Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Honestly, I’m not sure it’s that easy. The LibDems have been down and out for a decade. I’m sympathetic to @Sean_F ’s view that the anti Tory tsunami was helped by a sizeable number of previous Tory voters registered a protest. I will be curious to see if they swing back immediately. What is clear to me is that the Tories need to swing away from the right to stand any chance.
The Bedford mayor result shows that the "anti tory vote" was sometimes very inefficient.
The fact is that the most efficient way to defeat Conservatives is for all the "anti tories" to just vote Labour!
So I’d be curious to know why the vote failed to organise itself in Bedford, but managed to do so pretty much everywhere else.
If the Tories can bottle what happened in Bedford and spread that around, they’ll hang on next time.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Honestly, I’m not sure it’s that easy.
It really is. The local election results in England have the anti-tory Lab-LibDem vote at 55%. That's identical to the last 3 national opinion polls, it's just that at national level Labour are polling c. high 40's and the LibDems single figures.
People like me who are naturally Labour voted LibDem at local level because they had more chance of winning, which they did. It really, really, isn't rocket science.
Even if you don't believe this, the other way of looking at it is the Cons vote share. Apart from the occasional scrape to 30%, they are polling in the high 20's (the last 3 national polls have been 29, 29, 27). That's the same as the locals which was 29% on the NEV.
Would the Conservatives have held on to more councillors if Labour had got an NEV in the high forties?
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Honestly, I’m not sure it’s that easy. The LibDems have been down and out for a decade. I’m sympathetic to @Sean_F ’s view that the anti Tory tsunami was helped by a sizeable number of previous Tory voters registered a protest. I will be curious to see if they swing back immediately. What is clear to me is that the Tories need to swing away from the right to stand any chance.
The Bedford mayor result shows that the "anti tory vote" was sometimes very inefficient.
The fact is that the most efficient way to defeat Conservatives is for all the "anti tories" to just vote Labour!
So I’d be curious to know why the vote failed to organise itself in Bedford, but managed to do so pretty much everywhere else.
If the Tories can bottle what happened in Bedford and spread that around, they’ll hang on next time.
My first guess is that it is a genuine 3 way marginal, and there aren't so many of these around.
But it also shows there are lots of voters who prefer another option to Conservative or Labour, and defeating the Conservative is NOT the first priority for a big chunk. If it was the overriding priority of most LLG voters then like I said, the easiest thing to do is just vote Labour.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Unlike you @Sean_F knows what he's talking about and his analysis is widely respected on here.
You just see your job to get up early to tub-thumb for your team.
I see that we hear at last from that leadership rival:
"Cracks in Conservative unity already began on Friday with Rehman Chishti, a former leadership contender, criticising Suella Braverman’s rhetoric on immigration.
“The comments that we had from the home secretary, the rhetoric that she applies to certain faiths and diverse communities, is damaging to our communities and also it damages the community relations. It feeds into the far right,” he told Sky News."
It is not clear whether the Telegraph's headline-writer bothered to read the story which is more balanced and includes: Huw Merriman, a transport minister, said constituents were complaining to him about “older news about former prime ministers”.
Not entirely untrue in the detail of the article. High taxes (that keep going up) were the reason I almost stayed at home and definitely the reason I didn't campaign or donate.
It was only the prospect of crowing Lefties, which I knew I wouldn't be able to bear well if I hadn't voted, that got me out there and the fact that my existing Councillor is quite good.
That has nothing to do with the leadership. Boris would be even worse and even shitter in delivery. Essentially, Sunak has to give something to vote for and steady administration (whilst essential) isn't on its own going to be enough.
I’m not sure Woke and Boats are ‘it’ either. The former doesn’t really move the dial, and the latter is visibly failing.
Anti-Woke only bothers those who are quite Woke - it's the one thing I think the Tories are doing quite well on, and pushing back on. .
Of course you do. And you exemplify why your party took a hammering yesterday and why it is going to take a hammering at the GE.
You've got a real nerve commenting on anything given your belief of a landslide wiping out all life on earth wasn't at all supported by the evidence yesterday.
You should have apologised and admitted to getting it wrong, which is what the bigger man/woman would have done, but you still cleave to it and persist in trashtalking anyone who produces analysis to say otherwise, despite being far better qualified to comment than you'll ever be.
Brighton Council’s new Labour leader responds to Brighton’s Green MP:
Thanks for the congratulations. But your Party has been a disaster for our City. An unmitigated disaster. And they needed to be kindly shown the door. A relief for us all.
For the second time in my lifetime I awake on coronation day and while being ambivalent to the monarchy there are many millions for whom today is historic and very special and I hope they have a wonderful day
Turning to politics the conservatives had a terrible day and it should not have surprised anyone after the debacle of the Johnson/ Truss time, and they need to unite behind Sunak and not listen to the siren voices bemoaning the eviction from office of Johnson
As for labour a good result but seemingly confirmation that Starmer has not yet sealed the deal with most commentators suggesting he may well become PM leading a minority government
It would be churlish not to recognise the spectacular success of the lib dems and greens which should provide red flag warnings for both the conservatives and labour
I am content with yesterday's result and would suggest that next year's GE , now almost certainly in October, could spin out any result but I would predict a labour government in coalition with the lib dems as a very real possibility and perfectly acceptable to me
I would just like to send my sincere congratulations to @NickPalmer on winning yesterday, and while we are not on the same page politically, he is a credit to politics, is a really nice person, and made a hilarious admission on here some weeks ago that has gone down in PB history
It is not clear whether the Telegraph's headline-writer bothered to read the story which is more balanced and includes: Huw Merriman, a transport minister, said constituents were complaining to him about “older news about former prime ministers”.
Not entirely untrue in the detail of the article. High taxes (that keep going up) were the reason I almost stayed at home and definitely the reason I didn't campaign or donate.
It was only the prospect of crowing Lefties, which I knew I wouldn't be able to bear well if I hadn't voted, that got me out there and the fact that my existing Councillor is quite good.
That has nothing to do with the leadership. Boris would be even worse and even shitter in delivery. Essentially, Sunak has to give something to vote for and steady administration (whilst essential) isn't on its own going to be enough.
I’m not sure Woke and Boats are ‘it’ either. The former doesn’t really move the dial, and the latter is visibly failing.
Anti-Woke only bothers those who are quite Woke - it's the one thing I think the Tories are doing quite well on, and pushing back on.
They've totally failed to get a grip on the Boats. It's possible that it's impossible - and they've calculated crowing about Rwanda incessantly will lose them less votes than admitting it - but I think the Albanian problem has largely gone away to be replaced by Indians (WTF?) so to the extent it can be solved maybe it's really a game of bilateral whack-a-mole.
