls.
But cabinet minister Michael Gove insisted that Mr Sunak’s government is “not contemplating” holding an early general election if the Rwanda bill is voted down.
A group of unnamed Tory MPs have told The Mail on Sunday that they would like to get rid of Mr Sunak – with some even keen to bring back Boris Johnson as leader.
Dubbed the “pasta plotters”, a small group of anti-Sunak MPs and strategists were said to have met at an Italian restaurant to plan “an Advent calendar of s***” for the current Tory leader over the Rwanda issue this December.
The original article contains 630 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

43 comments