Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
What is going to shock all the parties and all the pundits, how easily the blue wall has crumbled this afternoon.
I suspect, being the big honest people they are, Thrasher and Curtice will appear soon saying they didn’t expect that many Tory losses in England alone.
Sky news general election projection based on this year's local elections voteshare.
Hung Parliament
Conservatives 278 Labour 271 SNP 50 LDs 28
Is that inclusive of boundary changes?
Not sure though I doubt it makes a major difference, other than 10 seats either way at most
I disagree, 10 seats can be important. It adds 20 to a majority and helps in a near hung parliament situation.
Labour + LDs would still be more than the Conservatives alone either way.
Only difference is the Conservatives plus DUP would be bigger than Labour plus LDs after the boundary changes but Labour plus SNP plus LDs would still be more than Conservatives plus DUP
I suggested yesterday that purdah for the police was the correct response, but a thoughtful response from ? @Eabhal ? persuaded me to change my mind.
Durham’s announcement that it is re-opening the investigation is very troubling. If they had new evidence they should have investigated earlier. They certainly should not have said the investigation would not be re-opened.
Maybe you should reflect on how you tried to close my comments down which seem that they were very salient
Bravo
The desperate attempt by Labourites telling you to shut up, move on, there’s nothing to see, was quite a spectacle. And a little bit shameful
Anecdote from Scotland. Turned up the polling place yesterday to find the staff deep in conversation. "Ah, a voter" and swung into action. There were five candidates to be distributed over 4 STV seats in the constituency.
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
“In October 2019, after members of the national security team assembled in the Situation Room to watch a feed of the raid that killed the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Stephen Miller proposed securing Mr. al-Baghdadi’s head, dipping it in pig’s blood and parading it around to warn other terrorists, Mr. Esper writes. That would be a ‘war crime,’ Mr. Esper shot “back.”
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
That Tory number in the projected vote share is horrific.
After 12 years in power that's about right, the Tories should be getting thumped in local elections. Yet Labour are nowhere, 35% is poor. The Tories were way ahead at this stage pre-2010 and they didn't win a majority.
Labour won't win a majority. That's always been clear. The issue is whether the Tories retain one. What they got yesterday is close to what they got just before May resigned. And this time there is no UKIP/Reform vote to squeeze in a subsequent GE. It seems pretty clear to me that there is a large, solid and motivated anti-Tory vote, and the Tories have a huge job on their hands to turn that around.
The dynamics of a GE will be completely different to a mid term which is generally a good time to give the national party a good kick up the arse. Today's results show that Labour are very, very far away from sealing the deal with the electorate and that they are also very angry with the Tory party. Tory voters simply didn't come out to play in a mid term when little is at stake and the anger is very high. In 2024 a lot will be at stake culturally (Brexit, keeping boys out of dresses and men out of women's changing rooms) and Labour will struggle to differentiate on the economy and are going to be playing a hugely losing hand on the culture war. If they say "women don't have cocks" they lose ultra progressive voters to the Greens, if they say "women do have cocks" a huge number of their core feminist votes stay home.
All of this is going to be set to 11 for months and every time Keir makes a media appearance questions of this kind will be asked and he won't have an answer that doesn't piss of some significant part of the Labour coalition.
I agree that the Tories have absolutely nothing to offer but culture war - that's been clear for a while. I am less inclined to agree that enough voters will buy that if living standards and public services have continued to decline, and Boris Johnson is still in charge. .
But Labour aren't offering anything different on the substantive issues. It's the Ed Miliband blank sheet of paper and we know how that worked out.
As I keep saying, no-one serious is suggesting that Labour will win a majority. The question is whether the Tories will get one. We agree that they will try to by going all out on culture war. I am not sure it will work.
The culture war campaign is the "stand in the polling booth and have a really long think about what you want for the nation", the Tories do this very well. They did it in 1992 and 2015 to great effect during very tough economic climates and Labour offering nothing really different to the Tories on the substantive issues of the day.
I can see it working. Many voters will conclude that the economy is crocked regardless of who is in charge, so they may as well vote against all the aggravation that the targeted online ads from the Tories will warn them about.
John Major did it with back to basics and a soapbox, David Cameron did it with smart targeting and goading the Lib Dems to disown all of the coalition wins, Boris or whoever replaces him will do it with smart targeting and forcing Labour to eat shit on cultural issues and Brexit every day.
Good luck with the Brexit eat s*** theme Actually come to think of it when we harmonise with Trump's food standards that is exactly what we will be doing.
Have you ever been on holiday to the US? Did you refrain from eating anything? Or did you rigorously check labels and never eat at restaurants?
Genuine question: why does anyone take any more notice of local election result NEV share, than of any national opinion poll when it comes to figuring out where a general election might end up? I would have thought that in national terms a national opinion poll (or average of polls) might in many ways be more accurate.
Anecdote from Scotland. Turned up the polling place yesterday to find the staff deep in conversation. "Ah, a voter" and swung into action. There were five candidates to be distributed over 4 STV seats in the constituency.
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
Anecdote from Edinburgh
Scottish Tory lost by a dozen votes
There were 50 spoiled ballots with X in the box instead of 1
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
The slightly less well-off parts of Surrey are still safely Conservative: Spelthorne, Runnymede&Weybridge, Surrey Heath. The LDs won't win any of those types of seats at the GE. The problem is SW Surrey, Epsom&Ewell, etc.
‘I didn’t believe stories of atrocities in Ukraine. But then I saw the photos https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/06/ukraine-photos-poland-border-refugees-rape-atrocities ...Then a woman in her 70s, who said she was from one of the occupied areas close to Irpin and Bucha, crossed the border with her daughter and great-granddaughter. They were being treated by medical volunteers at the French mission. The daughter, who was in her 50s, had cancer and was very sick. The medics could not believe that someone like this, with a hole in her stomach and no bandages, was so desperate to leave that she would risk travelling for so many hours with no medical support.
