English Chess Forum

David Robertson wrote: Thing Labour needs to understand is: doing well is fine, but things don't stand still. We know it: outbook your opponent in one game, but go down the same line in the next, then don't be surprised to find your opponent better prepped

They won't understand any of those things. In my opinion the Tories should get an new leader next week and call an election next month. Half of the PLP would be hoping they'd lose it ( not their own seats, of course ) so they can get back to the primary task of removing their leader. We have seen peak Corbyn - he ran a great campaign and the planets were aligned, but it isn't repeatable.

Nick Burrows wrote:I predict a labour government within 1 year.

Nick also predicted a hung parliament (and more firmly and before I did - I hedged my bets by saying somewhere between a reduced majority and a hung parliament). My prediction is that there will be another election within the next 2 years (maybe prompted by the Brexit negotiations and/or natural wastage of the razor-slim majority and/or some DUP madness). The result will edge things slightly further over towards Labour, as the political map continues to get redrawn, and eventually some form of genuine coalition government will emerge, but looking nothing like the one that governed from 2010-15.

NickFaulks wrote:

David Robertson wrote: Thing Labour needs to understand is: doing well is fine, but things don't stand still. We know it: outbook your opponent in one game, but go down the same line in the next, then don't be surprised to find your opponent better prepped

They won't understand any of those things. In my opinion the Tories should get an new leader next week and call an election next month. Half of the PLP would be hoping they'd lose it ( not their own seats, of course ) so they can get back to the primary task of removing their leader. We have seen peak Corbyn - he ran a great campaign and the planets were aligned, but it isn't repeatable.

That would be a gamble by the Tories, and look how the most recent gamble paid off.

(EDIT: May's address to Tory MPs seems to have gone down well. Time bought.)

Nick Burrows wrote:3. Labour were within 2000 votes of being the largest party and need around a 3.5% swing (I believe) for a majority.

This "Labour were within 2000 votes of being the largest party" statistic, which I've seen banded about a few times, is misleading at best, and nonsense at worst.

One of the possible assumptions is that if you took the seats that Labour lost by least, and gave them extra votes from people who didn't turn out, they would win the election. This assumes that 100% of the people who didn't turn out would vote Labour. I don't believe that assumption works.

The alternative basis would be Conservative voters who would vote Labour. I can't immediately find a news item that says that for Labour, but here's an equivalently poor Telegraph article making the same comment about being 400 votes short of a majority: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06 ... -majority/

The reason that I think this is poor, is that in order to persuade people, there might have needed to be a different policy, or a better explanation of some policy. That's fine, and it may win votes in certain seats. But that might lose votes in other seats.

Labour were about 750,000 votes behind the Conservatives. If they were going to be the largest party, then they need to overturn much nearer to 375,000 votes to have a reasonable mathematical chance of being the largest party. Yes, it's mathematically possible with 2,000 votes, but I'd suggest winning the lottery, or being killed by an asteroid, are much more likely.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:That would be a gamble by the Tories, and look how the most recent gamble paid off.

There's nothing wrong with gambling, you just shouldn't do it if you're crap at it.

David Sedgwick wrote:

Matthew Turner wrote:

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Predicting a hung parliament before the election just gone was relatively easy. Predicting the result of a new election in the next few months is much harder.

I disagree. Labour did better than most people expected for three reason
1. The Tories had a poor leader
2. The Tory manifesto was awful
3. People picked up on the fact that the labour leadership genuinely believed what they said.

Not sure any of these will apply a couple of months down the line, so a comfortable Conservative majority.

Why should Point 3 not still apply?

Because labour will think they can win an election, so your big beast will be back on the front bench Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umuna etc. You will have slicker tv interviews, but assuming labour has a similar manifesto, will voters believe that they believe what they are saying?

Matthew Turner wrote:assuming labour has a similar manifesto

Can't see how it can be avoided. Any row-back - say, on the absurd fiscally regressive tuition fees policy - risks alienating the munchkin vote. Any row-back on other 'free' stuff dents other support. And a row-back on nationalising stuff risks alienating their true socialist heartland amongst baby-boomer welfare state professionals. So more of the same. But more

Matthew Turner wrote:will voters believe that they believe what they are saying?

