Predicted share of the vote: Conservatives 44 per cent; Labour 33 per cent; Lib Dems 10 per cent; Ukip 4 per cent; SNP 4 per cent; Greens 2 per cent; others 3 per cent.

Seats: Conservatives 363 (up 32 on 2015); Labour 209 (down 23); Lib Dems 5 (down 3); Ukip 0 (down 1); SNP 51 (down 5); Greens 1 (no change); others 21 (no change).


(Image: Herry Lawford)

199 COMMENTS

  1. Your writer’s performance on Sky News yesterday was embarrassing. She was rude and childish and insulting to all Labour voters and I can’t see how she could possibly have done her cause any good. Watch it objectively and see if you don’t agree.

    • Perhaps there are faults on both sides…. I know many decent Labour voters who consider Corbyn and his hard left cronies to be an insult to their politics. Perhaps you share these concerns yourself. In addition the online behaviour of some leftwing activists shames all of politics, vile sick anti-semitic name callers who believe they can just the worst insults at their political opponents. Sorry but I can’t believe conservative woman compares to what I’ve seen thrown online .

      • She wasn’t online though, was she? The real world requires certain standards of behaviour, as the consequences of aggressive and abusive face-to-face interaction are more severe and damaging than the hyperbole-fuelled fantasy world of the internet. An embarrassed Kay Burley had to whisper to the cameraman to cut to the break, and little of the fault, in this instance, lay with the Guardian journalist.

        Also, as regards online name-calling, the racist abuse Dianne Abbott has suffered – seemingly encouraged by the Mail and the Express – is beyond anything that any normal person could cope with. I personally can’t stand the woman, but that’s because she’s awful, not because she’s black.

        • Are you saying people can say what they like online ? I think you are living in fantasy land and also behind the times. People can’t say what they like online and legally it’s no different. If you either threaten or defame a person online, they are perfectly within their rights to take you to court. Get your head out of the clouds . Are you really saying is that is fine for leftwing/labour supporters online to say what they like including vile anti-Semitic abuse ? Get real !!!! You sound like you are hyperboling anything that doesn’t fit your views and then forgetting about the squalid parts of your own labour movement

          • My Labour movement? I voted Labour for the first time in my life today because I think Theresa May is somehow – and this would seem almost impossible – more incompetent than Corbyn.

            However, at no point did I say it is fine to say what you like online, merely that it is not taken so seriously. For instance, if a ‘journalist’ in a print newspaper called for a ‘final solution’ for Muslims, one would hope she would be dismissed immediately.

          • Luckily for you, voting for the Hobo won’t help him this time.
            You will be able to forget your error and live without the consequences of it.

            You will not always be so lucky to escape your choices.

          • Well if you voted Corbyn that’s one hell of a mistake and you would be first person on here moaning about him if he was ever somehow PM. In the adult world sir, May though far from perfect is 100x times better than a known terrorist sympathiser with hard left views. A leader that even the majority of his own MPs wanted removed! What a party and shambles Labour are! . As I said I know many socially conservative Labour voters (majority well away from liberal lefty London!) who would never ever ever vote for Corbyn. Some of these fair minded labour friends (after 30+ years) are now voting Tory
            Of course online is now taken seriously. If you read the news , you’d realise this. As I said above the online behaviour of many labour/leftwing/momentum supporters is sickening. Vile anti-Semitic abuse which you appear to be keen not to mention . Grow up!

          • Pretty childish comment really. Could you not find something intelligent or constructive to say? It’s a little pathetic really.

          • I’m sorry, please ignore my last request to you re evidence of racial abuse. You’re voting Corby and claim shock at racism?? With the anti-sémitisme within the Labour Party that he’s colluded in covering up??

        • The “abuse” Abbott has received is because she is totally and utterly incompetent not because she is black. Heaven save us from having someone like her in charge of protecting our security as Home Secretary.

        • Diane Abbott has suffered abuse (as you describe it), simply because she is utterly risible. Please read left wing blogs and columns online which are vile, abusive and threatening, just to place that all into context.

        • Dianne Abbott has shown time and again that she is completely out of her depth, probably as an MP but certainly as a front bencher, even in opposition. That has nothing at all to do with her skin tone.

          In so far as her skin colour is relevant it is only that:

          * it doesn’t and shouldn’t shield her from justified criticism of her ability or performance.

