Best Of

I've spent around five hours canvassing in Makerfield. There is a little Restore support (2%?), but it's basically a Lab/Ref battle. I didn't meet a single voter planning to vote Tory, Green or LibDem, and I'm sure they will all lose their deposits.

As for the result, I think it's a toss-up. There is a huge Labour volunteer turnout - nearly all roads have now been canvassed three times - but the betting showing Labour clearly ahead is IMO a bit optimistic. A notable touch is that Andy is campaigning on his record in Greater Manchester, and some leaflets don't even mention Labour. Conversely Reform's leaflets largely ignore their candidate, even though he's local. Voters don't seem very exercised by local issues, even though flooding has adversely affected parts - it comes down to liking Andy+disliking Reform vs "time for a change".

It's great when PB turns up posts like this, reminds me why I still scroll here most days.

Threw a few quid on Reform on the back of this at 6/1. I still expect to lose, and frankly, if Reform do win here I think it's probably my final kick up the arse to emigrate before the fourth reich are upon us. But a value bet is a value bet.

My guess is it will still be Burnham but a lot closer than the odds suggest.

By one definition, a majority of web traffic[1] is now bots

https://radar.cloudflare.com/traffic?dateStart=2026-04-01&dateEnd=2026-06-07

[1] as defined by HTTP requests distribution to HTML content. Other definitions are available.

The "Dead internet theory" is looking ever more true. At least as far as Social Media is concerned.

To tie that in to one of my pet theories ("algorithmic feeds are killing us"), @Luckyguy1983 posted a link to a nuclear scientist earlier. I couldn't get through the whole thing (two hours long) so I looked at the others in that YouTube channel (Peter McCormack) and one of them I looked at was a Frank Wright interview. The first few words of that interview are instructive

• FW: It's reality that's radicalizing people and it isn't really my moment. It's not about me.
  
• PMcC: I was on my feed and I saw it and then I saw it again and I saw it again and I saw it again.
  
• FW: The reason why it became so popular is because it just speaks to the reality that we all have to inhabit. Basically, noticing reality is extremist...
  

This is the problem all over. the reality depicted to us by algorithmic feeds is not real reality, it's a list of absolute values (or bot fictions!) delivered without the cues that would enable us to put it in context (eg relative values), and designed to enrage us, which it promptly does. One of the myths underlying a nation is that we believe the same things and pull in the same direction. But in a nation of 68 million people at least one stupid/daft/evil thing will happen every day. What do we do when we are presented daily with examples of individuals who believe otherwise? We go quietly insane.

...Regarding your second point, I didn't particularly warm to Frank Wright in that video. However, I also disagree with you, in that you appear to be arguing that the only thing wrong with the world is that we're viewing it via social media...

Hmm, fair point. But in return I would point out that algorithmic feeds, by enraging us, are making it difficult to sort things in terms of priority: which problem is serious, which problems can we fix, which problems do we fix first? If everything is apocalyptically serious, then nothing will get addressed because we are ricocheting from A to B to C to whatever.

By one definition, a majority of web traffic[1] is now bots

https://radar.cloudflare.com/traffic?dateStart=2026-04-01&dateEnd=2026-06-07

[1] as defined by HTTP requests distribution to HTML content. Other definitions are available.

The "Dead internet theory" is looking ever more true. At least as far as Social Media is concerned.

To tie that in to one of my pet theories ("algorithmic feeds are killing us"), @Luckyguy1983 posted a link to a nuclear scientist earlier. I couldn't get through the whole thing (two hours long) so I looked at the others in that YouTube channel (Peter McCormack) and one of them I looked at was a Frank Wright interview. The first few words of that interview are instructive

• FW: It's reality that's radicalizing people and it isn't really my moment. It's not about me.
  
• PMcC: I was on my feed and I saw it and then I saw it again and I saw it again and I saw it again.
  
• FW: The reason why it became so popular is because it just speaks to the reality that we all have to inhabit. Basically, noticing reality is extremist...
  

This is the problem all over. the reality depicted to us by algorithmic feeds is not real reality, it's a list of absolute values (or bot fictions!) delivered without the cues that would enable us to put it in context (eg relative values), and designed to enrage us, which it promptly does. One of the myths underlying a nation is that we believe the same things and pull in the same direction. But in a nation of 68 million people at least one stupid/daft/evil thing will happen every day. What do we do when we are presented daily with examples of individuals who believe otherwise? We go quietly insane.

One of the most profound things from that Tim Gregory interview is where he says that the UK not doing Net Zero at all would be better than doing it badly. Because if you believe in the principle of leading by example, at the moment, our example will be putting people off doing the same rather than encouraging them. That's a clever way of looking at it.

Regarding your second point, I didn't particularly warm to Frank Wright in that video. However, I also disagree with you, in that you appear to be arguing that the only thing wrong with the world is that we're viewing it via social media.

I think we can use history as our yardstick to look at what's going on today. History is a long story of civilisations coming and going, humans failing and falling forward. If our civilisation/country has stepped so profoundly away from the impetus to develop and thrive as a group, in as many ways as it has, I think we can call that extreme, and we can anticipate that something will probably happen to get us back on course.

