[Nigredo]

Yebbut Beer Korma said he'd be 20 points clear

[Tubby Isaacs]

Genius here from an old Corbynite favourite. Maybe some of the people campaigning aren't in the photo, Heather?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Well something is clearly cutting through. 11 points clear!

Probably a bit high on the Labour side, though they got 43 with Redfield and Wilton yesterday.

[Youngian]

This should worry the Tories as the Green protest vote surge has dipped but its not going back to the Tories

[Youngian]

Genius here from an old Corbynite favourite. Maybe some of the people campaigning aren't in the photo, Heather?

She’s away with the fairies

[Abernathy]

Well, Mendick certainly isn't in the picture, and was never likely to be.

[davidjay]

Yebbut Beer Korma said he'd be 20 points clear

Ooooh Beer Korma. That's really funny.

[mattomac]

She’s saying the Labour right, when in fact it’s most of the party politely suggesting you wouldn’t go out in teams of more than 6 anyhow.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Right is anyone who isn't Corbynite.

[mattomac]

Apparently twenty points ahead in Wakefield, only Starmer getting a fine could save that though knowingly choosing a suspected peadophile last time out will still probably tip it against the Tories.

[Youngian]

Apparently twenty points ahead in Wakefield, only Starmer getting a fine could save that though knowingly choosing a suspected peadophile last time out will still probably tip it against the Tories.

15 per cent of the Tory protest vote going to the LDs and Greens instead of switching to Labour, shows the party has more work to do. Or it this where they aimed to be? Like the Biden candidacy could skim off a small section of Trump voters to flip marginals but never anticipated a mass swing in four years.

[Arrowhead]

These Tory-to-Green switchers always fascinate me. We seem to be seeing quite a lot of it in some parts of the country right now, in terms of local elections anyway.

I wonder what the motivation is? Political snobbery getting in the way of voting for a Labour candidate for the first time? I’m hugely sceptical these switchers are motivated by a sudden, new-found concern for the environment.

[Andy McDandy]

I've met a few, especially in country areas. Rich, don't like paying taxes, but have a social consciousness and like things to be nice, thank you. Not much time for slash and burn nutters prepared to concrete over the countryside because they don't personally use it.

[davidjay]

I think it's probably the protest vote that used to go to the Liberals, but they're a bit unfashionable now.

[Youngian]

I think it's probably the protest vote that used to go to the Liberals,

And then UKIP but they’re the government now. Greens have been picking up councillors in post industrial towns as well as leafy Tory areas.

[mattomac]

Apparently twenty points ahead in Wakefield, only Starmer getting a fine could save that though knowingly choosing a suspected peadophile last time out will still probably tip it against the Tories.

15 per cent of the Tory protest vote going to the LDs and Greens instead of switching to Labour, shows the party has more work to do. Or it this where they aimed to be? Like the Biden candidacy could skim off a small section of Trump voters to flip marginals but never anticipated a mass swing in four years.

I think considering the Tories had an 80 seat majority and now we are talking of Labour short by less than a dozen seats it is an unprecedented turn around in politics or will be if it happens, you have to factor in those who didn’t vote to those who won’t vote this time, the likelihood is the Labour vote will be more likely to vote and the Tory core vote less likely. But maybe the country is so divided that effectively you are just chasing 20% of voters at any given election like in America where Biden tapped up the floating vote.

The fact is no one is actually dismissing this as the current state of politics, there is a school of thought that if Labour win the next election under effectively it’s time for a change it might be better for it than 1997. The super majority if I’m honest I thought was dead, that’s why 2019 depressed me, saying that it was fought on an unachievable slogan in the dead of winter.

Snapps blamed the British public about Brexit, that doesn’t go down well.

[davidjay]

Said it before, I'll say it again. The worst thing that happened to Labour in the long term was that huge majority in 1997. Without it we'd have had links with the Lib Dems, probably PR and no Tory government ever again. It also paved the way for 2001, which is where Blair's God complex originated, but that's another story.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Said it before, I'll say it again. The worst thing that happened to Labour in the long term was that huge majority in 1997. Without it we'd have had links with the Lib Dems, probably PR and no Tory government ever again. It also paved the way for 2001, which is where Blair's God complex originated, but that's another story.

That was what I heard at the time. Blunkett and Prescott telling Blair he didn't need his 'broad progressive alliance' any more, and Paddy Ashdown being, as was his wont, a dickhead.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The trouble with PR is that if you can win without it, you don't need it, and if you can't win without it, it looks like a losers' charter to lots of the electorate. It'll look shit too if it's extracted as a price of a hung parliament. The Tories will say "the Lib Dems got 12%, what right have they to foist this bollocks on you?"

The only way you can really go about it is to have a big lead under FPTP and then promise it. Which brings us back to Blair again.

[Andy McDandy]

Back in 2011 with the voting system referendum, those in favour of FPTP were able to make the simple, appealing, but misleading argument that FPTP was simple ("Whoever gets the most votes wins"), and honest (you win or you don't). I particularly liked the adverts featuring David Gower saying "In cricket I'm used to a simple scoring system" - clearly aimed at people who either don't understand cricket, or aren't familiar with the Duckworth Lewis method*. Hell, I remember being taught at primary school how FPTP could lead to a minority vote winning, if the other votes were spread about enough.

*Incredibly complex way of working out who wins a match if it's abandoned, based on all sorts of stats, wind direction, number of R's in the month and the flavour of the jam on the scones for all I know.