          * she herself is guilty of generalised comments about white people that, were they reversed and said by a white person about black people, they would be instantly classified as racist. In the age of equality so espoused by her party that means that her comments were racist. Life is never a one-way street.

        • Can you show me where Diane has suffered racial abuse? I’d love to see an example. I don’t mean trolls of course, there will always be trolls of all political persuasions after all, but I mean genuine, racist abuse. I’d like to denounce it also if given the evidence.

    • Completely agree. A good number of the articles here are embarrassing too. Strident wailing and paranoia, completely off putting to sane, middle-of-the-road voters.

      • Good heavens – the country is going to the dogs – strident wailing and paranoia is completely justified. And we are mostly sane and middle of the road social conservatives, it’s just that politics is currently swimming in a sea of leftism, so we appear unusual.

        • I’m not talking about middle-of-the-road conservatives, I’m talking about some of the more barmy, vitriolic or stupid stuff that comes out of this website.

          • It’s a free country – if you don’t like it, feel free not to read it. We are all human, and make mistakes. And also feel free to comment if you think stuff if barmy, vitriolic or stupid to the writers of those comments – they may have their reasons, or not. But don’t tar us all with the same brush, please.

        • Indeed! I often think you’re driving on the wrong side of the road. But then, I would, wouldn’t I? But you’re far more sane than most British political sites, and besides, I enjoy you all.

      • Quite, hysterical articles like ‘Feminism will destroy women’ and Cannabis Needs Eradicating’ would suggest it’s now BNP Woman, not Conservative Woman. It was quite interesting two years ago, now it’s becoming a counter-productive embarrassment.

        • Oh dear. I wager that within three posts you’ll have invoked Godwins Law as well.

          You try and engage in reasonable adult debate and the oppositions trolls you with 15 year olds with the political age of 4.

          Weak, depressing and skullcrushingly boring.

          • Great grammar, bet you did well at school, eh? I hope you feel a bit silly now, say goodbye to Brexit and Ms. Weak and wobbly! LOL!

    • I watched it objectively, and I don’t agree.

      What I saw was a left-winger, doubtless embarrassed by the nature of Corbyn and his cronies, responding to the word “Marxist” by trying to shout down her opponent. I then saw Perrins stand up to this juvenile attempt at bullying others into silence.

      It was disgraceful, and it’s the main reason the left fails to learn about the real arguments of those who oppose them. Along with continual lying, it’s why the left are doomed to lose. Keep it up!

  3. My main concern is how many of the new Conservative MP’s are Placemen, ready to go weak on Brexit.

  5. Seeing the Lib Dems go down from the previous election would be sweet indeed. That would be a real kick in the teeth for Gina Miller and her cohort of remainers trying to undermine the decision to leave.

    • Lib Dems took a strategic gamble – “let’s be the only party that supports the 48%” – and it didn’t pay off. Unfortunately for them, many people who originally voted “remain” are now saying “OK if the country voted leave, let’s just get on with it”

      As for Gina Miller, she is a legend. As a result of her actions, the Supreme Court rejected the Scottish government having a say on article 50, the labour party was sent into chaos when they were suddenly forced to vote on it, and parliament still voted to go ahead with Brexit anyway. Result!

      • I have come round to the idea that Gina Millar must surely be some sort of Conservative sleeper agent that was activated post referendum. Then again after witnessing the Tory election campaign, I’m just not sure they party leadership and planning staff are clever enough to have ever come up with such an idea.
        Gina has turned out to be a massive Tory and Hard Brexit asset.

        • One of the interesting outcomes of the Miller case was that, since the people’s statutory rights (and obligations) cannot be altered without a vote in (the UK) Parliament (a confirmation of a valuable precedent), it follows that any new EU Regulation (which our courts have to apply without the Regulation being passed by Parliament) is actually now illegal.

          Of course it could be counter-argued that the ECA 1972, as amended, provides that Parliamentary approval. Yet the Miller case supercedes the passing of the ECA, so I would have thought that each new EU Decision or Regulation would have to be specifically added to the ECA by Parliamentary approval, at the very least. That means we are already effectively out, unless Parliament specifically approves each new EU law. What fun.

  6. Hopefully, with an increased majority, she can go for a soft Brexit – the only intelligent option

      • Yes.
        It’s the Tory intention.
        Pretend to leave but continue paying for everything in the EU.

        • That would possibly have happened under Cameron. So let’s give Theresa a chance to show that she means business.

