The challenge of opposition is getting right the balance between getting noticed and being sensible and credible. Doing one or the other is easy; doing both is tough.
For the first couple of years being noticed is more important. It's only as the election approaches you need to appear credible.
The biggest part of being an opposition leader is probably being lucky enough to have the government struggling.
Without being a soothsayer, the economic and fiscal situation suggests Labour may well dip sharply after the election and a suitable subsequent honeymoon period.
Cumbria PCC result in among the earlier ones, and tells us, I think, quite a bit about the fate of the current Cumbria MPs (5 Tory, 0 Labour + Tim Farron.)
Labour win with 22% swing.
No other elections in Cumbria.
The PCCs are interesting I think because in the vast majority of cases the voters don’t know the candidate from Adam, don’t really know what they will do and don’t expect them to make much difference to policing either way, therefore they are more likely to vote on purely national party lines. Best indicator for the GE.
The only chat I've seen on a local FB group wasn't about the mayoralty, it was about our current PCC Caroline Henry. And it wasn't very complementary.
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
How many voters have any significant opinion on Hall or had one on Bailey? I read this political blog daily, live in London and know very little about either. I doubt more than 10% of the voters would even be able to recall Shaun Bailey as the previous candidate or identify him from a photo.
The vote is Labour/Tory and Khan/not Khan.
Bailey had more visibility in a better way, as a candidate, than Hall does.
He was a better candidate for London Mayor than she is.
The Tories worked out that their best chance was to hide Hall away as much as possible. That most Londoners do not know her or anything about her views is a significant advantage as it will have kept a lot of complacent Labour voters at home.
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
If Farage is serious about promoting RefUK as a Tory replacement/takeover he needs to saya so act now to rally enough candidates to cover virtually every GB seat.
His plan, for those who listen to him, is completing the reverse takeover of the Tories, not replacing them.
"If Reform do well and get a lot of votes and a reasonable representation of seats — and the Tories do very badly — then something very big is coming afterwards. Reform basically reverse took over the Conservatives and Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. If there was a model, it’s Canada. If it’s doable, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
But who are the people who are supposed to be 'taking over' and what different policies would they bring ?
Farage has always been successful at being against things but he's never had to advocate for an actual coherent political programme.
Farage is doing the takeover with whatever coat hangers want to ride his tails. Platform wise the biggest advantage he brings to the table is he would allow the Tories to quickly disown the last fourteen years of rubbish government.
But that's still being against things and not for something.
And who is going to think that an aged Farage and assorted fan boys would be any better at the actual governing.
They will be in opposition. And I for one, think Farage would be a more effictive opposition candidate than the likes of Badenoch, Patel, Cleverley et al.
Farage might work in the USA where its all about the individual leader but in this country he would be as ineffective as Corbyn.
Only without the chance of pulling a surprise from being an unknown factor as happened in 2017.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Also wants Boris Johnson role and reshuffle to get more from right of party into cabinet.
Boris doesn't want a role. Rishi has failed to recover things post Truss and must carry the bag for that regardless of the factors also at play, but Boris not being around is his own choice.
And whilst Rishi has been inconsistent he has gone pretty hard to the right on issues like Rwanda. What else can he attempt to please them?
Leave the ECHR? Sure, but not likely to swing many votes. Huge tax cuts? If they could they'd have done it already.
What might save Rishi in the short term are the reports that MPs who were out campaigning found no voter animosity towards the Prime Minister personally and therefore that simply replacing him will not produce a poll bounce.
The Tories are out of time. Yes they could roll the dice on a new leader. At best they will mitigate some defeat. But it isn’t going to change the facts that people just want them gone.
Should they roll the dice? Hard to say. I wouldn’t really blame them for trying.
Indeed. The calculation for Tory MP's is: Of course Labour will win the next election but how best can we mitigate the scale of the defeat?
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
Isn't it more that Labour is so dominant in London that it simply isn't possible to get Blackpool sized swings there? A big swing requires a lower starting position surely?
The Tory in 2021 received 35.3% in the first round and 44.8% in the second. There's a lot of votes there to lose to generate a large swing.
If we look at the swing on a proportional basis, rather than a uniform basis, then the swing since 2021 is for the Tories to be down by 45%, so that would put the Tory vote down around the 19-25% level, and Labour up by about half the vote the Tories lose, to well above 50%.
Cumbria PCC result in among the earlier ones, and tells us, I think, quite a bit about the fate of the current Cumbria MPs (5 Tory, 0 Labour + Tim Farron.)
Labour win with 22% swing.
No other elections in Cumbria.
The PCCs are interesting I think because in the vast majority of cases the voters don’t know the candidate from Adam, don’t really know what they will do and don’t expect them to make much difference to policing either way, therefore they are more likely to vote on purely national party lines. Best indicator for the GE.
Avon and Somerset PCC flipped to Labour too. It includes the Land of Mogg I think.
As Tories suffer ‘worst losses in 40 years’, Dame Andrea Jenkyns tells Radio 4 that the public are sick of the left’s “wokeist agenda”
It's amazing that the Tories spent a decade looking at Labour's introspective, self-indulgent, drift towards irrelevance and then decided that's the way they should go too.
The challenge of opposition is getting right the balance between getting noticed and being sensible and credible. Doing one or the other is easy; doing both is tough.
For the first couple of years being noticed is more important. It's only as the election approaches you need to appear credible.
The biggest part of being an opposition leader is probably being lucky enough to have the government struggling.
Without being a soothsayer, the economic and fiscal situation suggests Labour may well dip sharply after the election and a suitable subsequent honeymoon period.