The woman told me that her grandson served in a military brigade that had been the first to go into recently liberated areas. She said he took photos of what he had seen. She showed them to me, and it was only then I understood it was worse than I could have ever imagined.
After she saw the photos, she went to the hospital, took out her daughter’s drip, helped her to the car and they took off She said that after her grandson had returned from duty, he had come to her house and begged her to leave Ukraine. He told her that women were being raped and killed by Russian troops but she refused to leave. In desperation, he showed her the photos and she knew she had to flee.
One of the photos she showed me was the hanging body of a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than 14...
The significant election is the one no-one's paying any attention to here: Northern Ireland. Hard to read on partial results but it looks like Alliance and TUV both doing very well, UUP and SDLP doing badly and DUP doing badly, but not as catastrophically as some expected.
It seems voters in Northern Ireland are simultaneously becoming more extreme and more moderate.
Is that another way of saying, more anti establishment, anti the usual winners?
Anecdote from Scotland. Turned up the polling place yesterday to find the staff deep in conversation. "Ah, a voter" and swung into action. There were five candidates to be distributed over 4 STV seats in the constituency.
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
Loadypish. Many wards in Edinburgh had turnout > 50%. Almost 1 in 3 have postal votes nowadays.
My wish yesterday - all of which i said was stretch, was:
- Labour to take Westminster - DONE - Ukraine to degrade Black Sea fleet - DONE - Alliance to come second in NI - Pending?
Haha.
I think it's very plain the DUP will come second.
1 result so far. For the Alliance. NI has been stuck in a death knell of religious bigotry for over a century. It would be beyond wonderful if the people there said enough.
One of my long term predix is that Alliance (or something like them) will become the biggest party in NI. Which, as you say, would be great for the province
What is going to shock all the parties and all the pundits, how easily the blue wall has crumbled this afternoon.
I suspect, being the big honest people they are, Thrasher and Curtice will appear soon saying they didn’t expect that many Tory losses in England alone.
Totally
This is going from bad to very bad for the Tories. Given the starting point wasn't that brilliant it is arguably extremely bad, way worse than it looked this morning.
Anecdote from Scotland. Turned up the polling place yesterday to find the staff deep in conversation. "Ah, a voter" and swung into action. There were five candidates to be distributed over 4 STV seats in the constituency.
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
Anecdote from Edinburgh
Scottish Tory lost by a dozen votes
There were 50 spoiled ballots with X in the box instead of 1
Those shouldn't have been spoiled. A clear preference has been indicated by the voter.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
My wish yesterday - all of which i said was stretch, was:
- Labour to take Westminster - DONE - Ukraine to degrade Black Sea fleet - DONE - Alliance to come second in NI - Pending?
Haha.
I think it's very plain the DUP will come second.
1 result so far. For the Alliance. NI has been stuck in a death knell of religious bigotry for over a century. It would be beyond wonderful if the people there said enough.
One of my long term predix is that Alliance (or something like them) will become the biggest party in NI. Which, as you say, would be great for the province
Would be nice to have a secondary party that is non-sectarian.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
The slightly less well-off parts of Surrey are still safely Conservative: Spelthorne, Runnymede&Weybridge, Surrey Heath. The LDs won't win any of those types of seats at the GE. The problem is SW Surrey, Epsom&Ewell, etc.
Indeed but all of Surrey used to be pretty safe Conservative even in 1997 and 2001 apart from Guildford.
One thing we can also say is the party of the poshest, most affluent areas is no longer the Tories but the Liberal Democrats.
As well as gains in wealthy areas of the Home Counties and SW London, the LDs also gained a seat in Kensington and Chelsea.
The Conservatives however now do as well with the skilled working class as the posh, in some areas better
I suggested yesterday that purdah for the police was the correct response, but a thoughtful response from ? @Eabhal ? persuaded me to change my mind.
Durham’s announcement that it is re-opening the investigation is very troubling. If they had new evidence they should have investigated earlier. They certainly should not have said the investigation would not be re-opened.
Maybe you should reflect on how you tried to close my comments down which seem that they were very salient
Bravo
The desperate attempt by Labourites telling you to shut up, move on, there’s nothing to see, was quite a spectacle. And a little bit shameful
It's more it was boring the pants of everybody, I think.
Anecdote from Scotland. Turned up the polling place yesterday to find the staff deep in conversation. "Ah, a voter" and swung into action. There were five candidates to be distributed over 4 STV seats in the constituency.
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
That's exactly what I was thinking when I was entering the nominations for the Scottish councils. For example in Morningside there were 7 candidates for 4 seats, but 2 of them were minor parties very unlikely to win, which meant the whole election was taking place to determine which of Con, Lab, LD, SNP, Green didn't win a seat. 4 out of 5 were almost guaranteed to win.
The average number of candidates per seat in Scotland was just over 2.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 30m I know what this platform is like. But the extent to which Keir Starmer supporters are frantically reversing every single position they've adopted on Partygate, now it's their guy under police investigation, is utterly incredible.
===
Now it's Durham police who may be deciding who the next PM is...
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
I suggested yesterday that purdah for the police was the correct response, but a thoughtful response from ? @Eabhal ? persuaded me to change my mind.
Durham’s announcement that it is re-opening the investigation is very troubling. If they had new evidence they should have investigated earlier. They certainly should not have said the investigation would not be re-opened.
Maybe you should reflect on how you tried to close my comments down which seem that they were very salient
Bravo
The desperate attempt by Labourites telling you to shut up, move on, there’s nothing to see, was quite a spectacle. And a little bit shameful
It's more it was boring the pants of everybody, I think.
In general, the louder people shout "NO! STORY! HERE!"....
Bit like people telling you "This argument is boring, The subject is weird. And you are a bad person for asking the question"...