          • Cameron pumped out more hot air than two coal-fired power stations and concentrated on gay sex. He was an idiot who could have done what he wanted and, in the end, achieved nothing.

        • facts4eu.org has worked out that, using the EU’s own figures, the single market costs 2-3 times the supposed benefits.
          Big business does not care what it costs as it is the tax-payer who stumps up for the contributions and business that reap the benefits

    • It will be a, so called, hard Brexit; that is the logical consequence of leaving the EU. What an enhanced majority will do is give her some wriggle room to make some, limited and necessary, concessions to ensure a deal goes through without the ultras on the Tory back benches derailing the whole thing.
      Now we just have to see if the EU is interested in making/capable of delivering a sensible deal – so far the omens are not good.
      Always thought it was a voluntary union of nation states, not a prison you should be punished for escaping….

    • A “soft Brexit” is a dead parrot. There is no such thing as a “soft” or “hard” Brexit: there is Leave or Remain. And we voted to Leave.

      • Is it actually dead, or just “pining for the fjords”? 😉

  7. If the Cons win as predicted, but go soft on Brexit, I will be in the front rank with spears and flaming torches for the revolution.

    • Why else do you think Shareeza has tried to lose her majority in the House?
      So she can blame lack of support so she can abandon Brexit.
      She has always been a remainer and always will be.

      • I though she was Eurosceptic until Cameron leaned on his cabinet. She kept a low profile during his ridiculous pro EU campaign. We shall see what unfolds.

        • And she is, TheRIght is rather, shall we say, passionate in his hatred of Brexit and the Tory party.

      • There was an article on the Huffington post of all places saying Theresa May is a hardcore Brexiteer. They said she had to give support to Cameron as member of the cabinet but during the Brexit campaign she was conspicuously absent. We will never know but in her defense, she did triggered art 50 and that was a hard win.

        • She did. But took 10 months to do it. And has conspicuously failed to state that the UK’s independence is not up for negotiation. Do not put your trust in Princes. Or Princesses.

    • Based on…believing the public have the memory of a goldfish.
      A column to fill!
      Do an Abbott and magic a number out of thin air, bank on the fact discussion will have moved on tomorrow and this will be digital chip wrapping.
      Never mind the quality, fill the space!

  9. On the day the election was called, I felt the majority would be around the 110 mark which I then moderated down to 80 the day afterwards. If i was a betting person, I’d be going for something in the 78 region with a handful of gains in Scotland, more gains in the Midlands and some London losses.

    Given the generally shambolic Tory campaign, I wonder if there is an element of wanting to keep the Labour Party around the 200 seat mark: enough to keep Jezza and co. in play but not a bloodbath which would increase the chances of a Labour split and a realignment of the centre which arguably would be a longer term risk to Conservative prospects.

  10. On those vote shares the Tories will have a much larger majority because of the way the seats fall.

    As a sceptic of May, I think we’lre looking at a majority of between 90-115.

  11. I’m with you, squire, having gone 75-100 last night. Shame I backed a larger majority with actual money last week though. Still, maybe the polls are wrong again….

  14. They (the BBC and others) say that Jeremy Corbyn has done much better than expected. They said the same about Ed Miliband prior to the 2015 election result.

    • The BBC would classify a 648 seat majority as a narrow Tory victory and immediately begin wheeling out the left wing talking heads…..

      • They’d blame it on the ‘Daily Mail’ and insinuate all the people in council estates are too thick to understand. Despite the fact that people on council estates live right next door to where there’s problems so see first hand what the difficulties are.

        • I’ve made a similar point elsewhere in the context of voters being dismissed as “dim”. The bad presupposition is that intelligence is like general luminosity. It isn’t. Intelligence needs an object. The people most intelligent *of* social disintegration are those people close enough to the damage to talk about it with authority.

          • My niece is very Labour, hopes to have a career in the Labour Party. They’re not a wealthy family, but they haven’t lived on council estates etc. She’s currently finishing her degree. She is always on about how people in the working classes don’t understand it’s the evil tories because of the Daily Mail and Murdoch press. I keep saying; it’s because they see it. However, she’s resolute in her belief of their ignorance and, at the same time, in her tolerance and appreciation of this class!

  16. I really do hope so; already voted, my constituency‎ (Chelsea and Fulham) is safe Tory – though never an excuse not to vote.

