You see those brown signs and it says something like Toffington Hall
“Toffington? Oh I’ll give it a go, I’ll go and have a look”
You drive up there and they always charge you a bit too much to get in
They always take the piss, don’t they?
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
So you go in and you go round the house, and it’s shit
It’s always shit, it’s just loads of old stuff they couldn’t sell
So you just end up looking at all these portraits
Of the previous owners, all the dukes and earls who lived there
I bet you it’s just a gallery of bastards, isn’t it?
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
Now every spad on both sides of SW1 is on the warpath for the snap election. We don't know when it will happen, but there's a 50-50 chance Boris Johnson will not be the one calling it. And a 50-50 chance it will happen earlier than Starmer's spads expect it. More on that later. Meanwhile, the £2,000-an-hour gang are scratching their heads at the sight of the latest polls. Because, again, consistency is not one of British public opinion's fortes, but we knew this already. Especially when it comes to the leaders' popularity ratings. Or it might be just an issue of properly understanding the language, which would obviously be solved if all of them had learned Latin at 10. Pollsters think they ask "do you have a favourable or unfavourable view of Boris Johnson's as Prime Minister?", but what people actually hear is "do you think Boris is a total fucking wanker, or would you share a pint with him at your local Wetherspoons?". And more often than you think, the answer is "he's a wanker alright, but I still want that pint", which translates into "somewhat favourable" on the pollster's scale. I don't think that his shite joke about Thatcher and green energy will hurt him either, as a number of shitwanks Doon Sooth won't feel offended at all, and he will get away with it because, ye ken, "it's just Boris being Boris". Which is in fact the best definition of the issue lots of people have with Boris, as Boris being Boris is just what made the UK a fucking shithole in the first place. Then "Keir just being Keir" has not done him any good, as Bozo is even rebounding in the most recent "Preferred First Minister of England" polling. But Neither is closing on Bozo, so I don't rule out him being the top choice next.
Recent news show that Labour are ready to up their game, but the question remains: will Keir Starmer be convincing enough at their Conference to boost their performance in polls, starting with his own? Not really a done deal, especially when the Labour Left has plans to spoil the fun. I have no problem with people gloating about Johnson getting his worst approval ratings since he became First Minister of England, but it's irrelevant as long as Starmer's ratings are still down the drain, and Johnson is still seen as the best choice for Number Ten. Then I guess Johnson would even win a fan club's poll to choose the Fourteenth Doctor, as Starmer has become such a euphemism for beigeness. Sly Keir is not even doing well against Rishi Sunak. Guess that Rishi remaining quiet during the recent Afghanistan crisis and controversies helped his public image, but that might not last for long when he's back in the spotlight. The only variable here is how many legitimate angles of attack Keir will totally miss.
Some pollsters have also tested the confrontation between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, which sounds a bit like being offered a choice between colon cancer and gonorrhea. Doesn't look too good for Wunderkind so far, as most Conservative voters still prefer the current First Minister of England. But Bozo painting himself into the awkward corner during the Commons' debate over Afghanistan, to the bafflement of even the most solid Bozistas, may offer Wunderkind a new opening, especially as he has cleverly kept himself outwith that particular debate. Rishi might even escape criticism over the unprecedented shortage of chicken in the UK, as the root cause of it is again Priti Patel's asinine immigration policies. The only thing that might work against Rishi now is that he is not fluent in foreign affairs. But neither are Bozo and Dim Dom, so what the fuck? There might be a window of opportunity for Rishi in November, on the 31st anniversary of the coup that turned Margaret Thatcher from Iron Lady to Ironed Lady. He still has enough time to strike a deal with some of the Tory factions and oust Boris. Which would make a snap election in 2022 a very plausible scenario, with Rishi seeking a personal mandate for a full term while he still has high personal ratings. If he tries and fails, or doesn't even try, then Labour's scenario might come true, with Boris calling the third snap election in a row some time in early 2023. Stay tuned.
