Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

GDB2222

CKhalvashi wrote: »

If Witney yesterday was repeated nationally, LD would be largest party by vote share this morning.

Maths on request.

Extraordinary that the party with the largest share of the vote would only have 80 seats. Anyway, it won't happen. LD always do better in bye-elections than general ones.

CKhalvashi

hjd wrote: »

You really can't extrapolate one constituency vote to cover the whole country - also depends on how impressive the individual candidates were and the nature of any protest vote against DC for bailing out.
You might as well do the same based on the Batley and Spen result!

GDB2222 wrote: »

Extraordinary that the party with the largest share of the vote would only have 80 seats. Anyway, it won't happen. LD always do better in bye-elections than general ones.

However with a slim Con majority at the moment, and with the current situation re EU, it would be just as easy for them to lose key seats as to gain.

I am aware it doesn't reflect to reality at all, and I'm not trying to tell anyone it will.

vivatifosi

CKhalvashi wrote: »

However with a slim Con majority at the moment, and with the current situation re EU, it would be just as easy for them to lose key seats as to gain.

I am aware it doesn't reflect to reality at all, and I'm not trying to tell anyone it will.

This morning on the news they asked whether there would be a general election next May.

By-elections are often outliers anyway. But even then these are two very unusual events. It is not very frequent that a Prime Minister resigns and leaves politics. It is thankfully even less frequent that a sitting MP is murdered. I don't think anything can be read into the result.

Prior to the murder of Jo Cox, the last MP who was murdered was Ian Gow, murdered by the IRA in 1990. Prior to that was the Brighton Bombing. Although Thatcher was deposed by Major, she chose not to stand at the General Election, rather than triggering a by election, so even further back.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Witney is the safest of safe Tory seats - it's never elected an MP from any other party since creation - so that they would win was never in doubt.

But that is a huge swing towards the Lib Dems...

The Tories got their slim majority at the last election mostly by taking a number of seats from the Lib Dems, not really by taking them from Labour, I suspect virtually all of those new seats would now be at risk if a GE were called tomorrow.

To balance that of course there would probably be greater numbers of Labour seats elsewhere at risk now with Corbyn in charge.

So I think she'd probably still increase her majority - but not by as much as previously thought.

An early election looks riskier today than it did yesterday for sure.

silvercar

Always a problem where to make your protest vote.

Can't vote for the government as you want to protest.

Can't vote Labour as either you hate Corbyn or are horrified by the disarray in the party.

So you vote LD, safe in the knowledge that it makes no difference.

Come a GE, everyone will remember that the LDs were the people that sacrificed all their principles for power. Ask the people who voted LD yesterday what their policies are and half won't know and the other half won't care.

vivatifosi

Looking at the candidate profiles, I can see why the Lib Dem did so well. Helping save the local hospital from closure is always going to be a popular move:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/witney-by-election-when-is-it-and-who-will-replace-david-cameron/

michaels

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

An early election looks riskier today than it did yesterday for sure.

This was my thought - I was expecting ay to announce her EU negotiating position, trigger article 50 and call an election next spring to get a mandate, a bigger majority and longer before a contested election. However I have no idea if she has the cojones to give up 3 years certain power for a shot at 5 years.

One argument for not going to the country sooner is that it prolongs JCs leadership, why battle labour in disarray in 2017 if you can do it instead in 2020?

chris_m

I do apologise, I must have come here by mistake thinking it was the Nice People thread not the daily politics one:(

CKhalvashi

chris_m wrote: »

I do apologise, I must have come here by mistake thinking it was the Nice People thread not the daily politics one:(

Sorry Chris, I'll be quiet now

Pyxis

I thought anything could be discussed, or are there exceptions?
It seemed just like general discussion of a topical event to me.
Are politics banned from the thread?