Jeremy's Den

21/10/2019

Westminster Projection - New Model Session Special

Doomsday D-10 or could it be D-101 now?
214th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, also Kim Kardashian's 39th birthday, Peter Mandelson's 66th and would have been Carrie Fisher's 63th

And a link that might come in handy while your peruse this, to use a word Jacob Rees-Mogg will understand….

Killer Queen 🔉 🔊
© Freddie Mercury, 1974

So now it has happened. The Yearly State Opening and Queen's Speech Costume Ball has come and gone live on BBC, no lip sync here. We definitely missed it last year when Theresa May ruled Commons had no time for a new batch of minor legislation and should concentrate on Brexit. Glad to see it back this year after Boris Johnson ruled Commons have more than enough time for Brexit and should concentrate on a new batch of minor legislation. And if we're lucky we will have another one for Christmas after the snap GE when Jeremy Corbyn rules Commons will work double shifts without extra pay and concentrate on both Brexit and a whole new batch of minor legislation. Glad too to see Black Rod performing again and giving oiks something in return for her yearly £93k. And finally kudos to Lloyd Russell-Moyle for his admirable restraint and refraining to hug the Mace again, though I fully understand Englanders' attachment to ancient artefacts of no value other than sentimental. And at long last Elizabeth Hath Spoken. In her white lace you could clearly see the lady sadly looking, saying that she'd take the blame for the crucifixion of her own domain.

Elizabeth: So Boris, how much of a naughty boy have we been this week?

Boris: But… but… My Maj... wasn't me… Barnier made me do it… Dominic's honour…

Having Elizabeth Windsor deliver some badly drafted spoilers from the Tory manifesto, the one that allegedly needed a five-week blackout to prepare, in a hoarse and convincingly unconvincing voice is quite an embarrassment in and out of itself, but worse was yet to come. The Conservatives have surely got used to England being the laughing stock of Europe, but now they have turned Their Maj into the laughing stock of England with a performance that deserves no better than 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course the rest of the cast did not help with even Dennis Skinner not being his usual self and his Black Rod Heckling Ritual the worst of his whole career. Obviously one does know none of the twenty-six and some wannabe bills will ever be goatskinned for One's Assent, and before one knows it, one will read from Corbyn Zhûxi Yûlù with equal zeal and conviction. This is one of downsides of being in charge ad vitam aut culpam, though you'd have to be a Nazi sympathizer like one's Uncle Ed to fall because of the culpam bit. Then of course one does love Oor Precious Union but the only one of the Three Colonies worth an explicit mention was Northern Ireland, because (wink wink) one does need those fucking DUP votes (nudge nudge) or doesn't one? (cough cough).

Now Commons will have to vote on One's Speech some time this week after the conventionally prescribed five or six days of Humble Addresses. Which will probably be the first in a series of meaningless meaningful votes. Because under the provisions of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA), voting down a Queen's Speech is legally not a vote of no-confidence (VONC) per se. It may walk like a VONC and quack like a VONC but it's not a VONC, which is not a fluffy beast from a Star Wars deleted scene. To kick out the First Minister of England, you have to table an FTPA-compliant VONC motion, which only the Leader of the Opposition (LOTO) can do. Actually no, any MP can but only a LOTO-submitted VONC is subject to an FTPA-prescribed mandatory debate and vote. Actually no, as the Speaker can rule ad arbitrium that a VONC motion submitted by anyone else, like say…. uh…. Ian Blackford, may also go to a vote if LOTO does not table one. Which, in the current context, would have the added bonus of pissing off both Johnson, who wants a snap GE only on his own terms, and Labour, who still do not know if they want a snap GE or not.

We Will Rock You 🔊
© Brian May, 1977

Two weeks ago the Guardian again devoted a full page to an article warning us about something we already knew. So now we know the electorate is volatile and Brexit has made it even more so. Who would have guessed? Now if the British Election Study says it, it must be true, mustn't it? That we did not need a 30k poll to reach the conclusion that 'there are likely to be high levels of volatility in a forthcoming election, and that Brexit is likely to play a key role in defining the next election outcome' (their words, not mine, I would have stated it without the conditionals) does not mean we're more clever than the self-appointed experts, only that we don't have the dosh to spend on useless polls that don't reveal anything that was not obvious months ago already. Just search for 'volatility' or 'fluidity' in my previous articles if you have any doubt. Polls conducted over the last month again prove the point with voting intentions that could project into anything from a solid Conservative majority to an unmanageably hung Parliament.

A lot may hinge on the public's perception of the Queen's Political Broadcast On Behalf Of The European Research Group and when they realize the numbers don't add up. Johnson has actually fuck all chance of implementing it, and fuck all chance at implementing it too just for the sake of reesmoggian grammatical exhaustivity, as he does not have the first farthing to do so, to put it in terms the Leader of the House of Commons is familiar with. So either they play it short term and take the deficit back to Cameronesque levels or they delude themselves into thinking they're here to last and they borrow until the national debt exceeds two trillion guineas, to put it in terms…. see above. Problem is that they're currently doing both with this year's deficit expected to be double of last year's and national debt expected to increase by £100 billion, give or take. Then nobody has ever conclusively proved that Tories are guided by bonum commune communitatis, with them it's more like beati possendentes especially when these are Tory donors or Somerset Capital Management's business partners, while canis canem edit out there in the real world. Back to the raw numbers, my current Poll'O'Polls includes the six most recent polls for which full data tables are available, conducted between 9 and 18 October. Super-sample size is 9,849 with a theoretical 0.96% margin of error, and is again massively favourable to the Conservatives.

There is some interesting movement here though, compared to what we had two weeks ago. The Brexit Party and the LibDems both lose votes while the Conservatives and Labour both gain some. This could be the beginning of a trend, but only the next batch of polls will tell us if voters are actually coalescing around the two 'main' parties as we come nearer the snap GE. Meanwhile it never ceases to amaze me that so many people are still ready to vote for a party that drove the whole country into descensus in cuniculi cavum as a way to solve their never-ending civil war, and their current leader is a daily living reminder that cucullus non facit monachum. But of course regnat populus and any warning ad populum about the massive wrongdoings of the three consecutive Conservative governments sounds like vox clamantis in deserto. For now and only in England and Wales if regional subsamples of current polls are to be believed, that show the SNP still bagging about twice as many votes as the Scottish Branch Office of the English Conservative and Unionist Party. And don't get me started on Tory voters who have instant buyer's remorse and start whining about Tory policies hurting them, as they should always remember that volenti non fit injuria. Then Johnson can still count on the toxic combination of English Exceptionalism and English Masochism to get the votes he needs to cling to power even after a lousy Brexit Deal and a farcical Queen's Speech.

