At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
Fans of the big two often deride votes as mere protest votes. I am often tempted and occassionally do vote Green as a protest vote and think it at least as worthy as a vote for the big two, even though I believe in little of their actual manifesto.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could look at the Conservatives over the past few years, contrast them with the Greens, and conclude that the Conservatives are the “serious party” with a consistent message while the Greens are the flip-floppy ones. What short memories people have…
I think the people who obsess over manifestos are choosing inevitable disappointment. At least those of us who vote tactically, occassionally get the outcome we wanted.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
Fans of the big two often deride votes as mere protest votes. I am often tempted and occassionally do vote Green as a protest vote and think it at least as worthy as a vote for the big two, even though I believe in little of their actual manifesto.
I'm a Green Party member, done a tiny bit of activity for them. I vote Green every time now, even though as you, I don't agree with swathes of their manifesto. I can understand tactical voting, but never consider my vote wasted or as a protest vote. It's democracy init!
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
Depends on starting points if you are going to make comparisons like that. The losses of 95 for example, did they occur after the losses of 2019? Judge on Low hanging and harder to reach fruit for example, not just numbers.
If Starmer gets to 347 MPs he will have won more than Blair in 97
Not sure why some Tories are so surprised. After years of slashing the public sector, indulging in NIMBYism, supporting only one demographic in the electorate (pensioners), the debacle of Johnson, Truss and the party being dominated by rabid Mogg-esque ERGers, this is where we are. Shock. Horror.
They can’t even “stop the boats” because they’ve totally trashed the immigration system. Probably best not to promise things like that when you don’t have the basic services in place to support policy
On the stepmom index this is pretty bad for the Tories.
Time to bring back Truss or Johnson.
Truss and Johnson. And Uncle Tom Kwarteng and all.
A little bit unnecessary at the end there. I see what you were trying to do with Tom Cobley but there are other interpretations involving Harriet Beecher Stowe that may not be looked at as charitably. I’d amend if you can.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Amusing that the king's senior spinner is now briefing that Charles wanted nothing to do with the 'loyalty oath'. Casino please explain.
It was explained on here yesterday by @Ghedebrav I think.
Press releases and media statements changed a very subtle invitation to anyone else who wanted to join in within the order of service to something that it wasn't.
Of course, it will be too late for that to have any resonance now. Once the meme is out it is out.
I know it doesn't quite work like this but if the Conservatives lose the same proportion of MPs as they have currently lost councillors then at the next General Election they will be left with 230 MPS.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
Well if you carry on at that rate, you will inevitably come to an election where there are no losses... because no seats to lose.
Before all the excitement started, there were a couple of success criteria being bandied about.
Labour needed to be 10 points ahead on NEV to be in a good position for the General Election.
Conservatives needed to lose 1000 seats before people could point and laugh about a Terrible Night For The Tories. (Not that people should point and laugh really. Good councillors, doing well for their patch, will have been kicked out last night for wearing the wrong rosette. It's nature's way, but not nice, whoever's involved.)
From what we've seen so far, is there a fair chance that both those boxes will be ticked?
Looks like both measures to be met but there's a prospect of a shedload of Tory losses to the Lib Dems in the seats still to be declared, mostly in the South of England. Lib Dems are back could be the message of the day.
The Lib Dem performance is (I hope) a fascinating omen of what could happen at the GE due to the nature of FPTP.
The Lib Dem vote share looks like it’s stayed almost at a standstill, while the conservatives vote has declined a little. But huge numbers of seats are falling to the Lib Dems. This is the sight of the dam break in areas where the yellows came second in the last election. All it takes is a few points of Tory decline and they clean up across large swathes of the country.
With most councils still to count it remains early in the process. But what is a very clear and unambiguous trend so far is that people are largely voting against the Tories.
In some places that means Labour. In others LibDem. In others Green. Look at the councils where the Tories have lost them to NOC. They are not going to remain in power as a strong minority backed by the odd independent. They are out - Lab/LD/Green comfortably beats them.
Yes the Tories still have pockets of strength. But so did the Wermacht in March 1945.
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
To state the obvious, it has clearly been a very bad night for the Conservatives, though given the collapse in living standards over the last year, the Truss premiership, Sunak's lack of charisma or vision and the fact they've mostly run out of other people to blame after 13 years in power, perhaps it's surprising it hasn't been even worse.
I know it doesn't quite work like this but if the Conservatives lose the same proportion of MPs as they have currently lost councillors then at the next General Election they will be left with 230 MPS.
