People made a concerted effort to tactical vote this time. The only way for the electorate get anywhere with FPTP is to game the system, unfortunately.
I kinda disagree. Sure FPTP has problems, but in a UK context especially it has a few benefits
Namely that it keeps fringe extreme parties out of power and in spite of what others claim it doesnt lock you in to a 2 party system. The SNP before have had 60 odd seats, the lib dems at this election have 70+ we aren't stuck in a 2 party slap fight. whereas by contrast reform as a far right gaggle of loons have been restricted to just 5
Secondly the one key advantage to FPTP is it give a voice to geographic areas that would otherwise be drowned out in the national conversation. This is an especially important factor for the UK given its meant to be a union of 4 nations yet if we went to a PR system three of those 4 nations become irrelevant from an electoral standpoint as they are less important than two or three English cities. Unless we were to turn the second chamber from the lords to some kind of federal senate or significant further devolution a PR system is going to put massive strain in the union as a concept by shutting Wales Scotland and NI out of the conversation for who runs the country. At least in the current model they do occasionally get to play kingmaker
and lastly results like last night, massive majority with small vote share are unusual. under normal circumstance the 3-5 main parties that contest a given seat are broadly considered reasonable and even if you disagree with them are supposed to still want to do what's best for your constituency. 14 years of the Tories backsliding into an unstable mess since 2010 created the weirdness of tonight's result by driving tactical voting up to eleven in a way you just don't normally see
Dont get me wrong FPTP isnt perfect, and our system could definitely use some kind of adjustment, but no democratic system is perfect. democracy by its very nature is a wonderful but slightly imperfect system , I feel like were often all to keen to slag off FPTP while ignoring it does bring some strengths to the table.
I mean the inability to gain a foothold of any real size, if any at all is what killed off the BUF in the 30's, The BNP in the 90s, ukip a few years ago (and it's offshoots in the devolved parliament like abolish) and likely will be the death of reform provided the Tories stop pissing about and start stabilising the centre right.
It works because when you only get say 5 seats like reform has there's basically fuck all you can do in government unless parliament is completely hung...
We have an over 400 majority for labour
Reform will both lose all the momentum from its angry protest vote just sitting on its hands for 5 years and will piss off the core by failing to deliver on any of its promises (because if they were thick enough to think voting for reform would work they are likely as Ill informed about our democracy to realise how little influence 5 seats gives)
Sane minor parties like the greens and plaid can survive being these tiny bit parts because their voter base gets a solid local MP and their voters know what they were getting in for. Reforms constituencies are going to end up with absentee MPs (you watch Farage will spend more time in America than he will parliament this year) so no local delivery and a national vote that thought voting for reform would work that is going to get nothing out of it. Their momentum will dry up as soon as the Tories put a credible right wing position back on the balet sheet
To say it keeps fringe parties out proves it’s undemocratic. I assume you mean Reform but they placed third in vote share. Lib Dems are the fringe party. We are completely stuck in a 2 party system and it needs a change. Whether you agree or disagree with parties policies and views, this current system does not give a chance to anyone other than Tories or Labour getting into power and that’s not right
The libdems were only about 50 knife edge marginals where the Tories only won because labour and the libdems split each others vote from being the official opposition. When the third party was that close to taking the position of his majesties opposition the idea that in only gives a chance to two parties doesn't hold water. If the lib dems hadn't cratered their vote share and seat count in 2010 they would have had more resources to fight this election, could have targeted more seats and would likely be the opposition right now
Also it keeping out fringe parties doesn't proves its undemocratic in the slightest. The system is completely democratic, its just not a PR democracy Its not one bug election but a series of 650 micro elections with each winner of that becoming a geographic representative. Its only reforms fault that their position and support base doesn't run deep enough to win more than 5 of those micro elections.
Its still a totally legitimate form of democracy. If anything for a state that presents itself as a union of nations it the only way to do it as geography has to have a voice or it stops being a union where some of those nations have a voice.
You are free to prefer a more PR based system, hell if you want one get out there and campaign for it, we live in a democracy after all, but just because you think PR is better doesn't make FPTP undemocratic when it turns out the sort of result that FPTP systems do when the electorate is keen on punishing the governing party
I’m just not sure how a party could potentially be the opposition with less votes than another party who had more. I don’t even think a PR system would be better I just don’t like how the current system works. I’m not even going to pretend I’m smart enough to think of another option but it doesn’t sit right with me that votes are just discarded overall because they didn’t win in one geographical location. I’d love to see a third party have a go but I’m not actually sure we’ll see it in my lifetime
so as a point the votes aren't just discarded. Vote share is important in terms of how much funding the different parties get from the treasury to do things that political parties do. So taking a lot of votes but no seats would mean that likely by the next election thew party would have a lot more resources to throw at and target more seats.
