Best Of

Jacob Rees_Mogg says the Tories should stand aside for ReformUK in Denton & Gorton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lILQAd8XG7c

Well Jacob Rees_Mogg can just sod off, this is a democratic country where no matter how small the Conservative vote is in this constituency that small minority of voters still deserve to have the right to vote for the party of their choice in this by-election! Voters already have the powerful tool of tactical voting if they so wish, but its just wrong to simple deny those that don't want to do this the right to vote for the party of their choice regardless of the impact on other parties candidates chances and the eventual outcome of the result.

Reform are currently digging themselves a big hole with their gimmicky do as we say, but not as we do idea of democracy. They don't appear to believe in giving their own party members a voice in leadership contests, and despite just weeks ago when they were campaigning to make defecting MPs hold by-elections, they and their newly defected Conservative MPs are now refusing to hold by-elections in these constituencies. So this protest party is good at talking the talk, but not walking the walk so much. The Reform party has now become the new UKIP fiefdom just as it was run and controlled by Nigel Farage on Trump steriods!

Now to say that I am not a fan of Reform Scotland would be an understatement, I really find it utterly depressing that we are going to lose so many good opposition MSPs who are either standing down or will lose their seats in the May election because Reform are going to split the Opposition vote even further and this will probable let another SNP/Scottish Green coalition back into power for another five years while Holyrood remains utterly broken and not fit for purpose with no hope of that changing under them if they get another term in power.

But there are clearly people in Scotland who support and want to vote for Reform as the polling shows, but you will not ever see me asking this party not to fight the Holyrood election in May and because the best way to beat them is to make the argument that while they are quite rightly another choice they don't have the best policies to sort Scotland's issues out and they will in so many seats and the List vote split the Opposition vote further and let the SNP with the Scottish Greens back into power for another five years.

If you follow Scottish politics closely enough, you will sadly know of some of the real talent on the Opposition benches who are already standing down and leaving in May and who have given up in frustration while having made an amazing contribution to Holyrood and were passionate about making it a more effective and accountable Parliament that delivered for the public rather than the now too powerful North Korean level secretive SNP administration that now has seen one brave Scottish journalist come out and call it a banana republic as so many of us have been saying for ages with barely any interest from the UK media...

Euan McColm in the Daily Mail : 'The Burnham debacle leaves Starmer looking weaker than ever - but there's another Labour leader who could be gone before the PM'

"So, the Labour leader is safe. For now. But the PM’s security is fragile, indeed.

On May 7, there will be elections to local authorities across England and to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. Predicted losses for Labour will sharpen focus on Sir Keir’s inadequacies.

But the Prime Minister is not the only senior Labour figure whose political future now hangs in the balance.

A poor result for his party in the Holyrood election will only add to mounting speculation over the future of Anas Sarwar."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15503125/EUAN-MCCOLM-Burnham-debacle-leaves-Starmer-looking-weaker-theres-Labour-leader-gone-PM.html

At least Anas Sarwar will have options. In Wales, Eluned Morgan is likely to lose her seat so will have no choice at all!

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

Tales from the dark side... I've just got back from the RN Museum at Hartlegrad (did the trip at fucking ridiculous speeds in the i5 M60) and I have Fukker news. They used to have a giant office like a teal painted Mogamma on a roundabout opposite an undertakers. This was very handy for a key tranche of Fukker votes - the over 70s dressed in mismatched tracksuits stood at a rain swept bus stop asking each other if it's Tuesday. IT HAS GONE! The Fukkers have retreated leaving the premises to be occupied by a hypnotherapy centre and one of those places that give you a fake tan by blasting chemicals up your nose. That's it. I am calling "Peak Fukker". If they have abandoned Brexit Ground Zero, what is left?

The undertaker has a Mustang Mach-E hearse, which I thought was interesting.



So dignified.

I wouldn't be seen dead in a hearse like that.

Criticising Zionism would have got me fifty likes

Criticising Islamism gets next to none

I understand that Islamism is much scarier to oppose

Perhaps the site statisticians can confirm, but I’d be AMAZED if any post has received 50 likes.

Have you got your hyperbolic beer googles on?

The most liked post in PB history received 61 likes.

It was by JohnO telling he was okay after his cardiac arrest.

I think that’s the only post to go past 40 likes.

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3404262/#Comment_3404262

I think birth announcements have come close too.