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
Anecdote from Scotland. Turned up the polling place yesterday to find the staff deep in conversation. "Ah, a voter" and swung into action. There were five candidates to be distributed over 4 STV seats in the constituency.
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
Anecdote from Edinburgh
Scottish Tory lost by a dozen votes
There were 50 spoiled ballots with X in the box instead of 1
Those shouldn't have been spoiled. A clear preference has been indicated by the voter.
If it there is more than one cross is should be a spoilt vote although if its just one cross it should be accepted. If there are numbers beside crosses and the voters order of preference us clear it should also be accepted.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
The slightly less well-off parts of Surrey are still safely Conservative: Spelthorne, Runnymede&Weybridge, Surrey Heath. The LDs won't win any of those types of seats at the GE. The problem is SW Surrey, Epsom&Ewell, etc.
I’m not sure anyone in Surrey would class Surrey Heath and Runnymede/Weybridge as less well off. Spelthorne - absolutely - but that’s a bit of an odd one due to the proximity of London/ Stanwell
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Labour will end up +100 or so, it's rubbish. There's no sugar coating it and now from my previous position of thinking Labour would sneak through with 310-320 seats and go for a minority government it's pretty clear they won't do it. The voters are as unimpressed with Labour as I am and will vote Boris back in with a working majority.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
56 gains from 122 councils in England is slightly disappointing IMO.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
The significant election is the one no-one's paying any attention to here: Northern Ireland. Hard to read on partial results but it looks like Alliance and TUV both doing very well, UUP and SDLP doing badly and DUP doing badly, but not as catastrophically as some expected.
It seems voters in Northern Ireland are simultaneously becoming more extreme and more moderate.
Is that another way of saying, more anti establishment, anti the usual winners?
Presumably different people are trending towards moderation and hardline. It's the people that used to vote for respectable ethnic/religious based parties ie, UUP and SDLP, who are moving to Alliance, while the hardcore republicans and unionists (Sinn Féin and DUP) are doubling down and in the latter case partly moving to TUV
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
OK but what policy choices, specifically, are turning off voters in Surrey?
‘I didn’t believe stories of atrocities in Ukraine. But then I saw the photos https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/06/ukraine-photos-poland-border-refugees-rape-atrocities ...Then a woman in her 70s, who said she was from one of the occupied areas close to Irpin and Bucha, crossed the border with her daughter and great-granddaughter. They were being treated by medical volunteers at the French mission. The daughter, who was in her 50s, had cancer and was very sick. The medics could not believe that someone like this, with a hole in her stomach and no bandages, was so desperate to leave that she would risk travelling for so many hours with no medical support.
The woman told me that her grandson served in a military brigade that had been the first to go into recently liberated areas. She said he took photos of what he had seen. She showed them to me, and it was only then I understood it was worse than I could have ever imagined.
After she saw the photos, she went to the hospital, took out her daughter’s drip, helped her to the car and they took off She said that after her grandson had returned from duty, he had come to her house and begged her to leave Ukraine. He told her that women were being raped and killed by Russian troops but she refused to leave. In desperation, he showed her the photos and she knew she had to flee.
One of the photos she showed me was the hanging body of a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than 14...
The significant election is the one no-one's paying any attention to here: Northern Ireland. Hard to read on partial results but it looks like Alliance and TUV both doing very well, UUP and SDLP doing badly and DUP doing badly, but not as catastrophically as some expected.
It seems voters in Northern Ireland are simultaneously becoming more extreme and more moderate.
Is that another way of saying, more anti establishment, anti the usual winners?
Presumably different people are trending towards moderation and hardline. It's the people that used to vote for respectable ethnic/religious based parties ie, UUP and SDLP, who are moving to Alliance, while the hardcore republicans and unionists (Sinn Féin and DUP) are doubling down and in the latter case partly moving to TUV
If you are saying it’s not sounding great, it isn’t is it. 😕
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Has anyone actually said 2)
Edit: sneaky edit there!
Yes, lots of people on here and elsewhere, usually couched as "much better results for the Tories than we feared", which I reckon fits with satisfactory.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
I can't help feeling that the Scottish Tory performance would have been slightly less disastrous if Douglas Ross had not rowed back on his position that Boris should resign.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Has anyone actually said 2)
Edit: sneaky edit there!
Yes, lots of people on here and elsewhere, usually couched as "much better results for the Tories than we feared", which I reckon fits with satisfactory.
Scottish parties so far, in terms of numbers of councillors:
Grn +150% SLD +70% SLab + 17% SNP -2% Ind -13% SCon -21%
Interesting the independents are going down so much - normally you'd expect them to be stable. I wonder if it is because so many are tulchan Tories?
Probably. Despite the label “Independent”, local people know full-well what party these people are allied with. It is not always Con (eg Orkney or Shetland). When it is Con, these individuals will be punished just like their braver fellow-travellers.
Nothing sinister about SNP types. Nope, nothing sinister at all!
But we are talking about the voters doing the flagellating. And they are not SNP voters.
Carnyx, Foreskin is a bigoted red faced gammony arsewipe. He hates Scotland , a turnip of the highest order. The biggest and thickest windbag balloon to ever grace the site, one can only hope he has a puncture and F***s off.
Hello Malky, I was being polite ...
Noit too much rain over here, just topping up the barrel for Mrs C's weekend gardening. Looks as if you had a lot more over there.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
Labour certainly underperforming in Scotland versus expectations.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
56 gains from 122 councils in England is slightly disappointing IMO.
Yes, it is, and I didn't say it wasn't. I'm merely pointing out that the Tories have lost at least 350 (more to come) thus far, so it isn't exactly great for them. And there are some rays of light for Labour.
That Tory number in the projected vote share is horrific.
After 12 years in power that's about right, the Tories should be getting thumped in local elections. Yet Labour are nowhere, 35% is poor. The Tories were way ahead at this stage pre-2010 and they didn't win a majority.