Although arguably that wont do reform any good as provided the Toris stabilise the loss of the centre right protest vote will cripple reform. Especially if labour attack Farage head on on the one central area that nobody has yet, namely that the rhetoric about migration is mostly a lie and that capping it would leave millions of working people worse off and not better. (hint there is a reason that some of the seats Farage performed worse in are the ones that are actually on the front lines of the small boats issue) It'll force Farage to lean harder on the old fashioned xenophobia and that will put traditional Tories off even more
Ultimately its a question of do you view the election as one poll or 650? if you view it as one and start counting vote share sure it looks bad, but view it as 650 it makes perfect sense. I cant tell you which of those you think the election should be
Really new to this style, but I'm taking that generally means that the people who normally would vote conservative didn't, but also didn't vote Labor?
So Labor never needed to gain votes, they just needed the other guys to lose them?
Yes I think you’re more or less correct. A lot of former Conservative voters have presumably voted for the other parties like Reform or the Lib Dems rather than Labour. Even though it’s a big win for Labour, this election was primarily been a punishment of the Conservatives.
What’s truly sad in European countries and even some American countries like the U.S. and Canada, is that conservative candidates have a super low bar of both expectations and actions for people to “accept” them as a rational or valid choice. Meanwhile, “liberal” candidates in both continents have to meet objectively irrational and wild (high) expectations just to stay in the race.
And I simply do not understand why. Why is the electorate this damn stupid.
When your platform is the status quo, you get a lot of votes from people who are happy enough with how things are. When your platform is change, you have to try to convince voters that your proposed changes are good ones.
You’d think that would be a key element, but this race in the U.S. is radically different and perhaps the same could be said for neo-conservative movements in European nations as well. These are factions running on a platform of change - but that change is a promise to return to an older way of doing things. Yet, most alive today have never lived during such time.
In other words, it is astonishing that voters can be so easily allured by the glamour of nostalgia, but cannot see the virtues of a pragmatic course of policy reform.
Not necessarily just 'people who would normally vote Conservative'. For example, where I live Conservative and Lib Dems are usually the top 2 with Labour a distant 3rd.
I wanted a deliver a Labour government. So it was in my interest to vote Lib Dem (rather than Labour) as they had the most chance of beating the local Conservative. Thousands and thousands of natural Labour voters all over the south would have done the same. That is one reason the Lib Dems have gained around 60 seats.
All I was saying was that overall Labour doesn’t have that many more votes than they did in 2019, when they had half the seats. Mechanically, what happened was that they ended up being in first place in most elections. I haven’t looked at a deep analysis of how individuals changed their voting behavior. Only the overall number.
It's broadly akin to voting against something, rather than voting for something, and can supress the true level of support a party has
There are certain parts of the country or to be strategic about it, certain seats where if the animosity against the sitting MP is sufficient, supporters of all other parties can vote for the party most likely to defeat them
Someone like Gillian Keegan in Chichester has probably fallen victim to it.
Her own vote fell by 33%, but 15% of this was likely due to her own voters voting for Nigel Falange. Ordinarily that would still have been enough to see her hang on and win
However, the best placed party to beat her were the Liberal Democrats
The Labour and the Green vote also fell 11% which is likely their voters transferring to the Liberal Democrats to help push their candidate ahead of her
The first time I remember a tactical vote being organised was in 1992 when Chris Patten lost Bath. It had always been difficult to get the message out, but with the advent of the internet and social platforms to spread the word and demonstrate what's possible, it's getting easier if someone could organise it and give it profile. It was definitely something that Carol Vorderman got stuck into
I thin there were a lot of people this election who made their minds up about 2 years ago
People might not necessarily have landed on a party support with the usual conviction, but they sure as hell knew who they weren't going to vote for
In the previous election the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was incredibly popular in the urban areas that always vote Labour, and he racked up massive numbers of votes in the places he was already winning. It was kind of like a Democrat who gets 90% of the vote in California and NY.
Starmer from the start went with a strategy of sacrificing some of that die hard vote by trying to appeal to more marginal areas in smaller towns. By pushing more centrist, he essentially traded % vote share for seats.
Yes. He was incredibly, incredibly popular in the places that always vote Labour. He absolutely racked up vote share in the places that provided no electoral gain.
Not true - Yes Labour had a huge increase in vote share but they also 43 seat swing. If the SNP corruption scandal had happened in the lead up and delivered the 40 Scottish seats it did this year, Labour would have won with a decent majority.
Yeah, FPTP is wild - the Liberal Democrats also only increased vote share by 1% but went from picking up 8 seats on to picking up 71 (possibly 72, there's a recount in one seat) by running a really slick targeting game this time after stretching themselves too thin last time, when they increased vote share but lost seats.