We Are The Champions 🔊
© Freddie Mercury, 1977

On this polling average, my model projects a Conservative majority for the first time in seven months. Of course individual polls delivered a Tory majority every now and then, but the successive rolling averages always dampened the effects of such polls, which were mostly YouGov's by the way. As usual my mix of uniform swing and proportional swing benefits the LibDems mostly, as they're the ones with the largest multiplying factor, their predicted vote share being 2.35 times their 2017 share. As usual too, the more sophisticated 'advanced regression' algorithms used by Flavible and Electoral Calculus strongly benefit the Conservatives, though I haven't the slightest clue which one of the multiplicity of variables they factor in would explain this. Only sure thing is that Martin Baxter at Electoral Calculus freely admitted that his advanced model mechanically awards the Conservatives a 'bonus' of about 20 seats compared with uniform swing, which is roughly what we have here. Then everyone agrees the Conservatives would get a majority without any outside support, the only debate being about the size of this majority and how it might make things more or less easy for Boris Johnson.

Interestingly Flavible recently added a 'User Predictions' option to their site, which is more sophisticated than Electoral Calculus's 'Make Your Prediction' option. They allow you to run a simulation including a Remain Pact or a Brexit Pact with any parties you want to include. This is of course only a theoretical extrapolation as it is based on current voting intentions with mechanical transfers of votes between the members of each Pact. The situation would obviously quite different if any Pact happened in real life, because it would be based ex hypothesi that corvis oculum corvi non eruit, id est incumbents would be explicitely protected against any challenge from the other signatories. Which would not seriously impact any hypothetical Brexit Pact as the New Model Blackshirts on 12% would be in no position to challenge Conservative incumbents. The situation would be different for a hypothetical Remain Pact as it would preclude any LibDem gains from Labour and any SNP gains from Labour or the LibDems. With these caveats, here is what you get with my own projection used as the baseline, not Flavible's which is more favourable for the Conservatives. But as usual what matters is the differences between the various options, more than the numbers per se.

Of course this kind of simulation only reflects what could possibly happen if either or both Pacts were implemented nationally after a very public agreement between parties. It says nothing about the political expediency of such strategies or their likelihood, which is obviously close to fuck all. For example including the SNP and possibly Plaid Cymru in a Pact with Union-obsessed English parties is obviously pushing the scenario ad absurdum as neither would write off any expected gains purely ex gratia. All you can say is that a Brexit Pact would be much more efficient than a Remain Pact under current voting intentions. The impact of a Remain Pact would be quite ironic as it would not strengthen Labour enough for an outright majority, but would open the door to either a Con-Lib or a Lab-Lib minority Government, effectively giving Jo Swinson the power to choose the next PM. Which might not be exactly what voters actually want. But unintended consequences abound in politics.

Another One Bites The Dust 🔊

© John Deacon, 1980

On current polling 104 sitting MPs would be sent packing by their constituents, midway between the 1880 and 1923 elections. Again the breakdown and cartography of gains and losses would be quite disastrous for Labour but they can only blame themselves for this. Faber est sua quisque fortunae and nobody held their hand over the fire to make them the worst Loyal Opposition in 30 years. What we have here also proves again that voters instinctively don't like turncoats as Change UK and The Independents would lose all their seats, and the seats gained by the LibDems through defections would all switch back to their original party.

What happens to rebels and defectors will be interesting to watch. Pure electoral math says all their seats will return to the party who won them in 2017 with only three or four exceptions (John Woodcock's Barrow and Furness, Angela Smith's Penistone and Stocksbridge both gained by the Conservatives, Steve Brine's Winchester definitely and Oliver Letwin's West Dorset possibly switching to the LibDems). but of course what happens in the real world is quite a wee smitch more complicated than what the math says. I think high-profile Tory Rebels like Philip Hammond, Nick Boles and Dominic Grieve definitely have a chance at surviving on their own merits and personal appeal, no matter what kitchen sink Dominic Cummings throws at them. Then it's obviously easier for Greive now that he no longer has LibDem competition for the centrist Europhile vote. Seven of the original Gaukeward Squad have decided not to seek re-election, so their seats are bound to return to the Conservatives. Lesser known backbench rebels will face an uphill battle against official Conservative candidates, unless they are restored the whip before the snap GE. Which can definitely happen for a number of reasons, including the risk that a split conservative vote might hand some of the seats to Labour or the LibDems. Even Dominic Cummings can do that sort of math, so wait and see. Just bear in mind that repeat sex harasser Charlie Elphicke was restored the whip so he could vote in an internal Tory vote of confidence in Theresa May, so you never know what can happen when the 'national interest' is at stake.

Under Pressure 🔊
© Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor, David Bowie, 1981

Under current polling 55 seats would qualify as marginals, a relatively small number compared to previous elections. But the potential battleground remains fare larger than this as another 135 would be decided by less than 10% and thus remain quite competitive. The updated cartography of marginals is less favourable to the Conservatives than two weeks ago, with 28 of their projected seats in the danger zone against only 17 Labour seats. But of course the Conservatives would start with a higher number of seats, so the alternate scenarios don't look that bad for them.

The Con Max scenario would deliver a 44-seat Conservative majority, more than enough to feel relatively safe for the next five years, save for some implausibly severe backlash in future by-elections. At the other end of the possible futures, the Lab Max scenario is another of these cases where Jo Swinson principledly asks herself 'what would Nick Clegg do?' and it takes her six seconds to principledly decide to go into Coalition with the Conservatives. Because the only alternative would be pissing off Willie Rennie by going into a loose Big Tent Rainbow Max deal with Labour and the SNP, and we wouldn't want to piss off Oor Wee Wullie, or would we?

