VOTE24

AUTHOR: William Kedjanyi

VOTE 24: Election Week!

Labour have won the General Election with a landslide victory, writes WILLIAM KEDJANYI.

Here are the seat tallies, with just three constituencies left to declare:

🌹 Labour: 412 (+211)
🔵 Tories: 120 (-250)
🟠 Liberal Democrats: 71 (+63)
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 SNP: 9 (-38)
🟩 Sinn Fein: 7 (no change)
⚪ Independents: 6 (+6)
🟤 DUP: 5 (-3)
🟢 Green Party: 4 (+3)
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Plaid Cymru: 4 (+2)
🟣 Reform: 4 (+4)
🟢 SDLP: 2 (no change)
🔵 UUP: 1 (+1)
🔷 TUV: 1 (+1)
⚫ Workers Party of Britain: 0 (no change)
⚫ SDP: 0 (no change)
🇪🇺 Rejoin EU: 0 (no change)
🗳️ Yorkshire Party: 0 (no change)

⬆️ LATEST STORIES AT THE TOP ⬆️

What to make of those results? Here’s the reaction with about 70 left, and the knowledge that Labour, the Lib Dems, Independents, and the Greens had all enjoyed a brilliant night:

🗳️ Who next?

The Tory Party has been battered but a skeleton remains – they have 120 seats. Who wants to take over from Rishi Sunak, who resigns today? The latest betting with Star is as follows:

🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 2/1
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: 4/1
🔵 Priti Patel: 6/1
🔵 Suella Braverman: 7/1
🔵 Jeremy Hunt: 9/1
🔵 Robert Jenrick: 9/1
🔵 Nigel Farage: 10/1
🔵 James Cleverly: 11/1
🔵 Victoria Atkins: 20/1
🔵 Boris Johnson: 25/1
🔵 Claire Coutinho: 25/1
🔵 Steve Barclay: 33/1
🔵 Danny Kruger: 40/1
🔵 Oliver Dowden: 40/1
🔵 David Cameron: 50/1
🔵 Alicia Kearns: 66/1
🔵 Gavin Williamson: 66/1
🔵 Laura Trott: 66/1

🗳️ Stories Of The Night

📈 Here are the headlines:

🔵 Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have held onto their seats, with Hunt only just staving off a big challenge from the Liberal Democrats

🔵 Liz Truss has not, however, losing to Labour, and Grant Shapps is also out along with leadership contender Penny Mordaunt

🇵🇸 Independent Adnan Hussain has taken Blackburn from Labour’s Kate Hollern by the barest of margins

🇵🇸 Iqbal Mohamed has also upset Labour’s Heather Iqbal in Dewsbury and Batley

🌹 Jess Phillips has held off a pro-Gaza challenge by 700 votes in Birmingham Yardley

🌹 Wes Streeting has held onto his seat by a razor thin margin of 528 from Pro-Gaza independent Leanne Mohammed, which is smaller than the 589 he won in 2015

📉 The latest BBC forecast gives Labour a majority of 170 – that’s up from the most recent forecast of 160.

🔵 Nigel Farage has taken Clacton with an 8,405 majority from the Conservatives

🔴 Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wins his seat as an independent with 24,120 votes, smashing Praful Nargund by more than 7,000 votes

📉 Conservative supporters of Penny Mordaunt have told the BBC’s Mark Easton that she has lost the Portsmouth North seat where she has been MP since 2010

🔵 Iain Duncan Smith was re-elected, after a lot of speculation that he could lose, with Faiza Shaheen and Shama Tatler splitting the vote

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Plaid’s Ann Davies has gained Caerfyddin from the Tories

📊 Shadow pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth had lost his seat in Leicester South toto pro Gaza independent Shockat Adam

🟢 Carla Denyer has taken Bristol Central for the Green Party with a huge majority – over 10,000 votes

🔵 Former home secretary Suella Braverman has won re-election in Fareham and Waterlooville.

3.15am

There’s a long way to go here but the action is about to kick into high gear. Some things to watch out for:

🔶 Seats where the Liberal Democrats are hoping to cause Tory upsets. Many more declarations are set to come soon and we should get a much better idea of their performance. Sir Ed Davey has been re-elected in Kingston and Surbiton, giving a punchy speech whilst doing so. He won with a huge 17,235 majority – up from 10,489 in the 2019 election.

