UK General Election 2024: The Results & Aftermath

[nw1]

(Sorry, catching up on this thread, hence a lot of replies...)

Just thinking of regular train services which no longer call at any station located in a Tory-held constituency.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the most impressive example, AFAIK, is the Bournemouth to Manchester XC, incredibly. This is in contrast to 1997 when it called at a number of stations in Tory-held seats. Of course it "ought" to stop in Brockenhurst in a Tory-held seat, but doesn't...

Euston-Manchester, Euston-Liverpool, Paddington-Bristol (even the variants making all the main intermediate stops) and Paddington-Swansea are a few other long-distance ones that spring to mind. It seems to be the case that all the bellwether "WCML seats" have flipped Labour, including a couple that were Tory in the Blair years.

Turnout 51% - that's extraordinarily low.

It is (though I think it was higher than that in the end). People need to be aware of the danger of apathy otherwise we might end up sleepwalking into a government with Reform having a significant role in 2029.

I'm out of the country and had to expend quite a bit of effort to ensure my vote. If people can't be bothered to visit their local polling station, this is really sad. Surely one of the really quite varied array of parties on offer must appeal to most people?

Significant gains for progressive parties like Green and Liberal Democrat will give succour to those on the left, and are a positive sign.

Indeed.

I am rather worried about the growth of Reform but results in places like Chichester are very encouraging to see.

 

[Snow1964]

It is (though I think it was higher than that in the end). People need to be aware of the danger of apathy otherwise we might end up sleepwalking into a government with Reform having a significant role in 2029.

Turnout was about 60%, (still one seat to declare), generally lower in Labour constituencies where some were below 55%. A fair number of constituencies over 70% turnout.

Overall probably second lowest after 1918 at 57.2% (when many were away at war)

 

[Magdalia]

Having had a good night's sleep, a few observations on the General Election.

We are fortunate to live in a country where it is almost universally accepted that the election was free and fair, with a swift and smooth transition of power, symbolised by the ritual audiences with the Monarch for the outgoing and incoming Prime Ministers.

The prospects for electoral reform are effectively dead. What lots of people will remember from this election is how FPTP was very effective at getting rid of a government that they no longer wanted, and they won't want to risk losing that power. 250 different constituencies found a way to unseat their Conservative MP, some of them very creative. Yes it is a blunt instrument but the voters of South West Norfolk deserve some sort of award for achieving a result that most would have regarded as impossible.

I'm less worried about the National turnout than I used to be. What matters is that the turnout is big enough to be a reasonably representative sample of everyone, captures "the mood of the Nation", and continues to be accepted as legitimate. The National turnout figure actually hides some considerable variation for example these are the figures for the Cambridgeshire constituencies:

South Cambridgeshire 71%​

St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire 68%​

Ely and East Cambridgeshire 66%​

Cambridge 60%​

North West Cambridgeshire 59%​

Peterborough 57%​

North East Cambridgeshire 55%​

What concerns me here is whether significant parts of the population are insufficiently engaged with the political process, hopefully this transition of power can demonstrate that yes it does make a difference.

What economists would call "barriers to entry" are now much lower than they used to be, as demonstrated by the success of Reform, the Greens and the independents. I suspect, without being sure, that the use of social media is significant here, and that future General Elections will see more candidates.

The new ability of polling companies to do large samples with constituency level predictions is leading to a better informed electorate and increased sophistication in voting behaviour. The methodologies used by the polling companies clearly require some more "fine tuning", and that will happen between now and the next General Election. There has been a bit of a fuss here about the seat predictions for Reform but the biggest error from the pollsters was actually their failure to pick up the support for independent candidates in what would traditionally have been regarded as safe Labour seats.

The lower barriers to entry and big data polling, taken together, could lead to the number of parliamentary seats moving much closer to proportionality, without needing to move to a proportional voting system. This time the Liberal Democrats got close to proportionality under FPTP.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Just doing some more checking and I note Robbie Moore has held on to Keighley and Ilkley which surprised me. Didn't even check that as thought it was a foregone conclusion.

