Nah unless there’s an economic collapse (which unfort always seems to happen to Labour in gov) Starmer will win the next election with a big loss of majority - prob a majority of 30 or so!

Ye things look to be a case of steady Labour government will slowly turn the tide back in their favour with less of a show/big hiccups that reform could latch onto and more positive news. I think as well whenever Kemi is ousted as conservative leader that could see the conservatives start gaining/eating into reform again.

The tories will come back they always do, no one is listening to them now because the mistakes of the past still dominate the political landscape but in 3 years events will have moved on and Starmer will be to blame for whatever decisions that are made.

The tories also generally are better political communicators than Labour or the left they create simple narratives about complex issues that resonate with the general public who lap it up.

The left have to explain things more because it’s not obvious why equality would be better for the whole and in politics when you’re trying to explain yourself you’re losing the arguement.

This is why ceiling talk is always premature because if something becomes a two horse race you can usually get 40-50%

Ipsos’ newly relaunched Political Monitor shows Reform UK on a 34% vote share, the highest Ipsos has ever recorded for them, and nine points ahead of the Labour Party. Just under a year since the 2024 general election, Ipsos in the UK’s new findings show how dramatically the political landscape has changed:

• Labour’s 25% voting intention is the lowest share Ipsos has recorded for Labour since October 2019.

• The Conservatives’ 15% is the lowest share Ipsos has ever recorded.

• Keir Starmer and the government’s satisfaction ratings have fallen significantly since last year, with around three in four (73% and 76% respectively) now dissatisfied.

Scary numbers for the Tories though

FYI, by 'current ceiling' I'm referring to current poll variations, what the average highs and lows are for each party with the current weekly polls, subject to change. Reform's 'potential ceiling' sure, could be higher than that based on changing factors like for example total Tory collapse and them then being the default RW party (though not sure they could hold such a big coalition without some concessions to Tory ideological territory which then might turn off their disaffected voters, the Johnsonite problem again) but then any party could have a high potential ceiling given the right environment and political winds and that's somewhat more speculative than I want to be with just numbers.

Given this poll, that is technically still wrong to say their ceiling is 30 but then again Ipsos are an occasional pollster, (their first poll since the GE!) with differing methodology to the weekly ones.

I'd like to note this is a changed methodology from the last Ipsos panel (and includes prompting for Reform, something they didn't do with their polling at the GE and before) and they've given a confidence rating of 4% either way:

Though, disregarding that this single poll is a few points off from the other polls right now, I do tentatively like this methodology (certainly looks better than the shysters at FindOutNow), random sampling by online users is probably better than telephone polling at this stage, though online does have potential to be more self-selecting for high political interest than other methods.

new MRP (detailed and stratified by region compared to regular polls) poll out from Electoral Calculus and FindOutNow:

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20250625.html

oof.

B'ham and M'cr looking unusually teal there. EC seem to have made Plaid taking the SNP colour too, adding to the colour homogeneity.

also fun curio, the new More In Common poll (different poll from above, it's REF 27 (-2) LAB 23 (+2) in its normal form) included an alt version that prompted for a hypothetical Corbyn-led left-wing party, not that I think that that's coming to anything but there have been a few noises:

Ironically the only hope reform would have of those numbers is if that party was created

Honestly, would be amazing to see conservatives almost lower than SNP in seats!

Come a general election I think things would fall apart fairly quickly for reform though during the campaign. All it takes is for Labour/Cons to move a few % higher and those 377 seats come crumbling down.

Plus I'm pretty sure the conservatives will change leader and try to appeal to their core voters once again by the time the next GE rolls around.

24 minutes ago, Envoirment said:

Honestly, would be amazing to see conservatives almost lower than SNP in seats!

Come a general election I think things would fall apart fairly quickly for reform though during the campaign. All it takes is for Labour/Cons to move a few % higher and those 377 seats come crumbling down.

Plus I'm pretty sure the conservatives will change leader and try to appeal to their core voters once again by the time the next GE rolls around.

I'd be shocked unless the the Tories and Labour go in with their current leadership.

On 25/06/2025 at 18:26, Iz 🌟 said:

It's crazy how it's feasible that Labour could lose so many seats but still hold onto some that Tony Blair failed to win in 1997. They could lose all their seats in the East Midlands except for Rushcliffe which was Ken Clarke's seat and famously safe Tory until last year. Similarly, Hexham which has been Tory since 1923 stays Labour (had an SDP rather than a Reform candidate in 2024 though). York Outer, Monmouthshire, Macclesfield, Stroud, Shrewsbury, Welwyn, Truro and Falmouth also should have no place in being part of the rump Labour delegation.

Some of these Reform seats are very left wing and if the polling in 2029 looks remotely like today (big if), it all depends on how the narrative of the election plays out. There will be a progressive vote to coalesce in somewhere like Nottingham East, it's just a question of whether it happens around Labour, Greens, another force or indeed not at all.

Edited June 29Jun 29 by Harve

8 hours ago, Harve said:

It's crazy how it's feasible that Labour could lose so many seats but still hold onto some that Tony Blair failed to win in 1997. They could lose all their seats in the East Midlands except for Rushcliffe which was Ken Clarke's seat and famously safe Tory until last year. Similarly, Hexham which has been Tory since 1923 stays Labour (had an SDP rather than a Reform candidate in 2024 though). York Outer, Monmouthshire, Macclesfield, Stroud, Shrewsbury, Welwyn, Truro and Falmouth also should have no place in being part of the rump Labour delegation.