🔵 We’ve seen the first senior Tory lose their seat – Robert Buckland – and more can be expected across the night to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats. 131 seats as estimated by the exit poll will lead to plenty of high profile losses, but some high profile seats such as Richmond and Northallerton and South West Folk, led by the Prme Minister and Liz Truss respectively.

🔵 A short while ago, Lee Anderson was re-elected in Ashfield – a sign that Reform UK’s appeal is well stretched around the country. More gains for them can be expected although the jury is out on how many given how tight their key seat targets are.

🌹 Labour look solidly on course or their majority of 170. Paul Waugh has also just beaten George Galloway in Rochdale with Paul Waugh in a notable pickup, whilst they’ve also gained the seat of Erewash, defeating the Conservatives by just under 6,000 votes.

🗳️ Let The Results Begin

You’ve all seen it, but for prosperity, here’s the exit poll:

🌹 Labour: 410
🔵 Tories: 131
🟠 Liberal Democrats: 61
🔵 Reform UK: 13
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 SNP: 10
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Plaid Cymru: 4

Here’s what I had to say about it:

Here’s the implied vote share:

🌹 Labour: 36.1% (+3.2)
🔵 Conservatives: 25.8% (-18.9)
🔵 Reform UK: 17.2% (+15.1)
🟠 Liberal Democrats: 9.4% (-2.4)
🟢 Greens: 6.1% (+3.3)
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 SNP: 2.6% (-1.4)

And the comparison with the MRP’s:

Some more immediate takeaways:

🌹 Labour MP’s and members will be relieved – their 14 year national nightmare is over – but punters may be a tad dismayed at the eventual performance. For a long time during this campaign numbers had been closer to 450, and Tony Blair’s benchmark of 418 was considered to be the base result. Starmer has the power he needs – he controls the party – but some will wonder what could have been.

🔵 What a night for Reform. 13 MP’s is beyond even hot market expectations. Where have they taken them? That remains to be seen but it will have ramifications for punters and bookmakers, who offered plenty of markets on their performance. Plenty of celebrations will go down in Clacton tonight – and they’ve just come second in Blythe and Ashington with 10,857 seats (Mark Peart) compared to Ian Lavery (20,030). Also – the BBC says their vote share is up 9% in Remain seats and 18% in leave seats. Here to stay?

🔶 The Liberal Democrats will be happy – and punters will be delighted if they match their exit poll projection and make it over the 60 seat line. What parts of the Blue Wall have they smashed exactly?

🔵 The Tories will feel relieved. 131 is a dire overall performance but it leaves a full opposition and will allow for a leadership race and chance to rebuild, although it will be a very, very long slog. Who wants it?

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Plaid will be very pleased with four seats. Rhun ap Iorwerth and other figures have pinpointed gains at the next Senedd election after this and with Labour facing huge challenges in Government, they could be well placed to do just that.

❓ What of Northern Ireland? An open question and one we don’t consider enough. How many seats will Sein Fein take? What about Alliance? How did the DUP perform?

YouGov’s MRP: Ones To Watch

🔸 We already have a Portillo moment in the works. Jeremy Hunt is 22.9% behind Liberal Democrat Paul Follows in Godalming and Ash.

🌹 This projection has Labour’s Paul Waugh miles clear (23.7%) of the opposition in Rochdale, although difficulty reading into local factors means that number should be treated with caution – it would be a shock if George Galloway got just 14% of the vote.

📈 Faiza Shaheen has leapt to 22% in Chingford and Woodford Green, but that is not saving Iain Duncan Smith, who is nine points behind Shama Tatler, the Brent Councillor who replaced her when she was thrown out of the party.

🗳️ There’s precious little between Labour’s Praful Nargund (43.7%) and Jeremy Corbyn (37.9%) in Islington North. It’s all to play for the Green vote (8%) can surely be squeezed.

🗳️ There are 89 seats where the top two parties are within 5% percent of each other – tossups to be won on the day.

📊 There are four three-way marginal seats. The Tories are just leading with Labour and Reform UK (Bromsgrove) and Labour and the Liberal Democrats (Exmouth and Exeter East). The SNP lead in another, Mid Dunbartonshire, competing with Labour and Liberal Democrats. Labour lead in Ynys Môn, competing with Plaid and the Conservatives.