Might not be a bad shout for a punt actually.
And with 20 ish seats in Scotland Labour's current proportion of gains would see them at around 360 MPs.
On the stepmom index this is pretty bad for the Tories.
Time to bring back Truss or Johnson.
Truss and Johnson. And Uncle Tom Kwarteng and all.
This is the missing ingredient for Starmer at the moment. The Tories have seemed reasonably united recently and I think that’s been enough to creep back in the polls. A return to internal squabbling and briefings would be great news for LLG.
Windsor and Maidenhead seems to me the most significant result so far. There are a swathe of seats West and South-West of London that are now quite likely to go LD at the next election. The anti-Brexit moderate Tories now know that they can safely vote LD without the fear of facilitating a Corbyn government.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Yes I totally agree.
One reason why I think they're going to fare even worse at the GE (and said so yesterday) is that Sunak is fading. He has literally nothing.
During the GE campaign he will be found wanting. He not only doesn't like being put under pressure with awkward questions, he also has a fair bit of murkiness in his locker. Either way, he is empty. A manager, but devoid of political charisma.
Again, I'm not saying Starmer is brilliant but the bar is a low one to beat.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Before all the excitement started, there were a couple of success criteria being bandied about.
Labour needed to be 10 points ahead on NEV to be in a good position for the General Election.
Conservatives needed to lose 1000 seats before people could point and laugh about a Terrible Night For The Tories. (Not that people should point and laugh really. Good councillors, doing well for their patch, will have been kicked out last night for wearing the wrong rosette. It's nature's way, but not nice, whoever's involved.)
From what we've seen so far, is there a fair chance that both those boxes will be ticked?
Looks like both measures to be met but there's a prospect of a shedload of Tory losses to the Lib Dems in the seats still to be declared, mostly in the South of England. Lib Dems are back could be the message of the day.
The Lib Dem performance is (I hope) a fascinating omen of what could happen at the GE due to the nature of FPTP.
The Lib Dem vote share looks like it’s stayed almost at a standstill, while the conservatives vote has declined a little. But huge numbers of seats are falling to the Lib Dems. This is the sight of the dam break in areas where the yellows came second in the last election. All it takes is a few points of Tory decline and they clean up across large swathes of the country.
I don't know about huge swathes. As @rcs1000 has pointed out before, beyond a score or so of seats, the swing (or tactical vote) required is quite large.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
Depends on starting points if you are going to make comparisons like that. The losses of 95 for example, did they occur after the losses of 2019? Judge on Low hanging and harder to reach fruit for example, not just numbers.
If Starmer gets to 347 MPs he will have won more than Blair in 97
In terms of Labour lead over the Conservatives, this looks the worst Conservative result since 1997, but not as bad as the results from 1993-97. In terms of vote share, it's the worst Conservative result since 2013 (which was also a bad year for Labour).
The Conservatives' big losses in 1995 came after big losses in 1991, but the Conservatives had performed well in the local elections of 1983 and 1987 (all part of the same cycle).
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
Fans of the big two often deride votes as mere protest votes. I am often tempted and occassionally do vote Green as a protest vote and think it at least as worthy as a vote for the big two, even though I believe in little of their actual manifesto.
I find it hard to believe that anyone could look at the Conservatives over the past few years, contrast them with the Greens, and conclude that the Conservatives are the “serious party” with a consistent message while the Greens are the flip-floppy ones. What short memories people have…
The Greens have a consistent message. It's just an unpleasant one.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
Again, like the Lib Dems!
Greens should always be something of a coalition though, and green issues cut across the political spectrum.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Are you planning to be recycled for the next election?
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
Exactly. This is where I have been for some time. A small Labour majority (20-50 seats) seems the most likely outcome. These results firm up that prediction in my mind but don't change it.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
It would be hard to read the big vote for indpendents into general election results.
The Lib Dems are doing well, but still not really close to their performance pre-2010, let alone in the 1990's..
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
In the quiet moments of today, just imagine how much worse it would have been for the Tories with PM Truss still in Downing Street, still waging her war with Mr Market....
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Is that what they said?
They were well over subscribed for what they needed in the wards around me. I could have gone on a national list i think, but to be fair, I did apply really late in the process. Next time I'll get in early.
Amusing that the king's senior spinner is now briefing that Charles wanted nothing to do with the 'loyalty oath'. Casino please explain.
It was explained on here yesterday by @Ghedebrav I think.
Press releases and media statements changed a very subtle invitation to anyone else who wanted to join in within the order of service to something that it wasn't.
