re: #95 Targetpractice

New polling dropped in UK politics today that is just amazing at first glance: If the election happened today, the Tories would be reduced to 34 seats and would not even be considered the official opposition as that title would instead go to the Lib Dems. More than one commentator has pointed out the bleedin’ obvious: If current laws did not require an election held no later than Jan 2025, then the Tories would never allow one to be called.

But having failed to learn their lesson from trying to fight off UKIP by adopting Brexit, the Tories are now trying to fight off challenges from Reform UK at a time when they need to be reaching out to moderate voters. UK voters want to know how they’re going to feed their families and roofs over their heads…and the Tories are telling them that the biggest priority is (wait for it) keeping “foreigners” out and attacking out groups (trans folks, Muslims, “woke” supporters, etc).

Yeah, the Tories can’t be a happy bunch right now: a poll I glanced at correlating support to projected seats in Parliament gave them just 23% to Labour’s 44%; with Reform UK - basically a re-branded UKIP/Brexit party - at 12%. And the other parties making up the difference seem likely to side with Labour if it comes down to forming a Government (even without a Majority). No surprise they are going to cling to power right to last possible minute: even the BBC coverage couldn’t paper it over that the term “disaster” seemed to be the most common assessment of the Tories’ chances. An opinion mainly proffered by Tories.