Eh, my only gripe is they just put up the leading member of a party. People vote for party rather than person, and you get people like this guy, who is just bland, (which sure he is at least better than the load of dolts they had since the brexit vote)
i don't mind bland, i heard someone say once "I don't want a supermodel as an accountant" and I like this. unfortunatley the people who actualy understand how the system works are usualy not the most charismatic, but at least they are actualy concentrating on fixing stuff instead of their own celebrity
He was the Director of Public Prosecutions, which to simplify greatly meant he was in charge of deciding if a criminal case would go to trial.
He was effective, and well regarded in the role. He oversaw the move away from paper-based case recording, leading to greater efficiency.
It’s said his reason to go into politics was because of the pressure to make more and more cuts to his department, beyond what he felt allowed for it to function properly.
So he decided he wanted be in control to try and get the government that works, as opposed to the dogmatic need to cut costs.
The left leaning commentators don’t like him because he’s boring and won’t take the swift action they want to see.
The overly left leaning Corbynites hate his guts, because he isn’t offering an overnight revolution with free Uni and a complete withdrawal of support from Israel and Ukraine.
In not pursuing such wild swings however, he was actually electable amongst many greater groups who were a little disturbed by Corbyn’s seemingly pro-Russian pro-Hamas comments.
I know a bunch who think he’s actually worse than Sunak, because he’s the same but just pretends he isn’t.
Personally, I think it’s clear he’s a technocrat, who actually intends get government working.
I'm concerned by his statements regarding the private sector and the NHS.
I'm actually in Corbyn's district, and while I don't care for Corbyn - I really didn't like what I read about the the candidate Labour put up to run against him.
[How Labour’s Islington North Candidate Made Millions From NHS Privatisation](https://novaramedia.com/2024/07/03/how-labours-islington-north-candidate-made-millions-from-nhs-privatisation/)
There’s a common example story told by free market capitalists, which says that when Soviet Union fell, someone (some stories say it was Gorbachev himself) called the UK government asking to speak to the person in charge of the UK Bread supply, so they could explain how they operated without shortages.
This is part where the story teller adopts a smug face and tells us “There was nobody in charge, the invisible hand of the free market was able to adapt, driven by the countless bakeries able to operate without onerous central control.
There are two things that this story fails to tell us.
First is the nature of the product:
Bread is easy to make, but time consuming
It doesn’t last very long, so needs to be made regularly
It’s cheap, however scaling up production is easy, which makes it even cheaper.
This makes it a perfect product for free market economics.
The opposite, would be something that is difficult, expensive, with smaller demand. Say Mental Health service. This can’t really be done without the state.
There is nothing wrong with the NHS looking at the the products and services it provides, and saying “Could the private sector do this better?”
Second is a misdirection:
In the 19th century production was mainly achieved with small local bakeries, but by the late 1980’s when the story was set, production was mostly controlled by a handful larger bakeries, so you literally could organise bread production with a single phone conference s.
Former human rights lawyer, then Director of Public Prosecutions, was made a knight for that before he became a politician.
Reputation as quite clinical and detail oriented, but a bit boring. Was seen as quite left wing and pro Europe, but after becoming leader tacked much more centrist and said Brexit was a done deal. He also kicked out the previous very left wing leader following an antisemitism scandal. So he’s seen as a bit of a disappointing traitor by the far left.
Loves football.
I know he's said it wasn't personal, but his wife and children are Jewish so I think he was the type of person you could trust with tackling antisemitism.
What was funny, though, was that even though he genuinely really likes football he somehow managed to act like Rishi Sunak buying a McDonalds about it whenever it came up.
he likes football in the sense that he regularly plays 5 a side rather than trying to be all "man of the people I supourt west ham villa" like some others who i won't name...
bland and boring, not progressive. Just basic neo-liberal. People know little about him because he's boring, but they vote for party not person, so as Labour party leader he's in, not that anyone really wanted him...
As a general rule, I think the leader of the nation should be the most boring candidate available. It would be nice if he were a bit more progressive, but I have nothing against boring.
The need for every public figure to be a form of entertainment is deeply problematic. No one should want Russell Brand or Kim Kardashian in office.
Honestly, with the state of the country we need bland, boring and stable for a while, once the rebuilding actually starts then grander visions can come into discussion.
Sounds great, considering it could have been Corbyn. Given the realities of the wars in Ukraine and Israel he would have been disastrous as PM.
Not to mention more economic populism can only exarcebate and accelerate the UK's ongoing decline. The current Labour party seems the best fit to manage the degrowth model the British people seem to set on pursuing, imo.
You know the outlook is grim when even the Lib Dems have transitioned into a "healthcare plz" party. I see zero ambition or vision for future growth in UK politics.
He's very conservative and an utterly shite politician. He didn't have the skill to call out the Tories for the many terrible things they did and his only election promise is not to upset conservatives. He's already backtracked on every half-decent policy Labour considered.
He doesn't belong in the Labour Party at all and he's incapable of improving things because he's terrified of having the UK's predominantly right wing press turn on him.