I've spent around five hours canvassing in Makerfield. There is a little Restore support (2%?), but it's basically a Lab/Ref battle. I didn't meet a single voter planning to vote Tory, Green or LibDem, and I'm sure they will all lose their deposits.

As for the result, I think it's a toss-up. There is a huge Labour volunteer turnout - nearly all roads have now been canvassed three times - but the betting showing Labour clearly ahead is IMO a bit optimistic. A notable touch is that Andy is campaigning on his record in Greater Manchester, and some leaflets don't even mention Labour. Conversely Reform's leaflets largely ignore their candidate, even though he's local. Voters don't seem very exercised by local issues, even though flooding has adversely affected parts - it comes down to liking Andy+disliking Reform vs "time for a change".

Kitty Donaldson
@kitty_donaldson

In Makerfield there is a sense of voters having made their minds up at the start of the campaign, a Labour source said, with Reform candidate Rob Kenyon’s unearthed social media remarks not moving the dial:

“I don’t know that it matters that much to the people voting Reform”

https://x.com/kitty_donaldson/status/2063588877965636073

The question with Reform voters is not who they will vote for, it's will they turn out and vote..

Have we covered the Vorderman Letter (to the women of Makerfield) about the plumber's comments? I have seen a reference that she sent out 6000 copies.

I was not expecting THAT.

Letter: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HJqrYeDXIAMgcOX?format=jpg&name=medium

Manchester Evening news article:
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/i-swaying-towards-reform-until-34075678

(Updated)

I don't think we have covered it. Carol Vorderman is very very deep into the left wing/wealth tax/HNH nexus, and her and her associates will have been delighted that there was a personal connection for her to exploit. I see it as contrary to the spirit of election rules if not the letter,

I don't think it will really move the dial, because I think we live in a very cynical age. Those who will be appalled by the content of Carol's letter and not see it as a clever and opportunistic piece of campaigning will fit almost entirely into those already planning to vote for Burnham. With maybe a couple already planning to vote for Lowe.

I think Musk's ramping of Lowe on Twitter represents a greater challenge to the election rules. I don't mean in terms of personally endorsing him, but in terms of how Twitter selectively promotes voices Musk agrees with. Meanwhile, X is paying Lowe over £10,000 per month.

Knowing nothing about Twitter (I have a rarely used professional account, but have never posted personally), is this verifiable? I believe it, but Lowe angrily denied it in an interview with Times Radio, so I guess it must at least be deniable?

The numbers come from Lowe's own declaration of income to Parliament. What was he denying in the interview? His own submission?

To be fair, the amount was only over £10k one month. He's averaging £6,600.

I think he was denying that Musk had boosted his (Lowe's) Twitter presence.

Musk has re-tweeted Lowe and publicly supported him. These acts clearly boost Lowe's Twitter presence.

X has been engineered to boost Musk's posts. This is well reported. The platform preferentially pushes Musk's thoughts to people. Grok is programmed to consider Musk's comments above other data. Anyone Musk supports benefits from this.

Does X boost Lowe's account in additional ways, directly pushing it? We don't know. Lowe has denied it. It would be consistent with what Musk has done with X. For example, we know Musk has directly intervened on other radical right accounts, inviting people back to the platform who have been banned and handing out blue tick marks.

Personally, I don't like the cut of Restore's gib particularly. They represent a very radical and to me a wilfully punishing approach to the failure of multiculturalism - as if they want it to hurt. What I want to see is the Nigel (and Kemi) approach of equality before the law. 'Peace, easy taxes, and tolerable administration of justice'. I think once you have those, the issues solve themselves. Rupert Lowe himself has some good qualities but overwhelmingly seems incredibly vengeful. I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of him.

However, I don't see how you quantify what you've described as an election expense.

Re Letby and this comment

"The unit stopped handling such sick babies - arguably it shouldn’t have been in the first place. We should be better at stats than that. It’s like councils reducing a speed limit on a road after a couple of fatal accidents and then claiming it worked because no more accidents occur."

The date when the unit was downgraded was not the same date when Letby was asked to stop working on it. And yet the deaths stopped in that interim period before the unit was downgraded. There might be other explanations for that but the fact that the unit was downgraded is not an answer to the fact that a soon as she was no longer there, the deaths stopped. It is circumstantial evidence.

This appears to be completely untrue.

According to this submission to the Thirlwell inquiry, the Countess of Chester Neonatal unit was downgraded to only take the lowest grade of premature babies on the 30th June 2016. (Para. 8 on page 3.)

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/The-Royal-College-of-Paediatrics-and-Child-Health-RCPCH-Opening-Statement.pdf

The timeline here: https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-08-18/timeline-of-events-in-the-conviction-of-killer-nurse-lucy-letby

states that Letby was prevented from working on the ward in July 2016, which is after the ward was downgraded.

There is no interim period whilst Letby was working on the ward but the ward was yet to be downgraded.