Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Just the other day, it was confirmed that the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 has been repealed, as Royal Assent has been given to the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022.

This means that Johnson can now call a general election any time he likes, with a minimum of only 25 days notice.

So I think this new thread is warranted.

Watch this space, Mailwatchers.

I think it's very likely he'll try it, the opportunistic bastard.

Now, if only Sunny Jim had gone to the country in the autumn of 1978, as he was advised to do...

If he sees a chance, he’ll definitely go for it. If he’s still there after the Met’s Partygate report is eventually published.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 3:58 pm If he sees a chance, he’ll definitely go for it. If he’s still there after the Met’s Partygate report is eventually published.

I'm sure the Partygate report is destined to be made into firelighter briquettes for poor people - sorry, "hard working families".

I can’t see how he gets a majority like he has now, then again losing some of the awkward squad of red wall seats might be what he wants.

Though if I’m honest if he goes now and the way the polls built in the don’t knows back into their polling I’m not sure he even gets a majority.

Another law quietly repealed while nobody was looking.

Question: how many gains do we think Labour will need to make at the next election in order for Starmer to be safe as leader?

I’m thinking a minimum of around fifty or so seats would just about suffice. The Corbynites would probably still launch some sort of challenge, but I don’t think they’d get very far this time, especially with a few dozen brand new Labour MPs to factor into the party arithmetic.

davidjay wrote:Another law quietly repealed while nobody was looking.

TBF, it was a fairly ineffectual law as pretty much all the parties, bar the SNP, wanted the snap election in 2017, and the act itself was completely bypassed in 2019 with rushed legislation.

Arrowhead wrote:Question: how many gains do we think Labour will need to make at the next election in order for Starmer to be safe as leader?

I’m thinking a minimum of around fifty or so seats would just about suffice. The Corbynites would probably still launch some sort of challenge, but I don’t think they’d get very far this time, especially with a few dozen brand new Labour MPs to factor into the party arithmetic.

50 MP's would be quite a bit of a slog though, wouldn't it, as practically they would all have to be English seats. Personally, any gains that dented or removed the Tories majority (and I think we'd have to rely on the Lib Dems for that) would be fine by me. After 2019 I didn't expect Labour to get within a snifter of government until the latter part of the decade anyway.

Unless/until Scottish voters decide they've had enough of Sturgeon I'm struggling to see Labour governing. The best chance would be to elect a leader with a northern or Scottish background, someone their target voters can be identify with. London QC Starmer is not that person. I was happy when he took over but now,? Nah, he'll never be PM. Burnham has provided better opposition than Starmer over the past two years. He's taken the Government on publicly. He stands up for his city and the wider North West area. I could see him pulling in votes from Scotland.

The FTPA was an odd one in the first place. It used to be that a confident government would go to the country after 4 years (or sometimes 3), or if less confident would pull a snap election to wrong-foot the opposition. Only when the incumbents knew they were toast would they hang on to the last minute (e.g. Major in 1997). Also, if it were that easy to bypass, why bother in the first place? Seems to be another bit of Cameron/Osborne wizardry - pretend there's a problem, come up with a flashy sounding solution, run around saying "look what we did!"*.

*See also, Police & Crime Commissioners, "Localism", Brexit etc...

Arrowhead wrote: ↑Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:57 pm Question: how many gains do we think Labour will need to make at the next election in order for Starmer to be safe as leader?

The memes will be anchored around "20 points ahead" so however many that will get.

Then again, nothing will satisfy them as they supposedly won the argument.

Even if we got a 1997-scale result they'd still spin it as the media/big business/Establishment only let it happen because hur hur hur I said Keith is a Tory.

200 MPs was enough for Len McLuskey in 2017, of course 300 won’t be enough for any Labour leader they don’t support.

I’m with AOB on I don’t think Starmer will ever be PM, I also don’t think we should be considering Burnham mind, it’s very easy to show opposition as Mayor. One person who i do think could take it on and run with it is Lisa Nandy.

mattomac wrote: ↑Tue Mar 29, 2022 7:32 pm 200 MPs was enough for Len McLuskey in 2017, of course 300 won’t be enough for any Labour leader they don’t support.