    In London I seem to rub up against many Jezza fans. My sister in law (50, public sector) is a fan of Jezza and in all seriousness I’ve offered to pay for a return flight to Caracas for a holiday, if Jezza fails to form a government and the Tories win with a larger majority than at present. (Air France are offering return flights via Paris for about £600.)

  17. I have been looking at each seat individually during this campaign and calculating an overall total of seats for each party. My projection for the size of the Conservative majority matches exactly at 76 seats. My projections are as follows:

    Con 363
    Conservatives/Labour TCTC* 7
    Lab 194
    SNP 54
    Others 23
    Lib 9

    *Too close to call

  19. The 11 or 12 Unionists will stand with the Conservatives too. So Mrs May that actually means also backing the union in Northern Ireland.

    • I only have UUP standing here, I spoiled my ballot. Only the DUP will back Brexit, will amount to 7 or 8 MPs

      • Fair enough, but that’s enough to cancel out Libdem seats added to any so called ‘Progressive Alliance’

  20. I’ve talked to my Monmouthshire MP and firm Brexiteer, David Davis about this and he says that May is convinced of a place in history when she successfully closes the door on Brexit. That is an extremely powerful driver when you’ve reached that level of power.

    If she gets it wrong or fudges, no amount of spin will change objective history. She is well aware of that and Leave MP’s are on the case.

    He also told me that an MP’s biggest fear is losing the seat. (Think Michael Portillo’s face when Stephen Twigg ousted him).

    Keeping promises is very high on the voter value scale and a record of steadiness is the bedrock drive. Forego that and eventually it sticks, then you’re toast.

    • Problem: Theresa May, in a year, hasn’t been capable of stating the principle that our independence is not negotiable. Consequently she is prepared to negotiate away some of our newly won independence. So whether May or Corbyn is the next PM prepare yourselves for a “soft Brexit”**.

      ** A soft Brexit means we don’t actually leave the EU, where leave is defined in the normal English dictionary way. We will end up still being controlled by the EU in some way.

      • There will be many twists and turns on our road to Brexit.

        Right now the old ‘events dear boy’ adage is working overtime with Islamist terror links to immigration at the fore.

        Khan is shooting himself in the foot big time and thanks to the internet we see his lying Islamist shenanigans in full flow.

        http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-27/london-mayors-ties-extremism-call-commitment-fighting-terror-question

        May is not stupid, she see’s what is going on and the public mood.

        I worked with Vote Leave in this area and gauged that mood. It was centred with no prompting on Islam, immigration and sovereignty.

        She flunks that and despite the metropolitan bias, she is finished.

        • If you look over on order order now Labour is actively telling Muslim voters to get their community out to protect themselves from other ‘minorities’ and May.

          • Too true, And Thank you for forwarding the post. Having been a police woman and then a teacher I’ve seen a lot of life. However, not im in The Joyful position of being a SAHM. One of the great things about it is that I feel freer to start asserting these opinions on the web without fear of my job!
            Thanks again.

          • Yes, it is, as long as we work together. A bit of a story, a few years ago, in Norwich, a pastor got in trouble for handing out leaflets at a gay pride parade, not uncommon, as near as I can tell. It got noticed by a blogger I read in Britain, but since the pastor was being visited by the police, he didn’t feel able to publish it. Well, I contacted the pastor, and he gave me all the documentation, and I with my little bitty blog published it all, I detest this infringement of freedom of speech you guys are dealing with, but that gives me no credit, no threat to me. Nor did it cost me anything but a bit of time in collated and introducing it. But it is interesting that it wasn’t all that long after that that the CPS decided it wasn’t really a crime.

            We’re here, I’m not even close to being the only one, most are a lot bigger, and more influential, and we are all about freedom. Fight the good fight, but do try to stay out of jail, they’re rather uncomfortable, and the internet sucks.

          • Wow! Excellent work.
            It’s funny, I used to be so against Conservatives and Republicans. Yet I think the Internet was one of my ways of realising that the mythological ‘evil Republican’ persona on the MSM wasn’t that. I started reading American Conservative sites and they’ve really enabled me to challenge my viewpoints, introduced to me Conservative thinking and helped me form arguments.
            It’s amazing because more and more with the Trump/Brexit phenomenon it feels like we’re reaching our hands across the ocean and connecting with others. We’re not alone and we can fight these destructive, political dogmas.
            It really feels like the Reagan/Thatcher days, except the little people can become involved.
            I’ve just followed the blog by the way. I’m looking forward to learning some more!