Of course, it will be too late for that to have any resonance now. Once the meme is out it is out.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
I am no fan of Starmer, but he clearly doesn't frighten the horses. Despite his lack of political experience his strategy so far has produced the results that Labour needed.
I'm dreading the result in St Albans City and District. The Yellow Peril already run the area and now they are intent on putting the Tories on the endangered list. The local Tory MP is doing the chicken run so Harpenden looks like joining St Albans as a Lib Dem parliamentary seat.
I may have to consider exile to avoid the dreaded Yellow Peril. Even Windsor is now no go area !!!!
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
Again, like the Lib Dems!
Greens should always be something of a coalition though, and green issues cut across the political spectrum.
We're a broad mosque in the Greens. We'll entertain anybody but chavs (rightly so).
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
In the quiet moments of today, just imagine how much worse it would have been for the Tories with PM Truss still in Downing Street, still waging her war with Mr Market....
With Truss having struggled on as PM for seven months, the results would have been at least as bad as 1995, probably worse.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Are you planning to be recycled for the next election?
Perhaps there might be a seat along the A4 corridor they are struggling to fill?
Wary of a narrative before most votes are counted, but. Seems the chances of a Labour majority haven't changed much. The chances of the Tories retaining power have receded.
I know it doesn't quite work like this but if the Conservatives lose the same proportion of MPs as they have currently lost councillors then at the next General Election they will be left with 230 MPS.
Might not be a bad shout for a punt actually.
And with 20 ish seats in Scotland Labour's current proportion of gains would see them at around 360 MPs.
A period of silence from you would be welcome.
We are all tired of your hyberbolic bullshit and you seem to have absolutely no shame in totally changing your tune on here this morning as the results come in.
What you should have done is admitted you got it wrong. But you don't have the integrity to do that it seems.
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
In the quiet moments of today, just imagine how much worse it would have been for the Tories with PM Truss still in Downing Street, still waging her war with Mr Market....
Electoral results would have been the least of our concerns …
It suggests the LLG vote is becoming much more efficient. Labour advancing most in the marginal red wall and Essex/Kent seats, Tories going backwards most in the remain areas where Lib Dems are strongest.
An unwind of the two FPTP trends that boosted Cameron and his successors looks in the offing: Labour’s collapse in Scotland, and the Lib Dems’ 2015 post coalition collapse in the South and SW.
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Are you planning to be recycled for the next election?
At Harborough verification last night very difficult to be sure what has happened though possibly Green and Labour vote higher than expected -Green didn't campaign just put up paper candidates.. Misterton (Icarus's ward) probably depending on postal votes we which didn't see being opened and might not be helpful. Not rushing to the bookies!
Greens also continued their rise in Exeter, gaining two more councillors to have 6 in total now.
Greens have had a good night so far. I’m a non-activist member and what I’m hearing on the Greenvine is general happiness with seats held and won. Their candidate selection has improved and, like the Lib Dems, they tend to do their job as councillors (unlike the typical hard right protest votes, who by-and-large are useless).
Overnight greens picked up seats from Labour in Labour dominated councils, 4 from Tories in Worcester, to overtake Tories as second party. They can win anywhere. They are winning everywhere. It may be their first two seats on the council this time. Big next time it’s up to eight. Before long up to second. They are like the red weed from War of the Worlds.
But they are phoney. Their agenda and policies cannot appeal to Tory and Labour voters equally. As Starmer distances himself from woke and trans from nationalisation and resetting UK capitalism, Greens muscle in though the told hold. They pick up Tory seats by opposing sewage, house building on green belt. Greens are not achieving this by being a serious party with a serious manifesto, they are the archetypal protest vote, most likely on a single local issue.
No, I think the Greens are not yet looking at a national election, and do not want to be that sort of centralised national party.
They are an interesting mix of alternative lifestyle neo-hippies, Corbynite refugees and Cameroonite Tories who care about global warming and shit in rivers. Difficult to unify, but not particularly needing to do so, at least not yet. I suspect that they will be good councilors.
I put myself up as a paper candidate for them this year, but they didn't need me🤡
Are you planning to be recycled for the next election?
Perhaps there might be a seat along the A4 corridor they are struggling to fill?
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
In the quiet moments of today, just imagine how much worse it would have been for the Tories with PM Truss still in Downing Street, still waging her war with Mr Market....