The Loser In The End 🔊
© Roger Taylor, 1974

In these days of heavily edited Wikipedia entries, fake news and rule-by-Twitter, the leaders' personality, or public perception thereof, is as much a factor in any election as what is in the parties' manifestos, or isn't. And this is the game Jeremy Corbyn is currently losing if favourability polls are to be believed. Here is what the latest YouGov favourability poll has to say: Corbyn gets 21% favourable, 71% unfavourable and 8% undecided, so a net -50. Johnson gets 40-52-8, a net -12. Swinson gets 22-46-32, a net -24 but not fully convincing with a third undecided, or probably unable to make head or tail of what she actually wants. As always the devil is in the details, namely the poll's crosstabs that show Corbyn losing the favourability game across the board. Here is what YouGov has to say about our Three Stooges, with undecideds removed. Political breakdown here is based on the 2017 votes, not current voting intentions. This is a GB-wide poll so Nicola Sturgeon and SNP voters are not included in the crosstabs. But we know from other polls that Nicola gets a net -9 rating GB-wide, better than any of the other three, and a net +5 among Scottish voters. In both cases these are her best results since polls started testing her in 2017. Now back to Jeremy.

Corbyn's problems are quite obvious here. He does badly, and in some cases abysmally badly, in every political tribe, every demographic and every region. Even his own voters view him unfavourably and it gets even worse if you try crosstabbing the crosstabs and focus on what might be key groups in the snap GE. Young Southern middle-class Remainers don't like Corbyn and boost the LibDem vote especially in London and the Southwest. As usual this does not necessarily benefit the LibDems directly, but mostly snatches enough votes in Lab-Con marginals to switch them to the Conservatives. Then middle-aged Northern working-class Leavers don't like Corbyn either and would either stay home or stick to the Brexit Party at the snap GE, with devastating results in Wales and the post-industrial Northern Powerhouse. Of course John McDonnell doesn't help here when he openly suggests Corbyn would find it hard to keep himself alive and kicking as Labour leader after an election defeat. Which I don't consider a given as the 2017 GE was widely seen as a victory, so Corbynistas could try and spin that 2019 was in fact only his first real defeat and other Labour leaders before him have been granted a second chance to lead Labour to a second consecutive electoral clubbing. Then the direct opposite point also works as polls predict Corbyn's shit-or-bust moment would end up in a disaster of Footesque proportions so he would probably have to let go no matter what.

Now what about the First Minister of England? There is definitely a lot of ambiguity in the How and the Why Johnson manages to emerge as the front runner in the beauty contest while a significant majority view him unfavourably. Massive support among Conservative and Leave voters obviously skew the average his way but does not explain everything. I venture it's not a case of Johnson being actively liked but rather instinctively undislked as he is a good comedian and people easily fall for eccentric buffoonery without realizing it's just a well-rehearsed act and his main drive is power for power's sake. I guess that this will sadly work as long as he sticks to his Del-Boy-Cum-Trump persona and makes people forget about his true nature, an entitled sluggard. Then the poll was conducted before Johnson taking the Damascus Road from scrapping the undemocratic backstop to backstopping the backstop with something that walks so much like a backstop and quacks so much like a backstop that it's actually a frontstop, including but not limited to the customs booth right in the middle of the £20bn Portpatrick-Larne Bridge, right on top of Dad's Army's not-so-deep-sea munitions dump. Then of course vulpes pilum mutat, non mores so just wait until Johnson's next stunt to figure out if this one was just a stunt too. Shouldn't have to wait too long, Boris loves his legerdemains.

Last but not least, PM Jo remains an unknown quantity for a third of the electorate and even a sixth of her own voters, so her 'without undecideds' ratings are to be taken cum grano salis. But you can't help noticing she does almost as well as Jeremy Corbyn among Labour and working-class voters, though you might wonder what they find attractive in someone who duly supported Tory austerity during the coalition years and still stands firmly to the right of the LibDems. But her relative popularity does not match the Cleggmania of ten years ago even if the LibDems electoral prospects remain surprisingly good. Guess we will soon know if her 'neither neither' talking point is as effective as she expects it to be, though its impact will obviously fall short of getting the LibDems the hundredish seats they allegedly aim for.

I Want To Break Free 🔊

© John Deacon, 1984

A massive 200,000 and maybe more marched in Edinburgh two weeks ago and die-hard Unionists are still entangled in their Alien-ish tagline, in Scotland no one can hear you scream, though for once even the BBC could not pretend it did not happen. But Unionists of all shades also have an unhealthy disregard for polls showing they are on the wrong side, not just in the view of Scotland's public opinion but also of all of the UK's public opinion. Opinium polled UK-wide in August whether respondents thought the English Government should 'allow' or 'prevent' a second Scottish Independence referendum. Their wording, not mind, though you could argue it is a fairly accurate description of the current legal situation, and also a fairly adequate way to measure support and opposition to IndyRef2. BMG asked the very same question in early September and the results are just as clear. Here are the numbers for support to IndyRef2 after undecideds removed, and the changes between the two polls.

Most salient result here is that support for IndyRef2 is now on 60% UK-wide, up 4% on the previous poll, and the feeling is pretty much shared all across the political spectrum (based on current voting intentions this time, not past votes) and all demographics. Interestingly the increase in support for IndyRef2 comes mostly from Conservative and Brexit voters switching from opposition to support, though you would probably be right if you suspected some ulterior motive here. Like in 'kick out the subsidy junkies and keep the dosh for ourselves Doon Sooth' but anyway it's the result that counts. Especially when support comes not only from the Celtic Nations (Northern Ireland again not polled here) but also from all across England. With a reality check for the benefit of Jackson Carlaw, Richard Leonard and Willie Rennie. Next time you venture on thin ice arguing that there is no appetite for IndyRef2, just remember 61% of Scots expressing an opinion want it. Telt.

So now it's pretty much up to Scotland to seize any opportunity and listen to those who say it's high time to libera te tutemet ex inferis. Nobody could seriously campaign on 'Better Together' after a hard Brexit. Would be like better together on the Titanic but, so sorry lads, there's no lifeboat for Scotland. And nobody so far has made the case that it would be in any way better after the lousy Johnson deal or a so-called soft Brexit. Not even Jeremy Corbyn could argue that a Labour-deal Brexit, in the unlikely event it could happen, would be in any way good for Scotland. Note thet the BMG poll also showed massive support for an Irish Reunification referendum, commonly known as the Border Poll, with 52% supporting, 19% opposing and 29% undecided (or 73% supporting and 27% opposing after undecideds removed). So the story goes, mene mene tekel upharsin and there is nothing Tony Blair can do about anything, even if anyone still gave a rat's fuck about what he has to say, ceterum autem censeo Unionem esse delendam.

