Way Out West

So, during the run up to the 2017 general election there was a terror event on the last day voters could register, the Manchester Arena event. This election there was one three days later.

Anyways, where were we.

I'm still, yes still, working my way through all the constituencies (I forgot about W - lots of places beginning with "west"). Nearly there though. I've been making a little list of interesting constituencies (to my eyes at least), but given my slow pace I'm not sure I'll be able to further investigate them all before December the 12th. There are lots of interesting seats though. All the seats where politicians from the last parliament are standing down will be interesting. Being a well known incumbent really does make a difference I think. Often, for whatever reason, a personality may or may not click with the area they're standing in. There's definitely a knack to having a good rapport with people.

Personally I'd be quite worried about this election whatever party I was rooting for. I think it's very hard to predict what will happen. 3.8 million newly registered voters. Many of the already registered perhaps feeling a bit disenfranchised and not turning out. Votes getting split on either side.

It could be an interesting night.

Twitter and Facebook likes and followers for the Hartlepool candidates

Well, I have the figures for Twitter followers and Facebook likes for Hartlepool, as promised.

Twitter followers, plus net gain over seven days for the Hartlepool candidates.

Richard Tice (Brexit); 61,269 (+469)
Mike Hill (Labour); 2,397 (+108)
Kevin Cranney (SLP); 583 (+4)
Andy Hagon (LD); 86 (+3)
Joe Bousfield (Ind); 3 (+1)
Stefan Houghton (Con); 19 (+0)

(The Richard Tice gain figure is something of an approximation as the figure I had for last week was 60.8k. What with Twitter rounding the figures off and me stupidly using my phone to get the numbers. The Conservative number is for the Hartlepool Conservatives account. I couldn't find a specific candidate one. Likewise the Kevin Cranney number is for the Hartlepool Socialist Labour Party account.)

Facebook likes for the Hartlepool candidates now, again plus the net change over seven days.

Stefan Houghton (Con); 30 (+24)
Joe Bousfield (Ind); 336 (+19)
Kevin Cranney (SLP); 81 (+14)
Mike Hill (Lab); 1,356 (+10)
Richard Tice (BXP); 35,942 (+3)
Andy Hagon (LD); 13 (+0)

(The 13 for Andy Hagon is for the Hartlepool Liberal Democrats page.)

The lack of Facebook likes for Richard Tice was surprising. I wonder if this maybe has more to do with the national picture than the local one. It does highlight how well Faye Clememts has been doing on Facebook though. (+15) over the week, in very difficult circumstances.

Local Politics Are Trumping National Issues

I'm continuing to follow the politics locally in my own constituency. I mentioned when I started posting about the local scene that I was wary because it tends to be a bit petty. Today we've had a good case in point. Firstly with arguments over banners.

Independent candidate's banners reported to police for breaking election rules

Then secondly with debates about whether the independent candidate Antony High was actually born in Middlesbrough or not lol. It was funny enough when the Brexit Party candidate Faye Clements was getting accused of being an outsider for being from the incredibly far and distant Thirsk. This is even more comedic. They might as well just decide the election by having a parmo eating contest.

As for who'll win, the local media, and now quite interestingly some of the mainstream media, are starting to paint Middlesbrough central as a straight one-on-one battle between Antony High and Labour's Andy McDonald. The Brexit Party are being completely squeezed out of the picture.

Obviously I'm pro-Brexit and pro-Brexit Party. So I'm still holding on to hopes that things may change in the last few weeks.

Nationalpol.

As for national politics I'm beginning to worry about a Corbyn bounce. The polls are looking bad for Labour and he's getting slated in the media, but my impressions from social media are that his support is very well mobilised. A lot of people just don't like the Tories. Likewise a lot of people have really felt the pinch of austerity and long for a warmer and more sympathetic government. As for the polls they've been very wrong many times before. So much so I'm sick of running through the list.

I hope my impressions are wrong, but I can't help but feel that the debates are being framed in a way that very much suits Labour. The Conservatives are too much on the back foot. They should just be relentlessly attacking Labour on Brexit and immigration, their two real weak spots, but they're terrified of the immigration issue and can't bring themselves to raise and attack it. This is why I feel the lack of an alliance with the Brexit Party is a missed trick. They could've just let the Brexit Party do the dirty work. Now they're having to marginalise Farage instead of letting him ram the issue home.

I caught a bit of Question Time again when I got home today. Again it just seemed to be debates about "racist" language and identity politics. This is great territory for Labour as even if they get criticism themselves it gives them ample opportunity to attack back. It brings every party down to the same level, and it's an issue people on the left love talking about, but that people on the right are more uncomfortable with. So it's just like a noise that everything else gets lost in, with the balance slightly favouring the left.

Plus, though there may be individual incidents of actual racism at times, the fact is our mainstream politicians (on all sides) are simply not racists in any real sense of the word. This is not a racist country. It's actually a pretty great and remarkably tolerant country. Even when politics is heated. So it doesn't really ring true with the public at large when these accusations are made, and again the mud is more likely to stick when thrown at people on the right. As people on the left genuinely believe that "Tories/Farage/Trump/etc are racists", whereas people on the right see people on the left not as racists, but as idiots.

The charges of anti-Semitism levelled at Corbyn are very serious and damaging, but as I've noted on this blog before, his actions (or in-actions) don't stem from a racist place. He's just not a racist guy. They stem from a leftist place. He's pro-Palestine and anti-Israel for the same reasons that he's pro-IRA and anti-British ..because he's very far to the left, and people on the left view the world in a way that leads them to side with whoever is the perceived underdog.