          • Well, sort of. Mostly being in the right place at the right time, and having the right friends. 🙂 Ah, that’s who that is, I wondered. I glanced at yours as well, I like it but haven’t read into it yet, but will.

            I suspect you’ve already found out that were more based on the written word, as I’ve said a few times, more Locke, and less Burke. But that is mostly because we wrote it down in a form that stays pretty much true. it was fun last year, during the Brexit campaign, we were quoting our founders a lot, and applying it to you, and noticed quite a few here, got the point.

            You’re right, in many ways, many of us were her fans, but without the internet, there wasn’t much cross pollination, but now we normal folks can talk almost every day.

        • Yep, a friend of mine was employed by SCP during Brexit, and she spent the last week around Newcastle, she said the same thing. But she was silly and really was a remainer, poor girl.

    • May can secure legendary status if she wins this election well and adopts some sensible hard common sense policies to put the country on a safe and secure, even keel.
      1. Hard Brexit. She must enter the negotiations as any business would. Be prepared to walk away.
      2. Immediately redress the imbalance in constituency boundaries that give Labour an unfair advantage. Just make it fair, which given the loss of critical mass in support outside minorities and interest groups, will kill Labour for a long long time. Hopefully long enough that the Labour party reforms and becomes a decent and honest force once again.
      3. Get rid of state funded support to the BBC and Ch4. It’s like paying someone to beat you up. It isn’t about being ‘held to account’. The BBC and Ch4 actively detest the Conservatives and are definitely biased against them. Fine, if people want to consume political or cultural left wing media, then they can do so and select to pay for it themselves. No more licence fee.
      4. Cut or redirect foreign aid. Use it to help weaker / poorer allied states fight terror where it originates. Stop aiding countries with space programmes and nuclear missiles. Give that money to ‘our NHS’ if you really love it that much. Vote winner either way.
      5. Use anti-terrorism legislation properly and stop worrying about ‘offending people’. Throw out known terrorists, terrorism enablers, high threat suspects and their families (even three generations back) to origin countries. Life sentences for those caught. No remission.
      6. Curb this foolish culture of Political Correctness in our key institutions. Especially the security services. restore some common sense to decision making in the Police for example. There is no equivalence in expressing an opinion that might upset someone and the act of murdering people in the name of a religion. Get a grip of that idea.
      7. In support of 5 and 6, reintroduce Treason Laws to our statute books. Retain the use of the Death Penalty for treason. Applied sensibly of course (see 6 above). Ignore usual EU and left wing bleating about state sponsored murder etc etc. Massive vote winner.
      8. Get out of ECHR ASAP. It enables terrorism. We know this, you know this. It will also allow our borders to be less porous from the inside.
      9. Give the SNP Indyref2 on the condition that La Sturgeon accepts the demise of the Barnett formula. Call her bluff and stop rolling over for the SNP.
      10. Refuse all calls for the Border Poll in NI. Additionally remove voting rights for Irish Citizens in UK GEs. Make all NI voters present a UK passport when voting in NI.

      And finally, just tell everyone in the UK to stop whinging all the time, demanding free stuff from the non existent magic money tree, to stop kowtowing to people, extremist organisations (including the green environmental ones) and foreign powers – and just get on with their lives in building a better, happier, wealthier and safer country to live in.

      Oh, and hire some people who can develop a strategy, run a campaign, design and deliver policy, who do not quake in fear about what the papers or the Twatterati will say…..

    • ‘…May is convinced of a place in history when she successfully closes the door on Brexit.’

      There’s a problem: Theresa May is a woeful leader who has two inept advisers Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy who are operating at a level well above their capabilities. Theresa May has illustrated no statesman like qualities – she has shown the opposite in fact – and if what you state is true – that what’s driving her is a place in history that only illustrates her narcissism and delusions of grandeur. So far May’s place in political history will be as a failed Home Secretary and as having run one of the worst Tory general election campaigns ever. Securing a great Brexit deal would be a miracle on current form and if May follows through with her Red Tory, big government, interventionist manifesto Brexit Britain will be a basket case very quickly.

          • I’ve just sent this to a friend of mine. Seems to sum it up.

            After all that’s gone on and Corbyn’s view on terrorists, Islam and immigration people are having to make the choice offered.

            Amazingly on the left, many see this as good as an end to western imperialistic culture. The platitudes of, many more are killed on the roads, seems to be it with these soulless cretins.