Will there be any honeymoon? Labour's 1997 theme tune was 'Things can only get better.' Can't see many people feeling optimistic these days. Labour will stay comfortably ahead in the polls until people forget how much they hated this Conservative government. I predict 2 years.
As Tories suffer ‘worst losses in 40 years’, Dame Andrea Jenkyns tells Radio 4 that the public are sick of the left’s “wokeist agenda”
It's amazing that the Tories spent a decade looking at Labour's introspective, self-indulgent, drift towards irrelevance and then decided that's the way they should go too.
They took all the wrong lessons from the Brexit vote
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
If Farage is serious about promoting RefUK as a Tory replacement/takeover he needs to saya so act now to rally enough candidates to cover virtually every GB seat.
His plan, for those who listen to him, is completing the reverse takeover of the Tories, not replacing them.
"If Reform do well and get a lot of votes and a reasonable representation of seats — and the Tories do very badly — then something very big is coming afterwards. Reform basically reverse took over the Conservatives and Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. If there was a model, it’s Canada. If it’s doable, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
But who are the people who are supposed to be 'taking over' and what different policies would they bring ?
Farage has always been successful at being against things but he's never had to advocate for an actual coherent political programme.
Farage is doing the takeover with whatever coat hangers want to ride his tails. Platform wise the biggest advantage he brings to the table is he would allow the Tories to quickly disown the last fourteen years of rubbish government.
But that's still being against things and not for something.
And who is going to think that an aged Farage and assorted fan boys would be any better at the actual governing.
They will be in opposition. And I for one, think Farage would be a more effictive opposition candidate than the likes of Badenoch, Patel, Cleverley et al.
Farage might work in the USA where its all about the individual leader but in this country he would be as ineffective as Corbyn.
Only without the chance of pulling a surprise from being an unknown factor as happened in 2017.
Corbyn is a good comparison. He will get more votes for the Tories than any of the current leadership candidates, but also drive more votes for Labour too. But he will keep the party faithful engaged for a few years as Corbyn did.
Polling guru Sir John Curtice tells @BBCr4today : “You’re probably looking at one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years." 👀
The Tories are out of time. Yes they could roll the dice on a new leader. At best they will mitigate some defeat. But it isn’t going to change the facts that people just want them gone.
Should they roll the dice? Hard to say. I wouldn’t really blame them for trying.
Indeed. The calculation for Tory MP's is: Of course Labour will win the next election but how best can we mitigate the scale of the defeat?
Don't rule out a final roll of the dice...
If they lose both their arsehole mayors then Big Rish will have to go.
The councillors are just nobodies staring at potholes in local paper photographs but the mayors would be too big to ignore.
Cumbria PCC result in among the earlier ones, and tells us, I think, quite a bit about the fate of the current Cumbria MPs (5 Tory, 0 Labour + Tim Farron.)
Labour win with 22% swing.
No other elections in Cumbria.
The PCCs are interesting I think because in the vast majority of cases the voters don’t know the candidate from Adam, don’t really know what they will do and don’t expect them to make much difference to policing either way, therefore they are more likely to vote on purely national party lines. Best indicator for the GE.
The only chat I've seen on a local FB group wasn't about the mayoralty, it was about our current PCC Caroline Henry. And it wasn't very complementary.
Getting a driving ban for repeated speeding suggested stupidity, arrogance and an inability to learn lessons.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Also wants Boris Johnson role and reshuffle to get more from right of party into cabinet.
Boris doesn't want a role. Rishi has failed to recover things post Truss and must carry the bag for that regardless of the factors also at play, but Boris not being around is his own choice.
And whilst Rishi has been inconsistent he has gone pretty hard to the right on issues like Rwanda. What else can he attempt to please them?
Leave the ECHR? Sure, but not likely to swing many votes. Huge tax cuts? If they could they'd have done it already.
Cut red tape and reduce waste in the civil service.
The narrative is that Brexit has caused red-tape. Trying to reduce it just highlights that. The Tories "own" Brexit. It was what they were elected to do (the next GE will be the first outside the EEC/EC/EU since 1970) and the public are not enamoured with the results. So red-tape is a loser.
Reducing waste in the civil service has been a mainstay of Conservative platforms for as long as I've been alive. The issue with that is that it inevitably means a cut in public services. Other "waste" is just trimming the edges. So you are basically saying you'll cut public services further. Which, IMHO, is not a popular view at the moment.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
I think we can all agree that Rishi is useless, but the Tory litany of failure goes beyond one man. Indeed I suspect that is why they are performing quite so badly now, because people are fed up of the lot of them.
I’m not sure it’s possible for a new leader to rearrange the deckchairs to erase that feeling. Maybe put a softer spin on it (Mordaunt) or go all in and tray and claw back Reform votes (Baverman/Badenoch et al). But I don’t think it will change the overall trajectory - ie a defeat.
Indeed I suspect leadership contenders would be better focusing on their ground game and in the case of Mordaunt really working her seat from now until the GE.
That said, more generally and as I said above, I wouldn’t blame the wider party for trying.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Also wants Boris Johnson role and reshuffle to get more from right of party into cabinet.
Boris doesn't want a role. Rishi has failed to recover things post Truss and must carry the bag for that regardless of the factors also at play, but Boris not being around is his own choice.
And whilst Rishi has been inconsistent he has gone pretty hard to the right on issues like Rwanda. What else can he attempt to please them?
Leave the ECHR? Sure, but not likely to swing many votes. Huge tax cuts? If they could they'd have done it already.
Cut red tape and reduce waste in the civil service.
