Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
The big shift: The Liberal Democrats are now the New Shit.
Oh I won’t have that! You LibDems have been shits for years!
Yes ma'am. Long before I joined and when I was slagging them off. Has to be said though.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
OK. Were your votes concentrated in a few areas or evenly spread? Would Duguid have won if he had stood instead of Ross? Were all the SNP nasty to you or just a few headbangers?
'kin hell! Watching the BBC News, and by their Reform coverage, I am assuming Reform won the election and Farage is PM. Well I never saw that coming.
Yep. We have four years of this now. Every fucking day, Farage on the Today programme; QT every thursday will be Farage or Anderson or Tice, specials on Reform and why they are breaking through, endless analysis on Newsnight as to whether Reform will break through like LePen and on and on and on.
Arrgh. 4 more years of Trump. We live in interesting times.
A priority for the new government is to push arms production so we can keep Ukraine going if the US drops the ball.
You know what, Fuck Biden, and Fuck the Democrats
The former is a demented lying clown, and the second have enabled those lies and told more lies of their own, covering up the President's obvious senility with outright mendacity. It's a terrible and grievous conspiracy, easilly as villainous, stupid and immoral as Watergate (indeed far worse in its consequences)
So we get Trump and the Democrats will get eviscerated. It is what they deserve. The trouble is the rest of us don't need or deserve Trump, but this is what the Democrat party has wrought. It is ALL on them
The time to get shot of Trump was the second impeachment trial. The GOP senators who did not get rid despite the obvious shoulder much of the blame.
I remember 2010. We said the Tories were in for one term. Fourteen years later they’re out.
Lesson for today’s Tories, Prepare for a long slog, there are no shortcuts. It’s unlikely to be one term. The first task is to not swing to the extremes and your comfort zone. The brutal reality is your friend.
You advised:
Liz Truss over Penny Mordaunt because of her Ministerial experience.
Sunak to limp on because choosing another leader so close to a GE could result in a poor election result.
Now it's sage advice not to be too right wing.
I'm not sure if your "advice" is intended to be malicious or is just very dense, but I know where I'd be filing it if I were part of what's left of the PCP.
Am amazed by the number of posters who didn't predict this election well* but are super confident about the election in five years time.
*I didn't predict this one well.
I've realised the best way to predict the overall shares and seats is to go through each seat individually on their merits, and then (often) get a surprise when you see the overall result, a bottom-up approach you could say, rather than immediately predicting the overall result. The former approach is less likely to be affected by biases you might have.
'kin hell! Watching the BBC News, and by their Reform coverage, I am assuming Reform won the election and Farage is PM. Well I never saw that coming.
Yep. We have four years of this now. Every fucking day, Farage on the Today programme; QT every thursday will be Farage or Anderson or Tice, specials on Reform and why they are breaking through, endless analysis on Newsnight as to whether Reform will break through like LePen and on and on and on.
There are very few super safe seats for any party now - inner city Manchester and Liverpool for Labour plus the totemic London seats, that's it. Harrow and Richmond Tories safest, LDs have a handful of super safe seats now everything else is up for grabs. Next election will see seats changing hands all over the shop even if 'nothing has changed'
Lib Dems have 26 seats with majorities of over 10,000.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
The big shift: The Liberal Democrats are now the New Shit.
Oh I won’t have that! You LibDems have been shits for years!
Yes ma'am. Long before I joined and when I was slagging them off. Has to be said though.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
Heh. Seriously was sorry not to see you win. The politics we argue about is 10% of the job. We need human beings in the House for the rest of it where there is objectively a right answer, and we just have to feel our way towards it.
Labour, as of today, have had just two more Prime Ministers in the last hundred years as the Conservatives have had in the last eight years and two weeks.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
The big shift: The Liberal Democrats are now the New Shit.
Oh I won’t have that! You LibDems have been shits for years!
Yes ma'am. Long before I joined and when I was slagging them off. Has to be said though.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
OK. Were your votes concentrated in a few areas or evenly spread? Would Duguid have won if he had stood instead of Ross? Were all the SNP nasty to you or just a few headbangers?
1. Seems evenly spread. Had a good response in (data) unknown places like Fochabers 2. Yes 3. SNP were digging for shit. So I believe they were offering up "scandal" about me which was not hence the lack of pick-up. SNP were *furious* that I was competing. They had to change their planned strategy. Ripped me off, tried to adapt to their position.
'kin hell! Watching the BBC News, and by their Reform coverage, I am assuming Reform won the election and Farage is PM. Well I never saw that coming.
Yep. We have four years of this now. Every fucking day, Farage on the Today programme; QT every thursday will be Farage or Anderson or Tice, specials on Reform and why they are breaking through, endless analysis on Newsnight as to whether Reform will break through like LePen and on and on and on.
Ed Davey is going to have to get back into his wetsuit to get attention, isn't he?
I remember 2010. We said the Tories were in for one term. Fourteen years later they’re out.
Lesson for today’s Tories, Prepare for a long slog, there are no shortcuts. It’s unlikely to be one term. The first task is to not swing to the extremes and your comfort zone. The brutal reality is your friend.
You advised:
Liz Truss over Penny Mordaunt because of her Ministerial experience.
Sunak to limp on because choosing another leader so close to a GE could result in a poor election result.
Now it's sage advice not to be too right wing.
I'm not sure if your "advice" is intended to be malicious or is just very dense, but I know where I'd be filing it if I were part of what's left of the PCP.
Just because it ended badly doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been worse.
Truss’ ministerial experience was irrelevant. But she did offer direction, however ill conceived and hideously executed. Mourdant was obviously never a goer because she didn’t command sufficient authority to appeal to the Mail or control the right of the party. Swapping Sunak out would have caused as many problems as it solved. At best a roll of the dice.
Take it or leave it of course, but experience suggests it’s harder than you think and you’ve got a lot of homework to do to truly understand how you can lose seats like Horsham.
Arrgh. 4 more years of Trump. We live in interesting times.
A priority for the new government is to push arms production so we can keep Ukraine going if the US drops the ball.