            Following the London bombings, even the irreparably crippled, virtue signalled how they could never blame Islam and had new Muslim friends.

            But there’s a huge shifting middle. All kumbaya when it suits and they’ll vote for happy-clappy, Britain destroying Blair.

            But when the chips are down they have to face reality. Things have demonstrably changed for the worse and they know it.

            Course many would not admit the flip to the right but after every killing spree there a reduction in the degree of separation between affected people. They’ll know of someone who was involved. And then it becomes personal.

            That is, or should be the key to this election.

            Then for the icing on the cake, add in the Diane Abbott debacle which is the gift which keeps on giving. She would have been Home Secretary! It’s so bad, it’s funny.

            I reckon a landslide.

          • It seems that, the kids think very differently, since 2015 2.5 million have signed up onto the electoral register, not many of these will [have] voted tory.

          • The BBC covered up every Corbyn flaw – eg support for terrorists / unfunded promises – and repeated the constant refrain of vote-anyone-but-May. Success for the Biased BBC.

          • Yes and no. I was in Boro Bistro 4 days before the attack. My waiter Alexandre is now dead.
            I am a staunch conservative but my 18y old daughter who had friends’ parents their on the night of the attack just asked me not to talk about it.
            Denial is a strong protective measure but reality will hit one day.

  21. I am looking forward to seeing which seats change hand tomorrow. Living in one which is quite likely to do so it’s a little more ‘interesting’ than being in a safe seat which never changes and there is little point voting in.

  22. I think a Tory Majority full stop is looking optimistic after the exit polls. If it is a loss of seats after Mays hopeless campaign then she will have to resign, but the party has no realistic conviction types to replace her.

  23. Not looking good. Three points: the polling station was stuffed with younger voters when I went to vote. Either there is a swing from Conservatives to Labour or UKIP voters have put the love of nationalisation above Brexit and gone for Labour. I doubt the seats projected from the exit poll are correct but the percentages appears to be, the overall result shall be determined constituency by constituency.

  25. Last night was a victory for the Biased BBC – 20 years of pro-Liebour propaganda plus 8 weeks of anit-May, vote-anyone-but-Conservative propaganda and they absolutely nailed it. So now I hope that SOMEONE in the Tory party realises – the BBC cannot scare you, they cannot harm you anymore than they have already. Defund it to the tune of £6m a year and the playing field will become far more level.

  27. Well, it looks like the young were well and truly fooled by Corbyns false promises. So if the suggestion we need another election happens obviously we need bigger lies.
    I would suggest, a free house to anyone under 30, plus a free car up to the value of £30,000 , income tax abolished for everyone who votes labour and doubled for those who vote conservative.
    And the day before the election a new promise to feed all old people who support and voted for Brexit and ruined young people’s future into gas chambers.
    That should capture the youth vote.

    • Like the codgers and reversals on the dementia tax have been given every economic advantage by cynical tory ageist policies-schadenfraude not false promises.

  28. You need to polish up your crystal ball. The Conservatives have lost their majority and are worse off now than before the election was called: it’s difficult to imagine how May will be able to carry on after being punished and humiliated for her hubris.

      • Presumably for a while the DUP will be calling the shots! The question is how and when May can step down. With no obvious successor she may be forced to stagger on indefinitely!

        What a silly woman.

        • As a rule, I don’t agree with your point of view. But I do on the sheer stupidity of Mrs May.

        • She’ll probably call on that party strong-man Peter Bottomley to take over.
          It would be just as prescient as her decision to call this election.

  29. This proves that our education system is brainwashing students with Marxist socialist principles.

    • Bollocks-it proves young people are sick of neo con nonsense and being economically raped because they don’t tend to vote. Grow up.

      • Young people have not been guided by their parents. They’ve been cast into the void of immorality and no responsibility that’s why socialism makes sense to them. You have to as ignorant as a child to take Jeremy seriously

  30. Cerberus wasn’t the only one to get it wrong by a mile.

    This election wasn’t fought on the national interest. It was about Mrs May’s personal interest. She made another ghastly misjudgment.

    • Losing so she could put Brexit aside blaming lack of support.
      That was and always was the plan.

      • I can’t believe she planned a “hung parliament”. My guess is that she would have fudged Brexit in any event. Now she hasn’t got the moral authority or political clout to push it through – even if she wanted to.

