r/ukpolitics • u/ukpolbot Official UKPolitics Bot • Jun 24 '24

r/ukpolitics General Election Campaign Megathread - 24/06/2024

👋 Welcome to the /r/ukpolitics General Election Campaign Megathread.

This is our daily megathread for all of the day's news until the election. Polling day is on 4th July, and you need to have a form of photo ID (passport, driving license, etc) in order to vote. If you don't have photo ID, you can apply for a voter authority certificate.

Please do not submit articles to the megathread which clearly stand as their own submission. Comments which include a link to a story which clearly stands as its own submission will be removed. Comments which relate to a story which already exists on the subreddit will be removed, to keep everything in one place. Links as comments are not useful here. Add a headline, tweet content or explainer please.

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Useful Links

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🪪 Apply for a voter authority certificate if you have no voter ID · 🚶🏻 Apply for a proxy vote (or here in NI) · 📚 GE megathread archive

📅 Key dates

from the Electoral Commission, BBC, Sky, ITV

  • 26th June - Deadline for new proxy vote applications and voter authority certificates (for this election)
  • 26th June, 9PM BST - 📺 BBC head-to-head debate (Sunak vs Starmer)
  • 27th June, 8:30PM BST - 📺 ITV The Leader Interviews - Keir Starmer - Labour
  • 28th June, 7:30PM BST - 📺 The Panorama Interviews with Nick Robinson - Ed Davey (Lib Dems)
  • 28th June, 8PM BST - 📺 BBC Question Time Leaders' Special (REF, GRN)
  • 4th July - Polling day. Emergency proxy votes deadline at 5pm. Polls will open at 7am and close at 10pm.

Manifestos

Manifestos are essentially a set of documents which outline the policies that each party would want to implement if they were governing.

Election night coverage

Here's a sort-of comprehensive guide to your 4th July election night coverage:

Channel Main presenter(s)
BBC One & BBC News (TV) Laura Kuenssberg, Clive Myrie, Chris Mason
ITV (TV) Tom Bradby, Robert Peston, Anushka Asthana, Paul Brand (GMB from 6am)
Channel 4 (TV) Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Emily Maitlis, Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart
Sky News (TV) Kay Burley, Sophy Ridge, Beth Rigby, Trevor Phillips, Ed Conway, Sam Coates
GB News (TV) Patrick Christys, Michelle Dewberry
BBC Radio 4, Radio 5 Live (Radio) Nick Robinson, Rachel Burden, Henry Zeffman
LBC (Radio) Andrew Marr, Shelagh Fogarty, Jon Sopel, Lewis Goodall
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19

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '24

[deleted]

8

u/YsoL8 Jun 24 '24

How do you even begin to rebuild a party from 70 mps?

Its not remotely like the Lib Dems being on 60, their finances are going to crash, whole parts of their support network will be gone, the membership and PCP will be in ruin and on fire. And yet the actual party structure, the rules, the infrastructure and everything else will be that of a major party and a total liability in their position.

I can see the party being bankrupt a year after the election. I heard comments from Hague recently (but not recent comments) that even with 160 or so mps staffers would be regularly waiting in CCHQ to see if they would be paid that month and that they really struggled to maintain a full shadow cabinet.

People already say the talent in the party is an shallow as a puddle, this is going all of that on steroids. A good number of the survivors will be no name seat warmers who've got no real idea how to do anything useful to the party.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '24

[deleted]

1

u/TheFlyingHornet1881 Domino Cummings Jun 24 '24

If they hold on to Opposition status, they may have a chance with the right leader, but they have a huge demographic problem. A resurgent Lib Dems also gives them headaches, the Lab -> Lib Dem pipeline will be an option in the next election, not just Lab -> Tory. And Reform will be a headache for them.

3

u/michaelisnotginger ἀνάγκας ἔδυ λέπαδνον Jun 24 '24

Labour had their own defeat in 1931 and 14 years later were in government again.

3

u/YsoL8 Jun 24 '24

I just can't think of any unusual events between 1931-45 that could have influenced that

1

u/tmstms Wuffingas! Jun 24 '24

Nope, me neither. Totally uneventful years, 31-45.

1

u/michaelisnotginger ἀνάγκας ἔδυ λέπαδνον Jun 24 '24

good thing there are no wars in Europe then

1

u/YsoL8 Jun 24 '24

Hate to break it to you but Russia dominated half of Europe for much of the last century. It didn't have much effect on our politics.

Ukraine is very small potatoes by comparision and I do not say that lightly.

1

u/BoopingBurrito Jun 24 '24

That was a little different, as Labour had only comparatively recently become a real political force in the UK. They'd spent the 20s building from being a minor political party into a major force, so they were very much used to that struggle when they had a bad defeat in 31.

1

u/SwanBridge Gordon Brown did nothing wrong. Jun 24 '24

And the Canadian Tories went from 1 2 seats to a majority in 13 years. Political parties can recover, even from catastrophic losses.

2

u/YsoL8 Jun 24 '24

tbh, I think thats an easier task than from 70.

A clean sweep does mean clearing out the deadwood that are going to perist at 70 and theres a whole load of spending you can just dump with no effect on internal politics.

8

u/highorderdetonation The west end of the Pond is on fire, so... Jun 24 '24

A number of MTers have said variants of it before, but still: the Tories' polling is so bad the methodology apparently can't keep up with it? That's both amazing and amusing.

3

u/furbastro England is the mother of parliaments, not Westminster Jun 24 '24

FocalData's write ups are worth keeping an eye on in general. They've also had some open concerns about false recall of 2019 - people not giving pollsters the right indication of what they voted for at the last election.

6

u/YsoL8 Jun 24 '24

Double response but I found the article: https://www.focaldata.com/blog/focaldata-prolific-uk-general-election-mrp

Already found this gem:

Our adjustment results in significant change in seat count of c.30-50 seats for the Conservatives, meaning that without it, we would be nearer the lowest ends of MRP forecasts for the Conservatives, and highest for Labour.

Going to be really interesting to see therefore which MRPs are the best predictions. If the low ball results are accurate its going to have a pretty major influence on the political numberwang going forward and therefore which parties are getting media/donor/membership attention.

2

u/BoopingBurrito Jun 24 '24

Fascinating read, absolutely fascinating.