There is now a strong majority sharing the view that Scots should be given the choice whatever convoluted arguments are used against IndyRef2. Even the highly hypocritical LibDem talking point that Brits have an unalienable right to change their minds about EU membership and that's why they demand a People's Vote, but Scots don't have that same right about Independence and should bow to their Imperial Masters for generations. To which the answer is: futue te ipsum, PM Jo. Of course there is not yet an overwhelming majority of Scots ready to vote for Independence, but our number is growing and obviously more and more have reached the inevitable conclusion that the Union will ultimately succumb, and most likely at the very hands of those who profess to be its most ardent defenders. Because history will have it on record that 'the most successful Union of all times' was in fact an abject failure that proved again and again unable to take care of its own and divided them rather than united them.

The Show Must Go On 🔊

Odd things keep happening in British politics. The Saturday Night Fever sitting, the first since la Guerra de las Malvinas, could have been Johnson's magic moment and it turned into yet another dies horribilis with his seventh major defeat. Having Commons sit on Saturday might at first have looked like a strange move from Johnson, who first wanted to gag Parliament and now seems to never get enough of them. But he had every reason to want a vote on his New Brexit Deal celerius quam asparagi cocunctur because that was the only way to kill the Benn Act as cessante ratione legis cessat ipsa lex and he could finally say that he made good on his promise and anerrhíphthō kýbos, he got Brexit done. Of course Johnson will never openly admit he got that Great New Deal only after making some calculated U-turns, effectively surrendering to the EU to put it in terms Brexiteers understand. He was happy enough to be bragging that habemus pactum at long last, even if it is a lousy deal, arguably worse than Theresa May's thrice-rejected deal. Then the question was 'House, whither goest thou?' as the result of a straight up-and-down vote on the Brave New Deal was pretty much like the electorate's mood, far from solidly predictable.

Then Oliver Letwin popped up as the deus ex machina throwing yet another spanner in the works. Questions are already being asked about Letwin's ulterior motives as he had announced earlier he would vote for Johnson's deal, and allowing the deal to pass would effectively have avoided a No Deal Crashout and made the Benn Act irrelevant. That he tabled his amendment at all says a lot about the level of distrust in Johnson and the structural belief among MPs that whatever Johnson says, he is lying. A lot can be said too about the DUP's vote as it definitely made sense for them to defeat Letwin, go straight to the vote on the deal and defeat it too.Voting for Letwin was literally a last minute decision as they showed up just as the doors to the lobbies were being closed, which might be interpreted as a precaution against any pressure, either from the Government benches or from their own leader who is probably not too happy with the outcome. Then Letwin must love the additional irony in passing his amendment thanks to the DUP and their bizarre approach.

Next step now will be Meaningful Vote Four probably tomorrow, on the full Withdrawal Agreement and Implementation Bill (WAIB) and Bercow can't block it, even if pissing off Johnson up to his very last day in the Chair has its merits too, but this vote would not be 'repetitive and disorderly' even if the core of the bill is indeed Johnson's deal that met an untimely demise on Saturday. Right now there are 639 voting MPs (650 minus Sinn Féin, Speaker and Deputy Speakers) which goes down to 635 on divisions with the four Tellers (most probably two Conservatives and two Labour) voting but not counted in the official tally. So the magic number here is 318, not 320 as routinely reported, and Johnson is very close to it and might not even need it. Anyway I'll go out on a limb with my prediction, or best educated guess, of what will happen. I think Johnson will win it though it will extremely close but he does start from a much more favourable baseline than May ever had. But passing the WAIB on its second reading is only the beginning. Amendments will pop up afterwards and might very well defeat the very purpose of the WAIB, once again turning Brexit into a series of BrexHog Days. So here's my headcount for the WAIB vote itself:

Johnson has now secured most of the Rebels' votes and also the Spartans' as it's obviously better to have them inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in, and I don't know the Latin equivalent for THAT. Now all Johnson needs is to flip a handful of Labour leavers, and even their abstention would be a win for him if it takes the number of valid votes cast to 629 or fewer. But imagine it's a tie after all votes are counted and John Bercow has the tiebreaking vote. By convention he has to cast it for the status quo if there is no majority for a change, but what is the status quo here? So he might choose to vote for the Government and save Johnson's fat sorry ass. Unless of course he says to himself "fuck it Johnny, in ten days you're out of this fucking circus, so let's just do this and fuck the fuckers" and votes against the Government. Possibly against convention but not out of character and totally bulletproof in Court as unwritten conventions count for fuck all in the eyes of the Judiciary unless they go with consuetudo pro lege servatur. Could be fun. The next episode is of course the Court of Session ruling which has now been delayed pending further events in London. Johnson has avoided acting ultra vires after his prospective deal was voted down and he has technically sought an extension in compliance with the Benn Act. But he seems to have forgotten that draco dormiens nunquam titillandus and turbo-charged anti-Brexiters now have new arguments against him. Saturday's events may have taken nobile officium off the table but Johnson could still be held in contempt for the creative way he handled 'abiding by the law', which has something of a Putino-Trumpian feel to it. It's definitely a bad idea to piss off judges, even if it's just what can be expected from an entitled incompetent sluggard, and the First Minister of England will probably learn it the hard way some time this week from the Court of Session.

Some time after the vote on the Queen's 2019 Conservative Manifesto, Commons will probably have to vote on a LOTO-submitted FTPA-compliant VONC motion (more on this some paragraphs earlier) and nobody really knows how it could end. Grapevine also has it that Johnson might try a self-engineered vote of no confidence a.k.a. The Schröder Manoeuvre after former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schröder who did just that to get Bundestag dissolved in 2005. You don't even have to convince any of you own MPs to vote against you, all they need to do is not show up for the vote so the opposition wins and you get your snap GE on your own terms. Or that's what Schröder thought and then he lost the snap GE to Angela Merkel by four seats in a hung Bundestag. Ye ken, even the best-laid schemes… But just don't take this as a prediction. Just not yet, wait until the Season's Big Finale.

The next episodes of the farce look quite promising, so don't miss a beat and stay tuned for further broadcasts.