I’m with AOB on I don’t think Starmer will ever be PM, I also don’t think we should be considering Burnham mind, it’s very easy to show opposition as Mayor. One person who i do think could take it on and run with it is Lisa Nandy.

I’ve tipped Bridget Phillipson as a future Labour leader and PM, and happy to do so again.

Well, things have moved on since this thread was opened in March. Johnson is gone, Brenda is broon breid, and we have King Chas and Prime Minister Thick Lizzie.

If anything, I now think that an early election is even more likely.
I think the Tories realise that they are going to lose big, that Truss and Kwarteng's gamble on stimulating growth through more borrowing is about to crash and burn spectacularly, They are mostly resigned to it, though there may well be some thinking about scorched earth tactics in order to hand Labour a poisoned chalice and perhaps bounce back after a single Labour term.

An interesting notion that has occurred to me concerns Scots voters. Labour can win without making substantial seat gains in Scotland, but it will obviously be better if it could make a few gains. Might it not be beyond the bounds of possibility that enough Scots voters will look beyond their apparent SNP fixation and consider what they can, and should, do to make sure that the UK gets a desperately needed change of government ?

I'm still of the opinion that the huge LAB>SNP switch post 2014 Indyref is a far bigger drag on Labour's electoral chances than has been given attention, probably mostly down to the way Brexit has drowned out everything else.

Scottish Labour ought to be able to win back a small handful of seats (e.g. Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, East Lothian, Glasgow North East, Midlothian) at the next GE without too much of a swing being needed, and are reasonably well-placed in a few others. If, by the time of the next GE, it still looks as if the Tories are set for a kicking by Labour then I guess it's not inconceivable that Scottish voters will decide to join in the fun as well.

At least it seems like Anas Sarwar is making some reasonable headway - he could hardly do any worse than the utterly anonymous Richard Leonard.

Anas Sarwar is the perfect leader up there, he has played it very well so far, very complimentary of Starmer but very much his own man, Brown being involved in Labour again will always appeal to a fair few types.

There is a sizeable vote that still won’t vote independence but would like the ability to effectively be their own country and it’s that sizeable vote Labour should be keen to exploit, it’s also ironically where PR in your manifesto might benefit you. I saw one shadow lead say we need to offer something to everyone and something sizeable, I know the Renters stuff is an improved version of Gove’s (like it was ever going get through;) with better security but it’s certainly the policy I’m most happy about from a personal viewpoint.

Sometimes we worry about the Tories stealing our ideas so nice to see the opposite and it’s a sizeable chunk of the population and if you get them now, like the right to buy you’ll get them for life even if they end up buying.

Anyhow I realised that it’s the first time in my political awareness lifetime that Labour have appeared 15/17 points ahead in polls, yes outliers but this stuff was on the back end of the mourning period.

The last 5 days will have hardly shifted anyone surely.

The YouGov poll may well be an outlier, but just for fun:

Remember 1992? The Tory government under their newly elected leader John Major managed to contrive a monumental sterling crisis, losing £3.14 billion pounds in a futile attempt to stop the pound from crashing out of the European Exchange Rate mechanism.The effect politically was that the Tories’ reputation for economic competence was almost permanently trashed. It was still not recovered even 5 years afterwards, when at the general election of 1997, an astutely led and positioned resurgent Labour Party under Tony Blair was elected to government in the famous landslide victory.

Now, I’m not really one for subscribing to notions of history repeating itself, but the parallels are there. A barely competent Tory government with an ideologically cluless PM and Chancellor presiding over a catastrophic sterling crisis, caused directly by its own policy decisions. People’s mortgages, homes and pensions in real jeopardy. A huge opinion poll lead opening up for an again resurgent Labour party now once again astutely led and positioned to become the UK’s new government when the election imminently comes.

To re-coin an old phrase, things can only get better. Can’t they ?

It's certainly been a "Lucky General" week for Mr Starmer.

The stars have aligned in the Tories committing a massive self harm, and him delivering an extremely statesmanlike speech at conference.

Meanwhile the Tories have only got:
* A Labour dissed a black man (Will that even engage with their membership?)
* Queen statue, but Labour won't let us.
* A gibbering berk on Question Time. "It'll all settle down in a few weeks". Even Fiona Bruce's finest bodyguard act couldn't redeem him.