You know what, Fuck Biden, and Fuck the Democrats
The former is a demented lying clown, and the second have enabled those lies and told more lies of their own, covering up the President's obvious senility with outright mendacity. It's a terrible and grievous conspiracy, easilly as villainous, stupid and immoral as Watergate (indeed far worse in its consequences)
So we get Trump and the Democrats will get eviscerated. It is what they deserve. The trouble is the rest of us don't need or deserve Trump, but this is what the Democrat party has wrought. It is ALL on them
The problem is partly that it seems the second set in your list - the Dem party - is not hard-faced enough to tell good old uncle Joe to do one because he is going to lose through being too fucking old.
We will all live to regret that decision.
Trump 2.0 is a dead cert I now think unless Dems grow a pair.
Robert Saunders @redhistorian Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 1h "But the real story of the night is Reform..."
Arrgh. 4 more years of Trump. We live in interesting times.
A priority for the new government is to push arms production so we can keep Ukraine going if the US drops the ball.
You know what, Fuck Biden, and Fuck the Democrats
The former is a demented lying clown, and the second have enabled those lies and told more lies of their own, covering up the President's obvious senility with outright mendacity. It's a terrible and grievous conspiracy, easilly as villainous, stupid and immoral as Watergate (indeed far worse in its consequences)
So we get Trump and the Democrats will get eviscerated. It is what they deserve. The trouble is the rest of us don't need or deserve Trump, but this is what the Democrat party has wrought. It is ALL on them
The problem is partly that it seems the second set in your list - the Dem party - is not hard-faced enough to tell good old uncle Joe to do one because he is going to lose through being too fucking old.
We will all live to regret that decision.
Trump 2.0 is a dead cert I now think unless Dems grow a pair.
They are despicable cowards, and venal liars. And the media has been complicit in hiding Biden's obvious, shocking decline. He is incapable of being POTUS right NOW, let alone 2024-28
The outrageous thing is that they still have time to fix it, to yank him offstage, say sorry, and install a sane candidate
Yet they seem incapable. It is extremely symptomatic of an empire in late stage Decadence and Decline. Still powerful, but rotting at the top, badly
Robert Saunders @redhistorian Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 1h "But the real story of the night is Reform..."
No. If you listen to Unite / Momentum / Owen Jones the real story is how Starmer failed to deliver the same vote as Jezhollah
Robert Saunders @redhistorian Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 1h "But the real story of the night is Reform..."
No. If you listen to Unite / Momentum / Owen Jones the real story is how Starmer failed to deliver the same vote as Jezhollah
Why can’t they get that to win an election you have to win more votes than your opponent. It’s not hard.
For every vote Corbyn won for Labour, he won one more for the Tories.
Amusingly Lloyds's bot told me this was probably a scam* (or words to that effect - it wasn't a possibility, it was a probability so far as it was concerned), but still let me go ahead. Without speaking to a human. Odd.
Andrew Desiderio @AndrewDesiderio Confirming @washingtonpost scoop: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is putting together an effort for Dems to discuss — in-person when they’re back in DC on Monday — Biden’s viability at the top of the ticket & whether they should ask him to step aside, per sources familiar with the effort.
Lots of confusion about what everyone wants at this point because they haven’t been together IRL since pre-debate. “We’ve been playing phone tag all week,” said one source familiar.
These euros have been the worst football tournament of my life, I think
The World Cup in South Africa was pretty bad, but that was mainly coz of the frigging vuvuzelas
This is just shit football, match after match, from everyone
I have to agree it’s been generally dire . Surely England even with their underwhelming play can finally win something.
Bellingham's last second overhead goal has probably been the highest point of the entire tournament. A moment of brave and inspired skill from a truly world class player. Otherwise the tournament has been utterly bereft of these, to the extent it is bewildering. Are they all tired? Are the pitches shite? Has a clever but boring and defensive approach overtaken football?
It's an awful advert for the sport, maybe something needs to change
Robert Saunders @redhistorian Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 1h "But the real story of the night is Reform..."
No. If you listen to Unite / Momentum / Owen Jones the real story is how Starmer failed to deliver the same vote as Jezhollah
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
'kin hell! Watching the BBC News, and by their Reform coverage, I am assuming Reform won the election and Farage is PM. Well I never saw that coming.
Yep. We have four years of this now. Every fucking day, Farage on the Today programme; QT every thursday will be Farage or Anderson or Tice, specials on Reform and why they are breaking through, endless analysis on Newsnight as to whether Reform will break through like LePen and on and on and on.
I've just seen a great piece by veteran BBC reporter Alan Little on General Elections. A BBC News report streets ahead of those by public school hoorays and bimbos proper journalists like Little have been replaced with.
I just watched the Biden independence day non scripted speech and it's awful. They need to replace him asap. He's got dementia and it's not even subtle, he very clearly has dementia.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
"UK’s first Chinese-born lawmaker as Labour win general election landslide
Former Financial Times journalist Yuan Yang campaigned to win the support of Hongkongers living in the UK, calling the Conservative government’s approach “not really enough” to protect their basic rights and safety.
In the new constituency of Earley and Woodley in Reading, Yang, who was a Europe-China correspondent at the Financial Times, claimed the seat with 18,209 votes, beating Conservative candidate Pauline Jorgensen, who bagged 17,361 votes.
With her parliamentary victory, Yang became the UK’s first ever Chinese-born lawmaker. Her family moved to the country when she was four following the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, according to publicly available information."
Robert Saunders @redhistorian Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 1h "But the real story of the night is Reform..."
No. If you listen to Unite / Momentum / Owen Jones the real story is how Starmer failed to deliver the same vote as Jezhollah
There were lots of "real stories" last night in a very complicated election. By my count:
- the collapse of the Tories in vote share and even more in seats - the collapse of the SNP likewise - the huge increase in Reform's vote share from UKIP's in 2019 though netting them only handful of seats - the septupling of the LibDem seat total despite a tiny increase in their vote share - the incredible efficiency of Labour's vote, in contrast to under Corbyn.
I'm sure I've missed something.