Labour won't win a majority. That's always been clear. The issue is whether the Tories retain one. What they got yesterday is close to what they got just before May resigned. And this time there is no UKIP/Reform vote to squeeze in a subsequent GE. It seems pretty clear to me that there is a large, solid and motivated anti-Tory vote, and the Tories have a huge job on their hands to turn that around.
The dynamics of a GE will be completely different to a mid term which is generally a good time to give the national party a good kick up the arse. Today's results show that Labour are very, very far away from sealing the deal with the electorate and that they are also very angry with the Tory party. Tory voters simply didn't come out to play in a mid term when little is at stake and the anger is very high. In 2024 a lot will be at stake culturally (Brexit, keeping boys out of dresses and men out of women's changing rooms) and Labour will struggle to differentiate on the economy and are going to be playing a hugely losing hand on the culture war. If they say "women don't have cocks" they lose ultra progressive voters to the Greens, if they say "women do have cocks" a huge number of their core feminist votes stay home.
All of this is going to be set to 11 for months and every time Keir makes a media appearance questions of this kind will be asked and he won't have an answer that doesn't piss of some significant part of the Labour coalition.
I agree that the Tories have absolutely nothing to offer but culture war - that's been clear for a while. I am less inclined to agree that enough voters will buy that if living standards and public services have continued to decline, and Boris Johnson is still in charge. .
But Labour aren't offering anything different on the substantive issues. It's the Ed Miliband blank sheet of paper and we know how that worked out.
As I keep saying, no-one serious is suggesting that Labour will win a majority. The question is whether the Tories will get one. We agree that they will try to by going all out on culture war. I am not sure it will work.
The culture war campaign is the "stand in the polling booth and have a really long think about what you want for the nation", the Tories do this very well. They did it in 1992 and 2015 to great effect during very tough economic climates and Labour offering nothing really different to the Tories on the substantive issues of the day.
I can see it working. Many voters will conclude that the economy is crocked regardless of who is in charge, so they may as well vote against all the aggravation that the targeted online ads from the Tories will warn them about.
John Major did it with back to basics and a soapbox, David Cameron did it with smart targeting and goading the Lib Dems to disown all of the coalition wins, Boris or whoever replaces him will do it with smart targeting and forcing Labour to eat shit on cultural issues and Brexit every day.
I think the more they shut up about Brexit the better they will be. With the exception of the majorly braindead (who will probably vote Conservative anyway), most voters realise it was an expensive waste of time. It will hardly help bring back votes from those who have defected to the LDs
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Has anyone actually said 2)
Edit: sneaky edit there!
Yes, lots of people on here and elsewhere, usually couched as "much better results for the Tories than we feared", which I reckon fits with satisfactory.
When I wrote the comment it wasn't satisfactory
Fair point - I did an edit, but before I saw your comment!
Where I live in Eastleigh is a great and somewhat mad example of how Local Election results are different to GE results. Out of 39 councillors, 34 are LDs, and its been this way for years. Yet we have a Tory MP with a 15000 majority.
Where I live in Eastleigh is a great and somewhat mad example of how Local Election results are different to GE results. Out of 39 councillors, 34 are LDs, and its been this way for years. Yet we have a Tory MP with a 15000 majority.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Has anyone actually said 2)
Edit: sneaky edit there!
Yes, lots of people on here and elsewhere, usually couched as "much better results for the Tories than we feared", which I reckon fits with satisfactory.
When I wrote the comment it wasn't satisfactory
Fair point - I did an edit, but before I saw your comment!
I think it's the way the quote button works. It grabs the latest version of the comment from the server, which can be different than what appears on the screen, especially if you are reading through a lot of comments and some time has elapsed.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
1. Labour have had a disappointing day. 2. Tories have had a poor, but entirely expected midterms day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with low chance of ever being PM. 4. Lib Dems have had a pretty good day.
Going from shambolic to disappointing might be considered decent progress, but not much more than that.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
OK but what policy choices, specifically, are turning off voters in Surrey?
I don't live there so I can't really say but if you look at the areas who have now voted Lib Dem and those who voted remain there seems to be quite a close correlation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36618907 Those who voted to leave have stayed more with the Tories. The divisions of the referendum are still with us. The challenge of the government is to move past those issues but instead they seem to double down on them.
That Tory number in the projected vote share is horrific.
After 12 years in power that's about right, the Tories should be getting thumped in local elections. Yet Labour are nowhere, 35% is poor. The Tories were way ahead at this stage pre-2010 and they didn't win a majority.
Labour won't win a majority. That's always been clear. The issue is whether the Tories retain one. What they got yesterday is close to what they got just before May resigned. And this time there is no UKIP/Reform vote to squeeze in a subsequent GE. It seems pretty clear to me that there is a large, solid and motivated anti-Tory vote, and the Tories have a huge job on their hands to turn that around.
The dynamics of a GE will be completely different to a mid term which is generally a good time to give the national party a good kick up the arse. Today's results show that Labour are very, very far away from sealing the deal with the electorate and that they are also very angry with the Tory party. Tory voters simply didn't come out to play in a mid term when little is at stake and the anger is very high. In 2024 a lot will be at stake culturally (Brexit, keeping boys out of dresses and men out of women's changing rooms) and Labour will struggle to differentiate on the economy and are going to be playing a hugely losing hand on the culture war. If they say "women don't have cocks" they lose ultra progressive voters to the Greens, if they say "women do have cocks" a huge number of their core feminist votes stay home.
All of this is going to be set to 11 for months and every time Keir makes a media appearance questions of this kind will be asked and he won't have an answer that doesn't piss of some significant part of the Labour coalition.
I agree that the Tories have absolutely nothing to offer but culture war - that's been clear for a while. I am less inclined to agree that enough voters will buy that if living standards and public services have continued to decline, and Boris Johnson is still in charge. .