Think you’re wrong. It would be a mistake for the Tories to wage a culture war. The mood music is very much of the centre. The Tories need to remember their Cameron compassionate conservatism. The age of extremes is over, for now.
A culture war is when the other side puts up resistance to what would otherwise be a walkover.
The Tories have challenged the reaction to BLM and to Trans rights. If they hadn't, all the statues would have come down, "woman" would have become meaningless, we'd be paying slavery reparations, most White professionals would have had to go courses where they'd be encouraged to admit their bias and privilege - regardless of background, and Stonewall would still be proselytising radical gender politics across the civil service and large businesses.
By doing so they have forced SKS to change his position too. That is leadership and a success.
Good luck everyone. I’ve been laid up with a Coronation lurgy so I shall watch it propped against pillows in my Bangkok hotel room. It’s probably better than standing in 5 hours of rain
We’re gonna argue like hyenas on meth about the monarchy, but this - to me - is undeniably moving
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Brexit made LDs inclined to support a Con government or to tactically vote Con a vanishing breed.
It is not clear whether the Telegraph's headline-writer bothered to read the story which is more balanced and includes: Huw Merriman, a transport minister, said constituents were complaining to him about “older news about former prime ministers”.
Not entirely untrue in the detail of the article. High taxes (that keep going up) were the reason I almost stayed at home and definitely the reason I didn't campaign or donate.
It was only the prospect of crowing Lefties, which I knew I wouldn't be able to bear well if I hadn't voted, that got me out there and the fact that my existing Councillor is quite good.
That has nothing to do with the leadership. Boris would be even worse and even shitter in delivery. Essentially, Sunak has to give something to vote for and steady administration (whilst essential) isn't on its own going to be enough.
I’m not sure Woke and Boats are ‘it’ either. The former doesn’t really move the dial, and the latter is visibly failing.
Anti-Woke only bothers those who are quite Woke - it's the one thing I think the Tories are doing quite well on, and pushing back on.
They've totally failed to get a grip on the Boats. It's possible that it's impossible - and they've calculated crowing about Rwanda incessantly will lose them less votes than admitting it - but I think the Albanian problem has largely gone away to be replaced by Indians (WTF?) so to the extent it can be solved maybe it's really a game of bilateral whack-a-mole.
Think you’re wrong. It would be a mistake for the Tories to wage a culture war. The mood music is very much of the centre. The Tories need to remember their Cameron compassionate conservatism. The age of extremes is over, for now.
A culture war is when the other side puts up resistance to what would otherwise be a walkover.
The Tories have challenged the reaction to BLM and to Trans rights. If they hadn't, all the statues would have come down, "woman" would have become meaningless, we'd be paying slavery reparations, most White professionals would have had to go courses where they'd be encouraged to admit their bias and privilege - regardless of background, and Stonewall would still be proselytising radical gender politics across the civil service and large businesses.
By doing so they have forced SKS to change his position too. That is leadership and a success.
Tories going on about woke remind me of Corbynites talking about Palestine.
Leaving the actual issues and their merits aside. Both are sincerely and passionately held beliefs, but neither really resonating as a kitchen sink issue that swings voters.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
For the second time in my lifetime I awake on coronation day and while being ambivalent to the monarchy there are many millions for whom today is historic and very special and I hope they have a wonderful day
Turning to politics the conservatives had a terrible day and it should not have surprised anyone after the debacle of the Johnson/ Truss time, and they need to unite behind Sunak and not listen to the siren voices bemoaning the eviction from office of Johnson
As for labour a good result but seemingly confirmation that Starmer has not yet sealed the deal with
It would be churlish not to recognise the spectacular success of the lib dems and greens which should provide red flag warnings for both the conservatives and labour
I am content with yesterday's result and would suggest that next year's GE , now almost certainly in October, could spin out any result but I would predict a labour government in coalition with the lib dems as a very real possibility and perfectly acceptable to me
I would just like to send my sincere congratulations to @NickPalmer on winning yesterday, and while we are not on the same page politically, he is a credit to politics, is a really nice person, and made a hilarious admission on here some weeks ago that has gone down in PB history
“… most commentators suggesting he may well become PM leading a minority government…”
Can you point me to a few? I think I’ve found one so far.
Wow. Ukrainian air force commander now states they did intercept Russia’s “unintereceptable” hypersonic kinzhal missile on may 4 using Patriot battery. There was confusion about this yesterday.
For the second time in my lifetime I awake on coronation day and while being ambivalent to the monarchy there are many millions for whom today is historic and very special and I hope they have a wonderful day
Turning to politics the conservatives had a terrible day and it should not have surprised anyone after the debacle of the Johnson/ Truss time, and they need to unite behind Sunak and not listen to the siren voices bemoaning the eviction from office of Johnson
As for labour a good result but seemingly confirmation that Starmer has not yet sealed the deal with
It would be churlish not to recognise the spectacular success of the lib dems and greens which should provide red flag warnings for both the conservatives and labour
I am content with yesterday's result and would suggest that next year's GE , now almost certainly in October, could spin out any result but I would predict a labour government in coalition with the lib dems as a very real possibility and perfectly acceptable to me
I would just like to send my sincere congratulations to @NickPalmer on winning yesterday, and while we are not on the same page politically, he is a credit to politics, is a really nice person, and made a hilarious admission on here some weeks ago that has gone down in PB history
“… most commentators suggesting he may well become PM leading a minority government…”
Can you point me to a few? I think I’ve found one so far.
It was the impression I had after catching up on the news after being involved all day with my son in law in a DIY project
Certainly I did not hear or read an endorsement that Starmer will win a majority
Happy Coronation/Wedding Day to everyone. Some great election results yesterday, congrats to everyone who took part. Win or lose, democracy in action is always a good thing to be a part of. God save the King, and I hope the Republicans among us can at least enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend.
Well I got Guildford wrong. I predicted the Tories would get wiped out in their enclave leaving them with 1 seat. They were, losing all the seats there, BUT they made lots of gains against the Indies giving them net gains. I predicted the only way this was going to happen was if the Indie/LD vote split letting the Tories through. That is what appears to have happened, but I thought that might be at the expense of the LDs. On the contrary the LDs made gains to win the council and it was the Indies who lost out. In my ward the Indies won handsomely so local bias probably impacted me. I had no inside knowledge of this election and was not involved at all..
For the second time in my lifetime I awake on coronation day and while being ambivalent to the monarchy there are many millions for whom today is historic and very special and I hope they have a wonderful day
Turning to politics the conservatives had a terrible day and it should not have surprised anyone after the debacle of the Johnson/ Truss time, and they need to unite behind Sunak and not listen to the siren voices bemoaning the eviction from office of Johnson
As for labour a good result but seemingly confirmation that Starmer has not yet sealed the deal with
It would be churlish not to recognise the spectacular success of the lib dems and greens which should provide red flag warnings for both the conservatives and labour
I am content with yesterday's result and would suggest that next year's GE , now almost certainly in October, could spin out any result but I would predict a labour government in coalition with the lib dems as a very real possibility and perfectly acceptable to me
I would just like to send my sincere congratulations to @NickPalmer on winning yesterday, and while we are not on the same page politically, he is a credit to politics, is a really nice person, and made a hilarious admission on here some weeks ago that has gone down in PB history
“… most commentators suggesting he may well become PM leading a minority government…”
Can you point me to a few? I think I’ve found one so far.
