The new ‘Night Owls’ podcast is now available on the major platforms (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeart, et alia). Joe Klein and I discuss what we believe are the last days of the Biden campaign and what happens next. Joe’s knowledge of Democratic Party politics is on full display.
What follows is a special edition of Political News Items. The UK elections, the French elections and the US presidential campaign are producing a lot of “items.” Here are 14 items we think are the most interesting, significant, or both.
1. Landslide Lite:
Britain’s Labour Party won a landslide election victory Friday morning, sweeping the Conservative Party out of power after 14 years in an anti-incumbent revolt that heralded a new era in British politics.
The outgoing prime minister, Rishi Sunak conceded his party’s national defeat in the early morning hours, shortly before the Labour Party’s parliamentary majority was confirmed.
“The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight,” Mr. Sunak said from his constituency.He said that he had called Keir Starmer, the Labour leader and incoming prime minister to congratulate him. Mr. Sunak, who won his local constituency, said he would travel to London to deliver his formal resignation to King Charles III and apologized for his party’s performance.
Mr. Starmer, appearing before a crowd of supporters, promised to “rebuild our country,” adding: “Change begins now.”
With a handful of districts left to declare, Labour had won more than 400 seats and the Conservatives were on course for no more than 130. That would be the worst defeat for the Conservatives in the nearly 200-year history of the party.
But it was also an exceptionally fragmented result, with gains not only for Reform U.K., an anti-immigrant party, but for the Green Party and for pro-Palestinian independent candidates in formerly safe Labour seats. The BBC forecast Labour’s nationwide share of the vote at only 35 percent. That would be the “the lowest share of the vote won by any single party majority government,” according to Prof. John Curtice, a polling expert. (Source: nytimes.com)
2. Politico.eu:
Britain’s Conservatives aren’t the only big losers of the U.K.’s general election.
After dominating Scottish politics for years, the pro-independence Scottish National Party is having a terrible night as votes continue to be counted in the U.K. election.
The election’s official exit poll — published when voting ended at 10 p.m. — indicated that the SNP would fall to just ten seats. The SNP won 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats in the 2019 election. (Source: politico.eu)
3. John Curtice:
Labour have won the 2024 general election with a landslide and are expected to end the night with a majority of 170. However, their victory is largely on the back of a dramatic 20 point decline in Conservative support.
This is likely to be the worst Conservative result in terms of seats in history, with the party winning as few as 129. It is also likely to be the highest Lib Dem tally since 1923, with the party winning 69 seats. However Labour's likely tally is, at 410, a little less than the 419 seats that they won in 1997.
Labour's vote share is expected to be up by just under two points across the country. This is entirely as a result of a 19 point increase in support in Scotland.
In Wales, the party's vote has actually fallen back by four points, while in England the party's vote is largely unchanged from 2019.
It is possible that Labour will secure its landslide on a lower share of the vote (35% in Great Britain) than any of Tony Blair's victories, including the 36% the party won in 2005. That itself was hitherto the lowest share of the vote won by a majority single party government.
In many ways, this looks more like an election the Conservatives have lost than one Labour have won. (Source: bbc.com, nytimes.com. Professor Curtice is Britain’s leading political analyst.)
4. Eurointelligence:
Yesterday's vote was a reminder of the power of tactical voting. Labour ended up with a massive majority. On the latest count it got 410 seats out of 650, with all but 7 seats declared. The Tories have only 119. Liz Truss lost her seat. So did a string of cabinet ministers.
Yet, Labour's share of the vote was shockingly low - at only 33.9%, up by only 1.7pp up from Jeremy Corbyn's disastrous result of 2019. The opinion polls got that part totally wrong.
One of the two consequential events that occurred during the UK's election campaign was the return of Nigel Farage, who yesterday got himself elected MP for the first time. His Reform Party will only have four seats, but its share of the vote of 14.3% is remarkable. Had Reform and the Conservatives colluded, as it happened last time, we would have had a very different result. Therein also lies a warning for the next elections, in 2028 or 2029. The electorates have become more volatile. The era of long runs of one-party government is ending. People predicted in 2019 that Labour was so weak it could not conceivably bounce back. They are saying that about the Tories now.
The other consequential event, on which we reported yesterday, was Sir Keir's declaration that the UK will not return to the EU in his lifetime. The significance is that by taking ownership of Brexit, the Labour Party will end the Brexit wars and move on. In doing so they also deprived the right a theme to reunite around.
For the EU this is a potentially dangerous turn of narratives. So many apparent certainties have been turned on its head. The most important change is the narrative of a strong and united EU and a Brexit-infested basket case UK. We are in one of those moments where those narratives are flipping. (Source: eurointelligence,com)
5. Bloomberg.com:
Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is set to fall well short of an absolute majority in the French legislative election on Sunday, according to projections from polling companies.
The far-right group and its allies are on course to win between 190 and 250 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly, based on four surveys released on Wednesday and Thursday. That would be significantly below the 289 that would enable it to pass bills easily and push through its agenda.
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