Basically since the Scottish referendum a decade ago, this country has been incredibly unstable politically and politics has been particularly confused and turbulent. There were similar periods in the 1920s and 1970s, but group loyalties were much stabler and stronger. Whatever the reasons for that (an increasingly centrist political class and a more and more polarised electorate, the fall of traditional party loyalties, wokeness, stagnating living standards, Brexit, the pandemic, demography etc.) there's no sign of things calming down I don't think.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
Is it? He sounds increasingly determined to carry on, if anything - but then, he is demented. My demented mother would insist, if asked, that she's "just a bit forgetful, and getting older", she would never admit to dementia and would be insulted if asked. Yet she is now incapable of living without significant support, because she has dementia
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
The Dems seem to be caught in a catch 22 . If loads come out and ask him to stand down and he refuses then the GOP can say why should Americans vote for him when your own party don’t think he’s up to it . So he’s even more damaged .
I suspect behind the scenes there’s real anger amongst many previous Biden supporters who think he could facilitate an absolute catastrophe.
The Dems seem to be caught in a catch 22 . If loads come out and ask him to stand down and he refuses then the GOP can say why should Americans vote for him when your own party don’t think he’s up to it . So he’s even more damaged .
I suspect behind the scenes there’s real anger amongst many previous Biden supporters who think he could facilitate an absolute catastrophe.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
AFAICS, Biden is now actually WORSE than my 86-year-old Mum, bless her, and she is in special housing
The problem is that people with dementia often don't realise the extent of their mental decline... because dementia. They can get incredibly angry that people are trying to take away their agency. And it fuels paranoia.
The Democrats do need to cauterize this wound, and sooner rather than later. On the positive side, I think cauterization is now inevitable: the only really question is how much they damage themselves between now and then.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
AFAICS, Biden is now actually WORSE than my 86-year-old Mum, bless her, and she is in special housing
The problem is that people with dementia often don't realise the extent of their mental decline... because dementia. They can get incredibly angry that people are trying to take away their agency. And it fuels paranoia.
The Democrats do need to cauterize this wound, and sooner rather than later. On the positive side, I think cauterization is now inevitable: the only really question is how much they damage themselves between now and then.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
AFAICS, Biden is now actually WORSE than my 86-year-old Mum, bless her, and she is in special housing
The problem is that people with dementia often don't realise the extent of their mental decline... because dementia. They can get incredibly angry that people are trying to take away their agency. And it fuels paranoia.
The Democrats do need to cauterize this wound, and sooner rather than later. On the positive side, I think cauterization is now inevitable: the only really question is how much they damage themselves between now and then.
On the bright side, in betting terms it is excellent for your Kamala tip as it means (if they have the courage) him leaving this term.
I might even buy you stabilisers for your new bike as a thank you
I just watched the Biden independence day non scripted speech and it's awful. They need to replace him asap. He's got dementia and it's not even subtle, he very clearly has dementia.
If you say that people ask 'are you a doctor". I mean no, I'm not, but I'm not but I'm also not a fucking moron (most of the time). "Key Progressive Caucus members set to call for Biden to withdraw from presidential race Monday "- The Nation
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
The big shift: The Liberal Democrats are now the New Shit.
Oh I won’t have that! You LibDems have been shits for years!
Yes ma'am. Long before I joined and when I was slagging them off. Has to be said though.
72 seats. +64. Is Fucking Sensational. We had a strategy to focus on core seats. Then the stretch, then the stretch stretch. Won most of them and kept going.
I confess. Busy + minimal sleep + alcohol goodness = confessional. You're not the Scottish Daily Mail, so ask me anything.
How close were the final results to your canvas returns etc?
Also did I read between the lines right you'd backed yourself and then laid it off when the betting scandal stuff started happening?
Are you going to go back to being "anonymous"?
(Feel free to DM the answers, I'm nosy but not a snitch )
I just watched the Biden independence day non scripted speech and it's awful. They need to replace him asap. He's got dementia and it's not even subtle, he very clearly has dementia.
If you say that people ask 'are you a doctor". I mean no, I'm not, but I'm not but I'm also not a fucking moron (most of the time). "Key Progressive Caucus members set to call for Biden to withdraw from presidential race Monday "- The Nation
Yes exactly. It’s like saying “look, that man has lost a leg”.
“Why, how can you be sure, are you a trained anatomist??”
“No. I can just see that he’s lost a leg. Because one of his legs is missing.”
When the SNP candidate in Inverness says he won't be able to make the count, it sort of implies he probably hasn't won, (despite defending a majority of 12,865 votes).
This post comes with heavy caveats. Nothing is ever official until it is properly declared.
However, the BBC is reporting this about that the SNP have conceded defeat ahead of tomorrow’s recount in the Inverness, Skye and Ross West seat where Angus Macdonald is our candidate. This is the latest incarnation of the seat held between 1983 and 2015 by Charles Kennedy and has enormous emotional resonance for the party.
It seems likely the constituency will go to the Liberal Democrats – although the result is not expected to be officially announced until after a second recount which will begin at 10:30 on Saturday.
SNP candidate Drew Hendry said he would be unable to attend the recount due to an “unmovable prior commitment”.
Arrgh. 4 more years of Trump. We live in interesting times.
A priority for the new government is to push arms production so we can keep Ukraine going if the US drops the ball.
You know what, Fuck Biden, and Fuck the Democrats
The former is a demented lying clown, and the second have enabled those lies and told more lies of their own, covering up the President's obvious senility with outright mendacity. It's a terrible and grievous conspiracy, easilly as villainous, stupid and immoral as Watergate (indeed far worse in its consequences)
So we get Trump and the Democrats will get eviscerated. It is what they deserve. The trouble is the rest of us don't need or deserve Trump, but this is what the Democrat party has wrought. It is ALL on them
The time to get shot of Trump was the second impeachment trial. The GOP senators who did not get rid despite the obvious shoulder much of the blame.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
Is it? He sounds increasingly determined to carry on, if anything - but then, he is demented. My demented mother would insist, if asked, that she's "just a bit forgetful, and getting older", she would never admit to dementia and would be insulted if asked. Yet she is now incapable of living without significant support, because she has dementia
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
Obama (and similarly Hillary Clinton) saying anything would probably be actively counterproductive in that respect given their past history over earlier nominations. (And NYT public campaign is blatantly now fuelling his determination to cling on.)
But it's been very clear since the debate that he can't do another term.
When the SNP candidate in Inverness says he won't be able to make the count, it sort of implies he probably hasn't won, (despite defending a majority of 12,865 votes).
This post comes with heavy caveats. Nothing is ever official until it is properly declared.
