Snap General Election called

[paddy no 11]

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... montenegro]

Might be better if he just buggers off back to Eastern Europe:

He was with Farage on the night of the Brexit referendum when he sensed a gambling opportunity. “At 10pm, I couldn’t believe I was still getting 9/1 [for a majority leave vote],” he told the Telegraph newspaper afterwards. “We were in our campaign office and I was tracking all the major stock indices, the dollar and pound currency markets. When it got to 3am, I was getting my managers out of bed to get me another 50 grand on here, another 50 grand there, to short sterling. I just couldn’t help myself.”

Cottrell claimed to have won a six-figure sum from shorting the pound but said he promptly “lost most of it the next day” on a horse.

It's ridiculous what people have to put up with, constantly under threat from criminals and sociopaths

[Son of Mathonwy]

[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... montenegro]

Might be better if he just buggers off back to Eastern Europe:

He was with Farage on the night of the Brexit referendum when he sensed a gambling opportunity. “At 10pm, I couldn’t believe I was still getting 9/1 [for a majority leave vote],” he told the Telegraph newspaper afterwards. “We were in our campaign office and I was tracking all the major stock indices, the dollar and pound currency markets. When it got to 3am, I was getting my managers out of bed to get me another 50 grand on here, another 50 grand there, to short sterling. I just couldn’t help myself.”

Cottrell claimed to have won a six-figure sum from shorting the pound but said he promptly “lost most of it the next day” on a horse.

It's ridiculous what people have to put up with, constantly under threat from criminals and sociopaths

https://grammarist.com/proverb/a-man-is ... -he-keeps/

[Son of Mathonwy]

Hilariously tepid support for Labour from the Sun:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... l-election

A mark of shame for Labour though, if the Sun supports you, you must be doing plenty wrong.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Please God, not more PFI for the NHS:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/art ... -hospitals
https://www.ippr.org/media-office/nhs-h ... 0bn%20bill
(And this report was written when interest rates were much lower. God knows what the PFI payments are now.)

I fully expect Streeting to do this, under a different name of course.

[Which Tyler]

Expected time frames tonight.
Highlights:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/04/what-time-will-we-know-who-won-hour-by-hour-guide-election-night-2024

All constituencies estimated declarations:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-declaration-times-when-results-areas-constituencies-b1168547.html


Whether I stay up all night will depend on:
A] What tomorrow's work diary looks like when I leave this evening.
B] My actual capacity to stay awake (my insomnia's been playing up recently, and I'm overdue a crash).

[Which Tyler]

"Poll of polls"
https://inews.co.uk/news/election-2024- ... ed-3137011
It's the Independent, so you can usually bypass the paywall by hitting refresh, and stop

ETA: Okay, that tactic only works for a minute or so; here's the archive (obviously, no interactive elements):
https://archive.ph/skWeL

[Sandydragon]

Hilariously tepid support for Labour from the Sun:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... l-election

A mark of shame for Labour though, if the Sun supports you, you must be doing plenty wrong.

The Sun editors hate Starmer. But they always want to be on the winning side.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Expected time frames tonight.
Highlights:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/04/what-time-will-we-know-who-won-hour-by-hour-guide-election-night-2024

All constituencies estimated declarations:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-declaration-times-when-results-areas-constituencies-b1168547.html


Whether I stay up all night will depend on:
A] What tomorrow's work diary looks like when I leave this evening.
B] My actual capacity to stay awake (my insomnia's been playing up recently, and I'm overdue a crash).

I think I'll go to bed after the exit polls come out, put BBC on record, then get up at 5 to watch it at high speed.

[Puja]

"Poll of polls"
https://inews.co.uk/news/election-2024- ... ed-3137011
It's the Independent, so you can usually bypass the paywall by hitting refresh, and stop

ETA: Okay, that tactic only works for a minute or so; here's the archive (obviously, no interactive elements):
https://archive.ph/skWeL

Literally zero "Safe" or "Very Probable" Tory seats

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

"Poll of polls"
https://inews.co.uk/news/election-2024- ... ed-3137011
It's the Independent, so you can usually bypass the paywall by hitting refresh, and stop

ETA: Okay, that tactic only works for a minute or so; here's the archive (obviously, no interactive elements):
https://archive.ph/skWeL

Literally zero "Safe" or "Very Probable" Tory seats

Puja

Unfortunately only one of those polls has the Tories down to 3rd place. But there'll be a hell of a lot of Portillo moments.

