We’ve all heard about the resurgence of the far right in Europe (although the extent of it was very overstated at first) but the UKisn’t among them:
Sunak surprised many in his own party by announcing an early election on May 22, against widespread expectations that he would wait until later in the year to allow more time for living standards to recover after the highest inflation in 40 years.
Market research company Savanta found 46% support for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, up 2 points on the previous poll five days earlier, while support for the Conservatives dropped 4 points to 21%. The poll was conducted from June 12 to June 14 for the Sunday Telegraph, opens new tab.
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Labour’s 25-point lead was the largest since the premiership of Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, whose tax cut plans prompted investors to dump British government bonds, pushing up interest rates and forcing a Bank of England intervention.
“Our research suggests that this election could be nothing short of electoral extinction for the Conservative Party,” Chris Hopkins, political research director at Savanta, said.00:08Majority of 90 countries at Ukraine peace summit sign declaration
A separate poll by Survation, published by the Sunday Times, opens new tab, predicted the Conservatives could end up with just 72 seats in the 650-member House of Commons – the lowest in their nearly 200-year history – while Labour would win 456 seats.
This is the double edged sword of Trump and our electoral system. We were able to oust him during the pandemic and empower the Democrats. In the UK they got rid of their blameworthy leader and his short-lived successor but the party was still in charge. As a result, they have not had the success Biden has had in pulling the country back from the brink but at the same time, they are at least being held responsible for it. Here in America Biden is getting the blame for the pandemic hangover even though he’s done more than any other industrialized country to create a strong recovery. Sigh.
And then there’s the fact that we’re dealing with a cult of personality here in the US and facts, truth and reality have little to do with what’s happening. It means that Biden is facing about 42% of the voters being completely unpersuadable no matter what happens. At the same time, many Democratic voters have understandably withdrawn from the batshit crazy political conversation so they aren’t hearing anything but snippets of news and casual whines about prices and how bad everything is. And even if they did it’s going to be mano a mano because of the numbers.
We are certainly an exceptional country.