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!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
It's time to see if the polls are right.
Previously: the voting megathread
First Past the Post, everybody:
That's:
The two largest parties got less than 60% of the national vote but over 80% of seats. FPTP is preventing us from being what we are: a multi party democracy.
I'm watching the BBC program, currently just discussing the exit poll before any official results.
Exit poll shows conservatives losing 241 seats, Labour landslide predicted with 410 seats. Not a huge surprise, but a welcome start.
I did find it entertaining that the labour guest in the show is congratulating Kier Starmer and Co. On a job well done, when really this is almost entirely caused by Tory self destruction.
here is the entire exit poll for everyone interested btw:
Peter Mandelson? I think he had a point in that Starmer has changed the party from unelectable with Corbyn (which sadly, they were) to a more than realistic prospect for a sensible alternative to the Tories.
You're right of course that the Conservatives have utterly fucked the pooch (not to mention the country) but Starmer has nonetheless made a massive change in making the party palatable to many, many more people (not that I personally agree with quite a lot of his policies and policy reversals)
Just seen Count Binface arrive for the count, shit just got real.
Ree Smog is out! I repeat, Ree Smog is out!
Yes, despite many leftists decrying Labour's centreward shift, I think this is a good result. This result was helped by that shift in no small part.
Starmer is very well spoken and his morning after speech does well to inspire confidence.
I'm in maidstone, as blue as it gets. i'll be watching everyone else turn red with envy
NW Cambridgeshire here, it's never been anything but Blue since it's formation, I still doubt it would change.
I'm not too far away and I'm hoping the area has some common sense, it's always blue here as well. Although my wife said many votes have been lost as some people didn't know about voter ID. Bloody Tories, it hasnt helped here though has it!
I've just switched over to watch Sky News' feed on YouTube. The allow chat, which for a serious news organisation is absolutely wild to me.
And the chatters are absolutely insane. Not in a good way. There's no attempt to discuss anything, just people spamming "💙💙 REFORM IS RISING 💙💙" and "🟥🟥 Labour Forever 🟥🟥🟥🟥". And weirdest of all, many variations on "netherite helmet trim".
Wtf does netherite helmet trim mean?
Minecraft.
And the chatters are absolutely insane. Not in a good way. There’s no attempt to discuss anything, just people spamming “💙💙 REFORM IS RISING 💙💙”
Reform have an online army that swarms comment threads. Not sure how many of them are based in Russia.
Looks like Reform got a lot of votes despite not getting many seats. Those nasty cunts aren’t going to shut up about this for the next 4 years.
Not really a bad thing. Reform plus the Lib Dems attacking fptp. Means both right and right of centre. (Pretty much the only views available under fptp ). Will have strong options for voters to switch vote and split the fptp possibility of a win for them. This may end up the final option that forces PR of some form.
Honestly, as close as both sides are. It's the first time both the government and the opposition has had parties truly risking a future split in the vote.
This is as late as I can stand. I'll check back in the morning for the final scores. If it was anything resembling a closer election I might have stayed up. I'm hoping the exit poll has over estimated the tories and reform, with a few extra opposition parties.
So looking forward to the next five years...
Looking at how Reform and Lib Dems made significant gains in vote share you have to wonder if its still worth Labour chasing after the right wing vote that Reform achieved. I just do not see the where the voters who voted Reform actually believe Starmer on the key issues that Reform campaigned on, immigration, anti "woke", and Brexit. I cannot see Labour ever gaining the lead on those issues over someone like Farage who will always position himself to the right of whatever Labour or the Tories campaign on. I cant even see Labour being trusted at the voting booth on these right wing issues over a rebuilt Tory party. Its a fools errand to try.
The Lib Dem vote share, as with Reform, boosted by previous Tory voters but Lib Dems campaigned on almost the opposite of Reform (with some tactical, local, NIMBYism) and achieved way more seats on a lower overall percentage vote than Reform. If you are going to pick a direction to go in, wouldn't it make more sense to move towards the Lib Dems position to shore up in time for the next election?
Labour did worse total percentage of the vote than 2017, its more that the Tories collapsed losing about 20% of their vote that caused this swing in seats. The Tories will rally next time around and a lot of the seats look winnable for them with only a small local swing. The current stance of Labour simply isn't popular enough to be a vote winner against a rebuilt Tory party.
As an Australian, I have to once again apologise on behalf of my nation for the turd in a tuxedo that is Rupert Murdoch.
Jacob Rees Mogg suggesting Conservatives were demolished because they weren't far right enough. Interviewer says "don't you think maybe it's because you let down the centre?" And Mogg is like "no way. Maggy Thatcher is based."
😬
I mean, I hate him, but he's right. Reform are basically the newest farage far right party, so the rabid nazis of britain aren't satisfied with the bullshit the tories are serving up.
EDIT : they got fed up of still seeing ethnic minorities after brexit, and don't want to vote for an ethnic minority for prime minister. It's disgusting.
Labours majority is huge but vulnerable. It's clear that Reform bled millions of votes away from the Tories.
It blows my mind that Tory candidates get even a single vote. Who's voting for them?!
And reform, its bloody terrifing seeing them get so much support
Yup. They've been coming second in most results so far. Not sure how much of it is a protest vote against the big two or people like their policies.