It's times like these, when long-standing patterns are disrupted,
That things become more fluid, that's when a small group of people
Or even a single individual can change the course of history
(Dark Matter, episode We Should Have Seen This Coming, 2016)

Bohemian Rhapsody © Freddie Mercury, 1975

Radio Ga Ga © Roger Taylor, 1984

Hammer To Fall © Brian May, 1984

Crazy Little Thing Called Love © Freddie Mercury, 1979

We Will Rock You © Brian May, 1977

We Are The Champions © Freddie Mercury, 1977

05/10/2019

Westminster Projection - A Tale Of Two Prorogations

Brexitocalypse D-26

83th Anniversary of the Jarrow March, also Bob Geldof's 68th birthday and Kate Winslet's 44th

Out There 🔊

General Election polling continues to be quite disconcerting even for those who still think the truth is out there. Recent voting intentions offer anything from a tie between Labour and Tories to a 12% Tory lead. If projected into seats that could mean anything from 280 Con-270 Lab to 350 Con-200 Lab. So your perception of the snap GE totally depends on which pollster you believe, or you might decide that the truth is somewhere in between and settle on a Tory single-digit lead. But then you might be at a loss deciding which digit and end up reckoning the best choice might be to trust no one, in which case the pollsters' dismal performance two years ago and four years ago might prove you right. There has been some movement over the last ten days as the updated trends show. There have been some tiny changes both within the Do-Or-Die camp and the Remain Camp, though I would not rate any of it as an actual reversal of fortunes, at least not until we know more about the outcome of the Brexit clusterbùrach. A deal, No Deal or extension will obviously be a major factor in shaping public opinion in the run up to the snap GE. More on this later.

An interesting phenomenon is that LibDems are again snatching away votes from Labour so that a tie between them for second place is not that implausible. Jo Swinson might have deluded herself into believing she radiates the scintillance of tomorrow's wonder (aye that's another quote and I'll let you take your wildest guess at where from) but she's still quite a distance from becoming PM Jo. I am not sure her newfound Revoke-Or-Bust stance will help as even the most determined Remainers will probably take a second referendum over Parliament taking back control of the outcome. She should probably not conclude that the LibDem surgelet has anything to do with this new stance, as I think the main factor here is Labour's shambolic Conference and their renewed failure to settle on a clear approach to Brexit. Kicking the can of worms down the road was a major factor in Theresa May's demise and there is every reason to believe it will also be one in Jeremy Corbyn's. Bear in mind too that Scotland will hold one of the keys to the election, as the demise of the Scottish Tories might make the difference between a Tory majority and a hung Parliament if the election is closer than current polling predicts.

And here the trends are definitely extremely good for the SNP. Whichever way you look at it, the SNP are now predicted to bag twice as many votes as the Scottish Conservatives, which would take them down to one to three seats and very possibly none. Meanwhile and equally importantly, polls predict Scottish Labour and the Scottish LibDems tied somewhere below 15%. On these numbers the LibDems might be able to unseat Stephen Gethins in North East Fife though I still rate this as highly improbable, and a couple of their own seats are not as solid as they may hope, just think Edinburgh West or Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. Labour losing about a third of their votes will lead to their Third Extinction after 2015 and 2016 and erase the unforeseen 2017 surge. Even Ian Murray's seat is no longer a safe one as Edinburgh Conservatives might choose to close ranks around their own candidate rather than again vote tactically for Murray. Time will tell.

The Battle 🔊

My current Poll'O'Polls includes the six most recent ones conducted between 24 September and 1 October, so all after Johnson's Supreme Court defeat. That's as fresh a snapshot of public opinion as you can get, or at least of what pollsters want us to believe about the public's state of mind. Super-sample size is 8,926 with a theoretical 1.01% margin of error. It might again be overestimating the Tory vote as three out of six polls were conducted by Tory-friendly YouGov, but that's all we have right now. Oddly the current rolling average is quite close to what we had a month ago when Commons reconvened. Only noticeable change is the Greens losing 2% while LibDems gained 3%. But this can't hide the alarming fact that pressure is building up both inside the Westminster kettle and outside. Things can change quite quickly at the start of the next Commons Session, maybe for better or maybe for worse. Crystal balls available on demand from John Curtice and The Guardian.

Change UK, or Whatever-Fucking-Name-They-Plagiarized-Last-Week, and UKIP no longer register even on the Mariana Trench sonars as most pollsters, that is all except Opinium, no longer even bother including them in their prompts, so they're now bundled with the Monster Raving Loony Party (Official) and the Birkenhead Social Justice Party (aye, that's an actual thing) in 'Others'. Then the sad truth is that, contrary to Owen Jones's wishful thinking, 'for the many, not for the few' does not quite cut it. What Owen rightly identifies here is that Johnson is successfully painting the Tories into the 'anti-elite' with his populist People-Vs-Parliament rhetoric, but Owen fails to bring it to its logical conclusion. Corbyn is doomed as long as Labour fail to get their message through, as they look more preoccupied with internal power struggles than with doing the right thing at the right time. Arguing that Labour's best hope is some brand of class-based populism as opposed to the Tories' nationalist populism falls far short of being convincing. First because Owen fails to define what class-based populism would be. Also, and possibly more importantly, because Labour, and especially the Parliamentary Party, is still home to a meaningful post-Blairite faction whose base instinct is to summarily reject anything class-based because they deny classes even still exist. Surely change will come, but probably not this year or even the next.

The regional breakdown of the last six polls is just as damning for Labour as it was ten days ago and shows very little movement except from a slight improvement for the LibDems all across England, just as the rolling average does. Labour may have recovered slightly in London but they are still deep down the pipes in Scotland and have lost Wales. Even the heartlands in the North and Midlands are now just fuzzy shades of distant memories. There is a pattern here worryingly similar to what happened in the post-industrial American Northeast when Donald Trump snatched Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Working class voters easily switch to supporting right-wing populism when they lose hope of a better future under a left-wing government. The point had already been made with the rise of the National Front in France in the 1980s and 90s and it's not too late for Labour to listen and learn. Yet.