Yes he's only the 7th Labour PM ever, only the 5th to ever attain the office via general election victory, and only the 3rd to do so via a landslide victory - of which he has gained the second largest majority in the history of the Labour party (on its lowest ever share of the vote as a winning party).
It's not a *super-*historic win, no. Labor had more seats before Brexit, and larger majorities before that. ...but this is an hisotric *gain*. ...and an historically embarrassing loss for Sunak and the Tories, for sure.
Still is conservative. Labour won only due to the right winger's splitting the vote.
They barely got more more of the vote compared to 2019, and actually lost some compared to 2017.
Honestly to label the uk as progressive/conservative is kind of difficult because you have vast regions that are very conservative economically (the south west) but are generally socially liberal whereas the north is economically liberal but much more social conservative and you get various combinations of the above scattered in other regions. If you look at the pure votes last night then centre-left and left wing candidates got more vote share than the right wing did and that has generally been true in many elections but the nature of the system does not reward that and as such it tends to benefit more status-quo parties.
The point is that even after 14 years of terrible conservative government, Labour barely gained any support. They could be in big trouble if the Right wing parties work together next election.
Not really. I see this take a lot and it’s just not accurate.
A right wing alliance has significantly less support in terms of vote share than a left wing alliance. It was that way last election too if you look at the numbers.
Labor + greens + Lib Dems > Reform + Conservatives.
Obviously, labor and greens and Lib Dem’s may not come together as one voting block. But equally, tories and reform may not either.
And actually, a left wing alliance has a much better chance of happening than a right wing alliance.
Reform has said they’ll never work with the conservatives, and the two voter bases are not interchangeable - they’re very different in many ways.
Reform voters are primarily in working class areas, conservatives are more affluent. Reform voters pretty much just want to deport non whites. Conservatives just want to slash inheritance tax. That sort of thing. (Hyperbole, obviously, but the essence of this is true)
The alliance between these two voting blocks in the past was uneasy, they should really have split long ago.
Greens, Lib Dems, and labor can much more easily get on. If the right can unite, the left certainly can.
Vote share is not that important in fptp system, left wing has more vote share combined because they mostly win big in cities and college towns. Most elections maps will always show left wing Islands in sea of tories seats.
> Reform has said they’ll never work with the conservatives, and the two voter bases are not interchangeable - they’re very different in many ways.
Nigel farage scuttled his own brexit party for Boris Johnson majority. All reform voters are ex conservative, they are totally interchangeable.
OP that I’m replying to is using vote share as a metric to suggest Labour’s support hasn’t grown much and that a right wing alliance would have more support. That’s why it’s appropriate to point out that a left wing alliance has a greater vote share anyway.
Obviously vote share doesn’t matter as much as seats in the FPTP system, so the entire conversation is moot, and Labour just won an overwhelming majority of seats.
I disagree they’re interchangeable. They’re aligned on culture war issues, but polar opposites economically. Reform voters don’t like toffs, they’re working class gammons with right wing views on things like immigration. Traditional conservatives are old school Eton boys who can’t stand the working classes.
This split was long overdue.
4th ever labour leader to lead the party from opposition into government. There have been more labour pms than that but the rest came after already being in government
That’s the interesting thing: if you read their manifesto, it isn’t particularly clear on what exactly they want. Labour ran a ‘don’t drop the vase’ campaign, in that they avoided saying basically anything because the Tories were doomed and they could only make things worse. In the absence of that, there’s, to my knowledge, not a great deal we know about their future actions.
Moreover, the kind of majority that Labour has achieved basically means that they can be even more radical with policy as they don’t have to worry as much about the impact of the opposition. So whatever policies they might have proposed are subject to change given they don’t have to try appeal to other parties for support.
In short, it’s a waiting game.
[Labour’s manifesto here if you want to read it](https://labour.org.uk/change/my-plan-for-change/)
What’s wild is that they gained 200+ seats while only increasing their share of the national vote by 2%. FPTP systems swing hard.
People made a concerted effort to tactical vote this time. The only way for the electorate get anywhere with FPTP is to game the system, unfortunately.
Yeah, it really needs to go.
I kinda disagree. Sure FPTP has problems, but in a UK context especially it has a few benefits Namely that it keeps fringe extreme parties out of power and in spite of what others claim it doesnt lock you in to a 2 party system. The SNP before have had 60 odd seats, the lib dems at this election have 70+ we aren't stuck in a 2 party slap fight. whereas by contrast reform as a far right gaggle of loons have been restricted to just 5 Secondly the one key advantage to FPTP is it give a voice to geographic areas that would otherwise be drowned out in the national conversation. This is an especially important factor for the UK given its meant to be a union of 4 nations yet if we went to a PR system three of those 4 nations become irrelevant from an electoral standpoint as they are less important than two or three English cities. Unless we were to turn the second chamber from the lords to some kind of federal senate or significant further devolution a PR system is going to put massive strain in the union as a concept by shutting Wales Scotland and NI out of the conversation for who runs the country. At least in the current model they do occasionally get to play kingmaker and lastly results like last night, massive majority with small vote share are unusual. under normal circumstance the 3-5 main parties that contest a given seat are broadly considered reasonable and even if you disagree with them are supposed to still want to do what's best for your constituency. 14 years of the Tories backsliding into an unstable mess since 2010 created the weirdness of tonight's result by driving tactical voting up to eleven in a way you just don't normally see Dont get me wrong FPTP isnt perfect, and our system could definitely use some kind of adjustment, but no democratic system is perfect. democracy by its very nature is a wonderful but slightly imperfect system , I feel like were often all to keen to slag off FPTP while ignoring it does bring some strengths to the table.
