Categories
Letter from Aberdeenshire North and Moray East – politicalbetting.com
Letter from Aberdeenshire North and Moray East – politicalbetting.com
When Sky News came and interviewed me, there were various requests and suggestions for PBisms I could try to slip into the package. I failed.
1
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Edit: Congrats to @RochdalePioneers and all the others who stood for election. Democracy lives by people wanting to put themselves forward for public service.
ANME clearly shows the importance of candidate selection. It was more than anything a vote against Douglas Ross attempting to carpet-bag. Duguid would have won comfortably.
And, seconded, well done @RochdalePioneers!
@Pulpstar , you troublemaker
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx824yl3ln4o
No, I refuse to believe it.
I was devastated to see their joyous and civic politics reduced to 9 MPs.
The SNP has descended into a fresh bout of infighting after John Swinney appeared to accept the disastrous election result had wiped out its mandate for an independence referendum.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/scottish-independence-labour-snp-general-election-pcmch2mn9
Even more absurdly the SNP then decided that they would walk it, and got increasingly upset that their own support was fading.
They won the seat, but with less votes and a lower percentage than last time…
The truly great lose at their first attempt, see David Cameron.
PB is a fantastic go to resource on election day and during the campaign, whatever the election.
My own fear that this could be 1992 again proved unfounded, although without Reform it very well might have been.
Another case of the conduct of Conservative politicians leading to their downfall.
It will be interesting if he sticks with this. Several PMs started with this and slowly became not a thing. I think it is good that a PM does these, as long as we don't get the twatish media asking totally twatish questions all the time.
Final polls before tomorrow’s 2nd round of potentially cataclysmic French elections suggest the Far Right will fall far short of an overall majority in the National Assembly. Can we trust the polls? They are either all right or all wrong 1/
Final surveys by four organisations before polls were banned at midnightgive the Far Right and allies a range between 170 and 215 seats – more than 80 short of an overall majority (289 seats) 2/
Final surveys last night suggest that there may now even be an overall majority of seats for a “rainbow” coalition stretching from moderate left & greens, through Macron’s centre to the ex-Gaullist centre right. Whether such an unFrench coalition could fly is open to question 4/
https://x.com/Mij_Europe/status/1809495144204206288
Payback for incompetence, perceived corruption, obsession with issues that have little agency in everyday lives and most of all the internal contradiction of trying to be too many things to too many different socio-economic, demographic and geographic groups. The fault lines emerge and then at election they fracture.
Scotland needs a better choice of independence leaning parties. Scottish Labour in particular needs a more nuanced position, or else it will be cannibalised again in another 8-10 years time. The SNP could re-build under Forbes as the Tartan Tories of memory.
Nige would have had 6 MPs if he hadnt pissed on the TUV deal
I doubt the hardliners will just accept that and go quietly.
There will be ten questions about Farage, a question about whether they have decided on what colour wallpaper they have chosen for the flat, has he made friends with Larry the cat, another question about whether he agrees with Farage about PR, and finally someone will try and ask him the big secret question - “Sir Keir, now the election is over and you are PM would you finally reveal what job your father did, our viewers are dying to know.”
No way James Arbuthnot would have lost Hampshire North East either.
One thing I've noticed in a few seats (like mine of Hove & Portslade) is that where there is virtually no LibD focus the candidate comes at or very near to the bottom of the poll - in this case below Reform & the Palestine independent. Seems like you can have either Greens OR LibDems.....
As for other independence supporting parties, the best result for Alba was 1.5% of the vote. Even their sitting MPs got less than that. Many Alba supporters (see Wings, esp BTL) think that the destruction of the SNP is a necessary step for something better to come along. But I don't think it will be Alba.
( I'm not being serious. That is a good point Casino)
They should be looking for people who live in each constituency and try and identify those who are involved in the community and again give them financial and physical support to start building networks now by going to events, getting involved in local campaigns etc.
Make sure that at the next election voters aren’t just voting for a party they are voting for someone they have seen and heard which will lessen the incumbency advantage.
It is not a day for stupid political gimmicks.