The narrative is that Brexit has caused red-tape. Trying to reduce it just highlights that. The Tories "own" Brexit. It was what they were elected to do (the next GE will be the first outside the EEC/EC/EU since 1970) and the public are not enamoured with the results. So red-tape is a loser.
Reducing waste in the civil service has been a mainstay of Conservative platforms for as long as I've been alive. The issue with that is that it inevitably means a cut in public services. Other "waste" is just trimming the edges. So you are basically saying you'll cut public services further. Which, IMHO, is not a popular view at the moment.
The question was what else can he attempt to do to please them (Tory right wing).
Not what can he actually do to please the wider electorate.
The Tories are out of time. Yes they could roll the dice on a new leader. At best they will mitigate some defeat. But it isn’t going to change the facts that people just want them gone.
Should they roll the dice? Hard to say. I wouldn’t really blame them for trying.
Indeed. The calculation for Tory MP's is: Of course Labour will win the next election but how best can we mitigate the scale of the defeat?
Don't rule out a final roll of the dice...
If they lose both their arsehole mayors then Big Rish will have to go.
The councillors are just nobodies staring at potholes in local paper photographs but the mayors would be too big to ignore.
I expect Street and Houchen to win and Rishi to survive
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Also wants Boris Johnson role and reshuffle to get more from right of party into cabinet.
Boris doesn't want a role. Rishi has failed to recover things post Truss and must carry the bag for that regardless of the factors also at play, but Boris not being around is his own choice.
And whilst Rishi has been inconsistent he has gone pretty hard to the right on issues like Rwanda. What else can he attempt to please them?
Leave the ECHR? Sure, but not likely to swing many votes. Huge tax cuts? If they could they'd have done it already.
Cut red tape and reduce waste in the civil service.
The narrative is that Brexit has caused red-tape. Trying to reduce it just highlights that. The Tories "own" Brexit. It was what they were elected to do (the next GE will be the first outside the EEC/EC/EU since 1970) and the public are not enamoured with the results. So red-tape is a loser.
Reducing waste in the civil service has been a mainstay of Conservative platforms for as long as I've been alive. The issue with that is that it inevitably means a cut in public services. Other "waste" is just trimming the edges. So you are basically saying you'll cut public services further. Which, IMHO, is not a popular view at the moment.
The question was what else can he attempt to do to please them (Tory right wing).
Not what can he actually do to please the wider electorate.
As Tories suffer ‘worst losses in 40 years’, Dame Andrea Jenkyns tells Radio 4 that the public are sick of the left’s “wokeist agenda”
It's amazing that the Tories spent a decade looking at Labour's introspective, self-indulgent, drift towards irrelevance and then decided that's the way they should go too.
Sunak is a relative moderate in today's Tory party and he hasn't even lost yet!
Polling guru Sir John Curtice tells @BBCr4today : “You’re probably looking at one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years." 👀
Hmm I still have 1995 down as the worst ever Tory local performance.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
I don't believe the performative cruelty is working or indeed credible.
Hand the reigns over to Penny who can ditch Rwanda, dump leaving the ECHR, stop the war against the poor and all that other nonsense. Remember Johnson turned around May's catastrophic locals around in six months. Granted the terms and conditions are less favourable now, but it has to be worth a last throw of the dice.
The Tories are out of time. Yes they could roll the dice on a new leader. At best they will mitigate some defeat. But it isn’t going to change the facts that people just want them gone.
Should they roll the dice? Hard to say. I wouldn’t really blame them for trying.
Indeed. The calculation for Tory MP's is: Of course Labour will win the next election but how best can we mitigate the scale of the defeat?
Don't rule out a final roll of the dice...
If they lose both their arsehole mayors then Big Rish will have to go.
The councillors are just nobodies staring at potholes in local paper photographs but the mayors would be too big to ignore.
If, in the few weeks that the Tories still have in office, they decide to spend their time fighting each other, then they really will be facing an ELE. It does not matter who wins such a contest, because the contest itself will show that the Tories have given up, and the voters will act accordingly. Sunak will have to lead them into the GE, so he can take the blame and the Conservative Party can then start years of introspective failure with a clean slate.
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
If Farage is serious about promoting RefUK as a Tory replacement/takeover he needs to saya so act now to rally enough candidates to cover virtually every GB seat.
His plan, for those who listen to him, is completing the reverse takeover of the Tories, not replacing them.
"If Reform do well and get a lot of votes and a reasonable representation of seats — and the Tories do very badly — then something very big is coming afterwards. Reform basically reverse took over the Conservatives and Stephen Harper became Prime Minister. If there was a model, it’s Canada. If it’s doable, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
But who are the people who are supposed to be 'taking over' and what different policies would they bring ?
Farage has always been successful at being against things but he's never had to advocate for an actual coherent political programme.
Farage is doing the takeover with whatever coat hangers want to ride his tails. Platform wise the biggest advantage he brings to the table is he would allow the Tories to quickly disown the last fourteen years of rubbish government.
But that's still being against things and not for something.
And who is going to think that an aged Farage and assorted fan boys would be any better at the actual governing.
They will be in opposition. And I for one, think Farage would be a more effictive opposition candidate than the likes of Badenoch, Patel, Cleverley et al.
Farage is even more bone idle, even more interested in money and even less collegiate than Boris Johnson. He would be an awful LOTO.