However, the BBC is reporting this about that the SNP have conceded defeat ahead of tomorrow’s recount in the Inverness, Skye and Ross West seat where Angus Macdonald is our candidate. This is the latest incarnation of the seat held between 1983 and 2015 by Charles Kennedy and has enormous emotional resonance for the party.
It seems likely the constituency will go to the Liberal Democrats – although the result is not expected to be officially announced until after a second recount which will begin at 10:30 on Saturday.
SNP candidate Drew Hendry said he would be unable to attend the recount due to an “unmovable prior commitment”.
Okay, so my first (light) criticism of the new government.
Reeves said: "“There’s not a huge amount of money there,” Ms Reeves told the BBC. “I know the scale of the challenge I inherit.”
I agree that she has a challenge. But there is a *huge* amount of money in the economy, and a ginormous tax take. There may not be enough money to do what she wants, but that's a different matter.
A specific challenge for Starmer (ie Streeting) is can he prevent any extra resources that they can find going on paying extra to staff for doing no more, rather than building up services.
That will be repeated across the piece.
The Junior Docs have been using fiddled figures in their ~35% (?) claims throughout eg aiui by using RPI not CPI for inflation, and they need to recognise at least that.
Okay, so my first (light) criticism of the new government.
Reeves said: "“There’s not a huge amount of money there,” Ms Reeves told the BBC. “I know the scale of the challenge I inherit.”
I agree that she has a challenge. But there is a *huge* amount of money in the economy, and a ginormous tax take. There may not be enough money to do what she wants, but that's a different matter.
And the tax take isn't particularly large compared with other countries. If you popped it up to French levels you'd have room for HS2, 2 child limit, Green targets and more.
At least what was Sunak Pharmacy is still in a true-blue Tory seat.
I must've driven and walked past that pharmacy many times around fifteen years ago. It never really registered.
As a child it was on the way to the Sports Centre which was a regular day out in the summer holidays. Good memories of that little parade of shops and getting a Cornetto from the Sperrings by the bus stop.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
Is it? He sounds increasingly determined to carry on, if anything - but then, he is demented. My demented mother would insist, if asked, that she's "just a bit forgetful, and getting older", she would never admit to dementia and would be insulted if asked. Yet she is now incapable of living without significant support, because she has dementia
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
Obama (and similarly Hillary Clinton) saying anything would probably be actively counterproductive in that respect given their past history over earlier nominations. (And NYT public campaign is blatantly now fuelling his determination to cling on.)
But it's been very clear since the debate that he can't do another term.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
Is it? He sounds increasingly determined to carry on, if anything - but then, he is demented. My demented mother would insist, if asked, that she's "just a bit forgetful, and getting older", she would never admit to dementia and would be insulted if asked. Yet she is now incapable of living without significant support, because she has dementia
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
Obama (and similarly Hillary Clinton) saying anything would probably be actively counterproductive in that respect given their past history over earlier nominations. (And NYT public campaign is blatantly now fuelling his determination to cling on.)
But it's been very clear since the debate that he can't do another term.
I see Ed Miliband is Energy Secretary again. I'd criticise him for closing down power stations and not building enough capacity last time, but it seems every party is rubbish at energy.
My £30 bonus from BET365 has now been released. That was to be the fun money had I read the terms correctly- what should I spend it on? I have 30 days.
Overall I am about £300-400 up on the Election, which is fine for me.
The nice wins were Tory seat numbers and Labour votes less than 2017.
I'll be using it to try and create a small rotating fund to allow people impacted by them to threaten legal action on unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers knowing that their several hundred £ court fee is covered if necessary.
A lot of people whinge and go no further because they are scared by Court Costs / lack of legal aid and threatening lawyers' letters from Council legal departments, whilst Councils tend to back down in the game of legal poker at letter-before-action stage.
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
It doesn't even matter if it's true he's demented or not now. It's like Boeing - routine incidents are just going to be evidence of decline.
There is no question. He has dementia. Dozens of people have now come forward - many of them Democrats or even aides to the POTUS, to confirm this - and to many different journalists
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Surely it’s all about creating a moment for him to leave on his own terms rather than hounded out.
Is it? He sounds increasingly determined to carry on, if anything - but then, he is demented. My demented mother would insist, if asked, that she's "just a bit forgetful, and getting older", she would never admit to dementia and would be insulted if asked. Yet she is now incapable of living without significant support, because she has dementia
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
Obama (and similarly Hillary Clinton) saying anything would probably be actively counterproductive in that respect given their past history over earlier nominations. (And NYT public campaign is blatantly now fuelling his determination to cling on.)
But it's been very clear since the debate that he can't do another term.
My view - Starmer will run a very tedious boring centre-right government, raising a few taxes (because of the debt) but not doing much that makes anyone happy and Starmer is a wet fish
It won’t be popular and with no “f the tories” they lose a few percent on both left and the right
Leading to an even more chaotic 2029 election where weird stuff happens all over the place as multi way contests become the norm
Maybe I’m wrong and this Lab govt will surprise and be more popular than expected but I don’t see it
I’m hopeful they’ll be a fairly decent government, but the risk is that they could be like the LibDems in coalition, who did a tremendous amount of good work behind the scenes tinkering with complicated stuff to make it slightly better; the sort of job both they and Starmer enjoy. But come the election not much of it will be worth many votes.
There’s no doubt the coalition was a well-run government, and stories abound within the party of how LibDem juniors calmed their flaky and impetuous Tory counterparts and simply focused on managing well and getting small sensible stuff done while squashing potential blunders and embarrassments.
There was no electoral advantage in a well-run government for the junior coalition partner - even now the transition from sensible stability to chaotic psychodrama is rightly blamed on thr Tories but rarely attributed to the absence of the stabilising LibDems.
The advantage Starmer has is that the kudos for things being managed better will fall into his lap. But he will need people in his team with imagination and bigger dreams, to persuade him to go for a few big reforming wins, rather than just tinker.
Lowest voteshare for an incoming elected majority government since 1832, even lower than the 34.4% Kinnock's Labour got in 1992 when it was defeated by Major's Tories. Starmer knows he got in because Sunak's government was unpopular, this was no 1997 and there was no Blair like love for him
He doesn’t want Blairite love, and that’s a good thing. He finds being complimented embarrassing.