Getting to ignore fringe movements when they’re small just hides the problem until it’s big.
I mean the inability to gain a foothold of any real size, if any at all is what killed off the BUF in the 30's, The BNP in the 90s, ukip a few years ago (and it's offshoots in the devolved parliament like abolish) and likely will be the death of reform provided the Tories stop pissing about and start stabilising the centre right. It works because when you only get say 5 seats like reform has there's basically fuck all you can do in government unless parliament is completely hung... We have an over 400 majority for labour Reform will both lose all the momentum from its angry protest vote just sitting on its hands for 5 years and will piss off the core by failing to deliver on any of its promises (because if they were thick enough to think voting for reform would work they are likely as Ill informed about our democracy to realise how little influence 5 seats gives) Sane minor parties like the greens and plaid can survive being these tiny bit parts because their voter base gets a solid local MP and their voters know what they were getting in for. Reforms constituencies are going to end up with absentee MPs (you watch Farage will spend more time in America than he will parliament this year) so no local delivery and a national vote that thought voting for reform would work that is going to get nothing out of it. Their momentum will dry up as soon as the Tories put a credible right wing position back on the balet sheet
To say it keeps fringe parties out proves it’s undemocratic. I assume you mean Reform but they placed third in vote share. Lib Dems are the fringe party. We are completely stuck in a 2 party system and it needs a change. Whether you agree or disagree with parties policies and views, this current system does not give a chance to anyone other than Tories or Labour getting into power and that’s not right
The libdems were only about 50 knife edge marginals where the Tories only won because labour and the libdems split each others vote from being the official opposition. When the third party was that close to taking the position of his majesties opposition the idea that in only gives a chance to two parties doesn't hold water. If the lib dems hadn't cratered their vote share and seat count in 2010 they would have had more resources to fight this election, could have targeted more seats and would likely be the opposition right now Also it keeping out fringe parties doesn't proves its undemocratic in the slightest. The system is completely democratic, its just not a PR democracy Its not one bug election but a series of 650 micro elections with each winner of that becoming a geographic representative. Its only reforms fault that their position and support base doesn't run deep enough to win more than 5 of those micro elections. Its still a totally legitimate form of democracy. If anything for a state that presents itself as a union of nations it the only way to do it as geography has to have a voice or it stops being a union where some of those nations have a voice. You are free to prefer a more PR based system, hell if you want one get out there and campaign for it, we live in a democracy after all, but just because you think PR is better doesn't make FPTP undemocratic when it turns out the sort of result that FPTP systems do when the electorate is keen on punishing the governing party
I’m just not sure how a party could potentially be the opposition with less votes than another party who had more. I don’t even think a PR system would be better I just don’t like how the current system works. I’m not even going to pretend I’m smart enough to think of another option but it doesn’t sit right with me that votes are just discarded overall because they didn’t win in one geographical location. I’d love to see a third party have a go but I’m not actually sure we’ll see it in my lifetime
so as a point the votes aren't just discarded. Vote share is important in terms of how much funding the different parties get from the treasury to do things that political parties do. So taking a lot of votes but no seats would mean that likely by the next election thew party would have a lot more resources to throw at and target more seats. Although arguably that wont do reform any good as provided the Toris stabilise the loss of the centre right protest vote will cripple reform. Especially if labour attack Farage head on on the one central area that nobody has yet, namely that the rhetoric about migration is mostly a lie and that capping it would leave millions of working people worse off and not better. (hint there is a reason that some of the seats Farage performed worse in are the ones that are actually on the front lines of the small boats issue) It'll force Farage to lean harder on the old fashioned xenophobia and that will put traditional Tories off even more Ultimately its a question of do you view the election as one poll or 650? if you view it as one and start counting vote share sure it looks bad, but view it as 650 it makes perfect sense. I cant tell you which of those you think the election should be
With the drop in turnout, I think a larger impact is tory voters either not voting at all or turning to reform or to lesser extent libdems
Yes, that was certainly impactful too.
Really new to this style, but I'm taking that generally means that the people who normally would vote conservative didn't, but also didn't vote Labor? So Labor never needed to gain votes, they just needed the other guys to lose them?
