Coffee House Shots
Exit poll predicts Labour landslide
If you don't subscribe to The Spectator now is the perfect time to give us a try. We're having an election time offer, three pounds for three months, that's a pretty good deal, magazine, digital access and to top it off you get a free mug with Morton Moreland's election artwork. So to get the software go to spectator.co.uk/mug. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shops, the spectator's daily politics podcast. I'm Meghan McElroy and I'm joined by our political editor Katie Bools and our economics editor Kate Andrews. We just have the results of the exit poll and it says that Labor is expected to win a landslide victory. Katie what do you make of the results? Yeah so I think just to sum it up the exit poll is projecting Labor to win a landslide. We've attached to the 410 MPs. The Tories to have a historically bad result the lowest level since the 1830s with 131 MPs. The Lib Dems to have a really good night on 61 MPs reformed to have a pretty good night on 13 MPs but notably potentially a higher vote shed on Lib Dems even though there's a difference in seats and the SMP to have an awful night losing 38 MPs and being left with 10. Then you have the Green Party who expected to have two MPs and then there's a Rogan dependent yet to be determined. So of course the usual calving out so this is an exit poll. We'll yet to have a single seat counted. We just love recording podcasts but effectively exit polls are pretty reliable. I think in 1992 it missed that Major was going to win a majority but you'd think look at the past five election results. I think there was a stat state in the New York Times saying you know on average they have been out by about four seats when it comes to the winning party and the number. So it would be an upset if this is wildly off the mark. I think therefore we can take it fairly seriously. Of course the only thing is some of these seats potentially seats where you have three or four parties in contention which just means it's a bit harder to work out. So a little bit could change but I guess just a start. I mean I think one of the big questions just because it has seemed so likely for a long time that Labour was going to win there's almost been more focus on what the result was going to look like for the Tories in terms of how bad it was going to be. I think this result which is you know triple figures. Now it's an awful result for the Tories but we have said in this podcast many times that there are MRPs and there is a concern within the Tory party they could be left with 50 MPs. Before you know at that point you are cut out of various broadcast opportunities. I think the magic number of getting the usual coverage you would get is an official opposition is about 20% of the vote share and we're yet to see the vote shares. But this I think is a bad result but one I think you know this obviously sounds a bit mad because it's such a bad result but I do think there'll be a little bit of relief in CCHQ at this because there was a genuine concern that you are going to have a situation whereby the party was left around 50 MPs and I think because it's so tight and so many seats and that's even the real result is you know I was speaking to figures out in the week he was saying it could be 50 it could be 150 we would you know do everything for 150 is not that but they are the second largest party and I think just with some of the panic you've had during this campaign some of the problems of D-Day, Gamble Gate was almost everything that could go wrong. There was a ton of Nigel Farage that could go and seems to have gone wrong. So they are the second largest party the exit poll is correct there were times that didn't seem to be guaranteed but of course the bigger picture is we entering a period where you know huge labor majority notably on this exit poll although it's a higher number of labor MPs than in 1997 the majority is slightly smaller than the 1997 Tony Blair landslide. Now given all the warnings of a super majority you could say will Kierstam would be disappointed I think they'll be pretty delighted with this you know unprecedented from where they were coming from in 2019 that awful result for the Labour Party and it does mean Kierstam is going to have that authority that mandate and that security of this poll does come to pass. Kate on this podcast over the last seven weeks we've even contemplated the Conservatives being wiped out totally what are you making of the exit polls so as Katie says labor really should be delighted you are already hearing whispers that perhaps there's a little bit of a disappointment and that disappointment is not really coming from the overall result it's coming from the fact that these MRP polls they're their last polling stint thought that the majority would be above 200. Now again these are predictions they're projected exit polls in theory it could be but that 170 figure majority of 170 it's massive it is a landslide it is a super majority compared to where the other parties are but it is lower than what those MRP polls were suggesting so if there is any kind of disappointment it's the fact that they didn't break that 200 figure and and probably haven't broken that 200 figure. I think the question for the Tory party with a projected 131 seats is does that inspire or does that make people feel completely deflated when it comes to rebuilding the party you know you're going to have a lot of MPs who have just lost their seats they're gone and a lot of those we're going to find out later this evening are probably pretty high profile and you're going to be left with around 130 MPs who are going to have to build that back now does that figure feel like one that you can turn around in five years I mean I think one of the most incredible outcomes of this election is five years ago you know the conventional wisdom was that not just the Tories would be in power for another decade at least it was that Boris Johnson would be the leader of the conservative party