Maybe Bozo feels threatened by the Wunderkind after all, if there is any truth to the rumour he wanted to demote him or sack him. Guess we will have to wait until the Equinox Reshuffle for a definite answer. I would definitely not be surprised if Johnson sacked Sunak, despite the obvious downsides, if only to prove that Old Etonians are better than Old Wykehamists, even if both clans come from the same mould, which is definitely not designed to make them fit for public office. Now there would obviously be some ironical, if not comical, value in a Tory Civil War Panto featuring Sunak as Poldark to Johnson's Warleggan. Or would it be the other way round? Then Johnson might choose a different battleground, sacking Priti Patel to promote Michael Gove, which would be pretty much like Julius Caesar appointing Brutus to head the Praetorian Guard. But a one-on-one with Rishi is probably not the battle Bozo should pick, as Wunderkind has the support of the let-the-oiks-pay-for-it wing of the Conservatives, who will always be able to bag a majority, as it is the true genetic foundation of English conservatism. And of course the best sideshow to the Panto would be Gavin Williamson revealing where the bodies are buried, forgetting that Dominic Cummings pretty much did it already. Let the show begin, they've been ready. Epilogue between the Equinox and the Solstice.
We’re just looking at centuries of bastard after bastard
Staring down at you as if to say
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
Just bastards, one bastard bigger than the last
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
You see a picture of a kid in a hunting outfit and you think
“I bet he was a right little cunt, wasn’t he?”
It’s just a theme park of bastards, that’s where you are
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
There is growing evidence that the public's patience with Boris Johnson's shenanigans is starting to wear thin. And also from parts of England were you least expect it to, unless you've been paying attention to the previous episodes. If you have, you won't be surprised by the findings of a recent YouGov poll of "Blue Wall" voters, by which they actually mean 53 Conservative seats spread across the whole South of England including London. YouGov also selected constituencies that voted Remain in 2016, which does not fit the overall profile of the regions and would, if anything, tweak the results against Boris Johnson. Thusly going against the commonly held belief that YouGov are, in some ways, "owned by the Tories". In the charts below, I've identified the results of the poll's full sample as "Blue Wall", and the other bars show the results of the crosstabs, mostly by region and once by political affiliation. Some of the questions were also polled by YouGov GB-wide in other polls in the same timeframe, and I have included them in the "GB-wide" bars for comparison. Let's see first how Boris and Keir fare on the "Preferred First Minister of England" question, according to YouGov.
Interestingly, YouGov regularly find Boris doing worse here than most other pollsters, and their Blue Wall survey is not different, even slightly worse. The other noteworthy part is that Keir Starmer's rating here is higher than the projected Labour vote share in these regions, unlike what we usually see in GB-wide polls. You could probably find a correlation here, if not a causality, with the Liberal Democrats and Greens also doing better in South England than their GB-wide average. Johnson's weak position also fits with the English Government's approval ratings, which YouGov also finds to be worse among Blue Wall voters than GB-wide. You could argue that the main reason is the weight of Labour-leaning London in the Blue Wall sample, and be wrong. Of course because GB-wide samples include other Labour-leaning areas of England and SNP-leaning Scotland, and are not massively different in their assessment.
Oddly, the previous results are somewhat at odds with the respondents' assessment of the four parties most likely to compete for their votes, which they were asked to describe as "in touch" our "out of touch", with the respondent's own concerns and priorities, I guess. At least I guess the respondents understood it that way. The Conservatives fare really badly all across the Blue Wall area, and the more Conservative they vote, the more critical they are. Only consolation for Bozo is that Labour have even worse ratings, but real trouble might come from other corners of the compass. Probably not from the Liberal Democrats, who do only marginally better than Labour, and it also looks like a lot of people don't really know what the LibDems stand for these days. The real surprise comes form the Greens, the only ones with a net positive result all across the Leafy Blue Wall. At face value, you might think a Green surge might hurt Labour rather than help them. But the breakdown of current voting intentions does not support it, more on that later. Looks like the Greens have actually displaced "progressive" LibDem voters and a few "environmentally conscious" Tory voters. Which is quite a new trend, and could spell doom for the Tories if it is confirmed in the next batch of polls.
Then there is a question about housing, which is a concern GB-wide, and most likely for all the right reasons. But also in the Leafy Blue South, though it might be for the wrong reasons down there. YouGov asked first if they support building more new housing in general, and the if they support it in the area where they live. And here you have it, we catch the Nimbys, who are allegedly more of a presence in the South. But the poll's results prove that there might be some truth in there, but also a lot of misconception. Drop in support is only smallish overall, and there's still a net positive in East Anglia and London. Nimbyism seem to have a really strong case only in the South East. Some of it is probably rooted in the fifteen years of fuck-ups and U-turns over the third runway at Heathrow, which directly impact communities in reliably-blue Surrey, and barely-less-blue Berkshire. And the omnishambles about the world-beating Brexit Lorry Park in Kent didn't help either, did they?