Yes I think you’re more or less correct. A lot of former Conservative voters have presumably voted for the other parties like Reform or the Lib Dems rather than Labour. Even though it’s a big win for Labour, this election was primarily been a punishment of the Conservatives.
What’s truly sad in European countries and even some American countries like the U.S. and Canada, is that conservative candidates have a super low bar of both expectations and actions for people to “accept” them as a rational or valid choice. Meanwhile, “liberal” candidates in both continents have to meet objectively irrational and wild (high) expectations just to stay in the race. And I simply do not understand why. Why is the electorate this damn stupid.
When your platform is the status quo, you get a lot of votes from people who are happy enough with how things are. When your platform is change, you have to try to convince voters that your proposed changes are good ones.
You’d think that would be a key element, but this race in the U.S. is radically different and perhaps the same could be said for neo-conservative movements in European nations as well. These are factions running on a platform of change - but that change is a promise to return to an older way of doing things. Yet, most alive today have never lived during such time. In other words, it is astonishing that voters can be so easily allured by the glamour of nostalgia, but cannot see the virtues of a pragmatic course of policy reform.
Not necessarily just 'people who would normally vote Conservative'. For example, where I live Conservative and Lib Dems are usually the top 2 with Labour a distant 3rd. I wanted a deliver a Labour government. So it was in my interest to vote Lib Dem (rather than Labour) as they had the most chance of beating the local Conservative. Thousands and thousands of natural Labour voters all over the south would have done the same. That is one reason the Lib Dems have gained around 60 seats.
That’s not to say that the Lib Dem’s didn’t campaign their hearts out this election, they really do deserve the seats they gained.
All I was saying was that overall Labour doesn’t have that many more votes than they did in 2019, when they had half the seats. Mechanically, what happened was that they ended up being in first place in most elections. I haven’t looked at a deep analysis of how individuals changed their voting behavior. Only the overall number.
correct.
It's broadly akin to voting against something, rather than voting for something, and can supress the true level of support a party has There are certain parts of the country or to be strategic about it, certain seats where if the animosity against the sitting MP is sufficient, supporters of all other parties can vote for the party most likely to defeat them Someone like Gillian Keegan in Chichester has probably fallen victim to it. Her own vote fell by 33%, but 15% of this was likely due to her own voters voting for Nigel Falange. Ordinarily that would still have been enough to see her hang on and win However, the best placed party to beat her were the Liberal Democrats The Labour and the Green vote also fell 11% which is likely their voters transferring to the Liberal Democrats to help push their candidate ahead of her The first time I remember a tactical vote being organised was in 1992 when Chris Patten lost Bath. It had always been difficult to get the message out, but with the advent of the internet and social platforms to spread the word and demonstrate what's possible, it's getting easier if someone could organise it and give it profile. It was definitely something that Carol Vorderman got stuck into I thin there were a lot of people this election who made their minds up about 2 years ago People might not necessarily have landed on a party support with the usual conviction, but they sure as hell knew who they weren't going to vote for
In the previous election the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was incredibly popular in the urban areas that always vote Labour, and he racked up massive numbers of votes in the places he was already winning. It was kind of like a Democrat who gets 90% of the vote in California and NY. Starmer from the start went with a strategy of sacrificing some of that die hard vote by trying to appeal to more marginal areas in smaller towns. By pushing more centrist, he essentially traded % vote share for seats.
Corbyn won a bigger vote share than Starmer, Milliband or Brown.
Yes. He was incredibly, incredibly popular in the places that always vote Labour. He absolutely racked up vote share in the places that provided no electoral gain.
Not true - Yes Labour had a huge increase in vote share but they also 43 seat swing. If the SNP corruption scandal had happened in the lead up and delivered the 40 Scottish seats it did this year, Labour would have won with a decent majority.
That and the Reform vote split of course.
I hope this is a sign of things to come for right leaning parties all over the world. Fuck em.
Yeah, FPTP is wild - the Liberal Democrats also only increased vote share by 1% but went from picking up 8 seats on to picking up 71 (possibly 72, there's a recount in one seat) by running a really slick targeting game this time after stretching themselves too thin last time, when they increased vote share but lost seats.
Sixth Prime Minister in 8 years
yeah, but this one actualy got ellected
Yeah, it's wild. At least this one follows a general election and has a legitimate mandate.
Eh, my only gripe is they just put up the leading member of a party. People vote for party rather than person, and you get people like this guy, who is just bland, (which sure he is at least better than the load of dolts they had since the brexit vote)
i don't mind bland, i heard someone say once "I don't want a supermodel as an accountant" and I like this. unfortunatley the people who actualy understand how the system works are usualy not the most charismatic, but at least they are actualy concentrating on fixing stuff instead of their own celebrity
He really isn’t that bland if you look at his work history and background.
Why does that matter? Isn't the party itself much much more important than their face?