 

[Falcon1200]

I'm less worried about the National turnout than I used to be. What matters is that the turnout is big enough to be a reasonably representative sample of everyone, captures "the mood of the Nation", and continues to be accepted as legitimate. The National turnout figure actually hides some considerable variation for example these are the figures for the Cambridgeshire constituencies:

The turnout was even lower in some places; The Glenrothes & Mid Fife figure for example was just 51%, ie nearly half the eligible population could not be bothered to vote!

But at least, here in Scotland, the SNP were well and truly given the boot; Given that John Swinney stated that winning a majority of seats would be a mandate for demanding once again a referendum, losing 38 seats can by the same token only mean that the desire for independence is well and truly dead in the water. Although we thought that in 2014 of course.....

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I was very pleased Rees-Smug (Mogg) lost his seat.

 

[Spamcan81]

I was very pleased Rees-Smug (Mogg) lost his seat.

You’re not alone in that sentiment.

 

[deltic]

There are several places where parties should have had a conversation. There are several places where people voting green especially but also lib dem have allowed Tories to hang on. It could and should have been worse

In the north Stockton is one. Keighley another. Tatton also.

There are plenty of places where people voting Labour allowed the Tories to hang on including the former Chancellor

 

[JamesT]

The new Cabinet meeting today, and other more junior roles presumably being announced in next few days, on Labour side.

But I am intrigued how the opposition will look in Parliament with current seat split (and how shadow opposition roles get allocated):

121 Conservative
71 Lib Dem (sounds like they might get late Scottish count too)
9 SNP
7 Sinn Fein (don't usually take their seats)
6 Independent (do they form group, or work individually ?)
5 Reform UK
5 Democratic Unionists
4 Greens
4 Plaid Cymru
2 Social Democrat and Labour Party
1 Alliance (Northern Ireland)
1 Ulster Unionist
1 Traditional Unionist voice

Conservatives are only 51% of the opposition by seat numbers.

As @Harvester said the Conservatives will be the official opposition by dint of being the largest party. There was some concern that they would have enough MPs to shadow every minister, but that was the predictions of sub-100 seats, 121 should be fine, especially as you can shadow multiple jobs.

The distribution of parties will matter for how many places on select committees each party gets.

 

[Benters]

I was very pleased Rees-Smug (Mogg) lost his seat.

Me too, not forgetting his equally useless niece, Theo Clarke, now my ex-MP.

 

[Kaliwax]

I notice Suella is for scrapping the child benefit limit, anyone know why? Seeing as she takes a hard line on immigration and population increase? Seems a bit weird for a far right tory to be saying something like that.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Turnout was about 60%, (still one seat to declare), generally lower in Labour constituencies where some were below 55%. A fair number of constituencies over 70% turnout.

If the bit I've bolded is true, that would go some way to explaining why Labour's % national vote share (less than 34%) was so low for a landslide victory. A lower turnout gives the winning party the same number of MPs for a seat (one), but fewer votes to add to the national tally of votes.

I wonder if Labour supporters on aggregate were less inclined to vote than Tory/LibDem voters because with the way the political winds were blowing, Labour seats were likely to be perceived as safe, whereas most Tory seats were looking at risk of being lost. Hence Labour voters were more likely to believe voting would make no difference in their seat.

(None of this changes that the overwhelming reason for the % seats/% votes discrepancy is the more fragmented electorate, with 5 national parties now gaining significant numbers of votes. It just adds an additional factor).

 

[edwin_m]

You have to remember under tactical voting their will be a reasonable % who voted Lib Dems, greens etc in seats Labour were unlikely to win to ensure a Tory defeat and therefore a larger Labour majority. I for one did this as Labour would have been my first choice but had no chance in my constituency so Lib Dems got my vote.

It's a more complicated picture than just looking at vote share.

It works the other way round as well - people who would prefer to vote LibDem or Green switching to Labour, so under FPTP voting intention probably has very little correlation to actual support. It would be interesting if a pollster asked who people would have preferred to vote for as well as who they did.

