Talk:Next United Kingdom general election

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Date of election (again)[edit]

Emily Thornberry's comments about a May election being the "worst kept secret" were in December and so arguably are no longer relevant, since it was only after that that Sunak spoke about holding it in the second half of the year... though I suppose it depends whether or not you take that at face value. Mark and inwardly digest (talk) 22:13, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Too many people seem too keen on posting every quote they hear from a politician: we are editors (those who select what to include) of an encyclopaedia (a timeless depository of facts), not compilers of an archive of political comment. I do not believe that anything beyond legal requirements and one comment by the person who has authority to call the election (the PM) sits withinn the requirements of WP:NOTNEWS and WP:RECENT. Kevin McE (talk) 09:56, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not quite as hardline on this as Kevin McE, but I think we can just summarise and say there is debate as to when the election might be. We don't need to compile quotations on the topic. Bondegezou (talk) 10:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair points. I've now removed the Thornberry quote from the lead, as I'm inclined to agree that we shouldn't include a lot of speculation about the date, and especially not in the lead. Mark and inwardly digest (talk) 21:07, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Debate implies that there are opinions of equal validity and equally well informed. There are not. There is one person who will make the decision (presumably with some consultation) and anything else is speculation. If those who want the election sooner suggest that it is likely that it will be, they are simply trying to make it more difficult for the govt to delay: that is political manoeuvring, not debate. Kevin McE (talk) 22:32, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Date is not set Cwater1 (talk) 01:43, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to collect same data to state there is or was etc chance of a June Election on the cards, However we could still end up Autumn but at least we have put in some Ref to stay it was being looked out because of the Local elections. Once the date is announced we can come back to page and say what is what --Crazyseiko (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While this one can be used if we end up in December:

We don't need to speculate about anything. When there is an announcement there will be a very clear item to reference: we don't need to give any credit reference to broken clocks that are correct by co-incidence rather than by knowledge. Kevin McE (talk) 20:22, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • You have failed to understand, Were not speculating, I believe we are heading to Auttum election but in the section "Possible dates" When we get past June, we can add a sentence saying there was talk june election etc etc The fact more than a few politcal people have suggested it means there is something to it. Talk page should have background information and prep for any Article, this would fall under that. --Crazyseiko (talk) 20:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox[edit]