I try to but I can't imagine any circumstances in which Truss is still PM. The political and economic trajectory of her administration was so precipitous, there is no plausible scenario where she would have made it to now.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
Yes, by way of comparison, Labour had a dreadful set of local election results in 1967-69, 1976-79, and 2006-09, but still recovered to a respectable defeat in each subsequent general election.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
Depends on starting points if you are going to make comparisons like that. The losses of 95 for example, did they occur after the losses of 2019? Judge on Low hanging and harder to reach fruit for example, not just numbers.
If Starmer gets to 347 MPs he will have won more than Blair in 97
In terms of Labour lead over the Conservatives, this looks the worst Conservative result since 1997, but not as bad as the results from 1993-97. In terms of vote share, it's the worst Conservative result since 2013 (which was also a bad year for Labour).
The Conservatives' big losses in 1995 came after big losses in 1991, but the Conservatives had performed well in the local elections of 1983 and 1987 (all part of the same cycle).
The Conservatives tend to do very badly during/in the aftermath of an economic bust when house prices fall, and taxes go up, and there's a squeeze on the cost of living.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
It was always a funny old world where the Conservatives controlled places like Middlesbrough and Stoke. Thatcher could only dream of such things.
These are just signs of a return to a more normal (post Brexit) politics?
I apologise to Brexiteers, I was wrong and they were right about Brexit leading to a chain reaction of other countries wanting to take back control from their unelected rulers.
King dealt Commonwealth blow as two nations threaten to cut ties
Jamaica and Belize hint at dropping the monarch as head of state, with the latter claiming it could hold referendum as early as 2024
Tories lose 16 seats as Yellow Peril take Windsor.
King to wear sandals at Coronation ?? ...
They are busy filling the crown jewels with yellow diamonds?
Funny thing about the yellow diamond: it’s arguably one of the if not the strongest most recognisable brands in electoral politics, way ahead of the popularity of the party.
It suggests the LLG vote is becoming much more efficient. Labour advancing most in the marginal red wall and Essex/Kent seats, Tories going backwards most in the remain areas where Lib Dems are strongest.
An unwind of the two FPTP trends that boosted Cameron and his successors looks in the offing: Labour’s collapse in Scotland, and the Lib Dems’ 2015 post coalition collapse in the South and SW.
Interesting to see if the anti Tory vote also helps Labour further vs SNP in Scotland as we get closer to the election and the Westminster govt becomes more likely to be Labour than Tory. I suspect it will.
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Lets go with this. The Times also reporting that the Tory right are planning to make a move. So if we now have a summer of discontent, where it is clear that the Sunak ship is sinking and deportation to political Rwanda is on the horizon, what do political giants like Jonathan Gullis do to save their seats?
It's Boris isn't it? The "cut taxes" it catastrofucked the economy, so they can't go for Truss or followers of Truss. There isn't really anyone with umph on the right / populist wing standing out as leadership material. I'd quite like to see a Tory party led by Badenoch but fat chance.
Which leaves Boris. "Cleared" by the forthcoming report as being only guilty of being stupid (as nobody explicitly told him not to party and he didn't know it was wrong). The arch populist who will say literally anything to be liked. The man who the vox pops from wavering red wall seats want back (see the Sky piece from Stockton earlier this week).
When it happens, remember that I called it on here ages ago. Resurrecting Boris would be mad, bad and dangerous for Britain. But when you are desperate, mad and bad sound better than unemployed.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
It was always a funny old world where the Conservatives controlled places like Middlesbrough and Stoke. Thatcher could only dream of such things.
These are just signs of a return to a more normal (post Brexit) politics?
Thatcher regularly won Langbaurgh which is South Middlesbrough
I know it doesn't quite work like this but if the Conservatives lose the same proportion of MPs as they have currently lost councillors then at the next General Election they will be left with 230 MPS.
Might not be a bad shout for a punt actually.
And with 20 ish seats in Scotland Labour's current proportion of gains would see them at around 360 MPs.
A period of silence from you would be welcome.
We are all tired of your hyberbolic bullshit and you seem to have absolutely no shame in totally changing your tune on here this morning as the results come in.
What you should have done is admitted you got it wrong. But you don't have the integrity to do that it seems.
On the contrary, @Heathener is right and it is the Tory reckoning predicted.
As the 2019 Local elections occurred in the year of Brexit paralysis, with the LDs pushing "Bollocks to Brexit", I did wonder if we may have seen high tide. It seems though that even more of Remania is moving our way.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
It was always a funny old world where the Conservatives controlled places like Middlesbrough and Stoke. Thatcher could only dream of such things.