Anyone got that link that recalculates the results of the GE by different voting systems? For example if we had a form of PR how would this election turned out? I swear it was posted here a few days ago.
Direct proportional representation is easy enough. Just look at the number of votes each party got, and assign that percentage to their overall parliamentary representation. That roughly gives you the answer.
IRV is more interesting, but more complicated. It relies on some assumptions (e.g. Green, SNP, LibDem, Labour all preference each other 100%, Conservatives & Reform preference each other 100%) and takes a lot of effort to do on a seat-by-seat basis. And of course it all assumes ceteris paribus, when in actuality people would vote differently if the voting system were different.
As one example, here's the seat of Tatton:
Under IRV, with the above assumptions, Labour's Ryan Jude would have won with 26,005 votes to Conservative Esther McVey's 25,904. But tweak those assumptions just slightly (give 90% of LibDem votes to Labour, 10% to Conservatives) and it could go the other way (26,365 CON to 25,544 LAB). There are dozens or scores of seats where these sorts of interesting hypotheticals can be asked and analysed. IRV is actually, in my opinion, the next-worst voting system after FPTP (if you exclude weird and rarely-used ones like approval voting, range voting, etc.), but it's one of the most interesting to do analysis with.
STV is an utterly impossible comparison to make, because it relies on multi-seat electorates, which would probably be done by merging existing electorates into groups of 3–8. STV is a more generalised case of IRV so if you decided on how to do those merges, then you can get even more interesting analysis. As one example, if we imagine a merged electorate involving West Ham, East Ham, Ilford North, Ilford South, Leyton & Wanstead, and Stratford & Bow. Some assumptions are necessary to make this work, my assumption is that anyone whose party name says "workers" or "socialist" preferences Green and then Labour, while those mentioning religion preference Conservative, and if I don't know, I'm giving them to LibDems then Labour. I'm also assuming all voters for a named party vote as a block, preferencing the same candidate 1st, 2nd, etc., while independents get the votes as they were actually given. This is somewhat realistic because ballot paper design can be set up to encourage this in an STV context (see how Australia does it with "above the line" voting in the Senate, for an example). I've merged the minor parties named "workers" or "socialist" into a single party.
A detailed explanation of my calculation is contained here.
In our merged hypothetical under STV, they win 3.03 quotas on first preference, Conservative wins 0.88, Reform 0.41, LibDem 0.28, Green 0.78. So Labour immediately win 3 seats, before 0.03 quotas are distributed lower down in their party. After numerous more rounds (my attached spreadsheet simplifies multiple rounds that by eye would obviously not result in a new quota being reached being merged down into 1), the LibDems win a quota. I've decided to distribute their excess 50/50 to Green and Conservative, since Labour has already been eliminated. To be frank, after that I'm not sure what to do. LibDems having been eliminated, the 3 remaining independents can't go to them as was my initial plan (the basic thinking being independents are probably more centrist, but LibDems and Labour being eliminated already. I've decided to give them 50/50 to Conservative and Green, but the reality could be so, so much more complex. After one of those is eliminated, Conservatives get a quota. One final independent distributed to Conservatives/Green and the Greens win the last quota.
This is Labour heartland and in FPTP Labour won all 6 of these seats. My calculation ends up with 3 Labour, 1 LibDem, 1 Conservative, and 1 Green.
MMP ends up with basically the same overall result as direct proportional, but can be interesting in terms of independents & very minor parties and resulting overhang seats.
Aww, Sunak retains.
Also, the ITV guy referred to Count Binface as "Mister". The disrespect. 😞
The entire C4 panel laughed at Nadine when she just couldn't stop talking about Boris Johnson
The fuck happened in Leicester East that it's the sole Con gain in the country?
Starting the day and seeing Rees snob, grant schnapps and penny mordor are out.
Feels like a good start to the day
Oh and Liz snubbed
Quick question - does anyone have the link to that "Tories being voted out" bingo card website? It was posted a few days ago, but I can't find it.
Not a website, but here's a (low res, sorry) bingo card:
Happy to see the Tories get obliterated, but not feeling confident about the incoming Labour government. The fact that a bunch of Tories defected to them and they were endorsed by the Sun is a bad sign IMO.
After seeing the first few results come in, my main worry is how Starmer's Labour will react to the rise of Reform. If Labour cannot visibly begin to turn things around, and they also fail to effectively counter the building populist undercurrent, we could be heading for some dark times.
We will have to see what exactly Starmer's Labour will actually do once it has power.
Two Tories defected to them, and neither of them were standing for election this time, it was just a gesture against Sunak (although I do wish Labour had told them to fuck off).
And as for the S*n, they just put their weight behind whoever is going to win.
Labour and Starmer are far from perfect, but I think they will be far better, even if just from a competence and basic human decency standpoint.
And as for the S*n, they just put their weight behind whoever is going to win.
I was a bit surprised the S*n did switch to Labour. From what I've heard there still a grudge amongst Murdoch and his minions towards Starmer, due the prosecutions he pursued as DPP during the phone hacking scandal.
I love this guy's expression.
Gosh what an absolute bloodbath for the Tories. While I knew the Tories would lose and massively and that Reform would have impact I didn't think this is beyond what I was expecting.
