[kreuzberger]

Aye. That and the Revenue. We all leave a footprint unless we are criminals or mental.

[Bones McCoy]

We have to register in our last constituency, so that has already placed me back in Glasgow South.

I have no idea what the protocol is for someone who came of age in the interregnum or who, for whatever reason, was never on the roll.

Welcome, fellow voter.

Do you know how strictly that registration is enforced.
If one could subvert the system, 3 million votes, distributed carefully could pretty much guarantee one-party government.

[davidjay]

We have to register in our last constituency, so that has already placed me back in Glasgow South.

I have no idea what the protocol is for someone who came of age in the interregnum or who, for whatever reason, was never on the roll.

Welcome, fellow voter.

Do you know how strictly that registration is enforced.
If one could subvert the system, 3 million votes, distributed carefully could pretty much guarantee one-party government.

Don't tell them - they'll change the rules.

[Youngian]

Not much evidence offered up that this will happen but makes a salient point about donations.

Brexit-regretting ex-pats are ready to punish the Tories

Yet the real story behind the Tory changes is not so much about electors, but about the way the law now allows overseas residents to donate huge sums of cash to British parties. That’s because voter registration rights come with rights to make donations.

The legislation to expand the franchise could have been amended to restrict donations to those who had very recently lived in the UK. Instead, at a stroke, the Conservatives have guaranteed that a handful of wealthy individuals who choose to spend their whole life abroad can bankroll their campaigning.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/brexit-regr ... sh-2862628

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, that sounds a bit too much of an Independent interpretation. Murcia retirees are still retired in Murcia. No stories of them turning up potless en masse at Stanstead. I don't see why they'd be bothered too much about Brexit. And not even sure they were before. All we know is that their demographics suggested they'd have voted Brexit if they'd still been living in the UK.

Not that this group were representative of all Brits abroad anyway.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Shall we put polling in here. I think my hilarious skit of Rishi asking for the polls has run its course.

Here we go then. I wonder if some of the Tory Press could back Reform at this rate.

[Andy McDandy]

I foresee a glut of "Don't bother voting, it changes nothing" articles in the coming months. Along with much "Young people know nothing", "How to squirrel your money away", "Labour's PIE links exposed", "Remember Corbyn?", "If Labour win, black lesbians will force your grandkids to go trans while singing IRA songs", and "Maureen Lipman - why I'm Leaving Labour".

[Spoonman]

I foresee a glut of "Don't bother voting, it changes nothing" <snip>

Funnily enough this mantra has been coming to bite the American Republican party in the arse in he last couple of years after adopting the MAGA view that every election they don't win is rigged/fake, and are now struggling in getting their voters out in quite a few places where contests with Democrats are close.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That would be a very nice trend. The Republicans haven't done brilliantly in special elections, but I thought that was Democrats showing up because of abortion.

[Spoonman]

The issue concerning abortion has definitely helped the Democrats in most cases, but when you tell your fellow deplorables that there's no point in voting in "rigged" elections, it's not proving easy to reverse that mindset to when you actually want to get your core vote out, though the one big potential difference on this side of the Atlantic is thankfully less guns (if not any less of a sense of entitlement).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Part of a longer exchange that's worth reading. This might indeed happen to the Tories. Perhaps Sunak would have been better to go for a May election.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This seems a bit optimistic.

[mattomac]

They’ve finally conceded victory is beyond them.

Also they seem to have forgotten that most elections that follow usually just end up punishing the recently removed government even more.

Anyhow Swinford at the times who usually details the latest Tory strategy every Saturday didn’t have one today so put an exclusive out there that effectively suggests the Tories will have to do something unprecedented.

Exclusive eh

[Oboogie]

This seems a bit optimistic.

The idea that the Tories, having failed to reduce the Labour poll lead over the last year, are somehow, in the next three months, going to manage to reduce it to a tiny Labour majority is pure fantasy. Surely this is just a morale boosting exercise for Tory activists?

[Bones McCoy]

If they do reduce Labour to a small majority.
I still fail to see a situation that forces Starmer to call a second election.

Are they confusing general elections with tory leadership contests?

On the other hand, these are the Tories.
They've demonstrated their tendency to select an ineffective policy.
Then pursue it without deviation well beyond the point where it is proved useless.
Then pursue it some more.

[slilley]

Clearly whoever is advocating this has no recollection of post war history. For example in 1964 Labour under Harold Wilson won a narrow majority of5. It was clear there would be another election sooner rather than later. That first Wilson administration continued until March 66, where they won a convincing victory and a majority of 98 seats. In 1974 Labour won the February election and governed as a minority government until October where it went to the country again winning with a majority of 3 and remained in office until May 1979, almost the full term of the parliament. If the Conservatives think they can limit Starmer first time around and then regain power soon after, I feel they may be sadly disappointed.

[Crabcakes]

This seems a bit optimistic.

The idea that the Tories, having failed to reduce the Labour poll lead over the last year, are somehow, in the next three months, going to manage to reduce it to a tiny Labour majority is pure fantasy. Surely this is just a morale boosting exercise for Tory activists?

How odd. I had been led to believe that even the slimmest majority was a cast-iron indicator of the will of the people, and as such ample justification for implementation of the most extreme form of policies that that vote was based on. And further, that having another vote to check was absolutely unnecessary.

[Killer Whale]

Not sure where to put this, but let's just rejoice in the Tory getting fewer than ten votes in a bye election in Eifionydd.

[mattomac]

Like don’t you need 10 signatures?

[davidjay]

Like don’t you need 10 signatures?

They don't have to vote for you.