But Labour aren't offering anything different on the substantive issues. It's the Ed Miliband blank sheet of paper and we know how that worked out.
As I keep saying, no-one serious is suggesting that Labour will win a majority. The question is whether the Tories will get one. We agree that they will try to by going all out on culture war. I am not sure it will work.
The culture war campaign is the "stand in the polling booth and have a really long think about what you want for the nation", the Tories do this very well. They did it in 1992 and 2015 to great effect during very tough economic climates and Labour offering nothing really different to the Tories on the substantive issues of the day.
I can see it working. Many voters will conclude that the economy is crocked regardless of who is in charge, so they may as well vote against all the aggravation that the targeted online ads from the Tories will warn them about.
John Major did it with back to basics and a soapbox, David Cameron did it with smart targeting and goading the Lib Dems to disown all of the coalition wins, Boris or whoever replaces him will do it with smart targeting and forcing Labour to eat shit on cultural issues and Brexit every day.
I think the more they shut up about Brexit the better they will be. With the exception of the majorly braindead (who will probably vote Conservative anyway), most voters realise it was an expensive waste of time. It will hardly help bring back votes from those who have defected to the LDs
They won't. It will be done with targeted advertising, the leadership and MPs will say very little about it yet people will have the impression that Labour will be ready to join the Euro and let in 10 million immigrants.
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
OK but what policy choices, specifically, are turning off voters in Surrey?
I don't live there so I can't really say but if you look at the areas who have now voted Lib Dem and those who voted remain there seems to be quite a close correlation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36618907 Those who voted to leave have stayed more with the Tories. The divisions of the referendum are still with us. The challenge of the government is to move past those issues but instead they seem to double down on them.
Of course roughly twice as many seats voted Leave than Remain so keeping those divisions might be cynically smart politics.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
1. Labour have had a disappointing day. 2. Tories have had a poor, but entirely expected midterms day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with low chance of ever being PM. 4. Lib Dems have had a pretty good day.
Going from shambolic to disappointing might be considered decent progress, but not much more than that.
It's all irrelevant, the cost of living crisis is going to screw the Tories by the next GE anyway.
If Keir is toppled somehow, then depending on how he is toppled, I’d suggest it would be a net positive for Labour.
He has done the hard and thankless work of ridding the party of the loony left and should now hand over to someone who looks like they care about winning elections.
It is delightful seeing Labour control Worthing and Crawley in West Sussex.
Both have Tory constituencies at Westminster level I think. Has anyone seen a decent list of MPs whose seats might be at risk on the basis of these local election results?
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
OK but what policy choices, specifically, are turning off voters in Surrey?
I don't live there so I can't really say but if you look at the areas who have now voted Lib Dem and those who voted remain there seems to be quite a close correlation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36618907 Those who voted to leave have stayed more with the Tories. The divisions of the referendum are still with us. The challenge of the government is to move past those issues but instead they seem to double down on them.
Because of Brexit, it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever vote Tory again.
Scottish parties so far, in terms of numbers of councillors:
Grn +150% SLD +70% SLab + 17% SNP -2% Ind -13% SCon -21%
Interesting the independents are going down so much - normally you'd expect them to be stable. I wonder if it is because so many are tulchan Tories?
Probably. Despite the label “Independent”, local people know full-well what party these people are allied with. It is not always Con (eg Orkney or Shetland). When it is Con, these individuals will be punished just like their braver fellow-travellers.
Nothing sinister about SNP types. Nope, nothing sinister at all!
But we are talking about the voters doing the flagellating. And they are not SNP voters.
Carnyx, Foreskin is a bigoted red faced gammony arsewipe. He hates Scotland , a turnip of the highest order. The biggest and thickest windbag balloon to ever grace the site, one can only hope he has a puncture and F***s off.
Hello Malky, I was being polite ...
Noit too much rain over here, just topping up the barrel for Mrs C's weekend gardening. Looks as if you had a lot more over there.
Carnyx, bit miserable in morning but sun out now.
Dear Malcolm
I see you're still suffering from psychological projection dear, and the anger management programme has still failed you. Tell us what your real problems are? Perhaps you are not really Scottish at all, but *identify* as such? A kind of nationalistic "trans*? Maybe that explains your bigotry regarding trans people (one of your many bigotry problems).
And for the record, I don't hate Scotland, I don't even hate you, I leave the hating to the sad little twats like yourself. In fact I feel really really sorry for you. You call others "thick" and yet your posts do suggest that even for a nationalist you are a creature that is only slightly more intellectual than an amoeba. Have a lovely day and keep taking the tablets. Love and kisses (on your homophobic lips) N xxxxxxxxx
The scale and intensity of the horrors are beyond comprehension. They don't even have the excuse that the Soviet army had in 1945, of having been brutalised by what had been done to them, or the exhaustion and sheer fear of US soldiers in the latter years of Vietnam. Nor do they have the kind of perverted logic which motivated Nazi horrors in WWII (and I don't think the Wehrmacht was like this).It's not even as though they have been torturing to get information, it seems to be torture, rape, mutilation and murder just for the sake of it.
What is clear is that no-one in Ukraine, or, if it comes to it, anywhere else in Eastern Europe, is going to do anything other than fight to the death if necessary against Russia. They're not going to surrender or sign some imposed 'peace' treaty.
It is delightful seeing Labour control Worthing and Crawley in West Sussex.
Both have Tory constituencies at Westminster level I think. Has anyone seen a decent list of MPs whose seats might be at risk on the basis of these local election results?
John Redwood, IDS, Peter Bottomley, Nicky Aitken, Jonathan Lord, the Barnet Tory MPs amongst others. Maybe even Greg Clarke. Plus a few redwall MPs in areas like Hartlepool.
The Enfield Labour MPs might be a bit nervous on the other hand as might Sunderland MPs
Just looking at the breakdown of the Woking results and they should send a shudder through the Conservative Party. The LibDems didn't just take the council, these results are not even close.