His previous support for terrorist groups is a big concern, but it requires an accurate diagnosis. Framing it as a racial issue allows it to be lost in the identity politics fog. The Tories call Corbyn an anti-Semite, he calls them Islamophobic, and we end up arguing about language and past Facebook posts all day long. Really we should be having a practical debate about the national security implications of having someone in charge who constantly acts on leftist ideology instead of rationale.

I watched the now infamous Andrew Neil interview of Corbyn, and yes Corbyn did get pulverised on many points. However, the interview began with accusations of anti-Semitism, but then finished with questions essentially criticising Corbyn for not being prepared to use the nuclear deterrent or to give the order to extra-legally kill terrorists.

You can't paint someone as being so horrible that they're potentially ushering in Nazism, yet at the same time so nice and moral that they'd never kill or nuke anyone. Those two things together simply make no sense. So I was watching thinking; normal people, if they even watch this, will be left with the impression that he's a decent, principled guy, getting a bit of unfair treatment. Which is essentially true. Again, Jeremy Corbyn simply is not a racist, and to be fair to him he has campaigned his entire life to counter it.

The problem with Corbyn is his policies, ideologies and lack of sound judgement. If you attack him on these things it will be effective and will ring true with people.

I've went on a bit longer than I planned :) ..what a mix, mundane local politics and then serious tracts about racism and foreign policy xD

Over One Million People Register To Vote In The Last Few Days

So the deadline for voter registration was yesterday.

https://www.gov.uk/performance/register-to-vote/registrations-breakdown

As you can see from the graph 660k people registered to vote on the final day alone. The previous day saw 366k register. Making it over a million over the last two days.

It's a huge number of people. Especially when you consider that the population of the country is about 67 million, some of whom being too young to vote anyway.

Obviously many people will not bother voting this time out (there's some speculation that the voter turn out will be low). However, it stands to reason if you've made the effort to register in the last few weeks then it's highly likely that you're going to use that vote. So all things considered these newly registered voters will have a huge impact on the outcome.

The question then is; how will they vote?

Last time out in 2017 the freshly registered, predominantly younger voters, seemed to benefit Corbyn. So you would think this time it will be similar. Of the 660k that registered yesterday over 450k were under the age of 35.

Finally, if my maths is correct, 3.8 million people registered in total from the 29th of October, when the election was announced, to the 26th of November, deadline day. HUGE number.

Twitter and Facebook continued

This is the likes and followers for my constituency candidates (Middlesbrough Central). At least as they were on Sunday evening.

Twitter followers, with net change over 7 days in brackets.

Andy McDonald (Lab): 34,043 (+4k)
Ruth Betson (Con): 884 (+30)
Faye Clements (BXP): 667 (+11)
Antony High (Ind):  302 (+10)
Hugh Alberti (Green): 80 (+6)
Thomas Crawford (Lib Dem): 461 (+4)

Facebook page likes, with net change over 7 days in brackets.

Andy McDonald (Lab); 4,744 (+201)
Antony High (Ind); 4,307 (+197)
Faye Clements (BXP); 88 (+15)
Ruth Betson (Con); 139 (+1)
Thomas Crawford (Lib Dem); 143 (+2)

(I couldn't find a Facebook page for the Green Party candidate).

Looking at the Facebook page likes you can see that both Antony High and Andy McDonald have a strong showing. Obviously Andy McDonald is quite an established figure so his like count will have built up over a fairly long period of time. The Antony High count is more recent, and in large part owes itself to the large following the Middlesbrough mayor has built up on Facebook.

Though looking at the net change over the 7 days the difference between them and the other candidates isn't quite as stark.

Also I should note that the Conservative candidate Ruth Betson has a new Facebook account specifically for her Middlesbrough campaign which I wasn't aware of when I first started. That account went up by about 15 or so likes in the 4/5 days after I found it. So her numbers are a little skewed. I'll be using her Middlesbrough Facebook page going forward.

Most notable from the Twitter figures is that Andy McDonald has jumped up about 4k in the 7 days. A huge leap. I'm guessing this is largely due to his very public spat with Dominic Raab. So perhaps a lot of Labour supporters have started following him from across the country.

I'm also currently looking at the Hartlepool constituency. I'll post them later in the week as I started recording those last Friday. So I'll have a 7 day net figure this coming Friday.

I think it's interesting looking at things this way as you can get a sense of momentum as the weeks go by.

Likes and Followers

I'm nearly there. Amazing how many constituencies there are beginning with 'south' or 'north'. Now I'm past that part of the alphabet I should be in the home straight. Finally.

I've also been looking at Facebook page likes and Twitter followers re political candidates.

I'm looking at the overall likes/followers, but also the net change in likes/followers over a 7 day period. I think this gives a good indication of a candidate's momentum. As the overall likes can be skewed for various reasons. Such as how long they've had a public profile, etc.

Hopefully I'll be posting more about this over the coming days.

Data diving ..still

Blog, blog, blog. I'm still trawling through all the constituencies. Nearly finished now. It does mean my posts are especially boring though at the moment.

I'm also still keeping an eye on voter registration levels. There was a big spike on Friday of 300,000. I think the deadline is the 26th of November. So just two more days left.

(click to enlarge - or better still

click the link below)

https://www.gov.uk/performance/register-to-vote/registrations-breakdown