Politics 2024/25 General Election Voting Intention (2022)

[BloodOmen]

I'm not skipping over it at all.

This is about options. If you vote for the same thing, you're going to get the same shit.

If you vote Labour or Conservative, you're going to get Labour or Conservative. Instead Welsh Labour voters have voted Plaid, and welsh Conservative voters have voted Reform.

But really: They've voted for Change.

This is where the rest of your argument falls down - if you are desparate, and you're being offered "more of the same", or "something different - anything different" you vote different - and fuck the consequences. You gamble. And it's not dumb, it's logical - because the status quo isn't working for people any more.

Fuck policies. That's why this is happening. And voting more labour would be measurable madness.

So you’ve basically landed on “the system is broken so let’s spin the wheel and hope we land on something that feels like it’s on our side this week”.

Which, honestly, is at least emotionally consistent. Not sure it’s what I’d call a governing philosophy, but at this point politics is basically just group therapy with voting slips anyway.

I get why it feels convincing though. Everything looks knackered. NHS running on fumes and goodwill. Housing market behaving like it was designed by someone who hates joy. Wages going nowhere. And politicians endlessly recycling the same corporate obituary speech about “tough choices” like they’re reading it off a laminated card in hell.

So yeah, people stop voting for outcomes and start voting like they’re trying to kick the vending machine hard enough that it dispenses something other than disappointment.

Problem is, the vending machine is still a vending machine after you’ve kicked it. It doesn’t suddenly start dispensing gold bars just because you were very passionate about it.

And this “anything different” idea only really works if you aggressively ignore what the “different” actually is. Otherwise it’s just political mystery meat. Could be change, could be chaos, could be both, all served up with a side of dogshit and a bit of national mythology to wash it down.

And I’ll give you the obvious point again. Labour and the Conservatives have managed to evolve into two branches of the same exhausted HR department that forgot what its job was about 15 years ago. Nobody’s exactly rushing to defend that model.

But replacing it with a louder version of “we’re very angry and definitely in charge now” isn’t some clean break from the system. It’s just swapping out the manager for someone who shouts more while still insisting the printer is “being looked into”.

And this is where the “fuck policies” thing goes off the rails. Because once you drop policy, you’re not really doing politics anymore. You’re just stress testing reality with a ballot paper and hoping the universe is feeling generous.

Stop the boats
blame the usual suspects
declare everything broken
add a bit of flag waving
and hope vibes somehow turn into infrastructure

It’s less “solution” and more “political scratch card for people who are bored of scratching the same losing numbers”.

And the bit that always gets missed in all of this is that the actual legal and structural framework of the country doesn’t just politely vanish because someone got fed up. Stuff like the ECHR exists precisely because governments, historically, have a habit of getting carried away when they decide they’re done listening.

So when people go “we’ll just scrap that, easy fix”, it’s like watching someone unplug the smoke alarm because the beeping is annoying, while insisting the kitchen definitely isn’t still on fire.

Yes, the ECHR covers things people don’t think about when they’re angry. Workers’ rights, fair trial protections, privacy limits on state surveillance, anti-discrimination safeguards. All the boring stuff that quietly stops governments from doing their worst impulses on a whim.

And the comedy is that the pitch is usually sold as “freedom from interference”, while the practical result is often “freedom for the state to improvise your rights depending on the mood of the day”.

Which is great, until you realise the “mood of the day” is being set by whatever crisis is currently trending.

And yeah, I’ll agree with you again, the whole thing does look like managerial theatre. Just different actors rotating through the same collapsing set, all insisting they’re the first ones to really understand the script.

I just don’t buy that swapping one set of tired administrators for a louder set of emotionally charged administrators suddenly produces a functioning country. At best you get the same problems, the same structural mess, and slightly more confident speeches about why it’s definitely someone else’s fault.

It’s not system change. It’s just rearranging the people arguing in the cockpit while the plane continues its long, dignified descent into the sea.