It was the impression I had after catching up on the news after being involved all day with my son in law in a DIY project
Certainly I did not hear or read an endorsement that Starmer will win a majority
That’s not what you said. You said most commentators are suggesting Sunak could well become PM leading a minority government. Can you point me to a few?
I understand the reasons to be sceptical about a LD revival that would take them back to c. 50 seats at the next GE. However, two things were really clear from yesterday’s results: 1) people want the Tories out of power, and 2) there is only grudging endorsement and little enthusiasm for Labour. In the absence of alternatives, the LDs are going to be the obvious beneficiaries.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
I don't think they were ever that out of favour. Remember 10 years ago we had a Conservative and LD coalition government with Cameron as PM and Clegg his deputy.
We had a brief period when Labour flirted with the hard left under Corbyn now ended under the more moderate Starmer and under Boris and Truss the Tories moved to the more populist right post Brexit but even Boris got SDP support to be Oxford Union President and Truss was once a LD and Rishi is on the more moderate wing of the Tories
I held my seat in the expanded Binscombe and Charterhouse ward, which added the formerly very Conservative Charterhouse ward. Overall the fact that no non-Tory party had put up full slates led to a massive defeat for the Tories, who dropped 13 seats. The main beneficiaries were the LIbDems, who gained 8, though the Greens missed out by just 4 votes in one seat and Labour overtook the Tories in three Farnham wards to come close behind the Farnham Residents.
Generally the Greens had a strange night, with the amazing gains in Hertfordshire and Suffolk but lossese elsewhere, notably Brighton and Hove to Labour; in my patch they are down to a single councillor despite several close races.
Congratulations Nick, very pleased for you.
A septuagenarian whose public service we can universally applaud.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Honestly, I’m not sure it’s that easy. The LibDems have been down and out for a decade. I’m sympathetic to @Sean_F ’s view that the anti Tory tsunami was helped by a sizeable number of previous Tory voters registered a protest. I will be curious to see if they swing back immediately. What is clear to me is that the Tories need to swing away from the right to stand any chance.
The Bedford mayor result shows that the "anti tory vote" was sometimes very inefficient.
The fact is that the most efficient way to defeat Conservatives is for all the "anti tories" to just vote Labour!
If you are going to take such a purist line, the most efficient way to defeat Conservatives is for all the "anti tories" to all vote for the same party, whichever it might be.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
Doesn't seem like more than a year since we lost her. Sigh.
For the second time in my lifetime I awake on coronation day and while being ambivalent to the monarchy there are many millions for whom today is historic and very special and I hope they have a wonderful day
Turning to politics the conservatives had a terrible day and it should not have surprised anyone after the debacle of the Johnson/ Truss time, and they need to unite behind Sunak and not listen to the siren voices bemoaning the eviction from office of Johnson
As for labour a good result but seemingly confirmation that Starmer has not yet sealed the deal with most commentators suggesting he may well become PM leading a minority government
It would be churlish not to recognise the spectacular success of the lib dems and greens which should provide red flag warnings for both the conservatives and labour
I am content with yesterday's result and would suggest that next year's GE , now almost certainly in October, could spin out any result but I would predict a labour government in coalition with the lib dems as a very real possibility and perfectly acceptable to me
I would just like to send my sincere congratulations to @NickPalmer on winning yesterday, and while we are not on the same page politically, he is a credit to politics, is a really nice person, and made a hilarious admission on here some weeks ago that has gone down in PB history
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
It is not clear whether the Telegraph's headline-writer bothered to read the story which is more balanced and includes: Huw Merriman, a transport minister, said constituents were complaining to him about “older news about former prime ministers”.
Not entirely untrue in the detail of the article. High taxes (that keep going up) were the reason I almost stayed at home and definitely the reason I didn't campaign or donate.
It was only the prospect of crowing Lefties, which I knew I wouldn't be able to bear well if I hadn't voted, that got me out there and the fact that my existing Councillor is quite good.
That has nothing to do with the leadership. Boris would be even worse and even shitter in delivery. Essentially, Sunak has to give something to vote for and steady administration (whilst essential) isn't on its own going to be enough.
I’m not sure Woke and Boats are ‘it’ either. The former doesn’t really move the dial, and the latter is visibly failing.
Anti-Woke only bothers those who are quite Woke - it's the one thing I think the Tories are doing quite well on, and pushing back on.
They've totally failed to get a grip on the Boats. It's possible that it's impossible - and they've calculated crowing about Rwanda incessantly will lose them less votes than admitting it - but I think the Albanian problem has largely gone away to be replaced by Indians (WTF?) so to the extent it can be solved maybe it's really a game of bilateral whack-a-mole.
Think you’re wrong. It would be a mistake for the Tories to wage a culture war. The mood music is very much of the centre. The Tories need to remember their Cameron compassionate conservatism. The age of extremes is over, for now.
A culture war is when the other side puts up resistance to what would otherwise be a walkover.
The Tories have challenged the reaction to BLM and to Trans rights. If they hadn't, all the statues would have come down, "woman" would have become meaningless, we'd be paying slavery reparations, most White professionals would have had to go courses where they'd be encouraged to admit their bias and privilege - regardless of background, and Stonewall would still be proselytising radical gender politics across the civil service and large businesses.
By doing so they have forced SKS to change his position too. That is leadership and a success.
Tories going on about woke remind me of Corbynites talking about Palestine.
Leaving the actual issues and their merits aside. Both are sincerely and passionately held beliefs, but neither really resonating as a kitchen sink issue that swings voters.
And, yet, resonating enough with voters to cause SKS to change his tone and Nicola Sturgeon to lose her job.
I have no objection to how the Conservatives are performing on this issue. It's the one thing they're delivering on.
However, you are right it's not enough to win an election nor should it be front and centre.
I see that we hear at last from that leadership rival:
"Cracks in Conservative unity already began on Friday with Rehman Chishti, a former leadership contender, criticising Suella Braverman’s rhetoric on immigration.
“The comments that we had from the home secretary, the rhetoric that she applies to certain faiths and diverse communities, is damaging to our communities and also it damages the community relations. It feeds into the far right,” he told Sky News."
The leadership contest isn't really on until Captain Mordaunt, RNR takes her No.2 rig to Dege & Skinner to be let out two sizes. That's the sign.