Some of these Reform seats are very left wing and if the polling in 2029 looks remotely like today (big if), it all depends on how the narrative of the election plays out. There will be a progressive vote to coalesce in somewhere like Nottingham East, it's just a question of whether it happens around Labour, Greens, another force or indeed not at all.

Yeah I like YouGov's version of the MRP slightly more:

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52437-first-yougov-mrp-since-2024-election-shows-a-hung-parliament-with-reform-uk-as-largest-party

Electoral Calculus seems to blindspot some seats that plainly obviously don't go with the prevailing tide of the country no matter what that is, the biggest difference between the two MRPs is that YouGov has Labour keeping some of the inner cities that they're never losing in a 'them vs the right-wing' scenario, but then YouGov STILL has Labour hold seats like Hexham, Stroud, York Outer and Truro that as you say are not the sort of seats that Labour is supposed to keep in a wipeout scenario.

I think FPTP gets hard to predict with 4 major parties (plus nationalists and Greens in select seats) and this could be a limitation of MRP and predictive outcomes more generally. On numbers of seats YouGov looks within the realm of reality, EC's a bit bullish on Reform but not out of the question, it's just what those seats are.

Interesting forecast for Wales next year. Based off polling.

Looking at where Reform seem to be leading on that map, it looks like the Welsh don’t really want them in charge. The heavy English population towards the border however are happy for a party that aims to eradicate our language and culture (the irony!). One hopes we’d end up with Plaid lead coalition instead.

Is the borderlands of Wales basically English people then and the mountains more Welsh in terms of language and culture? And assume the industrial south Labour?

1 hour ago, Steve201 said:

Is the borderlands of Wales basically English people then and the mountains more Welsh in terms of language and culture? And assume the industrial south Labour?

Yup. The English border retirees are what made Wales vote leave. So really, it was all nations and territories vs England with Farage's brexshit

I presume it’s just like the SNP where their nationalism is just being anti-English and they see that as more righteous than anti-immigrant or whatever. You need to be in central Wales to be truly Welsh? What kind of madness is that. Also what is Farage supposed to be doing? Banning people from speaking Welsh? Is that a reform policy or something? What culture could reform possibly be destroying? Makes no sense at all.

Two polls a yougov one where I think Labour lost some ground over the messy benefits handling

And a find out now poll that puts Corbyn almost level with Labour which I wouldn’t put much weight on but apparently it’s a real poll

It is democratic fact that English retirees along thw borde regions of Wales skew the demographocs and tje vote. Sorry.

3 hours ago, Liam Sota said:

I presume it’s just like the SNP where their nationalism is just being anti-English and they see that as more righteous than anti-immigrant or whatever. You need to be in central Wales to be truly Welsh? What kind of madness is that. Also what is Farage supposed to be doing? Banning people from speaking Welsh? Is that a reform policy or something? What culture could reform possibly be destroying? Makes no sense at all.

Two polls a yougov one where I think Labour lost some ground over the messy benefits handling

And a find out now poll that puts Corbyn almost level with Labour which I wouldn’t put much weight on but apparently it’s a real poll

You presume what you’d like. As always you’ll have the stupidest take.

1) Wales (and Scotland) are not anti-English but many don’t want to be ruled over by the nation of England under the guise of ‘Britain’. If you know any history, you’ll know why.

2) In my opinion you don’t even have to be from Wales to be considered Welsh. But there’s no denying that most of the English people living in Wales live close to the border and heavily influence voting decisions. They often, like you, assume they know what Wales needs better than those from Wales because they’re, well, English and just assume they’re our betters.

3) Farage shouldn’t be doing anything in Wales. He isn’t standing in the Senedd elections.

4) there was a bare minimum ‘we need to protect the language’ tweet from a reform goon who then went on to say we shouldn’t be spending any money on it and that targets to increase its use should be scrapped. That is what they really think. The same people who want English as the only language spoken in England, want to impose the same think in our ‘lesser’ country.

Do you know why the number of Welsh speakers fell dramatically over a century? They literally beat it out of school children.

You little Englanders (note: not all English people) are always criticising other nations but you have the thinnest skins the minute anyone blames anything on England.

7 hours ago, Big Fat Sue said:

Yup. The English border retirees are what made Wales vote leave. So really, it was all nations and territories vs England with Farage's brexshit

That’s not true though. You can look yourself https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/our-reports-and-data-past-elections-and-referendums/results-and-turnout-eu-referendum/eu-referendum-results-region-wales

the vast majority of places voted to leave. Big cities like Cardiff voted remain but that was the same in England with London etc

16 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

That’s not true though. You can look yourself https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/research-reports-and-data/our-reports-and-data-past-elections-and-referendums/results-and-turnout-eu-referendum/eu-referendum-results-region-wales

the vast majority of places voted to leave. Big cities like Cardiff voted remain but that was the same in England with London etc

And you will see that ALL the research points to English retirees tipping the tight vote in Wales to leave. Brexshit is an antidemocratic Little England disgrace and there's no two ways about it.