and be prime minister for the next decade how quickly things change we saw tonight that voters are very happy to hand a sizable majority from one party to a super majority to another it's not just to labor that they're turning though I think the projection of reform to get 13 MPs is something that very few posters will have seen coming reform will be absolutely delighted with that outcome in the same way that the S&P will be absolutely miserable about their outcome to think that reform is going to have more MPs in the S&P this is a new party it's an insurgent party is really quite remarkable it suggests that voters really have been turning to different kinds of options in the selection and again a very small window of time because we are only five years out from one Boris Johnson got that huge majority you know labor have turned around what was the worst defeat in a century to a spectacular outcome so I think even if this evening you know you see some labor figures on the television saying you know being quite somber we you know we don't really quite know what's going on yet they'll be celebrating on the inside I don't think there's any doubt about that the question for the Tories is this is better than a lot of the polls predicted as Katie said it is still disastrous overall can they be inspired now in the next couple of days and weeks to get really serious about what opposition might look like or are they going to be licking their wounds for a long time and of course what we're waiting for is the vote shares and also the actual results because the vote shares I think you know does this labor majority reflect a high vote share all is a quirk of the first pass the post-system and the collapse in the Tory vote what has that you know one kiss done with a very large majority but one if you compare the vote shares to previous elections where that has not been that I think that'd be important because it almost dictates the tone and you know you can get carried away with the size of the majority but I think the team around kystama are really looking at that because they don't you know get the tone wrong or you know look as though they've had these really really enthusiastic voters when perhaps that's you know perhaps it's more of an anti-toury vote than a vote you know of pure excitement for kystama but I don't say that to be a downer on this result I mean obviously the Labor Party has done very important work to get themselves to a point where voters want to take a chance on them I think when you look at the reform result to have 13 reform MPs in the comments if you get that there's really going to change the dynamics of the comments and I think before you know if it's one or two if it's just an eye to garage you did wonder how committed they're going to be now there's a question about how much reform I have in common and so forth but as Kate says you know we are saying that that conservative result might be a small relief in CCHQ tonight just because the predictions have been so bad in a week's time it's going to feel dread for those results because it's really hard to get noticed with that number it's going to be really hard to build back from I think you have something to build back from that's the key thing whereas I think if you run 50 or so MPs not but if you have 130 Tory MPs and you have over 10 reform MPs I think there is going to mean there's more of a live question around the potentially unification of the right and do you work with reform because you know they're also they're in double digits you're in triple figures you are the dominant party sure but I think it's going to be walking around the corridors of power and it is going to feel the story you have these colleagues on the right who probably you know some of them will have more in common with some of the Tory party then some of the Tory colleagues have in common with them so I think that'd be a fascinating dynamic and that SMP result if it does come to pass now the majorities in Scotland can be really small so I'm interested to see how things look when we talk you know tomorrow morning but that is just devastating for the SMP and you know I think there will be questions about John Sweeney's leadership if that is the case but given he took over just before I think it would be you know can you really blame it on him or is it going to be successive you know things that happen around that I think just finally that's the Liberal Democrat result because it's you know a very large win for Ed Davie it turns out smiling on a roller coaster is pretty effective for getting cut through but I think most effective at all for Ed Davie is having a labour leader people are not scared of because you think about 2019 the big problem Jason Munson had was that Jeremy Corbyn was just toxic and speaking to lived on candidates they found selection so much easier not just because they weren't talking about provoking you know article 50 and so forth but because people are willing to take a chance on the Liberal Democrats when they're not scared about the side effect being the Labour government and if Kistam has such a large majority it's not going to matter too much what Liberal Democrats think but it is obviously important in terms of having that force but also I think in terms of where the Tory party goes because if this result is true sorry it's going to look very very yellow and not a tall blue having been a former Tory stronghold and therefore where is the Tory party now and it's this diminished size you know potentially they're going to lose you know in the North East and the Red Wall what has left of it because that's going to be dictate kind of where they go in terms of how they try to rebuild and what's going to be a really difficult period. Thank you Katie thank you K and thank you for listening to Coffee House Shots. If you want to follow along throughout the night you can watch our live blog and if you want to tune in in the morning we'll be bringing you the latest on spectator TV and on Coffee House Shots. [Music]