Balance Of Power 🔊

On current polling my model once again predicts a hung Parliament, and this time the Conservatives would need a deal with both the DUP and the Brexit Party for a workable majority, but a fragile one on only 10 seats. Now we are close to this twilightish zone where a handful or even a couple of seats could decide what kind of coalition we would get. Just fancy Aberdeen South being the tipping seat that takes the Tories one seat above the majority line. Quite scary, isn't it? For completeness' sake Electoral Calculus's Advanced Regression Model would deliver a 12-seat Tory majority, but they freely admit their updated algorithms deliver a slight bonus for the Conservatives. Interestingly their own assessment of probabilities somewhat contradicts their prediction, as they assign only a 38% probability to a Tory majority and a 12% probability to a Labour majority, leaving 50% probability to various shades of a hung Parliament, including 4% for the extreme scenario where no feasible majority emerges from the election and all that's left is yet another snap GE.

Now all pollsters routinely poll voting intentions as if the election was held tomorrow, which leaves the results open to questioning as even polls conducted on the same days deliver vastly different results. Electoral Calculus also point to the huge discrepancies between recent polls, which make a solid prediction of the election's outcome quite risky. But there is a common conclusion to all polls: Labour have only a 25% probability of becoming the next Government, whether on an outright majority or through a Labour-led coalition. Obviously you can never say never as never is a long long time in politics, but Corbyn at Number 10 is far from a really plausible outcome right now. And won't be as long as Labour do poorly in what used to be their historic heartlands.

Losing ten seats in Wales and eleven in London is a clear sign of Labour's current problems, compared to which losing six Scottish seats, or possibly even all seven on a really bad day, is only a mild embarrassment. But losing another ten in the Midlands, sixteen in the North and being pushed down to third party in the South is also evidence to a deeper crisis and a widening rift between Labour and the electorate. Their situation is somewhere between hopeless and terrible and there is no short-term cure to this. Of course such dismal results would end Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and start an interesting contest to succeed him. I guess that Tom Watson has now kicked himself out of the contest over his part in the 'institutional stupidity' Operation Midland and that leaves the post-Blairites without any credible candidate, unless you count Hilary Benn or Stephen Kinnock as such. Then I fail to see any serious candidate emerging from Momentum Central, so my best educated guess is many would find Keir Starmer the best possible compromise between duelling factions, especially as two thirds of Labour members view him favourably according to a recent poll. Time will tell.

The Last Battle 🔊

Under current polling 119 sitting MPs would be defeated, midway between the 2010 and 1892 elections. Coincidentally both of these also delivered a hung Parliament. 1892 is even more interesting as the Liberals came out of the election as the second party but nevertheless formed the next Government with the support of the two Irish National parties. Of course any similarity with a possible alternate outcome of the Snap Election of 2019 is pure coincidence. The summary and cartography of gains and losses are again pretty damning for Labour whose 'gains' would only be theoretical as they would take back only seats they won in 2017 and have since lost to defectors, and then not even all of them as John Woodcock's Barrow and Furness would switch to the Conservatives and Angela Smith's Penistone and Stocksbridge to the Brexit Party. There is also something quite simple at work here, that Owen Jones again fails to mention in his latest 'the dug did it' defence of Labour's policies. Labour's main problem is not, and has never been, LibDems gaining Lab-Lib battlegrounds because there are too few of them to decisively swing the election. The relevant factor here is LibDems snatching away enough Labour-Remain votes in Lab-Con battlegrounds as in London where eight seats would switch from Labour to the Tories and only three from Labour to the LibDems.

Bear in mind though that the Conservatives would also fare poorly, with their gains from Labour barely covering their losses to the LibDems, and actually falling a couple of seats short. This is painfully obvious in their Southern Little England heartlands where they would lose 21 seats to the LibDems, fully half of their overall losses UK-wide and two thirds of their losses outside Scotland. Thirteen Tory Grandees would lose their seats, including nine on the Government payroll (paid) and three on the Government payroll (unpaid). Not a major dent as twelve is just 7% of the current Government payroll and most of the losers are definitely expendable by Johnson's standards.

Some minor stars of the backbenches would also get the axe like Tory Anne-Marie Morris of 'nigger in the woodpile' fame, Labour's Jess Phillips of 'imported wives for disabled sons' fame, Mary Creagh of 'let our planes bomb Syria' fame and Sarah Champion of 'Paki sexploitation problem' fame. Some others (Jared O'Mara, Kate Hoey, Gloria de Piero,...) would be spared the humiliation of losing their seats only because they have chosen to stand down but Labour would lose the seats anyway. The Conservative Rebels and defectors would not do too well either with almost all their seats predicted to be held by Conservative official candidates, save perhaps for local factors saving some of them in the few Tory-Remain seats. Early defector Heidi Allen and late Rebel Oliver Letwin are even predicted to be unseated by the LibDems, unless some unlikely local deal saves them.

Wings Of Fortune 🔊

Current polling would deliver 61 marginals, 45 of them in England and including 22 seats that are predicted to change hands. This is not a very high number but the battleground would as usual extend far beyond the marginal seats. Another 130 are predicted to be decided by 4% to 10% so about 30% of all seats would be more or less competitive. The level of uncertainty would be the same for Labour and the Conservatives,, with 21 and 23 marginal seats respectively, but potential gains would be bigger for the Conservatives finishing second in nine non-Labour seats while Labour would finish second in only two non-Tory seats. The alternate scenarios you could get after reallocating the marginals have not changed significantly over the last few weeks as the Conservatives would be the first party in all cases.

The Con Max scenario leaves little to imagination or interpretation with the Conservatives bagging a 29-seat majority allowing them to stay in power without any outside support. Only warning here is that Johnson II would start with the same number of seats as John Major in 1992 but the Conservatives lost all by-elections held during the 1992-1997 Parliament and had to seek support from the UUP to pass legislation. The Lab Max scenario is more interesting as it opens the door to some creative combinations of alliances, with Jo Swinson relishing in her newfound role as kingmaker. On 641 seats after Sinn Féin and the Speaker factored out, a Brexit Pact including the Conservatives, the Brexit Party, the DUP and the UUP would bag 300 seats, 13 short of a majority. I count Sylvia Hermon out of this, though she supported Theresa May in her only vote of no-confidence, as she is a solid Remain supporter and would never support a hard Brexit government.