To hammer it home, or not, YouGov has a rather convoluted question, which more or less boils down to "do you support or oppose the proposed reform of planning laws in England?". Another Nimby-catcher if there ever was one. Or not, given the amount of support we've seen for the Greens, who are also up in arms against the reform. But the issue surely goes further than oik-averse nimbyism, as opposition to the reform has gained traction among "moderate" Tories, most prominently Theresa May riding some sort of "concerned one-nationism" wave. Of course, there might be lots of ulterior motives here, related to the neverending Tory Civil War. But opposition to "developer friendly" reform started already more than ten years ago under the Coalition Government, and forced David Cameron to water down his proposals. Which has also happened to Johnson now, when the results of a 2020 consultation showed multiple concerns being widely shared, and he had to switch the focus from rural areas to urban areas. There might be interesting moments in Commons when Johnson's revamped plan comes back for a vote, now that EVEL has been abolished. Guess the SNP might pick this fight, and vote against the reform even if it does not apply in Scotland, to confront the English Government with their contradictions and inconsistencies, and also boost their own green credentials, so they move the narrative about the SNP-Greens deal in Edinburgh away from the danger zone surrounding their divisive GRA reform.
What remains to be seen is how all of this can help Labour up their game, as long as they're more interested in navel-gazing into their own factionalism, rather than in building a credible alternative to Tory rule. I fear we will have to wait a long time for this, when Starmer's main concern is whether or not he should ban Corbyn from attending the next Labour conference. Because, ye ken, nothing says "in touch with ordinary people" like devoting time and energy to a non-issue nobody gives a rat's fuck about. You might remember when the press dubbed Michael Foot's 1983 manifesto "the longest suicide note in history". Or how some joked that Ed Miliband's EdStone in 2015 was "the heaviest suicide note in history". Now there are reasons to believe that everything Starmer says or does will be remembered as "the stupidest suicide note in history".
What I like to do when I have any spare time
I get my computer out and I like going on Mumsnet
And it’s great, honestly, cause they’re so warm
And supportive and caring and considerate
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
I tried Dadsnet, there’s about five blokes on there
Within minutes, they call each other wankers
I thought “I don’t want this”
“I want the cosy, warm, supportive world of the mums”
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
Opinium also polled the people's assessment of the two main English parties, this time GB-wide. Their findings are not much different from YouGov's, though they might differ in some of the details. Here is what they found for the Conservatives. The poll was conducted before the fall of Kabul, so the peoples' assessment might since have become worse. Arguing that "nobody saw it coming" doesn't quite cut it, especially after Rory Stewart warned about just that, and its consequences, days before it happened. You could even argue that everybody should have seen it coming since Donald Trump capitulated to the Taliban at Doha 18 months ago. And "we thought we had two more weeks" doesn't cut it either as it only proves that you did see it coming, didn't you? Johnson and Raab being both missing in action at key moments of the catastrophe doesn't look good either. Except for those gullible enough to buy some sort of "even if we had been where we should have been, we couldn't have done anything anyway" excuse. If Boris knows his Latin as much as he claims, he has surely noticed that the fate of Kabul is strangely similar to the fate of Rome facing the Barbarians, as described by a 6th century columnist: Kabul trepida, Kabul irrupta, Kabul capta. Kabul trembled in fear, was invaded and violated. It happened on his watch and he did nothing. This will cost him dearly.
And now what they found for Labour, on the same items plus one. Honestly, the assessment of Labour's readiness to govern could have been deduced from a compilation of the answers to all other items. And Opinium were not 100% fair and balanced here, as they should also have asked if people think the Conservatives are fit for government. It would probably not have been good, as the Conservatives don't do really well on the items that might shape that perception of them. It would be interesting to know how much the Afghanistan fiasco has altered the public's perception of the Conservatives, especially when we see a failed member of the Cabinet slinging mud at another failed member of the Cabinet. Quickly followed by one of them picking a fight with both their Prime Minister and the American "allies". Holy shitballs from hell! But of course it's easier to make it all about Labour, and their alleged (un)readiness to govern.