I won’t be bothering either, but it’s an interesting commitment to make. Let’s see how long it lasts.
The Conservatives need to make the right choice. Recent history suggests this may not be likely. Though I have no idea how good or bad most of the lost MPs were.
Mr. JohnL, a real patriot would've mentioned qualifying at the British Grand Prix
The political media need a clear out as much as politicians as until you have the media asking the right questions, analysing the details and facts, ignoring the gossip and shit stirring then politics will never be serious and politicians will get away with bad behaviour as they are in the game with the media.
If you think about it, the SNP has to be the broadest of tents when INDEPENDENCE is the only shared currency. Its very clear that the top down centralising socially out there tendencies of the SNP drive a lot of independence supporters absolutely nuts.
What the SNP do now will determine if they are still even relevant by the time we get to 2026. We've just had an election campaign where nobody was listening to anything the party in government were saying. I think a rerun of that in 2026 is easily possible, especially if (when?) the SNP arrogantly assume people will have to back them because otherwise not to back them is to be against Scotland. That schtick didn't stick this time.
Alba is really just a cul de sac.
Richmond and Northallerton CON 25.11%
Harrow East CON 24.45%
Does that say "Vote Farage" in Persian?
On which general topic, what do we think of Reform's chances of muscling their way into the devolved elections? Are they in with a shout of picking up list seats in Holyrood, presumably on a devosceptic platform? I know that the Scottish Greens are traditionally very weak at Westminster elections, and were thus in no danger of producing the kind of performances that the English party managed, but all the same Reform outpolled them by a long way.
They were the third party by vote share in Wales, in an election where Tory support halved, so the election of a small Reform bloc in the Senedd seems likely at this stage.
1. Wait for Tories to be unpopular.
2. Hope Labour don't pick a nutter.
If either of those conditions isn't met they struggle to get 20 seats. When they are both met they should be getting 40+. What they do themselves doesn't matter much.
The chosen conveyance of SNP leadership is Niesmann + Bischoff ‘iSmove’
This can be configured for a maximum of seating for 5 when on the road.
So that would be “Two campervans for the SNP”
Same again for the next Holyrood elections? You could get yourself a list seat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_East_Derbyshire_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
While Bolsover has had a 6% swing to the Conservatives despite the Conservatives losing 210 MPs over the decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsover_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
The likely Conservative gains in 2029 are going to include some non-standard places.
I wonder when the Conservatives will realise that and what it will do to their strategy and policy ideas.
"Less votes"
Forget your mum and dad, politics really does f*ck you up.
But will they be able consistently to attract candidates like @RochdalePioneers to apply, in their current state ? What’s the project they’d be signing up for ?
What does the party actually stand for at the moment ?
Those questions aren’t snark - clearly there is a place and a need for a coherent party for conservatives. They are question which need answering by whoever is the next leader.
A nice prize for someone.
You are lucky enough to live in one of the more beautiful parts of Scotland. That will make up for the loss!
- The cybernats called me a nonce. A twat. A wanker. A gype. A rocket. A cnut. A colonialist.
Were you riding a bicycle?
I am glad I will no longer feel obliged to defend the Rwanda scheme and as a Cameroon "one nation" Tory, hope our new leader will not be of the Braverman ilk. If it is, I may just end up voting LibDem once more unless the Scottish party finally does what many of us have been calling for it to do for years, become the Scottish CSU to the English CDU.
In the 1980s I poured scorn on the then SDP-Liberal plan for a Federal UK system but as I have got older, especially after some 25 years of devolution, I increasingly believe it is the model the UK should adopt. Almost everything should be devolved with only key ministries like Defence and Foreign Affairs run from Westminster. A House of Commons with around 150 members, an elected House of Lords of a similar size and 4 sensibly sized parliaments in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London would be my preferred option, all using some form of PR so that we banish politics at the extreme from getting near power in these islands of ours (excluding of course what the Irish Republic does and the separate administrations in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man).
