The fall of the Tory party

You'll find it hard, Tories vary between 'current scandal' and 'watch this space'.

Cleverer people than me, with much more knowledge of these things, are making the case for a Tory wipeout at the next election, i.e. Sam Freedman:

https://samf.substack.com/p/wipeout?

The Labour Party will take their seats in the midlands and the north, and the Lib Dems will take a lot of seats from them in the south. More importantly, voters want rid of the Tories and we're seeing consistent tactical voting in all elections where the best candidate capable of beating the incumbent Tory, are getting massive swings to defeat them.

It makes sense but I don't want to get my hopes up and I think we shouldn't underestimate this countries ability to vote Tory despite their obvious best interests.

^ this. I know someone who despises this government but will still vote Tory 'cos Labour, innit.

Insert Nelson Muntz HA HAH gif 👌

https://twitter.com/Richiemuso/status/1715234813559373910

I agree with this completely. Time and time again they've snuck in because a silent majority vote for them.

But demographically the Tories are losing voters fast, because basically their core support is dying and younger voters are far less likely to vote for them. Their numbers in the 18-40 demographic are terrible, if only people under 40 could vote, they'd struggle to get any MPs. This demographic change is ignored by a lot of pundits, but I think, and hope, it'll be key.

The other caveat on that one is that the old actually turn up and vote, giving a disproportionate vote to the Tories. Is it cowardly to pray for a harsh winter?

Also don't underestimate the depths the Tories - and the Tory press - will plumb in order to scrape a few votes. Painting Starmer as an apologist for Saville, "lefty lawyers" supporting immigrants, Labour wasting money on "woke" transgender vegan florists etc...

It's going to be a dirty campaign.

One downside of these results is that I can't see any chance of an election happening until the last possible moment. They'll want to keep grifting for as long as they can.

Also the widely held belief of get old - turn conservative seems to not be holding true for millenials, mainly studied in the USA but should be relevent here too. https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/01/25/millenials-age-conservative/
So hopefully with an aging population they won't get more support for free. Hopefully.

Maybe the tyre extinguishers could temporarily target all the honda jazz cars in tory constituencies in the run-up to GE

I fully expect for some of the tabloids to switch sides soon. They can see the writing on the wall and won't want to be seen backing a loser, when they could instead print "it woz the Sun wot won it".

Apparently some in the security services are warning the Government not to clash with the USA elections in November to ensure we don't have a (if short) period of time where 2 of the 5 Eyes cohort is without effective leadership at time of global instability.

So that could mean a May 2024 election (which the Tories really don't want) or them trying to push it back to the very last legal moment in January 2025 (albeit the election has to be called by 17th Dec 24).

It'll be no later than October next year, I think. I can't see the Tories wanting to go through another conference season given how poorly this year's went for them.

No-one wants a winter election as getting party volunteers knocking on doors in winter is always challenging.

to ensure we don't have a (if short) period of time where 2 of the 5 Eyes cohort is without effective leadership

We've been without effective leadership for over a decade, not sure a few more months will matter...

Wonder if she and Gove have the same dealer?

Apparently some in the security services are warning the Government not to clash with the USA elections in November to ensure we don't have a (if short) period of time where 2 of the 5 Eyes cohort is without effective leadership at time of global instability.

I don't imagine this will enter their thinking, they'll hold it at the moment when it best suits their party

The longer they wait the worse its going to get for them, the mortgage crises is going to high hard in Q1 and Q2 next year looking at the numbers of people coming off the there 2/5 year fixed terms.

2 of the 5 Eyes cohort is without effective leadership at time of global instability.

This has been the case for a number of years already.

I guess this may hold sway. They'll need to get every doddery old gammon out to vote that they can. Maybe if the polls have narrowed a bit, but if it stays looking at an almost certain defeat, I still feel that the venal instinct for another 6 months with snouts in the trough might prevail.

But the scale of the swings we're seeing and the quality of the voting breakdown means it's really very hard - borderline impossible - to imagine a way in which they can avoid defeat.

And what, realistically, can they do? They can't change leader again, that would be too absurd even for them. And Rishi Sunak quite evidently does not have anything approximating the political ingenuity to correct the situation. I mean, his last big idea was to cancel HS2, ban smoking and reform A-Levels - like a pick and mix bag of disconnected half-arsed bullshit.

i enjoyed this from the Ian Dunt substack - thank you for drawing it to my attention.

Looks like they are going for unfunded tax cuts for high earners again 😆

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/20/rishi-sunak-considers-tax-cut-for-top-earners-after-byelection-defeats

Anyone who says the Tory party are out of ideas are insane.

With fresh thinking like that, they’ll be 20 points ahead by Christmas.

Making the tough decisions for the long term...

Ha, wondered when he was going to do this after a few of these articles came out
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/10/sunaks-stealth-tax-raid-burden-british-households-40pc/
of course the experts also say that despite it being a stealth tax raise you can't just move it higher because then we'll dive back in to rampant inflation, but don't let that details get the way of a good tax reducing headline.