Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

I don't think there is a mole in CCHQ.

Apparently, it's just preparing for their announcement that they're going to ban having dogs as pets.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

I guess it adds credence to the suggestion that he called the election on a whim to get one over the whisperers who keep threatening to put in letters of no confidence in him. If all of this looks badly planned, it’s because it is. In fact it is not planned at all.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

AKA the if I’m going down you’re coming with me defence

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

Either that or he just knows it's just not worth putting the effort in.

Other news...

'Jeremy Hunt hints Tories would cut taxes for higher earners if re-elected'

That just says it all really. :rolleyes:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-if-re-elected

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

I don't think he did it for that reason. The threat had died down after the local election because acceptance of their fate had taken hold.

More likely is the suggestion he called it because he thought this was as good as it would get with the inflation figures and price cap coming down, but looking to rise again as we head into autumn.

The reason for the chaos is probably as simple as him being politically incompetent. You don't need a well-organised plan to look outside to see if it's raining, to know it's a bad idea to go to the Titanic Quarter and give the journalists the obvious lines or that it looks like a panic to go into hiding 3 days into the campaign.

The only other explanation is he is trying to throw the election.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

That’ll be it!

"I could have won, you know, if I’d tried, but I couldn’t really be bothered…" :D

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

Way back before the 1997 general election I covered the Wirral South by election for the paper I worked on. I was based in a different office but they needed extra staff because this was a big one - a by-election just months before a GE which Labour was expected to win, and the only question was by how much. Wirral South was seen as a dry run and a harbinger. T Blair was in town and I was called in because I’m from Wirral so I knew the lay of the land.

As the day went on there were press releases flying about from all parties, and I gleefully picked on one in which the Tories crowed over Blair holding a press conference in a pub called the Cheshire Cat. Cue one-liners about big smiles with nothing substantial behind them, etc etc etc. I thought I’d written a very clever piece about that, but the editor fired it straight back and boomed across the room words to the effect of, “You need to have another go at that. All that stuff about the pub is just hot air. Your real story is buried about halfway down”.

He was right, of course. Journalists and political junkies love to snigger at what these days we would call memeable content but they tend to obfuscate the real story. The wet press conference, the staged warehouse Q&A, the Titanic walkabout are all inept, but what really gives the game away is the thing nobody’s talking about nearly as much, which is that at the time the election was called around 100 local associations hadn’t chosen a candidate. That represents a failure of national leadership, a failure of communication between central office and local associations, and perhaps most troubling of all for CCHQ it is evidence of rotting at the roots. Back in the day I was accustomed to getting press releases from prospective parliamentary candidates well over a year before the latest possible election date in 1997. It’s a key part of ongoing campaigning and name recognition. And clearly it hasn’t been happening. They are in big, big trouble.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

Was the sinking ship comment about the sinking ship deserting a drowned rat? Someone is stitching him up, sent him out without an umbrella knowing Steve Bray is lurking with a pa system and outside the hours of his injunction...

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

I agree. I always think it better to vote for someone, even if it's a best of a bad bunch situation or tactical voting.

Having worked on elections in the past what some people do is write a big cross over the whole of the ballot paper or write something like 'None of the above'. Even though the vote doesn't get counted for any candidate, it's still counted as a vote for the % turnout.

---------- Post added at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was at 15:58 ----------

Even charities are dealt with more strictly in the run up to a general election.

---------- Post added at 16:22 ---------- Previous post was at 16:11 ----------

In the unlikely even of a party fielding a candidate in every constituency and winning them all, does anyone know if there is something in place should this situation ever arise?

Sure, they would all have been democratically elected, but there would be no opposition and it would effectively be a dictatorship.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

There is nothing in theory stopping a party from being the only one in Parliament.

Realistically what would happen is the party would split pretty quickly into the Parliament. I think if Labour got near 450 for example then the party's left wing would split just on that alone.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

So you would have the Government and its opposition being made up from members of the same party!

Probably for the best as there would be nowhere for them to sit :D

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

Our electoral system is dire. The likes of the Libdems, Greens and Reform get a fraction ( if any) of, the MPs their national vote suggests they should get. Benefits the main 2 parties of course, which is why it never changes.

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

Yup - in our Constituency (Leeds North West), the Conservative candidate, Andrew Huggins, was chosen over a year ago, but has now completely dropped off the radar*, and there is no info available on his successor (if there is one).

*It may be due to the fact he moved jobs in March this year from Ryanair to Emirates as a "First Officer B777", so that’s probably a more reliable source of income than a PPC in a Constituency that Labour are expected to take…

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

The sudden interest in bringing back national service is a pretty blatant core vote pitch. They know fine well they’ll never have to actually do this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpddxy9r4mdo

Re: The traditional CF voting intentions thread, week 1
 

If there’s ever a question how much the older generations hate the younger generations it’s that this is a vote winner.

Record levels of debt
Housing crisis
Decimated public services
Eye watering costs of further education
Now national service

It’ll appeal to the boomers who prattle on about world war 2 when the closest they got was toy soldiers in the 50s.