Is anyone sufficiently delusional to want to seize the leadership away from Sunak ahead of their general election defeat ? Another change of leader would make that significantly more certain than it is now.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Also Edward VII was under a Conservative / Liberal Unionist Coalition. Conservative PM admittedly but not technically speaking a Conservative Government. You can argue amongst yourselves over that one.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Honestly, I’m not sure it’s that easy. The LibDems have been down and out for a decade. I’m sympathetic to @Sean_F ’s view that the anti Tory tsunami was helped by a sizeable number of previous Tory voters registered a protest. I will be curious to see if they swing back immediately. What is clear to me is that the Tories need to swing away from the right to stand any chance.
The Bedford mayor result shows that the "anti tory vote" was sometimes very inefficient.
The fact is that the most efficient way to defeat Conservatives is for all the "anti tories" to just vote Labour!
So I’d be curious to know why the vote failed to organise itself in Bedford, but managed to do so pretty much everywhere else.
If the Tories can bottle what happened in Bedford and spread that around, they’ll hang on next time.
My first guess is that it is a genuine 3 way marginal, and there aren't so many of these around.
But it also shows there are lots of voters who prefer another option to Conservative or Labour, and defeating the Conservative is NOT the first priority for a big chunk. If it was the overriding priority of most LLG voters then like I said, the easiest thing to do is just vote Labour.
On these figures the easiest way to defeat the Tory was to vote LibDem Tory 15,747 LDem 15,602 Lab 11,568
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
The key is to dry the spinach thoroughly or it all gets too soggy, apparently.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
True, but it had an absolute Conservative majority built-in as well as a Conservative PM.
No coronation has ever been held under a Labour government.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
I hope you're using lard in the pastry ? And bunging some bacon in for flavour.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Also Edward VII was under a Conservative / Liberal Unionist Coalition. Conservative PM admittedly but not technically speaking a Conservative Government. You can argue amongst yourselves over that one.
So basically if you want to keep your monarch safe you need to vote Labour (or at the very least keep Truss out)
Occurs to me that Aleister Crowley would be revelling in the coronation. He knew the overwhelming psychic importance of apparently pointless ritual. The older the better
It is ritual magic. It is athames and sacred orbs and incomprehensible unguents from Jerusalem
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
True, but it had an absolute Conservative majority built-in as well as a Conservative PM.
No coronation has ever been held under a Labour government.
Will William V be the first?
Nostradamus apparently predicted that Charles won't last very long but will be succeeded by someone unexpected. But DYOR, obvs.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
Here it's gusty and drizzly, and the weather people forecast this weather is heading for London....
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
There hasn't been a coronation under a government that's not solidly Conservative since 1936, then.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
Yep, that’ll require more commitment and dedication than camping out on the Mall all night in the rain. It really does sound revolting.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Also Edward VII was under a Conservative / Liberal Unionist Coalition. Conservative PM admittedly but not technically speaking a Conservative Government. You can argue amongst yourselves over that one.
So basically if you want to keep your monarch safe you need to vote Labour (or at the very least keep Truss out)
Could this be the thing that tempts @TSE to vote Tory?
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
True, but it had an absolute Conservative majority built-in as well as a Conservative PM.
No coronation has ever been held under a Labour government.
Will William V be the first?
Nostradamus apparently predicted that Charles won't last very long but will be succeeded by someone unexpected. But DYOR, obvs.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
The Conservatives will need to find their moderate wing first, which probably requires exhumation. Sunak is what counts as a pragmatic moderate in the current Conservative party, but at any time before about 2018, he would have been seen as a conventional dry Thatcherite- the heir to someone like Peter Lilley.
There undoubtedly are traditional one nation wets in the party, but it's hard to think who, exactly. I think it will happen, nature, vacuums et cetera, but the road back for the soft right is going to be harder than it was for the soft left after the Corbyn debacle.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Also Edward VII was under a Conservative / Liberal Unionist Coalition. Conservative PM admittedly but not technically speaking a Conservative Government. You can argue amongst yourselves over that one.
You could of course make a similar case for Asquith. True, he was on C and S but the Irish tail was wagging the Liberal dog by this point.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
I hope you're using lard in the pastry ? And bunging some bacon in for flavour.
That would be to derogate from the instruction that has been passed down to me by my sovereign.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
True, but it had an absolute Conservative majority built-in as well as a Conservative PM.
No coronation has ever been held under a Labour government.
Will William V be the first?
Nostradamus apparently predicted that Charles won't last very long but will be succeeded by someone unexpected. But DYOR, obvs.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
We ended up watching a documentary last night on George V, somewhat hyperbolically called the Tyrant King. Generally very popular to the masses but more than a bit of a bully to his family, apparently. It got worse as he got older, the only one who could melt his heart was his granddaughter Lilibeth, Some excellent footage with her learning about duty and discipline at her granddad's knee. What a stunning piece of history she was. I will be missing her again today as we fuss about her slightly awkward son.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
I note that criminal investigations of some of those involved in the miscarriage of justice are still ongoing. Is anything likely to come of them, or are the police just keeping them open for show ?
Occurs to me that Aleister Crowley would be revelling in the coronation. He knew the overwhelming psychic importance of apparently pointless ritual. The older the better
It is ritual magic. It is athames and sacred orbs and incomprehensible unguents from Jerusalem
Much of this stretches back to the Anglo-Saxon Kings in the 8th Century. Some of it even has its roots in the Old Testament.
It is truly humbling.
Today is going to be a show the likes of which we've never seen in our lifetimes. Almost every country in the world has sent either their Head of State or a very senior representative. Billions will tune in.
I see that we hear at last from that leadership rival:
"Cracks in Conservative unity already began on Friday with Rehman Chishti, a former leadership contender, criticising Suella Braverman’s rhetoric on immigration.
“The comments that we had from the home secretary, the rhetoric that she applies to certain faiths and diverse communities, is damaging to our communities and also it damages the community relations. It feeds into the far right,” he told Sky News."
The leadership contest isn't really on until Captain Mordaunt, RNR takes her No.2 rig to Dege & Skinner to be let out two sizes. That's the sign.
Is anyone sufficiently delusional to want to seize the leadership away from Sunak ahead of their general election defeat ? Another change of leader would make that significantly more certain than it is now.
You would have to be utterly delusional, have an unhealthy degree of personal ambition to sit in the big chair, not give a fig what the voters think and be heedless for the effect of your actions on the party that gave you a career.
I can think of one man who fits the bill perfectly.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
I hope you're using lard in the pastry ? And bunging some bacon in for flavour.
That would be to derogate from the instruction that has been passed down to me by my sovereign.
Wow. Ukrainian air force commander now states they did intercept Russia’s “unintereceptable” hypersonic kinzhal missile on may 4 using Patriot battery. There was confusion about this yesterday.