Farage also has zero chance of getting on the CCHQ Tory approved candidates list. Farage needed Reform at least a clear second in Blackpool last night too for a narrative of moving towards overtaking the Tories as the main party of the right but failed to get it as the Tories stayed second behind Labour despite a big swing to the reds
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I think the strategy of betting on a vote share, as @Casino_Royale has championed, has some merit. Betting on Khan losing or Hall winning seems to be throwing your money away unless you can get 100+:1 or something.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
One other thing. Even if Houchen and Street hang on, they will only have won because of their personal brands, and by distancing themselves from - or openly defining themselves against - Rishi Sunak and the government. And a number of Tory MPs will take a lesson from that.
Yes. Street has run a I am Street campaign, no Tory colours. The Lord Houchen of Teesport claimed that he was not a Tory candidate and not whipped or controlled by any party. And he recorded that campaign video whilst being summoned to London to vote with the Tory whip in the Lords.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Not in electing him.
It was in not putting any controls over him.
So just as a triumphing Roman general had a slave in his chariot sating "remember you are not a god" Boris should have had some strong character whispering in his ear "that is against regulations".
A possible what-if is Boris still being married to Marina Wheeler.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
The same could be said of many of the potential replacements!
. @SamCoatesSky Would the Conservatives be in a better position if they ditch Rishi Sunak?
@LeeAndersonMP_ “I think Rishi Sunak could fly over the UK and drop £1m down every chimney and they’d still vote him out come October”
I think the Sunaks could only afford to give around 30 pounds to every household out of their personal wealth, but if he got his father-in-law to chip in they could make it a couple of hundred quid.
I had it down as a relatively low swing Labour gain (10-15%), but both the Labour performance and the amount that RefUK ate into the Tory vote were at the top end.
26% swing in a seat like this is phenomenal - this is a far better result for Labour than Wellingborough, I think.
Still, RefUK turning up but still coming 3rd here does suggest they are a bit over egged in the polls, but maybe, if they get their act together, only a bit.
Very low turnout - is there an effect of being really close to the general election? Why bother when the MP will need electing again in 2,3,5,8 months?
Cumbria PCC result in among the earlier ones, and tells us, I think, quite a bit about the fate of the current Cumbria MPs (5 Tory, 0 Labour + Tim Farron.)
Labour win with 22% swing.
No other elections in Cumbria.
The PCCs are interesting I think because in the vast majority of cases the voters don’t know the candidate from Adam, don’t really know what they will do and don’t expect them to make much difference to policing either way, therefore they are more likely to vote on purely national party lines. Best indicator for the GE.
#BlackpoolSouth is a shocker for the Conservatives - their 17.5% vote share is the worst in over a century for a seat they were defending
To be fair, even Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband and Corbyn in 2017 won Blackpool South, it only went Conservative in 2019 for Boris and to get Brexit done and has reverted to type. It has been solid Labour overall since 1997
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
I think we can all agree that Rishi is useless, but the Tory litany of failure goes beyond one man. Indeed I suspect that is why they are performing quite so badly now, because people are fed up of the lot of them.
I’m not sure it’s possible for a new leader to rearrange the deckchairs to erase that feeling. Maybe put a softer spin on it (Mordaunt) or go all in and tray and claw back Reform votes (Baverman/Badenoch et al). But I don’t think it will change the overall trajectory - ie a defeat.
Indeed I suspect leadership contenders would be better focusing on their ground game and in the case of Mordaunt really working her seat from now until the GE.
That said, more generally and as I said above, I wouldn’t blame the wider party for trying.
This. Minimising losses ahead of going into opposition is what it's about now. They might as well be explicit about it. Vote for us to hold Labour to account.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
The real error the Conservatives made was in ballsing up picking a replacement for Boris. Had they picked correctly they might still have lost the election but probably in a creditable manner.
If Labour lose London everything else won't count for a row of beans. It'll be the only thing anyone remembers about this set of elections.
Hopefully you will get your much needed cheer on Saturday afternoon.
Make no mistake Hall was a dreadful candidate and will try to turn London upsidedown. Not only will she repeal all the Khan wokery but the Johnson wokery too. I can't see her being good for London.
The Tories aren’t rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They threw the best deckchair overboard. And replaced it with an exploding bean bag. Then they threw the beanbag into the sea, and got a small wobbly stool which they using to hit the officer in charge of lifeboats.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
The party was in the process of being recast too. That realignment you saw in the red wall was real, and I think will come back to haunt Labour in future. But Boris was fundamentally too lazy, too complacent and too much of a chancer to put the work in to really complete that project. Hence why you have successors defaulting to true blue Tory low tax/small state mantras that don’t chime with the public.
Clearly a good night for Labour winning Blackpool South on a big swing and taking control of some key battleground councils like Redditch and Thurrock.
However a few crumbs of comfort for the Tories, beating Reform for second in Blackpool S, just and also retaining control of Harlow council by 1 seat.
We await more local results and the PCC and some Mayoral results today
The Tories were lucky to beat Reform in Blackpool S. The margin was tiny. A few votes the other way and the headlines would be much worse.
The Tories aren’t rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. They threw the best deckchair overboard. And replaced it with an exploding bean bag. Then they threw the beanbag into the sea, and got a small wobbly stool which they using to hit the officer in charge of lifeboats.
I thought we weren't supposed to be sizeist over Richie. Small wobbly stool indeed.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
The same could be said of many of the potential replacements!
A leader could have all the positives of Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher yet it wouldn't help the Conservatives because its the lockdown parties and Dizzy Lizzy's economic experiment which are being voted against
With the endless sleaze and time for a change being the icings on the cake.
#BlackpoolSouth is a shocker for the Conservatives - their 17.5% vote share is the worst in over a century for a seat they were defending
To be fair, even Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband and Corbyn in 2017 won Blackpool South, it only went Conservative in 2019 for Boris and to get Brexit done and has reverted to type. It has been solid Labour overall since 1997
The Tories got half the vote share that they got in 1997. Even adding in the entirety* of the Reform vote they only just match 1997.