For a while now I have been attempting to change the infobox from Template:Infobox election (TIE) to Template:Infobox legislative election (TILE). I believe the latter is is better because I think the infobox needs to show all parties (I explain why in the next paragraph) and TIE (one with photos of leaders) can only accomodate a smaller number of parties, for both technical reasons (limit to 9 parties, less than the 13 parties represented the house at the moment, and the 10 elected at the last election) and for ease of use: per the manuel of style on the purpose of infoboxes The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, meaning even having 9 parties in the infobox would be problematic as it's too much to [allow] readers to identify key facts at a glance (quote again from MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE).
I believe is important to have all parties in the infobox because only having the 4 largest parties in the infobox implies there are only 4 major players in the election, which you can't say before the results are declared. So by limiting the number of seats makes assumptions about the results months before the vote. By not having photos and the leaders' seats in the infobox, TILE has less information, and so the remaining information can be absorbed by the reader more quickly and easily (going back to MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE). And it lists all the parties, and so avoids making assumptions about which parties will have significant numbers of seats at the next election.
The only arguments I have found for using TIE an insubstantial. Many seem to simply not like TILE (which is not a reason to change) and others say other pages use TIE. The latter group are however comparing unlike with unlike. Either they suggest that we should use TIE because previous British elections (where the results are known) use TIE, which is a flawed argument as the results, and therefore the parties with significant numbers of seats, are not known for a future election. Or they compare future British elections to future elections in other countries, where the number of parties with seats in their legislatures is different (and often lower), meaning there are few enough parties to accomodate all in TIE.
I hope what I've written above is clear. I also want to make a point against using blank maps in infoboxes, which I believe serve little purpose as for now they are just lines on a map of the UK which will be hard to read until the map is filled in as there is no colour to differentiate the constituencies.
I have changed the infobox back to TILE with a summary directing editors to this page, hopefully to avoid editors reverting for insubstantial reasons. Obiviously if editors have a substantial reason why TIE is better for this page (not ones that fall foul of WP:Other stuff exists and WP:I don't like it) they can revert back to TIE.--TedEdwards 14:43, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I support this. In the past, we agreed to go with a TILE infobox before the election. (It can be switched to TIE afterwards.) Bondegezou (talk) 15:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TedEdwards I disagree- in the past, UK elections used TIE until the election. Also, TIE looks nicer as an infobox whereas TILE is literally just a table of the political parties and their MP counts (which is already given, literally just a couple of lines below!). In pre-election runup TIE conveys the main information (leaders, their seats, seats required to win) and TILE is just an MP and party count. DimensionalFusion (talk) 12:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If we are to use TIE then surely it must include all parties. Will it still look nicer when it's got 13 different parties on it? OGBC1992 (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@OGBC1992 Who said you needed to put 13 different parties on it? In previous articles (2017, 2019) when the election had not yet been called, we would use TIE and display the 6 largest parties before the election- Conservative, Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, DUP, and SF. This is much better than simply using a list of parties and MPs DimensionalFusion (talk) 14:03, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As @TedEdwards says, "by limiting the number of seats makes assumptions about the results months before the vote." OGBC1992 (talk) 14:36, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DimensionalFusion: TIE looks nicer is an entirely subjective opinion of yours, so not an argument to change the infobox. Also UK elections used TIE until the election a) not entirely true for at least the 2019 election (I've checked revisions in October 2019 and both infoboxes were used at various times, and at some point the photos and party info were removed to leave just a map, which was the case until the day of the election) and b) basically just another argument that goes against WP:OSE, similar to arguments I criticised above. What was done in the past may not be best for this article, or that article at the time. Thanks to OGBC1992 for reiterating that not including all the parties makes assumptions. WP:Lead says the lead (including the infobox) is a a summary of its most important contents, so repeating stuff lines later is normal, useful and acceptable across Wikipedia. So that only argument you make that has any weight is mentioning that TILE does not include the number of seats needed for a majority. However even without that, I believe the disadvantages of TILE compared to TIE are outweighed by the benefits of TILE (which I have described above). Also I don't know if we could find a way to include seats needed in TILE (even by suggesting an edit to Template:Infobox legislative election). --TedEdwards 20:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TedEdwards No. TILE is literally just a table of parties, leaders and seats. TIE displays useful information and it displays it in a much friendlier format- a table is much less friendlier as an infobox. WP:OSE doesn't apply here because that's for deletion discussions and it's about notability. Other elections have had a precedent of using TIE for both pre-election and post-election, in both 2017 and 2019. Whilst it's true that TIE excludes some of the smaller parties, it's not supposed to display them- TIE is for an overview of the biggest parties and their performances.
It is true that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section says the infobox is a summary of its most important contents, and yes, content is often repeated from the infobox into later in the article. TILE offers no advantages other than being able to list all the parties, which is only the case because again- it's a table. Using TILE instead of TIE in the pre-election period is not the precedent at all- conversley, using TIE in the pre-election preiod is very common in FPTP Westiminster systems. See: Next indian general election and next Australian federal election. TILE only tends to be used in European elections, where hung parliaments are pretty much the norm. DimensionalFusion (talk) 17:21, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@DimensionalFusion: You are still not getting to the crux of my argument that not including all the parties with MPs, you imply only some parties have a chance. You say WP:OSE only applies to deletion discussion because it's on the page WP:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, but if you read the last paragraph of the lead to that essay, it says While this page is tailored to deletion discussion, be that of articles, templates, images, categories, stub types, or redirects, these arguments to avoid may also apply to other discussions, such as about deleting article content, moving pages, etc. (see also WP:Arguments to avoid on discussion pages). Indeed on WP:Arguments to avoid on discussion pages, there is WP:OTHERCONTENT, which basically says it's fallacious to suggest one article should do something because another article does it. TIE displays useful information and it displays it in a much friendlier format is entirely your own opinion, as is a table is much less friendlier. I mean who is saying table's are less "friendly" other than you? Your examples of the Indian and Australian elections: again WP:OTHERCONTENT and maybe they should change to TILE until the election (I also never said anything about precedent to justify changing to TILE). So what I'm afraid I'm seeing from you are the two arguments I criticised in my first message, WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT (saying tables are less friendly as infoboxes) and saying this article should do one thing solely because you've found some other articles that use TIE (or appeal to tradition). I'm sorry to say this, but you do not have any non-fallacious arguments beyond mentioning one useful thing TILE doesn't include. --TedEdwards 02:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@TedEdwards You've changed the infobox for no reason. It was fine the way it was before.
  1. I agree that TILE does include all parties, so it's fairer and doesn't assume the performance of any particular parties. But let's critically analyse this- in the pre-election run-up it's showing what the current major parties are. Including every party with MPs is cluttering the infobox and detracting from its clarity and readability. The Worker's Party of GB for example- does this really need to be included with the major players in the next election when they only stand 1 candidate?
  2. My assertion that TIE provides a friendlier format is based on its design. TIE emphasizes only the key information, such as the current seats held by each major party, and the seats needed for a majority, the party's leader, and the leader's seats. Whilst yes, tables can be effective for presenting all data, TIE presents only the pertinant information. If the reader wanted to know about all the parties, this is listed further down in the article.
  3. Whilst your point about the potential fallacy of appealing to other articles' practices may be correct, my point about other election articles which use TIE was supposed to show its widespread use and effectiveness in similar contexts. I think that consistency between upcoming election articles is important to consider.
DimensionalFusion (talk) 10:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