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
Eating it is the real test of allegiance
I'll be well-oiled by then.
Will you sing Zadok the Priest as arranged by Ian Hislop?
Occurs to me that Aleister Crowley would be revelling in the coronation. He knew the overwhelming psychic importance of apparently pointless ritual. The older the better
It is ritual magic. It is athames and sacred orbs and incomprehensible unguents from Jerusalem
Much of this stretches back to the Anglo-Saxon Kings in the 8th Century. Some of it even has its roots in the Old Testament.
It is truly humbling.
Today is going to be a show the likes of which we've never seen in our lifetimes. Almost every country in the world has sent either their Head of State or a very senior representative. Billions will tune in.
Those who miss it will later regret it.
Yes, you must have ZERO interest in history, religion, politics, music, architecture, pageantry to be determined to miss this. Even if you utterly loathe the monarchy it’s simply fascinating
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
I hope you're using lard in the pastry ? And bunging some bacon in for flavour.
That would be to derogate from the instruction that has been passed down to me by my sovereign.
[It is bloody tempting though]
The quiche sounds quite disgusting. I wouldn't bother. Get a nice piece of skirt from your local butcher and I will send you the recipe for cooking it in a way which makes an absolutely delicious meal. You can use the broad beans and spinach as vegetables.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Which gives me an excuse for my families Royal anecdote.
For Empire Day in the early Thirties the Palace was looking to round up some respectable Colonials for the garden party. For reasons lost to time they latched onto my Grandfather and Grandmother, who had recently arrived from Australia. My Granny was very excited to meet King George and Queen Mary, so booked a Mayfair hotel to stay in the night before.
On the day of the party, she was in her finest dress, but the fly in the ointment was that my Grandpa had packed his formal dress, but omitted his dress shirt. Granny was mortified and sent him off with a flea in his ear to an appropriate outfitter. Time ticked on and she was getting rather flustered.
Eventually he returned, and dressed hurriedly under further Australian-Scottish scolding. They stepped out of the hotel and hailed a taxi, "Buckingham Palace, and step on it". The cabbie took off at speed, and swept through the front gate, and deposited them at the front door. They got out, and the cabbie departed. At that point, already late, they realised that they should have gone to the garden entrance. Fortunately a bemused footman appeared and shepherded them through to the right bit, some distance away.
The few remaining sandwiches were rather curled, but Queen Mary an excellent hostess it seems. Grandpa never lived it down and always carried a spare shirt in the future.
Occurs to me that Aleister Crowley would be revelling in the coronation. He knew the overwhelming psychic importance of apparently pointless ritual. The older the better
It is ritual magic. It is athames and sacred orbs and incomprehensible unguents from Jerusalem
Much of this stretches back to the Anglo-Saxon Kings in the 8th Century. Some of it even has its roots in the Old Testament.
It is truly humbling.
Today is going to be a show the likes of which we've never seen in our lifetimes. Almost every country in the world has sent either their Head of State or a very senior representative. Billions will tune in.
Those who miss it will later regret it.
Yes, you must have ZERO interest in history, religion, politics, music, architecture, pageantry to be determined to miss this. Even if you utterly loathe the monarchy it’s simply fascinating
Sounds like an absolute yawnfest. And the coverage is guaranteed be unwatchably obsequious to anyone with any sense of decency.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
There hasn't been a coronation under a government that's not solidly Conservative since 1936, then.
...and quite right too!
One's heart does bleed for Boris Johnson. Out of office for just the year and missing out on both the Queen's funeral and the Coronation. Not one, but two Prime Ministers shared the limelight for these seminal moments and not one of them was called Johnson.
I see that we hear at last from that leadership rival:
"Cracks in Conservative unity already began on Friday with Rehman Chishti, a former leadership contender, criticising Suella Braverman’s rhetoric on immigration.
“The comments that we had from the home secretary, the rhetoric that she applies to certain faiths and diverse communities, is damaging to our communities and also it damages the community relations. It feeds into the far right,” he told Sky News."
The leadership contest isn't really on until Captain Mordaunt, RNR takes her No.2 rig to Dege & Skinner to be let out two sizes. That's the sign.
Is anyone sufficiently delusional to want to seize the leadership away from Sunak ahead of their general election defeat ? Another change of leader would make that significantly more certain than it is now.
You would have to be utterly delusional, have an unhealthy degree of personal ambition to sit in the big chair, not give a fig what the voters think and be heedless for the effect of your actions on the party that gave you a career.
I can think of one man who fits the bill perfectly.
Occurs to me that Aleister Crowley would be revelling in the coronation. He knew the overwhelming psychic importance of apparently pointless ritual. The older the better
It is ritual magic. It is athames and sacred orbs and incomprehensible unguents from Jerusalem
Much of this stretches back to the Anglo-Saxon Kings in the 8th Century. Some of it even has its roots in the Old Testament.
It is truly humbling.
Today is going to be a show the likes of which we've never seen in our lifetimes. Almost every country in the world has sent either their Head of State or a very senior representative. Billions will tune in.
Those who miss it will later regret it.
Yes, you must have ZERO interest in history, religion, politics, music, architecture, pageantry to be determined to miss this. Even if you utterly loathe the monarchy it’s simply fascinating
Moreover there is an equally ancient British tradition of not taking this too seriously. We see that on the cover of Private Eye. The coronation offers something for everyone.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
You evidently had a very good day, Ms Cyclefree. Good to read.
I’ll have a look at the Post Office story; IMHO it’s high time PC Plod came calling.
I intend to celebrate my birthday today with Eldest Grandson and his wife and baby, Great Grandson One! (Not that there are more gt.grandchildren yet, nor do we expect any more soon!)
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
I note that criminal investigations of some of those involved in the miscarriage of justice are still ongoing. Is anything likely to come of them, or are the police just keeping them open for show ?
I doubt it. The police will wait until the inquiries are over and then it will be too late. I also think it's a bit of a sideshow. There is lots of fault here - many of it, I'm sorry to say, from the lawyers involved. Fundamentally, the state and its organs behaved very badly indeed and are now compounding their original faults with how they are dealing with the inquiries and compensation. They are adding cruelty to injustice.
There is a complete absence of JFDI urgency. Badenoch is the Business Minister responsible for this wretched organisation. This ought to be top of her in-tray and were I her I'd be kicking arses from here to eternity every day until this got resolved.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
You evidently had a very good day, Ms Cyclefree. Good to read.
I’ll have a look at the Post Office story; IMHO it’s high time PC Plod came calling.
I intend to celebrate my birthday today with Eldest Grandson and his wife and baby, Great Grandson One! (Not that there are more gt.grandchildren yet, nor do we expect any more soon!)
What kind of name is Great Grandson One? In any case, have a wonderful day.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
You evidently had a very good day, Ms Cyclefree. Good to read.
