Labour wins all 3 seats in Westminster / West End:
FISHER Paul Edward Lab 1158 LILLEY Patrick Eamon Joseph Lab 1111 TOALE Jessica Jade Lab 1111 BARNES Tim Con 961 REDMOND Julie Ann Con 923 MURPHY Eoghain Leo Con 913 TAYLOR Sophie Amanda LD 264 COELHO George LD 207 WEISZ Jonah Louis LD 158
Another factor is seats like Pitsea NW (Basildon) which in 2014 saw UKIP winning with 45.1% of the vote and Tories third with 16.7%, and then Labour come through the middle with 47.2% in 2018 with the Tories in second with 32.3% and UKIP third with 16.9%, has tonight seen the Tories beat Labour 47.1% to 46.1%.
Labour vote has held up pretty well (previously they had mostly been in the 30-35% range), all that's happened is that there's no UKIP and almost all their vote has gone to the Tories.
Is it too glib to conclude, not a single leave voter trusts Starmer, Lamy and the Labour front bench, they are sticking with Boris?
Yes.
Basildon voted 69:31 to Leave, so assuming no differential turnout effects then Labour must be getting some Leavers to get to 46.1% today.
But it's rather more complex than that, although Leave/Remain are convenient labels it's more about the factors that led people to vote Leave/Remain, for instance the Rwanda stuff will have gone down very well with some audiences and Labour haven't really offered those audiences anything equally eye-catching (not that "eye-catching" and "effective" are often bedfellows).
Yes I can go along with that. If you could meet me part then way and concede yes some leavers switching to Labour, but the interest is more the amount that’s not not amount that are?
I think both parties are stuck with the legacy of their party leaders in dealing with the parties that were outflanking them circa 2015. Johnson is enabled by Cameron's decisions which (regardless of the effect on the country) eliminated the Tories' competition to their right by out-UKIPing UKIP and now gives them the freedom to become a tax & spend party without worrying too much about losing those who care about fiscal discipline, whereas Labour are stuck with the legacy of Corbyn, who had the opportunity to wipe out their competition but didn't, and so Starmer is now constrained by the fact that if he goes too "Leavey", his gains will be outweighed by his losses to the LDs and Greens.
So he's constrained by that space, all he can really hope to do is just push the case for "change" by looking like a plausible PM and trying to move the conversation away from that kind of Leave vs Remain dichotomy which will always favour the one party on one side rather than the three parties on the other side. But moving the conversation is hard to do as an Opposition leader - although it's striking looking at some of the recent coverage of 25 years since 1997, just how much Blair wanted to do compared to the listlessness of the incumbents.
Corbyn was an obvious Leaver who had to retain remain votes whilst Starmer is a transparent remainer who must win millions of Leave votes.
While pillorying Johnson as opportunistic and dishonest, of course.
A political genius like Blair with a fawning press and a hated government could probably pull this off.
A man with no charisma, political judgement and a Corbynite record, probably not.
Looks like the tories may be about to be wiped out in Richmond: losing all 11 of their councillors.
I'm a little bit more confident about my Woking tip for the LibDems. Someone mocked this the other day: but the tories are in real trouble in West/south-west London and Surrey. I can see them losing up to 10 MPs to the LibDems in 2024 and this could be decisive.
When the red wall Brexit voters realise that their Boris dream is just a chimera, they will tumble too. It just takes them a little longer than the rest of us to cotton on.
We will have to wait to see if there is a golden dawn in the south west in the count tomorrow - the Tories have done well there recently to expect too much change, but if there is, Tory losses could still be pushed over 200.
There's expected to be an "against the trend" result in Sutton, although it may not materialise.
Against the trend, solid remain council solid leave voting public? The trend tonight is Brexit still alive and well in elections isn’t it?
Is it? Brexit has happened. Suppose instead it is levelling up that is still in play in the Red Wall — the results would look much the same.
What about, had the revolution, but back to the barricades to defend the revolution?
If Labour came to power, Lamy is foreign Secretary? Maybe remainers need the eyes of a leaver to see what they see?