Look where having a PM who just wanted to be loved and admired got us?
Starmer wants to spend five years making a difference and will settle at the end of it for voters saying “you did a decent job there, mate”.
Robert Saunders @redhistorian Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt @IanDunt · 1h "But the real story of the night is Reform..."
No. If you listen to Unite / Momentum / Owen Jones the real story is how Starmer failed to deliver the same vote as Jezhollah
There were lots of "real stories" last night in a very complicated election. By my count:
- the collapse of the Tories in vote share and even more in seats - the collapse of the SNP likewise - the huge increase in Reform's vote share from UKIP's in 2019 though netting them only handful of seats - the septupling of the LibDem seat total despite a tiny increase in their vote share - the incredible efficiency of Labour's vote, in contrast to under Corbyn.
I'm sure I've missed something.
Basically since the Scottish referendum a decade ago, this country has been incredibly unstable politically and politics has been particularly confused and turbulent. There were similar periods in the 1920s and 1970s, but group loyalties were much stabler and stronger. Whatever the reasons for that (an increasingly centrist political class and a more and more polarised electorate, the fall of traditional party loyalties, wokeness, stagnating living standards, Brexit, the pandemic, demography etc.) there's no sign of things calming down I don't think.
The twenties are a comparable time, when traditional party loyalties were breaking down, and new ones being created.
Again. BBC News at 10. Fucking Farage and Reform. Not a mention of Greens in intro who won 4 seats.
They got double the votes share of the Greens. And came second in 98 seats. They deserve double the coverage
Yes, it seems an odd criticism to me.
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Not all his critics go that far. Farage is a clever manipulator; good at finding and exploiting issues for his own purposes. The fact his answers are underpants, and he does not care who he allies with in order to exploit those issues, are problems. As is the fact he invariably falls out with everyone he works with. And many of his defenders are utterly blind to his faults.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
Close 3 way there between Tories, Reform and Labour, pity about Stephen Metcalfe who was a good MP and a former EDFC councillor and his mother a Buckhurst Hill county councillor
Just think, if the Tories had taken the gloves off and attacked Reform, instead of pretending they were fellow travellers, how many more seats would they have won?
Absolutely. Anyone with the political brain of a bird would have realised that. Except the recently ex-PM it seems. They even gave him opportunity to fight back with Farage attacking his background.
You do have to ask: what the FUCK were they thinking?
Well indeed. Exactly my point. Of course that analytical political genius known as @Leon would like the Tories to cosy up to them and doesn't agree. The Tories need to hit them hard, but they need an articulate leader who has the balls to do it. Not sure who that would be.
Rishi shortly resigns as an MP.
Penny Mordaunt gets the call for the by-election. Which she wins comfortably. And then the Party leadership.
You heard it here first.
Why do you expect Sunak to stand down? He's young, he wasn't PM for that long, he should stick around. I don't get the obsession with Mordaunt. She stood for the leadership before and made little impression.
"made little impression"? She was a couple of MPs changing their mind from going to the members with Rishi.
How many of those 113 MPs voting for Truss would now hop in the Tardis to change their vote? In treble figures is my estimate.
When my son was living in Fratton (Portsmouth South- not North) he knew people who knew Mordaunt and I met her in Ye Olde Spotted Dogge inn, she seemed very clubable but her reputation was for laziness and being something of a carpetbagger. Her laziness was amply demonstrated by her very poor "fight, fight, fight" speech at last year's conference Tugenhadt ticks lots of boxes.
Clubbable and lazy are OK attributes for someone keeping the leadership seat warm in a suddenly irrelevant party. The key requirement is not to do any more damage while things work themselves out.
In the short term. The medium term objective is to be sufficiently competent and boring that in five years’ time voters are able to look at the Tories and at least imagine that they might be able to run the country again, while being sufficiently interesting that they aren’t forgotten altogether. That’s a tough call, and as other have said, likely needs more than one term. Provided Starmer’s lot don’t implode, all he has to do to win next time is remind people what we’ve just been through.
I see Ed Miliband is Energy Secretary again. I'd criticise him for closing down power stations and not building enough capacity last time, but it seems every party is rubbish at energy.
I disagree. The move to green energy - by Labour, coalition and Conservative governments - has been done really well, much faster than I expected, and with much less disruption. Yes, Ukraine caused a spike in prices, but we have not had brownouts or blackouts. Yes, there is a long way to go and much to do, but we've done well so far.
The dawn awakens.. 40pc cgt on the value of your house increase when you sell it. Middle England will go nuts..
Be careful for what you voted for.....
I've made more from the value of my flat increasing than I have managed to save from my employment over the last few years. I think it's only fair that I pay some tax on that tbh. A token 5% would be a reasonable start.
And you could argue that doing so would rather some heat out of city centres and make towns and suburbs relatively more attractive. Spread the demand around; your house is for living in, not wealth accumulation.
Okay, so my first (light) criticism of the new government.
Reeves said: "“There’s not a huge amount of money there,” Ms Reeves told the BBC. “I know the scale of the challenge I inherit.”
I agree that she has a challenge. But there is a *huge* amount of money in the economy, and a ginormous tax take. There may not be enough money to do what she wants, but that's a different matter.
And the tax take isn't particularly large compared with other countries. If you popped it up to French levels you'd have room for HS2, 2 child limit, Green targets and more.
Then it might have bene good if Labour had campaigned with: "We're going to put the tax take up towards French levels."
But I stand by my original point: there *is* a huge amount of money in the economy, and in the government's tax take.
Several good Starmer appointments, in addition to the (reasonable bag) of political ones:
James Timpson OBE @JamesTCobbler has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation) in the Ministry of Justice @MoJGovUK
Sir Patrick Vallance KCB has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Science) in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology @SciTechgovuk
Labour are going to tax the shit out of savers aren't they?
Que? What have they said?
I'd expect things as early as tomorrow, or perhaps Monday. And it will be from the time it is announced. I'd suggest sorting out tax cliff edges would be good to be done simultaneously.
When El Gordo made the BoE independent, it was on the Monday.
Um - it's already been said that the Budget is will be in September / October because thats the time frame the OBR requires. But nice to see you scaremongering already.
Such a weird stream of bitter doomcasting on here tonight.
There was no entry on the BBC News live feed at 5.59. It appears that Boulay is simply lying.