That thread - while, er, heartening for @JohnO - is depressing in several ways. First it’s still during Covid - the tail-end, mid 2021, but still in the storm even as it dies. Ugh

Secondly it shows how the PB rightwingers have been slowly eliminated. @felix - banned. @MrEd - banned. Etc

Which is why we are left with the bowl of thin gruel that is Modern PB. Weak sauce centrism. The Endless Dads. Heat pumps and roundabouts

How many regular commenters are clear Reform supporters? I think it’s me and @Luckyguy1983 - @isam has returned to the Tories (as is his right, of course)

We probably have ~100 regular commenters. So we have 2% Reform on PB. Yet out there in the UK Reform are the most popular party on 25-34%, depending on your flavour of pollster

We used to congratulate ourselves that PB was a civilised if rowdy venue that represented Britain, politically. That was never entirely true but it was true enough to be encouraging

The idea is now laughable

Felix is actively posting and liking.

And @MrEd has had several nom de plumes over the years. And I'm fairly sure @Sandpit counts as a Reform supporter.

For what it's worth, we also have barely any Green supporters either.

We are definitely overrepresented as far as "soft left, not sure exactly where", and conservatives.

Criticising Zionism would have got me fifty likes

Criticising Islamism gets next to none

I understand that Islamism is much scarier to oppose

Perhaps the site statisticians can confirm, but I’d be AMAZED if any post has received 50 likes.

Have you got your hyperbolic beer googles on?

The most liked post in PB history received 61 likes.

It was by JohnO telling he was okay after his cardiac arrest.

I think that’s the only post to go past 40 likes.

https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3404262/#Comment_3404262

I think birth announcements have come close too.

That thread - while, er, heartening for @JohnO - is depressing in several ways. First it’s still during Covid - the tail-end, mid 2021, but still in the storm even as it dies. Ugh

Secondly it shows how the PB rightwingers have been slowly eliminated. @felix - banned. @MrEd - banned. Etc

Which is why we are left with the bowl of thin gruel that is Modern PB. Weak sauce centrism. The Endless Dads. Heat pumps and roundabouts

How many regular commenters are clear Reform supporters? I think it’s me and @Luckyguy1983 - @isam has returned to the Tories (as is his right, of course)

We probably have ~100 regular commenters. So we have 2% Reform on PB. Yet out there in the UK Reform are the most popular party on 25-34%, depending on your flavour of pollster

We used to congratulate ourselves that PB was a civilised if rowdy venue that represented Britain, politically. That was never entirely true but it was true enough to be encouraging

The idea is now laughable

That thread has me arguing that Sir Keir is boring and unlikeable… so will never (beat Boris to) become PM! Half right I think

I only voted Tory once; in 2019 to GBD, but I must say I am more inclined towards them than Reform at the moment. I can’t put my finger on why exactly, I have a feeling it’s that I like an underdog, and Reform seem a bit too cocky and Americanised, if I can say that, for me. Also, I just don’t think PM Farage be good for the country, even if I agree with him. It will be non stop fighting.

I can't see how Reform and Farage wouldn't be like late stage Boris/Truss redux.

You do need to be organised, persuasive, and focused to get anything done in politics with a clear plan and an experienced team.

It's not a pissing contest.

If the Greens manage to fully grab the mantle as challenger to Reform, then they will win in Gorton. If they do not, then Reform will win.

How is their ground game? Can they flood the constituency with supporters, and give off a sense that they are in the game and the main challenger to Reform?

I helped them out on the island a couple of elections back, when it was supposedly one of their top three UK targets and they’d sent a national agent down from ‘Green Towers’ to organise it - and I’ve never seen such a shambles of a campaign. One day I turned up at their office in a shop they’d rented in Newport, empty except for some guy busy scrolling his Instagram - I said I was from the LibDems offering to help them, which he accepted without any question; there was nowhere to sign in, I offered to deliver some leaflets in my town and he pointed to a large box in the corner, which contained a load of loose leaflets, not bundled or counted, and I noticed there were two different types so I asked which one they were delivering now and he said “take some of each” (a basic campaigning error). Once I’d sorted a sensible pile of leaflets, I asked where he needed me to deliver, and he just said “do wherever you like”. They had no routes or maps or list of streets or data about how many leaflets were needed or what had already been done, or anything. When I asked if he wanted to know where I had delivered afterwards, he looked most surprised but did scribble an email address on a scrap of paper.

Even the Liberals in their near moribund local parties in safe Tory seats, when I joined them back in the ‘70s could do better than that.

If they’d taken my contact details they could have got in touch to thank me and ask me to help again or on polling day, but, no, nothing. Someone walks in off the street offering to help - parties need to be a little bit wary at first, since dirty tricks and intelligence gathering by the other side does happen - but then recognise a potential helper, donor, member.

However, in the last GE, they won four seats in which there must have been tough contests, and as a minor party you don’t win a GE seat without some organisation and effort. So either they’ve improved dramatically in local campaign organisation between 2019 and 2024, or I just saw the worst side of them.