These are just signs of a return to a more normal (post Brexit) politics?
Thatcher regularly won Langbaurgh which is South Middlesbrough
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
Building "some goddam homes" is a manifesto commitment, not something government can do before the next election.
Looking back, it's probably something government should have started during the pandemic (rather than, say, Eat out to help out) in order to boost the economy.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
In 97 the UK was a confident country on the up, economically and culturally - Blair’s message of optimistic change and progression couldn’t have found more fertile territory.
We’re a way off that now. Depressed, divided and uncertain. I don’t really get the parallels we here often try to draw. It’ll be GE2024, not a rerun of 97 or 92 or whatever.
I apologise to Brexiteers, I was wrong and they were right about Brexit leading to a chain reaction of other countries wanting to take back control from their unelected rulers.
King dealt Commonwealth blow as two nations threaten to cut ties
Jamaica and Belize hint at dropping the monarch as head of state, with the latter claiming it could hold referendum as early as 2024
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
It was always a funny old world where the Conservatives controlled places like Middlesbrough and Stoke. Thatcher could only dream of such things.
These are just signs of a return to a more normal (post Brexit) politics?
Thatcher regularly won Langbaurgh which is South Middlesbrough
Is that the Yorkshire bit?
The greatest Tory PM is Ted Heath for rightly taking the Smoggies out of Yorkshire.
Mr. Pioneers, if they did ditch Sunak and re-install Boris Johnson then I might well end up voting Labour. I definitely wouldn't be voting Conservative.
Absolutely no surprises to see a Tory shellacking today.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Your suggested remedy sounds a lot like Trussism... I don't suppose any of us needs reminding how that turned out, but I'd be delighted if the tories gave it another go.
In the quiet moments of today, just imagine how much worse it would have been for the Tories with PM Truss still in Downing Street, still waging her war with Mr Market....
I try to but I can't imagine any circumstances in which Truss is still PM. The political and economic trajectory of her administration was so precipitous, there is no plausible scenario where she would have made it to now.
One thing I miss though is her PMQ performances. It was so refreshing to hear answers to the questions, rather than the evasion, bluster and playground insults of Sunak and Johnson.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
In 97 the UK was a confident country on the up, economically and culturally - Blair’s message of optimistic change and progression couldn’t have found more fertile territory.
We’re a way off that now. Depressed, divided and uncertain. I don’t really get the parallels we here often try to draw. It’ll be GE2024, not a rerun of 97 or 92 or whatever.
At the moment it looks more 2010 in reverse than 1997 with Starmer more Cameron or Wilson 1964 than Blair 1997
I'm confused (leave it!). Tories on here seem to not actually like the party, or the people in charge. Who do you actually want in charge?
Thatcher, Cameron, and Osborne.
I reflected this morning that all the work that Cameron and Osborne did to shed the Tories of their nasty party image, look modern and be trusted enough to govern has been systematically thrown away since 2019.
Right now the Tories look nasty, out of touch and incompetent. It's a bad cocktail.
I’ve been saying on here for ages that the key polling number is Labour+LibDem+Green. The results so far explain why.
Less than 20 months to go. Good riddance to them.
I think that is the general feeling now.
Sunak is much better than the two monstrosities that preceded him, but there is a limit to how far you can change the line up to clean off the bad smell.
I just think they’ve run out of road, as all governments do in the end. In truth I think the Truss disaster was the thing that ended it for them, and there was no real way back for them at that point absent a Labour self-immolation.
But a note of some caution: locals are different to GEs and I suspect there’ll be a number of voters who have sat on their hands this time who would still hold their nose and vote Tory in a GE. Retaining power is pretty much unthinkable right now, but the scale of the loss (and whether Labour get an overall majority) is still to be fully decided.
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
The tell will be what happens in the rest of the Blue and Red walls today. So far we have seen incursions against you by whichever party is best placed to defeat you. Labour wins against you in Middlesbrough, Stoke, Medway have to put the pulse racing a little, no?
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
It was always a funny old world where the Conservatives controlled places like Middlesbrough and Stoke. Thatcher could only dream of such things.
These are just signs of a return to a more normal (post Brexit) politics?
Likely. Though status quo ante is not a result for decaying hellholes like Middlesbrough - they need rescuing. The Tories promised these red wall rust belt towns the moon on a stick. Brexit and the Oven Ready Deal would see their lives improve, put a bit more money in their pockets and see pride come back into their communities.