🔵 Reform are ahead in three seats (Clacton, Great Yarmouth, and Ashfield) but are neck and neck with the Tories in Boston and Skegness where Richard Tice is trying to unseat Matt Warman of the Tories. They’re also just behind Labour in Folkestone and Hythe and Basildon and Billericay.

🟢 The Greens are confidently rated to win Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion but aren’t considered close to winning any others. The Tories lead Ellie Chowns in North Herefordshire by 10 points and they are eight points ahead of co-leader Adrian Ramsay in Waveney Valley.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 There are 13 tossups in Scotland (SNP are involved in all of them). The range the MRP gives the SNP goes from 8-32 seats, and 36 seats are changing hands according to the model.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 The Tories are set to lose all their seats in Wales, with Labour regaining a majority there. Plaid – set to hold onto Ceredigion Preseli and Dwyfor Meirionnydd – are pushing hard to Caerfyrddin and Ynys Mon but are in battles with the Tories and Labour for both.

🇵🇸 Independents are performing better in this model due to later fieldwork and methodology changes, but no Labour seat appears at risk bar Islington North. There are many caveats with pro Gaza independents who are harder for models to track and predict but shocks look unlikely at the moment.

🔵 One Final Rally

Our last rally of the campaign was in the same place as the first. Here are two dispatches from Nigel Farage’s rally in Clacton:

🤳🏾 Then from the heart of the rally itself:

📊 First, reacting to the YouGov MRP:

🗳️ Don’t Forget The Valleys

A late change to travel plans means that I haven’t been able to visit Waveney Valley, but it’s one of the most fascinating contests of the whole election. I covered it for the Weekender, writing the below:

A newly created constituency that crosses county borders, with areas of both Norfolk and Suffolk included in a rural areas with small market towns, agricultural land, and the Waveney river.

It’s also one of four key target seats for the Green Party, with co-leader Adrian Ramsay – became one of the youngest councillors in the country when he was first elected to the city council in 2003 – standing in an area that wouldn’t traditionally be associated with the party, who are tipped to gain Bristol Central from Labour whilst holding Brighton Pavilion.

Projections and the bookies have this as a close race – Britain Predicts and Ipsos have it going Green, marginally, Savanta and Survation have Labour taking the seat, and YouGov, Eelectoral Calculus, Focaldata and the Economist have the Conservatives infront, although all have the race a a close-run thing between three parties.

The demographics and location of the seat would normally have this as a safe tory stronghold – is the 15th safest Conservative seat in the Anglia region of 65 and the 46th safest Tory seat nationally, out of 372 – but the collapse in the Tory vote has put Labour’s Gurpreet Padda, an environmental scientist, in with a big chance of beating Tory candidate Richard Rout, himself former deputy leader of Suffolk County Council.

The green surge in rural areas is underrated – In the latest local elections, the Greens took more seats from the Conservatives than from Labour (32 to 31) – and this will be a fascinating test case.

Here’s the betting for the seat:

🟢 Greens: 8/11
🔵 Conservatives: 15/8
🌹 Labour: 8/1
🔵 Reform UK: 12/1
🟠 Liberal Democrats: 200/1

🎰 Scores On The Doors

💬 Here’s the latest from John Brackenridge in the Star trading room:

“It has been the busiest week for politics since I started in the Star trading room over 5 years ago, no time for “part-time” Traders here. We have seen a nice range of business across every market up on site, as I write this with less than 24 hours until the polling stations open we’ve been seeing plenty of bets for both Reform & the Tories to win most seats and even to win a majority, I guess those big prices are appealing to the punters!”

“The biggest bet laid in the past few days has been 10k on the Tories 100-149 Seats at 9/4. We’ve been continuing to add to our Constituency multis as well as now having our Star Boosts on site. Tomorrow promises to be a busy day staying across the markets & any potential moves but it’s those days we enjoy the most in the office! If there are any constituency multis or bets you are looking for feel free to drop us a message on ‘Trader Chat’ function on site and we will see what we can do!”

On the campaign trail – with an all day Newscast in my ears – here’s a few things to watch:

YouGov’s MRP poll will be released at 5pm today. Their model performed very well in 2019 and will provide a fascinating late update on a number of constituencies, especially with fieldwork that should hopefully allow for a better reading of many high profile independents and the full effect of Reform since Nigel Farage entered the race as well. We’ll react when it drops!