Now that last and extra item is probably what Labour should worry about, and do their best to try and change that part of the electorate's perception of them. Especially if the next general election is just one year or so away, as my guts tell me. Then it does not really get better if it's two years away, as Labour's spads reportedly think. Whichever proves to be true, this year's conference will be focal point in Keir Starmer's career. He knows it, the Tories know it, the media know it and will remind him of it every week. Which will not necessarily make him better prepared for it. SavantaComres, in one of their very-belatedly-published polls last month, tried a different angle. Respondents were asked if New New Labour is more or less successful than Corbyn's Labour on a number of issues. The results are probably not what Keir's spads expected, and certainly not what they wished for.
It's pretty much a draw between the two variants of Labour, though Corbyn has a slight edge on public appeal and policies. Which probably explains why New New Labour are hopelessly stuck in the mid-30s of voting intentions, when they should be polling vastly ahead of the failing Tories. But you have to wonder why more people think that Keir is likely to win the next election, than think he is less likely. This doesn't quite fit with his policies having less appeal, but that's probably the least of the electorate's contradictions. Then I guess pollsters would have to ask people which party they genuinely wish to win the next election, not who they think is most likely to. But I'm honestly not even totally sure the answer to that one would be better news for Labour.
I never had a feud with a neighbour, but I had a duel
And I won, so his widow had to take down the windchimes
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
The good thing with high-viz jackets is that they actually make you invisible
You put one of these on and people think “Oh, he’s just, you know”
“Doing a job for the Council, he can’t be that wanted criminal”
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
There could be some fun times ahead as Boris has committed himself to a new set of policies, like Net Zero, that his own MPs don't really like. Labour should in theory support them but will have to find a way to oppose them because, ye ken, that's what the opposition do. Generally. Guess Starmer will have to outzero Bozo on net zero then, which could have them deliver some sparkling one-liners at PMQs. Then Bozo might be saved again by the House of Lords, who can vote all this down as it is not a manifesto pledge. Or he can just renege on all the stuff with no harm done, as it is not a manifesto pledge. And I haven't figured out yet which one is the upside and which one is the downside, or if both are both. Or what-the-fuck-ever. Nothing that won't eventually make Wunderkind Rishi happy, anyway.
Make no mistake though. All the mediocre polling does not translate into a significant shift in voting intentions. The Conservatives' lead over Labour is still in the single digits, but it has slightly increased, if anything. Most recent polls now have them leading in the high single digits, rather than the low single digits we had just a couple of weeks ago. But the English media are still ready and willing to offer Johnson some much needed diversions from the most pressing issues. Like speculating about who should be the next Education Secretary for England: Kemi Badenoch or Nadhim Zahawi. Notwithstanding that people actually don't give a fuck, and both would probably be just as awful at the job, given their previous record in government positions. Then I suspect that Labour facing strike action over staff redundancies will not make them really popular either, so it looks pretty much like every game will be a draw for the time being. Labour will probably not be helped by Theresa May being a harsher critic of Boris than them, now over the Afghanistan debacle. You can definitely spot that something went wrong when even the Daily Mail is holding Bozo to account louder than the Labour frontbench. So it's fair to assume that the trends of voting intentions will not massively change anytime soon, with the Tories still in the lead and the Liberal Democrats, of all people, benefiting from the slump in Tory votes.
This still does not look good enough to take Sir Keir to Number Ten. And I still can't decide what he tried to achieve with his interview for The Observer, where he basically announced he would renege on any pledge he made to win the Labour leadership contest, and move further to the centre. Now, if you can't see unless it's in primary colours, you might want to try a trip to Barnard Castle, mate. Did wonders for another one before. The fussiest fallout of Keir's interview has to be The Guardian devoting two columns to Ed Balls on the day after, on the flimsy pretext of him publishing a politics-cum-cooking book. Ed as PM? Seriously? Fuck me sideways. Then, Keir moving to the centre looks like a fucking dick move, when we might be just weeks away from Rishi Sunak overboarding Boris Johnson, and also moving to the centre. Just imagine the voters finding out that Sly Keir and Wunderkind are standing pretty much on the same manifesto at the next election. Fucking buggers. Might as well toss a coin to choose the next First Minister of England. Tossing for tossers, sounds appropriate to me.