The GE is no more than 8 months away. An ELE is increasingly likely.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
The real error the Conservatives made was in ballsing up picking a replacement for Boris. Had they picked correctly they might still have lost the election but probably in a creditable manner.
The MPs should have put Gove to the membership, vs Rishi or Liz or Penny.
He’d have been a competent PM and actually got stuff done.
US President Joe Biden has called Japan and India "xenophobic", grouping them together with Russia and China as countries that "don't want immigrants".
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
The same could be said of many of the potential replacements!
A leader could have all the positives of Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher yet it wouldn't help the Conservatives because its the lockdown parties and Dizzy Lizzy's economic experiment which are being voted against
With the endless sleaze and time for a change being the icings on the cake.
I see what you did there... not mentioning the elephant in the living room: the reason why the UK has gone from being a leading G-7 economy to being the weakest G-7 economy and an also ran in global rankings.
We won´t name it, of course, but the poison will need to be lanced sometime, and the Tories own it.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
I think we can all agree that Rishi is useless, but the Tory litany of failure goes beyond one man. Indeed I suspect that is why they are performing quite so badly now, because people are fed up of the lot of them.
I’m not sure it’s possible for a new leader to rearrange the deckchairs to erase that feeling. Maybe put a softer spin on it (Mordaunt) or go all in and tray and claw back Reform votes (Baverman/Badenoch et al). But I don’t think it will change the overall trajectory - ie a defeat.
Indeed I suspect leadership contenders would be better focusing on their ground game and in the case of Mordaunt really working her seat from now until the GE.
That said, more generally and as I said above, I wouldn’t blame the wider party for trying.
I have to ask. "Tray"? Milk Tray heroics? Cat's litter tray??
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
Daisy Cooper interviewed on GMB
Lib Dem results being discussed on the politics slot as underwhelming. Of course Daisy Cooper talked them up.
So far according to BBC. Conservatives 117 councillors, LDs 114 councillors.
What would be a good result?
The MRP prediction had Lib Dems and Tories winning roughly similar numbers of wards (but Tories more actual councillors). So if they manage this it’ll be par.
But you need to surprise on the upside to get any coverage, and Lib Dems do so in locals more often than not. A score in line with polling would be disappointing.
Greens on the other hand are doing very well. Not good news for Labour.
Not good news for the LDs either. The Greens seem to be displacing them as the party of nice people protest.
Polling guru Sir John Curtice tells @BBCr4today : “You’re probably looking at one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years." 👀
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
The party was in the process of being recast too. That realignment you saw in the red wall was real, and I think will come back to haunt Labour in future. But Boris was fundamentally too lazy, too complacent and too much of a chancer to put the work in to really complete that project. Hence why you have successors defaulting to true blue Tory low tax/small state mantras that don’t chime with the public.
Starmer is putting in a huge effort to stop that happening. Yes, the Red Wall is in play (as is the Blue Wall as we're seeing now) but it is no longer there for the Conservatives taking.
Frustrating morning as there’s a paucity of coverage of Lib Dem performance.
So far OK looking at the actual results, but not the massive outperformance we sometimes see. And not the same underperformance of Labour we’ve got used to.
Still, it looks like a thrashing but not a shellacking for the Tories. And the difference in their performance where Reform aren’t standing should encourage them they’ll get most of any swingback from Reform voters come the general.
Daisy Cooper interviewed on GMB
Lib Dem results being discussed on the politics slot as underwhelming. Of course Daisy Cooper talked them up.
So far according to BBC. Conservatives 117 councillors, LDs 114 councillors.
What would be a good result?
The MRP prediction had Lib Dems and Tories winning roughly similar numbers of wards (but Tories more actual councillors). So if they manage this it’ll be par.
But you need to surprise on the upside to get any coverage, and Lib Dems do so in locals more often than not. A score in line with polling would be disappointing.
Greens on the other hand are doing very well. Not good news for Labour.
Not good news for the LDs either. The Greens seem to be displacing them as the party of nice people protest.
Not surprising. The Tories are going backwards on the climate issue and Labour seem to be joining them. As for Reform, I don't think half their candidates understand what climate means, unless it's the air-con in their 4WDs.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Surely a lot of Tory MPs will be looking at these results and be thinking why not roll the dice one last time?
What have they got to lose?
I think any sane Tory MP will be more focused on their post Parliamentary career - little point changing things when the difference is at best marginal and won’t help you personally
Richi is a drag on the ticket. Every Tory MP would stand a better chance of winning if he was not their leader.
The same could be said of many of the potential replacements!
A leader could have all the positives of Pitt, Disraeli, Churchill and Thatcher yet it wouldn't help the Conservatives because its the lockdown parties and Dizzy Lizzy's economic experiment which are being voted against
With the endless sleaze and time for a change being the icings on the cake.
Is it sleaze though? Not should it be, but is it? Keep an eye on Mayor Ben.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
The party was in the process of being recast too. That realignment you saw in the red wall was real, and I think will come back to haunt Labour in future. But Boris was fundamentally too lazy, too complacent and too much of a chancer to put the work in to really complete that project. Hence why you have successors defaulting to true blue Tory low tax/small state mantras that don’t chime with the public.
You cannot level up from the economically liberal, sovereignty-maximalist, culture war right. There needs to be a level of state intervention and wealth redistribution. That involves Tory pragmatism and a return to the centre-right.