It read as obvious sarcasm/joke to me.
Obviously even if Reeves was going to do that, she wouldn't phrase it so bluntly.
If the Tory rampers are going to make random shit up the site is much diminished. It's one thing speculating but couching it as reality is bollocks.
Only retards would have believed it and if they were so thick they should not be allowed on a computer
Starmer to get less votes than Corbyn – 8/1 – won – entirely down to @Quincel
Election July-September: 15 and 30 on Betfair.
Long 402 on the Labour seat spreads. Bottom pickers get smelly fingers but I think I was seat perfect there in terms of where the offer went. Just a shame it was not to hit MRP levels.
Short 16.7 on Reform Vote Share – entered during election night. Far too early. And I should have topped it up when it went to the bids I wanted to wait for. It’ll win though anyway.
Backed various prices between 1.2 and 1.27 for quite serious cash during election night on Cons to get greater vote share than Reform when this was essentially statistically certain.
Croydon South Cons Win at prices above 4.2 – backed this based on not a tip as such, but suspicious posts on here. I did lay some of it off at 3 after the declaration from the looks of it, lol
Backed 0 Tory MPs to defect to Reform at 2.02 in early June. Still happy with that in hindsight.
Losers:
Sold 58 on LD seats, but later on changed mind and bought 59 to exit trade. I think this was reasonable in the circumstances.
Laid Corbyn at 1.49-1.55 in late May/early June on theory he should have been over evens. That was correct analysis. But I never backed him back even though he did indeed go back well over evens. I’m fine with the lay, am not sure if I did right thing not getting out of it yet. Need to think more.
Backed Rishi to keep seat at 1.4/1.41. Then chickened out about 1.5 for reasons I can’t remember. Absolutely terrible handing of this by me.
Backing 0 Reform seats at 10 before election. Almost managed to salvage this by later on backing 3-4 during election, and would have been able to easily green up. But didn’t.
Ed Davey to jump out of a plane – 50/1 (for charity) with @Tweedledee . While I lost I think he’ll agree that he got lucky, in that he’d agreed to lay about 5 different things at 50/1 one of which was bungee jumping…
Unknown but I’m gonna push it yet again:
Backed “Year Rishi Sunak replaced as Conservative Leader” at 2025 or later at 40 and trying to get more on at 50. This is not one to put your life savings on. But there are SO MANY ways this can win. If he takes as long as Michael Howard did in differeing circumstances in 2005 for example, you're quids in. It isn't a 2.5%/2% chance.
Misc:
Various trades during election night that are too numerous to bother listing, with average profitability of around 5%....
I repeatedly said on here that LD seats would beat 1997 (46). There were several including rcs1000 who were very bearish on LD seats. Not me.
You did. And you were right. But it didn't fit with the polling evidence I was seeing (until much later in the game anyway - which is why I got out of the short).
That's betting and I hope you made out like a bandit. And it also means I'll listen closer to you next time
The liberals and now LibDems need the Tories to be unpopular to do well; that’s been the case for decades. If the Tory vote recovers, they’re in deep trouble.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
What I find interesting is that he still maintains he won it on those numbers because of his service in the constituency, and keeping on working during the campaign, and a couple of other bits.
And that the Labour vote being split down the middle 12,000 and 12,000 had little to do with it, when his majority went from 1k to 5k.
An interesting level of delusion on the Tory Right.
If Starmer doesn't get illegal migration under control Farage will probably be PM within 5 years. He also needs to get legal migration under control to some extent.
Surely if he makes the country terrible people won't want to come, so the worse he does the better his election prospects?
People have been saying how awful the country is for ages, yet they still keep coming.
They won't all the time there is free housing, health and benefits on offer.
My late grandmother was in a south London "jobcentre" in the 1950s, queuing to sort out her NI when a young West Indian chap came in and asked everyone incredulously "Is this where you get money for nothing? He could barely believe it himself.
My view - Starmer will run a very tedious boring centre-right government, raising a few taxes (because of the debt) but not doing much that makes anyone happy and Starmer is a wet fish
It won’t be popular and with no “f the tories” they lose a few percent on both left and the right
Leading to an even more chaotic 2029 election where weird stuff happens all over the place as multi way contests become the norm
Maybe I’m wrong and this Lab govt will surprise and be more popular than expected but I don’t see it
I’m hopeful they’ll be a fairly decent government, but the risk is that they could be like the LibDems in coalition, who did a tremendous amount of good work behind the scenes tinkering with complicated stuff to make it slightly better; the sort of job both they and Starmer enjoy. But come the election not much of it will be worth many votes.
There’s no doubt the coalition was a well-run government, and stories abound within the party of how LibDem juniors calmed their flaky and impetuous Tory counterparts and simply focused on managing well and getting small sensible stuff done while squashing potential blunders and embarrassments.
There was no electoral advantage in a well-run government for the junior coalition partner - even now the transition from sensible stability to chaotic psychodrama is rightly blamed on thr Tories but rarely attributed to the absence of the stabilising LibDems.
The advantage Starmer has is that the kudos for things being managed better will fall into his lap. But he will need people in his team with imagination and bigger dreams, to persuade him to go for a few big reforming wins, rather than just tinker.
That’s a problem with all governments. Do things competently, and people give you little credit, because they assume there’s no problem.
Regarding Tommy Tugend, he gives me the overwhelming impression of being utterly bought by China. It's only an impression, but his recent public thoughts about their UK spying programme - "It's such a bloody nuisance, I wish they'd stop" - like it's some embarrassing foible of an otherwise lovable uncle, rather than a long term plan to undermine the British economy and state, was fairly chilling.
I don't think that is entirely fair. It is the words of someone who has lived a gilded life and never had to worry about being plunged into darkness on a freezing winters day because there isn't enough money to feed the meter.
Last thing we need right now is a dripping wet who puts idealistic notions of decency above the welfare of the nations people.
Comments
Would Duguid have won if he had stood instead of Ross?
Were all the SNP nasty to you or just a few headbangers?
Liz Truss over Penny Mordaunt because of her Ministerial experience.
Sunak to limp on because choosing another leader so close to a GE could result in a poor election result.
Now it's sage advice not to be too right wing.