 

[BloodOmen]

Our local Tory council had, and has some pretty decent folk in it, but they are doomed, because of the national party. Maybe it's time to separate the two.

Reform now, talking about bin collections every 3 weeks now, after putting green bins up to £69 (nice) a year, on top of the highest tax increase that they could legally charge. They are shitting the bed hard.

We've had Reform running County Durham council for awhile now... they are fucking terrible. All the gains they've just made has basically given them enough rope to hang themselves imo.

 

[Embattle]

Our green bin is up to £65.

 

[Scouse]

Palestine Action activist says he ‘did the right thing’ over protest at arms firm site

Exclusive: Jordan Devlin, who was acquitted at trial where four co-defendants were convicted, says he was saving lives

www.theguardian.com

 

[Tom]

I don't think Labour lost to Reform. I think they lost to the Greens, because that's where their left-leaning progressive vote went. It's the Conservatives who lost to Reform, because that's where the right-wing vote went.

I don't think this means a great deal for any general election tbh.

 

[Scouse]

I don't think Labour lost to Reform.

They definitely did.

Young people and urban metropolitan centres Labour votes slid green but everywhere else they went wholesale reform.

 

[Embattle]

Labour tipped into multiple buckets, including Reform.

 

[DaGaffer]

I'm not skipping over it at all.

This is about options. If you vote for the same thing, you're going to get the same shit.

A statement that sounds like a truism, but isn't. We've had basically the same two parties in Ireland for a century, both wobbling either side of the center ground. Fifteen years ago this country was utterly fucked with the young leaving in droves. Now they're back and yes there's still a housing problem but lots of other stuff has massively improved (like healthcare for instance), but it wasn't because the political parties were thrown on the bonfire of history, they just got their shit together. In the UK the Tories in particular have had many periods when they've been fucking awful (20s, 70s) and then they weren't. You don't have to set fire to everything to get change.

If you vote Labour or Conservative, you're going to get Labour or Conservative. Instead Welsh Labour voters have voted Plaid, and welsh Conservative voters have voted Reform.

But really: They've voted for Change.

Change without direction is surefire way to drive off the nearest cliff. And it's not like you haven't done that already in the last decade and what a shitshow that's turned out to be.

This is where the rest of your argument falls down - if you are desparate, and you're being offered "more of the same", or "something different - anything different" you vote different - and fuck the consequences. You gamble. And it's not dumb, it's logical - because the status quo isn't working for people any more.

Fuck policies. That's why this is happening. And voting more labour would be measurable madness.

Unlike America you can change leaders without changing governments, so a protest vote over council elections to get Starmer out isn't a bad thing (and I suspect it will work) but Reform for an actual government? Utterly insane.

 

[Scouse]

I'm not making a value judgement @DaGaffer - I'm just explaining why the UK votes like it does.

Ireland has a type of PR, right? That makes electorate power very different. In UK's FPTP system, with a two-party squeeze, the only way to exert power is to defect. If you look at game theory: In a two-party squeeze, if you never defect, you have zero leverage. The parties can safely ignore you. Defection is the only way to regain "market power" as a voter.

I'm not saying the UK voter has a deep understanding of game theory - but emotionally they know they're getting shafted by the political class. Especially the poorest - who live substantially more precariously than in Ireland.

So whilst putting reform in is, on a technical assessment level (where you're coming from), madness. On an exercise of power level it's the only play they have.

Whether it brings about a result (politics that listens) is TBC.

It's not a "dumb" move. It's the only play. If the "consequences" that you're warning about are already the "lived reality" of the poorest in the UK - which vs Ireland it undoubtedly is - then stability is just more decline.

I doubt very much that we'd see this behaviour from UK voters without FPTP. But my prediction is that we'll continue to see it until the political class start taking substantive action to address the concerns of the poorest of the electorate.

This vote says one thing: "stop ignoring us".

 

[Scouse]

The new system for the Senedd actually makes me feel a little more hopeful for Wales btw - but the PR system didn't go far enough tbh. It's still a closed shop PR system.

Hey ho.