It's the nature of modern elections that as the polls close the exit poll result determines whether it's going to be a dull night for someone or an interesting night for everyone. And the UK general election exit poll – with the Tories 22 seats short of a majority – fell very much into the latter category.
You can watch the BBC's live stream of its election coverage here. Feel free to post comments and links. I'll be, er, swinging by regularly too.
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SHG,
remember postal votes are about 25% of the total, not included in exit polling.
Yes, I didn’t think I’d be interested at all. But no, this game is close.
FWIW, I don’t think historical bias in the exit polls is something to rely upon. Pollsters model it once they have a pattern to work with.*
One thing I’ve found interesting in summaries over the last few days is how little Brexit has been discussed. This seems dumbfoundingly stupid on the part of the Tories – the called the election over the whole thing, after all.
*ETA: What I mean is that the direction of such a bias can't be relied upon from past data. There may still be a residual bias, but we can't be certain which direction it is in. The pollster may overcompensate for the Labour bias.
Revered former Observer political editor not fucking about.
Russell Brown, in reply to
FWIW, I don’t think historical bias in the exit polls is something to rely upon. Pollsters model it once they have a pattern to work with.
It was looking like this week like likely-voter assumptions in the run-up polls are going to be quite pivotal.
BenWilson, in reply to
Revered former Observer political editor not fucking about.
He isn't, although I think that it's more a case of that referendum exposing a country that was already quite fucked. I'm still amazed that they would have let a single referendum decide such a thing. It's like they literally have no idea how to use referendums.
Never watched a British election closely before...how does it usually take to count up?
Rich Lock, in reply to
George Osborne suggests Theresa May might have to resign. Ouch.
Not like he has an axe to grind, or anything....
Rich Lock, in reply to
I'm still amazed that they would have let a single referendum decide such a thing.
Who's this 'they', white boy? You can leave 'me' out of it, thanks.
Rich Lock, in reply to
ow does it usually take to count up?
Should have a good idea by your mid-afternoon.. Turnout apparently higher than normal, so counting will take longer than normal.
BenWilson, in reply to
Never, it's all your fault. If you hadn't gone back Brexit would never have happened.
Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Counting lasts 2-12 hours, roughly.
About 3am (1400NZ) we should have a good number of results.
By dawn in the UK (1800NZ) it should be pretty much known.
The final ballot boxes from the outer limits (a few constituencies don't start the count until morning) will be sometime (UK) Friday.
UKIP vote appears to be splitting 33:66 Labour/Cons.
Russell Brown, in reply to
Not like he has an axe to grind, or anything….
Meanwhile, UKIP's leader. LOLOLOL.
Looking like a really bad night for the SNP though ...
I think the British are still firmly in denial about the effects of Brexit.
[After the referendum, the stock market rose. That's kind of a reverse effect (same with Trump) - when there are real-world economic negatives, then the central banks will generally cut rates. That reduces the benchmark for returns from shares, and so share prices go up to compensate for this]
There seems to be a delusion that the UK government has some sort of influence over the EU and will be able to negotiate a deal. This is of course rubbish - the EU states have very little reason to offer a "good" (as in bad for European workers) deal and each individual state will have a veto - on issues they care about and generally if they don't like any aspect of the deal (Irish border, car imports, Gibraltar, banking licenses).
If May gets back in, then a not unlikely endpoint would be full tariffs on UK goods, plus a special tariff to recover the UK's debts to the EU; all goods subject to full border inspection; no recognition of UK standards bodies (so no exports of safety-critical items such as food, vehicles and aircraft parts) and no bank passporting.
That would shutdown a lot of UK businesses the day EU membership ceases (ironically, they'll be on overtime up to X-day to get as much stuff as possible finished and out of the country - then it'll be P45s for millions of workers).
After a series of swings to Conservatives in safe Labour seats, now a clutch of Tory seats looking shaky. Gadzooks!
BenWilson, in reply to
I think the British are still firmly in denial about the effects of Brexit.
The Leave camp, anyway. It seems that, like the Trump presidency, there was never a contingency plan in place for if they won.
This analysis of what a hung parliament means is unintentionally hilarious. I mean, it's only normal in half of the world's democracies for an outright majority to not happen, whereas the tone of the article is that it's a constitutional crisis.
The idea that the Tories could have a minority government with the support of Labour is clearly completely unthinkable, even though this was meant to be the Brexit election and they would appear to have the same position on that. I'm not saying it's likely, but it is allowed AFAIK.
Labour seems to have completely out-thought and out manoeuvred Lynton Crosby, whose reputation now must lie in tatters. One advantage of having lots of younglings on board (like the Corbynistas) is you don’t need to focus group the zeitgeist, you just ask the gathered crowd. Labour backed itself, backed it’s core beliefs and it took risks -the manifesto, backing hope to trump negativity, and backed Corbyn to out-campaign the Maybot. Their campaign was brilliant. It tapped the mood for hope and change when the Tories ran on a platform on doubling down on more of the same.
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Lynton Crosby, whose reputation now must lie in tatters
...like a dead cat in a gutter.
;- )
Martin Brown, in reply to
That's Sir Lynton... meow
Moz,
Crooked Timber have interesting summary, including a comment or two on whether it would be survivable for Labour to actually govern after this election. Viz, whatever they did they'd be accused of sabotaging Brexit. Best result is probably what Corbyn seems to be trying to achieve - shore up support in safe seats. And with the help of Teresa May, they're both trying to leave the Cons in government but with a slim majority and possibly dependent on the LibDems for support (or, like National having the option of asking for supply from The Greens... she could turn to the SNP :)
http://crookedtimber.org/2017/06/07/open-thread-on-the-uk-election
A Tory spanking in Wales...
So, will the missing million vote if you give them something to vote for?
The UK result says yes.