I'm not sure if your "advice" is intended to be malicious or is just very dense, but I know where I'd be filing it if I were part of what's left of the PCP.
Labour, as of today, have had just two more Prime Ministers in the last hundred years as the Conservatives have had in the last eight years and two weeks.
Con (Iain Duncan Smith) 17,281
Lab 12,524
Ind (Faiza Shaheen) 12,445
RefUK 3,653
Grn 1,334
LD 1,275
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/constituencies/E14001167
2. Yes
3. SNP were digging for shit. So I believe they were offering up "scandal" about me which was not hence the lack of pick-up. SNP were *furious* that I was competing. They had to change their planned strategy. Ripped me off, tried to adapt to their position.
Truss’ ministerial experience was irrelevant. But she did offer direction, however ill conceived and hideously executed. Mourdant was obviously never a goer because she didn’t command sufficient authority to appeal to the Mail or control the right of the party. Swapping Sunak out would have caused as many problems as it solved. At best a roll of the dice.
Take it or leave it of course, but experience suggests it’s harder than you think and you’ve got a lot of homework to do to truly understand how you can lose seats like Horsham.
We will all live to regret that decision.
Trump 2.0 is a dead cert I now think unless Dems grow a pair.
The World Cup in South Africa was pretty bad, but that was mainly coz of the frigging vuvuzelas
This is just shit football, match after match, from everyone
Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
Parties of the left or centre left have won more than 500 seats in this election. No previous parliament has come close to that in the democratic era.
Ian Dunt
@IanDunt
·
1h
"But the real story of the night is Reform..."
The outrageous thing is that they still have time to fix it, to yank him offstage, say sorry, and install a sane candidate
Yet they seem incapable. It is extremely symptomatic of an empire in late stage Decadence and Decline. Still powerful, but rotting at the top, badly
For every vote Corbyn won for Labour, he won one more for the Tories.
Also @Tweedledee just for completeness.
Amusingly Lloyds's bot told me this was probably a scam* (or words to that effect - it wasn't a possibility, it was a probability so far as it was concerned), but still let me go ahead. Without speaking to a human. Odd.
*Better not be - got the details from https://u24.gov.ua/
Andrew Desiderio
@AndrewDesiderio
Confirming
@washingtonpost
scoop: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) is putting together an effort for Dems to discuss — in-person when they’re back in DC on Monday — Biden’s viability at the top of the ticket & whether they should ask him to step aside, per sources familiar with the effort.
Lots of confusion about what everyone wants at this point because they haven’t been together IRL since pre-debate. “We’ve been playing phone tag all week,” said one source familiar.
It's an awful advert for the sport, maybe something needs to change
Con 14,526
Lab 10,100
LD 6,329
Claudia Webbe 5,532
Keith Vaz 3,681
Ref 2,611
Grn 2,143
Ind 974
Ind 703
Ind 115
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/constituencies/E14001326
Your party has already missed a trick focusing on Labour and the LDs whilst informally cosying up to these scoundrels.
How can this continue?
Basically, every single time he opens his mouth now, he provides evidence that he has advanced dementia. He can barely talk coherently for more than a few seconds, even with a teleprompter. And we are MONTHS from the election, where he will seek a second term as President of the USA
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1809326661029986741
How does the 25th work? Why can't they invoke it?
AFAICS, Biden is now actually WORSE than my 86-year-old Mum, bless her, and she is in special housing
It is beyond debate. The president is unfit. He needs to quit ASAFP, and the sooner he does the better the chances for the Dems to find a decent replacement who has a shot at beating Trump
I don't understand it; surely they all realise this; the more they delay and obfuscate, the worse it gets
Former Financial Times journalist Yuan Yang campaigned to win the support of Hongkongers living in the UK, calling the Conservative government’s approach “not really enough” to protect their basic rights and safety.
In the new constituency of Earley and Woodley in Reading, Yang, who was a Europe-China correspondent at the Financial Times, claimed the seat with 18,209 votes, beating Conservative candidate Pauline Jorgensen, who bagged 17,361 votes.
With her parliamentary victory, Yang became the UK’s first ever Chinese-born lawmaker. Her family moved to the country when she was four following the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, according to publicly available information."
https://hongkongfp.com/2024/07/05/former-journalist-yuan-yang-becomes-uks-first-chinese-born-lawmaker-as-labour-win-general-election-landslide/
- the collapse of the Tories in vote share and even more in seats
- the collapse of the SNP likewise
- the huge increase in Reform's vote share from UKIP's in 2019 though netting them only handful of seats
- the septupling of the LibDem seat total despite a tiny increase in their vote share
- the incredible efficiency of Labour's vote, in contrast to under Corbyn.
I'm sure I've missed something.
Basically since the Scottish referendum a decade ago, this country has been incredibly unstable politically and politics has been particularly confused and turbulent. There were similar periods in the 1920s and 1970s, but group loyalties were much stabler and stronger. Whatever the reasons for that (an increasingly centrist political class and a more and more polarised electorate, the fall of traditional party loyalties, wokeness, stagnating living standards, Brexit, the pandemic, demography etc.) there's no sign of things calming down I don't think.
Biden is in the same place. It's sad and lamentably common, an evil disease, but this tine it impacts everyone on the planet because 1. he's the most powerful man in the world and WTF happens if he decides to bomb Minsk, and 2. his staying in office pretty much guarantees Trump 2.0 (and Trump knows this)
I see no evidence of the Democrats cleverly waiting for the right moment, I see a party in outright panic, partly because a lot of them are complicit in covering up Biden's senility until recently, so they are scared of the blowback, maybe even criminal charges
They need someone with great respect and authority to bravely speak out, backed up by major donors. Obama plus Silicon Valley, perhaps. This shit has to end, and soon
I suspect behind the scenes there’s real anger amongst many previous Biden supporters who think he could facilitate an absolute catastrophe.
The Democrats do need to cauterize this wound, and sooner rather than later. On the positive side, I think cauterization is now inevitable: the only really question is how much they damage themselves between now and then.
https://x.com/spectatorindex/status/1809314593447252289
I might even buy you stabilisers for your new bike as a thank you
I mean no, I'm not, but I'm not but I'm also not a fucking moron (most of the time).
"Key Progressive Caucus members set to call for Biden to withdraw from presidential race Monday "- The Nation
Also did I read between the lines right you'd backed yourself and then laid it off when the betting scandal stuff started happening?