The prospects for electoral reform are effectively dead. What lots of people will remember from this election is how FPTP was very effective at getting rid of a government that they no longer wanted, and they won't want to risk losing that power. 250 different constituencies found a way to unseat their Conservative MP, some of them very creative. Yes it is a blunt instrument but the voters of South West Norfolk deserve some sort of award for achieving a result that most would have regarded as impossible.

Labour (in particular) should be very wary of thinking that. Tactical voting against the Tories becomes much more tricky after Labour has had a term in power, when inevitably some people will be dissatisfied and want to vote tactically against them. Also, vote splitting between Tories and Reform was a big factor this time and might not be at the next election.

I notice Suella is for scrapping the child benefit limit, anyone know why? Seeing as she takes a hard line on immigration and population increase? Seems a bit weird for a far right tory to be saying something like that.

It is common for the far right to favour boosting the native born population as an alternative to immigration.

 

[JonathanH]

Reality is that FPTP is a bonkers system and whilst I'm obviously very pleased with the result on this occasion it doesn't dim my flame for some manner of electoral reform!

We do need local representation as well. Party lists would be a terrible system as there would be no way of removing individual politicians and indeed effectively 'unelected' members of parliament.

There might be some merit in a 'closest loser' system to select the individuals in the regional top up, but the individual constituencies would then need to be larger constituencies to leave some capacity in the 650 total of MPs for the top up members.

 

[Bald Rick]

but the biggest error from the pollsters was actually their failure to pick up the support for independent candidates in what would traditionally have been regarded as safe Labour seats.

@Magdalia, that’s a great post.

Just picking up on this bit. This level of detail is (currently) a step too far for polling surveys. The exit poll covers 133 polling stations that are located in constituencies that are usually fairly marginal and typical of wider voting patterns. They use the same polling stations each time to gain further consistency. The outcome of the surveys at those places is then modelled to reflect the whole nation’s voting. By it’s nature, this won’t be able to pick up very local issues, unless one of the 133 happens to be in a constituency with those local issues. Hence missing the independents. It will also have a tendency to under or over estimate seat gains for smaller parties simply through statistical variaton.

Nevertheless it is still a very large and expensive piece of market research, albeit not as large as the biggest market research conducted in this country twice a year (the National Passenger Survey for Transport Focus).


This sky news article explains more of it (article too large and full of adverts to enable much of a quote)

How accurate are exit polls? The science of predicting election results

Exit polls have been extremely accurate in the past and those who get the information first must follow strict rules as they work out what it all means in a secret location.

news.sky.com

It is the first big moment of election night. The exit poll is the moment millions tune in to get an idea of how the general election will play out. This poll, which says Labour will win a landslide 170-seat majority, is once again a key part of Sky News' coverage tonight.The current model was devised in 2005 by Professor John Curtice and statistician David Firth and it has been consistently reliable, bar 2015 when the seat numbers suggested a hung parliament and David Cameron scraped a thin majority. But for the most part, its accuracy has been dependable. In 2010, it correctly predicted the exact number of seats for the Conservatives.

 

[43096]

I was very pleased Rees-Smug (Mogg) lost his seat.

Likewise. And the delusion was evident - he thought Johnson was still the answer.

 

[Howardh]

The result clearly shows who the UK electorate regarded as the enemy.

True, and I think many of them should be subject to police enquiries; especially the covid PPE equipment scandal.

 

[nw1]

You’re not alone in that sentiment.

An interesting thing about Mogg is that he has been unseated by the person that he himself unseated, all of 14 years ago.

Wonder if that's a record in terms of time passed, for a former MP to return to (basically) their own seat?

 

[nlogax]

I'm relieved the election is over. Maybe we can now start a five year spell of relatively quiet competence and progress with resolving some of the country's bigger problems without distraction from culture wars and extreme left & right-wing dogma.

My guilty popcorn pleasure will be watching the Conservatives go through their upcoming public psychodrama of blame, re-invention, more blame and the inevitable identity crisis as they figure out whether they're centre-right pragmatists of old or now far-right nutjobs with an eye on merging with Reform. That battle had no place in the party while the Tories were supposedly governing the country, but now let's see the full madness unfold well away from No.10.