No. The idiocy of the Tory campaign strategy - idiocy with hindsight - was to attack man, not ball. Attacks on Corbyn bounced off once May was seen as useless. Next time, attacks will sensibly focus on Labour's 'moon-on-a-stick' economics unless Labour pitches intelligently at Tory vulnerabilities - poverty/food banks; crap jobs; crap housing market; cruel welfare; zero future for younger millions

Nick Burrows wrote:I predict a labour government within 1 year.

I can't find odds on this anywhere, but I'll give you 3/1.

David Robertson wrote:The Tories will not want to fight one any time soon. They have things to sort out:
...
* understanding what Labour did to keep themselves in the game

Labour did two key things:
1) Promised lots of "free stuff"
2) Accepted the referendum and in particular that "Brexit means Brexit" or in other words that they would exit the Single Market.

1) was particularly hard for the conservatives to counter because:
a) they were promising to take lots of free stuff away and
b) with the final date for paying off the deficit pushed out to 2025 (or eternity as far as young people are concerned) their normal economic argument of being the only adults in the room wouldn't wash and so wasn't tried.

2) was particularly significant because it meant that while blue UKIPers were coming home to the Tories so were red UKIPers to Labour. Meanwhile they also picked up votes from the more stupid remoaners who didn't understand that they were voting for a "leave" Labour party. A particularly incompetent LibDem party completely missed that one as those votes should by rights have gone to them and could have if only they had pointed out what was going on.

Brian Towers wrote:

David Robertson wrote:The Tories will not want to fight one any time soon. They have things to sort out:
...
* understanding what Labour did to keep themselves in the game

Labour did two key things:
1) Promised lots of "free stuff"
2) Accepted the referendum and in particular that "Brexit means Brexit" or in other words that they would exit the Single Market.

1) was particularly hard for the conservatives to counter because:
a) they were promising to take lots of free stuff away and
b) with the final date for paying off the deficit pushed out to 2025 (or eternity as far as young people are concerned) their normal economic argument of being the only adults in the room wouldn't wash and so wasn't tried.

2) was particularly significant because it meant that while blue UKIPers were coming home to the Tories so were red UKIPers to Labour. Meanwhile they also picked up votes from the more stupid remoaners who didn't understand that they were voting for a "leave" Labour party. A particularly incompetent LibDem party completely missed that one as those votes should by rights have gone to them and could have if only they had pointed out what was going on.

I guess if you're 20 points behind in the polls, it's easy to promise lots of free stuff. The worst that could happen is you might win!

The "Lib Dem fightback" never happened. They managed to go from 7.9% in 2015 to 7.4% in 2017. They increased their seats by 3. Farron wasn't a convincing winner of his own seat. I guess 40% of people who voted Remain weren't that into remaining after all.

I read that 50% of Remainers voted Labour; 62% of Leavers voted Tory

I think tactical voting may have reduced the Lib Dem vote, although maybe their campaign got swamped (or wasn't very good)

In Bury North, the Lib Dem candidate told voters to vote Labour (there were only 3 candidates, and the sitting Tory lost); it was the first time that Bury North didn't return a candidate of the winning party

Ah yes, "free stuff". This year's Labour manifesto was costed, the Tory one very much wasn't.

And if we go back two years, the Tory "offer" was basically bribing various interest groups (notably, but by no means just, the elderly)

Matt Mackenzie wrote:Ah yes, "free stuff". This year's Labour manifesto was costed, the Tory one very much wasn't.

The Conservative manifesto didn't appear to offer any big spending plans; it was if anything, doing the opposite. They were standing on a "trust us" ticket, with no real information about specifics on anything much coming forward. (At least, I don't recall many specifics being reported.) I guess if you're starting from a position with a 20-point poll lead, they probably thought that if they kept it bland and didn't turn people off them, they'd be alright.

Matt Mackenzie wrote:And if we go back two years, the Tory "offer" was basically bribing various interest groups (notably, but by no means just, the elderly)

Whereas this time the Labour offer was bribing the young. Isn't that how politicians trying to win elections work?

Wasn't the argument made that neither side was really able to come up with a sensible budget, because neither side knew what the effects of Brexit would be, and the various bills and payments relating to that? You could wave your hands and say that any Brexit bill could be paid for by "borrowing" from the future (or spread out over a number of years), but I didn't see any politicians actually saying that.

Definitely true. Still, look at the potential projected cost of the whole affair and if you talked honestly about it it'd make that Conservative manifesto look wonderfully upbeat!

Or for that matter admitting that you won't be able to do very much else other than sort out replacement laws etc for the next five years.