On that note, here’s an excellent post from Professor Chris Hanretty of Survation on their MRP model yesterday.

http://www.chrishanretty.co.uk/posts/why_wait_for_survation/

Nigel Farage is holding a closing rally in Clacton at 6pm. After a tough few days for Reform, what will he have to say at his last speech?

Which Tory leadership contenders will keep their seats? With differing projections for how many Tories remain, a number of leadership contenders are facing tight battles to stay in Parliament. How many contenders will be left? Will any want the job of rebuilding the party? Who will be popular with the remaining MP’s? There’s much to consider. The odds for the next Tory leader (at 1.45pm on Wednesday) are as follows.

🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 3/1
🔵 Priti Patel: 11/2
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: 11/2
🔵 Penny Mordaunt: 9/1
🔵 James Cleverly: 10/1
🔵 Nigel Farage: 11/1
🔵 Robert Jenrick: 12/1
🔵 Suella Braverman: 12/1

Here’s the full market:

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🎙️ Bet The House – GE Special Preview!

It’s the last day of campaigning! Get yourself tuned into the latest Bet The House, with myself, Nick Luck and Neil Channing for an election preview special – listen below, or wherever you get your podcasts:

🎙️ Betting The House

This election promises to be seismic for not only Labour but also the Conservatives – for different reasons – but other parties have played a huge part in the campaign and will play a huge part in the results as well.

I spoke to the Bet The House podcast about this, where Nick Luck and Neil Channing ran through how non Labour and Tory party seats might go, along with a couple of constituency selections or two:

🗳️ The Home Stretch

One seat – four different predicted winners. Exmouth and Exeter East is close to home for yours truly, so a quick election blast just had to be made. More from the seat later, but here’s a guide – taken from the Weekender constituency preview, written last week:

Another newly created seat – most of which is the from the old Devon East constituency – and a real challenge for the MRP models given that in 2019, Clare Wright ran second as an Independent and took 40.4% of the vote.

Most projections here have the Conservatives holding on, although the margins are close, with Britain Predicts having this as a four-way battle between the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and Reform, whilst Survation have this as a Reform gain (one of seven). With full campaigns being fought – there were plenty of strong words in a recent hustings – this could well go down to the wire.

At the time of writing that preview, three tactical voting sites (StopTheTories.Vote, tacticalvote.co.uk, and tactical.vote) were undecided in their advice, with Get.voting recommending Labour.

Stay tuned for more from there!

⏰ Friday Night Fever

The latest discourse has revolved around working hours in office. Keir Starmer told Virigin Radio: “We’ve had a strategy in place and we’ll try to keep to it, which is to carve out really protected time for the kids, so on a Friday – I’ve been doing this for years – I will not do a work-related thing after 6pm, pretty well come what may.”

This answer – which referred specially to Friday nights – seemed innocuous enough – but not for opponents of the likely next Prime Minister, who have gone into a total tailspin in their response.

The discourse is very revealing – there have been many examples of just how low Tory expectations are, and there’s been an increasing desperation as the campaign has continued – and it looks unlikely to change much, for all that it appears to be high on the internet scale.

🔵 Reform UK

Sir, a second candidate… has defected to the Conservatives. Georgie David, standing in West Ham and Beckton, saying the “vast majority” of party nominees are “racist, misogynistic and bigoted.” She denied Reform’s senior leadership were racist but said she does not want to be “directly associated” with its candidates. Nigel Farage’s party remains a strong second or third in polls – depending where you look – but have not enjoyed the last week of the campaign.

🟡 Liberal Democrats

Ed Davey continues to enjoy life. In his latest stunt, he knocked over a line of big blue dominoes as he called for voters to help the Lib Dems topple the Conservatives. According to our markets, he’ll get his wish – the Lib Dems are hoping to take seats suc as St Ives, Cornwall North, Devon North, Devon South, Torbay, Yeovil, Taunton and Wellington, Wells and Mendip Hills, Dorset West, Dorset Mid and Poole North, Cotswolds South, Cotswolds North.

PRESS RELEASE: Liberal Democrats’ odds plummet for Conservative seats

WILLIAM KEDJANYI 

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