And then the reverse has happened. So understandably ever larger numbers of people want the Tories out. They aren't stupid, they don't like being lied to. But then again Labour who had presided over some of these places since the Danelaw had let them go to ruin beforehand. "Its all the Tories fault, vote Labour" is no longer going to work.
Starmer's challenge is to actually turn some of these places around. Deliver actual levelling up projects. And investment is available - an ocean of public cash spent on Teesside, its just that it's all being handed over to a small number of the right people and not the town. Boro was refused tens of millions because the council wanted the money to be accountable and the mayor said it could only go to his no scrutiny cash in brown envelope operation...
The Conservatives have lost a third of their council seats so far – a hammering by any standard. If that trend continues the party is likely to post a final tally that rivals the debacle of 1995 that left them limping towards a massacre at the general election two years later.
I just switched on the radio and it seems your overnight Tory optimism was misplaced. We are apparently looking at results worst than anyone rxpeced. So it's looks like it's back to the psephological drawing board....
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems, back then.
500 to 1000 losses about the same as Labour suffered in 2007 but still better than the over 1000 losses May had in 2019 or the over 2000 losses Major had in 1995.
Sir Keir will be glad Labour have gained bellwether councils like Medway, Stoke and Plymouth but the results suggest they are heading for largest party in a hung parliament or small Labour majority but not a Labour landslide like 1997. For instance Harlow and Basildon and Redditch, which Blair won in 1997, have stayed blue
How's your confident call that the Tories would be winning seats from the Lib Dems panning out at this early stage, out of interest?
I know it doesn't quite work like this but if the Conservatives lose the same proportion of MPs as they have currently lost councillors then at the next General Election they will be left with 230 MPS.
Might not be a bad shout for a punt actually.
And with 20 ish seats in Scotland Labour's current proportion of gains would see them at around 360 MPs.
A period of silence from you would be welcome.
We are all tired of your hyberbolic bullshit and you seem to have absolutely no shame in totally changing your tune on here this morning as the results come in.
What you should have done is admitted you got it wrong. But you don't have the integrity to do that it seems.
On the contrary, @Heathener is right and it is the Tory reckoning predicted.
As the 2019 Local elections occurred in the year of Brexit paralysis, with the LDs pushing "Bollocks to Brexit", I did wonder if we may have seen high tide. It seems though that even more of Remania is moving our way.
No, I don't think so. There's nothing in these results to imply that the Conservatives will do worse than in 1997, which is what she was predicting for a long time.
I know it doesn't quite work like this but if the Conservatives lose the same proportion of MPs as they have currently lost councillors then at the next General Election they will be left with 230 MPS.
Might not be a bad shout for a punt actually.
And with 20 ish seats in Scotland Labour's current proportion of gains would see them at around 360 MPs.
A period of silence from you would be welcome.
We are all tired of your hyberbolic bullshit and you seem to have absolutely no shame in totally changing your tune on here this morning as the results come in.
What you should have done is admitted you got it wrong. But you don't have the integrity to do that it seems.
On the contrary, @Heathener is right and it is the Tory reckoning predicted.
As the 2019 Local elections occurred in the year of Brexit paralysis, with the LDs pushing "Bollocks to Brexit", I did wonder if we may have seen high tide. It seems though that even more of Remania is moving our way.
On the contrary, @Heathener is totally wrong. He/she has been saying a total extinction/wipeout/landslide is coming with 30% leads and all sorts of crap.
Don't encourage his/her hyperbolic spin just because you perceive someone to be on your side and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Otherwise I will extend my perception of lack of integrity to you too.
Mr. Pioneers, if they did ditch Sunak and re-install Boris Johnson then I might well end up voting Labour. I definitely wouldn't be voting Conservative.
You might not! And it would be *mental*. But if the ship is sinking, rats start attacking other rats...
I'm dreading the result in St Albans City and District. The Yellow Peril already run the area and now they are intent on putting the Tories on the endangered list. The local Tory MP is doing the chicken run so Harpenden looks like joining St Albans as a Lib Dem parliamentary seat.
I may have to consider exile to avoid the dreaded Yellow Peril. Even Windsor is now no go area !!!!
Looks like the Tories are being battered everywhere tbh. Plymouth, Medway and Stoke good results for Labour to pick out 3 working class places.
I think Anthony King will be getting up from his grave to comment on this one.
It looks to me like the Conservatives are heading for about 850 losses.
A rotten result, but actually *not* on a par with those of the mid 90's. The Conservatives have held onto councils that they lost quite comprehensively to Labour and the Lib Dems. back then.