TIE infoboxes are way too big and full of unnecessary information, in contradiction of MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Bondegezou (talk) 16:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Further to DimensionalFusion, you say You've changed the infobox for no reason. Well that's true, except for the reasons I have stated over and over again. TIE does not contain solely absolutely pertinant information: the leaders and leaders' seats are not pertinent, and only should be included when we can cut down on the amount of info in the infobox i.e. after the election when we will (probably) be able to ignore most parties. You say my point about other election articles which use TIE was supposed to show its widespread use and effectiveness in similar contexts, but you haven't shown their effectiveness, you've just said they're there. For that argument to work, you have to say why it's better there, and why that benefit would translate over to this page. As a minor point, the WPGB is likely going to stand more than one candidate, as George Galloway has said he plans to stand a candidate at least in Angela Rayner's constituency. --TedEdwards 19:48, 24 March 2024 (UTC) @DimensionalFusion: I understand you don't want to further participate in this discussion, but I do feel the need to mention I made a mistake in my above reply, as it clearly gave you the wrong impression. When I said the leaders and leaders' seats are not pertinent, I intended to say the leaders' portraits and leaders' seats are not pertinent. Apologies for this. --TedEdwards 13:59, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just going to say why I prefer TIE over TILE.
TIE is used in every previous UK general election page and for very good reason. It displays important information- Leader, Party, Leader since, Leader's seat, Last election seats, and seats required for majority. The important thing about an infobox is to quickly display the basics of the election to provide the important context for the election article. TIE does this by showing the main parties. TILE does not do this, as it shows only 3 pieces of information- parties, leaders, and current seats.
The benefit of TIE over TILE is very clear. TIE shows the major players in an election, which again provides important context for the runup. TILE does not offer this, it only shows a list of all parties.
TIE is used in other pages because it's clear upon a simple glance who the major players are.
You say the leaders and leaders' seats are not pertinent - if this is the case why does TILE also include leaders?
What's the point of using TILE in the run-up to an election when it's obviously going to be changed once an election is done?
DimensionalFusion (talk) 10:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Surely the point of using TILE pre-election and TIE post- (as has been made multiple times) is that TIE excludes some parties and therefore fails "Crystal Ball" when it comes to knowing which parties will prove successful/significant, as well as risks editorialising for the same reason; especially with a subject as unpredictable and volatile as British politics.
Is there really that much of a problem with using TILE for now and shifting to TIE when the results are in? We're talking about a matter of months. OGBC1992 (talk) 11:08, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@OGBC1992 You make a good point and I can't really be bothered to argue my point anymore, so ykyk
DimensionalFusion (talk) 13:12, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
TILE just looks ugly and I don't believe it should be used when an election is so well documented. That's all I have to say. TheBritinator (talk) 13:31, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

background[edit]

Surly there should be some better worded etc to state election was suppose to have taken place by 2nd may 2024 because of the Fix term act but its seems to be completely diluted. Would it not be better to revised it to say:

The next election is scheduled to be held no later than 28 January 2025,[1] with Parliament being dissolved no later than 17 December 2024. The date falls on a Tuesday, and there is a convention that British general elections are held on Thursdays, but this is not a strict requirement of the law.[2] The election of 1931 was held on a Tuesday, and all UK general elections held since 1935 have been held on Thursdays.

Originally the next election was scheduled to take place on 2 May 2024, however the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was repealed under the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, thus The incumbent prime minister can choose to call an earlier election,

The results of the 2019 general election are given below, alongside the current etc etc etc etc etc Crazyseiko (talk) 21:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So Kevin McE removed a long section in 2022 (see [1]) mentioning what the lastest possible date of the election pre-FPA repeal, after a message on the talk page (see here) saying he thought the text they eventually removed was rambling. I replied encouraging them to make a bold edit. However I assume they, like me, probably don't think the text you added is irrelevant or rambling, which was the issue rather than mentioning the date, but I'm bringing this to their attention anyway.
For future reference Crazyseiko, to ensure any references appear at the bottom of a section in a talk page, where they are needed (rather than the bottom of the page), use {{Reflist-talk}}.--TedEdwards 19:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It still seems totally superfluous, and would not pass the ten year test. It was always the govt's intention to repeal the FPA, so all this says is that if a law that was always going to have been changed hadn't been changed it would have been been on this date. By the time the election was meaningfully on anyone's horizon, 2nd May was not outstanding among any list of potential election dates. As May has become less likely, I haven't heard any commentators mention that 2nd May becoming very unlikely has any significance. Kevin McE (talk) 21:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Kevin McE: I'll admit what you've said is pretty convincing actually. --TedEdwards 20:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference HC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Why are British elections always held on Thursdays?", The Guardian, accessed 23 February 2024

New infobox proposal[edit]

I propose a new infobox. Feel free to edit it.