[Puja]

"Poll of polls"
https://inews.co.uk/news/election-2024- ... ed-3137011
It's the Independent, so you can usually bypass the paywall by hitting refresh, and stop

ETA: Okay, that tactic only works for a minute or so; here's the archive (obviously, no interactive elements):
https://archive.ph/skWeL

Literally zero "Safe" or "Very Probable" Tory seats

Puja

Unfortunately only one of those polls has the Tories down to 3rd place. But there'll be a hell of a lot of Portillo moments.

Yeah, I think Reform's latest PR failures of saying the quiet bit out loud, combined with general regression to the mean and the Tories' "supermajority" bullshit, has killed the dream of the Lib Dems overtaking them. It was always a long shot, albeit a hilarious one.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Literally zero "Safe" or "Very Probable" Tory seats

Puja

Unfortunately only one of those polls has the Tories down to 3rd place. But there'll be a hell of a lot of Portillo moments.

Yeah, I think Reform's latest PR failures of saying the quiet bit out loud, combined with general regression to the mean and the Tories' "supermajority" bullshit, has killed the dream of the Lib Dems overtaking them. It was always a long shot, albeit a hilarious one.

Puja

As a consolation, it'll be nice to listen to them trying to create a noise in the Commons when there's less than 100 of them.

[Son of Mathonwy]

"Poll of polls"
https://inews.co.uk/news/election-2024- ... ed-3137011
It's the Independent, so you can usually bypass the paywall by hitting refresh, and stop

ETA: Okay, that tactic only works for a minute or so; here's the archive (obviously, no interactive elements):
https://archive.ph/skWeL

Nice to see those bastards eradicated from Wales.

[Sandydragon]

Literally zero "Safe" or "Very Probable" Tory seats

Puja

Unfortunately only one of those polls has the Tories down to 3rd place. But there'll be a hell of a lot of Portillo moments.

Yeah, I think Reform's latest PR failures of saying the quiet bit out loud, combined with general regression to the mean and the Tories' "supermajority" bullshit, has killed the dream of the Lib Dems overtaking them. It was always a long shot, albeit a hilarious one.

Puja

Reform might have droped a couple of points as a result of some of its less PR friendly candidates being honest. Im still amazed that some of the candidates were surprised that they shared a party with a bunch of racists. I suppose the Farage effect has affected them too.

It will be a huge ask for the Lib Dems to make second place. Im guessing 100-120 Conservative MPs will be left. The big issue will be which MPs and if there's a large clutch of righ wing tories then they are likely to reexamine the ideological nonsense of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which will reduce the effectiveness of them in opposition. There has to be an opposition party and its better for everyone if its not totally batshit crazy.

[Puja]

Unfortunately only one of those polls has the Tories down to 3rd place. But there'll be a hell of a lot of Portillo moments.

Yeah, I think Reform's latest PR failures of saying the quiet bit out loud, combined with general regression to the mean and the Tories' "supermajority" bullshit, has killed the dream of the Lib Dems overtaking them. It was always a long shot, albeit a hilarious one.

Puja

Reform might have droped a couple of points as a result of some of its less PR friendly candidates being honest. Im still amazed that some of the candidates were surprised that they shared a party with a bunch of racists. I suppose the Farage effect has affected them too.

It will be a huge ask for the Lib Dems to make second place. Im guessing 100-120 Conservative MPs will be left. The big issue will be which MPs and if there's a large clutch of righ wing tories then they are likely to reexamine the ideological nonsense of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which will reduce the effectiveness of them in opposition. There has to be an opposition party and its better for everyone if its not totally batshit crazy.

I suspect that there is probably a bit of truth to the Reform screeching that their candidates were being offered jobs and inducements to abandon ship - I'd be surprised if two Reform candidates independently realised across two days that the racism was coming from inside of the house and decided the only thing to do was to publically support the notably completely unracist Conservative party.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

I think I'll go to bed after the exit polls come out, put BBC on record, then get up at 5 to watch it at high speed.

Ewww, Kuenssberg

[Sandydragon]

Yeah, I think Reform's latest PR failures of saying the quiet bit out loud, combined with general regression to the mean and the Tories' "supermajority" bullshit, has killed the dream of the Lib Dems overtaking them. It was always a long shot, albeit a hilarious one.