Just seen that Johnson forgot his voter ID yesterday and had to go back later
Yeh. Couldn't be better as a metaphor for the final days of this rotten regime and all its clowns.
Surely a performative act in his "Boris" persona to get some news coverage.
One does wonder whether from a historical perspective Johnson doesn't desire the collapse of the Conservative Party. The history books will have him as the unassailable winner who was scythed down by a cake and this folly subsequently brought down his party. From his perspective he would be the last great Conservative Prime Minister.
Morning all! Grim reading for the Tories thus far. Blackpool South was a dreadful result for them, pitiful really, they really need to keep NEV North of 25% overall. Bright spots? Harlow a good hold with all seats contested, and Cruella looks OK in Fareham (not sure that's a + for the party). First seat in Newcastle in 32 years a weird bonus grin for them Labour blowout in Blackpool, very strong result but some concerns over Gaza voting, watch Rochdale today and the mayoralties might shift narratives (or reinforce) Reform starting to convert intent to votes NEV will be interesting! LD - solid but as yet uninspiring (might change today) Green - impressive results so far
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
Bailey seemed OK as a candidate at the time, but that was before we knew about the 14 December 2020 Christmas party at CCHQ!
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
Bailey seemed OK as a candidate at the time, but that was before we knew about the 14 December 2020 Christmas party at CCHQ!
He was extremely average before that. One of those people with the CV, but not the spark.
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
The London Tories tried to stitch-up the candidate selection for an ex-Cameron SpAd, and their preferred candidate got into a scandal almost immediately nominations closed. Yet another failure of vetting, for such a high-profile role.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
Having said that, Johnson's 2019 coalition was a thing. As people said at the time, I thought correctly, Johnson was the master of all he surveyed. What went wrong?
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
The real error the Conservatives made was in ballsing up picking a replacement for Boris. Had they picked correctly they might still have lost the election but probably in a creditable manner.
US President Joe Biden has called Japan and India "xenophobic", grouping them together with Russia and China as countries that "don't want immigrants".
If we're talking about someone's decline in political fortunes then Boris has nothing on:
Pausanias was a Spartan regent and a general. In 479 BC, as a leader of the Hellenic League's combined land forces, he won a pivotal victory against the Achaemenid Empire in the Battle of Plataea. Despite his role in ending the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Pausanias subsequently fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Persian king Xerxes I. After an interval of repeated arrests and debates about his guilt, he was starved to death by his fellow Spartans in 477 BC.
I had it down as a relatively low swing Labour gain (10-15%), but both the Labour performance and the amount that RefUK ate into the Tory vote were at the top end.
26% swing in a seat like this is phenomenal - this is a far better result for Labour than Wellingborough, I think.
Still, RefUK turning up but still coming 3rd here does suggest they are a bit over egged in the polls, but maybe, if they get their act together, only a bit.
Very low turnout - is there an effect of being really close to the general election? Why bother when the MP will need electing again in 2,3,5,8 months?
1997 was so long ago, but that wasn't the pattern then. The turnout in the Wirral South by-election, in February 1997, was 71.5%, 10.8pp down on 1992, Labour winning with a 17% swing.
The turnout in the 1994 Dudley West by-election, also won by Labour on a large swing of 29%, did have a low turnout of 47% down by more than 35pp.
David Campbell Bannerman, the ex-Tory MEP and chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation, calls on Rishi Sunak to resign.
He tells @Telegraph : “Once again local elections under Sunak have been absolutely disastrous. A year ago we should have won seats…”
“…under him; we lost 1,000 councillors. This time is the worst performance in 40 years, so far.
“Sunak is not a natural campaigner and wasn’t even seen campaigning. The lesson is clear: enough of this disastrous, visionless, vacuous leadership. Rishi must go and go now….”
“…This is a reality check for Conservative MPs: enough avoidance of the problem. If you don’t dump Sunak now the party is finished for at least a decade or more and the country is in danger under a hard Left woke Labour. Do the necessary and do it quickly!”
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
The London Tories tried to stitch-up the candidate selection for an ex-Cameron SpAd, and their preferred candidate got into a scandal almost immediately nominations closed. Yet another failure of vetting, for such a high-profile role.
Yes, and he isn't exactly The Future, before the scandal.
I asked someone about why the parties don't use standard commercial vetting - background check, CV check and trawl through social media - and was told that it would eliminate too many. The person I asked rolled his eyes as he said that. Said that politics depended on loons and weirdos.
Cumbria PCC result in among the earlier ones, and tells us, I think, quite a bit about the fate of the current Cumbria MPs (5 Tory, 0 Labour + Tim Farron.)
Labour win with 22% swing.
No other elections in Cumbria.
The PCCs are interesting I think because in the vast majority of cases the voters don’t know the candidate from Adam, don’t really know what they will do and don’t expect them to make much difference to policing either way, therefore they are more likely to vote on purely national party lines. Best indicator for the GE.
But very low turnouts, so they're not necessarily representative of the GE electorate.
It’s still true that Labour aren’t attracting new voters in By Elections, down a couple of thousand from GE19 to yesterday in Blackpool South, as was the case in the last two By Elections. At this stage in 92-97 Parliament they were adding thousands of votes What does this mean for the GE? Low turnout?
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
Nick Ferrari conducts a daily campaign against Khan, especially Ulez. Presumably the Standard despise him too.
Will we see a tory defection or two over the weekend?
Fun interview with 30p Lee on the Today program.
As well as pedantically (not an on brand characteristic) insisting that he didn't defect, he spent the rest of the time saying "why are you asking me questions?", and asking Nick Robinson why he wasn't standing for election.