Suggested infobox
Next United Kingdom general election
← 2019 2 May 2024
All 650 seats in the House of Commons
326 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party
 
Leader Rishi Sunak Keir Starmer
Party Conservative Labour
Leader since 24 October 2022 4 April 2020
Leader's seat Richmond (Yorks) Holborn and St Pancras
  Third party Fourth party
 
Leader Humza Yousaf Ed Davey
Party SNP Liberal Democrats
Leader since 29 March 2023 27 August 2020
Prime Minister before election

Liz Truss
Conservative

Elected Prime Minister

TBD

trainrobber >be me 14:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree, for all the reasons outlined by @TedEdwardsfurther up this page. OGBC1992 (talk) 17:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok trainrobber >be me 18:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Idk about that one, I think it's more easily laid out Imo. trainrobber >be me 18:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no reason to have a large map of constituencies in the infobox. We've previously agreed on election pages not to show maps without any results. Bondegezou (talk) 14:24, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thursday 6th June[edit]

Can we put that in somewhere, as the date ? Or as the "possible date" ? French government source (my brother) tells me that Mr Sunak is going for that date. How he knows.. I dont know but there it is. Bon chance a tous !! 92.184.98.226 (talk) 21:50, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but your brother is not what we would consider to be a reliable source. — Czello (music) 21:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How can this page even have Possible dates section?[edit]

If anyone has been keep tabs of possible dates its like nearly EVERY SINGLE possible Thursday has now been suggested in the media and were now going around to cover them, we had 31st Oct, then we 7th, 14th and 21st Nov, then the speculation was on May, because of hold up - it was clear that was being looked at. Then we got 10th Oct, 17th October, but then we got reports he got fed up and might just go for June, or the party will go bang. Now were back in Nov, Im sure were see Sept and Oct creap back in again next week. It like every government minster or MP and his dog is suggested a Thursday in 2024. It's an illusion hidden in plan sight. Crazyseiko (talk) 18:49, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Former MPs seeking to return to Parliament section: Why?[edit]

What's the justification for this section? Why should these candidates be any more remarkable than any others? Do we need a section on Olympic madalists seeing to enter Parliament? Past or present members of local councils seeking to enter Parliament? People employed in public ervices seeking to enter Parliament?

And do we have to list every sitting MP who hopes to return in this section between the dissolution of parliament and the election itself, as they will then all be former MPs?

Relevant for their individual biographical articles? Yes. Meaningful as a list here? No. Kevin McE (talk) 12:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think it’s particularly irrelevant, certainly not in comparison to the examples you have given (Olympians etc.) as it’s an article specifically about electing people to the House of Commons, and these are individuals that have already served there at least once.
I see it as justified within the Candidates section, as with the other three lists. OGBC1992 (talk) 20:07, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that to many people beyond the constituencies themselves James Cracknell's candidature would be much more interesting than that of Gareth Snell or Luke Graham
'Not particularly irrelevant' seems an extraordinarily low thresh hold.
All four lists look like gross recentism to me, but particularly this one. I do not believe that WP:10YEARTEST would be passed. Kevin McE (talk) 16:17, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MPs not standing for election[edit]

The section on this article lists 97 MPs who are standing down; this BBC article however states there are 100. Anyone know which three we're missing? It appears to be two Tories and one SNP. OGBC1992 (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC link provided shows a 404 for me. I assume it's this article? Boardwalk.Koi (talk) 14:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s going to 404 too.
Article here: [2] OGBC1992 (talk) 15:22, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The BBC's probably has the same party numbers as the Institute for Government list.
The SNP count in the Number of MP retirements by party affiliation table seems to be wrong so I've corrected totals. There may have been some confusion over Lisa Cameron.
The two Tories seem to be Stuart Andrew and Jamie Wallis, who've both said they won't stand in their current constituency. The IfG includes them on their list. On Wikipedia, they were both included on the "Seeking new constituency list" instead but were recently removed. I know Wallis was apparently actively seeking a new seat as of March. [3] [4] I'm not sure if they should be listed anywhere yet. FRBST (talk) 16:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Next_United_Kingdom_general_election&oldid=1221754554"