Puja

Reform might have droped a couple of points as a result of some of its less PR friendly candidates being honest. Im still amazed that some of the candidates were surprised that they shared a party with a bunch of racists. I suppose the Farage effect has affected them too.

It will be a huge ask for the Lib Dems to make second place. Im guessing 100-120 Conservative MPs will be left. The big issue will be which MPs and if there's a large clutch of righ wing tories then they are likely to reexamine the ideological nonsense of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which will reduce the effectiveness of them in opposition. There has to be an opposition party and its better for everyone if its not totally batshit crazy.

I suspect that there is probably a bit of truth to the Reform screeching that their candidates were being offered jobs and inducements to abandon ship - I'd be surprised if two Reform candidates independently realised across two days that the racism was coming from inside of the house and decided the only thing to do was to publically support the notably completely unracist Conservative party.

Puja

So UKIP didn't tempt away Tory MPs back in the day? All fair in love and war.

That said the public facade has dropped a bit. When it's just Farage, the darker side of Reform is pretty well hidden. Mostly. With hundreds of candidates, many of whom will be the village idiot, there will inevitably be a bunch of total fruitcakes on display and the media will pick up on idiotic comments.

[Which Tyler]

Especially when the company hired to vet the candidates explicitly state "we are not a vetting company, we will not vet your candidates, we provide a platform for you to vet your candidates"

[Son of Mathonwy]

I think I'll go to bed after the exit polls come out, put BBC on record, then get up at 5 to watch it at high speed.

Ewww, Kuenssberg

Yeah I will be using fast-forward a lot.

[Which Tyler]

I'm thinking either GB"News" for pure comedy value, or C4 with Maitliss, Stewart, Guru-Murthy and Newman.
Downside of Dories, but she'll be mostly comedy value as well.

[Which Tyler]

Just a warning Re: Drinking games.

The tories are expected to lose a couple of hundred seats, possibly even as high as 288.
If someone is expecting to take a shot for every tory loss; you'd be expecting to drink a dozen (and up to 17) bottles of spirits.
Even a game involving a finger of beer could be drinking 2-dozen pints... in 7 hours.

Is someone suggests making a drinking game of things tonight, they may be trying to kill you.

[Zhivago]

Just a warning Re: Drinking games.

The tories are expected to lose a couple of hundred seats, possibly even as high as 288.
If someone is expecting to take a shot for every tory loss; you'd be expecting to drink a dozen (and up to 17) bottles of spirits.
Even a game involving a finger of beer could be drinking 2-dozen pints... in 7 hours.

Is someone suggests making a drinking game of things tonight, they may be trying to kill you.

Would not be the first person the Tories killed

[Sandydragon]

Just a warning Re: Drinking games.

The tories are expected to lose a couple of hundred seats, possibly even as high as 288.
If someone is expecting to take a shot for every tory loss; you'd be expecting to drink a dozen (and up to 17) bottles of spirits.
Even a game involving a finger of beer could be drinking 2-dozen pints... in 7 hours.

Is someone suggests making a drinking game of things tonight, they may be trying to kill you.

Almost as lethal as the star wars drinking game. ‘Anyone in fancy dress’ is a right b*stard

[Sandydragon]

Unfortunately only one of those polls has the Tories down to 3rd place. But there'll be a hell of a lot of Portillo moments.

Yeah, I think Reform's latest PR failures of saying the quiet bit out loud, combined with general regression to the mean and the Tories' "supermajority" bullshit, has killed the dream of the Lib Dems overtaking them. It was always a long shot, albeit a hilarious one.

Puja

Reform might have droped a couple of points as a result of some of its less PR friendly candidates being honest. Im still amazed that some of the candidates were surprised that they shared a party with a bunch of racists. I suppose the Farage effect has affected them too.

It will be a huge ask for the Lib Dems to make second place. Im guessing 100-120 Conservative MPs will be left. The big issue will be which MPs and if there's a large clutch of righ wing tories then they are likely to reexamine the ideological nonsense of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which will reduce the effectiveness of them in opposition. There has to be an opposition party and its better for everyone if its not totally batshit crazy.

My estimate could be quite close of the exit poll is right.

[Banquo]

reform predicted for 13....libdems plus 53.

%votes will be fascinating