"The BBC is not a news broadcaster where politicians interview politicians, Mr A."
David Cameron's reported as saying that British-supplied weapons can be used by Ukraine on targets in Russia. Previously there'd been a restriction on NATO weapons being used in internationally-recognised Russian territory.
Might we see Storm Shadows used against targets in Rostov soon?
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
The Conservatives' London problem is deeper than that; a lot of current London Conservatives don't really believe in Greater London, full stop.
It's not that there's no right wing Londoners out there- someone like Natalie Campbell, for instance. But a party dominated by Susan Halls went for someone like them to bear their standard.
Just seen that Johnson forgot his voter ID yesterday and had to go back later
Yeh. Couldn't be better as a metaphor for the final days of this rotten regime and all its clowns.
Surely a performative act in his "Boris" persona to get some news coverage.
One does wonder whether from a historical perspective Johnson doesn't desire the collapse of the Conservative Party. The history books will have him as the unassailable winner who was scythed down by a cake and this folly subsequently brought down his party. From his perspective he would be the last great Conservative Prime Minister.
"An unassailable winner who was scythed down by a cake" just makes him sound like a twat.
Cumbria PCC result in among the earlier ones, and tells us, I think, quite a bit about the fate of the current Cumbria MPs (5 Tory, 0 Labour + Tim Farron.)
Labour win with 22% swing.
No other elections in Cumbria.
The PCCs are interesting I think because in the vast majority of cases the voters don’t know the candidate from Adam, don’t really know what they will do and don’t expect them to make much difference to policing either way, therefore they are more likely to vote on purely national party lines. Best indicator for the GE.
But very low turnouts, so they're not necessarily representative of the GE electorate.
Sure but they do give an indication of who will turnout. Not the Tories it seems.
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
Nick Ferrari conducts a daily campaign against Khan, especially Ulez. Presumably the Standard despise him too.
Mr. Observer, the Conservative failure was intially electing Boris Johnson. All else has flowed from that.
That failure stemmed from the Brexit vote, so I'd say the Conservative failure was calling the Brexit referendum... but really what caused Leave to win that was austerity. That's the Conservative failure.
No-one expects Khan to lose, but I do expect him to massively underperform the national swing as I think he's a big drag on the Labour ticket.
I expect him to mildly underperform, but Hall is a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey.
The firm picture the media present, and popular imagination holds, of London as a Labour fiefdom, has been demonstrated time and again to be wrong. Yet it persists. Shaun Bailey - hardly a towering statesman - turned out a pretty decent vote last time round.
I don’t dislike Khan as much as everyone else seems to (tbh don’t really understand why he is so disliked, at least by non-nutters/racists) but they could have done with a new and more dynamic/inspirational candidate. If Susan Hall does do well it will reflect terribly on him; she is unquestionably the worst candidate any major party has put up for the mayoralty.
There are quite a few people I know who dislike him a lot - most would be described as wanting to vote for centre parties.
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
Nick Ferrari conducts a daily campaign against Khan, especially Ulez. Presumably the Standard despise him too.
The Evening Standard endorsed Khan in their editorial.
@nickeardleybbc Tory Mp Andrea Jenkyns: “It’s looking unlikely MPs will put letters in”
She’s previously called for PM to go, but says: “We are where we are”
Also wants Boris Johnson role and reshuffle to get more from right of party into cabinet.
Boris doesn't want a role. Rishi has failed to recover things post Truss and must carry the bag for that regardless of the factors also at play, but Boris not being around is his own choice.
And whilst Rishi has been inconsistent he has gone pretty hard to the right on issues like Rwanda. What else can he attempt to please them?
Leave the ECHR? Sure, but not likely to swing many votes. Huge tax cuts? If they could they'd have done it already.
Cut red tape and reduce waste in the civil service.
The narrative is that Brexit has caused red-tape. Trying to reduce it just highlights that. The Tories "own" Brexit. It was what they were elected to do (the next GE will be the first outside the EEC/EC/EU since 1970) and the public are not enamoured with the results. So red-tape is a loser.
Reducing waste in the civil service has been a mainstay of Conservative platforms for as long as I've been alive. The issue with that is that it inevitably means a cut in public services. Other "waste" is just trimming the edges. So you are basically saying you'll cut public services further. Which, IMHO, is not a popular view at the moment.
The other problem is... why haven't they reduced this waste before now? They've had 14 years in government. If there's waste in the civil service, it's the fault of the party that's been in power for over a decade.
US President Joe Biden has called Japan and India "xenophobic", grouping them together with Russia and China as countries that "don't want immigrants".
Comments
Without being a soothsayer, the economic and fiscal situation suggests Labour may well dip sharply after the election and a suitable subsequent honeymoon period.
Only without the chance of pulling a surprise from being an unknown factor as happened in 2017.
Will we see a tory defection or two over the weekend?
Don't rule out a final roll of the dice...
If we look at the swing on a proportional basis, rather than a uniform basis, then the swing since 2021 is for the Tories to be down by 45%, so that would put the Tory vote down around the 19-25% level, and Labour up by about half the vote the Tories lose, to well above 50%.
Starmer & Rayner on a victory lap in Blackpool saying the by election result here shows Rishi Sunak needs to call a general election right now.
“Let’s turn the page on this decline”, said Starmer.
The councillors are just nobodies staring at potholes in local paper photographs but the mayors would be too big to ignore.
Reducing waste in the civil service has been a mainstay of Conservative platforms for as long as I've been alive. The issue with that is that it inevitably means a cut in public services. Other "waste" is just trimming the edges. So you are basically saying you'll cut public services further. Which, IMHO, is not a popular view at the moment.