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
Surrey is no longer safe Tory certainly, it is now a swing Tory v LD county.
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
One of the principal reasons Boris has a large majority is that he was able to trade off the mountains of votes that they won in the south of England for a lot of votes in the midlands and the North, greatly increasing their vote efficiency. Which is an extremely cunning plan until your base becomes so hollowed out it falls over, just as Scotland did for Labour.
OK but what policy choices, specifically, are turning off voters in Surrey?
I don't live there so I can't really say but if you look at the areas who have now voted Lib Dem and those who voted remain there seems to be quite a close correlation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36618907 Those who voted to leave have stayed more with the Tories. The divisions of the referendum are still with us. The challenge of the government is to move past those issues but instead they seem to double down on them.
Because of Brexit, it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever vote Tory again.
Brexit is a total irrelevance, Covid and Ukraine will impact your life, Brexit is just yesterday's noise
Where I live in Eastleigh is a great and somewhat mad example of how Local Election results are different to GE results. Out of 39 councillors, 34 are LDs, and its been this way for years. Yet we have a Tory MP with a 15000 majority.
You had a LD MP though from 1994 to 2015
I know, but 3 elections since then have seen huge swings to the tories but with very little change to the make up of the Council.
The other thing to note is that this LD council has given lots of planning approvals for new houses, many villages round here have been building sites for the past 5 years with 100s of new houses built. There are lots of letters complaining about it in the local press yet it has not affected the make up of the Council.
It is delightful seeing Labour control Worthing and Crawley in West Sussex.
Both have Tory constituencies at Westminster level I think. Has anyone seen a decent list of MPs whose seats might be at risk on the basis of these local election results?
Yes - Henry Smith (Crawley) and Tim Loughton (Worthing East + Shoreham). Both will be very nervous; the latter, I think, is doomed given the trend of Brighton spillover to Shoreham and East Worthing.
The last time I looked, the Tories had lost 347 councillors in England, Scotland and Wales, with more to come. However, the prevailing narrative on PB seems to be:
1. Labour had an awful day. 2. Tories had a satisfactory day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM. 4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
1. Labour have had a disappointing day. 2. Tories have had a poor, but entirely expected midterms day. 3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with low chance of ever being PM. 4. Lib Dems have had a pretty good day.
Going from shambolic to disappointing might be considered decent progress, but not much more than that.
Have you been looking at Facebook today, or have you been asked to say that by CCHQ?
My wish yesterday - all of which i said was stretch, was:
- Labour to take Westminster - DONE - Ukraine to degrade Black Sea fleet - DONE - Alliance to come second in NI - Pending?
Haha.
I think it's very plain the DUP will come second.
1 result so far. For the Alliance. NI has been stuck in a death knell of religious bigotry for over a century. It would be beyond wonderful if the people there said enough.
One of my long term predix is that Alliance (or something like them) will become the biggest party in NI. Which, as you say, would be great for the province
Would be nice to have a secondary party that is non-sectarian.
We're often told people in northern Ireland are sick of the sectarian politics. Perhaps they could evidence that.
“In October 2019, after members of the national security team assembled in the Situation Room to watch a feed of the raid that killed the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Stephen Miller proposed securing Mr. al-Baghdadi’s head, dipping it in pig’s blood and parading it around to warn other terrorists, Mr. Esper writes. That would be a ‘war crime,’ Mr. Esper shot “back.”
Which is why internal government deliberations should remain secret
It may have been a joke in poor taste. It may have been a serious suggestion. We don’t know.
If it was a seriously a suggestion it was immediately shot down and not pursued. I assume that Miller (who he?) did not know it was a war crime. As he was a speech writer perhaps he would not necessarily know precisely what was a war crime (although he should have known it was a stupid idea). But I am glad that all ideas could be raised and considered as that is a good was to avoid groupthink
That Tory number in the projected vote share is horrific.
After 12 years in power that's about right, the Tories should be getting thumped in local elections. Yet Labour are nowhere, 35% is poor. The Tories were way ahead at this stage pre-2010 and they didn't win a majority.
Labour won't win a majority. That's always been clear. The issue is whether the Tories retain one. What they got yesterday is close to what they got just before May resigned. And this time there is no UKIP/Reform vote to squeeze in a subsequent GE. It seems pretty clear to me that there is a large, solid and motivated anti-Tory vote, and the Tories have a huge job on their hands to turn that around.
The dynamics of a GE will be completely different to a mid term which is generally a good time to give the national party a good kick up the arse. Today's results show that Labour are very, very far away from sealing the deal with the electorate and that they are also very angry with the Tory party. Tory voters simply didn't come out to play in a mid term when little is at stake and the anger is very high. In 2024 a lot will be at stake culturally (Brexit, keeping boys out of dresses and men out of women's changing rooms) and Labour will struggle to differentiate on the economy and are going to be playing a hugely losing hand on the culture war. If they say "women don't have cocks" they lose ultra progressive voters to the Greens, if they say "women do have cocks" a huge number of their core feminist votes stay home.
All of this is going to be set to 11 for months and every time Keir makes a media appearance questions of this kind will be asked and he won't have an answer that doesn't piss of some significant part of the Labour coalition.
I agree that the Tories have absolutely nothing to offer but culture war - that's been clear for a while. I am less inclined to agree that enough voters will buy that if living standards and public services have continued to decline, and Boris Johnson is still in charge. .
But Labour aren't offering anything different on the substantive issues. It's the Ed Miliband blank sheet of paper and we know how that worked out.
As I keep saying, no-one serious is suggesting that Labour will win a majority. The question is whether the Tories will get one. We agree that they will try to by going all out on culture war. I am not sure it will work.
The culture war campaign is the "stand in the polling booth and have a really long think about what you want for the nation", the Tories do this very well. They did it in 1992 and 2015 to great effect during very tough economic climates and Labour offering nothing really different to the Tories on the substantive issues of the day.
