Former Labour councillor defects to Reform – politicalbetting.com
Former Labour councillor defects to Reform – politicalbetting.com
Getting your first MP via defection really shouldn’t count. It’s like losing your virginity to a prostitute. https://t.co/LadQo3PQ9U
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#BritainWillAlwaysEndure
The real moral here is that, however stupid and nasty a party goes in search of votes, it won't be stupid and nasty enough for some. (I'm a bit surprised that RefUK were willing to take him. Normally, they keep a veneer of plausible deniability.)
We have heard the before, with Douglass 'What Are Tides' Carswell and Mark 'Reckless' Reckless.
I'll believe it when I see it. I guess it's a different way to announce your retirement.
(I am pretty sure she’s not dead or absent, FWIW, but it is all grimly amusing)
Such that, after the incoming catastrophic defeat, they can rebuild their party as one fit for sensible voters to support.
AND if so, Kate or Wills's stunt double? OR a double-double??
BTW, seems that AI-mills are on track to exceed carbon consumption of crypto-factories.
Burn baby burn!
I'm not confident of Rushcliffe holding, unless Ruth Edwards is as special as Ken Clarke was. Perhaps trams etc in metro-Nottingham are absorbing Rushcliffe as they are Hucknall.
Newark CC 21,816 Robert Jenrick
Mansfield CC 16,306 Ben Bradley
Sherwood CC 16,186 Mark Spencer
Bassetlaw CC 14,013 Brendan Clarke-Smith
Rushcliffe CC 7,643 Ruth Edwards
Ashfield CC 5,733 Lee Anderson
Broxtowe CC 5,331 Darren Henry
Gedling CC 679 Tom Randall
My "max 7" changing was based on one of the top 4 holding, since the difference in majorities is quite stark with the bottom 4. On a punt I'd perhaps say one of Mansfield/Bassetlaw or Newark/Sherwood, dependent perhaps on whether Working Class or Middle Class Tories are the loyal ones.
Jenrick is controversial, as is Mrs Henry (PCC who got herself banned from driving within weeks of getting the job as PCC). Bradley is evaluated through the lens of Notts CC, so is Mr Pothole. Clarke-Smith I do not know other than as a Red Wall Tory noise machine.
Think Lee Anderson is making a mistake not forcing a by-election. He'd probably win and give a big boost to Reform. In fact he prob has more chance of holding seat at general if he does.
https://twitter.com/robertshrimsley/status/1767174386149175729
Not sure if that would work - if Lee Anderson was only suspended from the Tories, wouldn't it be the govt whip who'd be responsible for moving the writ? If so, I could see them choosing to spin it out for ages...
(May be wrong on that.)
I'm not convinced he'd win a by-election, though. Carswell and Reckless could at least plausibly say there was a policy basis - Cameron's failure to either reform the EU or offer an option to leave constituted a breach of a policy promise (albeit he was tied by the Lib Dems in Coalition at that time).
What's Anderson's cover for it really? He's been kicked out for being a bit racist, and RefUK have given him a home. I think he'd be squeezed by Labour saying they are the only real option for change, and Ashfield Independent saying he's a genuinely independent, strong voice for the area while Anderson was Tory deputy Chairman until five minutes ago.
Probably has more chance if he waits for a GE. Although he may not care and be happy with the pay cheque from GBeebies.
I did respect when UKIP had by elections after decections, but have no issue not doing so, especially so close to the end.
Why? To help ensure that GOPer Garvey, and NOT another Democratic, namely Katie Porter, ended up in 2nd place.
Thus increasing the odds, that come November California's new US Senator will be Adam Schiff.
But any MP can move the writ; it's only convention that it's the ex-MP's party (or former party). In this case, where his party no longer has representation in the House, I think it'd be fair game for any party to move it. The Tories would have a tough job arguing against it on procedural grounds.
The Swiss have dealt with that by trying to have a castrated foreign policy - arguably like the Irish.
I don't think that is up to scratch for the current era, and involves hiding behind other countries.
(Edit: no)
Frank Hester, who has given £10m to the Tories in the past year, said in the meeting that he did not hate all black women. But he also said that seeing Abbott, who is Britain’s longest-serving black MP, on TV meant “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there”.
He also called all his “foreign” workers together to defend himself against online claims that he had made racist remarks. During this meeting he said he abhorred racism and told his team their progress would not be “based on the colour of your skin, your ethnicity, where your parents are from”. However, he also said “we take the piss out of the fact that all our Chinese girls sit together in Asian corner”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/11/biggest-tory-donor-looking-diane-abbott-hate-all-black-women
It must be borne in mind that many of these MPs are not long-term loyalists and probably never expected to get this far. As far as they are concerned one last throw of the dice might just save them and, if it doesn't, they are damaging a PM they loathe. Seems like a win-win.