That they'll do the usual, and dig in heavily with local campaigning goes without saying. Those new MPs that don't have LibDem councils may well do so in four years time. And some of them have a decent Labour vote in their seats, which will be easy to squeeze especially if the shine comes off the new government. Meanwhile I notice that 20% of Devon LibDem county councillors are now MPs...
The default case is that, as and when the Tories recover some popularity (which will take some time), a good slice of the LibDem MPs will be swept away. And the big risk is that the government becomes unpopular, because while when Tory governments are hated, many will vote LibDem, when Labour governments are hated, they won't. The LibDems actually need the new government, broadly, to succeed, or at least not to fail, and wait until its fading prospects get them interested again in electoral reform.
But it doesn't have to be that way? Consider what appeals to default Home Counties Tories, like my parents who like many habitual Tories saw themselves as essentially non-political. They want politicians who are sensible and prudent, responsible, with good integrity, who will keep the plates spinning efficiently, defend the status quo not only of their economics but also of things they value such as the local environment and British institutions, and who are not diverted by ideology into wasting money or changing stuff just to break it. Yes, there's patriotism and some nationalism on top, but the nature of that is changing as the boomer generation moves to the graveyard and the broader-minded children of the later 20th century take their place.
The Tories have trashed their brand in so many of these aspects, and put themselves on the wrong side of the argument for many southern voters, such that it's becoming the default that someone middle class and well-educated nowadays usually won't be a Conservative voter. Whereas the LibDems' pitch is more than half way there already. Yes, their social progressiveness has sometimes been ahead of the curve, but as the generations turn over this will fade away as an issue.
During the coalition, LibDems showed that they were the sensible ones, whereas it was the Tory ministers who were forever having to worry about managing their party and heading off the blinkered ideologues behind them. I found the same during my four years in coalition with them; we were the steady hands.
Generational shifts in electoral geography do happen - as the Tories have found in many of England's cities or in Scotland, both of which the Tories were able in good times to dominate, back in history.
Will the LibDems be able to re-invent themselves as the party of the Home Counties for the next generation? It's not impossible. You could help us by directing the Tories to spending the coming years fighting each other and trying to be more right-wing than Reform....
I've now been alive under the following prime ministers
Heath
Wilson
Callaghan<-- I start remembering them from here
Thatcher
Major <-- I started voting for them here
Blair
Brown
Cameron <-- I next voted for a winning PM here
May
Johnson
Truss
Sunak
Starmer <-- And again here
Of that entire list, regardless of what you think of the value or unintended consequences of what they did, IMHO the only ones who achieved anything of lasting *intentionally positive* note while in power were:
Thatcher (economic reform)
Major (architecture of the NI Peace Process)
Blair (Good Friday Agreement)
Wilson misses out because his "escape from the 50s" policies happened before I was born. Heath misses out likewise on the EEC.
Much of my adult life has been spent in the era of style over substance. Cowardice and focus groups.
Let's see where we go from here.
With the presidential election in a few years Le Pen may not mind that.
Then there's the issue (as noted below) that he has relatively limited power compared to the Supreme Dickhead Leader.
But if he does constrain the morality police (I know a funny story about their predecessors...), and especially if he halts Iran's help to Russia, then it'd be great.
The latter's an interesting one. It could be a rather large 'gift' in negotiations to renew the nuclear deal and ease sanctions.
Just think of all that 73 and 92 mileage that would have been available.
There must be a lot of new MPs who were not really expecting to win, now thinking of how much their lives are about to change. Plus the impact on their families.
Then there are the losers thinking "What do I do now?"
They also need to work incredibly hard in the constituencies in which reform have MPs - pointing out how little they do for them, picking up such casework-type slack as they have access to, championing local issues. Knocking out the leadership at the next election will finish Reform off for this cycle.
As was Ynys Mon.
I wonder if the quality of the MPs was part of the reason.
While the bad apples get the publicity there are also some good ones there as well - Alexander Stafford in Rother Valley seemed very active.
And did anyone see Steve Baker's meltdown on GMB, blaming Ozzie and Balls for his defeat? Nurse, Nurse over here quickly please!