The electorate want the Tories out, badly, but are not as enamoured by Starmer as they were by Blair.
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
In 97 the UK was a confident country on the up, economically and culturally - Blair’s message of optimistic change and progression couldn’t have found more fertile territory.
We’re a way off that now. Depressed, divided and uncertain. I don’t really get the parallels we here often try to draw. It’ll be GE2024, not a rerun of 97 or 92 or whatever.
Yes, and that is a real challenge for any government. Economic and social optimism is at its lowest since the late Seventies, and no North Sea Oil bonanza to fund a solution.
We are the new Argentina, only with fewer football trophies.
I'm dreading the result in St Albans City and District. The Yellow Peril already run the area and now they are intent on putting the Tories on the endangered list. The local Tory MP is doing the chicken run so Harpenden looks like joining St Albans as a Lib Dem parliamentary seat.
I may have to consider exile to avoid the dreaded Yellow Peril. Even Windsor is now no go area !!!!
Given that the Conservatives are only defending one ward in St Albans Council, ie Harpenden South, are you expecting that ward to turn yellow as well?
Comments
Breaking:
John Curtice says local election results are ‘unambiguously bad’ for Tories and they could lose 1,000 seats
‘The clear message of the night is indeed that the Conservatives have done badly’
Their vote share is down on May 2019 so far
Which is a pretty low bar.
If Starmer gets to 347 MPs he will have won more than Blair in 97
They can’t even “stop the boats” because they’ve totally trashed the immigration system. Probably best not to promise things like that when you don’t have the basic services in place to support policy
Slightly dishonest to spin it's nothing to do with him.
* actually probably Coke, being a self confessed Coke addict.
Might not be a bad shout for a punt actually.
In some places that means Labour. In others LibDem. In others Green. Look at the councils where the Tories have lost them to NOC. They are not going to remain in power as a strong minority backed by the odd independent. They are out - Lab/LD/Green comfortably beats them.
Yes the Tories still have pockets of strength. But so did the Wermacht in March 1945.
Hopeless, aimless leadership which stands for nothing appeals to no-one shocker.
Tories need to find a new leader: one who believes in something, and isn't obsessed with financial products and gimmicks like help to buy, furlough etc.
Go for growth. Cut taxes. Believe in freedom, and Britain. Build some goddamn homes.
Sunak will blame this all on his predecessors. But he is wrong. I've seen his power draining away outside of Westminster already. Westminster usually follows after a short delay.
Amazing he didn't have space for Kwarteng in his cabinet, really.
“Moscow feels rupee accumulation is 'not desirable' […] The rupee is not fully convertible”
Or, it can keep paying with rupees.
Or stop buying Russian oil at a discount to world prices. Looks like they have you over a barrel, Putin.
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1654168074411552768
https://youtu.be/nO_fXajyzek
One reason why I think they're going to fare even worse at the GE (and said so yesterday) is that Sunak is fading. He has literally nothing.
During the GE campaign he will be found wanting. He not only doesn't like being put under pressure with awkward questions, he also has a fair bit of murkiness in his locker. Either way, he is empty. A manager, but devoid of political charisma.
Again, I'm not saying Starmer is brilliant but the bar is a low one to beat.
But its not all about Labour. The other parties have conspired against you - look at Worcester where had people just voted Labour in seats they couldn't win you would likely have clung on in a minority. But they voted *against* you and that's a drop from power to third place. In Worcester!
As @rcs1000 has pointed out before, beyond a score or so of seats, the swing (or tactical vote) required is quite large.
The Conservatives' big losses in 1995 came after big losses in 1991, but the Conservatives had performed well in the local elections of 1983 and 1987 (all part of the same cycle).
That's the difference.
Suggests a small Labour majority to me rather than a landslide.
Greens should always be something of a coalition though, and green issues cut across the political spectrum.
The Lib Dems are doing well, but still not really close to their performance pre-2010, let alone in the 1990's..
Don't be a dickhead.
I may have to consider exile to avoid the dreaded Yellow Peril. Even Windsor is now no go area !!!!
We are all tired of your hyberbolic bullshit and you seem to have absolutely no shame in totally changing your tune on here this morning as the results come in.
What you should have done is admitted you got it wrong. But you don't have the integrity to do that it seems.
https://twitter.com/drjennings/status/1654349653742108675?s=46
It suggests the LLG vote is becoming much more efficient. Labour advancing most in the marginal red wall and Essex/Kent seats, Tories going backwards most in the remain areas where Lib Dems are strongest.