This does not mean that a Remain Pact would be a success as both likely combinations (with or without the SNP or the LibDems) would fall below 300 seats. The only sure way to success would be a Labour-led Rainbow Max coalition, however implausible this looks. Whoever would be Labour leader then would have to assemble a Huge Tent coalition including both the LibDems and the SNP, which is as likely to happen as Hinkley Point C being finished on schedule and on budget. Guess this is way above even Starmer's negotiating skills. Then the least unlikely coalition would probably be Con-Lib not involving any other party, a rerun of 2010 in which you can fancy Jo Swinson following in Ramsay McDonald's footsteps and becoming the Prime Minister of a coalition in which her party would be the lesser partner. Happened once so don't be so sure it can't happen again, with LibDems pledging to dampen and mitigate the fallout from Brexit, and Swinson being a more acceptable figurehead than any Conservative in the eyes of the EU, which would matter in the predictably protracted post-Brexit divorce settlement horsetrading.

Lure Of The Wild 🔊

One quick detour to Scotland now. Mentioning Independence at every opportunity has kind of become Nicola Sturgeon's and Ian Blackford's Carthago delenda est. Fine with me as long as it boosts the Yes camp's morale and pisses off Yoons. Which brings me to Scotland in Union (SIU) again making asses of themselves by releasing a new poll, and it makes me wonder who paid for it as they're supposed to be bankrupt. They have commissioned three polls from Survation so far in November last year, April and September this year. They have thrice polled the proverbial appetite for a second Independence Referendum, obviously hoping the results would support their claim that there is none, and it spectacularly backfired. Here is what we have, with timeframes translated into years rather than the qualitative wording used in the poll. This is an approximate scale for the November poll as it did not use the same post-2021 timescale as the other two.

The November results are not directly comparable with later ones as they included a 'before Brexit' option that is now irrelevant as it specifically referred to the original 31 March deadline. What is relevant is how the number of people thinking there should never be another IndyRef has changed over time, that is going down ten points in as many months. Which kind of blows up the first lock in SIU's self-appointed mandate to deny Scotland the right to freely choose our future. Also the number of people supporting IndyRef2 during the current Holyrood term, so pretty much on Nicola Sturgeon's timeframe, has increased by 7% and now almost matches the number of refusers. And we now almost have a majority supporting IndyRef2 within the next five years. SIU's findings about the referendum itself are just as interesting. SIU insist on using their rigged and massively manipulative 'Leave' or 'Remain' wording instead of the 'Yes' or 'No' question used in the 2014 referendum and by all other pollsters. Even so the result also backfires with support for Independence up 2% between April and September, roughly matching what the real polls also found. And here goes the second lock in SIU's double-lock mandate.

It is obviously over-optimistic to say the Union is dead when, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, it just smells funny. But Unionists should not count their chickens before they come home to roost. Still waters run deep in glens, straths and lochs and Scottish public opinion is shifting towards Independence, ineluctably if admittedly slowly. What the SIU poll has demonstrated is that appetite for a second Independence referendum and support for Independence have both increased this year and the Yes movement is definitely building on this. All Under One Banner has predicted 250,000 marching in Edinburgh today, which would be a momentous record-breaking event. Now early reports say more than 200,000 marched, so more marchers in the National Capital on one single day than in all the 2018 marches combined, give or take. This says a lot about the current state of Scottish public opinion and should incite Unionists to tone it down some notches as time is definitely not on their side.

Into The Future 🔊

Britain Elects obviously liked the polling of alternate realities they commissioned from ComRes in early September, so they tried another one just two weeks after the first, in the poll they conducted on 18 and 19 September. The baseline is as usual the standard question on how people would vote 'if there were a General Election tomorrow'. And now we have six alternate timelines labelled quite laboriously as 'The deadline for the UK to leave the EU has been extended beyond the 31st of October 2019', which I suppose means the election would happen before 31 October, 'The UK has left the EU with a deal on 31st October 2019', 'The UK has left the EU without a deal on 31st October 2019', 'The UK has left the EU with a deal after a period of extension beyond the 31st of October 2019', 'The UK has left the EU without a deal after a period of extension beyond the 31st of October 2019' and 'The UK revokes Article 50 and remains in the EU after a period of extension beyond the 31st of October 2019'. Quite the mouthfuls so take a deep breath and have a look at the voting intentions in all these alternate realities.

The baseline results are significantly better for Labour than the polling average, which is a constant for ComRes polls. And again what matters most are the differences between the scenarios, not the numbers per se. Interestingly we have here what you might call the Johnson Scenario (No-Deal Brexit), the Corbyn Scenario (leave with a deal after extension) and the Starmer-Swinson Scenario (remain in the EU after extension) though admittedly Sir Keir would get that through a second referendum and PM Jo would get it through a Commons vote to revoke Article 50. The results are partly counter-intuitive: of course the Johnson Scenario would deliver a massive Conservative success by vaporizing the Brexit Party, and Starmer-Swinson would spell doom for the Conservatives with a massively revived Brexit Party, but also a surprisingly unconvincing result for the Remain parties. Finally the Corbyn Scenario is quite a mixed bag with the Conservatives surprisingly doing better and the opposition less well than on the baseline. Presumably this is because respondents implicitly assumed Johnson would still be in charge and would deserve some lesser reward for getting Brexit done after all. It would be interesting to replay the same scenarios but with the explicit hypothesis that a caretaker Government would be in charge after the extension. Let's see now what sort of seat projections my model delivers on all options.

I find some of the above results counter-intuitive. Johnson would probably suffer a backlash if he applied for a Doomsday extension and got it but I think the magnitude of it is overestimated as a number of people would still give him the benefit of the doubt until Doomsday. The point is moot anyway as it would require the snap GE being held between the 19th and the 31st, and the probability of this happening is about a few nano-percent North of fuck all. Then there is little difference between exiting with a deal and No Deal Crashout. If Brexit happened as scheduled, Johnson would get his reward for getting it done and a majority in both cases. The situation would be more tricky if Brexit happened after an extension, then I guess in that case the LibDems would be ready to help a 'reasonable' Johnson-less Tory government as it looks like something PM Jo has always been ready to do. The other counter-intuitive result is what would happen after an extension and Article 50 revoked. There would be no Revocation Bonus here and a possibly explosive situation with the only viable majority being Lab-Lib-SNP, quite the recipe for another crisis and another snap GE. But there is more to this story as another, and more worrying way, to interpret ComRes's findings is to recalculate the different scenarios from the current projection based on the most recent polls instead of Comres's more Labour-friendly baseline.