I’ll have a look at the Post Office story; IMHO it’s high time PC Plod came calling.
I intend to celebrate my birthday today with Eldest Grandson and his wife and baby, Great Grandson One! (Not that there are more gt.grandchildren yet, nor do we expect any more soon!)
I'm feeling a little tinge of sadness this morning. I know the Coronation should be a day of celebration, but I'm thinking that this day has come about because a woman who diligently served her country for decades died.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
I making the quiche.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
That sounds a bit er, French to me. Shouldn't we be celebrating the Coronation of a German heritage King with Coronation Currywurst?
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
There hasn't been a coronation under a government that's not solidly Conservative since 1936, then.
...and quite right too!
One's heart does bleed for Boris Johnson. Out of office for just the year and missing out on both the Queen's funeral and the Coronation. Not one, but two Prime Ministers shared the limelight for these seminal moments and not one of them was called Johnson.
On such occasions any decent country puts its Johnson away.
I see that we hear at last from that leadership rival:
"Cracks in Conservative unity already began on Friday with Rehman Chishti, a former leadership contender, criticising Suella Braverman’s rhetoric on immigration.
“The comments that we had from the home secretary, the rhetoric that she applies to certain faiths and diverse communities, is damaging to our communities and also it damages the community relations. It feeds into the far right,” he told Sky News."
The leadership contest isn't really on until Captain Mordaunt, RNR takes her No.2 rig to Dege & Skinner to be let out two sizes. That's the sign.
Is anyone sufficiently delusional to want to seize the leadership away from Sunak ahead of their general election defeat ? Another change of leader would make that significantly more certain than it is now.
You would have to be utterly delusional, have an unhealthy degree of personal ambition to sit in the big chair, not give a fig what the voters think and be heedless for the effect of your actions on the party that gave you a career.
I can think of one man who fits the bill perfectly.
Only one?
Only one man. Though when it comes down to it, I can imagine even Truss going for the "let Rishi take the hit and I'll rebuild in opposition before winning in 2029" option.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
You evidently had a very good day, Ms Cyclefree. Good to read.
I’ll have a look at the Post Office story; IMHO it’s high time PC Plod came calling.
I intend to celebrate my birthday today with Eldest Grandson and his wife and baby, Great Grandson One! (Not that there are more gt.grandchildren yet, nor do we expect any more soon!)
The chief executive of the Post Office has apologised for paying himself and other senior officers unapproved bonuses relating to the Horizon IT Inquiry into how more than 700 Post Office workers were wrongly prosecuted for stealing company money.
The Post Office’s annual financial report also states that the payments were signed off by Sir Wyn, which they were not.
After a solicitor to the inquiry, Segun Jide, wrote to the Post Office to seek clarification on this, Mr Read, apologised and said he would return his bonus.
In his letter on behalf of the Post Office addressed to Sir Wyn, Mr Read admitted that it had failed to seek approval on the payments, which he conceded was an “unacceptable error on our part”.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
I note that criminal investigations of some of those involved in the miscarriage of justice are still ongoing. Is anything likely to come of them, or are the police just keeping them open for show ?
I doubt it. The police will wait until the inquiries are over and then it will be too late. I also think it's a bit of a sideshow. There is lots of fault here - many of it, I'm sorry to say, from the lawyers involved. Fundamentally, the state and its organs behaved very badly indeed and are now compounding their original faults with how they are dealing with the inquiries and compensation. They are adding cruelty to injustice.
There is a complete absence of JFDI urgency. Badenoch is the Business Minister responsible for this wretched organisation. This ought to be top of her in-tray and were I her I'd be kicking arses from here to eternity every day until this got resolved.
So many of those whose lives were wrongfully shattered are dead already. It is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in our history and should be Badenoch's absolute priority.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
There hasn't been a coronation under a government that's not solidly Conservative since 1936, then.
1937.
There were some MPs elected as National Liberals in the government in 1953, but by then all were sitting dually as Conservatives.
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
There hasn't been a coronation under a government that's not solidly Conservative since 1936, then.
...and quite right too!
One's heart does bleed for Boris Johnson. Out of office for just the year and missing out on both the Queen's funeral and the Coronation. Not one, but two Prime Ministers shared the limelight for these seminal moments and not one of them was called Johnson.
On such occasions any decent country puts its Johnson away.
Half of Westminster abbey is taken up by former PMs and their partners.
Mr. B2, sadly, the desire to slim things down a bit means the traditional coronation act of ceremonially flinging the biggest political numpty of the era into the North Sea from a gilded trebuchet will not occur this time around.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
I don't think they were ever that out of favour. Remember 10 years ago we had a Conservative and LD coalition government with Cameron as PM and Clegg his deputy.
We had a brief period when Labour flirted with the hard left under Corbyn now ended under the more moderate Starmer and under Boris and Truss the Tories moved to the more populist right post Brexit but even Boris got SDP support to be Oxford Union President and Truss was once a LD and Rishi is on the more moderate wing of the Tories
and Hitler was once a painter...
What a load of tosh you come out with sometimes!
He does. But I believe it is sincere tosh, which is rather endearing in its way.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
You evidently had a very good day, Ms Cyclefree. Good to read.
I’ll have a look at the Post Office story; IMHO it’s high time PC Plod came calling.
I intend to celebrate my birthday today with Eldest Grandson and his wife and baby, Great Grandson One! (Not that there are more gt.grandchildren yet, nor do we expect any more soon!)
My youngest was also 25 yesterday. 25!! He is starting work shortly on an interesting energy project - all about reducing dependence on Russian energy. He is pretty excited about it.
The Post Office story is monstrous. The more I read the worse it gets.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
I don't think they were ever that out of favour. Remember 10 years ago we had a Conservative and LD coalition government with Cameron as PM and Clegg his deputy.
We had a brief period when Labour flirted with the hard left under Corbyn now ended under the more moderate Starmer and under Boris and Truss the Tories moved to the more populist right post Brexit but even Boris got SDP support to be Oxford Union President and Truss was once a LD and Rishi is on the more moderate wing of the Tories
and Hitler was once a painter...
What a load of tosh you come out with sometimes!
He does. But I believe it is sincere tosh, which is rather endearing in its way.
Have to say that the R&T and Curtice modelling feel odd to me. While they’ve probably got the Tories right, the share to Lib Dems and others seems quite overstated.
I get that they’re models - and actually the seat count for the LDs might be closer than the share prediction - but they just feel oddly dissonant to me. So many places - there are notable exceptions, but by far the rule - have seen the Tories get utterly smashed, and crucially the SNP are doing their level best to become as unappealing as possible.
Quite obviously the LDs and Greens do well at Locals compared to nationally, and certainly the LDs are strongly back in England now.