An unwind of the two FPTP trends that boosted Cameron and his successors looks in the offing: Labour’s collapse in Scotland, and the Lib Dems’ 2015 post coalition collapse in the South and SW.
are reflecting just how seismic the result in Plymouth was. Tories just one seat of 19. Labour had 15 wins, best result since 1995, before Tony Blair became PM!
https://twitter.com/CouncillorTudor/status/1654343437347442688
Yes, by way of comparison, Labour had a dreadful set of local election results in 1967-69, 1976-79, and 2006-09, but still recovered to a respectable defeat in each subsequent general election.
That's exactly what's happened here.
I’ve been saying on here for ages that the key polling number is Labour+LibDem+Green. The results so far explain why.
These are just signs of a return to a more normal (post Brexit) politics?
King dealt Commonwealth blow as two nations threaten to cut ties
Jamaica and Belize hint at dropping the monarch as head of state, with the latter claiming it could hold referendum as early as 2024
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/05/04/king-charles-commonwealth-jamaica-belize-vote-cut-ties/
It's Boris isn't it? The "cut taxes" it catastrofucked the economy, so they can't go for Truss or followers of Truss. There isn't really anyone with umph on the right / populist wing standing out as leadership material. I'd quite like to see a Tory party led by Badenoch but fat chance.
Which leaves Boris. "Cleared" by the forthcoming report as being only guilty of being stupid (as nobody explicitly told him not to party and he didn't know it was wrong). The arch populist who will say literally anything to be liked. The man who the vox pops from wavering red wall seats want back (see the Sky piece from Stockton earlier this week).
When it happens, remember that I called it on here ages ago. Resurrecting Boris would be mad, bad and dangerous for Britain. But when you are desperate, mad and bad sound better than unemployed.
GBnews a bit of a problem for the Tories long term as it keeps radicalising the members.
Serves the sods right. Even if there was a case for doing so, the high-handed "we know best" attitude deserves being slapped down.
As the 2019 Local elections occurred in the year of Brexit paralysis, with the LDs pushing "Bollocks to Brexit", I did wonder if we may have seen high tide. It seems though that even more of Remania is moving our way.
Looking back, it's probably something government should have started during the pandemic (rather than, say, Eat out to help out) in order to boost the economy.
We’re a way off that now. Depressed, divided and uncertain. I don’t really get the parallels we here often try to draw. It’ll be GE2024, not a rerun of 97 or 92 or whatever.
By contrast most former Commonwealth Realms became Republics or got their own head of state between 1945 and 2000 ie well before Brexit
Mr. Pioneers, if they did ditch Sunak and re-install Boris Johnson then I might well end up voting Labour. I definitely wouldn't be voting Conservative.
Right now the Tories look nasty, out of touch and incompetent. It's a bad cocktail.
Sunak is much better than the two monstrosities that preceded him, but there is a limit to how far you can change the line up to clean off the bad smell.
I just think they’ve run out of road, as all governments do in the end. In truth I think the Truss disaster was the thing that ended it for them, and there was no real way back for them at that point absent a Labour self-immolation.
But a note of some caution: locals are different to GEs and I suspect there’ll be a number of voters who have sat on their hands this time who would still hold their nose and vote Tory in a GE. Retaining power is pretty much unthinkable right now, but the scale of the loss (and whether Labour get an overall majority) is still to be fully decided.
And then the reverse has happened. So understandably ever larger numbers of people want the Tories out. They aren't stupid, they don't like being lied to. But then again Labour who had presided over some of these places since the Danelaw had let them go to ruin beforehand. "Its all the Tories fault, vote Labour" is no longer going to work.
Starmer's challenge is to actually turn some of these places around. Deliver actual levelling up projects. And investment is available - an ocean of public cash spent on Teesside, its just that it's all being handed over to a small number of the right people and not the town. Boro was refused tens of millions because the council wanted the money to be accountable and the mayor said it could only go to his no scrutiny cash in brown envelope operation...
Long way to go though!
Serbia: eight killed in second mass shooting in days, with attacker on the run
Police searching for attacker who fired automatic weapon from a moving vehicle in town south of Belgrade, injuring a further 13
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/05/serbia-eight-killed-in-second-mass-shooting-in-days-with-attacker-on-the-run
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2023/england/councils/E07000147
Don't encourage his/her hyperbolic spin just because you perceive someone to be on your side and the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Otherwise I will extend my perception of lack of integrity to you too.
We are the new Argentina, only with fewer football trophies.
They got everything they deserved and good riddance