 

[Howardh]

Who would be the best person to become the new Tory Leader, would it be someone who's quite moderate and James Cleverly or Tom Tugendhat, who I think are more of the one nation tories? Or would it be someone like Suella Braverman? If Suella or someone on the right would be the leader of the Tories, what would be the difference between them and Reform?

Has to be a moderate; and try to get back the centre-ground who have wandered off to LD's and Labour as there's no-one else. There is only so much support the right can get, and (for example) returning to the single market (call it common market if you like) is what so many of us want yet it's not on the radar.

 

[nw1]

It is common for the far right to favour boosting the native born population as an alternative to immigration.

Basically the opposite to my own view; I prefer open immigration plus financial incentives to encourage a lower number of children (two). However, I don't believe that benefits for third, or subsequent, children who have already been conceived should be scrapped, at any time between now and their 18th birthday - I want to make that absolutely clear.

But I suppose I am biased as I have never felt a strong need to have children.

Has to be a moderate; and try to get back the centre-ground who have wandered off to LD's and Labour as there's no-one else. There is only so much support the right can get, and (for example) returning to the single market (call it common market if you like) is what so many of us want yet it's not on the radar.

I'm wondering about Hunt. He's someone that has rubbed me up the wrong way not infrequently in the past, but crucially, he is a relative centrist and seems to appeal to his constituents, in a "liberal-Remainer" part of the country; his constituency is essentially a small patch of blue in a very yellow area of the country.

There is, in my view, a grave danger to our democracy from the far right and this needs to be fought by an alliance of left, centrist and centre-right politicians. As part of fighting this threat, the Tories desperately need to move back towards the centre and Hunt seems to be an obvious person to do this.

 

[Snow1964]

As @Harvester said the Conservatives will be the official opposition by dint of being the largest party. There was some concern that they would have enough MPs to shadow every minister, but that was the predictions of sub-100 seats, 121 should be fine, especially as you can shadow multiple jobs.

The distribution of parties will matter for how many places on select committees each party gets.

I have also discovered the number of questions that each party in opposition can ask, during Prime ministers Questions on Wednesday lunchtime, is based on their ratio of opposition seats held.

Conservatives are about 51% of opposition, Lib Dem's 30%, and other 19% are other parties

 

[Howardh]

Basically the opposite to my own view; I prefer open immigration plus financial incentives to encourage a lower number of children (two). However, I don't believe that benefits for third, or subsequent, children who have already been conceived should be scrapped, at any time between now and their 18th birthday - I want to make that absolutely clear.

But I suppose I am biased as I have never felt a strong need to have children.



I'm wondering about Hunt. He's someone that has rubbed me up the wrong way not infrequently in the past, but crucially, he is a relative centrist and seems to appeal to his constituents, in a "liberal-Remainer" part of the country; his constituency is essentially a small patch of blue in a very yellow area of the country.

There is, in my view, a grave danger to our democracy from the far right and this needs to be fought by an alliance of left, centrist and centre-right politicians. As part of fighting this threat, the Tories desperately need to move back towards the centre and Hunt seems to be an obvious person to do this.

Totally agree, whatever happens in the next five years the LD's and Greens have to hold Labour to account - which is only fair - but must not deviate towards anywhere near the right, and let the Tories and Reform bite themselves to death.

 

[jfollows]

Euston-Manchester, Euston-Liverpool, Paddington-Bristol (even the variants making all the main intermediate stops) and Paddington-Swansea are a few other long-distance ones that spring to mind. It seems to be the case that all the bellwether "WCML seats" have flipped Labour, including a couple that were Tory in the Blair years.

Sadly, only Euston-Manchester via Macclesfield; we still have Esther McVey in Tatton for Wilmslow. Labour came second. And even that route goes through Cheadle, which is LibDem.

 

[Howardh]

I have also discovered the number of questions that each party in opposition can ask, during Prime ministers Questions on Wednesday lunchtime, is based on their ratio of opposition seats held.