Recently I caught some shoplifters, took them straight to the police station
They didn’t press charges cause, apparently, they reckon it was a library
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
All I said about Paloma Faith was that she had a shit hat
And that she is a poundshop Bjork and then, ugh, kaboom
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
My current snapshot is the weighted average of the three most recent polls, conducted by SavantaComres (who, for once, did not wait past shelf date to make the full data set available to the general public), Redfield & Wilton and Opinium between 27 August and 3 September. Super sample is 6,076, with a theoretical margin of error of 1.26%, and it credits the Conservatives with a 6.3% lead over Labour. It will be interesting to see how voting intentions evolve after the electorate have fully digested the consequences of the Afghanistan fiasco and its side effects, like two Secretaries of State getting embroiled in a schoolyard pissing contest with each other. The English Government will also struggle with the projected rise of the NICs, which has already triggered visible chaos within their Ninth Circle. Voters may want to revise their opinion about how the Conservatives are "in touch", when they're ready to go ahead with something that breaks one of their key manifesto commitments, benefits only demographics that already massively vote for them (more on that later) and hurts demographics they have to secure if they want to bag another landslide. But polls can be slow-moving objects, so we will probably have to wait a week or two before we see the impact of the current shambles, if any.
The breakdown of voting intentions by nation and region just confirms some of Labour's weaknesses, that we have already seen before. The Tories are still doing unexpectedly well in North England and the Midlands, where Labour are just level with their 2019 results, and struggling to gain back at least their lost 2017 voters. Never mind that Boris "levelling up" looks like a nine-year old trying to rebuild a motorbike in his bedroom, but he can't be arsed to read the instructions. Which makes it harder to understand Keir Starmer's reluctance to support some variant of a wealth tax, when even Andy Burnham is calling for more taxation on the wealthiest. Whichever way you look at it, it's quite amazing that Labour are only about 2% up on their 2019 result, considering the amount of incompetence displayed and harm done by the Conservatives since the last election. Surely Keir's spads understand that doing better in Wales, and spectacularly better in South England, is just not good enough. But there are reasons to believe that Keir's recent sackings and appointments to his Ninth Circle have isolated him within some sort of hive mind, or groupthink as the pundits call it to sound modern, where some half-baked social-liberalism is the way to recovery. Read my lips, Keir: it isn't.
Then an electoral backlash might come for the Conservatives, from where you least expect it to: the outskirts of Kabul Airport. It looked so easy: the Defence Secretary had a choice between behaving humanely, helping Operation Ark, and scoring a PR win with both veterans and animal lovers. Or behaving like a fucking prick, hindering the operation for days for no reason, and being hit by a massive PR disaster. We know which direction he chose, and that will come back to haunt him. Alienating veterans, the friends and families of veterans, and animal lovers on top of it, is definitely the dickest move in England. It really takes an English Tory MP to not realise that. Now the first part of the operation has ended well, despite sabotage, obfuscation and a smear campaign from the English government. Now, of course, we have to look at the bigger picture, and it's not a pretty sight. And the English Government have thousands of questions to answer, one for every Afghan they left behind. Not sure Dominic Raab can get away with it so easily, as shifting the blame for the fiasco to the Americans will certainly not cut it. There has to be consequences, and there undoubtedly will be. They fucked up big time when it could have been avoided, and no amount of stultiloquent codswallop will make a fucking difference. Heads will roll, but whose will be first? My tenner is on Dim Dom's for now.
When I was leaving school, I went to see my careers officer
He said “What do you want to be?”
I said “I’d quite like to be a careers officer”
“Because I’m really good at letting people down”
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
You know that 12% of the people in this country have got a tapeworm?
Which actually makes them more popular than dogs as a pet
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2016)
As you might expect, the seat projection delivered by my model is awful for Labour. We're back to something of a 2015ish situation, when a previous projection, just one month ago, showed a much closer result and the Conservatives barely getting a workable majority. This is quite amazing when Conservatives have been embroiled in a civil war ever since, that looks more and more like a pissing contest between schoolyard bullies. The most unbelievable part here is of course public opinion willing to offer more support to a government that just suffered the worst diplomatic defeat since Suez, combined with the worst military defeat since Dunkirk, but think shit-slinging to save their asses is the best way out of it. That's next to senior Tories having a go at Johnson for breaking manifesto pledges, when they had no issue with Cameron or May breaking some. Then I guess we should enjoy the irony in former Thatcherites arguing that there is an alternative, while a Chancellor, who wasn't even born yet when Maggie won her first general election, tells them that there isn't.