        • But it seems she’s going to hang on in there anyway, damn it. DisMay’s lacklustre campaign has hitched my local constituency with the equally useless Cat Smith. Again. That’s what linking a rural constituency with Fleetwood, who would vote for pavement vomit if it wore a red rosette, does for us.

          At least the news wasn’t all bad. Salmond and Clegg have been given the boot. And the SNP has seen its majority shrink.

      • Which is why the Establishment opted for Remainer disMay rather than someone who was actually pro-Brexit.

      • Yes of course, of course, putting Brexit aside is more important to her than looking to the whole world like the biggest joke and failure in politics and having her reputation permanently damaged.

        How silly for nobody else to see that was always her plan.

  31. Let’s face facts:

    1. The Conservative campaign was hopelessly complacent.
    2. On the ground, there was minimal campaigning; Labour had a stronger presence in my seat (which is safe Tory).
    3. The media campaign was abysmal. Theresa May (who I like and respect) was shaky on Television, ill-prepared and appeared to lack conviction. The idea that 5 against 1 + 1 debates were fair or reasonable when the minor parties’ support was so negligible should have been robustly challenged. Theresa’s opt out looked sensible but cowardly.
    4. There seemed to be an assumption that UKIP voters would simply switch to the Conservatives; unforgivably, there was no attempt to make sure they did.
    5. The security question was terribly badly handled; there was no competent effort to counter the Labour argument that ‘Tory Police cuts’ were to blame.
    6. There was an absence of real policy generally: the Conservatives just offered May’s personality; Labour offered policies which were neither challenged nor scrutinised.
    7. The Beeb and their allies worked hard to get the youth vote out and succeeded.
    8. BUT let’s not overlook the actual result: the Tories are still the largest party; Labour is nowhere near a majority and still divided. Strong leadership now could still mean a clean Brexit and a majority Conservative Government in 2018/19.

    • From my side (a blunt criticism from a conservative voter who is very sad this morning)

      1. Talking about fox hunting = puts over the image that the Tories are still the same cruel party that loves to hurt animals for fun whilst sucking up to toffs

      2. Dementia tax = annoying old people who are the very core conservative voters.

      3. U turns = makes “strong and stable” look like a joke. Did they learn nothing from the u-turn in the last budget?

      4. Jeremy Corbyn at least got off his backside and connected with people. Theresa May comes across as someone for whom the working class are a necessary inconvenience and she’ll probably rush to wash her hands after shaking yours.

      5. Don’t run a “presidential personality” campaign focused around an individual who does not have a big enough personality to carry it off.

      6. Brexit and Donald Trump’s election should have taught Theresa May that people are in the mood for shaking up “continuity platitudes” and that nothing can be taken for granted

      7. The labour manifesto offered hope, vision and opportunity whereas there was no hope, vision or opportunity for the country in the conservative offering; just 5 more years of grey drizzle and thin gruel.

      • Agree with every item but the last. The Labour manifesto offers nothing but bancruptcy. We’ve been there, done it, suffered the national strikes that paralysed the entire country. We’ve narrowly dodged that bullet because May is too weak and up herself to be a robust leader.

        She needs to go.

        • You’re correct of course, but he wasn’t marketing it to people like you (or me) that have that hard common sense that comes from experience. He was marketing it to the fuzzy thinking fools that come out of the schools, and haven’t enough real world experience to spot nonsense yet.

          Bik is right too. It sounded so much better, albeit in a rainbows and unicorns way.

          • It’s not just youngsters. There is a hard core of adult tribal Labourites including pensioners.

          • Sure, we’ve got tribal voters too. I suspect all countries do. But you’re not going to pull them, at least very often. In the US, only Reagan and Trump ever have since the 30s anyway.

          • Brexit pulled ours but May couldn’t keep up the momentum. She has talked the talk but action there has been none.

          • Yep. Her whole job was to get Brexit done, but she let all this other junk distract her. Either you guys are right and she sabotaged herself, or she’s incompetent. And she ain’t much of a leader, in either case.

          • I reckon incompetent covers it. She’s snatched near disaster from the mouth of victory.

          • That’s what I think. She’d be OK in normal times, but these aren’t. Brexit, Trump, a pseudo outsider in France, the Italian constitutional vote, the world is shifting a lot right now. Where it stops, is not visible yet. But if my name was Merkel, I’d be quite nervous.

          • If my name was Merkel I’d do the decent thing and lock myself in the study with a decanter of malt and a revolver. What she’s done to the German people is beyond the pale.