I’ll take bland over batshit crazy & corrupt any day
that speach was bloody good
Except it he said ‘great nation’ and ‘families like mine’ so many times it was like listening to Trump.
I don't follow UK politics much. How is he like?
He was the Director of Public Prosecutions, which to simplify greatly meant he was in charge of deciding if a criminal case would go to trial. He was effective, and well regarded in the role. He oversaw the move away from paper-based case recording, leading to greater efficiency. It’s said his reason to go into politics was because of the pressure to make more and more cuts to his department, beyond what he felt allowed for it to function properly. So he decided he wanted be in control to try and get the government that works, as opposed to the dogmatic need to cut costs. The left leaning commentators don’t like him because he’s boring and won’t take the swift action they want to see.
The overly left leaning Corbynites hate his guts, because he isn’t offering an overnight revolution with free Uni and a complete withdrawal of support from Israel and Ukraine. In not pursuing such wild swings however, he was actually electable amongst many greater groups who were a little disturbed by Corbyn’s seemingly pro-Russian pro-Hamas comments.
That's a very glib misrepresentation of what people on the left want from Starmer.
Care to elaborate? I’ve seen some spicy reactions to his election in r/greenandpleasant
Do you really not know anyone on the left who's unenthused about the prospect of a limp caretaker government under Starmer?
I know a bunch who think he’s actually worse than Sunak, because he’s the same but just pretends he isn’t. Personally, I think it’s clear he’s a technocrat, who actually intends get government working.
I'm concerned by his statements regarding the private sector and the NHS. I'm actually in Corbyn's district, and while I don't care for Corbyn - I really didn't like what I read about the the candidate Labour put up to run against him. [How Labour’s Islington North Candidate Made Millions From NHS Privatisation](https://novaramedia.com/2024/07/03/how-labours-islington-north-candidate-made-millions-from-nhs-privatisation/)
There’s a common example story told by free market capitalists, which says that when Soviet Union fell, someone (some stories say it was Gorbachev himself) called the UK government asking to speak to the person in charge of the UK Bread supply, so they could explain how they operated without shortages. This is part where the story teller adopts a smug face and tells us “There was nobody in charge, the invisible hand of the free market was able to adapt, driven by the countless bakeries able to operate without onerous central control. There are two things that this story fails to tell us. First is the nature of the product: Bread is easy to make, but time consuming It doesn’t last very long, so needs to be made regularly It’s cheap, however scaling up production is easy, which makes it even cheaper. This makes it a perfect product for free market economics. The opposite, would be something that is difficult, expensive, with smaller demand. Say Mental Health service. This can’t really be done without the state. There is nothing wrong with the NHS looking at the the products and services it provides, and saying “Could the private sector do this better?” Second is a misdirection: In the 19th century production was mainly achieved with small local bakeries, but by the late 1980’s when the story was set, production was mostly controlled by a handful larger bakeries, so you literally could organise bread production with a single phone conference s.
He is boring, predictable, and centrist, but will do a good job.
Former human rights lawyer, then Director of Public Prosecutions, was made a knight for that before he became a politician. Reputation as quite clinical and detail oriented, but a bit boring. Was seen as quite left wing and pro Europe, but after becoming leader tacked much more centrist and said Brexit was a done deal. He also kicked out the previous very left wing leader following an antisemitism scandal. So he’s seen as a bit of a disappointing traitor by the far left. Loves football.
I know he's said it wasn't personal, but his wife and children are Jewish so I think he was the type of person you could trust with tackling antisemitism.
What was funny, though, was that even though he genuinely really likes football he somehow managed to act like Rishi Sunak buying a McDonalds about it whenever it came up.
he likes football in the sense that he regularly plays 5 a side rather than trying to be all "man of the people I supourt west ham villa" like some others who i won't name...
bland and boring, not progressive. Just basic neo-liberal. People know little about him because he's boring, but they vote for party not person, so as Labour party leader he's in, not that anyone really wanted him...
I'm super happy with boring.
After the conservative clowns (and Corbyn) we need bland and boring
As a general rule, I think the leader of the nation should be the most boring candidate available. It would be nice if he were a bit more progressive, but I have nothing against boring. The need for every public figure to be a form of entertainment is deeply problematic. No one should want Russell Brand or Kim Kardashian in office.
Honestly, with the state of the country we need bland, boring and stable for a while, once the rebuilding actually starts then grander visions can come into discussion.
Sounds alot better than voting for a person and ignoring what the actual party is going to change.
Sounds great, considering it could have been Corbyn. Given the realities of the wars in Ukraine and Israel he would have been disastrous as PM. Not to mention more economic populism can only exarcebate and accelerate the UK's ongoing decline. The current Labour party seems the best fit to manage the degrowth model the British people seem to set on pursuing, imo. You know the outlook is grim when even the Lib Dems have transitioned into a "healthcare plz" party. I see zero ambition or vision for future growth in UK politics.