Caveat here is that the differences between the alternate realities would probably be less spectacular if the Conservatives started from a more favourable baseline, though you never know as the current situation remains both confusing and likely to deliver unpredictable outcomes. Now in this more pessimistic approach, Johnson's Brexit Bonus would be tremendous. If he delivered it before Doomsday he would do better than Blair 2005, Thatcher 1979 and Thatcher 1987, and almost as well as Thatcher 1983. A 130ish-seat Tory majority would spell doom for Jeremy Corbyn and probably for Jo Swinson too as she would fall far short of her 100-seat target. Doomsday postponed to after an extension would bring a lesser reward but a 30ish-seat majority without need for outside support would still be a flabbergasting vindication of Johnson's Do-Or-Die strategy. Finally the tweaked Revocation Scenario would be fuckloaded with irony as the Revocators would be more than twenty seats shy of a majority even in the Rainbow Maxest configuration involving all the small pro-Remain parties. The unlikely Rainbow Min of Lab-Lib-SNP would be 30ish seats short. Meanwhile a not so implausible Brexit Pact of Con-Brex-DUP-UUP would bag a 42-seat majority, probably on a pledge to overturn Revocation, fulfilling the wishes of their people if not of the people. But fortunately all this is just alternate realities that won't materialize but don't rush to the conclusion that the real world will deliver an outcome in which we will all live happily ever after; Just not yet.

What these scenarios tell us is that the timing and context of the snap GE will be a major factor in shaping its result, which we already knew. Meanwhile public opinion is very ambiguous on the issue according to a recent YouGov poll. People oppose a snap election before 31 October 40-39 with 21% undecided. Then they support one being held after an Article 50 extension 42-34 with 24% undecided. Not a ringing endorsement for either though waiting after an extension is a weak preferred option. Then there is one scenario pollsters never tested: a snap GE after Boris Johnson being dismissed by Elizabeth Windsor. Grapevine has it that the Crown is seeking legal advice on this in case Johnson refuses to abide by the law and fails to actually seek an extension, or does while actively sabotaging it. The Monarch sacking the Prime Minister would be quite a shocking upset as it hasn't happened for 185 years and it would be quite out-of-character for Elizabeth Windsor to actually do it, but you never know what can happen in these strange days we're living. Even the seemingly impossible can no longer be ruled out.

Chamber Of Horrors 🔊

Commons again turned into a freak show after the early end of the unlawful prorogation. The First Minister of England duly plaid his part in the farce, again demonstrating he is a delusional pathological liar, technically one of the symptoms of psychosis. Other symptoms may include incoherent speech and behaviour that is inappropriate for the situation, and we've seen a fucking lot of that too lately. Not that Johnson is anything like Westminster's Freddy Krueger, though he does sometimes display some alarming psycho-killer traits. He's more like the Norman Bates of English politics. Able to lead a modicum of a normal life with the occasional backstabbing every now and then, but thinks he is hiding Britannia in full regalia in his basement when all he has is just a plastic skeleton dressed in one of Peter Gabriel's old stage costumes. Worst part is that he is now the prisoner of his own designs. All causes shall give way, he is in blood stepp'd in so far that, should he wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er. So now he has appointed himself Defender of the True Brexit Faith and seems undeterrably determined to accomplish the mission in a way that makes Captain Bligh look like a bleeding heart. Mark me, it won't end well.

Owen Jones is definitely right to denounce both-sideism again, and he would be welcome to take the same stance in the cybernats vs cyberyoons controversies, but delivering this to the Guardian's readership is pretty much preaching to the fucking choir. I guess public opinion now is probably split three-ways: one third definitely at ease with HateSpeak, one third definitely disgusted by it, one third technically on the fence but agreeing with both-sideism. Unfortunately there are many reasons why the English Government, and not just their First Minister, will not stop revelling in inflammatory language. Both Jacob Rees-Mogg and his former sidekick Steve Baker have admitted their concern is to win back Tory voters who have switched to the Brexit Party, and they have now little more than three weeks to achieve that. So expect the road to Do-Or-Die to be paved with further warlike metaphors and below-the-belt attacks on the oppositions. They worst may be yet to come. Standing orders are to pander to the New Model Blackshirts and aping their words and postures is part of the game. And don't expect Johnson to be reined in by the new Commons Courtesy Pact. He surely already has expert legal advice from the Attorney General that the Chief Whip has no mandate to commit the Government to such a pledge, and that it is an unacceptably unlawful infringement on the Nasty Party's unalienable right to be nasty. Classic Dom.

So now we have it: the Second Prorogation of 2019.Even if Johnson has given prorogation a bad name it does not deserve, this one was always bound to happen. It's a legal technicality: legally the Session opened in June 2017 is still ongoing as prorogation was ruled void and of no effect, so Parliament had to be lawfully prorogued before another Session could start and a Queen's Speech be staged. Simples. So, with 14 October set in stone for the State Opening Wankfest and the Queen's Speech, because we wouldn't want to inconvenience Elizabeth Windsor by postponing it, Johnson had no choice but to suffer the humiliation of seeking Assent for this year's second prorogation (which legally would be the only one as the first one has been given the damnatio memoriae treatment by the Supreme Court and is legally deemed to never have happened) as soon as he came back from the Manchester Clown Show. So now Commons will disband at the end of business on the 8th, as Dominic Grieve suggested and I predicted ten days ago, for just a technical pit-stop. Simples. And this time Black Rod can wipe that exasperated 'shut the fuck up tossers so I can finish my routine or I would shove a fucking racquet up your arse if I did not know some of you sorry wankers would actually love it' look off her face as it will undoubtedly be quieter and devoid of any poorly rehearsed attempts at re-enacting the days of Charles I. Now if Elizabeth Windsor were of a facetious mood, she would grant Assent for Prorogation Reincarnate only if Johnson pledged in writing this will be the last one this year, save for the pre-Snap GE dissolution of course. But she won't, or will she?

For a fun ending, just enjoy Rory Stewart's resignation from the Conservative Party and his public reading of a 1982 letter from Eton's Headmaster to Boris Johnson's father, which says a lot about how the First Minister of England ended up being the entitled wanker we so love to hate.

Remember you always can expect the unexpected to happen, so stay tuned for further broadcasts

Outwit them by stealth or by deceit and they will grin and bear it

They might even admire you

Defeat them by acting honourably and they will burn for revenge

That's something cricket doesn't teach you