Even with the Conservatives down 28 seats, there wouldn't be many big trophies in here for Labour, as most of the Conservative losers would be nondescript backbenchers. Only notable exceptions would be Steve Baker in Wycombe, Chloe Smith in Norwich North and Alok Sharma in Reading West. Even the Con-Lab marginals would be only seats held by backbenchers, with no other Government bigwig close to the danger zone. Alternate scenarios, when you factor in different results in the most marginal constituencies, definitely aren't bound to offer Labour any comfort. Whichever way the marginals go, you still get a Conservative government in the end, with the swingometer somewhere between a 2017ish and a 2019ish result. And I won't even speculate on some sort of Labour-SNP deal, as it is highly unlikely to happen. Then, of course, so was a SNP-Greens deal at Holyrood three months ago, wasn't it?
Even if public opinion looks incredibly lenient to the Conservatives, these are not fully satisfactory scenarios for them. Which is why they are so keen on their two-pronged attack on truly representative parliamentary democracy. First the incoming gerrymandering, which would grant them an additional buffer of a dozen notional seats. And, to make it "safer", a totally unnecessary voting-ID law that would unfairly disenfranchise voters in Labour-leaning constituencies. Even some "soft" Conservatives have voiced concerns about a bill that tackles a non-existent problem, with a price-tag of some £20mil that could undoubtedly be put to better use. But Bozo has the numbers to pass that bill, using a mix of blackmail and belly-rubs, like promising them all a safe seat even in regions where the overall number will go down. Because, ye ken, nothing says "Mother Of All Democracies" like turning it into a one-party state, as long as it is their party. Now you can't deny Bozo some talent in turning this into a squaring-the-circle situation for Labour. They can only repeal the law if they get a working majority, which is what the law is engineered to deny them. Good luck with that. Just for fun, I also simulated the next Commons based on voting intentions by age brackets, as shown by the very last Redfield and Wilton poll, which was conducted on 30 August.
Admittedly, this one poll does not exactly mirror the general trend, as it was slightly better for the Conservatives and worse for the SNP. But it does show what age does to you, doesn't it? Basically, don't expect the UK to move to the left, mirroring the current views of the younger generations. Just look at the baby-boomers who propelled Tony Blair to power three times in the last century. And how they would now give Conservatives the largest majority since Dog domesticated Man. Also forget the preconception that younger Scottish voters massively favour the SNP. They don't, even if they massively favour Independence, and are in fact more likely to support Labour or the Greens. Interestingly, the last two SNP seats, if only the 65+ voted, would be Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East and Dundee West. Just don't ask me why these two. The whole Glasgow region and bits of Inverclyde and Dunbartonshire would switch to Labour, the Liberal Democrats would hold all their four current seats and gain back East Dunbartonshire. And the Conservatives would make a clean sweep of all the rest, giving them a cast-iron mandate to reopen the libraries that SNP councils have shut down. Ain't life grand?
Where I’m happiest is on my mink farm
I love it there just being among the mink
Lots of people get a bit upset by it, they say
“Oh, you shouldn’t farm them for their fur”
But I don’t, actually, I farm them for their looks
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
I wasn’t actually in the Scouts because I was too cool
So I joined, like, a splinter organisation
You joined it if you did things that other people aren’t good at
Like the badges I’ve got there, one of those was just for greasy hair
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
The breakdown of seats by nation and region shows some interesting patterns. Labour's biggest gains would be in Yorkshire and The Humber, with a net gain of 8, and South East England, with a net gain of 7. There's also an interesting pattern all along the rest of the North Sea coast from East Anglia (+4) through the East Midlands (+5) and up to North East England (+2). While results would be far less satisfactory in the West, with no change in the West Midlands and a net loss of 2 in North West England. Not sure if this the beginning of an East-West divide, on top of the North-South divide, but Labour spads should surely have a closer at look at this when the time comes to choose the top target seats and the top ones to defend. Labour would also be well-advised to cuddle Wales, where their unexpectedly strong victory at the Senedd election is followed by a revival of their fortunes in general election polls, now predicting a gain of 3 seats. This would undoubtedly serve them better than wasting dosh and energy on Scotland, where the real fight is now between the SNP and the Conservatives. Save for a couple of serendipitous upsets that could happen if the SNP do what they're best at, shooting themselves in the foot. More on that one later.
