Sly Ronnie

Yes, you do wonder when Walker's speed is going to drop at any moment.

I think Southgate is going back to the World Cup '18 model where form is the greater factor rather than sticking with some of his old favourites, although admittedly Maguire is out through injury rather than by choice.

I know who is he is. That would a genuine shock if he's found dead.

RIP

Imagine wishing it was 1887 again in 1924 and that gives you perspective on how out of time the likes of Swayne are these days.

I can't get on to the Electoral Calculus website, it must have crashed!

You could say the same for Miliband.

Yes, there seems to be a thing regarding what constitutes a "Portillo Moment", rather like the differing definitions of "jumping the shark". As Rover pointed out (and as I recall) there was no inkling on election night that Portillo was going to lose. Nary a mention of a possible upset was put to him by Jeremy Paxman earlier on in the evening. So one marker of a so-called "Portillo Moment" is it's unexpectedness. Cross-referencing the discussion in the General Election thread, I remember poring over the nightly polls in the run-up to '97 (I was a university student then) to try to detect any late movement towards the Tories, haunted as I was by 1992 (and historically 1970) before I was satisfied that Labour was at least going to win. The media were same - very cautious about the likely outcome (late-swing, shy Tories etc). It was only on the Sunday before Polling Day, when the Observer did their famous list of possible Tory high-profile defeats through a measure of tactical voting (inc. Portillo's "safe" seat of Enfield Southgate) that the media were starting to stick their neck out and propose a proper beating for the Tories was in store. Now some have gone though the "it must be an ultra-high profile Tory" route for it to qualify as a "PM". However, although Portillo did have a higher profile than a lot of Tory ministers at the time, he was at the end of the day the Defence Secretary - not Chancellor, not Home Secretary, not Foreign Secretary. But he was seen as the future hope for the Tories (no guarantee he was going to win the ensuing leadership election even if he had hung on to his seat). It was what he represented - that preening Uber-Thatcherism, "Who Dares Wins" and all that and for him to be taken out of Parliament altogether was what was so satisfying. I watched the results with some mates and we were all drunk at 3 in the morning and when he lost we had a group hug! It was the symbolism of it. In that sense you could apply the Portillo moment retrospectively (Benn losing in 1983, Shirley Williams in 1979), indeed George Brown at Belper in 1970 was perhaps the prototype Portillo Moment, as he was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, former Foreign Secretary and one of the most high-profile figures in 1960s British politics - the face of Labour's catastrophic defeat at the hands of Ted Heath's Conservatives.

Keeping the seat for Klopp, I reckon.

I wonder if the purge against the last remaining Corbynistas is so that they have more compliant backbenchers because the majority will be a lot smaller than is predicted?

That must be the most right-wing panel ever gathered for Question Time.

It's my main issue with Sky's coverage. They overdo it with the declarations. Not enough analysis.

I wonder if there will be acceptable livestreams eleswhere on the night? LBC perhaps?

Oh fuck Vine, I'd prefer his brother doing it!

Douglas Murray is the ultimate right-wing echo chamber.

I have 14 hits. Six left on the chopping block..

Labour's poll lead may be overstated according to Lord Hayward.. He would say that, wouldn't he?

I wonder how many MPs that were elected in the 1980s will be left by the time Parliament will meet in July?

Am I to assume that this National Service idea will apply to both sexes? If so, I wonder how this will go down with women voters.

Sherman tanked.

Suggests he's trying to shore up the Tory vote and keep Reform at bay, rather than appeal to the middle ground.

Yup, back to the days of the radical revolutionary that was Jim Callaghan.