Main Edition
US
FR
→ Will Reform UK become Britain’s second party?
Good news for the Tories: Labour’s polling lead has been slashed to just 12 points. And the bad news? The Conservatives are no longer the UK’s second-most popular party, according to a new survey by WeThink, which has Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on 21%, behind Labour on 33%. Labour’s slight tumble follows criticism of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s response to nationwide riots this month, after a shorter than expected honeymoon for the new government.
Labour leads by 12% (Reform in 2nd)
LAB 33% (-6)
REF 21% (+5)
CON 20% (-)
LD 11% (-1)
GRN 8% (+1)Via @wethinkpolling, 7-8 Aug (+/- vs 11-12 Jul) pic.twitter.com/zVd60FO5XZ
— Stats for Lefties ️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) August 15, 2024
An independent analysis of the WeThink polling by Stats for Lefties also reveals that the Tories, based on this vote share, could slump to third place in Parliament. If the present total of 121 MPs wasn’t bad enough, these figures suggest that the Conservative Party could only have 71 representatives following the next election in 2029 — fewer than the Lib Dems’ current Parliamentary tally. Meanwhile, Reform is projected to gain another 24 MPs in five years’ time. Of course, this drop in popular support would do nothing to dent Labour’s ironclad majority…
→ Biden’s heroic sacrifice, according to the NYT
Joe Biden “never stopped believing” he could beat Trump, but dropped out of the presidential race to avoid “an intraparty war that would run counter to the fabric of who he is”, according to a front-page story in the New York Times.
The article, which relies on the accounts of the President’s close advisors, reframes the final days of Biden’s candidacy in heroic terms and makes little mention of the other possible motivations for his exit, such as his advanced age and possible Parkinson’s diagnosis. “You could still win,” staff reportedly told him. “But it would be a herculean climb.”
This is the closest Biden has come to giving a reason for his exiting the race in the nearly four weeks since the announcement. With five months left in his term, admitting to age-related health issues might be unwise…
→ Kamala’s lessons in TikTok
Democrats, aware of Donald Trump’s large following on TikTok, are fighting back with an army of influencers. Footage of a webinar training session hosted by the DNC shows a man advising TikTok users to promote Harris with a variety of hip methods, such as “the walk and talk” (exactly what it sounds like).
NEW
The DNC held a TikTok “training session” for Kamala Harris supporters on Tuesday.
See the highlights below. Spoiler, MAGA is “weird,” Trump’s large following is a “challenge,” and one Harris supporter is on TikTok as “woke grandpa.” pic.twitter.com/gcMWviAVCH
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) August 15, 2024
The instructor warns that the app is currently flooded with Right-wing “propaganda” targeting “low-information”, “low engagement” voters. Trump’s TikTok popularity, apparently, is a sore subject for the social media professional. “He has 10 million followers. Does that mean that he’s running his TikTok well? No,” the instructor says. Surely the Kamala memes will fix this.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWeThink polling by Stats for Lefties
‘Nuff said. Ignore.
Who cares which set of swivel eyed loons are ranting about immigrants and trans people? Completely irrelevant – although pretty funny to watch!
Six months off UnHerd but Mr Swivel-Eye is still around. Nice to be home. What was the subject – I’ve forgotten.
CS was also away for a while, probably on holiday. Clacton-on-Sea, was it, CS?
Comment completely irrelevant to the article.
But you are at least consistent in always being completely irrelevant (to use your own words).
Nah, the Tories will be back. They are the natural party of government in Britain. Reform consists of Farage and a bunch of nonentities, and the Lib Dems are just a bunch of nonentities.
There is no doubt that the Tories have been the most successful political party in this country’s history but it is complacency, as per your comment, that has led to their decline.
I look forward to seeing in which direction their next leader takes them but, equally, I also look forward to seeing how many Tory MPs will put the country and party ahead of their own desires.
Unless someone has forgotten already the next GE in UK isn’t until 2029. Reform are going nowhere beyond a bit of ‘protest’ conveyance. They stoke and fan division and offer nothing practical. And to cheer them up even more – our demographics are changing and will have changed even more by 2029.
