There seems to be something of an inconsistency between what polls are saying with regard to #UKGeneralElection2024 and what the main parties are reported to be doing. I will do my best to outline what I think may be going on. Hope someone will find it interesting.
The most recent seat projection - based on an average of recent published polls - gives #labour more than four hundred and eighty seats and has the #conservatives and #LibDems competing for the position of official opposition with sixty or seventy seats apiece. This raises the prospect of a change in the position of second party and thus alternative government for the first time in more than a century. #labour replaced the #liberals in that role in 1922.
At the same time a journalist reports finding #labour directing activists to around a hundred and seventy 'offensive' seats and a further eleven 'defensive' ones while there have been earlier reports that the #conservatives are concentrating on two hundred #conservative seats that they regard as at risk. The reported approach of the #conservatives suggests that they may be confident of holding roughly the same number of seats as they did in 1997.
The reported #labour approach is intriguing. Whereas it is understandable and prudent to concentrate on sufficient 'offensive' seats to be in line for an overall majority - and not spread activists too thinly in the process - the decision to focus also on a number of 'defensive' seats is noteworthy. The journalist who discovered this also found that all but one of the 'defensive' constituencies had a very large proportion of voters of #southasian background.
There has been evidence for some time that a portion of the #hindu community has shifted from #labour to the #conservatives - shown in the 2023 local elections in #leicester . Events since October 2023 are likely to have damaged relations between #muslims and #labour . #patmcfadden recognised this after the #LocalElections . So some people in #uklabour do understand the need to recover and retain the support of #muslim voters although the recent treatment of #faizashaheen runs counter to this!
The source that found that #uklabour was targeting over one hundred and seventy #conservative seats referred to #EnglandandWales only. Presumably somewhere between twenty and thirty #snp seats in #scotland are being targeted similarly. I hope this clarifies matters.
So the rough picture of the #ukge2024 is that both major parties are deploying activists to the #groundgame in about a third of the parliamentary constituencies in #greatbritain - but not necessarily the same third.
There is likely to be an overlapping group of a hundred and seventy seats in #EnglandandWales where both parties will be running a serious #groundgame - essentially where the #conservatives are defending against #labour . There will be at least ten seats where #labour will be defending its 'left flank' - a number that may need to increase as a result of events over the last few days. And as mentioned earlier twenty to thirty #snp seats which would be #labour targets.
If one were to make the stylised assumption that any identified #groundgame was 50% effective that would leave the #conservatives with around two hundred and seventy seats and #labour with around two hundred and ninety seats - with the remaining sixty or so seats made up of twenty five #LibDems , about the same number from the #snp and the others making up the remainder.
Such a result would bear some similarity to the result of the first of the two #GeneralElections fifty years ago. That led to a #labour minority government followed by a second #GeneralElection within a few months.
#labour has traditionally been able to mount a more effective #groundgame than the #conservatives given the size and composition of its membership . If it were twice as effective then it would gain a further thirty seats from the #conservatives placing it very close to an absolute majority. This would not differ much from the result of the 1964 #GeneralElection .
Such results are not far away from the projections made early last month by #rallings and #thrasher following the #LocalElections . So some weight should be given to them.
I should add that should #dianeabbott be re-elected to the #houseofcommons - which now seems a near certainty - she will be its female member with the longest period of continuous membership and thus succeed #harrietharman as 'Mother of the House' . A much greater distinction than a peerage would have been!