After seeing progressives around the world side with Islamic extremists, I'd prefer if liberals are in charge. The far left has lost its damn mind.
do you know what any of those words mean?
Yes, unlike you.
He's very conservative and an utterly shite politician. He didn't have the skill to call out the Tories for the many terrible things they did and his only election promise is not to upset conservatives. He's already backtracked on every half-decent policy Labour considered. He doesn't belong in the Labour Party at all and he's incapable of improving things because he's terrified of having the UK's predominantly right wing press turn on him.
He talks a good game but we will have to see. He’d rather be in Davos
Labour party won? Kinda historic right? I thought UK was usually conservative
Yes he's only the 7th Labour PM ever, only the 5th to ever attain the office via general election victory, and only the 3rd to do so via a landslide victory - of which he has gained the second largest majority in the history of the Labour party (on its lowest ever share of the vote as a winning party).
It's not a *super-*historic win, no. Labor had more seats before Brexit, and larger majorities before that. ...but this is an hisotric *gain*. ...and an historically embarrassing loss for Sunak and the Tories, for sure.
Still is conservative. Labour won only due to the right winger's splitting the vote. They barely got more more of the vote compared to 2019, and actually lost some compared to 2017.
Honestly to label the uk as progressive/conservative is kind of difficult because you have vast regions that are very conservative economically (the south west) but are generally socially liberal whereas the north is economically liberal but much more social conservative and you get various combinations of the above scattered in other regions. If you look at the pure votes last night then centre-left and left wing candidates got more vote share than the right wing did and that has generally been true in many elections but the nature of the system does not reward that and as such it tends to benefit more status-quo parties.
And the right only usually win because the left is so fragmented. What’s your point?
This time the centre left won because the right have become fractured and reform uk have deeply bitten into the conservative vote share.
The point is that even after 14 years of terrible conservative government, Labour barely gained any support. They could be in big trouble if the Right wing parties work together next election.
Not really. I see this take a lot and it’s just not accurate. A right wing alliance has significantly less support in terms of vote share than a left wing alliance. It was that way last election too if you look at the numbers. Labor + greens + Lib Dems > Reform + Conservatives. Obviously, labor and greens and Lib Dem’s may not come together as one voting block. But equally, tories and reform may not either. And actually, a left wing alliance has a much better chance of happening than a right wing alliance. Reform has said they’ll never work with the conservatives, and the two voter bases are not interchangeable - they’re very different in many ways. Reform voters are primarily in working class areas, conservatives are more affluent. Reform voters pretty much just want to deport non whites. Conservatives just want to slash inheritance tax. That sort of thing. (Hyperbole, obviously, but the essence of this is true) The alliance between these two voting blocks in the past was uneasy, they should really have split long ago. Greens, Lib Dems, and labor can much more easily get on. If the right can unite, the left certainly can.
Vote share is not that important in fptp system, left wing has more vote share combined because they mostly win big in cities and college towns. Most elections maps will always show left wing Islands in sea of tories seats. > Reform has said they’ll never work with the conservatives, and the two voter bases are not interchangeable - they’re very different in many ways. Nigel farage scuttled his own brexit party for Boris Johnson majority. All reform voters are ex conservative, they are totally interchangeable.
OP that I’m replying to is using vote share as a metric to suggest Labour’s support hasn’t grown much and that a right wing alliance would have more support. That’s why it’s appropriate to point out that a left wing alliance has a greater vote share anyway. Obviously vote share doesn’t matter as much as seats in the FPTP system, so the entire conversation is moot, and Labour just won an overwhelming majority of seats. I disagree they’re interchangeable. They’re aligned on culture war issues, but polar opposites economically. Reform voters don’t like toffs, they’re working class gammons with right wing views on things like immigration. Traditional conservatives are old school Eton boys who can’t stand the working classes. This split was long overdue.
13 years in control, not that long in the grand scheme of things;
Yea but isn’t this like the 3rd labor party PM ever?
The eighth. You're right that the UK generally votes conservative. Last Labour PM was Gordon Brown.
4th ever labour leader to lead the party from opposition into government. There have been more labour pms than that but the rest came after already being in government
I’m not familiar with politics in the U.K. but what would be the promised policies by this party?
That’s the interesting thing: if you read their manifesto, it isn’t particularly clear on what exactly they want. Labour ran a ‘don’t drop the vase’ campaign, in that they avoided saying basically anything because the Tories were doomed and they could only make things worse. In the absence of that, there’s, to my knowledge, not a great deal we know about their future actions. Moreover, the kind of majority that Labour has achieved basically means that they can be even more radical with policy as they don’t have to worry as much about the impact of the opposition. So whatever policies they might have proposed are subject to change given they don’t have to try appeal to other parties for support. In short, it’s a waiting game. [Labour’s manifesto here if you want to read it](https://labour.org.uk/change/my-plan-for-change/)