It may not be nine, but I would not be surprised if three or four crossed the floor.
No wonder they all WANTED to go to England
It had better blooming well not be November.
The government should be stepping in as Blair did when they totally misread the mood after Diana's death. But Sunak does not have the authority and probably would not know what to do even if he had it.
An alleged firearms expert, who proceeded to wave around allegedly unloaded weapons and/or facsimiles, WITHOUT demonstrating they were unloaded. At one point actually pointing what looked like a old-time hand-gun directly at the judge, as the front row of spectators in the courtroom ducked.
Very persuasive testimony . . . . for the prosecution.
However, Johnson had American citizenship until whenever, if he even did get round to renouncing it. There were all sorts of rumours about Sunak's American visa / residency rights and what have you. And Truss is now deeply embedded in the American right movement. So it's nothing new.
My hunch now is that poor Kate’s surgery has been really serious and has left her looking really weird and puffy faced to a disturbing extent and she simply doesn’t want to be seen like that. Which is highly understandable. Who would?
But the public clamour means they have to show something so it’s either Papp shots where you can barely see her - or badly composited AI images
Also, while one shouldn't go solely by appearance, his photo doesn't look like the face of a man you'd want to trust with your medical records.
I don't think that fence-sitting is adequate as a recommended constitutional option. It may be viable as an aspirational honest-broker between tectonic plates.
(Some people can apparently do this unaided. I certainly can’t but it’s not implausible that someone is able to do this. Children probably more so since they tend to be more flexible than adults.)
Taken by experimental, also temperamental and overworked photo-bot. Or maybe I broke the camera?
The fact that Trump libeled @ejeancarrol on @CNBC @SquawkCNBC is highly significant for a procedural reason in addition to a substantive one.
Were E. Jean to sue Trump just for the speech he gave in northwest Georgia the other day, she probably would have had to sue in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
But now that he libeled her on Squawk Box, which is anchored in Manhattan, she likely may now sue in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
If she does that, the case would be assigned to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan as a case related to the earlier two cases that produced $88.3 million in damages awards.
https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1767214377881489575
Is THAT photo real, or AI generated?
Edit: On second thought, how do we know it's not an actress/body double, etc?
Is THAT photo real, or AI generated?
Wonders chinless AND brainless never cease their gnawing of the House of Windsor from within.
https://twitter.com/rubynaldrett/status/1767184942859997400
There’s obviously something going on but, given the range of plausible medical reasons, I don’t think we necessarily have a right to know what it is. They have managed to completely stuff up the PR management though.
Would make sense to me, and TSE, and most of PB!
https://x.com/TheStefanSmith/status/1767191732368867811?s=20
I’m struggling to see a downside apart from needing to improve my French
The previous Parliament peaked at 10, I think: 8 elected at the general election, plus 2 from defections (if we count The Independents as a party). The 2015 election saw 11 parties elected (a record?), but I don't think the number ever increased. The closest was, therefore, the 2014-5 period at 12 parties in the Commons. The 2010 general had seen 10 parties elected and then 2 won seats at by-elections. There were 11 parties before the 2010 general.
I think you have to go back to the '30s for similar numbers. The 1931 election is complicated: there are National government MPs elected under 5 different labels, there are 3 flavours of Labour affiliated MPs, the Lloyd George group, and Irish Nationalists. So, should we count that as 4 or 9 parties?
I can do it if I lightly rest my ring finger on a surface as Louis is doing.
From the picture, Hester has chubbed up a fair bit since I last saw him (research even some years back - I spoke to him only very briefly and didn't form a personal view on him).
start there.
I wonder why... ?
As I commented earlier today, if you were calling an election on May 2nd you would need to announce it before March 26th so any day from next Tuesday (19th) onwards
It is soothing. Join me for a custard apple in the cloisters
(1) America is ungovernable;
(2) Those who serve a revolution plough the sea;
(3) The only thing you can do in America is leave it;
(4) This country will fall inevitably in the hands of the unbridled masses and then pass almost imperceptibly into the hands of petty tyrants, of all colours and races;
(5) Once we have been devoured by every crime and extinguished by utter ferocity, even the Europeans will not regard us as worth conquering;
(6) If it were possible for any part of the world to revert to primitive chaos, it would be America
Glimpses of Haiti in that final clause
And what about Gove's efforts to ban government interactions with extremists, when his party has taken millions from a racist who says a back woman MP should be shot? The hypocrisy is sickening.