          • I agree but actually I blame Cameron more than May. He called the referendum but when it all went wrong he just wouldn’t face up to his responsibility to carry out the will of the people. Hence the mess we are in now.

        • Absolutely the labour party manifesto ultimately offers bankruptcy. But perception is everything, and that’s how it was perceived. Unlike the conservative’s well costed and more fiscally responsible “continuity miserable grey rain shower”

          • They’ll be looking back on that rather fondly when they drown in the EU cloudburst if Brexit gets side-tracked.

      • Jam today & free stuff – NOW !

        We can see that this will ultimately end in bankruptcy, but the young can’t and because those running the campaign failed to listen and react they didn’t even attack the massive spend spend spend.

        They should have been talking about Greece, and what has had to happen there following a Socialist government. Pensions halved, no NHS no student loans anymore, a wrecked economy etc etc.

        Lynton Crosby should have his fee withheld for this disaster.

      • I have to totally agree. As much more of a “floating” voter. My impressions were that the May led campaign looked like “more of the same” with some tinkering and some quite obvious “own goals” without any attempt to retrieve the situation with some “sunny uphills” of success on the one issue the Tories seemed stuck on, “Brexit” even there was no “I will negotiate a bright new future”. More “I will mitigate the worst”. I really disliked “call me Dave” but he had a bit of bounce and optimism about him.

    • In short, the Tories failed to listen to what the messages were, and paid a heavy price for it.

      Alas they are still not listening and if this continues they are doomed to fade into obscurity.

    • Yes strong leadership would be nice but that exactly what we have needed since the Brexit vote and we haven’t had it so why would we get it now?

  32. Mrs May is still yapping about presiding over a “period of stability” after an ignominious result which leaves the country in perplexity.

    She could have said that her gross error of political judgment must entail her immediate resignation. Despite her bluffing right now, I don’t think she’ll remain as prime minister for more than a few weeks/months.

  33. Perhaps this prediction was based on England alone.

    Remove Scotland and there is a Con Maj of 19, even with Wales and NI.

  34. Well from my vantage point the “bribes” worked because the Conservatives had no real campaign other than May’s “give me the power”. I know It will get short shrift here but I think the truth was that the electorate had got “beyond” Brexit .
    I know it hard for political enthusiasts to understand but folk simply don’t understand the long mechanics of politics. So many of our employees in conversation think having voted for Brexit it has “happened”.
    The materials through my door were conservatives: May and Brexit. While all the labour stuff was “free stuff” with a nod to Brexit. The strategy appeared to be to wait for Jeremy to fall flat on his face (which was also the strategy for the Blairite PLP) . Whereas the conservative campaign fell over itself over care (a sort of charge of the light brigade that) forgot they had the Chancellor on their team who should have laid into “tax and spend” and had no response to the rather conventional labour offer, pre Blair, lots of stuff for all paid for by the plutocrats. It comes to something when its the Beeb (Nick Robinson) that’s left to say “its a bribe”.
    On the positive side the result does appear to revive our own “union” as Northern Ireland won’t be thrown under a bus through London lack of interest and Scotland has loosened the grip of the nationalists a few notches.
    In another heresy for these pages I think Matthew Paris probably got it right that having no coherent narrative about why “tax and spend” is wrong; has, much quicker than he thought, caught Conservatives out. Because in response to the bribes offered the actual response back was a weak “but we have been spending more too” , entering a race to offer “more” in a competition Labour wanted to be in and prudent conservatives are bound to lose.
    Heaven knows how, but the Conservatives do need to develop an idea of their offer for the future other than “we’re steady” or we can “manage money”.
    It turns out “vote for me so I can negotiate arcane detail about stuff you think is already settled” wasn’t a winner.
    While in Scotland at the very least a staunchly Unionist party has a clear platform when faced with another punt at independence, a vote to conserve being clearly to conserve the many benefits of the union. .

    • This campaign was almost as successful as that of Hillary Clinton.
      ‘Vote me because I deserve it’ does not work for most people.

    • By definition, half of the great British public are of below average intelligence. I think this goes some way to explain why most people do not do much thinking about politics, and certainly not enough to get far beyond the slogans and bribes.

  35. Theresa could introduce Spad hunting, instead of foxhunting. Exciting, vigorous, and with all the fun, but no cruelty to animals.

    And keeps down a nasty destructive pest.

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