Previously, Labour had 6, SNP 2, the lD's one every other week or so. If it's proportional then I expect Conservatives to have four or five and LD's two or three with one falling weekly to the smaller parties?

 

[eoff]

From the BBC (link):

I find that rather hilarious and more than a little disingenuous. The SNP are widely known for caring about only one thing, Scottish independence, which any sane person realises would be a massive case of Scotland shooting itself in the foot. To claim that that stance had nothing to do with their defeat last night is, simply put, nonsense.

My vote was cast taking into account the election in scotland was to be interpreted as a de facto independence referendum. Admittedly the SNP talked about that less recently but the first text of their manifesto has...
"VOTE SNP
FOR SCOTLAND
TO BECOME AN
INDEPENDENT
COUNTRY."
If the SNP result had been better they would have been on the phone to westminster to demand another referendum based on a mandate claim from this election. I'm not so sure they will give up based on this election.

 

[nw1]

Having had a little bit of time to think about the results, a few thoughts.

Of course, it's a good result - I am very pleased to see Labour win. They have their flaws, of course, but crucially, it's a return to a centrist government. Perhaps Sunak himself was not so bad but he allowed himself to be influenced by the hard right and as a result, the outgoing government was very much dominated by culture wars and "anti-wokery".

Of concern is the fairly low vote share of Labour, which has been much mentioned here already. My main worry is the relatively high vote share of Reform, even after the quite outrageous comments from some of their candidates, including capitulation to Putin and even Hitler and blatant racism and sexism. It's a concern that a significant part of the electorate have voted for what is, in my view, an unambiguously far-right party - indeed I would place Reform even to the right of France's RN - which is saying something. And Farage is a simply nasty and obnoxious individual - I say that without any hyperbole whatsoever. He has already obnoxiously and aggressively attacked Starmer; can you imagine any of Sunak, May, Cameron, Howard, Duncan Smith, Hague, Major or Thatcher doing the same? No, I suspect all of those would criticise Starmer robustly but with dignity and respect.

I thus think it's absolutely critical that Labour, and indeed other politicians of the left, centre-left, centre or centre-right, must ensure that they do not play into Reform's hands. Any policies to fix the finances must always take into consideration people's personal financial situation and not drive people into poverty or destitution. Reform are ready to prey on people who fall on hard times and mainstream politicians need to be permanently and acutely aware of this threat.

What is more encouraging is the more robust swing away from the Tories in much of the south and southeast. While the national Lib Dem vote may not be high, they have done exceptionally well in a swathe from Oxfordshire down towards Surrey and Hampshire as well as the southwest. Greens capturing random seats like Waveney is interesting too.

While Reform deeply concern me, the result in Chichester is one local example I will offer which gives a beacon of hope to the progressive cause. As I said in an earlier post, not even close. (I do wonder why Keegan didn't choose to stand in Arundel and South Downs, which the more Conservative-leaning parts of Chichester have been transferred into).

 

[Magdalia]

I'm wondering about Hunt.

I'm wondering too. Hunt was clearly desperate to retain his seat. The most likely reason for that is ambition to lead the Conservative party. His record is mixed. He was Health Secretary for a long time, so bears considerable responsibility for the state it is in now. The beginning of his period as Chancellor of the Exchequer I thought was impressive, but he seems to have got sidelined as the election approached. For a serving Chancellor of the Exchequer to be so invisible during an election campaign was highly unusual.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Yes he appears to have just been given a peerage to take the position up.

Lord Timpson of Newquay, perhaps.

 

[nw1]

Sadly, only Euston-Manchester via Macclesfield; we still have Esther McVey in Tatton for Wilmslow. Labour came second. And even that route goes through Cheadle, which is LibDem.

To be fair I was thinking of the Macclesfield route, I was forgetting 1tph go through Wilmslow.

My main point was "non-Tory" so Lib Dem would count. And I was thinking of the stops, not the countryside that the services traverse through - I'm sure the WCML continues to go through a few Tory constituencies further south, Stone for one thing, now the realm of the delightful Mr Williamson.