I can see it working. Many voters will conclude that the economy is crocked regardless of who is in charge, so they may as well vote against all the aggravation that the targeted online ads from the Tories will warn them about.
John Major did it with back to basics and a soapbox, David Cameron did it with smart targeting and goading the Lib Dems to disown all of the coalition wins, Boris or whoever replaces him will do it with smart targeting and forcing Labour to eat shit on cultural issues and Brexit every day.
I think the more they shut up about Brexit the better they will be. With the exception of the majorly braindead (who will probably vote Conservative anyway), most voters realise it was an expensive waste of time. It will hardly help bring back votes from those who have defected to the LDs
They won't. It will be done with targeted advertising, the leadership and MPs will say very little about it yet people will have the impression that Labour will be ready to join the Euro and let in 10 million immigrants.
The gullible will always be gullible, and while it worked in 2016, I am not sure cynicism always works.
‘I didn’t believe stories of atrocities in Ukraine. But then I saw the photos https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/may/06/ukraine-photos-poland-border-refugees-rape-atrocities ...Then a woman in her 70s, who said she was from one of the occupied areas close to Irpin and Bucha, crossed the border with her daughter and great-granddaughter. They were being treated by medical volunteers at the French mission. The daughter, who was in her 50s, had cancer and was very sick. The medics could not believe that someone like this, with a hole in her stomach and no bandages, was so desperate to leave that she would risk travelling for so many hours with no medical support.
The woman told me that her grandson served in a military brigade that had been the first to go into recently liberated areas. She said he took photos of what he had seen. She showed them to me, and it was only then I understood it was worse than I could have ever imagined.
After she saw the photos, she went to the hospital, took out her daughter’s drip, helped her to the car and they took off She said that after her grandson had returned from duty, he had come to her house and begged her to leave Ukraine. He told her that women were being raped and killed by Russian troops but she refused to leave. In desperation, he showed her the photos and she knew she had to flee.
One of the photos she showed me was the hanging body of a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than 14...
Oh God. Sometimes I want us to nuke Russia
Medieval levels of barbarism.
What are these kids - and it seems to be a lot of conscripted very young kids in RU army - like in home life that this kind of depravity comes so easily?
The scale and intensity of the horrors are beyond comprehension. They don't even have the excuse that the Soviet army had in 1945, of having been brutalised by what had been done to them, or the exhaustion and sheer fear of US soldiers in the latter years of Vietnam. Nor do they have the kind of perverted logic which motivated Nazi horrors in WWII (and I don't think the Wehrmacht was like this).It's not even as though they have been torturing to get information, it seems to be torture, rape, mutilation and murder just for the sake of it.
What is clear is that no-one in Ukraine, or, if it comes to it, anywhere else in Eastern Europe, is going to do anything other than fight to the death if necessary against Russia. They're not going to surrender or sign some imposed 'peace' treaty.
I completely agree. And you put it very eloquently. I’m almost too horrified to write words down. From that same Guardian article linked by @Nigelb
“She said her grandson told her he was walking through the woods looking for dead bodies left by the Russians and lifted his head and saw these girls strung from the trees, all of them very young. They were naked and torn up. She said he had passed on the photos to investigators in Ukraine who were gathering evidence of war crimes.”
How do you begin to deal with this? It makes me tremble with anger and I’m not even Ukrainian. What will Olga’s brother inside Russia do when he reads this?
Putin’s Russia is Satanic. It must be utterly vanquished. The danger is that so many in Eastern Europe will want revenge beyond victory, they will want to see Russia and Russians SUFFER. And who can blame them
The Conservatives are now down 336 councillors across England/Scotland/Wales. That's now closer to the 500 "utterly preposterous" number floated by CCHQ than the 150 estimated by the pollsters. That has to be seen as "really quite bad", surely?
The scale and intensity of the horrors are beyond comprehension. They don't even have the excuse that the Soviet army had in 1945, of having been brutalised by what had been done to them, or the exhaustion and sheer fear of US soldiers in the latter years of Vietnam. Nor do they have the kind of perverted logic which motivated Nazi horrors in WWII (and I don't think the Wehrmacht was like this).It's not even as though they have been torturing to get information, it seems to be torture, rape, mutilation and murder just for the sake of it.
What is clear is that no-one in Ukraine, or, if it comes to it, anywhere else in Eastern Europe, is going to do anything other than fight to the death if necessary against Russia. They're not going to surrender or sign some imposed 'peace' treaty.
I never understood the logic of this behaviour. As a coward I would not hesitate to surrender if I thought I was going to be well treated and I was in a sticky situation, but if I thought I was going to be tortured or killed I wouldn't.
Comments
Heathlands, my ward, flipped 1500 LibDem votes to 1000 Conservative with another 400 Green.
I am almost speechless. Those Surrey Conservative MPs are in big trouble. They include Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt, Kwasi Kwarteng, Chris Grayling.
Those of you betting on Hunt to be next tory leader ... if you wait until after the election he might not even be an MP.
https://www.woking.gov.uk/results2022
Only difference is the Conservatives plus DUP would be bigger than Labour plus LDs after the boundary changes but Labour plus SNP plus LDs would still be more than Conservatives plus DUP
The desperate attempt by Labourites telling you to shut up, move on, there’s nothing to see, was quite a spectacle. And a little bit shameful
Don't get the impression anyone is trying very hard.
Con: 33.2 (-6.7, -1.2)
Lab: 38.6 (-1.0, +4.2)
LD: 14.7 (+3.1, +11.4)
Grn: 3.7 (-3.1, +3.7)
Others: 9.8 (+7.7, -17.1) primarily WPGB in both BE and LE22.
Labour GAIN most LE votes in Constituency from Con
Big Result this
Libdems Winning Here
Most of Essex and much of the Midlands however have moved from swing areas to reasonably safe Conservative
I would have thought that in national terms a national opinion poll (or average of polls) might in many ways be more accurate.