Any projection for 2029 at this point isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. But the next election may come earlier.
Talking of “stoking and fanning division”, don’t you occasionally stop and wonder whether the “two tier” stuff (I call it “selective justice”) also has that effect ?
How is the Reform “protest conveyance” really any different from the Lib Dem role as a vessel for protest voting ? I saw a chart mapping voter views by party on a range of issues yesterday and the Lib Dem markers were almost superimposed on the Labour ones – which does tend to support the perception that the Lib Dems are largely a protest vote party.
This demographics argument – “your voters are all dying off” – is demonstrably specious. People’s attitudes change as they get older. And this neglects drifts in opinion – like increased support from young men for Reform at the last election.
If forced to make a prediction, I’d say this:
The Tories has bottomed and will slowly recover. Pretty slowly.
Reform will pick up some disaffected Labour voters.
Labour will suffer from fragmentation of the left to the Greens and Lib Dems.
Who knows what will happen with these new “inner city independents” ?
There must be some chance that the next election ends up with a messy no overall majority given the increasing party fragmentation.
Just on the two-tier stuff PB – I just don’t. buy it in the form intended. It’s twaddle.
Our Policing and Justice system has been two-tier penalising some minorities far more for decades. Let’s have some honesty about this if you want to be taken seriously.
Lobbing bricks at Police and firebombing not happened on any Pro- Palestinian demo either although some views conveyed I strongly disagree with.
Hold on ! So you do “buy the two tier stuff” then ! You just claim it’s the other way round from some of us.
Surely you must realise that when so-called “Equalities Acts” create “protected characteristics” for certain minority groups, that guarantees a two tier legal and justic system ? How could that not be the case ?
Not sure what your point about demo violence was about. Seems irrelevant to my comments.
Come on PB you can look it up just as much as I can. The Govt’s own figures and report shows greatest disparity appears at the point of stop and search, custodial remands and prison population. And it’s not the white population showing the disparity is it. The Equalities Act made v little difference to that in last 14yrs. You dropped onto that because you wanted to deflect from the differences evident in the criminal justice system.
I have no idea what you’re on about … I never mentioned this stuff about stop and search.
But since you raised it, let’s think about this for a moment. There are 2 ways you can implement stop and search (I’m not saying I agree with the policy, never given it that much thought). Either you implement a random policy. Or you attempt to target it to increase the likelihood of catching criminals (there’s certainly plenty of data to help identify higher risk individuals). Which one is the best use of limited police resources and least disruptive ? Which one is likely to catch more criminals ?
As for prison population. If certain groups are more likely to commit crimes, it’s entirely expected that they are a higher proportion of the prison population compared to the national averages. How could it be any different ? To make it not so would require active interference in the justice system. In other words, two tier justice.
You seem to be arguing against yourself on this one …
Firstly PB you brought up ‘two-tier’ and what I did is concur the system can appear v two tier if you look it more broadly but not perhaps in the direction you were coming from.
On SaS – I agree it’s a tool Police should have. But you ever been stopped and searched just doing your normal business because you have different skin pigmentation? It happens much more to others than us than we like to think and it’s based on racial profiling conscious and sub-conscious. I’m all for them doing it, more in fact, but more evenly. There is no evidence the proportionality of crime supports the proportionality of SaS.
As regards prison – let’s start with remand – why for the same alleged crime are the figures so different for different ethnic groups? (You Gov stats). That trend ripples through the rest. It’s not that these criminals shouldn’t face the consequences, it’s just that if you are White you’ve a chance your outcome likely to be a bit different from the more diverse chap next to you.
Yes. Vote Reform.
Why did the editor choose that photo of Farage from the hundreds of stock images available? Was that meant to be a hit job? Feeble effort.
No, to Reform. They are narcissists who are propping up the Authoritarian Left.
And I knew they weren’t serious when they failed to propose privatising the NHS in their manifesto (the only way to stop mass immigration).