The real benchmark remains, as usual, the breakdown of seats across England, where any election is won or lost. And how the current projection compares with the results of previous elections. Matching 2017 would be a consolation prize for Labour, and probably allow Keir Starmer to limp on until another general election. But true success means matching 2005, and Labour are still really far from that, even in what used to be solid heartlands. Based on current boundaries, the magic number in the North would be around 130, or a third more than Labour can currently hope. It definitely looks like an uphill battle when you factor in the demographics and the changes in voting patterns since Brexit. The situation is even worse in the Midlands, where Labour have lost two thirds of their 2005 seats, and are totally unlikely to gain back that many in the foreseeable future. This leaves the Blue Wall's Leafy South, where Labour continue to be surprisingly successful in poll after poll. But even an implausibly massive Southern Tsunami would hand them no more than 35 or 40 additional seats, still far short of what's needed for an overall victory.
I suggest Starmer's spads should now start counting beans, err... seats, rather that advising him on policies. Seeing how good they have been at the job so far, Sly Keir would certainly benefit from taking his cues from Marcus Rashford from now on. This week might be the right moment to stage a genuine offensive, when Bozo has painted himself into a multi-pronged war with himself over pretty much all issues that can possibly hurt him with the "sensible" parts of the Conservative electorate. There's a golden window of opportunity for Labour here, as Rishi Sunak too will be on the frontline, bound to defend the most unpopular of manifesto-breakers and damage his expertly-crafted image for no gain but Bozo's. Unless Bozo chooses to kick the cans of worms into the long grass until after the Conference Autumn Break, in the (probably justified) hope Starmer will make a pig's breakfast of his, and return more bruised than the Government. Be seeing you in October for the next episode.
That’s for scabs, and that’s for eating yours and someone else’s scabs
This is before pizza was introduced to the British food market
So a scab was the closest thing you had to a pizza
(Sean Lock, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2021)
I don’t just have a bucket list, I have its natural opposite
Which I call a fuck-it list, which is a list of things, as I get older
I just think “I’m not doing that any more, fuck it”
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
Meanwhile in Caledonia, things have only marginally improved for the SNP. The only Full Scottish poll conducted after the Holyrood election showed only marginal change on the election's results. It was probably too early to see any kind of buyer's remorse. The trend of Scottish subsamples from GB-wide polls is strangely similar to the trend we had earlier for the Holyrood constituency vote. Of course subsamples of 150-200 are far less reliable that full polls, but extracting the trend makes the outliers cancel each other out. So we have a pretty good picture of where we're heading, if not of the exact landing site. It's made even more credible by the fact that it shows very little change on the previous election, pretty much the same pattern as the actual Holyrood election last May.
Based on the weighted average of the latest batch of Scottish subsamples, which amount to an aggregated sample of 1,226, the projected result would be quite similar to December 2019. This is definitely not good news, but might explain why the English Government chose to pretty much call the SNP's bluff about a second independence referendum. The other obvious reason being that, despite all denials, they know the SNP are not ready for a strong independence campaign, as more and more Scottish voters have realised over the last six months. It's not even a situation where you could advise the SNP to up their game. We've reached the point where they would have to change it altogether, and even that wouldn't be enough, coming too late and lacking credibility.
Taking into account the regional patterns seen in both the most recent Full Scottish polls and the Holyrood election, five seats would change hands. Two from the Liberal Democrats to the SNP (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, North East Fife), two from the SNP to the Conservatives (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Gordon) and one from the Conservatives to the SNP (ironically, Douglas Ross' Moray). Interestingly, all five would be marginals, gained with leads from 0.5% to 3.5%. Then other SNP seats, or notionally SNP, are also in the danger zone. The two current Alba seats are the best example, where a grievance-fueled challenge from the SNP would return both to Labour. Aberdeen South and Angus are also prime targets for a Conservative counter-offensive in the North East. Even the other end of the spectrum, factoring in the SNP close to 50% of the popular vote, would not trigger a 2015ish super-landslide again. And there's little the SNP can do about it, even if they hadn't lost most of the plot and angered a fair share of Independence supporters. Simply because there is nothing SNP MPs can do to counter the English government, whichever colour they are, so what's the point of re-electing them? That's the price to pay when you prioritise a divisive issue over an unifying one.
I was imagining a scenario the other day, just imagine the scenario
Somebody in Starbucks is on their Apple Mac, and someone on Facebook
Recommends a Jimmy Carr DVD, which they then Google and buy on Amazon
Urgh! The amount of tax being avoided there! It's mind boggling, isn't it?
(Sean Lock, Keep It Light, 2017)
More of Sean Lock on YouTube
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