Scottish Tory lost by a dozen votes
There were 50 spoiled ballots with X in the box instead of 1
A. We are too lefty, not offering the voters a proper blue alternative
B. We are not wearing sandals often enough, and should be eating more muesli.
One of my long term predix is that Alliance (or something like them) will become the biggest party in NI. Which, as you say, would be great for the province
The tories are too tory or
The tories are not offering a proper blue low tax free market alternative.
I live in Esher& Walton and for me its definitely the latter. Tory MP, lib dem MP, whats the difference?
SNP - 19 seats (-)
Labour - 13 seats (+1)
Lib Dems - 12 seats (+6)
Greens - 10 seats (+2)
Conservatives - 9 seats (-9)
One thing we can also say is the party of the poshest, most affluent areas is no longer the Tories but the Liberal Democrats.
As well as gains in wealthy areas of the Home Counties and SW London, the LDs also gained a seat in Kensington and Chelsea.
The Conservatives however now do as well with the skilled working class as the posh, in some areas better
The average number of candidates per seat in Scotland was just over 2.
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
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30m
I know what this platform is like. But the extent to which Keir Starmer supporters are frantically reversing every single position they've adopted on Partygate, now it's their guy under police investigation, is utterly incredible.
===
Now it's Durham police who may be deciding who the next PM is...
1. Labour had an awful day.
2. Tories had a satisfactory day.
3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with no chance of ever being PM.
4. If Starmer has to resign, the Labour Party is finished because he was their only chance.
It doesn't quite stack up to me. As I said earlier, I reckon Labour has made decent progress in comparison to the absolute shambles at GE 2019.
Bit like people telling you "This argument is boring, The subject is weird. And you are a bad person for asking the question"...
Edit: sneaky edit there!
Lab 46.0 (+11.3)
Con 38.1 (-5.5)
Green 10.5 (+0.6)
LD 4.4 (+1.8)
Others 1.1 (-8.2)
Constituency proposal is also in Labour's favour for 2024.
Lab GAIN most constituency LE votes from Con
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2022/england/councils/E07000248
This will be the key question, I reckon.
Sinn Fein Have Seven MLAs elected so far including Gerry Kelly (Belfast North) and Michelle O'Neill (Mid Ulster).
2. Tories have had a poor, but entirely expected midterms day.
3. Starmer is a boring leftie metropolitan lawyer with low chance of ever being PM.
4. Lib Dems have had a pretty good day.
Going from shambolic to disappointing might be considered decent progress, but not much more than that.
Those who voted to leave have stayed more with the Tories. The divisions of the referendum are still with us. The challenge of the government is to move past those issues but instead they seem to double down on them.
I'm not convinced.
Has anyone seen a decent list of MPs whose seats might be at risk on the basis of these local election results?
I see you're still suffering from psychological projection dear, and the anger management programme has still failed you. Tell us what your real problems are? Perhaps you are not really Scottish at all, but *identify* as such? A kind of nationalistic "trans*? Maybe that explains your bigotry regarding trans people (one of your many bigotry problems).
And for the record, I don't hate Scotland, I don't even hate you, I leave the hating to the sad little twats like yourself. In fact I feel really really sorry for you. You call others "thick" and yet your posts do suggest that even for a nationalist you are a creature that is only slightly more intellectual than an amoeba. Have a lovely day and keep taking the tablets. Love and kisses (on your homophobic lips) N xxxxxxxxx
What is clear is that no-one in Ukraine, or, if it comes to it, anywhere else in Eastern Europe, is going to do anything other than fight to the death if necessary against Russia. They're not going to surrender or sign some imposed 'peace' treaty.
The Enfield Labour MPs might be a bit nervous on the other hand as might Sunderland MPs
Colne Valley LE 22 (change from LE21)
Lab 36.4 (+4.2)
Con: 31.8 (-3.6)
LD: 18.9 (+1.6)
Green: 6.4 (-0.8)
Others: 6.5 (-1.4)
The proposed boundaries would strip Labour's 1500 lead to under 100, so LD switching would be vital.
Lab GAIN LE most votes from Con
If Wakefield comes home, that will be 5/5 LE most vote gains from my watch list.
At the moment this looks a lot like 2017 in the north.
The other thing to note is that this LD council has given lots of planning approvals for new houses, many villages round here have been building sites for the past 5 years with 100s of new houses built. There are lots of letters complaining about it in the local press yet it has not affected the make up of the Council.
https://twitter.com/NewsNBC/status/1522543263571496963
It may have been a joke in poor taste. It may have been a serious suggestion. We don’t know.
If it was a seriously a suggestion it was immediately shot down and not pursued. I assume that Miller (who he?) did not know it was a war crime. As he was a speech writer perhaps he would not necessarily know precisely what was a war crime (although he should have known it was a stupid idea). But I am glad that all ideas could be raised and considered as that is a good was to avoid groupthink
What are these kids - and it seems to be a lot of conscripted very young kids in RU army - like in home life that this kind of depravity comes so easily?
“She said her grandson told her he was walking through the woods looking for dead bodies left by the Russians and lifted his head and saw these girls strung from the trees, all of them very young. They were naked and torn up. She said he had passed on the photos to investigators in Ukraine who were gathering evidence of war crimes.”
How do you begin to deal with this? It makes me tremble with anger and I’m not even Ukrainian. What will Olga’s brother inside Russia do when he reads this?
Putin’s Russia is Satanic. It must be utterly vanquished. The danger is that so many in Eastern Europe will want revenge beyond victory, they will want to see Russia and Russians SUFFER. And who can blame them
Halton: Daresbury, Moore & Sandymoor.
Con 399* [elected by drawing lots]
Lab 398
Green 372
https://hbcnewsroom.co.uk/council-election-results/