In a GE though I think the LD and Green votes will be down by half, with Labour getting most of the benefit, Labour being unobjectional if uninspiring.
Politics is interesting again, but confusing from an ideological point of view. .
The LDs did very well, but beyond a bit of residual pro EU vibes I have absolutely no idea what they stand for. There is nothing there beyond being anti Tory.
Labour have been rowing back from the Corbyn years, but are yet to galvanise their new vision. Nevertheless they have won convincingly.
The Tories seem stuck between waging a vicious culture war and the last vestiges compassionate conservatism, whilst trying to gather some remnants of competence from the ashes of Truss/Johnson. Total failure.
Even the Greens seem halfway between the radical far left and cosy middle class feel good environmentalism.
The Greens in Brighton was sub optimal I feel sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were booted out.
Sussex as microcosm is especially interesting .
The big towns swung to Labour, a few miles away the more rural bit swung heavily to the Lib Dems. Just a few miles apart you see very different patterns.
The folk memory of who is the challenger seems to be decisive, but that is such an ephemeral thing.
Either way it seems centrism, social democracy and liberalism are firmly back in fashion after an age of extremes. The Tories need to remember their more moderate wing.
Either way we can be sure the results will confirm the pre-existing beliefs that people already had.
I suspect competence, exasperation and time for a change was a bigger factor than political ideology in almost all cases.
Whilst I’m delighted at the outcome, I am curious about the mechanism. How did people know which direction to jump to unseat the Tory? Not everyone was voting the last time tactical anti Tory voting dominated. It can’t all be folk memory, but yet somehow the perfect pattern emerged. Was it tactical voting websites? It’s not obvious when you think about it.
No it's really easy. You just go on any number of websites from electoral calculus to the bbc, type in your postcode, and see the results from last time.
Although I'm a newbie in Teignbridge it took me 5 seconds to work out that my Labour leanings wouldn't defeat the tories so I voted for 3 LibDems.
I will vote Labour at the GE because my Newton Abbot constituency is more Con-Lab marginal.
@Sean_F claimed yesterday that more LibDem voters will vote tory at the next GE than Labour. Of all the most fantastical posts on pb.com, that leads the way. Almost none of us who voted LibDem on Thursday will be placing our cross in a tory box thanks!
Honestly, I’m not sure it’s that easy.
It really is. The local election results in England have the anti-tory Lab-LibDem vote at 55%. That's identical to the last 3 national opinion polls, it's just that at national level Labour are polling c. high 40's and the LibDems single figures.
People like me who are naturally Labour voted LibDem at local level because they had more chance of winning, which they did. It really, really, isn't rocket science.
Even if you don't believe this, the other way of looking at it is the Cons vote share. Apart from the occasional scrape to 30%, they are polling in the high 20's (the last 3 national polls have been 29, 29, 27). That's the same as the locals which was 29% on the NEV.
Would the Conservatives have held on to more councillors if Labour had got an NEV in the high forties?
Not in the high 40s, but quite possibly in the low. Good thread on that here …
Politics and the coronation? Let's try and link the two.
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
Nope. George V’s in 1911, Liberal Govt, Asquith PM. Nice try though.
Ah shit, yeah. Good point.
Technically George VI was under a National government. Conservative led but including National Liberals and National Labour, and some National Independents.
There hasn't been a coronation under a government that's not solidly Conservative since 1936, then.
...and quite right too!
One's heart does bleed for Boris Johnson. Out of office for just the year and missing out on both the Queen's funeral and the Coronation. Not one, but two Prime Ministers shared the limelight for these seminal moments and not one of them was called Johnson.
On such occasions any decent country puts its Johnson away.
Half of Westminster abbey is taken up by former PMs and their partners.
How many former partners are allowed per former PM?
Of the seven coronations since 1760, one (1911) was held under a Liberal government, and two (1831 and 1838) under the Whigs. Every other one has been held under a Tory government of some form.
If I might be so bold, you were right first time with "completely pointless".
Four out of seven is broadly in line with, or slightly less than, what you might predict given the Tories have broadly been the most successful electoral force over the long term.
It's a fact that's almost startling in its dullness.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
I note that criminal investigations of some of those involved in the miscarriage of justice are still ongoing. Is anything likely to come of them, or are the police just keeping them open for show ?
I doubt it. The police will wait until the inquiries are over and then it will be too late. I also think it's a bit of a sideshow. There is lots of fault here - many of it, I'm sorry to say, from the lawyers involved. Fundamentally, the state and its organs behaved very badly indeed and are now compounding their original faults with how they are dealing with the inquiries and compensation. They are adding cruelty to injustice.
There is a complete absence of JFDI urgency. Badenoch is the Business Minister responsible for this wretched organisation. This ought to be top of her in-tray and were I her I'd be kicking arses from here to eternity every day until this got resolved.
So many of those whose lives were wrongfully shattered are dead already. It is one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in our history and should be Badenoch's absolute priority.
Agreed. If she wanted really to show herself a potential leader she should be onto this. If she doesn't then she gets nul points from me no matter how often she says she knows what a woman is.
Comments
If the Tories can bottle what happened in Bedford and spread that around, they’ll hang on next time.
That's massive. Bigger than the Platinum Jubilee or the Queen's funeral.
But it also shows there are lots of voters who prefer another option to Conservative or Labour, and defeating the Conservative is NOT the first priority for a big chunk. If it was the overriding priority of most LLG voters then like I said, the easiest thing to do is just vote Labour.
You just see your job to get up early to tub-thumb for your team.
You should have apologised and admitted to getting it wrong, which is what the bigger man/woman would have done, but you still cleave to it and persist in trashtalking anyone who produces analysis to say otherwise, despite being far better qualified to comment than you'll ever be.
I have next to no respect for you.
CON 409 (40.9%) 2019 -432 (52.4%)
LB DEM (me) 374 (37.4%). 2019- 323 (39.2%)
Labour. 150 (15.0%). 2019 - 70 (8.4%)
Green 58 (5.8%).
Turnout 42% both times
Bit disappointed! The Greens have helped the Conservatives hold on.