Looks like the tories may be about to be wiped out in Richmond: losing all 11 of their councillors.
I'm a little bit more confident about my Woking tip for the LibDems. Someone mocked this the other day: but the tories are in real trouble in West/south-west London and Surrey. I can see them losing up to 10 MPs to the LibDems in 2024 and this could be decisive.
When the red wall Brexit voters realise that their Boris dream is just a chimera, they will tumble too. It just takes them a little longer than the rest of us to cotton on.
We will have to wait to see if there is a golden dawn in the south west in the count tomorrow - the Tories have done well there recently to expect too much change, but if there is, Tory losses could still be pushed over 200.
There's expected to be an "against the trend" result in Sutton, although it may not materialise.
Against the trend, solid remain council solid leave voting public? The trend tonight is Brexit still alive and well in elections isn’t it?
Is it? Brexit has happened. Suppose instead it is levelling up that is still in play in the Red Wall — the results would look much the same.
What about, had the revolution, but back to the barricades to defend the revolution?
If Labour came to power, Lamy is foreign Secretary? Maybe remainers need the eyes of a leaver to see what they see?
Labour just lost a councillor in Dudley (West Midlands).
If this is indeed a pattern i.e. under-performing in the red wall relative to the rest of the country then it presents a huge dilemma for them: how to hold the centre ground whilst appealing to the ex Brexit voters.
But, I repeat, the real killer for the tories in the red wall won't be any politicians. It will be the economy. The cost of living will bite really hard and that will lose Boris the red wall.
What I desperately hope does NOT happen is that we see a surge in Far Right support. I could see it happening under those circumstances and it could turn very nasty indeed.
After two months of nearly flawless handling of intel, suddenly there are people in the Biden administration who can't shut their yaps.
The New York Times @nytimes· 4h Breaking News: The U.S. provided targeting information that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet last month. https://nyti.ms/3LQklUh
Hey, Biden administration guys? The Russians wondering what the hell keeps happening to them is more strategically valuable than you blabbing to the New York Times about what keeps happening to them.
Comments
They just lost it.
Fantastic. Well done Sir Keir.
Shall we ask HY what on earth is going on in Hillingdon?
HY, what on earth is going on in Hillingdon, can you lose it?
FISHER Paul Edward Lab 1158
LILLEY Patrick Eamon Joseph Lab 1111
TOALE Jessica Jade Lab 1111
BARNES Tim Con 961
REDMOND Julie Ann Con 923
MURPHY Eoghain Leo Con 913
TAYLOR Sophie Amanda LD 264
COELHO George LD 207
WEISZ Jonah Louis LD 158
While pillorying Johnson as opportunistic and dishonest, of course.
A political genius like Blair with a fawning press and a hated government could probably pull this off.
A man with no charisma, political judgement and a Corbynite record, probably not.
If Labour came to power, Lamy is foreign Secretary? Maybe remainers need the eyes of a leaver to see what they see?
If this is indeed a pattern i.e. under-performing in the red wall relative to the rest of the country then it presents a huge dilemma for them: how to hold the centre ground whilst appealing to the ex Brexit voters.
But, I repeat, the real killer for the tories in the red wall won't be any politicians. It will be the economy. The cost of living will bite really hard and that will lose Boris the red wall.
What I desperately hope does NOT happen is that we see a surge in Far Right support. I could see it happening under those circumstances and it could turn very nasty indeed.
The New York Times @nytimes · 4h
Breaking News: The U.S. provided targeting information that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet last month. https://nyti.ms/3LQklUh
Hey, Biden administration guys? The Russians wondering what the hell keeps happening to them is more strategically valuable than you blabbing to the New York Times about what keeps happening to them.
https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1522398091999121409
They’re down by about 5 points in key wards compared to 2018. Down 6 points compared to 2021.
Labour up by 4 points compared to drubbing of 2021. But down 0.5 compared to 2018.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1522425825248923650
https://twitter.com/samcoatessky/status/1522422995691712512?s=21&t=Sa7zpiHuymtQiu9J32hdlA
Has been for about 15 mins.
xx
Newsflash: if you back First Past The Post then these things will happen.