Are you going to go back to being "anonymous"?
(Feel free to DM the answers, I'm nosy but not a snitch
Yes exactly. It’s like saying “look, that man has lost a leg”.
“Why, how can you be sure, are you a trained anatomist??”
“No. I can just see that he’s lost a leg. Because one of his legs is missing.”
Ditto Biden’s dementia
https://x.com/rncresearch/status/1809356785611927747
Biden absolutely nailed his phonecall to congratulate M. Macron for his overwhelming UK General Election victory over Herr Sholtz.
https://x.com/nocomment/status/1754915045941588239
https://www.libdemvoice.org/there-may-be-more-good-news-to-come-75506.html
"There may be more good news to come….
This post comes with heavy caveats. Nothing is ever official until it is properly declared.
However, the BBC is reporting this about that the SNP have conceded defeat ahead of tomorrow’s recount in the Inverness, Skye and Ross West seat where Angus Macdonald is our candidate. This is the latest incarnation of the seat held between 1983 and 2015 by Charles Kennedy and has enormous emotional resonance for the party.
It seems likely the constituency will go to the Liberal Democrats – although the result is not expected to be officially announced until after a second recount which will begin at 10:30 on Saturday.
SNP candidate Drew Hendry said he would be unable to attend the recount due to an “unmovable prior commitment”.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1258065
We've just seen how the Supreme Court dealt with that.
But it's been very clear since the debate that he can't do another term.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6XmdgIcnzc
Declaration: Maidenhead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7E5e2x3EOk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7UpdNboWjg
Reeves said: "“There’s not a huge amount of money there,” Ms Reeves told the BBC. “I know the scale of the challenge I inherit.”
I agree that she has a challenge. But there is a *huge* amount of money in the economy, and a ginormous tax take. There may not be enough money to do what she wants, but that's a different matter.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cldyeykzp33o
A specific challenge for Starmer (ie Streeting) is can he prevent any extra resources that they can find going on paying extra to staff for doing no more, rather than building up services.
That will be repeated across the piece.
The Junior Docs have been using fiddled figures in their ~35% (?) claims throughout eg aiui by using RPI not CPI for inflation, and they need to recognise at least that.
Where will this go?
Especially her habit of not writing anything down.
F1: only practice but, as expected, McLaren looking decent.
Only the 'Lord Almighty' could convince me to quit - Biden
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cl5y8n5d09qo
My £30 bonus from BET365 has now been released. That was to be the fun money had I read the terms correctly- what should I spend it on? I have 30 days.
Overall I am about £300-400 up on the Election, which is fine for me.
The nice wins were Tory seat numbers and Labour votes less than 2017.
I'll be using it to try and create a small rotating fund to allow people impacted by them to threaten legal action on unlawful anti-wheelchair barriers knowing that their several hundred £ court fee is covered if necessary.
A lot of people whinge and go no further because they are scared by Court Costs / lack of legal aid and threatening lawyers' letters from Council legal departments, whilst Councils tend to back down in the game of legal poker at letter-before-action stage.
There’s no doubt the coalition was a well-run government, and stories abound within the party of how LibDem juniors calmed their flaky and impetuous Tory counterparts and simply focused on managing well and getting small sensible stuff done while squashing potential blunders and embarrassments.
There was no electoral advantage in a well-run government for the junior coalition partner - even now the transition from sensible stability to chaotic psychodrama is rightly blamed on thr Tories but rarely attributed to the absence of the stabilising LibDems.
The advantage Starmer has is that the kudos for things being managed better will fall into his lap. But he will need people in his team with imagination and bigger dreams, to persuade him to go for a few big reforming wins, rather than just tinker.
Be careful for what you voted for.....
And if Farage is so obviously stupid, fascistic, and evil as his critics believe, well it should do no harm to publicise this.
Look where having a PM who just wanted to be loved and admired got us?
Starmer wants to spend five years making a difference and will settle at the end of it for voters saying “you did a decent job there, mate”.
Another issue is I find it hard to find anything good to say about him, either personally or politically. He has damaged the country he claims to love.
But... those critics who go too far in their criticism help, not hinder, him.
We are good(ish) at energy.
And you could argue that doing so would rather some heat out of city centres and make towns and suburbs relatively more attractive. Spread the demand around; your house is for living in, not wealth accumulation.
But I stand by my original point: there *is* a huge amount of money in the economy, and in the government's tax take.
James Timpson OBE @JamesTCobbler has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation) in the Ministry of Justice @MoJGovUK
https://x.com/10DowningStreet/status/1809295371727687742
Sir Patrick Vallance KCB has been appointed Minister of State (Minister for Science) in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology @SciTechgovuk
https://x.com/10DowningStreet/status/1809292602124173456
Richard Hermer KC has been appointed Attorney General @attorneygeneral.
He will attend Cabinet.
https://x.com/10DowningStreet/status/1809283940936552807
Inevitably the Vallance one has brought out the COVIDiots.
Strategically, they need to ignore the government and spend the next five years needling the Tories at every opportunity, throwing salt at their wounds and demonstrating how they’re a more credible government in waiting than the Tories could ever be. The Tories need tk be kicked regularly, even though they are down.
It will be interesting to see what the media does about ‘many votes-few seats’ Reform, but for the LibDems they will at least see a return to proper third party status, with regular prominence in parliament, tons of media opportunities nationally and locally, and someone invited on QT and AQ pretty much every week. Plus all the extra Short money to fund their stretched back office; the party gets an extra £21k per year per MP, I think?
https://youtu.be/-yRF4DDEozY?t=1720
What I find interesting is that he still maintains he won it on those numbers because of his service in the constituency, and keeping on working during the campaign, and a couple of other bits.
And that the Labour vote being split down the middle 12,000 and 12,000 had little to do with it, when his majority went from 1k to 5k.
An interesting level of delusion on the Tory Right.
My late grandmother was in a south London "jobcentre" in the 1950s, queuing to sort out her NI when a young West Indian chap came in and asked everyone incredulously "Is this where you get money for nothing? He could barely believe it himself.
It was a straw in the wind.
Last thing we need right now is a dripping wet who puts idealistic notions of decency above the welfare of the nations people.