Thanks for the congratulations. But your Party has been a disaster for our City. An unmitigated disaster. And they needed to be kindly shown the door. A relief for us all.
https://twitter.com/bellasankey/status/1654658840372080642
First majority Labour council in nearly a quarter of a century…
For the second time in my lifetime I awake on coronation day and while being ambivalent to the monarchy there are many millions for whom today is historic and very special and I hope they have a wonderful day
Turning to politics the conservatives had a terrible day and it should not have surprised anyone after the debacle of the Johnson/ Truss time, and they need to unite behind Sunak and not listen to the siren voices bemoaning the eviction from office of Johnson
As for labour a good result but seemingly confirmation that Starmer has not yet sealed the deal with most commentators suggesting he may well become PM leading a minority government
It would be churlish not to recognise the spectacular success of the lib dems and greens which should provide red flag warnings for both the conservatives and labour
I am content with yesterday's result and would suggest that next year's GE , now almost certainly in October, could spin out any result but I would predict a labour government in coalition with the lib dems as a very real possibility and perfectly acceptable to me
I would just like to send my sincere congratulations to @NickPalmer on winning yesterday, and while we are not on the same page politically, he is a credit to politics, is a really nice person, and made a hilarious admission on here some weeks ago that has gone down in PB history
The Tories have challenged the reaction to BLM and to Trans rights. If they hadn't, all the statues would have come down, "woman" would have become meaningless, we'd be paying slavery reparations, most White professionals would have had to go courses where they'd be encouraged to admit their bias and privilege - regardless of background, and Stonewall would still be proselytising radical gender politics across the civil service and large businesses.
By doing so they have forced SKS to change his position too. That is leadership and a success.
We’re gonna argue like hyenas on meth about the monarchy, but this - to me - is undeniably moving
https://twitter.com/stompwompin/status/1654532385784975366?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
“Our Squaddie Lad is in this march and I couldn’t be prouder of him. ♥️
Good luck for tomorrow son and all who are taking part in the #Coronation
Cymru Am Byth.
🏴💂♀️🇬🇧”
Leaving the actual issues and their merits aside. Both are sincerely and passionately held beliefs, but neither really resonating as a kitchen sink issue that swings voters.
So whilst I wish Charles and Camilla all the best luck, part of my mind remembers and honours QEII.
If Charles is half the monarch his mum was, he will do well. And I think he will.
Can you point me to a few? I think I’ve found one so far.
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1654735876541362179?s=20
Certainly I did not hear or read an endorsement that Starmer will win a majority
God save the King, and I hope the Republicans among us can at least enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend.
Harborough NOC, and looking like a LD led Council now though.
What a load of tosh you come out with sometimes!
I think every coronation since Queen Victoria has been held under a Conservative government, without exception.
I think Queen Victoria was under a narrow Whig majority.
That's how much of a royalist I am.
I have no objection to how the Conservatives are performing on this issue. It's the one thing they're delivering on.
However, you are right it's not enough to win an election nor should it be front and centre.
Another change of leader would make that significantly more certain than it is now.
Tory 15,747
LDem 15,602
Lab 11,568
No coronation has ever been held under a Labour government.
Will William V be the first?
And bunging some bacon in for flavour.
The weather is quite good here. Yesterday we went to a Coronation Supper in our local village hall. It was very well attended, with great food, lots of wine, good conversation and much hilarity. There was a quiz which I won! Plus a raffle - another bottle of wine won - and lots of money raised for the local Hospice.
This evening we're going to see John Cooper Clarke in Barrow. And tomorrow the next village along is having a music and food festival in the main square, which should be fun.
I have never seen a coronation before and am unlikely to see one again so will watch the key bits in between doing some much needed gardening.
Incidentally, yesterday evening the Post Office buried a bit of pretty bad news about their behaviour in the inquiry which should, if there were any justice in this world, result in the entire current Board - along with their Company Secretary, Head of HR and GC - being sacked, none of them having the decency to do the honourable thing.
It is ritual magic. It is athames and sacred orbs and incomprehensible unguents from Jerusalem
There undoubtedly are traditional one nation wets in the party, but it's hard to think who, exactly. I think it will happen, nature, vacuums et cetera, but the road back for the soft right is going to be harder than it was for the soft left after the Corbyn debacle.
[It is bloody tempting though]
It is truly humbling.
Today is going to be a show the likes of which we've never seen in our lifetimes. Almost every country in the world has sent either their Head of State or a very senior representative. Billions will tune in.
Those who miss it will later regret it.
I can think of one man who fits the bill perfectly.
Patriot has been intercepting those for decades.
https://youtu.be/pJ_cNK77lPY
For Empire Day in the early Thirties the Palace was looking to round up some respectable Colonials for the garden party. For reasons lost to time they latched onto my Grandfather and Grandmother, who had recently arrived from Australia. My Granny was very excited to meet King George and Queen Mary, so booked a Mayfair hotel to stay in the night before.
On the day of the party, she was in her finest dress, but the fly in the ointment was that my Grandpa had packed his formal dress, but omitted his dress shirt. Granny was mortified and sent him off with a flea in his ear to an appropriate outfitter. Time ticked on and she was getting rather flustered.
Eventually he returned, and dressed hurriedly under further Australian-Scottish scolding. They stepped out of the hotel and hailed a taxi, "Buckingham Palace, and step on it". The cabbie took off at speed, and swept through the front gate, and deposited them at the front door. They got out, and the cabbie departed. At that point, already late, they realised that they should have gone to the garden entrance. Fortunately a bemused footman appeared and shepherded them through to the right bit, some distance away.
The few remaining sandwiches were rather curled, but Queen Mary an excellent hostess it seems. Grandpa never lived it down and always carried a spare shirt in the future.
I suspect security is rather tighter now.
One's heart does bleed for Boris Johnson. Out of office for just the year and missing out on both the Queen's funeral and the Coronation. Not one, but two Prime Ministers shared the limelight for these seminal moments and not one of them was called Johnson.
I’ll have a look at the Post Office story; IMHO it’s high time PC Plod came calling.
I intend to celebrate my birthday today with Eldest Grandson and his wife and baby, Great Grandson One!
(Not that there are more gt.grandchildren yet, nor do we expect any more soon!)
There is a complete absence of JFDI urgency. Badenoch is the Business Minister responsible for this wretched organisation. This ought to be top of her in-tray and were I her I'd be kicking arses from here to eternity every day until this got resolved.
The Post Office’s annual financial report also states that the payments were signed off by Sir Wyn, which they were not.
After a solicitor to the inquiry, Segun Jide, wrote to the Post Office to seek clarification on this, Mr Read, apologised and said he would return his bonus.
In his letter on behalf of the Post Office addressed to Sir Wyn, Mr Read admitted that it had failed to seek approval on the payments, which he conceded was an “unacceptable error on our part”.
There were some MPs elected as National Liberals in the government in 1953, but by then all were sitting dually as Conservatives.
New preprint on scGPT: first foundation large language model for single cell biology, pretrained on 10 million cells.
Just as text is made of words, cells are characterized by genes
Some thoughts on how cool this is & why it challenges the status quo of single cell analysis..
https://twitter.com/simocristea/status/1654581096498229250
The Post Office story is monstrous. The more I read the worse it gets.
https://twitter.com/beyond_topline/status/1654555734250602497?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ
Four out of seven is broadly in line with, or slightly less than, what you might predict given the Tories have broadly been the most successful electoral force over the long term.
It's a fact that's almost startling in its dullness.