The Cable Forum Exit Poll, 2024

[Pierre]

Labour get a massive majority with lowest vote share of any winning party. Just a 1.8% increase on their share in 2019, when they lost heavily.

As expected the country did not turn to Labour, conservative voters did not turn to Labour. They voted LibDem or Reform.

Starmer is going to find its very real, very soon.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Labour get a massive majority with lowest vote share of any winning party. Just a 1.8% increase on their share in 2019, when they lost heavily.

As expected the country did not turn to Labour, conservative voters did not turn to Labour. They voted LibDem or Reform.

Starmer is going to find its very real, very soon.

Do you have any evidence to support that Starmer doesn’t already know this ?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Do you have any evidence to support that Starmer doesn’t already know this ?

What a strange question.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Labour get a massive majority with lowest vote share of any winning party. Just a 1.8% increase on their share in 2019, when they lost heavily.

As expected the country did not turn to Labour, conservative voters did not turn to Labour. They voted LibDem or Reform.

Starmer is going to find its very real, very soon.

One could, perhaps, even describe it as underwhelming?

Once we get away from the mutual masturbation exercise overnight that was the Westminster bubble journalists* selling their '1997 moment' there's something very different about these numbers. People decisively swung towards Blair and the manifesto upon which he stood.

The UK, and in particular England, remains right wing in the popular vote. FPTP and Reform have blended together to give a distorted result in terms of seats (and absolutely, that's how we run legitimate elections). However as the SNP vote collapse shows - 98% of Scottish MPs from 50% of the vote in 2015, something in the region of 16% of the seats from 30% of the vote this time - that can be a soft underbelly.

It also leaves Starmer at a crossroads with how to govern. A manifesto light on detail, and more commitments not to do things than to do things, could see different wings of the party emerge in the later stages of the Parliament based on where they are susceptible to either the Lib Dems (presumably to their left) and Conservatives/Reform on the right.

The Conservative Party could absolutely devour itself in the next couple of years of infighting. I'll cheer that on every step of the way. However a competent leader, a few years out of Government and a grubby backroom deal with Farage....

Labour needs a plan that it didn't communicate in the last few weeks. I hope they have one, and it's not pandering to the right.

*As an example - here Chris Mason: 'Starmer tsunami' as voters show ruthless drive to eject Tories - I don't know where the Starmer Tsunami happened but it wasn't the ballot boxes of England.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Pierre

What a strange question.

What an expected response.

You’ve got a touch of the Farages about you , wander round making wild statements but when pressed either unwilling or unable to answer basic questions.

Oh, and of course the superiority complex.

[Mr K]

A Labour landslide with a vote share lower than Corbyn got 7 years ago.....

Nige won this for Labour by taking all the swivel eyed loon votes off the Tories. , I knew something good must come from him eventually ! Getting to love our electoral system, and Nige

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Do you have any evidence to support that Starmer doesn’t already know this ?

I think you misunderstood the rhetorical nature of Pierre’s point. However, if you want to chart the extent to which Starmer does or doesn’t understand the difference between his support in Parliament and his support in the country, it’ll come within his first term when he tries to enact something unpopular. Tony Blair found out when Gordon Brown tried to ‘escalate’ fuel duty and eventually had to back down when tanker drivers started picketing fuel depots. And they had somewhat greater popular support than Labour does today.

Labour with a large majority is going to be tempted to embark on a so-called progressive agenda that would be wildly popular on its own back benches but expose the fragile extent of its support in the country. Take, for example, the way gender ideology became a campaign issue in the final fortnight and the number of even quite senior Labour figures who seem unable to define ‘woman’ - Angela Rayner was reduced to complaining on LBC that the issue had become a ‘political football’, seemingly failing to grasp that voters repeatedly raising the question on TV debates and radio phone ins during an election campaign is not the same thing as MPs posturing and yelling at each other in the Commons.

It could be gender ideology, it could be immigration, it could be something else entirely, but if Starmer is tempted to think that his power base is in his Commons majority and not in the goodwill of the two-thirds of people who didn’t vote for him, he will come unstuck very quickly. And we have just seen exactly how volatile the electorate is right now, and how quickly a large majority can disappear.

Time will tell.

[Mr K]

And poor Nige didn't get anymore seats than the Greens. Not that he gives a toss about that or Clacton's potholes. He's bigged himself up proper and thats the main thing.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Chris

I think you misunderstood the rhetorical nature of Pierre’s point. However, if you want to chart the extent to which Starmer does or doesn’t understand the difference between his support in Parliament and his support in the country, it’ll come within his first term when he tries to enact something unpopular. Tony Blair found out when Gordon Brown tried to ‘escalate’ fuel duty and eventually had to back down when tanker drivers started picketing fuel depots. And they had somewhat greater popular support than Labour does today.