I’m not sure it’s possible for a new leader to rearrange the deckchairs to erase that feeling. Maybe put a softer spin on it (Mordaunt) or go all in and tray and claw back Reform votes (Baverman/Badenoch et al). But I don’t think it will change the overall trajectory - ie a defeat.
Indeed I suspect leadership contenders would be better focusing on their ground game and in the case of Mordaunt really working her seat from now until the GE.
That said, more generally and as I said above, I wouldn’t blame the wider party for trying.
.
@SamCoatesSky
Would the Conservatives be in a better position if they ditch Rishi Sunak?
@LeeAndersonMP_
“I think Rishi Sunak could fly over the UK and drop £1m down every chimney and they’d still vote him out come October”
Not what can he actually do to please the wider electorate.
Certainly hard to see Hunt getting a clear majority in 2019 anymore than May had in 2017
Hand the reigns over to Penny who can ditch Rwanda, dump leaving the ECHR, stop the war against the poor and all that other nonsense. Remember Johnson turned around May's catastrophic locals around in six months. Granted the terms and conditions are less favourable now, but it has to be worth a last throw of the dice.
I think part of it is the coalition didn't survive Johnson. The Faustian pact was to change the Conservative Party into the Boris Party. He went and there was nothing left
It was in not putting any controls over him.
So just as a triumphing Roman general had a slave in his chariot sating "remember you are not a god" Boris should have had some strong character whispering in his ear "that is against regulations".
A possible what-if is Boris still being married to Marina Wheeler.
#BlackpoolSouth is a shocker for the Conservatives - their 17.5% vote share is the worst in over a century for a seat they were defending
2,3,5,8 months?Edit: Is it a perfect metaphor for how inept the Tory government has been, or does it simply distract from another round of heavy election defeats?
Make no mistake Hall was a dreadful candidate and will try to turn London upsidedown. Not only will she repeal all the Khan wokery but the Johnson wokery too. I can't see her being good for London.
What kind of stool did you have in mind?
With the endless sleaze and time for a change being the icings on the cake.
The GE is no more than 8 months away. An ELE is increasingly likely.
*won't happen.
He’d have been a competent PM and actually got stuff done.
US President Joe Biden has called Japan and India "xenophobic", grouping them together with Russia and China as countries that "don't want immigrants".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68947042
We won´t name it, of course, but the poison will need to be lanced sometime, and the Tories own it.
But sound stuff regardless.
Grim reading for the Tories thus far. Blackpool South was a dreadful result for them, pitiful really, they really need to keep NEV North of 25% overall. Bright spots? Harlow a good hold with all seats contested, and Cruella looks OK in Fareham (not sure that's a + for the party). First seat in Newcastle in 32 years a weird bonus grin for them
Labour blowout in Blackpool, very strong result but some concerns over Gaza voting, watch Rochdale today and the mayoralties might shift narratives (or reinforce)
Reform starting to convert intent to votes
NEV will be interesting!
LD - solid but as yet uninspiring (might change today)
Green - impressive results so far
https://www.270towin.com/
That Susan Hall is a candidate for a major party speaks to the lack of depth in candidates in politics in general. I think of my relative (who I've mentioned before) - in times past he would have been hauled onto the council by his peers. And probably shoved into Parliament.
BoZo was the original sin
They elected Boris and won a huge majority
They sacked him
And now they’re doing as badly as before
At some point people will join the dots
Pausanias was a Spartan regent and a general. In 479 BC, as a leader of the Hellenic League's combined land forces, he won a pivotal victory against the Achaemenid Empire in the Battle of Plataea. Despite his role in ending the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Pausanias subsequently fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Persian king Xerxes I. After an interval of repeated arrests and debates about his guilt, he was starved to death by his fellow Spartans in 477 BC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pausanias_the_Regent
With Boris being so interested in the classics he should have taken Pausanias as an example of how vulnerable you can be even after a great triumph.
The turnout in the 1994 Dudley West by-election, also won by Labour on a large swing of 29%, did have a low turnout of 47% down by more than 35pp.
**NEW**
David Campbell Bannerman, the ex-Tory MEP and chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation, calls on Rishi Sunak to resign.
He tells
@Telegraph
: “Once again local elections under Sunak have been absolutely disastrous. A year ago we should have won seats…”
“…under him; we lost 1,000 councillors. This time is the worst performance in 40 years, so far.
“Sunak is not a natural campaigner and wasn’t even seen campaigning. The lesson is clear: enough of this disastrous, visionless, vacuous leadership. Rishi must go and go now….”
“…This is a reality check for Conservative MPs: enough avoidance of the problem. If you don’t dump Sunak now the party is finished for at least a decade or more and the country is in danger under a hard Left woke Labour. Do the necessary and do it quickly!”
I asked someone about why the parties don't use standard commercial vetting - background check, CV check and trawl through social media - and was told that it would eliminate too many. The person I asked rolled his eyes as he said that. Said that politics depended on loons and weirdos.
As well as pedantically (not an on brand characteristic) insisting that he didn't defect, he spent the rest of the time saying "why are you asking me questions?", and asking Nick Robinson why he wasn't standing for election.
"The BBC is not a news broadcaster where politicians interview politicians, Mr A."
Then skipped out of Parliament to evade the consequences of lying to it.
He is the cause of his own downfall.
Might we see Storm Shadows used against targets in Rostov soon?
It's not that there's no right wing Londoners out there- someone like Natalie Campbell, for instance. But a party dominated by Susan Halls went for someone like them to bear their standard.