Labour with a large majority is going to be tempted to embark on a so-called progressive agenda that would be wildly popular on its own back benches but expose the fragile extent of its support in the country. Take, for example, the way gender ideology became a campaign issue in the final fortnight and the number of even quite senior Labour figures who seem unable to define ‘woman’ - Angela Rayner was reduced to complaining on LBC that the issue had become a ‘political football’, seemingly failing to grasp that voters repeatedly raising the question on TV debates and radio phone ins during an election campaign is not the same thing as MPs posturing and yelling at each other in the Commons.

It could be gender ideology, it could be immigration, it could be something else entirely, but if Starmer is tempted to think that his power base is in his Commons majority and not in the goodwill of the two-thirds of people who didn’t vote for him, he will come unstuck very quickly. And we have just seen exactly how volatile the electorate is right now, and how quickly a large majority can disappear.

Time will tell.

I think Starmer knows exactly the position he’s in, and in his speech this morning he acknowledged that the power lay in the good will of the electorate

He’s in a position whereby he has the almost impossible task of needing to try and make a silk purse out of a sows ear. However he might just make a rather nice novelty luggage tag (Thank you Terry Pratchett iirc)

[ianch99]

Labour did not really win, rather the Tories lost, the Lib Dems played a blinder and Reform hoovered up the right wing/little England votes that were lent to the Tories in 2019.

Originally Posted by ianch99

I think we will be surprised how many votes, not seats, Reform get. Given that Farage has only one core message (hate), this is very depressing for the future of this country.

This is the most depressing part of this GE. The Tories will quickly turn on themselves, Sunak will leave before the end of the year and the ones left will fight like rats in a sack. They will then splinter with the ones desperate for power (and money) will do a deal with Farage and form a new ConForm party.

Labour (or rather Old Tory Lite), having backed themselves into all sorts of fiscal/policy corners to win, will huff & puff for 5 years without making material/visible change leaving the door open for a possible hung parliament with the agenda driven by ConForm and its agenda of hate & bigotry.

[TheDaddy]

I voted labour for the first time ever, went to sleep feeling quite good about it too, went from being a protest voter to Conservative out of obligation back to protester and now full blown adult voting in mine and the countries best interest

Reform and greens got 21% of the vote between them for 2% of the seats and Labour get 100% of the power for 34% of the vote, what a lousy system we have

Originally Posted by jfman

One could, perhaps, even describe it as underwhelming?

Once we get away from the mutual masturbation exercise overnight that was the Westminster bubble journalists* selling their '1997 moment' there's something very different about these numbers. People decisively swung towards Blair and the manifesto upon which he stood.

The UK, and in particular England, remains right wing in the popular vote. FPTP and Reform have blended together to give a distorted result in terms of seats (and absolutely, that's how we run legitimate elections). However as the SNP vote collapse shows - 98% of Scottish MPs from 50% of the vote in 2015, something in the region of 16% of the seats from 30% of the vote this time - that can be a soft underbelly.

It also leaves Starmer at a crossroads with how to govern. A manifesto light on detail, and more commitments not to do things than to do things, could see different wings of the party emerge in the later stages of the Parliament based on where they are susceptible to either the Lib Dems (presumably to their left) and Conservatives/Reform on the right.

The Conservative Party could absolutely devour itself in the next couple of years of infighting. I'll cheer that on every step of the way. However a competent leader, a few years out of Government and a grubby backroom deal with Farage....

Labour needs a plan that it didn't communicate in the last few weeks. I hope they have one, and it's not pandering to the right.

*As an example - here Chris Mason: 'Starmer tsunami' as voters show ruthless drive to eject Tories - I don't know where the Starmer Tsunami happened but it wasn't the ballot boxes of England.

jfman, please accept my apologies for my inappropriate comments to you last night/early this morning - I got carried away in the "heat of the moment", but that is no excuse.

[jfman]

No worries. And thanks.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by ianch99

This is the most depressing part of this GE. The Tories will quickly turn on themselves, Sunak will leave before the end of the year and the ones left will fight like rats in a sack. They will then splinter with the ones desperate for power (and money) will do a deal with Farage and form a new ConForm party.

Labour (or rather Old Tory Lite), having backed themselves into all sorts of fiscal/policy corners to win, will huff & puff for 5 years without making material/visible change leaving the door open for a possible hung parliament with the agenda driven by ConForm and its agenda of hate & bigotry.

Don't ever try and talk anyone down from a window ledge anytime will you?

[jfman]

German car. Good choice.